Idle thoughts

"They're selling postcards of the hanging.

They're painting the passports brown.

The beauty parlor's filled with sailors.

The circus is in town."

("Desolation Row" Bob Dylan)

The effects of losing the manufacturing base are telling. I just had a row with Kodak. They sold a defective camera that failed after three weeks. They refuse to honor the warranty based on specious claims that I spilled orange juice or vinegar on it. Of course they have no evidence of orange juice or vinegar, but I just threw away $100. They are acting like a business about to close and leave a string of victims in its wake, employees and customers alike.

The MBAs at Kodak and the fools who came up with the Wall Street model that tanked the economy are of the same ilk, believing the next quarter's bottom line is all that matters. The country has been bankrupted by the short term thinking profit motive. The only things we make that the rest of the world wants to buy are weapons and movies. That's not enough to sustain a thriving middle class.

And how about those kids who try to emulate prisoners with their pants hanging below their butt cracks. Our biggest growth industry is prison construction.
Until and unless we restore the manufacturing base this country will continue on a downward spiral. Roman Empire here we come.
The wealthy elites are salivating as the working class is being pressured into working for a minimum wage created by the robber barons. A two tiered system without a thriving middle class is susceptible to civil unrest and turmoil without a strong middle class that seems attainable to the majority. Slavery didn't end with the Civil War. It just changed its face. Instead of plantation owners owning slaves today's wealthy elites rents them by the hour.