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The Sky is Falling, the Sky is Falling......

It's interesting to me that for the past several years, America has waged a war that's been reported to be costing upwards of 2 billion dollars a month to sustain, the nation's infrastructure is crumbling, the price of gas has gone through the roof, causing many people to have to seriously curtail their activities, and twice this past week I've read pieces about the poor state of the US economy that failed to mention any of these indicators. Instead, both articles mentioned the closing of multiple outlets by Starbucks and Bennigans. HOLY SHIT!!!! Starbucks and Bennigans are closing?!?!? How can this possibly be? What are we going to do if the majority of traffic intersections in this country don't have Starbucks on opposing corners?

It is truly amazing to me that Americans have such a bloated,false sense of entitlement about everything. People complain that the cost of gas is causing hardship. How many American families have more than one car? How many people get up every morning and drive all by themselves to work and back in a vehicle that could transport at LEAST four people? What, nobody believed the warnings over the years about the cost of gas? How many of these people have several LCD TVs in their house and spend big bucks every month on cable TV, internet access and cell phones?? Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying people should not necessarily have these things, but we're a LONG way from horrible economic conditions that existed in some parts of this country in the not too distant past. Sure things are getting tight. My guess is that they'll get even tighter, but people really should stop whining so much about it. After all, they're not closing ALL of the Starbucks and Bennigans, so people can still go out for some fine dining and drinks and catch an $8 Macchiato on the way home...

I see that now Uncle Sam is going to bail out all of those poor overextended homeowners who can't afford to pay the mortgages they never should have gotten in the first place. It's interesting to me that the government can't maintain and execute the emergency funding and orgranization required to help handle the aftermath of something like Katrina, but when every little mega consumer whose about to lose that MacMansion that they could never really afford anyway starts whining, then hey, let's add another few hundred billion to the tab. Dont' get me wrong. I have no problem helping a home owner who buys a house within their means and tries to pay the mortgage with the best of intentions and gets sideswiped by economic forces they can't control. But that's NOT what's going on here. And the ONLY reason the government (aren't these the Republicans who are always saying that government should stay out of peoples' lives whenever legislation is proposed to spend money for schools or welfare programs?!?!?!?) is jumping in so quickly is to bail out their big finance banking cronies.

But I digress.

What I really wanted to say to everyone is this: Calm Down. This is capitalism. The sky is not falling. It's just business as usual.

Oh and before I go, really, the fact that the oil companies once again had yet another huge profit making quarter is really just a coincidence. Really. The oil and fuel markets operate on natural economic principals that are just too complex to explain to the layman, but rest assured, there IS NO relationship between the fact that most of you are getting FUCKED over gas and these companies are cleaning up big time. Really.

Comments

Dot Dwyer said…
The trend started a few years ago with canned coffee. They reduced the actual size of the can but charge you the same amount.The only way you notice the difference is when you realize that the can of coffee isn't providing you with as many cups of coffee as it used to.Then you notice the can taht used to contain 16 oz. of coffee now provides 13.5 oz of coffee. Apparently, they're doing the same thing with "pounds" of butter.
August 2, 2008 at 7:13 PM
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