Don’t Listen to the Naysayers in Our Midst
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The News & Advance
Published: July 21, 2008
These are tough times for America and its citizens, no doubt about it.
The economy is sputtering and likely is in recession, brought about by the collapse of the housing bubble and the subprime mortgage crisis. People who had bought real estate with the expectation that its value would constantly rise are finding out otherwise, and many of them are winding up in foreclosure. Businesses, trying to cope with less revenue flowing in, are shedding jobs like an itchy dog scratching off pesky fleas. The financial markets are technically in bear-market territory. The federal government (read that as “the U.S. taxpayer”) has moved to shore up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the quasi-private backers of more than half the mortgages in the country. And the Federal Reserve is predicting that the next 18 months will see a higher-than-normal number of banking failures.
Oil, the lifeblood of the modern world, is rising in price through the stratosphere. Gasoline prices are at record levels, not just in the United States, but across the world. Entire economic sectors are struggling to cope with a rapidly changing landscape; as a case in point, check the automakers as they are rushing to retool their offerings for a market of $4 a gallon gasoline.
The nation has troops on the ground, fighting two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, one entered into to take down the regime that harbored the planners of the Sept. 11 attacks and the other (however poorly planned) entered into to bring democracy to a freedom-starved corner of the world.
It’s a scary and unnerving time. And some people out there are loving it.
They’re the people who desperately want to stand out from the crowd, getting attention by claiming the sky is falling, the country is unraveling at the seams, the nation is disintegrating, the world is coming to an end, … .
You get the picture.
And you know the type: always contrarian, never a positive thing to say about anything, always unhappy with every little bit of non-negative news, always gloomy if even of a spot of blue sky is showing. You see them everywhere: the corner convenience market, the neighborhood restaurant, the house next door. And you can’t help but feel sorry for them.
They were around, in one shape or another, in the dark days of 1968, following the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., when the anti-Vietnam War protests rocked the country and when the Ku Klux Klan and its racist supporters tried to lynch black Americans “back into their place.”
The same folks stuck around throughout the 1970s, in the dark days of Watergate, the Arab oil embargo and the “malaise” of the Carter administration.
History — or at least American history — was coming to end, they chortled. One famous book of the early 1980s actually built its premise on what the geopolitical map of North America would look after the fall of the United States.
What sad, demented, troubled souls they are.
When Ronald Reagan entered the White House in 1981, the economy was in a slump and headed even lower. The national mood was sour, to say the least. The cost of living was high, wages were low and people were mad and scared at the same time. America was challenged on every front, domestically and internationally.
Whether or not you agreed with his politics, no one disputes that Reagan’s naturally ebullient mood was what the country needed.
Whoever enters the White House next January — John McCain or Barack Obama — is going to have a Herculean job ahead of him. And the hardest part won’t be fixing the economy, stabilizing and exiting Iraq or winning the war on terror.
It will be elevating the national mood. And it won’t be made easier by the Chicken Littles among us.
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Reader Reactions
Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on July 24, 2008 at 8:27 am
With all due respect for my elders, (oldman66), I think you are a little mixed up. There are some higher educational programs that leave students absolutely NO time for ANY employment. The government understands this and further understands that, with an advanced degree, the student’s earning and TAX PAYING power will far exceed any short term assistance provided. As in, it’s a GREAT investment! I guess they feel that it makes more economic sense to “help” a man learn how to fish than it does to not help him. It’s probably the same thinking that goes into subsidising lunches for poor kids. Cheaper to help feed tham than deal with a lifetime of health problems caused by poor nutrition during the growing years. [you post].."I say if you can’t afford the ticket - you can’t ride.” Well, you are entitled to your own views. For myself, I think the reality of life is a little less simplistic. I am an Atheist, but, unlike so many “conservative” Christians I know, I feel very strongly that it is my moral duty to help people less fortunate than myself. I also believe that people who have enjoyed an over abundance have a moral duty to those who have not. Would you really look a hungry child in the eyes, a child who is hungry because his father took a powder and his mother is a deadbeat and say..."I say if you can’t afford the ticket - you can’t ride.”? I can’t believe anyone could do that and still call themselves human in the only sense of the word that matters. The reality that some people will ALWAYS abuse assistance does not negate the reality that others not only can not survive without it, but will go on in life to pay it back over and over again.
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Posted by ( oldman66 ) on July 24, 2008 at 12:53 am
Mr. Wafflefoot - to each his own. Why should taxpayers feed you or anyone else cheese or anything else for that matter? “People” need to get their priorities in order. i.e., You in pursuing a doctorate degree chose to eat “free” cheese rather than take a job. “I did what every other student I knew did. We dined on government cheese”. Your philosophy being everyone else is doing it.
