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  • Credit Addiction

    There is one very prominent feature in our modern world, and no, I'm not talking about the preponderance of hideous tattoos. Rather, I refer to the common occurrence of addictions.

    It seems there are addictions to most anything and everything, nowadays. There are the age old famous ones: alcohol and drugs. And some almost-as-old ones: gambling and tobacco. But we've got all sorts of new varieties, too, such as pornography, video games, television, sports, and movies.  

    One, however, is particularly American in character, and has reached not only into most households, but all the way up into the Whitehouse-hold. This particular addiction is a "credit addiction."

    Nancy Pearcy once said, "We have to remember that morality is always derivative – it stems from one's worldview." It seems that somewhere along the line, including the egghead super-geek economists in Washington, we got way off track onto an incorrect world view. From such a vaunted and jaundiced perspective, people came to believe that debt was good, that credit was normal, and that being in the red was a sign that you weren't dead. But this "buy it before you can afford it" world view is wrong.

    Sad.

    Credit cards and sub-prime mortgages, car payments and government-sponsored student loans, interest free terms and no-money-down real estate, lines of credit and second mortgages, revolving credit and margin investing, and on and on and on. Give it all to us, and we'll still sleep soundly at night. No problem. Just don't take the credit punch bowl away, because we can't go very long between gulps.

    Where did so many Americans get the idea that buying something they don't really need with money they don't have is okay to do? How do they justify it? What kind of a materialistic, instant-gratification world view is this?

    Here's a secret to financial security: If you don't have the money to buy it, you can't afford it.

    Here's how bad it has gotten. We Americans live in the most prosperous land the world has ever seen. The average "broke" American is by far wealthier than almost all the upper middle class from the rest of the world. We live in more square feet, eat more meat, have more devices of comfort, more electronic entertainments, and overall just more "stuff" than anybody else in the world. YET, we are massively in debt. There are now over 20 million Americans who are "upside down" in their home mortgages! The average total outstanding credit card balance for an American family is upwards of $8,000! 

    The land of the FEE and the home of the KNAVE.

    We have been sold an incorrect world view by banks and the credit industry that make millions off the indebtedness of average people. Easy credit, easy money, and easy living offered at bargain rates by pinstripe panhandlers with fat bonuses and government connections, who place an ever-tightening noose around our unsuspecting necks. The government blesses it, Wall Street packages it, the media touts it, and the sheeple buy it. 

    Meantime, countries like China have effectively supplied our stupidity by working for peanuts, saving 25% of what they make, and living in shacks, receiving trillions of our dollars that they could choose to dump on the open market at any time. 

    It's embarrassing.

    I know, I know, you're a victim. I might as well get that out of the way right now, because every time I ever write anything that even approaches the hard-cold truth, someone gets offended and emails me with a "How dare you" letter. (Whoever said "Truth is sweet to the ears" has never heard much of it!) I understand that tragedies happen. I understand illness and accidents and deaths. But those are a small, tiny, little, wee-bitty fraction of the reasons for the overall, systemic amount of debt out there in our land. Our credit malaise isn't the result of a few tragedies within our system, but rather a systematic amount of tragedies in our spending behavior.

    You don't need that new car, or that new flat-screen TV, or the Starbuck's coffee, or that dinner out, or that i-phone, or that XBOX, or those designer clothes, or those manicured nails, or . . . or . . . or . . . unless, that is, you can afford them! And you'll know, straight up, if you can afford them by checking your savings and seeing if you've got way more than the purchase price available in there. If not, then, NOPE, you can't afford it.

    Pretty simple.

    Unless, that is, you've bought into the world view of credit addiction.

    Which leads us to our mighty government. Perhaps here we find a clue to the answer to my question concerning exactly where Americans got the idea that it is okay to spend like a bunch of blind machine-gunners trying to empty their ammunition boxes as fast as possible. You see, our government has somehow convinced the American people that spending more than one has is normal, fiscally responsible, and monetarily astute. After all, that's exactly how Uncle Sam does it. Shouldn't it work the same way for the average household?

    No. It shouldn't, and it doesn't. 

    And, oh yeah, it doesn't work that way for Uncle Sam, either.

