That Used to be Us by Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum

Another book co-authored by Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times columnist and author of The World is Flat and others. The subtitle is: How America fell behind in the world it invented and How we can come back. Sobering commentary on how we as a country moved away from our tradition formula for success--five pillars that together form a foundation that as achieved so much. They are: public education for more and more Americans; building and continual modernizing of our infrastructure--bridges, roads, bandwidth, etc.; sensible immigration policies; government support research and development;  and implementation of necessary regulations on economic activity.  (Not just regulation for regulation sake.)

Adding to this group of issues is the grid-lock presently in our our political system---Liberals seem to feel government can solve everything and Conservatives feel that government is THE problem. The authors discuss how we have arrived at our present situation---two decades of not paying attention to the world we live in.

Actually, we as Baby Boomers have engaged in behaviors more suitable to toddlers not adults--hence the name Terrible Twos. Across the board Baby Boomers have over-indulged -- from individuals over-extended in credit & unaffordable huge mortgages to Wall Street for shady behavior in investments to governments rolling back taxes while conducting two long foreign wars and extending the national deficit.

Offering some suggestions-- something like wake up and smell the roses/fish smell.  A third party candidate to bring the two main parties back toward the central and possible compromises to move forward the country. Individual Americans are doing things--creating businesses, etc. and finding ways to prosper.

This is a similar book to Tom Brokaw's book The Time of Our Lives which I read & reviewed awhile back. Much more detail is provided in Friedman/Mandelbaum but observations are similarly focused in both books. Lots of possibilities to improve and better our country for future generations but we as a people need to make some hard choices and decisions and stop in-fighting and getting distracted from our real challenges.