The current problems of the United States are indeed serious, but there are millions of people who understand the causes of these problems and have an idea of how to remedy the current situation.

A recent government report has shown that the US has greater energy resources than any other nation, even Saudi Arabia, if these riches were just allowed to be exploited. I think that several of the GOP candidates have the knowledge, talent, and moral fiber needed to get things turned in the right direction again.

The barriers to getting the debt under control, also, are not insurmountable. All that is required is commonsense and the political will to do something to halt wasteful spending. Anyone who has worked closely with the US government, as I have, knows that billions could be saved by eliminating redundant and useless programs, with no one harmed but the government employees involved.

I am also optimistic that, although how and when the recovery-renaissance will occur is still unclear, the election of 2010 suggests that we are moving in the right direction.

I had the opportunity to live through some very trying times, like Brazil in the 1980s and Indonesia in the late 1990s, when the future seemed very bleak indeed, only to find that somehow, people were able to muddle through and things worked out in the end.

The US hasn’t had any really rough times since the 1970s and a large part of the population is too young to have first hand experience with economic and political turbulence. This makes things seem much worse than they really are. Anyway, that’s the way it seems to me.

Of course, as you point out so well in your writing, many in the US, legal and illegal, could learn to speak and write English just a little better.

The ‘illegal immigrant’ problem was not caused by voters who were for or against the idea of immigration, but rather by government bureaucrats who never can be fired and who have looked the other way for over 20 years and have allowed millions to stream into the country.

Enforcement has been so lax that I know of cases where illegals have come in by 747 jet and shipped their household goods by sea, going directly to US lawyers and starting the process of legalization. You can go to many posh hotels in South Florida and find illegals at every level of the staff, most having paid something to Immigration lawyers to legalize their status.

By now, there are illegals in virtually every state and most towns and cities in the US, almost all are working at something useful (or they wouldn’t be paid), and many, many have legal relatives or children. Simplistic ’solutions’ are no longer available when laws go unenforced for many years.