The times, they are a changing...
Headline on todays paper reads
Job loss reaches historic levels! Unemployment rate soars to 7.2% in december, ending the worst year since WWII.
So this is my take on the economy...
When did it become a bad thing to just "Get by" why has the American dream turned into *Who wants to be a Millionaire?!"
When did the common man put away his work smock and tools and go to work for the big corporation that ran his hometown business into the ground.
We did this to ourselves. We let corporation take over, the era of small town living has turned into big wigs having summer homes away from the city. In turn that little town's entire existence depends on those couple months when those big wigs keep them in business.
Why? Because everyone has moved closer to the city to get their piece of the pie, leaving desolate empty towns in their wake. The remnants are the die hard artisans who are trying desperatly to compete with cheaply made imported items. Thye imports however do not rival the artisans items for durability and beauty.
The real competition comes from the dollar signs that are constantly at the fore front of our mind. Why pay $10 for something locally made when you can get something similiar at the dollar store. Sure it will be broke in a week but meh, it's only a dollar...
The dollar store... Wal-Mart... Wachovia banking and many other large name businesses. The bane of American grass roots businesses. I can just imagine the sinking feeling that local businesses must feel when they hear that yet another Wal-Mart or CVS drugstore is being built yet even closer to them.
How can it be even economically sound to have several of the same stores, IE; CVS in one medium sized town? For instance, the biggest town in this area, which really isn't saying much size wise, has 3 CVS drug stores and 2 Rite-Aids, all within realistic walking distance. There are Wal-Mart's about every 15 miles, McDonalds on every street corner with a Burger King and Wendy's all facing each other vieing for your money.
None of these stores care about your personal experience at their store. Got a complaint? Good luck trying to get satisfaction. Do you even know the manager at any of these large stores? Let alone do you ever sit out front and pass the day with local residents in front of any businesses? If you try to do that now, the police will make you leave for loitering.
What happened to buying local by preference? Trading goods for services, hell.. even knowing your neighbors or your neighbors kid?!
There is beauty in every one of us, but we sold our souls for the promise of the all mighty dollar, we gave up what we could have become if we kept our mediocre ways and we're content to live, instead of having so much excess. How many of you are doing what you enjoy for a living? How many of you have a talent for something that would have in old days been worth trading for items or services?
What happened to the real American dream?
It got sucked up by big names. They have money now, they squandered it, living like kings in their mansions, while the writers, the artists, the metalworker, the true artisans gave up their dreams and went to work for them. Making enough to get by... odd, wasn't the reason that everyone gave up their dream of having their own business, was to make it rich? Now the money is going, going, gone... the rich who got richer off of the sweat of the low wage workers? Well they have houses in Europe where they will go til things even out again. They will take with them whatever money they have been able to hide from the stock holders.
The common man however, the one who does not even have any talents other then punching a keyboard and working with numbers all day, the store clerk who doesn't even know how to make a loaf of bread from scratch, the man who his whole life hired plumbers to fix his pipes because he was too busy trying to climb the coorporate ladder. Where are they left when things go down hill? When they are left with a mortgage, a waning economy, not a tool in the house or a talent to fall back on.
My mother says that I am a flower child at heart, she is right, to a degree... make that down to earth and old fashioned values and your closer to the mark. I have always wanted to go back to the ways of our forefathers. By using what God gave us to get by in life. I can make bread from scratch and who knows, there might be a farmer out there who would be willing to trade flour for some nice fresh baked bread. Pies have also been known to get a neighbor over to your house to fix a leaky faucet...
