It’s been a while since I wrote something and now there’s
something on my mind that needs expression.
It concerns the house of cards that we have built in the world. Not everyone is affected by the structure of
our American economic society but most are and it isn't a comforting picture.
The president and one of the major political parties here are engaged in what can only be described as Brinkmanship. A term coined when it was first recognized as
each of the two parties to a standoff is waiting for the other to give in; each having a
position of enough power to avoid the other from getting everything it wants.
The amount of debt that this country has is not
inordinate for the value of the economy; it is, however, a very large number in
sheer size and to default on the payment of interest on it would signal a crack
in the walls of the economic fortress America
The value of any currency is relative to the confidence that
others have in it. If I wanted to borrow
value from you with money that you think is worthless, you won’t lend it to me. With currency, that confidence is measured
against other currencies and the value of precious metals and other valuable
assets that aren’t depleted with use.
Here we’re referring to gold, silver, diamonds, gems, land, art work, and
collectibles of various sorts.
So by flirting with the confidence in our economy these two
parties are risking the value of our currency and, therefore, the value of the
one-third of our country’s population that is living on a fixed income from
retirement investments. This segment of
the population is sensitive to inflation, which is a danger when the world
loses confidence in the US dollar.
At the same time, the president and his liberal democrats
have upped the ante for participation in the economy. The entry requirements now include health
insurance, a cell-phone (preferably a Smartphone), a personal computer, and a
car, thus making the argument for an ever escalating minimum wage.
Entry level jobs are shrinking and those who have them are
insisting on higher wages because it simply takes that much more to live in our
modern, digital society. The response of
employers is an ever decreasing number of people on the payroll, causing a
decrease in the number employed and an increase in the number of people that
rely on assistance of one kind or another from government food stamps and
Obama phones to dependency on missions and charity.
The appetite for technology is fueled by marketers who make
last year’s model obsolete; having it and using it makes one a pariah among his
more affluent peers. The lure of
technology is cast in front of an ever younger set of consumers so that
children are clamoring for it; and if Jimmy’s mom lets him have one then why
can’t I have one too.
There is no
answer/cure for any of this. As long as
the money supply expands and the liberal attitude of “Why not?” is in vogue, the
train will accelerate; “When we reach White Oak Mountain, You just watch old 97
roll.” And
just like the “Wreck of the Old 97,” we’ll find the government “in the wreckage
with his hand on the throttle, Scalded to death by the steam.”
