Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

homestead - Re: [Homestead] Perfect Storm

homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Homestead mailing list

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Perfect Storm
  • Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 23:13:05 EDT

Gene writes

> I will continue to
> believe that the DC Whorehouse and customers will protect business. I
> acknowledge the possibility that this unsophisticated farm boy may well
> have overlooked something.
>

Of course, I'm guessing in my ussophistication just like everyone else but
this is what seems to me is being overlooked: Even the DC Whorehouse (and
such
it is), the rich people of the world, and all the king's horses and all the
king's men eventually come up against reality. They can't have their
'druthers
when the numbers just aren't there. No matter how highly motivated they may
be to not let interest rates rise, not let the economy slip, not let SS
erode,
etc for their political survival or for their personal gain .. in the end
they do not sit astride the universe like some all powerful djin.

Here's a local example of what I mean: In the city next to us (Bristol,
Virginia) the local power board used to get cut rate electricity (like we all
do
here abouts) from TVA. Ten years ago in the wake of degregulation a company
offered the city a ridiculously low power rate. TVA pointed out that the
company was selling the city power below its production cost and the power
broker,
caught up in the exuberance of the times, explained that TVA was behind the
times because it marketed its power based on how much it cost to produce it
while
they were marketing theirs on the basis of how big a market share they could
get. Many at the time pointed out the impossibility of sustaining a system
based on consumption of a product and paying below the cost to produce it.
The
people of that community firmly stated that the local government would not
let
the power rate go up drastically, that would be political suicide. When the
contract was up, this year, the supplier (having bought and sold the contract
several times) would not renew it. SInce TVA had not maintained its
equipment
in the area for ten years, and it was not over being snubbed ten years
before, quoted an rate half again as high as the rest of us pay in this area.

Suddenly the people of Bristol Virginia were facing a hike in the power rate
of, in
some cases, 125%. People held protests and appeared at city council meetings
and told horror stories about how people on fixed incomes would have to pay
all their money to stay warm in the winter. One fellow had calculated the
average wage and said most families would have to work 14 more hours a week
just
to pay the increase in the electric bill. But in the end, up against hard
reality and having lived their political existence on a myth for ten years,
the
city council could do absolutely nothing.

In a larger sense a sceme much like this faces our US government. When the
politicians have promised people things that another part of their anatomy
can't delilver, it doesn't matter how much of their political standing or
personal
wealth is at stake, they can't change reality.

An example today is this:

http://g.msn.com/0MNBUS00/1?http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7804770/&&PS=70102&;
SU=http%3A//www.msnbc.msn.com/&
HL=Judge%20lets%20United%20Airlines%20shed%20pension%20plans&CM=CoverBColumnAboveCB1&CE=1

Sorry, I can't find a more precise link to the story. No matter how bad it
is, how unfair, how much people's trust was betrayed ...several thousand
people
who thought they were going to get one sum from the pension plan are only
going to get a fraction of it.

This, suspects I, is a portend of things to come including SS.

James




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page