Tony Brewer

I was just reading on the msnbc news website, under the weird news category that one of the White House trees is supposed to have about 370 hand decorated ornaments on it.  The ornaments were done by artists from around the country.  One of the submitted decorated ornaments has been rejected by the White House because it was saluting the impeachment resolution submitted by Rep. Jim McDermott who was trying to get President Bush impeached.  I am amazed at the total lack of taste that the artist showed by even submitting such an ornament!  I’m not a big fan of the decisions that President Bush has made, but I think that he does deserve more respect than that!  I am totally shocked that any artist would even think to submit such a tasteless ornament!  Amazing.

I was reading an article on yahoo news that more young soldiers are re-enlisting in the service because they are afraid that they won’t be able to get a good job in the civilian workforce because of the bad economy.  What a very sad state of affairs that is!  To re-enlist, knowing that you will probably go to battle, because you are afraid that you won’t be able to find a job in the civilian world!

The article was explaining that it is pretty much standard fare that when the economy is bad, people join the military because it is a steady paycheck with benefits.  I truly hope that the fighting ends soon; I hate to see any of our citizens put in harms way!

Everyone I know has been saying for at least since last January, that we in a recession. Today the government has finally agreed, making it official; we have been in a recession since last December! I don’t know what exactly is the reason it took them so long to admit it, I think that politics were involved there somewhere along the way, and now that the election is over, and there’s nothing at stake (nothing left to lose) the truth finally comes out. I sure hope that Mr. Obama can come up with a successful economic stimulus plan to turn the economy around! It’s going to be tough going, and I sure wish him luck!

It’s been a while since I was taking college courses, and to be honest one kind of blended into the next, so I really can’t remember which class lecture was talking about the subject of infrastructure. I took a lot of business classes, but this could have been a class in political science, or a class in economics, I can’t remember. But what I DO remember is that the professor was lecturing the class on how the United States was going to have a really hard time competing in the global economy. Especially against the countries that we have damaged physically through acts of war. One of the biggest reasons for that statement is the aging infrastructure in the United States, compared to the newer infrastructure of the countries that were damaged in those wars. One of the ironies in this is that after the United States taxpayers paid for the military actions in those countries AND the United States taxpayers paid for the rebuilding (and new infrastructure) in those countries that are now competing (and winning) against us!

And if I recall correctly, one of the successful maneuvers that was done after World War II that helped the suffering economy back then was for the government to invest in the building of new roads and bridges.  From what I’ve been hearing on the news, one of Barack Obama’s plans is to help jump start the economy by working on improving the infrastructure - building and/or repairing roads and bridges.  Considering how often we hear on the news that bridges have collapsed (or are in danger of collapsing) I think that is an exceptional idea!  That will put a lot of Americans on the payroll, and update our infrastructure so that we can better compete in the global economy.