    Just as millions of people are getting hit with the results of credit addiction, soon, the United States government will, too. Only there's no mom and dad with a basement for Uncle Sam to move back into when he loses his house. There's only China, and they look like they've heard just about enough out of our public officials.

    Break the cycle. Kill the addiction. Sell the junk. Don't buy until you can afford it, and even then, wait 24 hours before making the purchase just to be sure. 

    Oh yeah, and any chance you get to talk to a public official, you might want to check him or her into the nearest twelve-step program.

  • You’ll Never Figure It All Out!

    Humor can be found in almost every aspect of life. I believe the primary reason for this is because life is full of humans.

    Take success, for instance. You would think it would be easy to discuss such a topic; assuming most people to be in agreement on a definition and to be generally in favor of it. But you would be wrong. No two definitions of success are truly the same. Everyone, it seems, has their own concept of what success in their life means. 

    The nerve! 

    If everyone has their own, varied definition of success, then how does one set about teaching the principles that make it come about? Considering how I make my living, this question is kind of primary. Principles are timeless and true, as in, they always work, right? Yes, and no. True principles are truly true all the time. Truly. But our own skewed perspectives and understandings color the black and white boundaries a bit. We can't be too sure we know exactly correctly the things that we know. And we can't possibly know what we don't know. Additionally, we are always forgetting some of what we know. And the things we DO know, how can we know that what we know is so?

    Don't twist your head at me like that. I'm not becoming some kind of freakazoid relativist hoping to get tenure at Harvard or Berkley (I am way too fond of wearing deodorant for that). Quite the contrary. I'm simply stating the obvious: none of us has a lock on truth! And though there IS truth, we can never master it entirely. It seems God reserved that domain exclusively for Himself. He chooses only to reveal what He deems appropriate.

    So where does that leave us?

    Well, first of all, dependent upon Him. 

    Secondly, responsible for doing the best we can with what we DO understand. And mercifully, we are given enough to actually make a success of things from time to time, no matter how you might define it! 

    Just don't ever get too cocky. If you do, there will be a few of us prodigious noticers waiting to (oh, how should I say this?) appreciate the free entertainment. How was that one truth revealed to us? Oh yeah, "Pride cometh before the fall." That's a good one.   

  • Enough of Partisanship

    Leadership is an individual sport, played out in the stadium of team dynamics. One cannot lead alone, as in, without followers, but neither can one lead by going along with the crowd. It is a critical distinction.

    For a glowing example, consider national politics (any country masquerading with elections will do). One party supposedly stands for X, and the other supposedly Y. But nothing binds behavior of candidates to their party's platform, or even to their own personal campaign promises: I present Franklin Roosevelt as an example. He ran on a reduced spending and lower tax strategy, then horrendously did just the opposite. Or how about good 'ol G.W.Bush or his historical twin, Herbert Hoover? Both were supposedly fiscal conservatives, but each frantically spent government money like a teenager hiding his cigarettes from an intruding parent.

    True leaders stand on principle, not platforms and platitudes. They think for themselves, while thinking of others. They act on principle, without acting for a constituency. Leadership sometimes fosters popularity, but not often, and usually, not for long. This is because a leader will sooner or later be confronted with a tough decision that requires going against the misled and misinformed masses. This is why any discussion of leadership doesn't wander very far from the concept of courage. 

    Today's tribal partisanship is both ludicrous and entertaining. One can't make any statement regarding current affairs without the listener or reader immediately attempting to pigeon-hole the comment into a Democratic or Republican bucket. Sorry, dear pundit, life is not so simple. 

    Change and progress come from leaders using their own brain and doing some independent thinking, regardless of what is considered "politically correct." In fact, a huge clue to finding the truth is to watch what the crowds are doing and look in the exact opposite direction. "Politically correct" is often "technically incorrect." 

    So dump the partisanship on the trash-heap of mediocrity where it belongs. Engage on principles and truth. That should be enough to keep you busy for a long while!

    Emerson wrote:

    "Most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, and we know not where to begin to set them right. Meantime nature is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere. We come to wear one cut of face and figure, and acquire by degrees the gentles' asinine expression."

