The following commentary comes from an independent investor or market observer as part of TheStreet's guest contributor program, which is separate from the company's news coverage.
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Political and economic upheavals always bring out this question. Scandals, crime, news headlines, and war always bring out this question. Just about any upset in our view of how things should be unnerves us. It's easy to despair. It's easy to give up. It's easy to say, "Why bother?"
The reality however is that every generation thinks current events and the next generation are destined to doom mankind.
Historical review and recollection of the most heinous and disastrous occurrences reveals something or someone allowing healing and second chances. And those times deserve our patience, our persistence, and our praise to all we deem holy.
Our individual and collective talents, skills and treasures are gifts to be shared in improving things.
So I ask, "Are our best days behind us? And the answer is... NO WAY!
Even though ...
Increased government regulation, paperwork, accounting, and public policy interventions have raised taxes to some of the highest and most punitive in the world...
Even though...
America's focus on quality design and value seems to have lost its luster over the past few decades at the alter of increased production and suspect risk management decisions...
And even though...
The greed, complexity and convoluted transaction binge on Wall Street, the ill-conceived everybody gets a house whether they can afford it or not mania of Capital Hill that doomed us, and the insidious nature of entitlement thinking by everyone who doesn't work, pay taxes, or has declared himself a victim...
We still are America. And America has an almost mystical promise of opportunity, the purpose of freedom, and the power of liberty.
The answer in what ails America is a combination of regulation, risk management, honest dealings, and a return to what I call, consequential living -- meaning whatever your choices, you rise and fall accordingly. The buffoonery of bailouts, the unsustainable safety nets of public policy, the selective "starving of the successful to feed the failures" must be stopped.
Let's go back to another bleak period when the American Capitalist spirit nearly crushed the Tom Wolfe coined "Me Decade." The seventies had political scandal, demoralizing inflation, an unheard of dismal nine percent unemployment rate, and a less-than-appealing stock market performance. The seventies also witnessed the birth of:
•Larry Ellison, Ed Oates, and Bob Miner's Oracle(ORCL),•Steve Wozniak and Steve Job's Apple(AAPL), •Paul Allen and Bill Gates' Microsoft(MSFT), •Herb Kelleher's Southwest Airlines(LUV), and •Fred Smith's poorly graded concept paper by a Yale economics professor that turned into FedEx(FDX).
It was the era of the first pocket calculators by Sanyo, Canon and Sharp. It was the time of Cray Computer's Cray-1 supercomputer. And something called Arpanet, developed under the Department of Defense was moved to Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. Out of that something called the Internet would come to be in the following decade.
The 1970s was a time of gloom and doom and it was also a time for innovative thinkers -- risk takers -- and entrepreneurs who would lead us to another boom period.
While we've never faced a $14 trillion+ debtor nation status, obligations to Communist China, terrorism, illegal immigration run amuck, two significant military conflicts, and other threats to our way of life, every generation has challenges and downright failures.
America has always come back with more spectacular innovation, creativity and opportunity than thought possible.
While we cannot minimize the consequences of bad decisions or bad behavior, don't count America out.
Our Founding Fathers' purpose was never to protect individuals from themselves, but to raise everyone's consciousness that being accountable, responsible, and sensible will lead to a strong republic -- one that lifts and uplifts the best possibilities for those who play by the rules.
Those deeply held values, guiding principles, and unwavering morals must not be compromised, lest we all begin a downward spiral into an abyss that will doom America. Remember Rome and Greece were once on top yet slipped into the unforgivable consequences of unsustainable civilizations.
So to the next generation of entrepreneurs and bold pioneers:
Forget all the bad news, bizarre political antics, and global unrest. With a scriptural edict, "Go forth and multiply."
If the cliché holds true that "It's always darkest before the dawn," we are surely primed for a huge dawning and brighter days ahead.
Bring it on great American entrepreneurs. Bring it on!
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