You know I'm going to talk about it!

I watched our Presidents inauguration yesterday, all of it, all the pomp and glory, each float along
Pennsylvania  Avenue and every speech.   It only happens once every four years and is our statement to the world that we can move forward without a coup, without a revolution, without mob rule, in an orderly and democratic process.  I am proud (and lucky) to live in such a country.  In the days leading up to this event we had been told that second inaugural speeches were a disappointment and I wasn't disappointed at all. I thought it was a great speech.  I did flip back and forth between CNN and FOX news to see what the differing opinion might be. I am amazed at how quickly it got classified as a
"Liberal Agenda" and now I don't even know what that means?
   Obama's speech was inclusive, reaching out to every color, to every creed, every persuasion, each and all of us.  That is liberal?  It is only fair. He reached out to women, wanting equality of education, wages and importance.  That is liberal?  It is only fair.  A society will be judged by how it treats its elders and infirm, its children and the weakest among them.  He talked of preserving Social Security and Medicare, Public Education and a belief in the future and the responsibility that entails.  That is a liberal agenda?  What is the alternative?
   He talked briefly about "gun control" a hot bed issue for sure but he is not the first President to be against assault rifles and 100 round clips.  President Bush was also against these.  If there was ever an issue that should cross both sides of the isle this would be it.  Almost thirteen thousand Americans die each year from guns.  When will we talk about this?
   "We, The People"...I think he said this several times and I am hoping it will cause us to consider what it mean to be a "citizen."  Is it a verb or an adjective?  Is it a process or a birth right?  Is it active or passive? and what does it require of us?
   Congress is broken.  The Republicans spent the last four years attempting to make Obama a "one term President."  They couldn't even pass a farm bill or school lunch program because it might make Obama "look good"!  They lost miserably.  In shock and totally defeated they are now trying to reinvent themselves and I wish them success.  I believe in the two party system and I hope they return to their better days when they were less hateful and more optimistic, had a better, kinder belief in America.  They can't do this through retreat.  It was embarrassing that former President George Bush and even Mitt Romney was not there.  I think that was an inauguration "first" and it is a bad omen.
We can go forward together, each side contributing in this discussion and let every issue be on the table for full disclosure or it can be done with omission allowing groups, women, children, elderly, poor, infirm, Red, Brown, Black, Gay and others by the wayside.  We have all of these people in America and more.  Every Religion, every Race, every belief, we are truly a "melting pot" and that has always been our greatest strength.  If that is "Liberal" then I guess I am too.
   I look for Obama to take his cause on the road.  He will be touring the country to express his ideas
and gain more ideas and the way into the future with us, the Citizens.  We live in interesting times and we can be a part of it.  Or not.

The Elections will Decide

I listened to our President's speech and wonder what will happen now?  It occurred to me that many people might not realize the urgency of these issues.  After all, some of us are still working, or in my case, happily collecting a Social Security check after years of paying into the system.  If you have a job there is no recession.  You can go about your life, drink your lattes and when you feel so inclined, even buy something.
It is a great time to buy, housing prices are at an all time low and there are great deals to be made on autos.
60% of us can still live "The American Dream".
   The problem with this thinking is it used to be 95%.  5% unemployment has always been considered normal and desirable in our economic world.  Our system worked well when we only had to contribute to these bottom 5% unemployed and those who needed our help.
   The scale is now out of balance, what used to be 5% is close to 40% now.  20% unemployed or not even hunting for work and another 20%, the new working poor, those scrapping by and getting a little deeper in debt each month.
   Not much was even said about National Health Insurance, that is the gorilla no one wants to talk about.  Millions more of us are going without insurance ever month and I would hate to count the people who are under-insured, those who think they have insurance but don't.  Lots of insurance policies pay 80% and it is so easy to get a $200,000 medical bill these days, leaving you with $40,000 to pay out of your pocket.
   There is an urgency but in our sheltered lives these are just statistics, numbers that do not apply to us.
   In listening to our President's speech I realized that we have forgotten our sense of unity.  Maybe we only get this when we are attacked?  Like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor?  Something to drive us out of our place of
complacency?  Something to create that feeling of us out of our isolation?
   There are practical reasons to worry about these numbers.  They are changing fast and we can soon find ourselves on the wrong side of the scale.  My God, we have become them!  Next Friday could become our pink slip.  And then there are other reasons.
   We are Americans and "United we stand."  The  divisiveness of our political parties is not working.  I think there are personal agendas, corporate protections, and a reverence for the wealthy taking precedence, clouding the issues, dividing us and making us weaker.
   I am not sure whether we can wait fourteen more months until there is another election.  Our situation is getting worse faster than we care to think.  Soon enough we won't have the luxury of considering what is fair
and just and equal, we will need to deal with what works to save this sinking ship.  That will be ugly indeed.
   Somehow history will show that we did something wrong.  One problem with Democracy is that we are allowed to vote with our emotions, gut feelings without considering the consequences.  Maybe there should be some kind of test for our elected officials?  At least a civics exam and maybe the current price of a loaf of bread?  Sometimes I think they are from a different planet.
   Fourteen months will be a long time for something that could be decided now.  It is difficult to get on with the business of living when the future is so undecided.
   That is a contagious attitude.  Even my daughters who are among the 60% employed have developed this attitude.  They won't buy a house until they see what happens.  They won't buy into the "American Dream"
because they see it as a failure.  It is a contagion of defeat.
   No one wants to play the game until they know what the rules are.

