Let Them Eat Cat Food
Let’s put this financial mess into a little perspective.
After all, when you go to the doctor and his diagnosis is a life-threatening one, you need to hear the truth. Right between the eyes. Then you can consider your options. But sugar coating things doesn’t help very much.
People who have lost their jobs and those who may be next aren’t going to find it very easy finding new ones.
Those who have looked down their noses at the “lazy poor people” who should just go out and get a job better hope that the job-cutting axe doesn’t fall on them. But if it does, it will change their perspective on life real quickly.
Yesterday, during News Talk Online on Paltalk.com, I mentioned that some people are supplementing their nutrition with cat food. I was accused of taking that line out of some socialist playbook. But the sad truth is, there are people in the United States, my fellow Americans, who actually are buying pet food for human consumption.
The New York Daily News today reports about a man from New York state who worked in a mine. He was laid off, but was recruited by a Montana mining company to re-locate there for a job. So, not wanting to be one of those “lazy poor people” he packed up and drove 2,000 miles and reported for work.
His first day on the job finished, he returned to his new home, only to get a message on his cellphone. He was being laid off again.
Take Sam Gallup’s experience. Put it in your mind. Now increase it by one million. Or two million. Or three million.
Imagine the drain on our economy if, say, General Motors folds. And one, two or three million people, GM employees, suppliers, the people who transport the vehicles, the folks who work at the car dealerships – you get the idea – find themselves out of work.
Not only will they be out of work, but like Gallup, they will find it difficult to get other jobs.
There is good reason the Dow keeps nose diving on word that Congress is reticent to approve a GM bailout package. It’s ture that unlike the Wall Street bailout there must be actual oversight. A way to ensure that improvements and efficiencies are made to make it more likely that, as with the Chrysler bailout decades ago, there will be a return on the taxpayer’s investment. But letting GM fail is lunacy. It’s the proverbial cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s self.
The CEOs of the Big Three are correct when they say if one falls so may the other two. The auto manufacturers share suppliers. If GM were to close shop, so too will some of their suppliers. Making it impossible for Ford and Chrysler to keep their lines running.
Imagine the ripple effect in the economy. Imagine the increasing numbers of people, whose jobs are not even remotely related to the auto industry, who will be getting pink slips.
Now, imagine looking in the mirror in the morning and seeing Sam Gallup’s face staring back at you. Just imagine.
