Facing our National Economic Crisis

First of all I don't care what Hillary Clinton says tomorrow; she has lost all moral right to even be considered for the vice presidential slot on the ticket. If she gets on it will only add fuel to the fire of people like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh who already consider Berock Obama a conservatives worst nightmare. What Obama needs is a move tword stability. Dianne Feinstein would be a better choice, if he wants a woman. I would like Bill Richardson or Dennis Kassinitch myself, but Joe Biden wouldn't be bad. Traditionally the Vice Presidential position is given to a real nobody who has no political future on his own, and no ego. Hillary is simply "over-qualified" for the job and would in every way be incompatable. I also don't like this media bullshitting calling it a "secret meeting" when it's obviously the most hyped meeting in history. In pragmatic terms, I wouldn't want to encourage any potential assassin by putting you know who on the ticket. If there were even a chance of some PMS whacko out there, I wouldn't take it.

But my other question is what the hell Obama is going to stand for. Randi Rhodes points out he hasn't taken any lobbyest money. This is admerable. He's ahead of his time setting high standards hoping that others will follow by example. But people like Sean Hannity say that Obama has no substance. What does he intend to do about the federal budget deficet? What IS the deficet now? Has it topped five hundred billion yet? Just wait! He needs to get over this Santa Clause mentality of offering voters everything from pre school to universal health care if they vote for him. We can't afford any of that. What will he do about the Social Security crisis? What is his remedy for the trade deficet? What does he intend to do to solve our poliferation of guns in the inner city? How does he feel about prison overcrowding? Is prison the best way to handle our drug addiction problem? Is the rest of the nation really as pro homosexual marriage as we seem to be in California? Will Obama be asked about this in the debates? How does Obama feel about prosecuting members of the Bush Adminestration for war crimes and other "high crimes and misdomeanors"? Has he toyed with the idea of a windfall oil profits tax? How does me feel about control of the comunacations media limited to only a handfull of people and conservatives at that? How does he feel about Bible clubs on school campuses? Does Obama intend to nominate judges that wipe out the religious expressions of Christians?

. I listened to Randy Rhodes at noon till she referenced Sean Hannity. You know, many of the things Hannity asserts I can agree with. We don’t need socialized medicine. And the single payer system where the government writes the check but you control the doctor sounds great, but we as a nation can’t afford it. We can’t afford pre kindergarten to Senior in College either. There are times when a young person grows up they have to take responsibility for their own actions, and I am all for that. On the soap opera, John Black took to attacking Lucas, which seemed uncalled for. Max flaked out on the celebration of the Pub going all green. That “certification” only seemed to take a few days from when the idea was first proposed. Max says that guy helping Nick is a total fraud, and I guess he has evidence. John paid a guy big bucks to get some information on Philip’s activities. [last sentence is deleted]

Oil price per barrel prices have risen to $138.05 per barrel. This is a record. Gasoline prices now average $1.35 a gallon, but that’s going up. They say unemployment hasn’t spiked a half percentage like that in twenty years. 5.5% used to be considered recession territory. How can George Bush possibly say he’s doing a good job and have John Mc Cain follow faithfully in his footsteps? Hannity may call Obama a radical but we need some sort of radical solution to the energy crisis now. I don’t get why all the things people said would “kick in” once the price got higher, haven’t seemed to materialize yet. I suppose some are still saying “Well the 1974 prices would be six dollars a gallon in today’s prices”. I’ve heard that. Airlines are cutting back service and cutting back routs and reducing the number of passengers they carry any way they can. The day may be fast approaching when air traffic as we’ve known it for forty or fifty years may be a thing of the past. Personally, I think a good bullet train surface line system is the way to go for a lot of routs. There are the Canadian “oil sands” in Alberta. What became of that? What about ecological coal mining in Montana? What about drilling at ANWAR? What about off shore drilling step ups in production off the gulf and in California? Are we building new refineries? Why is it people say that Hybred cars aren’t that great? Are we serious about instituting a 35 mph car engine in the foreseeable future? Ethanol production isn’t worth the energy to produce it. It seems as if all these other means such as solar and wind power are just shots in the dark and after forty years or so amount to nothing. I don’t have the answer but our government doesn’t seem inclined to do anything about anything. They have this thing in the news about how holding a garage sale is a good way to earn money. The only thing you have accomplished is to accidently sell something that might be worth a lot of money. In case you don’t know, recessions are times to buy and not to sell. Even if you should make a thousand dollars, that won’t cover one month’s mortgage payment. If people are so convinced energy companies are raking in all these obscene profits, why not buy stock in them? You know a recession follows an inflation spurt; it doesn’t precede it. Whatever problems we’re having now with inflation we’re going to pay for in recession statistics later on. And with the coming recession, which is only now just hitting most people, comes a ballooning of the federal deficit. And these democrats have these pipe dreams about expanding free education and universal health care. This is not the time for such wild eyed ideas. We have far more immediate concerns to worry about. The stock market Down Jones Industrial index dropped 340 points today or something. It’s up one day and down the next, as the insiders get rich. You know – the housing situation really isn’t a problem unless you bought a house five or six years ago. If you bought it any other time you have nothing to worry about. The liberals at times do use the fear card. Because “Everybody” isn’t losing their home, only a small percentage are. These people should chalk it up to a learning experience. Liberals speak of “cuts” like in education, when what they mean is a slight reduction in the whopping level of increase these unionists wanted. I don’t know why Swartzenegger is declaring a monetary crisis because I thought the reason why he was put in office was to solve all that. I’m also puzzled by the water crisis considering that we got a normal amount of rain this year but we didn’t last year, and last year there was no crisis. It’s a politician’s job to sort out the problems that are real and those problems that not only can, but should be ignored and allowed to work themselves out. Now they are telling people to rip out the greenery in their yards and put in sage brush and cactus or something a little more “ecologically friendly”, when the Fire Department at other times will tell you to clear brush a hundred feet from your house. Just between you and me if I never saw another fire story or another shooting story or auto chase story this year, it would be too soon.

I have often discussed that we revamp our money system for a five to one dollar consolidation. Just what would our minimum wage be? About $1.85. That’s about what it was in 1968. Let’s see how other prices stack up by 1968 standards. A can of Coke would run twelve to fifteen cents. Movies would be about two dollars. A record album would run you about $3.50. So far so good. But there would be certain “anomalies” that would take some getting used to. For instance back then you would never be charged ten dollars just to set foot inside an amusement park. A “decent” full sized car would run you eight thousand dollars and up. That’s high. Apartment rentals for any decent apartment would run you $250.00 a month. Definitely high. Gasoline would run you about ninety cents per gallon. Way high. Almost any medication? Don’t even ask. And no way back then would you plop down seventy cents for a cup of coffee.

I can’t for the life of me fathom why they don’t put more forward looking stories in the news. For instance, has anybody thought of a way or reorganizing the UN to make it more functional in today’s world? What about these non lethal weapons they could use in riots in stuff like that “ray gun” thing on Sixty Minutes or other forms and stuff? Is the “death lobby” really that strong? What about that Phoenix Mars craft? We know that it is safely on Mars but we don’t know what new discoveries have been made in the past week. When was the last time they had an ethics debate in the news about the quandary of over-population, which is much more of a crisis now than it was forty years ago when the topic was fashionable to discuss? Has anyone even sat down and thought hard about the real economic consequences are of five dollar a gallon gasoline? Like global warming, the consequences of high gas prices have a compounding effect, and each result is in turn a cause for far reaching and even unanticipated ramifications.