Eating Our Substance

The current economic situation comes from eating out our substance.   This Depression has been delayed, but expanding, since around 1990.  We have begun to eat the foundation beneath our wealth, and the outcome will be absolutely disastrous.  The outlook is amazingly bleak, and the only reasonable solution will never be implemented by our Republicans and Democrats.

I attribute the progression of this collapse to three primary problems.  First, we stopped manufacturing in America.  Consequently, we upped the tax ante for those players who tried to continue.  Third, we created a spending spree.

When we stopped creating wealth, we were the richest nation in the world.  We had enough cash in hand to finance several decades even though we knew it could not last forever.

We taxed the lion’s share from producers and manufacturers (employees and employers) to feed and house the displaced.   When we packed up our production and sent it away to foreign lands, we could afford the alternative from the money in our collective savings.  It was cheaper — in almost every way.

The logic in our situation called for rebuilding industry — newer, better, more up-to-date.  Instead, we went crazy building houses and shopping malls.  Fully 40% of the new jobs from the millennium change to now have been construction, real estate, and all the supports for the boom.  Not only did we fail to create wealth, we spent the last of it.  We went into a thirty-year debt with five to ten years of wealth.

Now our businesses are gone, our homes are falling apart, we have maxed out our personal and governmental credit, and anything we try to rebuild will have to come from China, India, Mexico, and a host of Pacific Islands.

The solution is quite simple, really.  We have to tighten our belts and go to work.   We must convert our assets into production, and stop spending money.  Many of us have already lost everything, but not our will to survive.

The great remaining obstacle to the solution is Congress and the succession of Presidents who brought us here.  We never could afford a few trillion here and there, and we need to stop them from trying.

In my opinion, we will not.  We will continue to sail the ship of state right into the rocks.

May God grant that I am wrong.

Economic Crisis

The United States is in trouble, and the promised “economic recovery” is not possible in the present environment.

Prosperity depends on production, and we do not produce.   The newly announced 9.8% unemployment is tragic, but including the long-term jobless and severely underemployed, that rate is 17%.  It is not just about jobs, either, because even a hiring boom would not lead to renewed production.  We no longer manufacture things in America, and every first semester student knows that a nation’s wealth is determined by its ability to produce goods.

For any form of sustained recovery, America must restore our capacity to produce — manufacturing, mining, drilling, converting, assembly and distribution.  Our desperate economy currently rests on consuming, and that cannot last once the wells run dry.

Manufacturing jobs are the hardest hit.  Once, America hired more than 17 million workers to build cars, refine steel, produce electronics and make stuff.  Now that number has dwindled to 11 million, and the products are smaller, cheaper, secondary, and less competitive.

To add to the problem, we have a President and Congress that enjoy spending all that our workers produce.  They offer solutions like Cap and Trade, public option health care, and restrictive policies that prevent us from competing in world markets.  This has been increasingly true through our three previous presidential administrations. Now we have reached a critical period where something must happen immediately or the most dire consequences will follow.

We need a government that allows us more to work with, frees the private sector for creation and development, and stops taking everything we have.

Chicago, Chicago??

A gang bang murder in Chicago by rival gangs from Fenger High School claimed another life.  That’s the way it is if you live in Chicago, L.A., Detroit, Philly, Miami, or most other big cities.

In this time in our society, don’t blame broken homes or useless schools or corrupt groups like ACORN or the perverse politics of large city government.   Don’t blame anybody, and don’t do anything about it.  The Olympics, Cap and Trade, your party in power, and better health care will solve it.

Sometimes it seems that the best solution would be to ship all of that scum to a place like the movies depict — you know, B grade sci fi like Escape from New York or Escape from L.A.   Unfortunately, that is exactly what many residents want to do: escape.  They want to escape from America, but where would they go? How would they get there?  What do you do with people who have a conscience and try to eek out a subsistence in squalor?  How do you teach them morality and decent principles without textbooks or examples?  What do you do with the trash they grow into?  How do you help them find their meaning and purpose and offer them hope and a sense of mission?

