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5/15/10
12:11 PM
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SPEAKER’S CORNER
CONVERSATION WITH A BRIT BY KEVIN CORCORAN
I’D
ALREADY HAD SEVERAL ROUNDS OF BEERS AT WILTON’S TAVERN ON 7, WHEN SIMON — AN EX-PAT FROM LONDON — ABRUPTLY DECLARED, “DUDE, HATE TO BREAK THIS TO YOU, BUT AMERICA IS F—KED.” “Well, thanks for sharing and caring,” I said, half-listening as I worked my Blackberry. “You just don’t get it yet.” I casually looked up from my device. “Get what, exactly?” “You Americans think you have the greatest quality of life in the world, when in reality, you have one of the worst.” Okayyyy. I sipped my beer thoughtfully, and responded confidently to my smug European compadre. “Things may be a bit, uh, challenging for Americans now, but markets recover, they always do — the U.S. economy is nothing if not . . . resilient.” Simon snorted. “Then it’s on to the next economic bubble, right? Boom and bust. First it was the savings and loans crisis, then the junk bonds, then the dot-com bubble, then the housing bubble. Somewhere right now, a propeller-head from M.I.T. is figuring out the Next Big Scam and in another seven years from now, there’ll be more Congressional hearings on what the Wall Street bubble did to decimate Main Street once again.” “You got me there, Simes.” I ordered another round of Heinekens. Simon chugged the last of his drink. “Meanwhile, China is on its way to becoming the dominant economic superpower – totally and absolutely debt-free. And sometime within this decade, when America is in its fourth or fifth war in the Middle East, China will decide the time has come to pull out of its massive U.S. Treasury position and it will dump its entire $940 billion position on the open market.” “Scary scenario,” I conceded. “But that doomsday scenario is at least several years future-tense, no?” “Maybe closer than you think,” Simon countered. “Anyway, let’s get down to basics. Health care. You guys are the only one in the developed world that doesn’t have centralized health care. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year because they can’t pay medical bills for an emergency surgery or an unexpected illness. They lose their health and then they lose their homes. Only in America.” “But we have the best doctors, the best medical care.” “That’s just an American talking point concocted by lobbyists to justify
the status quo,” Simon said, waving it away dismissively. “Health care is just as good everywhere else in the world.” He shook his head critically. “And the food you eat.” I laughed. “All due respect, a fish-and-chipper from London doesn’t exactly have much standing to trash my diet.” “It’s not just the Supersize-me diet I’m talking about,” Simon said, wagging an accusatory finger. “It’s the way the raw food is processed. It’s a mind-numbing scandal how the government allows producers to pump cows full of growth hormones and strange experimental drugs that wind up in the bloodstreams of your children. Is it any wonder that there’s so much autism in your country? Or that this generation of children is hitting puberty at age seven or eight? Obviously, the lobbyists must be doing their jobs quite well to circumvent meaningful salmonella and e Coli inspections at the food processing plants. And let’s say our hosannas to the American obsession with carbonated sodas. From kindergarten, the elementary schools are serving up high-fructose corn syrupy drinks to schoolkids. Combined with a sedentary life of X-box video