A puzzle with many missing pieces...

 

 

"Our economic puzzle is far, far from being complete..."

My wife and I always chuckle when we hear the rote greeting, "How are you today?" Or, "How you doing?" We joke that we would like to answer just once, "Not so good. My back is killing me and my dog died last night." Why would that be interesting? That is off script. It is not what people expect to hear, nor want to hear. The standard answer should be, "Fine, how are you doing?"

So let us do some truth talk this morning. Let us not look for "canned" answers, but real answers to real problems.

For example, have you noticed how our government, both federal and state, talk about our economy? Many times it is all "sunshine and lolly pops". Earlier this week, the Met Council was very excited that the Twin Cities was receiving a federal grant for more Section 8 housing units. One of the "Euphorians" on the Council expressed utter glee that 2,000 more people would be able to get subsidized housing.

So what is the truth on this matter? In the paper this morning, one editorial writer asked the right question: Why are we so happy that so many people need subsidized housing? Does that not show we still have a huge problem under the surface? That we still have too many poor people? Bingo!

Also in the paper this morning was an article about continual disintegration of the family unit, particularly in the African American community. Fifty years ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan (a former DEMOCRATIC Senator from New York), wrote about the problems in the "Negro family" which stemmed from the demise of the family unit. He was greatly concerned that the out of wedlock birthrate was 25%. His premise was this would lead to poverty within the community as well as a raft of other problems. Today the out of wedlock rate is 72% and every problem Moynihan predicted for that community has come true. What are we doing to fix this? Not much. But we have learned to talk around it nicely, using correct and PC terminology.

One of our newest societal problems is finally starting to surface. As most of us know, the price of energy (especially electricity) keeps going up year after year. Every year, more and more people need help paying their energy bills. And what is in our forecast? In California for example, some estimates show and increase in electric rates of almost 50% over the next 10 to 15 years. As more and more coal plants get regulated out of business, the slack will need to be picked up by more expensive and inefficient ways to produce electricity. With food stamp usage over 46M people for 38 straight months, the number of people needing energy assistance is rapidly catching up.

So how are we today? Truthfully, not well. I say that as we have been taking some short term economic medication, compliments of the Federal Reserve. This medication does not cure what ails us, it only gives a short term high. And the after effects are going to be grim. Once the medication totally wears off, our economic heath will really crash.

We need to fix our puzzle. We need to put the missing pieces in place. We can start one piece at a time, but it has to be the right piece in the right place. And the first piece that needs to be fixed is the Fed. No happy talk, no temporary fixes, just positive and viable solutions.

My vision for America is very simple. I want our economic house fixed. I want the Fed reigned in. I want to be told what our economic health is, both truthfully and clearly. And I want poverty fixed.

If we want to look at poverty, we should only be able to find it in the history books. Today, we witness poverty right outside our windows. The Bible tell us some poor will be with us always. That is true and we will help them using our generous spirit. But this country, the greatest country ever on Planet Earth, should not have the poverty we have. We should have a much better economy. For all of us, not just some of us. And that is the plain, unvarnished truth.