When I have a job, this is the website I take people to: HERE

Wait and See What Happens...

...I do it too!  In the old days I was far more of a risk taker.  I ordered way more steel than I needed for a particular job, nice to have the inventory, convenient and I knew I could sell it.  I used to have a "cash flow",
completed jobs awaiting payment, jobs in progress needing to be finished, and jobs "on the books", guaranteed jobs to do down the line.  Those days are gone and I don't know whether they will ever return?
   I have become a part of the problem.  I am far more conservative now with the little money I have, careful where I might spend it, knowing more will be hard to come by.  This is rapidly becoming the new American standard and it is hurting our economy.
   Business has developed this same attitude, hanging on to their money, creating less production, hireing less, making less, laying off workers.  It is not the burden of being in business, it is not the taxes or insurance, none of those expences.  There are no customers.
   Cheaper doesn't seem to work.  Walmart has lost customers too.  It used to be that a business could create something better, invent something new or make it less expensive and they would succeed.  That doesn't work anymore.  You just can't create a job for a product that no one wants or can't afford.
Different businesses have tried everything.  "Free" this and free that with a purchase, time plans.  Heck, I have even seen beds you can buy over a four year payment plan!
   The working poor have become the new poverty statistics!  That is 25% of us!  Add to that the 14 Million people who aren't working at all and you have a recipe for disaster.
  It is funny when I hear different politicians come up with a solution for this.  You can't get blood out of a turnip.  You can't tax the poor any more.  No one played Monopoly as a kid?  It doesn't get better by reducing the flow of money.  We are waiting "to pass Go" and collect our $200!  Just something so we can keep playing!
   There are lots of ways to save money, to reduce our National Debt if that is really the issue.  Quit being the world's policeman would help or send someone a bill for the services.
   I liked playing "Monopoly" as a kid, liked the element of chance and got pretty good at it as I came to know the rules.  It was an American game and I liked that too.  If you worked hard and made good investments, knew the rules and played fair you might even win.  Always a chance.  Opportuntiy.  And risk, you never wanted to lose what you acquired.  Sometimes that would make very conservative players out of the most obnoxious kids.
   It was just a game invented from the last great depression, another time of grief and failure.  The "American
Dream" the game was based on is dissappearing.  Good jobs and home ownership is rapidly dwindling, the things that give us reason to be conservative.
   It was always the loser that tipped the board over in his own disgust.  Having lost everything, there was nothing left to lose.
   That is what makes riots in the street.  Nothing left to lose.

