July 19, 2009
(S.C.) - Happy Anniversary to Buzz, Michael, and Neil. Thanks to Dwight and Jack, and even to Lyndon and Dick. Thanks to all the presidents who followed, for not killing NASA outright. They kept the vision going when almost everyone wanted to spend the money on the war on poverty - that little war has cost us 12-trillion, anyway. Now space exploration as a national goal again, would be some REAL change! Maybe it will be, now that we have a South Carolinian running it.
If the stimulus money hasn't been spent, how come housing starts are up? And if the stimulus money doesn't need to be spent, is the recession that bad? Does employment really have anything to do with the stock market? Or is the big E a lagging indicator of a lagging indicator? And if it's all about keeping the American worker from the depths of poverty and perdition, why not just give everybody a six month moratorium on their house payment. I'm being facetious here, but there is no logical path of breadcrumbs which leads from the stimulus to any kind of meaningful recovery. When the recovery comes, it will be because of natural market forces, not because of some Keynesian wet dream.
TARP money has been spent, yet more banks are failing. Why is this? Could be that the "Barney Frank/Dick Durbin Effect" is so pervasive that the money simply is not followable. This bodes poorly for the recovery. How many banks are going to fail until we find out the actual extent of the Progressive-induced damage? It all could have been done differently for about a tenth of the money, government would have been kept out of the bank ownership business, and a major, destructive, constitutional precedent could have been avoided. Banks are shady enough places to begin with, but until Americans get a real backbone, we have to deal with them, even if the small ones have no money. Speaking of which, their own people are saying that it could be as much as 19-23 TRILLION dollars, when all is said and done. (for a better perspective on the FED and the banking system, see: Griffin, G. Edward. The Creature from Jekyll Island : A Second Look at the Federal Reserve (3rd edition). 1998. American Media (CA). Paperback. pp624. ISBN-10: 0912986212. ISBN-13: 978-0912986210.)
Uncle Walter died. Up until the Vietnam War, he was a superb journalist in the mold of Edward R. Murrow. But 'Nam changed him. He became a "believer" of advocacy journalism - one of the most poisonous evolutions in the history of news gathering and reporting. You'll notice this column is separate from the news sources we amalgamate.
He was handsome and had a great voice. He wrote beautifully, but plainly. He was no Eric Serveried or David Brinkley, but he was very good, and people trusted him. After Vietnam, well, he was still good, but he started interpreting the news, instead of reporting it. Reporters are not supposed to be "filters." Reporters are messengers who tell as much of both sides of a story as can fit in the space allowed. He was a very nice man, though, who did not have an arrogant bone in his body. He gave much and asked little. I can remember his..
returning a wave, one time, as he sailed by me in his hand-made 48' ketch as I putzed about Charleston Harbor in my 22' Catalina. He didn't have to do that. Other, less important people didn't. The friendly, modest, technically excellent anchorman - that's the Uncle Walter I'll remember.
Our state has been reminded, once again, that we are in the top five states for taxes. Articles in all the papers are trying to embarrass the good folks on Senate street to clean up the state's act by cutting corporate manufacturing and income taxes. Your local good folks should take notice, too. Local corporate income and property taxes need to come way down. "How do we pay for all our po'fokes?" Transfer the obligation from government back to the churches and synagogues and mosques, to which they rightly belong! Actual taxes should be used for actual infrastructure - roads, bridges, education. Transfer education responsibility to universities and away from school boards, which have no business wasting our tax dollars on their board members' political careers.
Finally!! Finally!! They are going to repave I-385 at the Golden Strip!! Not only that, but they are also going to widen the thing to three or more lanes. Of course, this all should have been done six or seven years ago, but we had to take care of our "po'fokes." They still need to repave and widen ALL of our interstate highways. Wonder when they'll get around to that?
It was really great to see Tom Watson playing so well. Tom Watson gave me my best memory of all the time I spent as a Sports Director at Channel 2 in Charleston (I was awful, actually. I don't like professional sports, except golf. Love college sports. Love Cricket. You see the problem) Anyway, at the Masters one year, Gary Player didn't want to talk to any of the unwell-known sports guys - just the ABC/NBC/CBS folks. The other sports guys weren't interested in Watson and walked away. But I had always thought well of him, and we must have talked for about two hours. It was enough to put a special together on the guy. He went on to win all kinds of tournaments. Anyway. I was happy to see him, this week, right up there with the whipper-snappers. Made me feel young, myself.
Politics has its own balance. The events of the past few weeks has shown this to be true. Thanks to Al Franken, a second-rate comedian is now a politician, and thanks to Our Beloved Vice President, we have a politician who has become a second-rate comedian. Biden has also turned left-leaning TV pundits into comedians, too, as they try to explain how "wise" his silly gaffs are.
Well, that's all for now. Stay dry and cool. Hide your dependents from politicians. And make sure you ask to see their ACORN identity card, when your census taker comes around. Don't want to give your info to just anybody…
- Dick Anderson
