Wallmart?

In keeping with my newly adopted policy of being the kinder, gentler Ernie, I’m not going to lecture, or berate. I’m simply going to underline a few things that deep down in our hearts we already know. I just want to add some food for thought. Some of us are saddened to see the direction that America has taken lately. Some haven’t paid attention, then maybe some of us are too young to know how great America once was, where a man could support his family, buy a new car every three years, pay off a mortgage, send the kids to college, and take a two week vacation to, say, French’s Campground or Richardson Grove. All that on a simple manufacturing or construction job.

The fact that Walmart may move into the defunct Gottschalk building is all over the news and blogs of late. Everybody has an opinion about how fair or unfair Walmart is to their workers. Some vow to never shop there, others don’t give a darn about anybody, all they want is the low prices. The “right or wrong” of either position is not something that I want to debate. I have thoughts about both sides and I even understand the reasoning behind both positions. So, you ask, where am I headed???

As Americans, we have been sold down the river by the ultra-wealthy. How many times have you heard the phrase “We live in a world economy now. Too bad you don’t have a job. The only thing that you can do is educate yourself, because now we live in the information age”. We can buy Chinese products for a dime on the dollar compared to American manufactured products. Our Wall street investors have shipped buying to China and other places with cheap manufacturing. On the surface you think that the Chinese are simply willing to work harder for less. When actually their choice is to work or starve. They are only paid enough to keep themselves alive. Americans have not slipped that far…. Yet.

We, in America, treasure our antiquities. We would not think of building anything on or near an old Indian burial ground. We consider our heritage as being sacred. We would not even cut two 8” redwood trees to make our highways safer through Richardson Grove. We value trees more than human life itself. Again, I’m not criticizing. Just pointing out facts that I, also, mostly agree with.

The counterpoint to America valuing our treasures is what China does with its Antiquities. They used up the world supply of scrap-iron to make re-bar reinforcement iron for the Three Gorges Dam. They also used up the world supply of premium cement for the concrete in the dam. Now, here is the part that I really want you to think about: The three gorges that they are flooding has been occupied and civilized so far back that it is forgotten in history. At the time that all of the British Isles, and much of North America were covered with sheets of ice, the three gorges were occupied by humans! Think of the antiquities, burial grounds, and simple treasures that are being flooded with water. The dam is so big that it is expected to change the worlds weather and cause earthquakes in the local region.

The reason that the Chinese built the dam was, in part, to provide free hydro-power to manufacture products to sell to people like Walmart, and in turn you and I, John Doe American.

We are supposed to be protected from unfair competition like this by our elected political leaders. But they are elected by wall street, we don’t have the money. The ultra rich also own the media. You can expect to hear “That we live in a world economy now” until you believe it. I don’t know which is the saddest. The fact that Americans would protect American trees while using Chinese toilet paper, or the fact that we are encouraging the Chinese to deface their heritage by buying their products. We would be far better off as Americans if we had a fair balance of trade. We give China Billions of dollars a year more than they buy from us. At one time, back when America was the Great American dream, we had trade laws that protected us from unfair competition. It’s my job to get the best deal that I can get for my family. Whether or not we boycott Walmart will make no difference. We need to get back the vote and elect people that will take care of us.

Any thoughts?
 
 
 
 
e