There are Many Problems – But Few Crises.

There is a lot of stuff hitting the fan. And when stuff hits the fan the media – and the political punditocracy – love to throw the label “crisis” around. But does every brouhaha deserve the label “crisis”? Let’s  review.

First, closest to home, is the migration of unaccompanied minors from Central America to the US. This is decidedly not a crisis. It’s a problem. maybe even a big problem. Why should it be called a crisis? If there is one thing the US does well it is immigration. There are over 300 million of us who are immigrants or descendants of immigrants.

There are 12 million so called “illegal immigrants” in the US – how an extra tens of thousands of kids makes a difference is unexplained.

Ebola is deliciously scary. And if you are  victim then it is damn serious for you. The same could be said for shark attacks and plane crashes. But so far the number of dead is less than 1000 – or less than half the number of Palestinians who have died in the latest Israeli/Hamas strife. The resources dedicated to the suppression of ebola are extensive and the effected West African countries seem to have taken measures to combat the spread of the disease. It isn’t a crisis.

On the flip side of the ledger is Sunni vs Shiite civil war. ISIS is a crisis. The conflict has cast the survival of Iraq and Syria in doubt. Thousands are being killed – many more will be. Entire religious sects are being eradicated. The ISIS fighters believe they are doing God’s work and as such can not be reasoned with.

At some point there will be an end to the massacres. The Cultural Revolution in China petered out. Stalins purges and the further oppression of the Soviet citizens finally collapsed with the Soviet Union. Although Putin is keeping that ball rolling. But that will take decades – if not centuries.

Which brings us to Ukraine – and Georgia, Belarus, and the other old Soviet Republics. Are they teetering into crisis? Hardly. The Soviet Union’s economy was vast. Russia’s economy is the size of Italy’s. Russia has nuclear weapons – but they aren’t going to use them.

And Russia has gas and oil  - which the Europeans need. However, the Russians are now pivoting to China. But that is a path fraught with danger for the Russians. Europeans will be forced to adapt to a new energy source and the Chinese will go from strength to strength threatening Russia’s future viability. Which is unfortunate for them – but not a crisis for us.

Back to the USA. The true crisis in America is not – as we have seen – the kids on the Southern border. Nor is it the terrorist threats from radical, terroristic, islamofascism. It is the increasing inequality of wealth, the lack of economic mobility and the disastrous decline in the education of our youth.

But more on that another day.