In 1910.Henry Van Dyke wrote a book called The Spimt of America,which opened with this sentenee:“The Spirit of America is best known in Europe by one of its qualities—energy.”This has always been true.Americans have always been known for thelr mamc dvnamism.Some condemned this ambition as a scrambling after money.Others saw it in loftier terms.But energy has always been the country’s saving feature.
So Americans should be especially alert to signs that the country is becoming less vital and assiduous.One of those signs comes to us from the labor market. According to figures from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,the United States has a smailer share of prime age men in the work force than any other G-7 nation.
Part of the problem has to do with human capital.More American men lack the
emotional and professional skills they would need to contribute.According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics,35 percent of those without a high school diploma are out of the labor force.compared with less than lo percent of those with a college degree.Part of the Droblem has to do with structural changes in the economy.Sectors like government,health care and high.tech have been growing,generating jobs for collegegrads. Sectors like manufacturing,agriculture and energy have been getting more productive,but they have not been generating more jobs.Instead,companies are using machines or foreign workers.
The resuIt is this:There are probably more idle men now than at any time slnce the Great Depression. and this time the problem is mostly structural,not cyclical.This is a big Droblem.It can’t be addressed through the sort of short—term Keynesian stimulus some on the left are still fantasizing about.It can’t be solved by simply reducing the size of government,as some on the right imagine.
It will.probably require a broad menu of policies attacking the problem all at once: expanding community colleges and online learning;changing the corporate tax code and labor market rules to stimulate investment;adopting German-style. labor market practices like apprenticeship programs,wage subsidies and programs that extend benefits to the unemployed for six months as they start small businesses.
Reinvigorating the missing fifth--bringing them back into the labor market and using their capabilities-will certainly require money.If this were a smart country.we’d be having a debate about how to shift money from programs that provide comfort and toward programs that spark reinvigoration.
But,of course,that’S not what is happening.Discretionary spending,which might be used to instigate dynamism,is declining.Health care spending,which mostly provides comfort to those beyond working years,is expanding.Attempts to take money from health care to open it up for other uses are being crushed.We’re locking in the nation’S wealth into the Medicare program and closing off any possibility that we might do something significant to reinvigorate the missing fifth.Next time you see a politician demagoguing Medicare,ask this:Should we be using our resources in the manner of a nation in decline or one still committed to stoking the energy of its people and continuing its rise?
The loss of American dynamism concerned by the author is mainly manifested in the fact that_______.
A.American young are more indolent than their counterparts in other countries
B.America suffered from a higher rate of unemployment than other countries
C.More American young are out of work than their counterparts in other countries
D.American young are obssessed with the incessant quest for material comforts
A.So what do we do to be safer? Many smart people have tackled this question.Peter Pronovost at Johns Hopkins developed a checklist shown to bring hospital-acquiredinfections down to close to zero.There are rules against disturbing nurses while th
B.Here’S one theory.It is a given that American doctors perform. a staggering number oftests and procedures,far more than in other industrialized nations.and far more than we used to.Since 1996,the percentage of doctor visits leading to at least five
C.Doctors make mistakes.They may be mistakes of technique,judgment.ignorance or even,sometimes,recklessness.Regardless of the cause,each time a mistake happens。a patient may suffer.We fail to uphold our profession’s basic oath:“First.do no harm.”
D.Herein lies a stunning irony.Defensive medicine is rooted in the goal of avoiding mistakes.But each additional procedure or test,no matter how cautiously performed,injects a fresh possibility of error.CT and M.R.I.scans can lead to false positives
E.According to a l999 report by the Institute of Medicine,as many as 98.000 Americans were dying every year because of medical mistakes.Today,exact figures are hard to come by because states don’t abide by the same reporting guidelines,and few cases ga
F.What may be even more important is remembering the limits of our power.More--more procedures,more testing,more treatment--is not always better.In l979,Stephen Bergman,under the pen name Dr.Samuel Shem,published rules for hospitals in his ca
G.Certainly many procedures,tests and prescriptions are based on legitimate need.But many are not.In a recent anonymous survey,oIrthopedic surgeons said 24 percent of the tests they ordered were medically unnecessary.This kind of treatment is a form. of