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Page 18 NOVEMBER 7, 2010 SfarNews www.starnewsga.com
Commentary
The life of and on Adamson Square
Sam
gentr^^
SfarNews Online
editor
www.starnewsga.com
I’m going to miss Miller’s Downtown
on the Carrollton square. I’ve been play
ing in the house band there since the
doors opened almost six years ago.
There are still many fantastic eateries on
the square, however, and I hope they can
continue to survive and prosper. Forcing
the restaurants on the square to close at
midnight is a mistake.
Although we sensed things were not
going well for Miller’s, the news took
still us by surprise, and it came quickly,
like a thief in the night. Now that two
weeks have passed, I must say that the
absence of the place has left me with
somewhat of an identity crisis. Of
course, if restaurants are forced to close
at midnight by the Carrollton City
Council, then the square itself may soon
be facing an identity crisis. Forcing the
restaurants on the square to close at mid
night is a mistake.
We all deserve an escape from our
ordinary, daily lives, and the nightlife the
square provides has been a positive out
let in my life, as I know it has for so
many others. It’s a culture all its own,
filled with music, dancing and fun found
in no other place at no other time.
Hundreds of patrons frequent these res
taurants, and after 6 years I can tell you
that the busiest time for these establish
ments - on the weekends - is between
11:30 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. Forcing the
restaurants on the square to close at mid
night is a mistake.
These businesses provide a source of
income for many local people who work
in the food services industry. I was
recently speaking with a young lady who
was on the wait staff at Miller’s. She said
the worst part about it closing was that
she and her friends were now all fighting
for the same jobs. Finding a new job
with less than a week’s notice is difficult
for anyone, and bills don’t stop coming
in just because income does. If the res
taurants on the square are forced to close
at midnight, many decent, hardworking
individuals will be faced with the same
dilemma. Forcing the restaurants on the
square to close at midnight is a mistake.
One of my closest friends sells food to
independent restaurants. If he doesn’t
sell, he doesn’t get paid. The restaurants
on the square provide much of his
income. He. is a family man with three
children, who works tirelessly to provide
for them. If these establishments con
tinue to. disappear, his future will be in
jeopardy. Forcing the restaurants on the
square to close at midnight is a mistake.
The chain reaction that a dying town
square would create could damage so
many lives in so many ways. The work
ers need the income, as does the city and
the restaurant owners. Remember Super
D? That’s the only business I remember
being on the Carrollton square during
my youth. The square was desolate and
dead, and now it could be in danger of
becoming that way again. The good peo
ple at Carrollton Main Street have
worked diligently for years to create and
promote the unique and lively environ
ment found on the Carrollton square.
Forcing the restaurants on the square to
close at midnight is a mistake.
I understand why Mayor Gamer is
concerned. The potential dangers con
cern me, too, and no one should have to
live in fear of being attacked in this great
city. However, allowing thugs and punks
See GENTRY page 31
Going for ninety first, then a hundred
Harold
MILES
When you get to be eighty years old
you begin to contemplate what the future
might hold. In most cases, not much.
I recently suffered a business loss that
could be catastrophic for my financial
well being unless I can take a business
that has been mn into the ground and
make it work.
With this in mind, the last time I saw
Doctor Lee Stringfellow I told him of
this loss. In our discussion, I told him I
thought I c,ould recover my loss if he
could keep me alive until I am a
hundred. Then I asked him if he thought
he could. His reply was “Harold, let us
try for ninety first, then we will look at a
hundred.” In other words, he didn’t seem
to hold a great deal of confidence that I
would even make ninety.
In the same week I saw Doctor
Whitpey the vascular surgeon who
repaired an iliac artery aneurism for me
last Thanksgiving. I asked him about my
prospects for living to be a hundred. He
said, “I will give you ninety-nine”, but
he didn’t seem to say it with much
enthusiasm.
So, it seems that if I want to leave an
inheritance for my children, I must work
faster.
When I crossed the zero of the decade
beginning at forty, I experienced some
period of depression after that event. At
eighty, there can’t be any more than one
more, and at this advanced age the
decades go by now like the years did a
few decades ago.
One of the greatest disappointments of
growing up, then growing old is that I
didn’t seem to become wise. I have often
tried to understand why I thought I
would be wise with the passing of years.
I now believe it was because during my
childhood when I asked an adult a
question I got an answer. I don’t ever
remember as a child an adult telling me
they didn’t know something. I know
now a great number of adults told me a
lot more than they knew and a great deal
of what they told me was not true. Even
today I rarely hear “I don’t know.”
Will I be alive in ten or twenty years?
I don’t know. If I am, I will be damn old.
Why you should care about Mr. Huichang
Why should you care about
Mr.Huichang? Let’s get to know
him.
His full name is Geng
Huichang, a one-time obscure
economics professor. He is a
pleasant fellow, soft-spoken,
mild-mannered, very polite. He
is also one of the most danger
ous men on earth with the ability
to change our world with a sin
gle computer keystroke.