  • The World Needs Leaders

    Perhaps now as much as ever, the world is in dire need of leadership. 

    I don't speak of the candy-coated, teleprompter variety, or the plastic-faced tell-you-what-you-want-to-hear politician. I am also not referring to the high-born, or the well-connected, or the well-to-do. I don't refer to the do-gooders, or the world-controllers, neither the people arrogant enough to think they can save the world if only they could impose enough of their infallible wisdom upon others.

    No.

    What I'm referring to is real leadership. The kind that bubbles up from among the population of good, hard-working, honest people. 

    I don't know why, but it seems as if the general mindset of people today runs along the tracks of, "There ought to be a law," or "The government should do something," or "An agency must be created to make this better." 

    This mindset is dangerous, cowardly, and lazy. The world has rarely been made better by centralized, top-down impositions of somebody's concept of utopia. But yet, that is the exact type of solution to which we have either become accustomed, or conditioned. 

    Many, many of our problems today are the direct result of top-down, collectivized, centralized decision making. "Government this," "agency that," until we are smothered under regulation and control. The problems thus created cannot be solved by the same false thinking that created them.

    The challenges of our times call for solutions, for certain, but solutions of the grass-roots variety; fixes that spring from the individuals most affected, and most concerned, with the state of things around him or her. Individual initiative and pluck, combined with ingenuity and creativity, is responsible for more good and progress in the world than any collective body of government bureaucrats and professional nincompoops. This occurs when individuals are free to conceive and create, build and construct, produce and prosper. In short, when individuals lead.

    Leadership is not a subset of management theory or political theory or business theory. It is central to all human activity. There are always those individuals who dare to stand up to injustice, stand in the gap of need, and stand on principle. They use what they have, where they are, to fix what they see as being wrong. They improve things, move them along, and contribute to the overall picture by their individual actions. 

    That is leadership. 

    And we need it now from individuals everywhere.

    Will you respond? 

  • A Leadership Deficit

    The following link will take you to a phenomenal movie short entitled "IOUSA."

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_TjBNjc9Bo

    This film presents America's fiscal crisis in the clearest terms I've found yet. The progression is easy to follow. The implications, scary.

    The most intelligent observation made during the film is that we suffer from a "leadership deficit." No phrase could more accurately describe our precarious position as a nation. No concept could be more disheartening. 

    America aches from many ailments. At the root of all of these, however, can be found a failure of America's so-called "leadership." I deride the term as used here because what our elected officials have done to our once-limited Republic is inexcusable, and qualifies for nearly any description except that of "leadership." They have not led our nation, they have bled it.

    This is not a partisan issue. For too long the American people have been divided like sheep into two compliant, and blind, camps. The administration of George W. Bush could not have behaved more fiscally irresponsibly if it had deliberately set out to do so. Further, this film was made before the exasperatingly outrageous spending programs being ramrodded through the legislative process by the current administration. Just imagine if Nationalized Healthcare, Reparations, Illegal Immigrant Amnesty, and the whole host of entitlement and resurrected Great Society programs being proposed actually make it into existence. Under such incredible circumstances, the financial ruin of our economy will be even more imminent than demonstrated by this film; a fact that should chill anyone with a calculator and half-a-brain to the bone.

    America is ailing desperately. She needs reviving. And she needs revival. Just how will this happen? The same way it always has throughout history and always does in smaller ways in our lives each day:

    1. by the Grace of God

    2. by the efforts of true leaders.

    We will pray to God for the first.

    And we will strive ourselves to provide the second. 

    We certainly have a leadership deficit, and maybe we can change that.

    We can only pray that we don't have a Grace deficit, as well. 

  • Peter Schiff on the U.S. Economy

    Peter Schiff has a clear understanding of America's current economic condition. He has repeatedly held strong to his predictions in the face of withering opposition – and has repeatedly been proven correct!

    Additionally, Schiff is a very clear articulator of topics which have been confused and obscured by mainstream pundits and government officials. Just listen to Schiff for yourself and see if you don't think he makes a lot of sense! My favorite line in this video is in reference to America's taxation system which punishes the performer in order to give handouts to non-performers. Schiff likens it to a "Reverse Darwinism: A survival of the unfittest." Very clever. Enjoy.