You can always find me HERE

Customers Wanted, Apply Within

   I saw this sign on a marquis of a local business and that tells the whole story, doesn't it?
The factory where I get my metal pieces powder coated only works three days a week.  They used to paint five days a week, three shifts, around the clock, all the time.
   No amount of government incentives could induce them to hire more people without additional sales.  Unless they needed a fifth person for a hand of Bridge!  They are working pretty slow as it is.  You could set up a program where they paid zero taxes and it wouldn't help at all.  They need customers.
   If powder coating of steel is down then so are steel sales, and so are the truck drivers who deliver the steel.  So are the sales of computers which keep tract of all this and the bookkeepers who keep track of them.  It is the wing flap of the butterfly felt everywhere!
   I can't imagine anybody in their right mind wanting to be President!  I mean, really, could you solve this problem?  It is not just us; it is the same everywhere, all over the world!  Germany might be the strongest in the Eurozone but there is a good chance the problems in Greece, Ireland, Spain and other's might bring them down.  Those countries have tried the austerity measures for over two years and their situation is just getting worse!  Can we look to another country to see what they are doing, maybe see what works and what doesn't, one step in the right direction to get out of this mess?
   Steps it is going to be too.  It will not be a fast process.  We are in this mess for the long haul, maybe deeper before we start to see some light.  When I was a lad unemployment payments were for 20 weeks and then you were expected to find a job.  Now it is 99 weeks!  That is almost two damn whole years!!!
You could get a degree from a Junior College in that amount of time!
   Hey, that is not a bad idea off the top of my head!  How about making that a requirement for unemployment!  You can collect unemployment for two years AND we'll pick up the tuition, but you got to go to school!  It would take a few million people out of the unemployment cycle, give some work to the bus drivers, the school staff and lots of others down the line.
   It is not easy to create work, oh lots needs to be done but someone has to pay for it.  More important someone has to want it done.  We need customers.  We need customers who pay!
   Have you thought what happens if we get rid of Medicare?  What would happen if there were no "Obamacare"?  We have a brand new hospital in our town and they just published their annual report.
Big article in the newspaper this morning.  25% of their customers do not pay!  Up from 18% and an up and onward trend!  Cool, huh?  The working poor without insurance, the down and outers, those that have nothing.  That is an ever increasing circle and it wants to envelope us.  Hospitals go out of business every day, just like any other business they cannot work for nothing for any length of time.  Medicare and other government programs pay about a third and private insurances pay the other third.  What happens if we take the government third out of this equation?  Quite simply they would shut their doors.
   Dollars and programs for the under insured provide jobs and keep the hospitals open for all of us.  That is pretty simple math too.  If you want to bring down the cost of medicine, create more doctors and nurses and all the people who help us when we so need their help.
   Hey, this is easy!  If I were President I could create more jobs by extending Obamacare!  I might offer "free" tuition to medical schools and nurses training programs?
   "Free" is in quotes because nothing is really free.  Maybe some kind of internship, some kind of return for my investment?  There are ideas here that could be explored.
   It is a tough job to be President.  I wouldn't want that job.  There are things I wouldn't do though.  I think they should have to take the Hippocratic Oath, like doctors used to do, (they don't do it any more!).
   "First do no harm"!  We may not know exactly the right answers, know the consequences of what seems like a simple solution, but we do know when harm is done.  Everyone knows that.
   In the name of progress and recovery we are abandoning our pollution standards, allowing more dirty air into what God has given us to breathe.  Really, we did this and it is crazy.  A cave in to Republicans and prosperity at any costs.
   I would not drill willy nilly, here and there, in my backyard or the beach I love.  The Gulf Oil spill taught me a lesson and it was there for all to learn.  It can be dangerous and deadly, black gold that blinds us.  Do you ever wonder what happens at night when the lights are off?  Power still surges, going its way along the wires.
The first person to develop a battery and incentive for this night time energy will be very rich indeed.
   There is an idea!  I might offer a reward?  Save me a billion bucks and I will give you a million!  Why not, we need it?
   Oh, I might come up with a few more ways to create a job or two, but I wouldn't want to be President, 
no siree bob, not me.
   But what would YOU do?  We have until Thursday when the President will give his speech, and then it won't be about jobs at all but bickering and infighting, name calling and endless drilling.
   Seriously, if you had to create just five jobs and figure out a way to fund them, what would you do?
If you could solve that problem, maybe you could be President of the United States!