Economic decline is inevitable

In a letter to the editor [North County Times, 8/15/08], Jeff Lassle of Fallbrook rails about the China juggernaut overcoming the US economy. His stated reasons relate to creeping socialism and overregulation in the US marketplace. These are the very same criticisms we of the West level against the Chinese!

Here we have an outright Communist nation practicing all those traits we are supposed to hate: forced labor, complete government control, limited human rights and more. In other words, we are being overhauled by an economy practicing all the economic evils that we find offensive!

How can that be? In truth, we began our march toward economic greatness on the backs of “real” slaves in the 18th and 19th centuries, coupled with cheap sweatshop labor in the north, fueled by the influx of European immigrants.

However, since WWII, we have reached our “maturity” and have begun the inevitable decline. It’s not new; Egypt, Greece, Rome, Ottoman and British empires – they all went through it. Just be glad we lived during the Zenith!

Robert F. Green