Guest editorial
Few people
will deny the U.S.
faces a serious economic crisis, an economic
Waterloo
if you will. Yet I'm astonished where our letter writers and columnists place
the blame. One thing is certain: if the
only advice a noted Ph.D. in economics has to offer Congress, the president,
and the public is a silly, asinine fairy tale about 10 beer drinkers, then we
as a nation are in serious trouble. No less a personage than Warren Buffet --
the oracle of Omaha and the second wealthiest
capitalist in the U.S.
-- has bluntly told Congress, "The rich should pay more." He used himself and
his own employees as an example, clearly showing how he paid a lower percentage
rate on his millions of income than his employees do on their monthly salary.
If Congress and Ph.D. economic professors ignore Warren Buffett, don't blame
beer drinkers.
In the
November 17 issue of Western Ag Reporter, every other letter writer or columnist gave
environmentalists or the Occupy Wall Street movement a whack. Why? Was it tree
huggers or was it Paul Volker, chairman of the Federal Reserve, who raised
interest rates to 21% in the 1980s, resulting in an economic crisis in rural America? Who was President of the U.S. when the E.P.A. was created
and the clean air and clean water acts passed... socialist Adolph Hitler or
Republican Richard Nixon? Was it the
Occupiers or the Banksters that created the housing bubble that ultimately
crashed, creating a global crisis?
After the
1929 crash and depression, numerous restrictions were placed on Wall Street to
prevent a re-occurrence. Who removed those public safe guards.. the occupiers or
Congress? The power of eminent domain to take private property was granted to corporations.
Who changed the rules and constitution? Occupiers or Supreme Court?
Who robbed the Social Security trust fund and left only IOUs
and a pending crisis? Occupiers or Congress?
Was it the Occupiers or Congress that negotiated the Free Trade
agreements that gutted U.S.
manufacturing and exported 10 million jobs to third-world slave labor? Was it a
tree hugger or a federal judge who voided a billion-dollar jury verdict in
favor of U.S.
cattlemen? The ceaseless flow of 35 million illegals have overwhelmed our
schools, hospitals, and welfare agencies and spawned unprecedented drug
violence. Who condones and even encourages and exploits this illegal flow?
Corporate hogs, dairy, poultry, meat packers, and fruit and vegetable growers
or the Occupy Wall Street protesters?
I haven't
made a personal inspection of the Occupiers so I can't speak with authority on
their lack of cleanliness as some have, but I view them as analogous to
canaries in the coalmine. I do know that something is vitally wrong with our
nation and that neither Congress nor our President is willing to take other
than divisive political actions.
When 30
major corporations can avoid paying taxes for seven years, when innumerable
corporate CEOs like Lowell McAdam of Verizon draw pay of $55,000 per day (yes,
per day!), when we have thousands of soldiers stationed in Germany and Japan 65
years after the end of WW II, then something is wrong. Turn off your TV and
learn what our real problems are and who's causing them. By the way, what book
commanded us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the widows and
orphans, and love our neighbor as ourselves? The left wing, socialist Occupiers
handbook or the Holy Bible?
Stephen
Anderson
Alma, KS
