Getting It Right- The Cow Is Sick... Please Quit Milking!

May 15, 2008


The U. S. way of life is under attack from internal and external forces.
The depression of the thirties was sparked by the stock market failure in 1929 after several years of overzealous speculation by investors with heavy banking involvement.. That began a domino effect as the economic system of the nation slowed to a near stop. Let us all hope that the housing market failure after several years of overzealous speculation by investors with heavy banking involvement is not sparking a similar experience for our nation.
Conditions are currently in a state of rapid change…yet many in government are acting as if it is "business as usual". The average citizen is struggling economically as he has never struggled previously over the past sixty years. What has been decades of steadily improving standards of living in an expanding economy now threatens to begin a downturn. Most of us have never before experienced a decline in our standard of living, financial sacrifices, and the inability to make ends meet.
In most families the mother and the father must both work in order for the family to survive financially. Now we seem to be working harder and still are losing ground.
Over the past week we have seen gasoline prices increase another twenty cents to $3.75/gal., the postal system raise postage to $ .42 for a stamp, and the local utility company (Florida Public Utilities) announce another rate increase. What will next week have in store?
Meanwhile, government is doing a lot of squealing about cuts and a lot of lip service to helping the struggling citizen, but in reality they appear to me to be continuing on their normal paths of taxing and spending. The amount of actual cutting back performed by the government is much less than the amount of cutting back done each day in most private households.
The root cause of most of these problems is the fact that our nation is being held hostage by the oil barons of the Middle East. They are sucking billions out of our economy as quickly as possible, anticipating the eventual development of alternate energy sources that will someday reduce the demand for their God given resource. In the process of exercising this greed they are ruining our world. The increased cost of gasoline has pushed the cost of food, utilities and everything we must have to survive to record highs. We are in a period of inflation caused by oil price increases which are beyond the control of our government. In the short run we are helpless victims.
Who should we blame for this national dilemma? Who allowed our nation to become captives to this band of desert tribal leaders...Answer: All of those fat cat Senators and Congressmen that have been roosting in Washington over the past thirty years.
They have wasted our tax dollars, looked after their own self interest, and given lip service to the US becoming energy independent while they catered to special interest in order to buy the votes needed to keep themselves in office. That is why we have no new refineries, no new nuclear power plants, no drilling in areas where we know we have access to oil deposits, and have invested more in social money "give away" programs instead of investing in energy research. Again, this was done to buy votes.
It is time to clean out the nest and start over with representatives that can bring fresh ideas and sincere dedication to our government. I plan to vote against any elected representative that has been in Washington or Tallahassee for longer than eight years. I wish this approach was widespread across the United States. We can no longer afford or tolerate a "Business as usual" attitude.
As I stated in a recent column, our nation needs desperately for a "George Washington" type of strong leader to emerge and lead our nation out of this growing dilemma.
The situation with the exorbitant pricing of oil by the Greedy Sheiks is compounded by the increasing weakness of the dollar on the world money market. This problem is being caused by the fact that our politicians engaged in poor, ill conceived trade deals over the past fifteen years that destroyed our industrial base and created a gushing imbalance of trade between the United States and the rest of the world. This cascading outflow of dollars has caused the value of the dollar to drop to a very low point. This makes a barrel of foreign oil paid for with U.S. dollars cost even more. Free trade between nations is good as long as it is "tit for tat". But, if the deal is tit, tit, tit, tit for tat - you’ve made a bad deal.
Again, poor leadership is at fault. These trade deals were made under the concepts of "free trade" and "global marketing" during the Clinton administration. However, top leaders from both political parties jumped onto the "global" bandwagon and helped run us off the economic cliff into this abyss of financial despair. Our leaders should be held to task for supporting those programs.
Meanwhile, my truck is almost on empty. I have been riding around with the windows down and the air conditioner turned off in order to stretch what gasoline is in it. Tomorrow I will probably endure the pain of putting some gas in the tank. I hope I can find a station selling for under $3.75/gal.
RUDIMENTS: Odds and Ends Worth Mentioning:
♦ I can not believe that our beloved electric utility, Florida Public Utilities, has the nerve to announce another rate increase after the raping they gave their customers in January. I plan to investigate when their charter with the city expires in order to explore the possibility of replacing them. It appears they may be trying to raise rates as frequently as the post office increases the price of stamps.
♦ It is a crazy world. I see the INA running around raiding companies for working illegal aliens while several cities invite them to come to town and get welfare from the government. One part of the government is trying to catch them while another part of the government won’t disclose that they are paying them welfare. Why is it bad for businesses to work them but OK for the government to give them our money?
♦ It is a crazy world. I see our government spending billions on the "War On Drugs", with law agencies working hard to create drug busts, and our prisons filling with drug users and dealers. Meanwhile, I see our soldiers in Afghanistan being careful to tiptoe through poppy fields so as to not damage the crop that provides 90% of the heroin used in the US.
Wouldn’t it be wiser to pay money to the Afghanistan farmers not to grow the crop in the first place?
♦ On a positive note…the new VA clinic is a real addition to our community. Those that helped locate it here should be commended. If things continue on the present trend, driving to the clinic in Tallahassee would eventually cost more than the cost of the medical treatment.
♦ The County Commissioners continue to have no interest in the savings that might be realized by purchasing the old Wal-Mart facility. In a few months they will probably again try to build their building by the court house.
Things are tough and getting tougher. It is more important than ever that you become involved in the decisions that are being made by others that will impact the future of you and your family. Get involved and you will be "Getting It Right".