ARG! If I read one more BS news story about how our country is bouncing back from recession, I'm going to just vomit all over the computer! Well, maybe not, the keyboard is already hanging on by a thread but you know what I mean. I see more and more people paying for their goods with the welfare program link card and the people using my local church food pantry have doubled. The same paycheck that used to allow us to pay our bills and save a little bit each week for farm equipment and things we would like to have to improve our self sustaining situation no longer covers even our simple bills. Things such as mortgage(we still owe on our farm), the electric bill which should be lower without a stove and a hot water tank but it instead keeps going up, the property taxes on the farm that used to be worth 4 times what it is now(funny, the tax bill hasn't decreased) and our biggest expense - fuel to get to work. It's very depressing to go week to week and have nothing left. What's even more depressing is thinking about how much we would NOT have to buy food. Thank God I grow so much here. Now, I know everyone around me has all these same bills. So, how is it they can go to McDonalds a couple times a week, buy new vehicles, clothes and all the latest hot cell phones? Is everyone around me living on credit cards?
How can this country come up out of recession and the job market come back when the jobs are continually outsourced to other countries? What happened to our industrial base? It's gone, that's what happened to it. Most of what we consume now is produced and imported from another country. This is not sustainable and this very thing has brought several great empires thru history to their knees.
What do we do about this? On a large scale, there isn't anything we can do about it. On an individual basis we can stop buying imported goods and start doing more for ourselves. Grow food, raise our own meat, use wind, solar or water to power our homes, what ever we can use. Our government is NOT going to fix this, they can't even see the forest for the trees. They are too busy blaming everyone else around them for what is wrong here when they should be blaming themselves. Our government keeps thinking they can cure all our problems by throwing money at them. What happens when there's no more money(worthless paper) to throw? It is obvious that we have not learned from history so we are certainly doomed to repeat it.
I don't like being the working poor but it seems I don't have much choice in the matter anymore. So, I will continue to do the best I can with what I have and expand my garden spot in the spring. Perhaps I can trade some of what I grow to help ease the tightening noose I feel around my neck. At least I'll be eating well!
Whew, I feel a little better now. What do you think about that killer kitten? hardly big enough to fit in the palm of my hand but she sure whipped that wood shrew!
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