Farewell

I went to a party last night for a friend of mine who was laid off earlier this year. It came without warning and surprised the community. It seems like three of the head people were laid off in the same period, three top earners in the company gone. Now we’re left with a hole in the tourism community and her parting will be missed. There were at least two others who were well connected with city projects who were also let go. We’ve always been well insulated in this state of ours as we do a lot of tourism business. But the time are hard and we’re not immune from the downturn. Our community also has a strong military base and in recent years that too has been affected. Now the life’s blood of our community is undergoing a new phase of development, the rules have changed and no one seems to know what they are.

I used to make a pretty decent living off tourism and the film industry in the days went they were humming. But now all bets are off and only the agile will survive. Everyone is left scrambling for a job the will give them some cash and hoping they can recover that lost income. But the days of easy money are over and we must all learn new ways of doing business. I’m thinking that the world of business has been shook up pretty good and that better day’s are ahead but we’re in for some rough times until then. I also feel that this is for the long term good of the world’s economy. We have to change out ways of doing business, get back to making things and not finances that no one can figure out. Blue collar, decent hard working people the world over have been hurt. Their share of the pie has been squandered and they have been left holding the empty bag. There is nothing wrong with labor and hard work, it’s been devalued for far too long. When my father was a young man he worked with his hands. He was a glass blower in his younger days and put in some really hard days. His handy work can still be seen in a few signs around town.

I think it also time that we as a country learn to grow up and start paying our own way. For too long our leader’s have been putting off the present by expecting the younger generation to foot the bills that we’re too cheap to pay. Everyone wants their cake and to be able to eat it too. More and more but let’s not bring up how much it’s costing, we’ll leave that to the future. We have to be willing to pay more in taxes to cover health cost. We have to be willing to pay more for gas to promote energy efficient cars and policies that make sense going forward. For a long time Republicans and Democrats have been playing a game of smoke and mirrors with us. We need to pay a more realistic cost to cover that expense. No one wants their taxes raised but we all want more services. We have to pay for them now and not put our expenses on the backs of the children. Europe has the right idea, they pay more in taxes and pay more for gas. Gasoline has been undervalued for so long that we have been cushion for years and years. That hasn’t meant that we haven’t been paying, it just’s come out of a different pocket. The government has been subsidizing a part of each gas purchase so we don’t know how much gas really costs. Smoke and mirrors, concentrate on the small stuff and watch the public divide.

I don’t know if the government plans will work out, I hope so with all my heart. We’re off to a good start but good start still means you have to run the race. We all have to pitch in and do what’s right for our country; Europe has one idea, Germany another and France yet another. Let’s hope they all succeed no one has an edge on the truth or know’s what to really do. But it’s time we level with the people who have the most to gain, the hard working people.