Gloomy weather depresses spirits to match economy and government

The last few days have favored us with soaking cold mists and chill winds. Mushrooms shoot up overnight and green mold appears on every vertical surface including our relatively new vinyl siding.

My normally sunny spirits are on hold and my thoughts increasingly turn to the state of our economy and the nonsense that is spouted by those we have elected and the media lackeys who curry favor with them.

To shake off my gloom, I drove into town to pick up supplies and prospect for business. Downtown Floyd has a charm that lifts my mood in the worst of seasons, but this inclement weather is hard on visitors.

The streets of downtown Floyd are normally crowded with strolling shoppers on Fridays, but today there were only a few hardy souls bundled up against the cold.

Inside the shops people chatted and exchanged greetings as usual, but conversations inevitably touched upon a sense of dwindling confidence in the economy and unhappiness with government policies.

Money is so tight that most people I know have significantly changed their buying patterns. Local businesses are lowering prices or developing lower priced goods and services to reflect the needs of their customers.

Even though most business owners are trying to be realistic and are doing what they can to tough things out, there is a pervasive feeling that the economy is not stable and may subside at any moment.

Most people still seem to have long term hopes, but are actually planning and executing on a month to month basis.

It seems like more people are making major changes to their lifestyles in an effort to deal with worsening financial situations. Those with jobs are developing craft opportunities in an effort to generate additional income. Those who are out of work or are in changed family circumstances are doing odd jobs and even cleaning houses to make ends meet.

People are resilient and those who concentrate on providing worthwhile products and services for those who need them will survive and will be ready to take advantage of the next economic recovery.

The current economic situation will not change for the better until true job creation occurs in the free enterprise sector. For more thoughts on what that might entail, read past the jump.

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Right now, while employment in the private sector is shrinking,  GOVERNMENT EMPLOYMENT IS INCREASING and this is worsening the burden on taxpayers.

Increased government control has not been successful in improving the economy in recorded history, but we are in the throes of a nationalization effort that shows no sign of abating.

Allocation of resources is best done in a free market situation because money goes to solve real problems. Allocating resources by government mandate creates solutions for problems that don't exist and creates patronage jobs to control the lives of everyday citizens. These patronage jobs do not create wealth and do not help the economy.

Government efforts to increase the cost of energy and the costs of doing business will depress tax revenues and will further increase deficit spending. Printing new money to support government programs is not a viable long range solution to our current economic woes. It is actually a time-tested way for us to achieve third-world status if continued long enough.

Entrepreneurship and the onset of war pulled the US out of the Great Depression. Most of Roosevelt's programs, like the National Recovery Act, acted to prolong the Depression.

Encouraging entrepreneurship through removal of stifling restrictions is probably the quickest way to bring back national prosperity. Major political changes will be required before free enterprise can flourish with a rational program for maintaining the environment.

The political realities behind some cherished beliefs may have to be exposed before real progress can be made. The junk science underlying "global warming" and the CO2 myth did not just happen, it was knowingly created and maintained to generate government grants for selected scientists and their supporters and business opportunities like the carbon trading markets.

There are a huge number of people dependent on keeping the "global warming crisis" real and "critical" to life as we know it. The global warming industry and the carbon trading industry is now worth billions and it was all created from some computer models that have never been validated.

The unfortunate truth is that these scams are a severe burden on our economy and have little to so with saving the planet. These man-made crises are, however, an essential tool in gaining power and consolidating that power in a central government.

These crises will be exposed as falsehoods eventually, but the organizations which they support may never be dismantled, unless the records are fully exposed for all to see.

If things are turned around, it will be through the dissemination of factual information on the Internet and a willingness to take action in making changes in government so that elected officials are responsive to voters.

Comments

[Pete]

here is a map of Virginia Unemployment in August 2009 (BLS data)
http://www.localetrends.com/st/va_virginia_unemployment.php?MAP_TYPE=curr_ue

versus Virginia Unemployment Levels 1 year ago
http://www.localetrends.com/st/va_virginia_unemployment.php?MAP_TYPE=m12_ue

[David St Lawrence]

Pete's website also has a July 2009 Virginia Unemployment Analysis by county.

http://tinyurl.com/y9sljms

http://localetrends.com/blog/2009/09/13/july-2009-virginia-unemployment-analysis/

This site appears to have similar data for all states.

[mattbg]

It was amazing to me to read that, in America of all places, the majority of job-seekers now hope to get themselves a government job rather than one in the private sector. Regardless of your politics, you should find something wrong with that.

In my area of Canada, we have been bombarded with news about economic gloom and high unemployment but I am hard-pressed to see it with my own eyes. I am sure it's out there, but it's well-hidden in my day-to-day travels. We didn't have a national property bust, but we are setting ourselves up for a problem in future -- the majority of new mortgages are now very-low-downpayment, 35-year amortizations. That is the force you now compete with if you want to buy a house on modest terms. In other words, if you want to do it properly then you can hardly afford to.

In the US, I would not be surprised if the economy is running off the steam of stimulus and that it starts to deflate again when this runs out. If I was a US citizen, I would be very concerned about the national debt... but, in particular, the ability to pay off the costs of this recession before the next one hits. It looks like a downward debt spiral. Your country is resilient, but it can only work so hard.

[Randy]

It is becoming more apparent by the day that you need to have more than one income stream to survive in this economy. The days of having a secure corporate job is a thing of the past.

I have been encouraging my son, who is still in high school, to think about pursuing a career that allows him to work for himself. He needs to be independent of government and corporate control as much as possible. The problem is, it seems that the present administration is hostile to entrepreneurship. If that is the case then we are indeed headed for a bigger crash.

[mattbg]

Randy, that reminds me of the great Mark Steyn line about how, while Obama would talk to Iran without preconditions, never again would he talk to Joe the Plumber without preconditions :)

[Brad]

I have to say that there are a lot of people falling into victim like thinking. While it has rained for a long time (the southern Appalachians are a temperate rain forest) the sun does come out again, like today. What I love about the folks here in Appalachia is their resiliency. Years before moving here myself and that was 12 years ago a fella told me, "don't expect to get all your money from one source". What wonderful advice that is. In investments we're always told to diversify. So why not do that with the most precious thing we have, our time and energy. Folks here have been through more economic ups and down and hard times than most, and they've learned to roll with it, like the coming and going of the seasons, the heavy rains and the droughts. The folks here that I know aren't waiting for someone else to create a job for them. If they don't have one they will get busy providing for themselves and families any way they can, knowing that if something goes wrong and they should fall flat, that it's nobody's fault but their own.

[Randy]

Brad, what a great point. We've all had it drilled into us for years to diversify our investments but what about our income? The people that I know that have managed to do this are much more creative and resilient. They aren't looking to government for help every time there is a down turn.