Newspaper Page Text
Commentary
www.starnewsga.com StarNews NOVEMBER 7, 2010 Page 19
That course I took on logic in college just keeps paying me dividends
Anthony
\ h
WILKINS
For those of you who are in the same age
bracket as I am, it’s a good bet that you’ve
discovered as I have that you are having a
little difficulty doing the things once done
rather easily. The muscles, joints,and bones
just fail to give a hundred percent
cooperation like they did earlier in life, based
upon my personal recollections.
I reluctantly admit, however, that
sometimes my memory comes up a little
short as well. I hope I’m not like a fellow I
knew as a youngster. Some of his
recollections reflected far more than what he
actually could do or, as a matter of fact, he
ever did. I think he even began to believe
himself after he told his fabrications so many
times, a too frequently exercised trait these
days. Ever know anyone like that?
He would have made a great politician
with his ability to distort the truth
while looking you square in the face. Shoot,
I’d bet he would have been elected
too because he had a way of taking
advantage of the gullibility found in
many people. It’s too bad and sad that this is
a very common activity these days in the
political arena. But, let’s not get into another
diatribe on politics today. As the overly used
saying goes, “Been there and done that
already!”- How awesome (another
contemporary catchy word) that is.
Once, I could do a couple of days of yard
work, and it might take me one day to
recover. Now, a couple of hours in that yard
requires about four to five recovery days and
a wheelbarrow full of liniment and other
similar ointments. Yep, I now have to make
quick and frequent trips to the pharmacy
and/or our family physician for relief. Thank
goodness for them!
Oh, well, some say that just goes with the
territory, but that doesn’t make it any easier
to accept. I wish I could be more like my
good friend Joe who is still playing
competitive softball at age 65. But hey, I
should concentrate on the positive side. I’m
only two well-functioning rotator cuffs, one
adequate throwing arm, two good knees, and
good peripheral vision away from being able
to play again. Well, maybe there are other
considerations as well.
I have developed “deceptive speed” over
the years. I’m like Joe Garagiola, the old
professional baseball catcher and television
sports broadcaster who said, “I am slower
than I look likffT am.” First base seems to
be a few hundred yards away from home
plate nowadays, and I’d likely never make it
that far anyway without pulling both
hamstrings trying to run. The umpire, who
likely has vision issues of his own, wouldn’t
permit me to take five minutes to hobble on
and off the field every inning either, and I
wouldn’t blame him.
Someone once asked me how they’d
know if they had pulled a hamstring. I said to
him, “Take my word for it, you’ll know.
It’s like having an abscessed tooth or an
ingrown toenail. It’s not hard to identify the
problem.” The wonder factor is non-existent!
Nope, living through the “golden years”
ain’t what it’s cut out to be, but is much
better than the alternative. At least, that’s
what I’ve heard others say, but I’m not
exactly sure how they know with
certainty. It’s kinda like me describing my
visit to Mars, in light of the fact that I’ve
never been there.
However, I think I’d rather leave the
issue to speculation for the time being. I
hope I have a few more years to seek the
new and improved edition of life without
worrying about it.
One can’t ever tell when his name will be
called though. I figure that I’ll go like the
dead raccoon in the road in front of my
house. I’m as close as taking one inadvertent
step off the curb during heavy traffic
while getting the mail from my
mailbox from being exactly like him -
crushed by someone speeding along Almon
Road going to K-Mart or a yard sale to get
those dang deals. Since shopping for deals
anywhere is not one of my favorite activities,
getting run down by someone who does
would likely be called poetic justice by
some. I refuse to name names!
I hope that if it happens like that the city
street department will get a bobcat or a front
end loader over here quickly to scrape me up
and move me before I get hit repeatedly like
the raccoon has been. And, just in case I
don’t get to give an official ending to my
columns due to an unexpected event,
someone please quote Porky Pig for me in
the newspaper,” Tha..tha..that’s All Folks!”
Yep, that would ‘bout do it!
That being said, we all must keep moving
in order to maximize our physical and
mental potential. How do you like that
brilliant, well thought out conclusion? That
college course in logic I once
took continually keeps paying dividends!
To be honest though, I never thought
much about how I could apply what I
learned until many years later. That may
explain the many illogical things I did during
my formative years (not sure when they
began and ended). It doesn’t excuse them,
but merely provides an explanation.
I reckon I need to remember an old saying
as these thoughts permeate my brain, “Never
let what you can’t do interfere with what you
can do!”
Keep on keeping on.
BRO WN from page 17
Purchases of jewelry and watches were
down by only 2.6 percent.
Spending on health care was the highest
ever (10 percent above 2007); even spending
on dentistry was up. Consumers increased
the money put into internet service by over
50 percent since 2005. The American Pet
Products Association reported that spending
on pets was at an all-time high in 2009.
