Published: July 15, 2008 05:44 pm            

Dems throw support behind Moye

The doors were wide open at the Mercer County Democrat Executive Committee last Tuesday evening. The committee addressed several items on their agenda including the appointment of a candidate to run for the unexpired term of Clerk of the Mercer County Commission created by the retirement of Rudolph Jennings. Princeton attorney Bill Winfrey nominated Verlin Moye. After a second and a call to see if there were any other nominations, the nominations were closed and the executive committee voted unanimously in favor of Moye. Mercer County Commission President Joe Coeburn remarked that he had heard from several community and county leaders that no one wanted a political hack in the job. Both Coeburn and Assessor Bill Blankenship complimented Moye and described him as a hard-working and responsible person. After a generous round of applause, Moye expressed his appreciation and thanked the committee for the nomination and the crowd for their support.

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Phil Gramm is at it again. The Georgia-born Texan, Democrat-turned-Republican, now Swiss-banking-patriot, has made it clear the he thinks we Americans are a bunch of whiners and that our economic travails are overblown. He has also made these statements: “Has anyone ever noticed that we live in the only country in the world where all the poor people are fat?” and “I have as many guns as I need, but I don’t have as many guns as I want.” To add insult to injury, Gramm added “There is no recession, only a ‘mental recession’ ”. John McCain needs to dump Gramm. Although some GOP leaders say that McCain’s campaign people may not be willing to strip Gramm of his volunteer designation as co-chair, McCain might expand the role of Dr. Douglas Holz-Eagan, a noted economist, in his campaign, rather than take a chance on the loose cannon. However, Elizabeth Edwards took serious issue with Holz-Eagan on medical care reform. The McCain people are saying that Gramm remains a trusted friend of the campaign. Trusted? I’d like to write something about the possibility of Jesse Jackson straightening out Gramm, but I can’t think of a way to do that without being crass.

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People go to major universities to study and obtain advanced degrees in economics. Some economic theorists associate a recession with a decline in a country’s real gross domestic product (GDP), or negative real economic growth. A recession may involve simultaneous declines in employment, investment and corporate profits and they may be associated with either deflation (falling prices) or inflation (sharply rising prices). All I know is that basic consumer goods including fuel and food are getting expensive and many families are making tough sacrifices to keep bread on the table and a roof overhead. My first job paid minimum wage, a $1.50 an hour before taxes. I could buy about 5 gallons of regular gas for an hour’s work, now five gallons of gas costs more than 20 bucks and an hour’s work will net you less than two gallons at minimum wage. “You’ve come a long way baby…” that’s how the old tobacco ad read. Who is foolin’ who? After all “An economist’s guess is liable to be as good as anybody else’s,” Will Rogers once said. With 300 banks around the country on the verge of collapse, I think we have a recession on our hands.

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T. Boone Pickens is back in the news. He has a plan. Pickens is calling for an army, an army of Americans tired of being fleeced at the pump and for everyday necessities to help. The multi-billionaire oilman is into wind power. Recently he invested in what is now the biggest wind farm in the United States — and no, it is not located in Washington, D.C. The wind capital is in Sweetwater, Texas, about 200 miles the way the wind blows from Crawford. Even at 80 years old, T. Boone might make a good presidential candidate. T-Boone may the latest Ross Perot. Perot, another Texan, also had a plan and a lot of voters apparently agreed with Perot. Instead of looking into what was to come, Perot observed that, America was “daydreaming of our past while the rest of the world was building its future.” Perot said “Go to Rome, go to Paris, go to London. Those cities are centuries old. They’re thriving. They’re clean. They work. Our oldest cities are brand new compared to them and yet … go to New York, drive through downtown Washington, go to Detroit, go to Philadelphia.” Then he asked the question “What’s wrong with us?” Perot also opposed NAFTA. His words: “listen for the “giant sucking sound” of American jobs heading south to Mexico. Now Pickens is making some observations on energy and other policy. Pickens has historically supported Republican candidates. However we should wonder if this is something in the making for the preview for a political spoiler, an independent or third party candidacy for president, or a team-up with John McCain. Let’s watch and see how the politics play out.

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There you have it, a few words on politics and items of interest. I hope you have blue skies smiling at you.

        

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