The Looking Glass

Man, a hundred billion here and a hundred billion there and sooner or later you’re talking about real money. Let’s see, we’re bailing out the biggest banks in the nation and the insurance industry. General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler are hoping to get in on the action. Now Governors from all across the country are bellying up the feeding trough in an attempt to save their own butts before it’s too late and the money’s all gone.
Listen to the Democrats and they’ll tell you it’s all because of the neo-cons, George Bush, and his buddies who control big oil, big coal, and those big, evil corporations. You know, the one’s that provide us with millions of jobs, most of which pay very well and allow us to feed our families and put a roof over their heads. The same jobs that come complete with generous benefit packages including health insurance and retirement benefits. Anyway, if they’d just listened to people like Barney Franks and Nancy Pelosi and put more government regulations in place none of this would have happened. I mean besides, Republicans are nothing but a bunch of hicks anyway and everyone knew they couldn’t handle the job, right?
Listen to the Republicans and they’ll like tell you pretty much the same story only they’ll tell you they’ve been the one’s shouting from the rooftops that more government regulations needed to be put in place and the Democrats were the one’s standing in the way from the get go. If the Democrats had just listened there would be no problems in the world today. Whatever.
Greed and ignorance are what’s done us in. It’s pretty easy to put all the blame on Washington but come on. For the last 20 years or so we’ve all demanded higher wages and better benefits from our employers at the same time we demanded lower prices on everything we purchased.
I remember when I was a kid about the only thing you could get that was marked “made in China” were those little trinkets you paid a dime for in the gumball like machines at the grocery store. I remember thinking how cool it was to have something all the way from China.
Things have changed a little since those days, haven’t they? Today you’d be hard pressed to find anything that’s not made in China, Japan, or Korea. We’re outraged at the working conditions employees are forced to work under and how little they’re paid by some of these foreign companies. But that doesn’t seem to slow us down as we head out to the closest super-store to get the latest gadget they’re offering up, does it? Somehow or another we don’t get the connection between the millions of foreign made cars and trucks on our hi ways and the woes of the American Auto Industry. It’s all their fault, besides they deserve everything they get, right? Maybe they do. It sucks that if they go under they’ll take millions of jobs with them.
What about the millions of people who bought way more house than they could ever afford? Why is it that no one’s holding them accountable. You know, it’s one thing to buy that $250,000 house when you and your spouse combined are making about $50,000 a year. But then you throw in the new car for the wife and since you bought that great big 5th wheel travel trailer you just had to buy a new truck to pull it with. Sure, you got a good deal, only $35,000. There’s no way we’re going to use that old push mower anymore so we head out and buy that new John Deere mower. Yeah, I know our yards are pretty small and the mower is designed to mow up to 10 acres but man, we sure look cool don’t we? And we just had to have that new 60” plasma TV, the thought of watching TV on the old set is out of the question, right?
Then the overtime or the bonuses or whatever we so heavily counted on dried up and it was all we do just to keep our heads above water. We still had to put food on the table and the utilities still had to be paid. And of course there was no way we were going to cut back on eating out. I mean, why should we when we still have eight or nine credit cards to fall back on. Hell I’ll bet you at least three of them aren’t maxed out yet either. Think I’m exaggerating? Think again. The next time we’re looking for someone to blame our problems on all we need to do is look in the mirror.
You’re always welcome to visit my blog at: www.rm235.blogspot.com or you can e-mail me at: www.kevinmcginty@sbcglobal.net