Somehow this profoundly depressing posting by Instapundit back in January about the state of eduction in wealthy America stuck in my mind:

Many of my students—entirely too many—come into my 9th grade classroom woefully unprepared for even the most basic rigors of high school science. They do not study. They do not do homework. They do not get the direct connection between how much effort you put into something and the quality of the results. They do not know the difference between an inch and a centimeter. They have trouble with the simplest algebraic calculations (like f=ma).

They pay no attention whatsoever (beyond the Al Gore school of bad science) to what is going on in the universe, so much of what I teach has no brain Velcro to stick to.

Worst of all? They are embarrassingly incurious. They really don’t care, and if what I do isn’t magically fun, they’re not interested. I work very hard to make what I do interesting and relevant, but they can’t be bothered.

Then this comes along:

America might be the first country in recorded history whose culture celebrates not only indolence but also the sheer absence of ability … It is hard to think of a comparable case in social history: a country borrows from foreigners to lend money to its young people to spend four years binge-drinking at a university that pretends to prepare them for the world …

More:

Families that expected to take cash out of appreciated homes had a rude awakening this year. Most American banks have stopped allowing mortgage borrowers to refinance and take out additional cash. So-called home equity loans, or second mortgages on homes, are the cause of the crash of US bank stock prices during the past few weeks.

The well is dry. That leaves the youngsters in the lurch, which is precisely where most of them deserve to be.

Coming our way too?