Friday, July 2, 2010

The friday independence beaver


I picked this beaver because he looks like he's playing a fife in keeping with the holiday. And on that note I came upon a blog post that's sure star spangled banner writing but just not in the way you'd expect. A welcome back to D-cup who's seemed to have stepped back up on her political soap box and throw her two cents into the discussion of the teabag crowd.

A cherry bomb for your barbecue

And that got me to thinking. Exactly where did our country go? I remember as a kid seeing my dad every night coming through the door at six. No weird shifts or changes in his work schedule and there was always time for a two week vacation. Sometimes we'd stay home but most times it was to the beach or mountains with a history lesson thrown in. We always had health care thanks to the company so the stitches were no problem.
It wasn't until recently that it dawned on me what had happened. During the 1940s the world had bombed the crap out of itself and there was not much left. The U.S.being left unscathed was the go to guy for all the goods and life we all enjoyed as kids. We made all the TVs radios and cars for the world. And with TVs you could see all those goods that you could get. Soon needs turned into wants and you were nobody unless you had the latest (fill in the blank). Something happened somewhere along the way. Sometime in the last 20 or 30 years things slowly started to give out. We watched as our steel mills were boxed up and shipped to Korea. The lie was that this was old technology and that they'd be building a new less polluting plant. But that never happened. What did happen was nearly all the mills closed left to rot while companies set up shop in Asia and South America and anywhere else they could find cheap labor. Slowly the rest of manufacturing followed with clothing, cars and lately appliances moving overseas. Then there was the in sourcing. Foreign car companies moved here to the cheap labor southern states paying far less than northern counterparts and taking the profits out of the country. Local governments gave these companies sweetheart tax breaks to get the business doing little for the support of services. Building a school ball field or two doesn't make up for what was lost.

So Happy Birthday America or at least what's left of it.

Update: Surprise surprise there were no bank failures this week unless the reporting agency took off early for the 4th.

4 comments:

jmsjoin said...

Happy 4th and good Luck to America our kids and Grandchildren. What happened is after we won the war we taught the defeated to compete with us and be better than us as we got sick of holding the ball they are glad to pick it up as we opened up our markets to them and their cheaper crap.

Also as you know we let our manufacturers move overseas and give our jobs away as in today's country they are in control and matter. We do not any more> We are a minor inconvenience to be dealt with!

Ranch Chimp said...

Mr.Demeur: What an Independence Day piece! As far as where did America go? .... one Hell of a testimony .... so true. Not even that long ago .... early 1980's, late 1970's I can remember the idea of going to a company before this HMO horseshit (which is basically discount med service's) and having really decent insurance at decent price's .... and working for the same company for several year's. I am so grateful I was able to raise my 3 daughter's during a period like that. Of course ... I been touching on this stuff for sometime, and what's to come as far as change, it's fairly evident if you look at the entire picture and simply do the math of where we will be in even 10 year's, unless some drastic change come's which I doubt, especially when you have the same politician's (both side's) who been in for decade's and are over the Hill, burned out, saying the same ole same decade after decade with their left/ right battle's of he said/ she said and good/ evil nonsense,etc. Then they praise this 92 year old former KKK member for being on the Senate for over a half century .... geeezzz how repulsive that we would even let someone of this caliber ride out a term that long because he hold's up a pocketpal constitution for show.

Does look like the Beav is playing a Fife, heh? I had one made of nickel, in my late teen's ... loved to do Jethro Tull (Ian Anderson)cover's on it!

Have a decent 4th Guy .........

Randal Graves said...

Just think: in a few generations, when those nations are the industrial masters, and we're the third worlders, they'll be sending their stuff here and then we'll be back on top. USA! USA! USA!

Tim said...

During the late 40s and 50s women went to work as part of a two income family. Having two incomes allowed for prosperity. Things were bought,houses, appliances, vehicles and such.
Well taxes got the better of us. I'm talking Property taxes. These days people are losing their homes not so much because of the mortgage but because of all the taxes.
Reagan changed the tax structure so as to lower Federal taxes. This was to make him out to be a hero.
We still had to build and maintain roads, schools, Parks etc. So property taxes shot up. It's been that way ever since. This is just one of the many ways we got screwed.
Maybe I'll write a book...