I woke up this morning to the most magnificent April day. The sun shined bright and so many things were in full bloom—from mountain laurel to azaleas. In my front yard, there is a pink dogwood alongside a white dogwood in full bloom…a remarkable sight.
Then I turned on the television news and heard the reporter saying that there’s a food shortage. Sam’s Club has started rationing, beginning with the limitation of the number of bags of rice per buyer.
Then I turned on my computer and started reading a few news articles. The first spoke of the decline of the U.S. dollar, saying it will most likely continue falling. And that the Euro will most likely continue rising, already $1.60 to the American dollar.
Just a few days ago, I wrote an article about our current state of economic affairs along with the rising cost of food at the grocery store.
I’d like to pick up a newspaper with a headline that reads “Government Shrinks, Individual Freedom Returns to its Citizens.”
I’d like to return to a time similar to how it was a few years back. Conversely, I’d like to still have all the superior, expedient things we enjoy today that we didn’t have available to us back then, like computers, television, portable phones, dishwashers, electric washers and dryers, DVDs, among a lot of other things. The convenience we enjoy today is due to the creativity of the people and the capitalistic free enterprise markets. Political government does not invent these things. People living in a free society do.
I’d like to return to a time when we did not have the thousands of governmental agencies and departments—federal, state, county and city.
I’d like to return to the time when one could drive without so much interference from the Department of Motor Vehicles, and to a time when children could attend school in a safe environment and be educated, instead of indoctrinated.
I’d like to return to the time when income taxes didn’t have to be filed. However, since that was before my time, passed in 1913, I can dream about it.
I’d like to return to the time when we could walk the city streets, or in the country, or in a park, without fear of being attacked by thugs and criminals, who now a day rob and kill for pocket change.
I’d like to return to the time when we could trust our neighbors and society as a whole. I recall growing up in the country where we never locked our doors, when windows were left open for the breeze to flow through (hence no cost for air conditioning at night).
“All the world is wrong but me and thee, and sometimes I have my doubts about thee.”
With all that’s going on in the world and this country in particular, listening to the daily news is a situation that plays up and down with our emotions like a mountain fiddle player. It’s the war, the economy, politics, the crime rate, adverse weather, shenanigans in Hollywood, and as my grandmother used to say…enough to make a preacher cuss, and some do.
If it were not for the tragedy of conditions, it would be downright amusing. Thank goodness for the comedy of the nighttime talk show host which provides a little relief.
Talk about the economy is running neck and neck with talk about the war and the political race. So I want to stick in my two cents of opinion about the economy. The one thing we all have is an opinion.
The economy deals with money and the production and exchange of goods and services. Money is simply a medium of exchange. At one time in our history, we had gold, which has intrinsic value, and backed paper money. Then the government removed that backing and now has a grist mill of turning out paper dollars, referred to as fiat money.
The news is filled with stories about our medium of exchange, the dollar and politicians. The value of the dollar is sinking like the Titanic. Every day, the media speaks of the trillions being spent and the staggering, mounting debt of the government and American society as a whole.
Congress is talking about it like putting a band-aid on a hemorrhaging problem. They talk about bail-out solutions as if the government has plenty of cash savings to rescue all those in the market place who have spent like a drunken sailor on shore leave. While the wrecking ball is swinging, Congress speaks of billions in refunds, stimulus packages and tax breaks.
I’m no economist, and have trouble comprehending the language of Wall Street, pundits, Congress and the President, but understand enough to know we are in a heap of trouble. And trying to stick a finger in a broken dam. I do think the average person like myself should be thinking ‘hard money.’
