Jobs. This is the issue. It has been the issue for nearly a decade and it will continue to be the issue until we get a class of leadership that is will to fight to bring jobs back to our country!
The problem is the marriage of corruption and comfort. The elite are comfortable with corruption. I face this issue every time I bring this issue up about specific incidences of corruption happening at every level of the government and our society. The response that I receive is, "tell me something new."
OK, I'm going to tell it to you straight. If you make no effort to solve the issues of corruption that we face, then it is game over and our country is a full fledged Banana Republic. Not addressing issues of corruption is like a dog chasing its tail. You ain't gonna get nowhere. We cannot restore the economy without addressing issues of corruption.
I am not naive. I understand that there has always been corruption and there is always going to be corruption. That is not the issue and people use that angle to obfuscate their personal acceptance of corruption. What I am obviously espousing is that when we see corruption, then we should route it out. If you accept corruption, then you are complicit in its exercise. I have shown you who has stolen money through our government. Where are the indictments against the banksters who utilized the financial system to steal trillions of dollars from the public treasury? Where are the indictment against the politicians and bureaucrats that willingly worked with these people to steal the public's money and feather their own nest?
The reason why we don't have jobs is because we have allowed our industry to be exported to the Third World. This has been perpetrated by the criminal Elite Investment class of Hedge Funds that rule World markets including Wall Street and it has only benefited the elite class who are able to invest in these funds. It has not benefited the American public. This is completely unacceptable. Where has the wealth of this nation gone? Our National wealth has been built upon a Ponzi Scheme!!! If we are wealthy, then why is our currency imploding and why have we racked up $14.3 trillion in debt on the Federal level. Folks, you are dumber than I think you are, if you think that is a sign of wealth!!!
I have shown you this. This is what the documentary The One Percent delves into. This is what I have been showing you with the Economic Stories of Relevance news links that I have been putting out each Sunday. The reason we don't have jobs is because of the greed and the corruption that have infested what is supposed to be a Free Market system. Eventually, we will put the perps in prison. We are coming to get you. It is just a matter of time. We want our money back!!!
Why has our nation used our tax dollars to invest in General Motors so that they can invest in China and celebrate Communism? (Washington Times). What has happened to our nation and our people? Why is this not a headline in every newspaper and being questioned by network television reporters? This is the reason the major media has no credibility!!!
Why is our government supporting and underwriting Brazilian Oil exploration? (Wall Street Journal - Obama underwrites offshore drilling). We have lost thousands of oil related jobs due to shutdowns in the Gulf of Mexico. We have a $700 billion annual trade deficit related to oil. Could someone tell the environmentalists that if there is an oilspill created by Petrobras that it will still affect us. We should be making sure that we have companies drilling in the United States and for the United States that represent United States interests (period)!!!
Here in the Hickory area, since the collapse of manufacturing that took place over a decade ago, we have pushed the notion that if people get more educated and/or retrained that everything will be alright. The politicians have been the biggest supporters of this notion. Well, there have been many of us that followed that advice. People have gone out, gone into thousands of dollars of personal debt and learned new skills, boned up on how to use new technology, and earned various certifications and diplomas. We have done our part. Have the politicians done theirs? -- we all know the answer to that!!!
The bottom line is that these various "Free for All" - "Battle Royale" international trade mechanisms have not worked. They have left this nation vulnerable. People are not lazy, which is the notion that many of the Republicans want to push. They just want to earn a decent living and have a purpose to their life. They don't want a ragtag, live day-to-day existence. They want a career. They want to progress in a job that has meaning to where they can enjoy their families without working multiple jobs to make ends meet and never getting to spend time with their loved ones. I don't think people care about retiring. I personally don't ever want to retire, but I want to build and accumulate some modest wealth so that I can go on a vacation, improve the homestead, have a decent form of transportation, have money saved for a rainy day such as an illness, and be able to slow down when I get older like I know is the natural due process of living life.
Our government is not giving us this option. All they do is feather their own nest at our expense. It is time to take back elected officials pensions, since they are intent on destroying ours. It is time to cut their pay, since they are intent on cutting ours. It is time for them to sacrifice, since the blowhards tell us that we need to sacrifice. It is time to take away their comfort, since they are intent on taking away ours. It is time for them to feel the anxieties of the public that they work for. We are not their subjects. They are supposed to be working towards our interests. Where are our jobs?!?!
The mindset of the public should be: if we can't have our jobs back, then neither can you. It is time for some freaking accountability. It is time to end the excuses. It is time for some execution (as in performance for the dimwits who would accuse me of preaching violence). I want to see some action taken to reverse the trends. The trends are deplorable and getting worse.
If you are lost, do you double back or keep going down the path that you are lost on. It is obvious that we are lost and no one knows how to get our freaking jobs back, so maybe one of the pea brains needs to get us back on the road that we were on when we had decent jobs and our economy was progressing. And it is time that our local officials find some courage to support the public's interest or it is time for the public to show courage and kick the parasites out the door, because you are either with us or against us. We want our dignity and We want our jobs back!!!
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Friday, May 20, 2011
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5 comments:
Being the only congressional district in North Carolina without a four-year public university (Lenoir-Rhyne is private) doesn't help. Brain drain.