  • Cletus and Bubba (Part 2)

        It was a bright and sunny morning late July when Bubba and Cletus finally got back out onto Sister Lake for some more fishing.

        Bubba said, "You know, Cletus, that there Guvmint class o' Mister Tate's is getting mighty, mighty intristin'."

        "Oh yeah? Howzat?"

        "Ever heard o' somethin' called inflashun?"

        "Yep. Like fer tires and such," answered Cletus while casting his first line.

        "Naw, now, come on, man, I'm tryin' ta have an telligent conversation with ya and you go kiddin' round. Frum what Mr. Tate says, this guvmint stuff ain't no joke."

        "Who says I'z kiddin'? Inflate tires, get it? Inflate!"

        "Well," answered Bubba, "It's got another defnishun. It's one of them economic terms, says Tate."

        "Umm hmm, ya got my tention."

        "Well, it's like this. Guvmint prints the money, seems like, much as they want."

        "That'd be nice."

        "Got those big ol' printin' presses. Mr. Tate dun showed em to us in a film strip."

        "Film strip? Not a DVD? Pretty old equipment ya all got down at the school."

        "Cletus, quite yer opinions, geesh. Trying ta teach ya something an all you can do iz produce commentary on the format of the videos. You think yer a regular Bill Jobs or somethin?"

        "Steve Jobs," asnwered Cletus, full of self-satisfaction.

        "Whatever. He the geeky one with the glasses?"

        "No. Black sweater. Bill Gates is the one with the nerd glasses."

        "Ha, yeah, yer right. Anyway, what wuz I sayin? Ya dun gone and made me fergit."

        "You wuz sayin' I wan't him," answered Cletus.

        "Right. Zactly. You ain't, just so ya know."

        "Got it," answered Cletus. "Preciate that info, too, seein as how I wuz confused and all."

        "Aw now come on, Cletus, are you gonna let me git to the point?"

        "I ain't stoppin' ya, am I?"

        "Anyways, Mr. Tate says we're an Inflashun Nation now."

        "That kinda reminds me of that cartoon they used to play back during those three years I wuz in the fifth grade. You remember? Conjunction Junction, what's yer function, hooking up trains and watching 'em grow now," Cletus sang, proud to remember the tune.

        "It's not 'watching 'em grow,' it's watching 'em go!' Trains don't grow!" said Bubba.

        "Aww, and now yer a music expert, too. Gotta tell ya, Bubba, not sure I like what all this schoolin's doing to ya!"

        "Yer a pain, Cletus, ya really are."

        "Tell me 'bout yer Inflashun Nation already," said Cletus, reeling in a small panfish.

        "Well, seems the guvmint can print all the money it needs. Only problem is, the more they print, the more it hurts all the other dollars already out there."

        "How so?" asked Cletus.

        "On account of the fact that if everybody has more, it's all worth less."

        "Did you say worthless, or worth less?"

        "Worth less. Man, yer a picky one."

        "Well," answered Cletus, a little offended, "They mean two very differnt thangs!"

        "Not really, according to Mr. Tate. If the dollar's worth less long nuff, then it will be worthless."

        "Got me there."

        "So as I wuz sayin'. Seems the guvmint's been crankin' on the ol' printin' press quite a bit lately. Pumping trillions a them dollars out there."

        "Sure wish they'd pump some in my direction," said Cletus.

        "Wouldn't matter eventually, you knucklehead. Cuz the more they pump out there, the more the one's already out there's worth less."

        "Worth less. There you go. You said it again."

        "Yes Eisenhower, worth less."

        "You mean Einstein."

        "Who?" asked Bubba, clearly annoyed at being interrupted again.

        "Einstein. You called me Eisenhower for being so smart. I think you meant Einstein. Eisenhower was a president or a general or a post master or sumthin'."

        "So now yer a dawgone geologist, too?"

        "What?" asked Cletus, tossing the panfish back into the water.

        "Never mind. Anyways, Cletus, inflashun is a lot like beer at a party. It's great in little doses at first."