On September 6, 2007 Geng
Huichang became the Minister
of State Security - China’s
equivalent of the Soviet KGB
and our CIA. He is an expert on
America and on the application
of commercial and industrial
intelligence. He is also an expert
on military intelligence and an
accomplished master on the
theft of military secrets and sen
sitive technologies.
Some think that Mr. Huichang
is largely responsible for imple
menting China’s long term strat
egy of the “peaceful rise” to
replace America as the world
superpower without firing a
shot.
Some anticipate several sig
nificant moves by Mr. Huichang
to destroy our economy. The
first move would be a plan to
shed U.S. Treasuries in order to
crush our bond market, the
monetary machine that funds
our deficit and a large part of our
lifestyle. (Have you noticed that
C. ED
WILSON
Thoughts
While Shaving
Reserve is now
printing fait money to buy our
Treasuries, because of reduced
world - read Chinese - demand?
Have you noticed that recently
our buyers were paying the
treasury a 0.55% premium to
take their money to purchase 5
year inflation protected TIPS, in
lieu of two year low interest
Treasury Notes? Why? Our
Federal Reserve is disappointed
that our “inflation rate” is so
low. Ultimately, Obama’s defi
cits must be paid with inflated
dollars or we may default. Is
inflation on our horizon? You
betcha! Who does inflation
hurt? The savers and retirees.
Some think that the next step
will be to dump our fiat dollars
and create a new “world reserve
currency” no more petrodollars,
the system formalized by nego
tiations between the U.S. and
the House of Saud whereby
only U.S. dollars would be
acceptable for the purchase of
OPEC petroleum. Have you
noticed that a number of pro
posals are being floated to
achieve that end? Have you
noticed that from 2001 to 2009
our dollar has depreciated by
some 40% and China, holding
our dollar denominated treasur
ies, has incurred huge losses?
Zhu Mi, deputy governor of the
Peoples Bank of China stated,
“the U.S. cannot expect other
nations to increase purchases of
their Treasuries to fund the
entire fiscal shortfall of the
United States”.
Some think that the final step
will be to buy up and hoard the
most precious natural resources
required by global industry in
order to crush our corporations.
What has been happening: in
December 2009, China sold off
$34 billion of US government
bonds. In January 2010, China
and Japan reduced their treas
ury holdings by selling a net
$33 billion. Where did this
money go? Between 2003 and
2009 China has acquired
approximately 454 tons of gold
to complement their silver
stash, which is the world’s larg
est. And, China has been using
this cache of dollars to buy
natural resources around the
world: oil fields, natural gas
reserves, mines, pipelines and
refineries and other natural
resource assets.
The Chinese are not alone in
their retreat from Treasuries.
The central banks of Russia and
See WILSON page 19
Michelle Obama: don’t make money, just help people
our Federal
While waiting for my
breadkfast at a local restaurant, I
was reading an article that
quoted Michelle Obama telling
some working class women in
Zanesville, Ohio, “Don’t go into
corporate America. You know,
become teachers. Work for the
community. Be social workers.
Be a nurse....Make that choice,
as we did, to move out of the
money-making industry into the
helping industry.”
After thinking about how
cooking and serving me break
fast helped me, I thought about
how my corporate-produced
automobile sitting outside helps
me. I decided not to tell the
folks cooking and serving me
breakfast that they were not
helping me.
So, despite the fact that the
great majority of my working
life has been spent at a
University System of Georgia
university (West Georgia),
where I taught business and
economics, I. was unable to
glow with pride because, in
First Lady Obama’s eyes, I am
one of the noble people
employed in a “helping
industry”.
Incidentally, like, I suspect,
others in helping industries, one
Carole
SCOT^
of my interests was making
money. Michelle’s past, high-
paying jobs and the big bucks
she blew on a pair of athletic
shoes and vastly more on a ritzy
resort in Spain suggests she
does have some interest in mak
ing money.
I again thought about
Michelle’s views that night as I
watched a show on television
about a ship that catches pollack
in the cold and stormy Bering
Sea. Most of the show was
about the processing of the fish,
all of which took place on the
ship. This work is physically
extremely demanding. It’s very
boring, too. The most physically
demanding job is working at
well below zero stacking heavy
boxes of processed fish. While
watching the show, I wondered
why so many people think
Michelle is so smart.
As an economist, I was very
impressed with the fact that vir
tually every bit of each fish is
made use of in some way. We
economists “preach” that each
producer of the goods and serv
ices we consume use as few
resources as possible. This is
best both for society as a whole
and for private companies pro
ducing goods and services. The
fewer are the resources used up
in producing one thing, the
more we can produce of other
things. Paying for fewer
resources increases a company’s
profits. So, profit is an incentive
to be efficient that benefits soci
ety.
Thinking about profits
reminded me of a senior maga
zine major at the University of
Georgia’s Grady College of
Journalism and Mass Communications
who, it has been reported, criti
cized in print businesses charg
ing more for their products than
it costs them to produce them.
UGA’s catalog indicates that
this student could have chosen
to take an economics course.
However, it is possible that
UQA has a Marxist economics
professor who would condemn
earning a profit. The reason he
or she would condemn earning a
profit—the return to the owners
of a private business—is
See SCOTT page 19
