March Rant -- Recognizing the Economic Tsunami we are in

Does anything that is happening in the world today make sense. We are told that everyone needs to go back to school and learn new skills, but what is being done to re-equip America and re-emerge under this new Workforce Paradigm and how many people will such a paradigm support?

We are told that we are moving towards a Service Economy. What kind of lifestyle will those jobs support. Will these jobs help grow the overall Economy of the United States?

Let's look at support of the Service sector related to the local Retail Economy. I buy very little on the local level. I would like to buy more products from local businesses and I do when I can, but really there isn't much choice on the local retail level.

As far as necessities. I don't buy a whole lot of food, because I eat at least one meal at work, the days that I work. I go out to eat very little, because I have been around restaurants so much that I am disinterested in most of what is offered on the local scene and I can fix more to eat than what is available from these places. Also, I grow my own food as far as vegetables and I only buy meat, cheese, and dairy once a month at Sam's.

As far as discretionary items, I buy most of that stuff off of the internet from online retailers like Amazon.com. Why pay more for it at a local major retailer. It's still going to the same banksters on Wall Street. I'm just cutting out more of the middle men.

I think as we go further down the line that we are going to look to cut out the middle man more and more. The only reason why they were there to start with was because they provided service.

I'll give you an example. My grandparents used to buy their their televisions, electronics, and other household accessories from Caldwell TV. My grandfather had a relationship with them, because he sold them business forms and he became friends with the owner. They would deliver the Console TV, Dishwasher, or whatever and they would install it and make sure that it worked properly. If the TV was broken, then you called up Caldwell and they sent the TV Repairman out to fix it. You built a relationship with the people you bought merchandise from.

Now there is little to no relationship when it comes to any of these purchases and that is what the consumer has come to expect. When you go to a Best Buy or Walmart, you expect that the person who works in the department doesn't know much about what they are selling and you are lucky if they know where the item is located and sometimes you can't even find somebody to help with either or any other issues. If you buy a television or appliance, you process the warranty and if it breaks you get a replacement. If the warranty is out of date, you throw the product away. We have become a disposable society.

I always wonder why at Walmart they have 50 registers and only 5 open. Of course, you can go check yourself out at an automated register.

All of the Nattering Naybobs sit there and tell you that we are becoming a Service Economy. Well, if we are truly becoming a Service economy, then should we not be expecting more service instead of less. Everywhere I go, I'm standing in line or waiting or searching for someone to provide me service. I go to a fastfood restaurant and the tables aren't clean and I have to throw my garbage away and get my own food. How is that a Service Economy. That seems more like a Race to the Bottom / Least Common Denominator Economy.

I don't mean this to be an affront, but it has become very obvious that we have an aging demography in this area. Many days, I walk through work on the way from the kitchen to the bathroom and I look at the dining room and there are very few people who are less than 60 years old out there.

I am a soldier on the front lines of this economy. I feed the people and the people are the marketplace. I know the economy. I witness people ordering split meals, half meals, trying to cut corners on their ordering, and many times not properly tipping the servers who depend on it for their livelihood... And that is a big part of what I have seen related to older citizens that we have in this community's mindset and lifestyle. Austerity is here and you cannot grow an economy through Austerity. Austerity is about survival. Personally, my fingernails are killing me!!!

As I have stated before, we cannot become a service only economy. We must redevelop our Manufacturing Capacity and direct it towards New Technologies related to energy, transportation, and other lifestyle trends.

It is obvious that if we keep heading down this road that we are on, that there won't be much of anything left of our nation. For one, you won't be able to afford anything, because the Corporatocracy is continuing to trim the workforce and its income and individuals are demanding less and less service. That means that people will be lucky to have a job and they are going to be able to afford fewer and fewer retail goods (and services).

I think that if we continue to see the Federal Reserve devalue our currency and the Government help devalue labor by continuing to empower the International Corporatocracy, at the same time the government will be forced to raise taxes on commercial retail activity to service the bloated debt structure, this is creating negative momentum, which is leading to a "Race to the Bottom" scenario, which ultimately leads to nothing.

This imploding economy will force people into a Barter/Trade lifestyle, because you can't trust the currency. First off, you can't trust it because of inflation and second you can't hold onto it, because the government keeps trying to tax it away from you on multiple levels. For sure, the transformational age that we are living in demands that human relations move away from a materialistic and commercial form and towards a truly social, interactive, and functional form if we are to succeed.

People are going to have to interact and help one another out through these difficult times. The most important part of this process is to recognize what is happening and move away from the lies perpetuated by the forces in industry, the media, and government that are attempting to pull the wool over our eyes. In order to succeed against this Economic Tsunami, we must first understand the challenges and then have the courage to face them head on. The sooner we are willing to take action to remedy these consequences; the less the duration of the pain we must endure and the greater our chances of success coming out of this storm that we must admit we are in.

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I know the choice of the word Tsunami might be considered frivolous, because of what happened in Northern Japan yesterday (3/11/2011), but I do find the word most appropriate for the circumstances that we face. My condolences to the people affected by this natural disaster and all that they have lost and must endure over the coming time period. Japan is in my prayers and it is my hope that we can all come together to help that great nation survive and move forward after such a devastating event. May God bless the people of Japan.