I have personally worked with children who grow into these demons.  Before they become the scum of the earth they start life with hope and childlike faith.  Although fear grips them almost from birth, they cling to an idea that something better waits for them.

When I lived in Detroit, Schenectady, Phoenix, Seattle, Elizabeth, and here in Central New York, I have always found that kids — young kids — still want a loving hug without fear.  They want an adult to pay attention to them, play with them, encourage them, and tell them they are beautiful children.

Some people always want to help.  Not many, but some.  If you decide to work with these kids, never consider doing it alone, but you can find people who want to help.  I do it alone sometimes, but I’m foolish.  Don’t follow my example.

Perhaps the condition of our nation is most clear in the three main suggestions I have heard over the years while working with kids.

One: never touch them; you will be sued for child abuse.  The absurdity!  Children need to be hugged, and I do it in every room full of people I can find.  After 25 years, I have hugged 1,000 kids, and no one has sued me yet.  If a suit does come along, they can throw me in jail.  The value to society is worth it.

Two: don’t become attached; they will break your heart.  I want my heart broken by every neglected, abused child in the world.  It helps keep me alive.

Three: don’t bother; you will never make a difference.  That concept comes straight from hell.  Every once in a while I still see some of “my” children.  If we could gather them all into one room and put me in the middle of it, I am convinced that I could still hug most of them and still walk out of that room alive.  If they could each have a few dozen experiences like the minor impact I have been able to have, this nation would be a vastly different place.

There is no way I am some extraordinary human being.  I am not destined to become a statue on a dashboard.  The majority of what I’ve been allowed to do is fix a toy, sing a song, read a story, look over some homework, offer a sandwich and a glass of milk, or smile and wave.  Rarely do they become so corrupt that they don’t still smile and wave back.

Isn’t that really the heart and soul of society?

Rebuilding Our Cities

The federal and State governments could do more to build our economy by surrendering property and providing tax relief than anything else in their Constitutional power.  The result would benefit the uninsured, and quickly produce of a million jobs.  We would stimulate growth in neglected communities, and create an entire generation of producers.

The solution is so simple that DC and some individual States will never understand it:  get out of our way and let us use the abandoned businesses and infrastructure to rebuild America.  If the federal and State governments allowed all businesses and lands currently abandoned and now in their control to be occupied and repaired by individuals and small companies, it would be a quick road to a healthy America.

Beyond that the idea allows plenty of partisan bickering, but start with a big picture: let the people in the nation’s communities rebuild their neighborhoods.  At first, allow them to operate tax-free, and let their success or failure determine ownership.

Every metropolitan area is full of abandoned structures and vacant lands.  Let the people in.  Confine the land grab to individuals who have never run a business before and allow them time to make a go of it.  After a determined period — say five years — the new owners either have the savvy to make it run or they must step aside to let another individual have a go of it.

Give away the abandoned homes and housing parcels, too.  If individuals possessing these lands can bring the structures up to code and remain residents for a reasonable time, the land and their improvements become the property of the owner.  If the individual moves away, simply squats, or is convicted of a crime, the home is passed again to another claimant. Any felony committed by a member of the new community, or any crime committed in the new community by an outsider, means automatic deportment from the community or a stiffer sentence, and the loss of investment.

For people who choose the option and currently receive Medicaid, their monthly payments would be converted to payment to a private insurance plan for diminishing period.  Health care providers would be encouraged to support the developing communities with a land grab option of their own, and doctors would be given structures along with other residents.

We can all add ideas, but it would be a sure-fire way to rebuild our communities and begin to restore America.

Jobs and Health Care in America

How do manufacturing jobs and health care relate? Let me count the ways…

The chronic unemployment rate, essentially meaning those whose unemployment ran out, is the highest since the depression.  People without jobs tend to lose their health insurance.

Students enrolled in school full time aren’t included, yet unemployment for young people, aged 16 to 24, is 52%.   That, too, is the highest rate since the Great Depression. Unemployed youngsters, especially, tend to be uninsured.

