I have given my normally sunny disposition the day off today due to inclement weather. Yes, it’s dark outside, and cold and clammy to boot. Perfect weather for some real tablet-smashers, and boy have I got some wild ones for you today. The general theme is that people are lead to believe certain things because they are told to do so, without the benefit of their own thinking. It is a common practice these days, and a reason why I think the United States is in such deep trouble today, both economically and politically. With that:
The war on terror is a smoke screen for the global trade war with China, India, and the EU. Nobody is going to dispute that our country needs to pacify some radical Muslim elements in the Middle East, especially in light of 9-11, but the real war is an economic one … and China is winning hands down. Our country has become a proverbial Dollar General store where everything is marked down to sixty-five cents. Usually such massive flows of capital precede major intercontinental wars.
“Illegal aliens” as an issue has blind-siding people to the idea that the middle class is broke. This is a very popular platform that totally ignores that our society benefits from cheap South American labor. Nobody will doubt that there are costs associated with having such cheap labor at our fingertips, but the larger fact is that the great American middle class is completely broke: we forgot to save and we’re living on credit. No longer able to use our homes as a piggy-bank, we’re even in worse shape. Bye, bye American pie – and you’re all worried about some Mexicans.
Handing out $800 checks will make the economy worse. If we’re broke, giving us Americans a couple hundred is like giving crack to an addict, not to mention that we’re financing this with more international credit mainly borrowed from the Chinese. In the 2001 Recession, it was the so-called “dot-coms” that tanked; this time it is working American families. The universal love-in on Capitol Hill regarding this topic is the silliest political masturbation I have ever witnessed.
Protecting our fisheries has only made it worse. Ah, we knew it! This topic is so important I’m going to do a whole separate blog about it, since it does affect SPI.
The Comprehensive Plan is just a means for wholesale development of the Island. There was a presumption that the Vision Statement and subsequent Comprehensive Plan would limit development on the Island to a dull roar, beautify it, and make everybody happy again. All those assumptions were mistaken from the get-go. Early on, I was skeptical and advised against it, a view expressed by Alderman Fred Mallet and many others. It turns out that Fred was most likely correct, since nothing with any concrete substance is coming out of committee. It is actually some very good work, to the committee’s credit, but do not expect and hard and fast controls on development on this Island or you will be in for a major let-down.
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