Exciting New World

I can't watch Bob Schieffer on CBS evening news any longer. He is by far my favorite anchor (well, Elizabeth Vargas holds a special place in my heart), but every story coming out of his mouth is negative:

The president screwed this up..
Polls say the United States is the devil...
Iraqis dying at an alarming rate...

It reminds me of the old newspaper saying, "if it bleeds, it leads." The new mantra should be that if it isn't bleeding, it doesn't bear repeating. The evening national news is unwatchable.

However, the times in which we are living are extremely exciting. I was reading a column by Robert Samuelson this morning who talked about the likely impact of globalization where he mentioned that within the next 5 years, the middle class will be emerging at an alarming rate in many of the world's fastest growing countries, specifically China, India and Brazil. And despite what US labor unions and other protectionists would have you believe, this is not at the expense of America, only at the expense of America's role as international svengali.

For example, currently, China has a population of approximately 1.3 billion people, of whom roughly 50 million are considered "middle class." This is about 4% of the national population. That means alot of people live in abject poverty, by international standards. This middle class is expected to triple over the next 5 years, bring an additional 100 million people out of this hole of poverty. While this can create some temporary disjointedness, this is a tremendously important demographic. As you are probably aware, nations fight more wars the less they have to lose. Wealth and order creates pragmatists.

Similar trends are also emerging in the other populous nations mentioned (India and Brazil). We need to stay out of the way to keep this trend emerging.