How could consumers fail to cut back on
non-essentials in the worst “economic crisis”
since the Great Depression? Perhaps it’s
because income has not decreased. The
Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that
income per capita (total income divided by
population, not just by wage earners) for
2009 dropped only $43 from its peak in 2008
($35,931), and disposable income actually
edged up by 0.7 percent. Government unem
ployment benefits more than doubled in
2009 to $129 billion and were about T per
cent of total personal income.
Consumers did cut back on spending in
some areas. Less was spent on new cars in
2009 ($165 bilhon compared to $233 billion
in 2007), but that downward trend started in
2004, before the “financial crisis,” when the
peak was $252 billion. Consumers also spent
less on gasoline, because they purchased less
of it and/or because it cost less per gallon.
Vehicle miles
traveled in 2009
dropped 1.7 per
cent from 2007,
equivalent per
haps to citizens
staying home one
more weekend
per year.
Total personal
consumer spend
ing was 20 per
cent more, not
less, in 2009 than
five years earlier,
and personal sav
ings, as a percentage of disposal income, was
the highest since 1992. In the midst of this
so-called financial crisis, the American
Purchases of jewelry and
watches were down by only
2.6 percent.... Total personal
consumer spending was 20
percent more, not less, in 2009
than five years earlier, and
personal savings, as a
percentage of disposal income,
was the highest since 1992.
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
committed $787 billion to “jump start” the
economy. A large part of the “jump start”
was to be stimulation of consumer spending
because as many analysts like to point out,
“Consumer spending makes up two-thirds
(some say 70 per
cent) of the
economy.”
Where is the
sense in stimulating
spending if there
has been no
slowdown?
It appears nobody
can say with any
certainty what the
American
Reinvestment and
Recovery Act was
supposed to have
prevented and what
its consequences will be, short term or long
term. It is safe to say, however, that it was
not justified by a drop in the standard of liv
ing in this country.
It is a sign of' the times that after 60 years
of the greatest economic progress in history,
a one- or two-year slowdown with almost
record income and almost no cutback in con
sumption becomes a financial crisis, the
“worst since the Great Depression.” In that
Great Depression, per-capita income
dropped by 26 percent and living standards
were primitive compared to now.
University of Georgia Professor Emeritus
R. Harold Brown is an Adjunct Scholar with
the Georgia Public Policy Foundation and
author of “The Greening of Georgia: The
Improvement of the Environment in the
Twentieth Century. ” The Foundation is an
independent think tank that proposes practi
cal, market-oriented approaches to public
policy to improve the lives of Georgians.
Nothing written here is to be construed as
necessarily reflecting the views of the
Georgia Public Policy Foundation or as an
attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any
bill before the U.S. Congress or the Georgia
Legislature.
SCOTTfrom page 18
Marxists’ opposition to the private ownership
of resources used to produce goods and serv
ices such as the factory ship. (In his first
book, Barack Obama says he sought out
Marxist
professors.)
One of the costs
that has to be cov
ered if a company
is to be able to
continue to exist is
interest. By pur
chasing life insur
ance policies, the
workers on the pollack factory ship could be
the source of the money that the companies
providing them with lifq, insurance lend to
their employer. (Other indirect methods for
them to provide financing exist.) Along with
money provided by its owner(s), borrowed
money would be used to buy the ship and the
equipment in it used to catch and process the
fish.
If the factory ship is
owned by an incorpo
rated business, its
workers might
directly finance the
ship and its equipment
by buying stock from
the company. More
likely is that they indi
rectly finance the com
pany, perhaps by some of its stock being pur
chased by the companies that provide them
with life insurance.
The law requires that borrowers repay
One of the costs that has to be
covered if a company is to be able
to continue to exist is interest.
By purchasing life insurance
policies, the workers... could be
the source of the money that...
loans and the interest on them. Corporations
are not required to pay their owners any
thing, and they can legally only pay them a
return on their investment in the company if
their revenues exceed their costs. (They can
be paid salaries if they have jobs with the
company.) So, owners’ money is at far
greater risk than is borrowers’ money.
WILSON fr om page 18
India are moving away from Treasuries in
favor of gold. India bought 200 metric tons
of gold in November of 2009 to diversify its
$265 billion-dollar foreign exchange
reserves. According to the second quarter
flow-of-funds, analyses from the Federal
Reserve, foreign holders of US assets can
dump more than $10 trillion at will.
Bottom line: The US bond market could
be destroyed any given day with an unimag-
If corporations were not required to be at
least partially financed by owners, it’s
unlikely that without this “cushion” anyone
would lend them money. Certainly, they
would only do so at an extremely high inter
est rate.
Hopefully, the UGA magazine major will
someday learn this.
inable impact on every aspect of our finan
cial well-being. Gold, Silver, limited com
modities and hard assets, not our debt or our
dollars are in demand.
So, get to know Mr. Huichang, he may be
more important to your future than your
favorite ball team or coach or TV program or
other minutiae.
Source: John Pugsley, Chairman, The
Sovereign Society, August 2010.
Email: cedwilson260@yahoo.com