Job rates go up and down.  Even Depressions come along with the fluctuations of time, government policy, and economic ripples.  What makes the current situation utterly terrifying is the category of manufacturing jobs.   Making stuff is what drives an economy and improves the world.   Manufacturing in 1979 provided 17.5 million jobs.  Twenty years ago, 17.9 million.  Ten years ago, at the cusp of the new millennium, U.S. manufacturing provided  17.3  million jobs.

Now, fewer than 11.8 million Americans still earn a living “making stuff.”  In less than 10 short years, we have lost over five and a half million jobs in manufacturing in America, and an estimated 2.5 million of those losses happened in mass layoffs in the first half of this year alone.  Five and a half million unemployed manufacturing folks add a big dose of pain to the health insurance scam that Congress and President Obama want to force on us.

What is the national government’s solution to all of this pain and suffering?  Well, higher taxes, more taxes (especially on manufacturing), Cap and Tax to kill more manufacturing jobs by shutting down more American business in favor of China’s spewing factories, less American manufacturing and therefore lower paying jobs for Americans, illegal immigrant “amnesty” and more bodies to cover with non-existent health care resources, taxing people for health care and then taxing them for not having health care,  more foreign competition, greater dependence on foreign power, foreign oil, and foreign pollution, and a deadbeat economy that is 10 trillion dollars in debt. Oh, and let’s not forget socialized health care that includes stripping six hundred billion dollars from Medicare so we can “level the playing field” for those who already worked their whole lives.

I’m telling you, this is impossible to make up and difficult to imagine but every word of it is real.  (The labor stats are here.)  President Barack Hussein Obama and Congress are actually “out to get us.”  They trust every word written here, and they go ahead with every plan.

If we fail to reclaim our nation, nobody will want it… and that is just the way Washington’s Democrats and Republicans want it.  They will be exempt, rich, and powerful.

Swine Flu, Common Flu, Government Flu

After a long and worrisome article about the potential horrors of this season’s flu strains, the Washington Post turns to a different set of facts.  After detailing the fear and potential horror of a deadly flu, they begin quoting doctors…

For instance, Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center Director of Emergency Services, Barry Gilmore, says, “We are mostly dealing with the worried well or kids who are mildly ill but not severely ill.”

Ari Brown, an Austin pediatrician, states that, “There’s clearly a certain level of hysteria.”

As a father and grandfather, I have concerns for my children and grandchildren, but the Swine flu is not high on that list.  Their liberty, sense of direction, ethical sense, moral underpinnings and financial future are way above H1N1.

Ninety-one years ago, in the height of WWI, a flu strain roared around the globe, killing hundreds of thousands of robust young people.  The possibility of some horrible mutation always remains, but that possibility is a long-shot.

Call me “easily spooked,” but the resurgence of influenza is well-timed to coincide with the Radical government plan to seize control of the U.S. health care system.  No, I do not think they planned it, but they are using it to further their agenda.  As Number Eight of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals says, “…utilize all events of the period for your purpose.” And don’t forget Rule Nine:

“The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”

Doctors tell patients how to deal with the flu: “Drink plenty of fluids to maintain the body’s hydration, and take aspirin, acetaminophen, or ibuprofen to reduce the fever and discomfort.  Get plenty of rest.“  This is the same advice whether it’s this year’s run-of-the-mill flu or the H1N1 strain.  In fact, the Swine Flu ends in a few days instead of a week like most.

If you or your child become ill in other words, accept the fact that the flu will be uncomfortable — perhaps very uncomfortable.  Dr. Brown suggests that you keep yourself or your kid in bed, as comfortable as possible, and ride it out.  Only go to the hospital or doctor’s office if it becomes serious.

With the prevalent terror tactics of the Radical Progressives taking such a prominent role in our information sources, it can be a terrifying time, but never overlook the overwhelming desire of those Radicals to grab the power of the medical community and turn it into big government.

