With All The Lemons We Now Have...Is there any GOOD Lemonade that we can make?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by South Dakota Wind Energy on February 20, 2009 at 4:25pm

Monte,

There is "lemonaide" we can see from this economic crisis, isolationism.

Perhaps with the current and near future economic distress, Americans will wake up and ask

Why do we pay $150 for a air of shoes made n china? When the total cost of advertizing and eveything is less than $10?

This is just one example of what "benefit" we get from the international trade policies we have today.
The "New World Order" has already failed.

We need to return our national pride and return our industrial base or we canot survive.

Just my opinion

Monty

Permalink Reply by South Dakota Wind Energy on February 21, 2009 at 2:22pm

Time to get rude, dirty and just plain nasty !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Forgive me if I offend anyone with this comment.

To tell it like it is is not always what we want to hear.

I have heard many many people pushing the stimulus package. I do not think they realized just what they were doing.

As the details are released and examined and implemented, we will all see were the American People have just been flim flamed, swindled and sold out for a personal stimulation of $400.00 PER YEAR.

The reduction in payroll taxes begins April 1st. This makes an ironic gift to the APRIL FOOLS.

As Americans are losing our jobs, having our savings stolen or wiped out in this faltering economy, our LEADERS are traveling the world "shoring up" relationships which have lead to the destruction of ALL of our industrial base.

Perhaps the LEMONADE in all of this mess we are in, will be the REFRESHING taste of a NEW American social and economic policy which will be demanded by the American people.

In 2 years these economic policies, just implemented, will not even be felt as a positive. Once they open their eyes the people will think the $800.00, seen over that 2 year period, is a joke. I do beleive the Senators and Representatives who voted for the bill WILL BE held accountable. I sure hope so anyway.

The solution, as I see it, is to bring back all of our industrial base. The American work force would have to be totally redefined, todays workforce is based around the SERVICE industry. We have very few heavy industrial facilities which means the number of experienced personnel is very small.

In the 1960's our government decided on a policy which was to conserve our resources by importing what we need and save ours for that "RAINY DAY". That was a wise policy or so they thought. We are now controlled by those that don't like us very much.

In the efforts to assist the world with developing their economies, we have allowed our's to
dwindle and fade away. I say FADE AWAY but at times you could hear the rush of air as the companies fled overseas.

Back to the LEMONAIDE :

America is strong, Americans are strong and given the facts instead of the hype will finally get fed up with paying $140 profit per pair of Nike shoes.

Just my opinion

Monty

Permalink Reply by J. Brown on February 21, 2009 at 7:37pm

I Love your question. My immigrant great grandmother told me tales about surviving as a homesteader. She and my grandmother (at age 12) decided my grandmother would leave school to take a job. The pennies grandma earned fed the rest of the family through several hard northern winters. Nothing intimidated those two women. "Whatever it takes" was ingrained in my genes and in the childhood messages imprinted in my brain. I not only make lemonade; I think about lemon bars, lemon cleaning fluid, lemon salad dressing... And of course, I will re-use the peel for compost.

I'm just listening to CNN talk about tenants vs defaulting landlords. No one seems to consider the owner and tenant get together to save the property. In that position, I'm willing to offer the renter a big cut of my equity in return for kicking in a bigger payment that covers the mortgage payment. Perhaps the renter and I can go together to the bank and get the loan payment on the rental property modified based on the income from the renter. If the rental property was a speculation and now way under water, too bad, but if it was a legitimate investment, you and the renter have common interests.

There are new jobs and new technolgies that will come out of the stimulous package funds. There are also some programs out there that help the unemployed get better qualified for those jobs - what a great opportunity to modernize yourself.

I hope Americans will not become protectionists. Hundred dollar shoes are not the fault of foreign workers or even the greedy manufacturer that sells them. The ONLY person to blame is the fool who buys the "designer" shoe... I think we won't fix anything until each of us as individuals fix our own personal greed, wastful habits, etc. We justifiably criticize the idiots who bought McMansions they couldn't afford and now want us taxpayers to bail them out. We're making the wrong criticism here. The correct question to ask ourselves is why any of us want to live in a McMansion? Do all those half empty totally unused rooms (except that they store all our useless $100 sneakers and other overpriced unneeded junk) really improve our quality of life? Is a Hummer an inalienable right in spite of the envrionmental impact? And more importantly, what does the glorifying these useless things do to our collective psyche?

If there is any silver lining in this hurricane cloud it will be that individual Americans become more responsible for their own destiny and less materialistic and wasteful. I'm hoping that communities will learn to cooperate as individuals, outside our sick institutions, to use the available resources more effectively for mutual benefit. My grandmother's homesteader neighbors helped each other clear a hostile wilderness and built houses and brought in their harvests togther. They had a lot more responsibilities and a lot less entitlements than we do, and yet most would have shared their last loaf of bread with a hungry neighbor.