Sunday, February 18, 2007

A Little Kool-Aid Would Be Nice

It shouldn't be this easy, but it is.

When they're not mixing the kool-aid themselves, they serve up a batch of someone else's like this cup 'o swill which I will reply to just about point-by-point, I'm italicized:

A little gratitude would be nice
Feb. 18, 2007 12:00 AM

So 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction the country is headed and 69 percent of the country is unhappy with the performance of the President Bush!

So, let me see:


• We have not been attacked since 9/11.

Anthrax.


• Almost 96 percent of us have jobs (unemployment hovers at around 4 percent).

If you've been unemployed long enough they don't bother to count you anymore.


• More than 7 million jobs have been created during the past six years.

Clinton created 22.7 million new payroll jobs.


• Homeownership is at 70 percent.

Are you writing out your mortgage payment check in Chinese yuan yet?!


• Consumer spending is up.

Consumer savings are less than zero.


• The stock market is up.

But your 401(k) isn't.


• Mortgage rates are low.

So is the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar.


• The Gross Domestic Product increased 3.4 percent during 2006.

Real income for most families has been dropping for years.

So why all the discontent?

This president took us into a war that has not gone smoothly. However, this is the same president who guided us after 9/11, cut taxes and began a robust economy.

I suggest instead of complaining we all count our blessing, freedoms and liberties, which are guarded by the Constitution. If we are not careful, this generation will be known as the most "ungrateful generation," a far cry from the "greatest generation!" - Raymond J.H. Beckingham,
Chandler


If you visit Chandler please bring your own bottled beverages. And believe me, future generations will have a great many ways of describing the multitude of faults exhibited by the current ones. Certainly, as they are forced to forego luxeries we ourselves have enjoyed and squandered, so that they can pay off the massive debts we've foisted upon them, "ungrateful" will indeed be on the lips of many.

3 comments:

Eli Blake said...

Today's economy is 'robust' only by comparison with what it has been like for the past few years before that.

The gap between the rich and the poor is approaching Latin American standards (in fact, since Latin American voters have been electing more socialists, the income gap there has been decreasing, so maybe it is even more now in America than it is there.) So yeah, if you are a multi-millionaire, I'm sure you are doing fine. But most of us aren't. I just began moonlighting at a second job this week. We know we will need a new car, but a car now costs about as much as a house used to cost when I was growing up-- and I'm not all that old.

shrimplate said...

When I was about to go into my freshman year at Saratoga Springs High School in upstate New York, our family bought a three-bedrom house with a full basement on a half-acre lot for $24K.

That would get you maybe a nice Toyota 4-door these days.

The screws continue to turn on the middle, working, and professional classes.

Doctors are screwed completely. In a decade they'll be making only as much as English professors at community colleges. Less than owners of Circle-K franchises.

And don't get me going on about the economy.

When the oil runs lower we'll all be much more concerned with our vegetable gardens than our cars.

MEC said...

"Homeownership is at 70 percent."

But not for long. Foreclosures are high and going higher.