So….here’s what’s weighing on my mind tonight.
We’ve been fortunate. We’ve managed the things we’ve earned over the years. I’ve got a little bit of a nest egg in the bank and we’ve invested our money in tangible things….things of inherent value…mostly tools to support our lifestyle. I know a lot of people have made fortunes in the market, but I’ve just never really trusted it…and I have a hard time paying someone who wears $300 shoes to invest money I earned wearing boots. We’re not exceptionally wealthy, but we’re doing well.
I hunt…I fish…I garden. We preserve what we harvest and there’s always an overage. We raise chickens, so there’s always eggs and if necessary, meat. The small pond on the farm was stocked with catfish two years ago, so there’s a pretty consistent viable protein source there….I’ve worked to create a habitat on the land that’s conducive to the survival of wildlife, so if need be, I can take an extra deer, a few rabbit, squirrel or turkey. The wife has spent hours and hours over the years teaching herself how to bake bread, and we’ve got recipes dating back to our great grandparents for baked goods.
We’re not “preppers” by any stretch of the imagination….just Hillbillies. Maybe “Hobby Farmers” or “Homesteaders” if you prefer words with a little less negative connotation. Starvation isn’t even a concern for us. Grocery stores with empty shelves is only a minor inconvenience. The stock market crashing is only newsworthy to us because it affects people we love.
Like I said…we’ve been fortunate. We accomplished all of this with nothing more than average “middle-class” incomes and a lot of hard work around the house. We set goals like everyone else and worked to achieve those goals. We had solid plans and on more than one occasion we were just plain lucky.
At this point in our lives, we have no need for a check from the government to “bail us out” of the failing economy…although we’ll probably most certainly receive one because our tax returns for the last few years shows little taxable income.
I do however understand the need for those checks to the individuals who haven’t been as fortunate. There are a lot of circumstances that are out of people’s control on a daily basis and the mayhem of the last few weeks has simply amplified those circumstances.
What I don’t understand though, is how a multi-million or even billion dollar corporation needs “bailed out”. Why should the American tax-payer be plunged further into a national debt to rescue a corporation who had billions of dollars in cash and assets and either failed to plan for a crisis or simply squandered what they had? We already have bankruptcy laws on the books for occasions like that, don’t we? Would you lend someone a thousand bucks if you knew they were incapable of properly managing their money? Why would we GIVE a corporation millions when they had millions and couldn’t manage it? Just so you’ll have no doubt about my answer to those questions, there used to be a sign that hung on my office door that read “Failure to plan on your part does not equate to an emergency on my part”.
Before you start beating me up, I do realize how many working-class people become unemployed if a large corporation like that goes under. I also realize that there are people who have amassed pretty sizable fortunes who would jump at the opportunity to band together and buy those companies out and run them properly after they’d hired all the previous workers back. There would be a period of struggle and then the jobs would be back…because if there is a need for that corporation and money to be made in that business, someone will step up to fill that void and make that money. That’s kind of the whole purpose of living in a free market economy, isn’t it?
Listen…I was a die-hard Chevrolet guy for more than 30 years. The auto manufacturers’ bailout in 2008 cured me of that. I cussed Ford Trucks for most of my adult life, but Ford stepped in front of Congress and said “No Thanks…we’ve made some cuts to our costs, sold some assets and got ourselves on track…we don’t need our customers to bail us out”. Chevy sent guys to Washington wearing $300 shoes and took every cent they could get and then came back and asked for more…then turned around and moved a lot of their factories and jobs out of the U.S. I haven’t owned a Chevrolet product since. I actually had a ceremonial burning of my Chevy shirts and hats…that’s how pissed off I was about that debacle.
Ladies and Gentlemen, your elected officials are getting ready to do it all over again. They’re going to bail out a bunch of billionaires who couldn’t properly plan for a sharp market fluctuation and disguise it as saving the jobs of the middle class employees who the billionaires pay $20 an hour. While they’re doing that, they’ll only offer small businesses that really need the help nothing more than “low interest” loans.
I’m not going to sit and harp on this all night. I could write page upon page about the crony capitalism that’s being bounced around the nation’s capital tonight by people wearing $300 shoes, but all I’ll really accomplish is working myself into a state of utter disdain that nobody really wants to see.
I just wanted to tell you to keep your eyes open and use your heads. I guarantee you a lot of shady shit is going to go down while they’ve got us all worked up about washing our hands, trying to find toilet paper and keeping a proper social distance from each other. But, please…pay attention. It’s a fact that we often lose sight of, but we have the power to decide where we spend our money and for whom we cast our votes. Let’s start spending our money at the businesses and casting our votes for the people who are working for and looking out for US…not the irresponsible millionaires who would rather see our our money spent to take care of irresponsible billionaires. I’ve just got a case of the ass with people who will pay $300 for a pair of shoes.
Nuff Said.