        "I hear that!"

        "But after a bunch of forties, they kinda don't mean as much to ya."

        "You mean ta say, they're worth less."

        "Worth less, yes," said Bubba, placing heavy emphasis on the break between the words. "Mr. Tate says it's a lot like the Law of Diminishing Reruns."

        "Diminishing Reruns? What's that?" asked Cletus.

        "When the more ya git of sumthin the less it means to ya, said Mr. Tate, anyway."

        "I think ya mean Diminishing Returns, least-wise, that would make more sense," said Cletus catching another panfish.

        "Now yer a dad-gummed spelling teacher!" barked Bubba.

        "Spelling? That ain't spelling! It's nomenclature!"

        "Nomen what?" asked Bubba, completely frazzled.

        "Aw, never mind, Bubba. Jis keep on teachin' me, will ya? You were sayin' bout the Inflashun Nation bein' like beer."

        "So the more they print, the less yours is worth."    

        "Here we go agin."

        "But that's how it works. Mr. Tate sayz its like robbin' ya during broad daylight. Even if ya saved a bit a money, the value of it disappears out of it."

        "How's it do that?"

        "Like beer from a bottle at a party. I thought I already told ya that part."

        "Oh yeah."

        "So that's Inflashun."

        "Conjunction Junction, what's yer function? Hooking up trains a
    nd watching 'em grow, yeah!"

        "You gotta stop that singing Cletus, or I'm not gonna be able ta fish."

    To Be Continued

  • The New Empire of Debt

    Mbook Every once in a while something awesome happens to a reader. Like a treasure hunter discovering some titillating chest of third-century gold Bezants, a book is found that not only teaches, instructs, and entertains, but actually thrills: its content is relevant, its references interesting, and its sentences crafty and witty. I have made such a discovery, and I am so enthralled with it that I must pass it along to all three of you loyal blog readers out there. 

    The book is called "The New Empire of Debt: The Rise and Fall of an Epic Financial Bubble," and it is written by William Bonner and Addison Wiggin.

    It is unfortunate that the book has to have a title, because no matter what title would have been chosen, its description of the contents therein would not be sufficient. It is not merely a book about finances, bubbles, markets, empires, or anything else so neatly categorized and named. Rather, it is a work of art depicting human nature and its follies and foibles which have led us to our current malaise. But that is not even a valid description. To understand why this book literally (notice the pun?) defies classification, you must obtain a copy and read it for yourself.

    One of the book's most redeeming features is its ability to inform without the need for prior initiation on the subjects contained therein. I realize that many have not read anything regarding economics, geopolitics, history, or sociology in years, if ever. No worries. This book uses human nature as its starting point for all points, then applies it to each of these categories in an eclectic but smooth way. And that is especially convenient and entertaining because, well, every reader is automatically qualified as a human (members of the Council on Foreign Relations excepted).

    Also, the book is entirely non-partisan: something extremely refreshing in a brainwashed world where people are conditioned to automatically categorize and align everything "left and right," as if artificial constructs of supposed political policy had any bearing on the reality of government and control. 

    Below are a couple of my favorite passages:

    "American spending created a boom in China, where the average person works in a sweatshop, lives in a hovel, and saves 25 percent of his earnings. Meanwhile, in the United States, the average man lived in a house he couldn't pay for, drove a car he couldn't afford, and waited for the next shipment from Hong Kong for distractions he couldn't resist."

    "There are no exceptions. All empires die."

    "There is nothing quite so amusing as watching another man make a fool of himself. That is what makes history so entertaining."

    "The two most important public issues of the early twenty-first century were the growth of debt in the United States, both public and private, and the stretch of American military resources around the world."

    "The prejudice for action in public affairs is a constant. And a constant disappointment."

    "The American system of the twenty-first century has no more in common with the system set up by the Founding Fathers than, say, a Mercedes Maybach has with a Tin Lizzie."

    "But people find it easier to die than to think; and for most people, it is probably preferable."

    "Within every world improver and empire builder lurks a vain animal – displaying his tail feathers. For it is neither love nor money that makes the world go 'round – but vanity."

