BLIND ROBBERS

WHAT ever happened to the employment office?  Some years ago when I needed a job, I could visit, cousin Vinnie at the employment office.  There were people there who knew you and wanted to help you; and, they did.  Whenever I went to the, Employment Office, either I got a job, or they gave me, Unemployment Compensation.  It was their job.  They were good at it.  

Back then, they were not as corporate brazen.  It was before corporations used computers and voice messages to replace their personable people.  They saved money.  With their savings, they bought a great government.  Using corporate tactics that look statistically great on paper – minus the volume – they proceeded to strip away all of the assets in our country, while buying some in other countries. 

First, they took away, Social Security and other benefits from their separate funds.  They co-mingled the funds into the general fund, so they could spend the money.  It was spent lavishly, while some was spent on war.  So they borrowed money.  That was quickly spent on raises, bonuses and pork.   And finally the money ran out.  It is OK.  They will still get benefits, until the last treasury penny is spent.  That could be a year and a half from now.

It seems odd that the people who were replaced by computers and a nova-rich generation are somehow responsible for our international debt and extreme poverty.  That is what our legislators want us to believe.  We should all listen to, Senator McCain.  He was speechless to find justification for giving more corporate tax breaks, claiming that Ronald Regan did it and it worked! 

That is not what I remember about Ronald.  He was a great man for the very wealthy, like Senator McCain, of our world’s richest men.  They got big breaks.  But, my father lost his farm.  I lost most of my savings that I worked so hard to earn.  It dashed my dreams of buying a home.  I had to leave a lady that I loved and wanted to marry and travel across the country in search of work.  Loss of property and savings creates family separation.  That is what I remember about, Senator McCain’s hero.  I also remember, Ronald Regan, the union buster.  He did away with allot of programs that helped our working class.  Some say he put half the working farmers off their properties.  I met lots of farmers and country people, looking for work in Detroit.

While that happened, our current Michigan governor was getting his business education.   He learned to create jobs, buying and selling companies, like Brown Paper Company.  He probably would not even recognize that name; but, he might remember, James River.

I started working at Brown Paper Company when I was sixteen.  There were quite a few of us who did it – they called it, Salvage.  We were put into a job pool and given positions to fill as needed.  That sounds like a good idea.  I liked it except that it could interfere with school.  Lots of guys just quit school to work in the paper industry.  The work was dangerous and had serious side effects, like COPD; however, people did not have to worry about it, many got killed on the job.   First hand experience and careful observation convinced me to hone my mind with an education in whatever I could get it in.  I reasoned that any education had to be better than, Brown Company.  

James River bought, Brown Paper Company in the 60’s.  They parted it out.  That is corporate lingo for selling individually each section of the company.  Whole companies might function profitably, while certain sections of the company may exist on the shoulders of a section that is doing very well.  Brown Paper Company carried all lines of paper.  Paper towels were invented in, Berlin N.H. by, James Corbin.  If he had not invented paper towels, we might still be wiping our faces on velour, or shoddy.  Most people will not remember a time without paper towels.

Paper towels did really well.  It earned Mr. Corbin a raise, as he was a working hand, and it made Mr. Brown very rich.  When Mr. Brown died, it was time for his children to split the dough.  They sold out to James River for a hefty price.  James River foresaw gluttonous opportunities and seized on the moment.  Some companies were interested in purchasing the most profitable parts.  They paid more money  to purchase a single paper-making product without being burdened by a lesser product.  Paper towels became the dominant paper product.  More logs are thrown into landfill, and in sewers than on wood used for housebuilding.

I never mentioned writing paper.  Writing paper was the earliest paper product.  It may be the reason we survived the, Dark Ages.  Monks became skilled at making paper and transposing history and other documents into books.  Paper was developed to write on.  At one time,  there was a great demand for writing paper.  Everybody who could wrote letters.  People were valued for their calligraphic skills.   There was money to be made in producing writing paper.  By the time corporations were creating jobs overseas with new industries built there, people had stopped writing and were typing instead.

