Another hole in the wall

The show must go on and we are still running through the slop. While it is not as bad as it was a while ago it is still no picnic.

It looks like tomorrow I will be back in business more or less permanantly.

I wonder how old Newt is doing since his victory in South Carolina?

I am somewhat surprised he did so well in SC considering it is a fairly religious state and his ex ran her mouth a couple of days before the polls opened. There was also a breakdown and an awful lot of South Carolinian women voted for him. My guess is the womenfolk figured that Newt's ex was trying to torpedo him as a punishment for whatever it is that exes punish each other for.

While I have an ex somewhere I see no need to punish her for anything. She is doing well and I wish her well just as I wish a almost all of other people that I have had various relationships with over the years.

I am no political analyst by any means and while I have made it clear here that I think the Obama administration had been a spectacular failure, that is pretty obvious to most people.

The answer to unemployment is to create an atmosphere for growth and not just simply extend unemployment benefits.

One of the things I can say for the Occupy Wall Street crowd is that they want the companies to start creating jobs here. The answer I seem to have for them is to vote in candidates that will create a better atmosphere for businesses to grow here.

I recall one small market that had a couple of part-time employees, most of whom were married women that got their health benefits through their husbands place of employment.I believe there was also a retiree, too. I spoke with the owner once and he said that if he was forced to supply health insursnce he would simply close shop. While I do not know what happened the market is no longer there.

Little Mom and Pop places like that generally live on a very small margin and while they do not provide enough work for a full-time employee to live on, they serve a purpose of supplying supplemental income.

Treating them like they are General Motors simply knocks them out of existince and means families are likely to go without things unless one partner had a damned good job.

Generally congress doesn't think when they legislate. They are not in touch with the people struggling to raise families in this day and age. In an awful lot of instances the day of the June Cleaver staying at home to raise Wally and the Beav are long gone. It often takes two paychecks today to raise a couple of kids.

You have to remember that there are a lot of companies that have outsourced not because they want to but because they were forced to for a number of different reasons. Many of these reasons were forced on them through misguided legislation.

I think that the American people have to change their attitude, too and realize that the gravy train is over and that a lot of things like 20 and out pensions are unsustainable. They also, in a lot of cases have to realize that they have to produce something so their companies can make a profit.

The unions also have to stop being so greedy, too.

I heard a guy that worked in a trade once say that the guy packing a lunch pail deserves a decent place to live, a new vehicle every so often and enough to raise a couple of kids and be able to put aside enough to get their kids some sort of a halfway decent education.

He may have been right.

While it was some time ago the steel industry in this nation, centered around Pittsburgh, collapsed. The final nail in the coffin seemed to be when the guys went on strike and management decided to outsource.

It sounds to me like the steelworkers got a little greedy. At tha time there were an awful lot of them that were doing well enough to be able to afford deer camps (read: vacation homes) and things of that nature for performing a job that didn't even require finishing high school. It was pretty hard for someone to be sympathetic for them.

Sometimes I think we are all asking for too much out of life.

Still, congress has to smarten up and think before the enact something.

As much as I liked Ronald Reagan I have to admit that he make a mistake when he tried to impose a luxury tax on boats. They passed the tax and the price of boats went up. People stopped buying new boats and the price of used vessels went through the roof. Meanwhile a number of fine boat builders went under. Cape Dory and Bristol are a pair that come to mind. Both of them went under and my guess is the tax killed them.

Although the tax was eventually repealed, it was too late for the people that went under and a number of excellent craftsmen wound up in the bread line. The end result was that people wound up on unemployment and the government wound up paying out more than they gained.

While it is a slam dunk no brainer that if government doesn't enforce at least some enviornmental laws that some greedy bastards will have us all living in the Love Canal or a sewer of some kind somewhere or have our rivers catch fire. There has to be a happy medium.

The people also have to open their eyes and raise cain, too. I wonder how much cleaner the air is with the so-called winter gasolines we use. I notice the gas milage in my 4 cylinder Toyota drop quite a bit in the winter. In the summer I get about 30 on the Interstate if I keep my foot out of the carburator. It drops to about 25 or maybe 26 in the winter.

How much cleaner is the winter gas going to make the air if I have to burn 15% more of it to go the same distance? It also means my gasoline bill goes up every winter by 15%, too.

Someone I know is bragging about their hybrid and while I am sure that it certainly burns less gasoline, the technology of today seem to require rare metals and I wonder how much damage the mining does to the earth. I don't know, but I wonder if it was taken into consideration. I would guess it wasn't.

(Incidentally, the guy with the hybrid is bragging about the incredible gas milage he gets and will do so until Neighbor Bob and I get tired of secretly dumping a gallon of gas here and there into his tank regularly. Watch him freak out when we stop and his milage drops to what it is supposed to be.)

It is starting to get lumpy again so I think I ought to secure the laptop.

Adios for now, Boys and Girls.



my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/