Loose Laces

9:45 am. Chris is very sick and we are extremely worried. Her blood pressure has fallen too low, she is in considerable pain, and nauseous. One of her kidneys is extremely swollen and she has infection. I'll say more when I know more.

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The economy is taking a definite downturn. I realize that these things are cyclical, but this one is being pushed by a debt load that has been encouraged by the Cheney administration for the past six and one-half years. People more and more are delinquent on major obligations, such as home mortgages and car payments. What's left of the economy is being bled into major corporations with foreign interests, particularly the mid-east oil Theocracies, Thiefdoms, and Kingdoms.

At one time, home ownership was reachable for most working Americans. The high interest rates that plagued us during the Ford and Carter administrations started us on a slide that has yet to stop. Regan's "trickle down" economy—which his own vice-president, George H. Bush, had previously called "voo-doo" economics—nailed the lid on the proverbial coffin. Just affording a mobile-home was impossible to the lowest paid workers. Another thing that came from the Regan years is the two-worker household. My mom never had to work until the mid-eighties, and neither did my wife. Children were abandoned for hours each day while moms and pops tried to keep them a home.

Things actually got better during the early Clinton years. Carolyn and I were able to sell our mobile home and buy a small house. Her business grew, and for a while we considered ourselves successful by American standards. But by the end of the decade, things were again in a downturn cycle. The only thing that kept America going economically into the new decade was the balanced national budget. It is now gone and no realistic hope of it ever being balanced again. With the power of the US government encouraging people to buy on credit, the thin ice is cracking, figuratively and de facto.

I see a major recession within the next four years—probably sooner than later—if some hard—and some not so hard—choices aren't made to curtail it. At best, I think times are going to be tough, especially for poor and lower-middle class Americans. If and when the US pulls out of Iraq, oil prices are going to soar and fingers will be pointed. The time has passed for action to lessen our dependence on petroleum based energy sources, and nothing will be done until a new administration infiltrates DC, and it will mostly talk the talk. As oil lubricates the mechanics of the world economy, money lubricates the greedy inner-workings of our elected government.

I know that economic understanding is out of reach for most of us, and that even the most knowledgeable depend on theory to make predictions. What I've written here is a simplified view of things as I see them. I may be one-hundred percent wrong, but, I have a long and still fairly accurate memory. They used to call it "photographic memory", I think. So I look at my mind's photos of my lifetime, and this is what they have led me to believe. But, every photograph has a negative.

Yes, if you've ever told me anything I thought was important or that I thought that you thought was important, I probably remember some—if not all—of it. I can remember things that happened and words that were said even when I was in a deep state of drunkenness twenty and more years ago. Yeah, it gets crowded in here.

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But if you do not find an intelligent companion, a wise and well-behaved person going the same way as yourself, then go on your way alone, like a king abandoning a conquered kingdom, or like a great elephant in the deep forest. - Buddha