Deregulation laws, NAFTA, and CAFTA helped to solidify the job exoduses.  When coupled with the, Cheney Loophole that holds corporations unaccountable for pollution and carnage, we have our current situation of fifty percent unemployment in sections of our country.  Our governor can be proud, as he was part of this great moment in history.  Publicly he will admit we have problems in Michigan.  He invited the Chinese into Detroit, to infuse it with their stilted ways in submission and the Case System.  Privately, he is enjoying his era.  His corporations allow him to sacrifice his time in, Lansing for one buck a year.  He would lead us to believe that.  My daddy once told me there is no such thing as an honest politician.  I suspect this governor to less than altruistic.  His motives are for the futures of his family, using our state as a tool for his further advancement.

The idea of importing jobs sounds good on TV.  They, whoever they are, will come to our country with lots of money and build us factories where we can happily work.  I witnessed that when they moved immigrants to Chicago.  The people from other countries who built factories, hired immigrants, to work for them.  It did little to help people already living there.  Immigrants stocked their stores and sold their products, just as Mexicans who labor here spend lots of their money in Mexico.  They can work for cash and live in squalor, contributing to greater job losses and mortgage foreclosures.  That is the corporate way of business – the bottom line is the top dollar, with all the bottom cut out of it – get the products, price them high, cut the labor cost out of the product.

If this type of government is acceptable, we currently have our perfect governor.  In fact, Michigan is a great place to live, in Lansing and Grand Ledge.  It is a different story in places from southwest Michigan, all the way to Detroit, and north through the U.P..  People are out of work.  Whole communities are folding.  Half of our homes are for sale as foreclosures.  Foreclosures are only homes selling in Michigan.  You can get them for pennies on the dollar.  That is because people already had invested large sums of money, while paying mortgages.  The foreclosing banks can sell those homes for less money.  They are real bargains, for self-sufficient people – investors – who can sell them at a profit.  It is like the renting business, only better.  Large down payments are required.  That compensates for time required to resell the home at a profit again, when they are again roped.

Our Michigan governor wants his legislators to pass a law eliminating the minimum wage.  We do not need it here.  We can trust our corporations to do what is right for us.  We can work for much less money.  We do not need to own homes.  With the minimum wage elimination, we can have more jobs in Michigan.  Maybe, we can just pay people food for work.  We can let them cook it in the parking lots, and pitch tents to live there.  It can be like the days of row houses.  Get rid of, Social Security -- who needs it anyway?   Instead of giving health insurance for workers, advise them to eat less pancakes (that really happened).  It is the, former George Bush version of, leave nobody behind -- his idea of a kinder and gentler nation – one nation for the rich, another for the poor.  Today we are witnessing the results. 

History is our greatest teacher.  Formerly we experienced history as mundane boring stuff that one had to struggle through in grade and High School.  Nevertheless, there is a reason for everything.   We sometimes learn a more personable side by reading chronicles.  My personal experience with poverty and in studying about poverty across our nation, led me to conclude that people do not want to be poor.   Nobody escapes poverty without a helping hand.  We do not eliminate poverty by creating it.  Corporations create poverty when they move jobs overseas, by over charging for services and underpaying their laborers, not giving benefits to most of them while rewarding others of questionable character for devious assistance, and by polluting our environments with their wastes.  We can easily dispute this with a coin flip.  Our world belongs to the wealthy.  There has been no better time to live.  They can travel at will while living in bargain homes they purchased as repose.  Their money allows them to screen off the unpleasant sights of poverty as witnessed by everybody else.  It does not help that we are also being blamed for this mess and charged for it.  Their callus ways are like rubbing a wound with salt.   Maybe that is why our constitution was written – so we would not be blinded by blind robbers, who cannot face the poverty they are creating and who will only work to increase our national debts, by raising our taxes and  lowering theirs
years ago, corporations argued with the Federal government to recognize their groups as a single person.  They greased palms and purchased that right.  So, the corporations got taxed, as a single person.  It makes sense for them and dollars as well, when it comes to the tax code.  But, put all the corporations in power and we get giant tax breaks for the rich and big taxes for everybody else, with Social Security on the chopping block.
Another item on the offering table is our property taxes.  They propose to raise money for their grand spending, and our homeland security.  It makes one wonder what homeland security treats home owners to security by raising property taxes on homes that are falling in values?  If our curent issues are being solved, we have the perfect government.  If they are not being solved, we need to look for ordinary citizens to put order back into our communities.  That is what is happening in many communities that have been abandoned by their states.  Citizens are taking it upon their shoulders to restore and rebuild their areas.