That is not the reason for brain drain. That has always been a load of crap and everyone knows that. It's just another in a long line of excuses. We have the ability to receive a 4 year degree at the ASU partnership on Hwy 70 and we have the Engineering Center - both places where you can get an education second to none and equivalent to any of the 4 year public Universities. We have the main campus of ASU 45 miles away. We have UNC-Charlotte 55 miles away. UNC-Asheville 77 miles away. UNC-Greensboro 92 miles away.
If we had decent jobs and industry here in our area, like we did in the not to distant past, then we would not have brain drain, because people would come back here or relocate here. Read *Hickory - Time to put the Puzzle together at the top right hand corner of this blog. It lays it all out. Education means nothing without jobs. That has to be the priority. Returning America's Industrial and technological base back to where it was. Anything else is futile.
When the fiber-optic industries were humming in the 1990s, we had more people with PhD's per capita than anywhere in North Carolina. Follow the logic. We had the same Educational capacity then that we do now. What changed?
So someone finally gives you feedback to your blog, and you call the feedback a "load of crap"? Gotcha. I won't waste my time again.
I am sorry if it upset you. I am not here to be politically correct, sorry. The talking point about what you state is factual (Hickory metro not having a 4 year University), but it is a topical talking point. We are not the only metropolitan area in the USA that doesn't have a 4-year public University and I have been over this issue ad nauseam on this blog. That is where my frustration lies and that is the reason why I state that it is a load of crap, because I have laid out the fact that we have plenty of higher educational capacity in the area.
We are going to see a contraction of some of our state's public universities in the not to distant future. Some of the smaller campuses in the UNC system will be consolidated with the community college system. And online education is going to grow significantly as time moves on. The heads of the UNC system will tell you this.
What I stated is a consensus opinion amongst the Powers That Be in this State. There was Zero chance that there would ever be a UNC-Hickory. It was a talking point of the local politicos who are/were ducking and dodging for cover, because they are lost as to what to do. They only built up this unreasonable expectation, because they wanted to appease their buddies who want to build out infrastructure. That was a pipedream.
They local decision makers are scared of making a wrong move. They are scared to be wrong. What we need to do is have effectual leaders in Raleigh who will fight for our State's sovereignty so that we can join other states as a force to re-address the trade issues that have ruined our economy. Then we need to invest in entrepreneurial infrastructure, such as wired broadband and technological investment capital mechanisms that can bring this community into the 21st century.
The number 1 thing we need is creative leadership that can think outside of the box by looking at trends and addressing the issues of the future, so that we can meet the future head on instead of constantly fighting behind the curve.
I'm not convinced that government has a significant role in providing enterpreneurial support. Does that not run counter to the concept of being an enterpreneur? Can wireless broadband help with those sorts of ventures? In a limited context, I suppose. But should government and the people bear the cost for the benefit of business? That seems to be the prevailing argument with tax incentive packages and corporations that propagate job creation. If you've noticed, you always see the salary mean listed, but what is rarely stated is the mean of whose salaries.
I do concur with the analysis concerning brain drain, as it is referred to. But that is not a new development. People have fled this area despite family and familiarity for decades to go elsewhere to make a better living for themselves. Staying here meant scraping by for a lifetime to acquire the trappings of constituted success only to die and leave them as a legacy to be fought over. Is that all inclusive? No, but I think it applies to the majority of people who worked for a wage for someone else. All of the industrial eggs were placed in one basket for decades; furniture and textiles. A few grew wealthy off the many. I've heard people talk about how they dropped out of high school just as soon as they turned 16 in order to get a job, buy a car, and be two years ahead of those who stayed in school. Now that's one hell of a rationale. And today, that educational trend has reversed itself statistically, but with minimal effect. Now you can have an associate's degree a year out of high school given the way education is proliferated, but the result is the same; what positive effect does a high school diploma have for those who attain it? And regardless of education credential, what potential exists here for financial success across a lifetime for the rank and file? So you were either minimally educated and unskilled or semi-skilled labor working for slave wages, or you are educated and have a minimal chance for employment. I know here's where governmental support and thinking outside the box enters, but, government is having a difficult time sustaining itself as it is. You don't want to make things more difficult on the citizens by accumulating venture capital to make major infrastructure upgades.
Having said that, tax breaks on start-ups, why not? They are given for huge corporations, why not the little folks too? If you are able to grow that idea into something viable, then government is going to re-coup that on the back side. A break on inspection and licensing fees for brand new businesses is a good idea as well. Does that adversely affect already established businesses? It can create competition for them and they aren't going to view it as being 'fair' to them. Like you said, you can't please everybody and at least you're doing something. Poor leaders aren't poor because they make poor decisions. They're poor because they make no decisions.
Forget about yourself politicians and take a stand for the benefit of all the people. After all, Mr. Big Corporation didn't elect you in this dichotomy of one person/one vote. And they want something back that is going to benefit them. The people who elected you just want a voice in the arena. That is why they put you in the position you're in. The good of the one or the few never outweighs the good of the many. Ya'll think 'bout it.
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