Will America ever grow up?

We learned today that several of O's bodyguards from our Secret Service were relieved of their duties in Columbia for visiting prostitutes and heavy drinking. Will America ever lose the puritan ethic inherited from our forefathers? The lads in Cartagena risk their lives to protect our dear leader and are trained to take a bullet for him. That, plus the boredom of standing around for hours on end requires respite. America needs to at least show some signs of growing up, maturing and accepting human nature as it is.

We should also go south. Our fixation on east-west relations is so embedded in us that we tend to neglect Latin America except in emergencies. Then we overreact. The new land of milk and honey is in South America. Land, minerals, labor, energy, ambition and a new frontier awaits those who dare. An daring is no big deal. Our cattle industry has been going south to Argentina and Brazil for years, but we continue to speak of the American west as if we have a monopoly on beef.

It seems to me that after alienating many and isolating other Latin American countries, we simply ignore those that remain. Overstatement aside, an energetic policy toward moving ahead with the Latins would be in order and would prove a strong sting in the bow of either of our presidential contenders. Our attention and cooperation would go far in dislodging the US from its current economic doldrums.

Although Latin American investments are about one third of those in Europe, $1,976 billion in Europe versus $680 billion in Latin America in 2009, little is spoken or written about American investment there. Oil and gas certainly accounts for a great deal as does equipment assembly including automobiles. Sadly, we are often accused of skirting American environmental laws by setting up factories in Latin America. Mexico accounts for the lion's share of such plants as well as manufacturing that employs toxic materials.

Margaret Thatcher once opined that investment follows degrees. Judging from the foreign students studying here in 2009, we will be investing heavily in Asia as those countries accounted for 60% of foreign student enrollment. Next was Europe with 13% followed by Latin America with 10%. Thatcher's statement is highly credible, although a new trend is developing whereby foreign students come to the US to study and work for a spell before repatriating themselves and their new-found technologies back to their homeland; namely  Asia and particularly China.