    Like all books, of course, I don't agree with everything. Attempting to be a bit too contrarian, at times, leads the authors into some odd cul-de-sacs. They also lose their grip in their direct, though funny, attacks on New York Times colunist Thomas Friedman. Their points are correct; their personal assault is not. But these minor detractions only add to the eclectic and refreshingly different voice of the work. Strange it would be, indeed, if wit and cynicism didn't occasionally go awry (after all, I can relate!)

    Judging by what passes for curriculum in today's public school civics books, this book should become required reading to offset the claptrap. I hope you enjoy it!  

  • Bubba and Cletus

        The clouds were low that day as two of Flint's
    finest pushed their plastic canoe into Sister Lake.  Neither man was as buff as he remembered
    being in his high school glory days, but, then again, neither was as buff as he
    currently thought, either.  As a result,
    the canoe listed a bit as they clamored aboard and the waterline rose high
    against the gunnels.  No matter, Bubba
    and Cletus had plopped into their share of fishing boats, and their skills were
    equal to the task of handling their ballast.

                "Yep,"
    said Bubba.

                "Umm-hmm,"
    said Cletus.

                And they
    were off.

                "So
    you enrolled in some more classes last month, did ya?" asked Cletus.

                "Yessir,"
    answered Bubba.

                "Go
    union!" said Cletus.

                "Yeah,
    whatever fella came up with Job Banks was pretty smart.  Don't know what I'd a dun all these years
    since the factory closed otherwise."

                "How
    long's it been, now, anyways?" asked Cletus.

                "Perteneer
    five years, can ya bleeve it?" answered Bubba.

                "Not
    hardly."

                "It's
    crazy ta see that old location where the factory wuz.  Nuthin' but concrete now as far as ya can
    see.  Kinda spooky.  But I guess it don't matter, no way.  What with gettin' seventy percent of my pay
    long as I keep up the schoolin'."

                "Umm-hmm."

                "Worst
    time of job banks was the card-playing classes. 
    I grew to hate them thangs."

                "Whyzzat?
    Sounds fun ta me," said Cletus.

                "On
    account a that stinky chick, what wuz her name? Oh yeah, Betty Knicker.  Couldn't stand having to play black jack with
    her day after day. I tell ya, the things a fella's gotta do ta earn his
    pay."

                "Yep.  Even them job banks ain't perfect."

                "But
    now it's much better, tell the truth.  Mott Community
    College has some pretty good stuff."

                "Whatcha
    takin' this time?"

                "Govmint."

                "Govmint?"

                "Umm-hmm."

                "Don't
    know much 'bout it masself.  Is it
    intristin'?"

                "So
    far it is.  I just kinda figured I'd git
    up ta speed with all them talking heads on TV."

                "I
    seen CNN talking about guvmint stuff just this mornin'.  Talking 'bout jobs and the economy.  Some saying it's gonna git even tighter round
    here."

                "Well,
    I could believe anythang.  That's why I
    wanted ta take this class.  Give us a
    little insight for whatsa comin'."

                "You'll
    haveta teach me whatcher learnin'."

                "Itsa
    deal, long as I can remember it all and keep it straight," said Bubba.

                "Sure
    seems confusin'.  Makes ya kinda feel
    like yer gettin' scammed."

                "That's
    what I mean to find out," answered Bubba.

     

    Two Weeks Later

     

                Bubba cast
    his line while Cletus tied a new lure on his own.

                "Whatcha
    findin' out about the guvmint?" asked Cletus without looking up.

                "Bunch
    a stuff, as it turns out.  Pretty good so
    far."

                "Like
    what?"

                "Well,"
    replied Bubba, "found out the economy and guvmint are kinda related."

                "Oh
    yeah, how so?" asked Cletus.

                "Well,
    do you remember when Billy Jenkins wuz messin' round with the deputy sheriff's
    wife, what wuz her name?"

                "Louise."

                "Yeah,
    Louise the sleeze.  How could I fergit?
    Anyways," continued Bubba, "Billy was kinda like the guvmint and
    Louise was kinda like the economy.  Billy
    had ta do all kindsa stuff ta keep her intristed, ya remember."