Of course it’s always sad to face death from common illness.  We lose something like 30,000 people from the flu with every strain. It’s easy to lie with statistics, but keep in mind that your child has a 99.7+% chance of making a full recovery in five days.

You can find “news” that H1N1 is a terrorist plot, or a government plot.  You can read about doctors who say that this strain will decimate the population.  The British Homeland Terror Chief said the Swine flu threat is more dangerous than terrorism.

You can find others who say that the worst is already on us, and will quickly fade as the strain loses it’s grip and succumbs to natural immunity.  You can also surmise that the best and worst scenarios are least likely.  It is, perhaps, a very, very nasty flu… but it is still a flu, and not a complete loss of liberty.

We faced the swine flu in the 1970s and it was uncomfortable for many, and tragic for some.  It will be uncomfortable for many again, and tragic for some.  That truth we can foresee, but the greatest terror we face is allowing Radicals to use this or any other problem as a means to control our lives and make our children and grandchildren “wards of the state.“

Mmm, mmm, mm.

Do Not Fear Flu, Treat It

Flu is a nasty illness that kills thousands of people each year. Be careful, stay fit, and be prepared to be uncomfortable. Aspirin, acetaminophen, or ibuprofen and lots of fluids are the doctors’ orders.

Expensive? and Then Some

Government health care “reform” is a  twisted ankle for the American people that will break our necks.   The only thing resembling good medicine is a healthy dose of high cost pills that won’t be easy to swallow.  Like Mary Poppins, this is all being taken with sugar in Washington.  Tell your so-called “representative” that his job is done if he hints at this scam.  Let your Senator and the President know that you would like to see them become leaders and accept this plan for themselves and endure it for a decade before inflicting it on us.

The House wants to solve the crisis by taxing health insurance.  No surprise there.  That was how they solved poverty, drug addiction, and terror, too.  Thank God a trillion and a half solved those problems.

The President wants to imprison people who choose not to carry insurance, provide “amnesty” for illegal aliens so they will be legal when they report for their “fair share.”  He also wants to avoid reform by focusing on a takeover.  Once they have it, he promises, they will set about fixing it.  Uh huh.  He also won’t sign any bill that won’t pay for itself, so they will get together and make us pay alright.

The law pool in DC still has no clue what the problems are.  No significant efforts at reforming punitive laws or making insurance competitive, and rather than lowering taxes on expensive procedures or effective treatments, our handlers in DC will increase taxes on the most common and effective cures, instruments, and procedures.

It’s all a bit staggering.  Here is the solution, drawn together from all the existing plans:  raise costs, assemble everything under a bureaucratic redistribution plan, pay for it with a tax burden so heavy it will break our backs, shift a quarter of it to the manufacturers of medical stuff, and call it Supercalifragilistic health care.  Take with a spoonful of sugar and say your prayers.

The only certainty of a government health care plan is that we’ll all be wearing expensive body bags.

Truth from England?

When asked about the snubbing of the English Prime Minister and the growing rift in the British-American alliance, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded with another snub.

“I think this is media generated.  Stop reading those London tabloids,” he sniffed.

Ever since the beginning of Obama’s reign, Gibbs has challenged the British Press.  It began in March, about the same time that Americans began recognizing that few American news sources covered the news.

“If I wanted to read a writeup today of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champion’s League cup, I might open up a British newspaper.  If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I’m not entirely sure it’d be in the first pack of clips I’d pick up.”

Americans are increasingly turning to the British Press for information, because you can no longer find it at home.  According to Gibbs, everything coming out of England is either sports or an extension of the National Enquirer…

It must be time to read more British News.  If Gibbs hates it there must be truth in it.  Remember, this is the guy who didn’t know there was a March on Washington.

G20 Notes and Thoughts

The futility of the G20 has been amply covered.  The G20 gatherings serve as a “national leaders op/ed service,” however, and that has some value.  We can check the pulse of alliances and world government opinions at these pointless summits, and watch who woos whom.

