Loose Laces

The dove perches in the same
place each morning before deciding
which feeder it wants to visit.


The weather has taken a turn for the cooler in East Tennessee. Up until yesterday it had been stifling hot.
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I haven't been off the place to make photos since the last day of August. I did get a few decent ones in the back yard, though. I've had a case of late summer blahs. Carolyn and I didn't get to take any days away from home this year because of fuel prices, and we are both feeling it. Hopefully we can get to Cade's Cove for a couple of days when the leaves turn. I could use a good dose of nostalgic Americana.

Carolyn has to work Saturday in Piney Flats refinishing floors for one of her customers. The weather is supposed to be pretty and mild Sunday, so maybe we can get out and get some photos. If we can afford gasoline.
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I read that the oil companies raised their wholesale prices by about twenty cents when Ike was in the Gulf of Mexico. That means that if you paid more than twenty to twenty-five cents per gallon than what you had been paying, you were being gouged and ripped off by the stations. My local Sunoco went from $3.54/gal to $4.00. Crap like that is partly to blame for the rush on the stations, and not necessarily consumer panic concerning supply. Since Friday, the price has gone to $4.08/gal, and will probably keep increasing. I really don't blame some people for pumping gas and then driving off without paying.
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The economic and financial crises that is eating up investments and tax money could not have been any better for the Democrats. "The economy is basically sound" McCain is showing his complete lack of understanding of how our capitalist market economy works. Well, I don't understand it either, but I'm not running for president. Palin probably knows more about the price of shotgun shells and rifle ammo than she does about any kind of large scale economics.

In 1979, Jimmy Carter put Paul Volcker as head of the Federal Reserve. He is the man that got this country back on the road to being financially sound, but his Reagan appointed successor took credit while at the same time rubber-stamping anything the Bush boys wanted, which sent the economy into the ever deepening spiral we now have. The Republican appointed Fed heads have agreed that the tax rebate of Bush's first term and the economic stimulus payments were things needed to get the economy rolling in the right direction. Neither worked. I will toot my own horn and say "I told you so" concerning the "economic stimulus" payments of earlier this year. Sometimes I am amazed at my own brilliance!

We need another Paul Volcker! Or maybe he will consider coming out of retirement and setting things straight.