                "Umm-hmm,"
    replied Cletus, still engrossed in his line.

                "Bought
    her stuff, took her places, wined 'er and dined 'er.  Did all kindsa stuff ta get what he wanted
    from her.  Also, he did most of it
    secret, of course, cuz he didn't want nobody ta know he'd been messin'."

                "Makes
    sense, if ya going after something ain't yours. Course, we all knew about
    it."

                "Yeah,
    don't know who Billy thought he was foolin'," said Bubba.

                "Nor
    what he saw in her ta begin with, I mean, she was a little rough," said
    Cletus.

                "So
    that's it.  Them two's just like the
    guvmint and the economy, according to Mr. Tate."

                "Whozzat?"

                "My
    guvmint professor down at the college."

                "I
    don't think I get it, totally," said Cletus, looking up for the first
    time.

                "Well,
    Billy wanted somethin' from Louise, so he did all kindsa secret, crazy stuff to
    get her to give him what he wanted.  And
    I reckon he did alright by her for a while."

                "But
    then the deputy sheriff caught 'em together at the Waffle House sharing
    syrup."

                "Yep,
    and that's when the whole thing ended. 
    You see, it's just like the guvmint and the economy.  The guvmint messes around with the economy
    trying ta git what it wants, but once it gets caught messin', the people find
    out."

                "Umm-hmm.  The deputy sheriff was sure mad when he found out.  Put three holes in ol' Billy.  Killed him dead right there at the breakfast."

                "You
    got it," answered Bubba smugly.

                "So
    does that mean the guvmint is gonna git shot by someone?"

                "Well,
    the analogy ain't perfect. That's just how I seen it, is all."

                "Who
    would do the shootin', I wonder?" asked Cletus, back to tying his line.

                "Man,
    yer inta this shootin' stuff.  I ain't talkin' bout shooting nobody. With the guvmint stuff, I'm talking bout something Tate said, something like 'Throwing the bumblebees out!' It
    would be the citizens doing the throwing, ta keep the analogy workin'.  But they'd hafta git mad about the whole
    situation first.  Ta do that, they'd
    haveta understand what was bein' dun to 'em by the guvmint messin' with the
    economy.  Ta understand, I reckon they'd
    hafta bee in Mr. Tate's class with me.  I
    told ya the analogy wuzzn't perfect.  It
    didn't take all that much understandin' fer the old deputy sheriff to
    understand what Billy was doin' with Louise!"

                "Yeah,"
    answered Cletus, "he got mad right away, without delay! But I don't git how bumblebees got in it."

                "Mr.
    Tate said the American people don't usually git mad if it happens slow
    enough.  Said that was on account of the
    guvmint givin' people thangs fer nuthin'. 
    Way he figures it, long as guvmint gives people stuff, they stay as
    docile as a baby that's dun had a nip a brew!"

                "He
    said that?" asked Cletus.

                "No, not
    exactly in that way, he didn't.  Don't
    git distracted by my artful illustrations."

                "Yeah,
    cuz otherwise, wouldn't you be sayin' that Billy shoulda been payin' the deputy
    sheriff a bunch of money ta keep the whole thing quiet and just kinda look the
    other way?  In that way, all of 'em would
    be gettin' something they wanted?" asked Cletus, visibly proud of himself.

                "That's
    it, Cletus! Yer a stinkin' genius. 
    That's exactly what Billy shoulda dun, had he wanted ta keep messin'
    with ol' Louise!"

                "Yeah,
    woulda been a good idea for Billy, but he didn't have no money, no how."

                "Bubba
    thought about it for a long while and made a few casts.  Finally, he said to Cletus, "Yeah,
    Cletus, I guess yer right.  The guvmint
    would never do that.  And, unlike Billy,
    they've got plenty of money.  Billy
    woulda had ta borrow it like crazy from someplace.  By the way, Cletus, when does yer
    unemployment run out?"

    To Be Continued

  • Thanks to the Veterans

    A little late, I was traveling today, but wanted to get this up. God bless all the veterans and their families. May we never take you for granted, nor stop working to make our government worthy of those who serve her. (Thanks to Tim Marks for passing this along).