Forgetfulness and Steel – History Repeats Itself

“Forget history and you guarantee it will happen again” … I hated my high school history teacher because he made a vow to fail us all (not a challenge, mind you, an actual vow) … but the above was his favorite quote, and it’s the one critical piece of life that I learned from him.  Unfortunately our country and our government is proving that taking on this attitude about history is really one of the keys to sustainability and survival.

The situation that lead to the current financial crater that is wall street can be blamed on ignoring the “forget history and you will guarantee it will happen again” advice.  Our current situation is eerily similar to one not too long ago … the plight of the steelworker.  You had two groups, both hard working, strong, and carrying large egos.  Neither would give in, neither would compromise … both had a fight until the end attitude.  Some say that represents honor. Some say that represents stupidity.

The end result was many losing homes, life long possessions, families, and what defined them as a human …. the steel industry. A few mentioned over the years that it wasn’t that compromise would not happen that made the steel industry fade away as we know it, but how long it took to get to a point where compromise could or would happen. By the time it progressed to the point of possible compromise, other countries took advantage of the opportunity to wedge into the steel industry, and quickly separated the bulk of the US steel mills from it.

It’s not that our financial situation as a country cannot be fixed, it’s that the egos of the politicians took so long to get to any kind of initial compromise that sever damage was done, leading way to loss of everything for those just hanging on, and loss of part of what defines us as a country.  So the question is, are our politicians going to wait long enough that our country going into sheriff’s sale and gets divvied up by the other entities of the world … or will they actually defend us, instead of their egos, and restore America where the dream of raising a family is possible?

Few people realize, much of wall street is now owned by outside investors, so defending American is really not in it’s top interested …….. making the bottom line, or at least cutting losses for it’s foreign investors is.  Main Street is no longer in a position to be helped by Wall Street, because we have some of the same interests … the only protection we can gain at the wall street level is from our politicians having enough pride in their country to protect it’s residents … but it seems that if they win and are rewarded with the right to say “I was right!” it’s OK if the American Dream is reduced to finding a better dumpster to dive into for dinner tonight.

“Forget history and you guarantee it will happen again” ….

Translation: “Stupid is what stupid is”

-SWB

The Economy May Be Worse Than We Thought

Chains Of Government

No …. really???

Everyone is saying Obama now realizes the economy may be worse than thought and may take longer to recover. Now, I know this man is fairly smart – so I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and figure he is bracing everyone for the time it would take to recover the economy in the first place and let everyone know the God-send that the press made him is not going to make the economy recover any faster.

And, Of course the Dems are making a few trade-offs to get the package moving before the economy crashes beyond the point of no return. And, of course, the Republicans are trying to discredit Obama and the Dems (you get cranky when you lose power).

Who knows, the Dems may fail, making Obama look really bad and discredit the Dems themselves, but then again things may work and the Republicans may lose power for more than four years. The funny thing is that when the Republicans were in power they fully supported (maybe not the way Bush wanted to do it because they were distancing themselves from him) dumping the same amount of money into the economy to help recover it.

Welcome to the real world of politics folks – the systems of “checks and balances” went south a long time ago. I fully envision Lincoln growing hair in his grave just so he can pull it out again in frustration with our current government.

– Just my opinion ….. everyone has their’s.

P.S. The ‘tunnel of doom’ subway that the Port Authority Of Pittsburgh is drilling may just be saved by the recovery package …. YAAAAAAAAAY!!!!! <—- Try to note the extreme lacing of sarcasm in this last statement.