Inner Banks Philosophy
"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival."
"There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
-- Winston Churchill
Inner Banks Humor - Politics
Q: What's the real problem with Barack Obama jokes?
A: His followers don't think they're funny and the rest of us don’t think they're jokes.
Inner Banks Humor - Politics
A Conservative Viewpoint
- A Plan For Creating Jobs Now
Article by Bob Steinburg - Edenton, North Carolina: Cradle of the Colony
Anyone who has ever experienced unemployment understands the pain, depression and the feelings of inferiority that often accompany it. For the employed or retired, reading jobless numbers in the newspaper can’t possibly have the same impact as those living the nightmare. We read the numbers, shake our heads and then turn to the sports page. Life resumes its normal routine.
In February, 1976, my 52-year-old father found himself unemployed for the first time. Dad had worked only two jobs. He seldom missed a day. I remember him telling us, “It doesn’t matter if I’m not feeling tip-top today; my employer is expecting me to be there. That’s what he is paying me for.”
With that same kind of “can do attitude,” Dad hit the pavement and began knocking on doors. Day after day the results of his efforts were the same: no jobs available.
By July we could see a visible change in my father’s health, not to mention his morale. Both were declining rapidly. We would try to cheer him, but depression was starting to rear its ugly head. The continued rejection also was killing him.
The Miller Brewing Company was opening a plant only 15 miles from our upstate New York home. Our local newspaper informed readers in early November that the new employer would be taking applications the next Tuesday. I sensed Dad’s spirits lifting.
I planned on going with my father to lend moral support. It was bitter cold that Tuesday. The wind was blowing and the snow was beginning to fall. We arrived three hours early only to find a line of applicants already stretched as far as the eye could see. After parking, we took our position at the end of the line, inching forward ever so slowly. I remember looking at my father and thinking, how did things ever come to this? We were both numb from cold and despair by the time we entered the building.
On the way home, driving through what by now was a blinding snowstorm, my Dad turned to me, touched my arm and said, “Bobby, they are going to hire me. I’m a good man.” “Yes Dad, you are and they will,” I replied, while at the same time feeling not quite as certain that our prayers would be answered.
Across the country the devastation of unemployment is being felt everywhere. Many of these victims are men and women in their 40’s and 50’s. At Domtar’s paper mill in Plymouth, NC, a factory that one time employed upwards of 2,500 people, many furloughed employees have all but given up hope. These are good folks who literally have no where to turn for work. They can’t sell their homes and their nest eggs are being exhausted to meet day-to-day living costs.
There are currently some 520 plus workers who remain at Domtar and they must be holding their breath. Over the next several months those numbers will be whittled down to about 360. In a cruel twist of fate, some of those previously employed at the Plymouth mill, moved to Franklin, Va., to go to work for International Paper. That plant will be permanently closing its doors early next year.
With millions of American jobs lost over the last decade and more, action needs to be taken that can quickly turn this situation around and fast. One possible solution that would have an immediate impact on our economy would be to make the U. S. a Corporate Income Tax-Free Business Zone. Almost overnight corporations, small and large, would invest in expansion and equipment and begin hiring. Jobs currently overseas would begin to shift back home because doing business domestically could suddenly result in lower costs.
Other benefits of “ash-canning” this tax would include an increase in stock prices and corporate values due to anticipated higher corporate earnings. Products made in the U. S. will suddenly become more competitive with those produced by nations with higher corporate tax rates. We would begin to see a dramatic investment in “green” technology with the creation of new industries that can help foster our energy independence without holding our economic sector hostage to the impracticalities of the pending cap and trade legislation that passed the House and awaits action in the Senate.
Corporate tax repeal would mean there would be approximately $1.8 trillion less in the U. S. Treasury over the next five years. While this figure may seem extreme, compare it with the $5 trillion in deficits that would result from President Barack Obama’s enacted and proposed spending initiatives; initiatives that have and will continue to do little to alter our staggering unemployment numbers. Getting folks back to work allows the formerly jobless to not only support themselves and their families, but to regain their self respect.
For weeks after my father submitted his application to Miller we heard nothing. Dad kept saying, “They’ll call, you just wait and see.” On Dec. 31 my father was stricken with a fatal heart attack. On Jan. 2, the phone rang. When my grieving mother picked it up, the call was for my Dad. It was the Miller Brewery requesting he report to work the following Monday.
My Dad was right.
Bob is right. This is a powerful article and I hate to reduce the impact by changing the subject, so I will make one quick point in hopes that it emphasizes his great article rather than detracts. Bob is not alone among those economists and tax experts who understand how to bring a country out of a recession, or a depression. This plan would have dramatically positive benefits for America. What is sad is that for so many, like Bob's father in an earlier recession, the fix will come too late if the Democrats have their way.
Nothing that the Barack Obama regime has done makes sense. Like FDR, who took a recession and turned it into a permanent depression. It took World War II to bring us out of the disaster FDR created. Obama advisors are burying our nation in debt. Henry Morgenthau, Jr., FDR’s own Treasury Secretary conceded the abject failure of the New Deal spending programs.
Morgenthau's summary, “We have tried spending money. We are spending more money than we have ever spent before and it does not work… I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job, I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises… I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started . . . . And an enormous debt to boot!”
It appears that neither Barack Obama nor his economic advisors, Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner, ever read history. Or, at the least, they do not understand it. They are recreating every mistake the New Deal made. How many will die in the war that will be needed to bring us back to economic sanity?
Inner Banks Humor - Politics
"... the U.S. is putting its alliances 'on a firmer footing' and has 'reasserted our leadership in the region,' the White House said in a statement ..."
