American Jobs

The world is moving along not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.

Helen Keller
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Hello Sandy
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Here is a word to the wise and the otherwise. Have you ever heard of Spencer Silver or Art Fry? No? They should probably be almost as famous as Thomas Edison. They invented the Post-it. A thing some people use every day. The were two honest workers for the 3M Corporation. You've heard of them. I'm fairly sure Silver and Fry were compensated for their work, but it was 3M that walked away with the millions the Post-it has earned in all it's various forms.

"There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it:
Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man. (Ecclesiastes) 9: 14,15)

Think of all the nameless workers who have made things happen. The part time tutor who makes sure the kid passes her math exam. The typist who finds a mistake in the legal document and corrects it. The fireman who rescues the boy and his dog from a blazing building. The engineer who finds a more efficient way of moving the traffic through a busy city. The technician who gets two parts to fit together properly that allows the space shuttle to fly. We never know their names, those poor wise ones. Why are they poor? Because what they earn is never as much as their efforts are worth. But it doesn't matter. They have jobs.

Honest American workers want honest American jobs. If you are out of work the unemployment ratios presented on the TV News don't mean a thing. They just mean that you're a statistic.

Hence there is Occupy Wall Street, young people standing in the rain, shot at with rubber bullets, tear gassed and mustard gassed, arrested, beaten and sleeping in tents. Ecclesiastes also says, (4:13) "Better a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer knows how to take warning." That wealthy corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes is an absurdity. They say they need the money to provide jobs. I wonder what the honest American unemployed worker thinks of that, when he can go through his home and see all the things that say "Made in China." Recently one of our rich Congressmen complained that he couldn't afford to be taxed because he would only have $200,000 left to feed his family. I wonder what the single mom who feeds her family on less than $20,000 thinks of that. They can out source jobs to Asia, hire temp workers so they don't have to pay for health care and vacations and squirm out of collective bargaining to fill their pockets and Maximize Shareholder Value. But now they have been warned. Will they heed the warning?

All the talk about economic policies, national debt reduction, stimulus packages and fiscal responsibility is, as the old farmer whom no one remembers said, all a lot of "hog wash." America is a poor country. The number of poor people who live here far out weighs the number of rich. The answer is to pry the money out of the hands of the greedy who don't even know they are greedy and spend it on a gross national product that people can afford. Honest American workers want honest American jobs. Now.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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WEEKEND CONTEST

This is easy.

A farmer son loads some pumpkins in his pick up truck and goes out to deliver them to various markets around town.

At the first market he delivers Half of the pumpkins in his truck plus half a pumpkin.
At the second market he leaves half of the pumpkins in his truck plus half a pumpkin.
At the third market he gives them half of the pumpkins he has plus half a pumpkin.
At the forth market he delivers half of the pumpkins he has plus half a pumpkin.
Then he drives his truck back to the farm to get more pumpkins because he's run out of them.
How many pumpkins did he have in the truck to begin with?

I await your clever answer.

DB
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AUTUMN QUESTION
This is not a contest

What event over the past year changed your life, a lot or a little?

Autumn is moving along.
Only 6 answers so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

I eagerly await your answers.
DB
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Weekend