I surmise that every city, town, and county has in the proximity of 35%+ personnel on a government payroll producing no product only services that some elected official/s have deemed necessary for the betterment of the citizenry.
Only in the Land of the Free can a person feed their family at taxpayer expense while that person is “finding” themself. I eat cheese at my discretion, but when I purchase it. At an inflated price because of government subsidy to the dairy farmer and as of late because energy companies have decided to double the price of fuel required in the manufacture, distribution, and for the customer to journey out to the market. I say if you can’t afford the ticket - you can’t ride.
You and I could continue this banter indefinitely, but I will die believing there is too much government interference in everyone’s life. As bad as that maybe, the levels of government continually waste tax dollars like there is no tomorrow, worry about irrelevant concerns, and major matters continue to “zing” passed their pompoused-assed heads.
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Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on July 23, 2008 at 11:26 am
Sorry (oldman66) I’m just not with you. You ignore all the BUSH deregulation-ing that made this mortgage mess possible. You ignore that BUSH has borrowed, in orders of magnitude, more money from the Chinese and other foreign countries, to pay for a ridiculous war, FAR MORE than the stupid home owners who thought they could make money on a rising housing market. You ignore no bid contracts! BUT!… this is where you and I must part company. [you post].."As for children on food stamps - more abuse of the system.” Well, for one year, my children ate food purchased with food stamps. I was in graduate school in a doctoral program at a time and place in my life where even finding a job was impossible. I did what every other student I knew did. We dined on government cheese. Since that time we all have, NO DOUBT, paid back in taxes the helping hand that our government offered us 100 times over. I would be a hypocrite to deny another child what my children once received when they needed it. I won’t. I didn’t always live here in the land that hates Big Government. But I have seen much in the years I have been here. NEVER have I seen so many eating government cheese, collecting a government check and working (if you want to call it that) at government jobs. In Amherst County 35%+ of the citizens get their income from a government job. Oh, but they ALL hate big government and vote Republican. It’s a joke. When the red states eat less government cheese than the blue states… get back to me. Until then, I must respectfully disagree.
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Posted by ( oldman66 ) on July 23, 2008 at 6:14 am
Mr. Wafflefoot - I stand by my comments. “People” have dug themselves a hole by writing checks their _ _ _ _ _ can’t cash. Per say - buying homes with funding made available by lending institutions where only a signature is required. (Variable mortgage rates - bad news - “People” shoulda read the fine print and did the math). “People” paying off charges on a credit card using another - bad practice.
I have no qualm with a business making a reasonable profit, but twenty something percent being reported by energy companies each quarter is exorbitant. As a business entrepreneur I would hope you don’t gouge your customers in a mannner similar to the energy companies. Should you pollute the atmosphere/environment with your business/product I hope you are civic minded enough to clean up your mess. The owners of the Exxon Valdez fought in the courts for nineteen years trying to avoid their responsibility and recently had their fine reduced significantly. You mention “peak oil” production - isn’t this the optimum goal for a company to sell all you manufacture? There is no freaking shortage; I can buy all I want for $4.oo per gallon. I could care less how much the “rest” of the world pays for energy.
Yes, I have a problem with the “welfare” checks. The system is abused at every turn. Weed out the abusers. As for children on food stamps - more abuse of the system. In large part by the “people” that can’t make their house payment or have “maxed-out” their credit cards. On one hand taxpayers are paying for abortions and on the other feeding in large part someone’s “mistake”. No, I do not support a welfare state.
Lastly, there is no way that President Bush can be held personally accountable for all the blunders you profess he’s made. You’ll have to give the inept elected officials at all levels of government some credit, especially the “do-nothing” Congress. Don’t leave out people like Ken Lay and his stoogies at Enron, Bear Sterns, and all the energy concerns. Now do you know what I’m thinking?