Yeah. Right! Obama wants to prove he can humiliate America in every region of the world. No other world leader bowed to the Emperor. Obama wanted to be the first. And he was. He was the only one. Is that what his followers mean when they call him "the one"?
Does Obama asserting his subservience to the Emperor not fill you with pride? Or is it some other emotion you feel?
Inner Banks Philosophy
"In the string of amazing decisions made during the first year of the Obama administration, nothing seems more like sheer insanity than the decision to try foreign terrorists, who have committed acts of war against the United States, in federal court, as if they were American citizens accused of crimes."
- - Thomas Sowell
A Conservative Viewpoint
- Status Quo Not Good Enough
Article by Bob Steinburg - Edenton, North Carolina: Cradle of the Colony
Last week the U. S. Department of Labor reported that the nation’s unemployment rate now stands at 10.2 percent. It’s a tough time to be out of work. There are 6.1 unemployed workers competing for the few job openings nationwide that become available. Unemployment is expected to remain high throughout next year.
Nowhere are unemployment and the lack of economic opportunity more visible than in northeastern North Carolina. Sadly, this is a bad situation that has been made worse by the recession.
Economic depravation has become the norm in the Albemarle, instead of the exception. Unfortunately, there are those self-serving and in some cases impotent “follow the leader” legislators, that contribute to our economic morass. Legislators throwing the dog a bone once in a while should no longer be accepted as manna from heaven by any self-respecting, God-fearing, family-loving resident of this region. The continuing absence of meaningful economic opportunity is not just a fiscal issue, but a moral one.
Recently I attended the 2009 Northeast Legislative Summit luncheon in Elizabeth City. It was hosted by the chambers of commerce from Elizabeth City and Pasquotank, Currituck, Edenton-Chowan, Perquimans and Gates counties.
The state legislators in attendance included Rep. Bill Owens (Camden, Currituck, Pasquotank Tyrell), Rep. Tim Spear (Chowan, Hyde, Dare, Washington) and Sen. Ed Jones (Bertie, Chowan, Gates, Halifax, Hertford, Northampton, Perquimans). Sen. Marc Basnight and Rep. Annie Mobley also were invited but unable to attend. All are Democrats.
It became obvious during the question and answer period that Owens was the unofficial spokesperson for the group, with Spear and Jones frequently deferring to him for answers or specifics.
Owens, who is serving his eighth term in the House, is chairman of the powerful rules committee as well as the House Appropriation Subcommittee on Capital. He and Basnight, Speaker of the House Joe Hackney and Sen. Tony Rand not only drive the agenda, but find the means to finance it. The other elected Democrats that serve in the House and in the Senate are mere window dressing; puppets on a string who vote as the puppeteers instruct.
The legislators were upbeat when talking about economic progress beginning to occur in other parts of the state. There were but a few mentions of progress here. Spear even remarked that it would be some time before this region sees any major economic improvement. With all do respect to Mr. Spear; it’s already been decades. How much longer do we have to wait?
Spear cited several accomplishments for the folks in his district: Among them, fulfilling a request from Chowan County farmers requesting legislation to allow sage and cotton to be hauled in the same trucks. Another was a request from Hyde County on behalf of residents and businesses in Ocracoke wanting a unifying of the regulations governing the use of golf carts. I’m not certain how many jobs either of these initiatives created.
Spear also hailed a $26 million renovation of Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head and its temporary marine construction jobs as a sign of economic progress. When completed this pier is certain to be a tourist attraction, especially benefiting those businesses located close by.
The pier is located next to Democratic Nags Head Mayor Renee Cahoon’s rental cottages and within walking distance to a restaurant owned by Democrats R. V. Owens and Bobby Owens (Basnight’s brother-in-law), as well as a newly remodeled and expanded restaurant owned by Sen. Basnight.
The pier is being paid for by legislation that allows the project to use $10.5 million in stormwater funds as well as private donations and state grants.
Throughout the summit, guests heard this team of Democratic legislators tell us how important it is that we allow them to continue working together for us. If their success is to be measured by the regions economic synergy, the numbers reveal a much darker tale.
The N. C. Department of Commerce annually ranks the state’s 100 counties based on economic well being. The most distressed counties are designated as Tier 1, the next Tier 2 and the least distressed Tier 3. Here are our local state legislators and the tiers for the counties they represent:
Sen. Basnight (eight counties):
- Five Tier 1; three Tier 2
Sen. Jones (7 counties):
- Six Tier 1; one Tier 2
Rep. Mobley (4 counties):
- Three Tier 1; one Tier 2
Rep. Owens (4 counties):
- Two Tier 1; two Tier 2
Rep. Spear (4 counties):
- Three Tier 1; 1 Tier 2
If economic report cards were being issued for these legislators on their ability to create jobs and economic opportunity for the regions constituents, Basnight would receive a minus 2; Jones -6; Mobley -3; Owens even and Spear -3. All of the counties these legislators represent are economically distressed, with sixty percent of them among the poorest in the state. This is clearly unacceptable.
The most insightful exchange of the afternoon came when a commissioner from Gates County asked Sen. Jones when the economy might begin to improve in his county. Without batting an eyelash, Jones told the commissioner he really didn’t have to worry, because Gates is a Tier 1 county. That comment, perhaps, said more about the mindset our representatives have of accepting the status quo for northeastern North Carolina better than I ever could have.
What kind of Senator believes that being poor is a good thing because it assures that you will continue to receive government assistance in place of a life affirming job? Does Senator Jones, a former policeman who was always paid by government, really fail to understand the disaster of a region not being able to provide productive wealth creating jobs for its citizens?
Inner Banks Humor - Politics
Looks as though the President forgot something...again!
Thanks to Luciann.com for this great picture of our President honoring our war dead.
