More economy garbage

From the Roan ...


I love economists! I particularly like the ones that claim to be experts, which includes the majority of them. There is no consensus among them about anything that really matters, yet their individual and collective opinions are used by all major players in money markets world over. Their forecasts and opinions dictate the steps which governments, industries, and corporations will follow for years into the future. The sad fact is that most of the time most of them are wrong. Years ago, several of them predicted the mess we are now in could happen, but few said it would happen. Too many variables, they said. Eliminating variables to get to the hard truth is their job. The concept for throwing all this money into the fray is based on their conclusions, so most variables must have been eliminated. Yeah; right! The one variable they cannot see through the dollar signs is people. Living persons dictate conditions; not money. The habits of people are what controls the economy, and until habits are changed, the economy will remain vulnerable. The United States is still trying to do business the same way it did in 1900, but at a much faster pace. Much has changed since then, but people are pretty much the same now as they were then; fickle. We as a people have chosen to follow a market based economy, yet people's thinking habits haven't changed much even as other nations join us in an accelerated trading market. We all still want our piece of the pie, but we fail to realize the pie was long ago eaten, and new ones are not being baked fast enough. People are what will change things for the good, and people must slow down on the the pie-eating. Corporate America will have to slow down on making and marketing pies when there are more than people can consume. Economists must learn to reconcile the want and need for wealth with the fickleness of people, because that propensity to suddenly change directions is the one thing which people can be counted on to do. Economists will never learn to count money until common sense prevails in their equations and two-plus-two again equals four.
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On February 19, 1986, my dad died. He was 65 years of age.
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On February 20, 1902, Ansel Adams was born. Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Adams for bringing a great visionary and artist onto the world, and rearing him so his mind could reach far beyond the mundane.
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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.

"Meltdown in US finance system"!
I wonder why?!
Just another step in the decline of the United States as a world leader. This is what happens when a do-nothing government winks and allows big business to run loose unchecked. This was a preventable crisis, and there will be much more to come as the real fallout of the failure of Lehman Brothers Holdings spreads into smaller financial markets. Guess whom gets to pay for all this mess? I know; it's an easy answer, because most of you know your own names. Joe and Jane Taxpayer and Mary and Bill Consumer. I think we ought to give the Republicans eight more years of executive privileges, and allow the good old boy Democrats running Congress to continue ignoring the needs of this country.
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News coverage of hurricane Ike was terrible. It isn't that there was not enough of it; there was way too much by far. Did you perchance see CNN's coverage after the storm was past? Did you see reporter/personality Anderson Cooper looking completely dorky wearing hip-waders and standing in water up to his gizmo? He was really putting it all on the line, wasn't he? Not news, folks! Just plain entertainment. He and we would have been better served if he had lashed himself to a palm tree or power pole and rode the storm out in that humbling position. He would have news to report then ... if he lived through it. "News reporters" of his ilk are a dime a dozen!
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The economy hit us another blow today; two jobs Carolyn has had for many years are cutting back by fifty-percent on her service. They are both credit union branches, and their customers are having problems making mortgage and car payments. Another credit union cut her back just last week. A rumor has it that some banks she has are up for sale, and if so, she will stand a good chance of losing them. She has had their accounts for 10 years.

I am going to raise just about every account of hers, some because they are past due being raised, and all will have an increase for motor fuel. Two-and-one-half years ago was her last raise on any of her accounts, and our monthly gasoline bill was about $400. Now, it is nearly $850. She will probably lose some more buildings, but I am trying to convince her to retire completely in September anyway. She still wants to hold on to enough to make about $1,000 per month and still draw full SS.

The type of "Big Business First" economy that all recent Republican Administrations insist on have never helped the middle class or poor in the long run. We gladly swap our future for short-lived tax rebates and high military spending. The spending isn't only costing huge amounts of money, but also American lives to a misbegotten war, not to mention the prestige of a once great and envied nation.

Every two-bit scum-bum cousin to a Sheik in the mid-east owns more prime property in the United States than any middle class tax paying American can ever think of having. Damn it America, wake up!
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The weather looked crappy this morning so I didn't go for waterfall photos. Maybe spring will be here one of these months and I can get out then. Making pics of items on my desk isn't really my cup of tea.
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Well, the Vols are officially #1 in the Associated Press basketball poll, but I fear it will be a short lived reign. They face arch-rival Vanderbilt tomorrow night in Nashville, and the Commodores have one of their better basketball teams.