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Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on July 22, 2008 at 9:05 am
(oldman66) If you are 66 I owe you a degree of respect, but, when [you post]..."THESE ARE TOUGH TIMES - caused chiefly by people that want the levels of government to be all things to them and by the business and service sectors trying to make the quick buck.”.. All I can do is scratch my head. What business doesn’t want to make a buck, quick or otherwise? Isn’t that why you go into business? What do you mean by “people that want the levels of government to be all things to them”? I don’t get it. No “people” plunged us into a ridiculous war on borrowed money. No “people” scrapped regulations that provoked the unregulated mortgage nightmare we now all inhabit. No “people” changed our bankruptcy laws making medical bills to tax exempt Hospital Corporations [read:Centra Health] the #1 cause of bankruptcy in America and increasing credit card corporations profits a full 25% OVERNIGHT. No “people” took America from the #1 admired nation in the world to the #1 most despised. No “people” gave “no bid” contracts for practically EVERYTHING to do with this disastrous war to their business cronies. No “people” cut funding to disabled veteran programs and fully intends to place the cost of disability on the backs of the taxpayer funded social programs you so dislike. No “people” offered tax breaks to businesses that purchased SUV’s. No “people” cut government funding to alternative energy research the moment he took office. No “people” told us after 9/11 to “just go shopping”. With all due respect… these are the accomplishments of ONE MAN. I AM a business owner and if I could go off-shore I would be an absolute FOOL not to. In any other industrialized country in the world I wouldn’t be paying for my employees health care! My taxes wouldn’t be paying for this stupid war! My employees would be capable of counting without a calculator! They would actually come to work EXPECTING TO WORK! You go on to post..."I am highly perturbed at elected officials at all levels of government and all the other contributing factors that cause me to pay $4.oo per gallon for gasoline”.. Well, get used to it! The rest of the world pays MUCH more. But then again, they didn’t have leadership that were incapable or unwilling to notice that practically every petroleum geologist in the world stated emphatically that we would reach “peak oil” production right about now and prices would go through the roof. They built public transportation and we discouraged it. For one reason or another you seem to think all our problems can be blamed on some man or woman collecting a welfair check or some child eating on food stamps. Again, with all due respect, what the heck are you thinking?
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Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on July 22, 2008 at 5:12 am
Can’t help but wonder how the writer of this piece must have felt about the “Left Behind” series. .."What sad, demented, troubled souls they are.”..
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Posted by ( oldman66 ) on July 21, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Mr. Wafflefoot - I must agree - you are “right-on”. On this editorial anyway. Perhaps the editor is a “little rich kid” that still lives at home. Think this guy is ridiculous? I remember a guy at this publication - last name Wimmer. He played “left” field for sure.
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Posted by ( Fred ) on July 21, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Cosmo and bigjimm,
I hate to your puncture your balloons but the naysayer Logan had in his crosshair was ... me. To paraphrase Pogo: “We have met the enemy and he is Fred”. Sorry. Next time perhaps?
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Posted by ( oldman66 ) on July 21, 2008 at 5:10 pm
The editorial got some of it correct. THESE ARE TOUGH TIMES - caused chiefly by people that want the levels of government to be all things to them and by the business and service sectors trying to make the quick buck.
I can’t conceive of the fact that everyone is supposed to be a land or home owner. Those that have a job and can make payments on time - yes. Yet banks and lending institutions enticed many that couldn’t afford either to “COME-ON-DOWN”. The federal government in particular, trying to make a level playing field, made homeownership easy. Real estate concerns grossly inflated the cost of homes to buyers. (Whatever the market will stand philosophy).
George H. Bush, a big proponent of NAFTA, and Bill Clinton given credit for getting the Bill passed, allowed jobs to leave this country and locate in the areas of the World that provided cheap labor. Energy concerns have been allowed to gouge consumers at the pumps - end result - price of every commodity has risen and continue to do so. We have heard every reason under the sun as to the reason energy prices have sky-rocketed. What can you expect from a government that “suspects” that tomatoes are making you sick and them says maybe it was another vegetable.
Your editorial uses the words - sad, dememted, troubled souls. Were I allowed I could supply a few more descriptive adjectives to replace those you used. I’ll just say this - yes, I am highly perturbed at elected officials at all levels of government and all the other contributing factors that cause me to pay $4.oo per gallon for gasoline thereby inflating prices of goods and services that I enjoy.
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Posted by ( Cosmo Wafflefoot ) on July 21, 2008 at 3:33 pm
..."It will be elevating the national mood.”.. OH! It’s a mood problem? But, “mood” problems are caused by a chemical imbalance (ask your doctor or watch TV). Here I thought we had “real” problems. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear this news. I only hope people North of here, in Vermont, New Jersey, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota..., who have 1000 gallon oil tanks under their yards get to read this editorial opinion. That way, before Christmas, when the oil truck pulls up and the driver wants $5000 up front, they can just pop a Prozac. Then, when he sez, “See ya in 6 weeks.” they can take a handful more and wish him a Merry Christmas.
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