A VIEW from LICK SKILLET by Gerald Largen: Why do some insist that progress is bad news?

Gentle reader, as we are sure you are aware, The Sky is Falling, The World is Ending, Armageddon is Here and the Lord is Losing, and besides all that, Elvis is Dead!

All this gloom, doom, death, and disaster is the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the talk of the “Chattering Class” to be heard on the mass media in the last few days.

If you can bring yourself out of the state of funk brought on by all their analyses, predictions and prognostications, you will recall that as of 8:30 a.m.. Eastern Daylight Time, on Friday last, 1 June, 2012, everything was going along reasonably well and the world was widely looked upon with hope and even enthusiasm.

But comes the hour of 8:31 a.m., EDT on that fateful Friday and the cataclysm occurred and the planet was inundated by a flood of fear, disaster, and doom.

Why this sudden reversal? What could have happened to cause the world to cease to exist as it had just seconds before?

Surely, you surmise, there must have been a tsunami of previously unknown proportions, or the tectonic plates must have shifted whereby the western half of the country was submerged, or a humongous comet was detected hurtling towards earth with the prospect of destruction unheard of since the annihilation of the dinosaurs, destroying existence as we have known it. Right?

Well, No! All that had happened was that a little known federal bureaucrat had issued the monthly report of the employment figures, and, despite the fact that these figures showed that employment continued to grow, in fact by 69,000 people — the equivalent number of folks, old and young, men, women, and children, residing in a fair-sized county such as Roane, plus some 17,000 more.

But, because the aforementioned “Chattering Class” had, through their analyses, predictions, and prognostications forecast that the growth would be twice as great, they immediately discerned the end of the world.

It might be well for everyone to recall that these employment figures show an INCREASE in employment, not a DECREASE in employment. It might also be beneficial to recall that these numbers are notoriously inaccurate, and in fact at the time of releasing their current numbers they also issued “corrected” figures for the last three months or so.

And, as far as we can tell, in that fateful minute between 8:30 and 8:31, not a single citizen lost his or her job, singly or collectively, but for all these “wise men” the world changed in this minute.

Mitt quit losing, Barack quit winning, the USA quit progressing, the economy quit growing and slid backwards downhill, and worst of all, Elvis was still dead!

The news that the sky is falling is a message well suited to Chicken Little, but it ill-suits a thriving, knowledgeable, democratic society like 21st Century United States of America.

So, simmer down people, and as they say — smell the coffee; which, by the way, may well be Starbucks, and if you aren’t already convinced that the economy isn’t all that bad, remember that any group that can afford to pay five dollars for a cup of coffee, while texting on their high-priced communications device under a high-priced monthly service agreement, have definitely got money to burn!

And finally, remember this: Any group or party that is willing to try to talk us into a false sense of disaster by overplaying one small bit of bad news is no more to be trusted than a Madison Avenue huckster assuring you that buying a different brand of toilet tissue will make your life a bed of roses.

That aint so, and neither is this bill of balderdash they are currently pushing.

God gave you a brain, now use it!
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Wise reader, we are sure that you noticed that the movers and shakers of Wall Street also went into panic mode last Friday, not only over the employment figures discussed in the foregoing paragraphs, but also over the news that Europe continues to roil over the fiscal difficulties of several of the member states in the European Union and monetary Euro Zone.

Because of our “Global Economy” the trouble of any constituent element of this Global Entity, is presumed to effect all other constituent elements.

And possibly this is true. But, does it not show once again that those of us decriers of this whole concept of the Global Economy may well be right in our warnings?

Long time readers will no doubt recall reading in this column warnings about the dangers of deliberately shifting from an independent self-contained, self-reliant American economy to a state of total dependence as a part of a global economy.

Instead of being an island of economic independence in a sea of economic dependence, as we were for so many decades, we have deliberately, with studied intent, destroyed that independence for the sake of increased profits for our international corporations, on which profits we don’t even realize any tax revenue, since they hide their profits overseas, thus avoiding taxes.

If the American talent for turning adversity into opportunity has not been altogether smothered by the short term profit maximization, under the leadership of corporate raiders, hedge-fund operators, and multi-million dollar bonus seekers, this is a grand opportunity to restore our economic independence, bring home all the outsourced jobs, restore the former constraints on financial adventurism, repatriate and tax all foreign profits of domestic corporations, and put America back at the forefront of the civilized world. It can be done.

The only question is whether we can exert the united effort required to do it.
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Food for thought: As we have pointed out previously, if 8.2 percent are unemployed, then 91.8 percent are employed.

So, more then 9 out of 10 people are employed. Add to that the number of well-compensated pensioners, both private and governmental, and the economic picture is really not nearly as bleak as the the doom-sayers allege.

And, by the by, one would hope that the right-wingers clamoring for “entitlement reform”, meaning destroying Social Security and Medicare, would recognize the fact that it was these guaranteed monthly payments from the millions who receive them that prevented the recent recession from degenerating into another great depression.

If they were to allow this truth to penetrate their ideology saturated brains and grasp the notion that these two programmes are essential to the health of the economy, they might abandon their efforts to destroy Social Security and Medicare, (as called for in the Romney-endorsed Ryan budget).

And finally, the standard issue malarky put forth by the Romney mouthpieces is that business requires certainty in order to invest or employ.

That would seem to undermine the entire idea of executive bonuses, and huge salaries, since the justification for successful capitalism is the concept of reward for risk taking.

If they are unwilling to take a risk, then they are not entitled to commensurate rewards for risk-taking.

If there is no risk, then a good hourly wage would seem to be all that these folks should be paid, doesn’t it?