The U.S. relationship with England is out.  Our favorability rating with Castro and Chavez is up.  Many nations find Iran unfavorable enough that they walk away, and Gaddafi is still God awful.

Protests will not happen.  The history of G20 resistance has been marred by violence, so Pittsburgh’s police pre-empted with an assault of their own, using tear gas, batons, and rubber bullets to encourage protesters to un-gather from the land of the free.

How can the UN Security Conference accomplish anything?  The current members of that enforcement arm are the permanent China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, of course, with 10 non-permanent members. The current batch includes Austria, Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Croatia, Japan, Libya, Mexico, Turkey, Uganda, and Vietnam.  This is an interesting list — not, perhaps, the most cooperative group ever assembled, but still highly opinionated.

If you listen to G20 speeches you will need an interpreter.  Oh, they provide accurate translators, but even in English you have to read through the lines and then guess what they are really saying.  Take our President’s speech.  What did he really say?  How did Fidel Castro find it encouraging, and why did Hugo Chavez stop smelling sulfur and start smelling hope for his communist ideology?

The world, they say, is shrinking.  Free nations, dictatorships, communists and socialists all look about the same except for those pesky few who are building new nuclear weapons to wipe out the rest of the world.  If we can just contain them the world can become a Venezuelan-Sino-Soviet-Tribal American happy place with a diminishing list of little gods who will tell us all what to do and how to do it so that we can all be happy and free.

Liberty and independence are things of the past.  We no longer need the annoyances.  Don’t worry.  Be happy.  Whatever you do, don’t resist!

Revisiting Mr. Acorn

Mr. Obama ran as the great community organizer.  He referred to his years with ACORN as his experience in leadership and training.  That time with ACORN supposedly qualified him for the Presidency.

How can he dismiss his ties so easily, and why is America letting him get away with it?

When Obama received the endorsement from ACORN in February of 2008, Alicia Russell, ACORN’s western regional representative, said, “He’s on the same level as we are, and sees our issues as we do.”

“The reason I moved to Chicago was to organize,” Obama told ACORN leaders,  ” So this is something that I know personally, the work you do, the importance of it.  I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career.  Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.”

He told a large group of adoring ACORNs and other community organizers that they now had a voice in the White House, that their agenda was his agenda…

Even after a long decade of corruption, it was the Obama White House that quietly gave the census job to ACORN.  It was not the White House that loudly pulled it back.  Can you even imagine the damage ACORN could do by shifting the census numbers?  How could Mr. Obama give the job to a group known for voter registration “irregularities”?

How did President Obama get from there to his only public comment, on ABC, “You know, it’s — frankly, it’s not really something I’ve followed closely. I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money… George, this is not the biggest issue facing the country. It’s not something I’m paying a lot of attention to.”

President ACORN Obama

Only once during President Obama’s Sunday in the spotlight this past weekend did an interviewer ask him a challenging question. ABC’s Charles Gibson asked about the ACORN situation.  Mr. Obama’s response both two eyebrows.

One eyebrow went up when he called it “inappropriate.”   “Inappropriate” might be a good description of Secretary of State Clinton burping in public without excusing herself.  It hardly seems sufficient for the nationwide willingness to support a pimp and prostitute bringing children illegally into the United States for prostitution, offering tax scam advice,  and assisting in international trafficking of minors and the operations of a brothel!  A man who refers to a police department as “acting stupidly” in protecting and serving a Massachusetts community should have been at least slightly outraged.

The other eyebrow went up when he dismissed the whole thing as “not the most important thing in America.”  Not only is it always important when any organization bilks America, but ACORN is the President’s baby!  ACORN acted as his claim to the Presidency!  He himself said ACORN provided him with the experience necessary to run the nation.  He was an attorney for them!  He was an organizer for them!  He promised to bring their agenda to the White House!

What raises both eyebrows at the same time, however, is that nobody seems to care.  Even the President’s most outspoken critics seem underwhelmed by the fact that Obama and ACORN were like peas and carrots until this story broke.