Sadly, I'm afraid it's going to take several more lessons. The country in general, and the government in particular, is addicted to debt and overspending. Addicts never starts the process of recovery until the hit bottom; the stronger the addiction the harder the hit, and the deeper the hole.
I fear where the bottom is for us, and how hard we'll land.
The year 2012 saw the triumph of cold reality over pie-in-the-sky dreams.
Barack Obama in 2008 won an election on an upbeat message of change in the hope that the first black president would mark a redemptive moment in American history. Four years later, the fantasies are gone. In continuing dismal economic times, Obama ran for re-election neither on his first-term achievements -- Obamacare, bailouts, financial stimuli and Keynesian mega-deficits -- nor on more utopian promises.
Instead, Obama's campaign systematically reduced his rival, Wall Street financier Mitt Romney, to a conniving, felonious financial pirate who did dastardly things, from letting the...
Fear is a tool to help us avoid danger. Fear can keep you alive. The trick is to use fear; not be overcome by it.
Fear is also a tool used to control. Hitler was a master at using it. It was used to sucker us into war in Iraq in 2003. And both the "War on Drugs" and the "War on Terror" are prime examples of such manipulation. It also sells an enormous number of unneeded weapons. And its used by politicians of both parties.
I agree with your last sentence. Unfortunately, that's often not how things work.
Likewise, countries need not recover either. Right now it looks like some risk that Spain, and/or Great Britain, will fracture into smaller pieces because the current country can't handle the problems.