The economy is cyclic with booms and busts. Right now we are in a bust with about one out of eleven work-capable people being out of work. The employment rate has stabilized to that dismal level. It is not quite like the Great Depression (in which I was born in the worst year) when the unemployment rate was about 25%. Now we are in what is called an economic crisis. What is economic crisis? When my brother came home on leave before leaving for the South Pacific during World War II, I asked him what inflation was. He says that is when you take a basketful of money to buy a loaf of bread. When I was a boy you could buy ten loaves of bread for one dollar if you could find a dollar. Now we have the situation where a loaf of bread cost about a buck and a half and some people don't have that kind of money. They are suffering. What is economic crisis? It is when people are suffering from lack of income.

Economic crisis is when our money loses its value. The American dollar has been the standard currency world-wide. That means that you could not purchase oil with anything but the American dollar. That is changing. In the future, you may need gold to purchase oil or the dollar could be replaced by some other currency (fancied by China, Japan, and others.)

What is economic crisis? It is when our money loses value. The more money the government prints to service its debts, the lower in value our money becomes. Out nation is a greedy nation. We also are an aggressive nation. This causes the United States Government to go deep in dept. Nobody wants taxes increased so there is no way to go but deeper in dept. If the economy improved, more taxes would be paid and that would help alleviate the situation.

Our recession and economic crisis was caused by the government. The panic of the financial institutions going under added to our grief. Do you remember John McCain rushing to Washington D.C. to vote on measures that would save us all from disaster? The disaster was the bailout. These institutions should have been allowed to solve their own problems. Hard assets should have been sold off to other institutions and questionable assets should have been dumped for whatever anyone was willing to pay for them.

I am of the opinion (which is probably not worth much at my age) that some thought the financial institution failures where the same as the stock market failure in 1929. They panicked, folded there arms, and hid under the bed. The economy dropped and the Government started passing out the money to whomever would bring a suitcase to receive it. So what is economic crisis? It's when panic takes over from reason.

Nine-eleven brought panic to our nation. President Bush decided to punish Iraq, to dispose of a cruel dictator and his "weapons of mass destruction." He rushed into Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban and al-Qaeda whom the Taliban supported. (It also allowed President Bush to get even with Saddam Hussein who tried to destroy his parents when they visited Kuwait after the first Bush war.)

Well, we are in debt, the economy is not improving, and everybody is worried (or should be worried) about the value of the once almighty-dollar. The Obama administration went down the wrong rode after the President was elected. The promotion of what is now called "ObamaCare," depleted our resources further and led us away from the important issue. Ever since then the Republicans have been sitting on their hands contributing absolutely nothing to solve the problem. (Some say, at least one legislatures who left government, that the Republicans have only one agenda and that is to destroy the Obama presidency.)

Their current reasoning is that if they allow Obama to remove the "tax relief" given by President Bush to the rich, that the income coming in would just be blown by the Administration. That may be true enough. But it is not only the Democrats that are big spenders. President Bush is the one that left the economy in shambles.

Now people do not blame President Obama for the recession, just a small minority think that way, but half of the population do not approve of the way the Administration is fighting the recession. Now the National Debt ceiling must be raised again and there is a big fight over how to do it. The Republicans want to keep their low tax rates and the Obama administration does not want to make the major cuts that are needed. Such a conundrum! What is economic crisis? It is what we are seeing everyday.

The brains in Washington say that lost jobs can not be replaced. We have lost much of our industry to the Far East. Europe is also suffering. What happened to our shoe, clothing, ceramic, electronic industries? They moved their operations to the Far East. Can't we do anything about that? I sure as heck would. I would decide what part of each of our former industries should be returned. Then I would restrict the amount of imports coming into our country. I would be told that this is bad business but--other countries keep our products out. Why should we be different? Let's return some jobs!

O.K. I know that the reason prices are not completely out of sight is because Wal-Mart and other retailers pay less for goods from Asia. It would be a compromise between cost of goods and jobs.

Now, I'm ranting. I guess I'm getting too old for this. But I see people struggling, trying to find work at home or moving to other states to find employment. Many have moved out here in the West to the blue-sky and high-wind country. I see many trying to learn to work using their computer, trying to make ends meet for now and securing income for the future.

The government could stop all hiring to help relieve the financial situation. That would go over big with the politicians. It also could reduce benefits of government workers. That would go over like a lead balloon too.

We need entrepreneurs to create new wealth and jobs right here at home because we know people are suffering and what is economic crisis.

Fly Old Glory!