Guest Post by James George Jatras
Delivered to the 2022 Ron Paul Scholars Seminar, Sept. 2nd 2022, Washington, DC.
Allow me to say at the outset how pleased and not a little surprised I was to be invited to address this seminar for the second year in a row. Pleased, because I can’t think of a better place than the Ron Paul Scholars Seminar to encounter bright young people who can afford even the most cranky old Boomer like myself grounds for hope. Surprised, because as I recall following last year’s presentation the organizers were constrained to confiscate your predecessors’ belts and shoelaces and place them under 24-hour protective watch. As I asked them last year: “How do I tell you that, in the layman’s terms, your lives will probably suck? At least in the near future. But there is hope. I will return to that.”
My talk last year was called “It’s Later than you Think,” and of course now it’s even later still. On the off-chance that none of you has memorized that text, I will give a brief summary of what I said then – which as I noted even then ended with a dim glimmer of sunlight – and then review how the past year has, I believe, confirmed my assessment then and, somewhat paradoxically, made that glimmer shine just a bit brighter. All in all, I think we have grounds to be cautiously pessimistic.
Continue reading “It’s Even Later than You Thought”
