Guess the thing is all the world problems just show you how helpless you really are. When I was younger I thought I had solutions for those problems at least I grew up enough to learn it was well beyond me education level and experience level. I have sixteen years of school but it's not in any form of government, law, economics, religion, environmental studies, ecology, business, American or World History.
But it still made me upset when I watched so I had to quit. I built my own home over 20 years ago, it had close to a six-hundred foot drive way. I didn't like straight lines and curved it up the hill it turned out really cool. Bent around some trees, the hill was steep and it was suggested to me to put curves in it in an attempt to slow the drainage of water.
Anyway it took a lot of concrete. The concrete company was really good to me. There was a lot of building in my area and they let me lock in a price per yard for my home. Think it was around $40 per yard. But they would give me a call often a truck would be headed back with a yard or two extra that they would just dump back at the yard.
So they gave it to me for no charge, oh those were the days to live in a smaller community and know people.
That price has more than doubled since then and that doesn't include the delivery fee. One huge reason for a dramatic increase in concrete was China's Three Gorges dam they built a while back.
 |
| China's Three Gorges Dam, Yangtze River, 26 Billion Dollars, measurements - length 7,661 feet - height 607 feet - width 377, reservoir area - 403 square miles, 35,600,000 cubic yards of concrete... |
It wears out but it is recyclable. There is a lot of it on earth but the easy to get to stuff will be out in anywhere from 25 to 60 years.
We face many challenges in the future.
Not looking that far back I don't begin to understand how we had a surplus under Clinton and in eight years and two wars under Bush everything went straight to hell in a hat basket. Now Obama is getting blamed. Nothing makes any sense to me anymore.
I mentioned it now because the VA has helped me medically speaking for many years, I'm alive today because of their fine care. No way I could afford all the medications I get from them since I had a heart attack nearly ten years ago, they've kept me alive.
From my observations the veterans who go to the VA didn't like Clinton nor Obama, but they liked Bush. I never paid a cent for any care until Bush came in, then we had the co-pay, now that Obama is in they don't ask me for co-pay anymore, that sort of speaks volumes about my economic situation. Another story for another day.
I say this not to knock Bush down, that isn't my intent here at all. It's just another thing I never understood. Most of the veterans didn't care that he raised the prices for Vets, they loved him for what they felt he represented.
In my opinion political support often develops at a young age some may side with mom, some may side with dad. Not really on ideology that comes later. You love this one or that one more, or you don't like the way this parent argues, you don't know a dam thing about it sort of learn on the run.
The end result is if you were fortunate enough to have two parents, and then fortunate enough to have two parents who disagreed on politics at least you had some sort of choice. So you sided with one or the other, perhaps that's better than having two of this or that and either siding with them or rebelling against I'd think.
In the end it's my opinion few really search themselves as to why they believe in this or that, they just do. I think little thought is put into where personal beliefs came from other than the defenses many build to support them.
It's like who was Roosevelt when you were young???
One funny story was when I was young my dad was headed out to vote believe it was the election prior to Kennedy and Nixon. Anyway my dad stopped and asked me who I should vote for, he never forgot my reply nor would he let me forget.
I said, "vote for Lincoln!"
Much later in my life there came a time when I learned just how grandiose I was and realized I knew nothing about politics much less I had never really looked at what I believed in and why. I realized my base was built on nothing and couldn't begin to solve these world problems that far smarter people than I had worked on for years and yet they lay unresolved.
An old Veteran of WWII talked to me just yesterday. I saw his WWII vet hat and told him my dad was a vet and that he must really be an old timer, the darn guy looked awfully good for a WWII vet hell that's 65 years ago now.
Anyway we began to talk, he came close to me and we were really enjoying each other. He said you know I'm afraid what we're going to leave our children, the young people of our country.
I told him, "I know it." And I did, had to go in a moment but thought of our short conversation several times since.
One thing was he said we are thirteen trillion dollars in debt. Now I don't know that like I said I don't watch the news nor do I get the news paper. He said he didn't know even how many zero's that was.
I told him how many, I watch a lot of astronomy shows. Said it was a thousand-billions. That a million was a one and six zeros, a billion was a thousand millions so it's nine zeros and the next a trillion is a one with twelve zeros. The speed of light travels 9.5 trillion miles in a light year, so if you could get someone to put up a dollar for every mile and go that distance and give it all to pay off our debt, you'd darn near need another half a year, I didn't tell him that had to come home and figure that one out.
So we are nearly 1.5 light years in debt at a buck a mile.
I do not blame George Bush, no I blame all the idiots out there who voted for him.
It's election time again, heard a guy who is running for office first time in his life. Said he's going to go to Washington and shake things up. I wondered how many people would buy into that campaign bull shit. Never been to Washington, doesn't know what the Sam hell is going on up there yet he wants your vote and he's going to shake things up.
I voted for Regan, the democrats he ran against were horrible. I loved Regan, not sure he was great for our economy but he was a great leader.
We can no longer have fools in Washington people there is way too much at stake. Is Obama the answer, I don't know. What I do know the job was dam near an impossible one that he walked into.
I think he's much smarter than Bush. Bush was a disaster, plain and simple.
We have to be smarter than that in the future, if there is a darn good Republican candidate lets elect him or her, not Sarah please.
I think John McClain would have been a wonderful president and wished he would have beat out Bush. I literally hate finger pointing Republicans their diversionary tactics are childish. Many of them are hate and fear mongers, claim religious values and to often fail miserably in the area of morals.
I'm not saying one is better than the other, I'm just saying there is no black and white, one isn't always right while the other is always wrong.
We have to grow the hell up and become smarter than we've been. What are we going to leave the young people of this nation, they are your responsibility and they are my responsibility.
We have to be smarter for them.
We have to quit looking at short term gains, is this guy going to put more money back into your pocket this year. Quit listening to people who promise the short term solutions, because there are none and all they really want is your vote.
I didn't just get off the turnip truck. Think about long term solutions, they aren't pleasant, they aren't easy but the young of our country deserve it.
One last thought. Because of the vast numbers in China and India compared to our nation it is thought that they will have a greater chance of creating genius types than we do, it's a sort of numbers game. In France they built the largest super collider on Earth, we took a step back with stem cell research.
China is about a year away from developing an air to sea missile capable of taking out aircraft carriers that will tip the balance of power in that region to them.
Many point to our biggest problem being the cost of Medicine. We only have ourselves to point to with this issue. We've allowed obscene profits in this area, people cry that research costs so much and if we took away the profits they wouldn't be able to do research to find new medications. This is as good as the guy who's never been to Washington but if he gets your vote he'll shake things up.
More research needs to be done in this area to bring down the costs, things like computer diagnostics, advances in computer programming so there isn't so much duplication upon each visit to a medical facility have been made, but needs to continue.
People say don't regulate medicine yet our government already bears the burden of keeping this system afloat.
We've lead the world in technology and need to continue to stay in that race to help insure our way of life. We've done a lot to help build the world's economy and make it smaller.
I don't know if this is true or not but I'd think in hard times you need to look even further ahead. Where are we going to be 25-30 years from now? Where do you think any of these guys who are going to shake things up see us heading, no please don't ask them I shutter at the thought of their replies.
We can't do a dam thing about now, where we are at today is where we are. We can work on is what and where we're going, we must do it for our children, the young, what are we going to leave them?
Our society is so entrenched, maybe another great depression is what we need, I don't know. I just feel our two-party system is nearing it's end at least that is my hope for the future, that and the American people I love so much. They are crazier than hell and I fit right in...
No comments:
Post a Comment