"ATLAS SHRUGGED" the book, not the movie
There was a time in America where you didn't have to check your bank statements. Of course, it was always a good idea, the anal-retentive among us would always do that,, run over their checks, balance them out, smugly zero out their numbers and go on about their day, secure in the knowledge their eye on the "banks" was safe.
AFter all, 1929, the great crash, was still on the minds of our grandfathers who had lived (read survived) through it.
Not now. I catch errors in my statements all the time. fighting to correc them takes part of my month almost always, and, I always win. They are gracious, and correct it.
It is sad to note, that over the last twenty years, some young, inexperienced bank clerks cannot define the word "bankrupt." Only senior vps in the branch know it. Not true in the 60's and almost not true in the 70's.
Rampant now in the 21st century. One bank made a $10,000 error in our favor and when asked by me to double check it, she refused, saying the computer is never wrong, " it is what came up in the computer - it is ALWAYS right."
SAT scores on college entrance exams have steadily dropped over the last 15 to 20 years. Our local college, the University of Arizona is now teaching high school math to first year college students who are entering freshman classes not equiped to handle the work load.
When I entered Wharton School in Philadelphia in the 60's, I had to pass college entrance exams, and if I didn't cut it in math, they had their own process to weed out weak students - the front door.
There is new discussion in academe to re-enter the "no-fail" concept of the 70's. That was a total failure in New York, but, statistics not withstanding, it may fly again, falling bridges, failing roads, deteriorating buildings long before their time, testimony to that failed policy may be repeated again.
Columnisst George Will reports that math proficiency is increasing at a snails pace and, at the present rate, we will pull along side Singapore in 20 years.
The number of American children in hunger has increased over the past five years to one in ten. American corporations are shipping jobs overseas at the highest rate ever, yet, unemployment in our country has hit records that are breath-taking and congress locked in fighting stalls any and all progress as we slip every closer to the drain.
Only in the last twenty years has our government closed down, shut completely because of debt we owe and can't pay, the national credit card has split it's seems, and the politicians can think of nothing except ask for an increase in the credit line. That's all! Just raise the credit limit and print more greenbacks to cover it.
I learned that will eventually drive prices up in the first year at Wharton. Being a politician in Washington MUST be so cushy as to drive them to these outter limits. It is beyond my comprehension.
If it were me, I would pack and head for home.
Now comes, Atlas Shrugged: the book is about society of the future who saw all this coming, and it was written in 1948. Prophetic as it was it was VERY accurate. It is over 1,000 pages, but it is shocking as to how dead-on it is. Predicting the collapse of our country to the control of lousy politicians, unions power grabbers, ignorant publics who spend their precious time watching junk TV (read 1984) and being lulled into a mass hypnosis, accepting anything anybody tells them (when is the last time you believed ANY used car television ad?). Atlas Shrugged, all the brains, the movers and shakers just disappear, go away into the mountains and start over, small, and build a utopian society built on common sense, without the stupid rules of those above. Recently, a reporter asked Donald Trump of higher taxes would drive HIM out of the country, he responded, " No......not yet." (wake up call, folks)
My wife tells me that at one time she read that both Bill Clinton AND Pat Buchanan agreed that America would some day be a third world country. News articles I read only yesterday said that Hispanics now outnumber Black people as minorities in this country. I am assuming by Hispanics, they mean that most have probably come from Mexico.
In southern Arizona just recently there has been some foolish talk about breaking away from the United Stated and forming another state called Baja Arizona, Tucson being the capital. While on jury duty recently, a Mexican American woman read the article to another on break, and said to her, " AHA, we're finally going to get it back, mile by mile, without firing a shot!"
Slowly, our country circles the drain, this is not the country I was born in. Hatred and violence of the mind preclude any chance of us coming together unless open dialogue surfaces and we can air ALL our grievances.
At one time in my life, I stood on the very spot Abe Lincoln delivered the Gettyburg Address. I stood on the very spot George Washington was sworn in on the second term as President. I sat on his death bed in Virginia. I sat in Jefferson dining room chair, and on his death bed. I stood on the crest of Little Round Top at Gettysburg and at the Bloody Angle. I still hear the guns, and love this country.
I refuse to let it go down in a boiling cauldron of hate and division at the hands of its enemies foreign and domestic
###
AFter all, 1929, the great crash, was still on the minds of our grandfathers who had lived (read survived) through it.
Not now. I catch errors in my statements all the time. fighting to correc them takes part of my month almost always, and, I always win. They are gracious, and correct it.
It is sad to note, that over the last twenty years, some young, inexperienced bank clerks cannot define the word "bankrupt." Only senior vps in the branch know it. Not true in the 60's and almost not true in the 70's.
Rampant now in the 21st century. One bank made a $10,000 error in our favor and when asked by me to double check it, she refused, saying the computer is never wrong, " it is what came up in the computer - it is ALWAYS right."
SAT scores on college entrance exams have steadily dropped over the last 15 to 20 years. Our local college, the University of Arizona is now teaching high school math to first year college students who are entering freshman classes not equiped to handle the work load.
When I entered Wharton School in Philadelphia in the 60's, I had to pass college entrance exams, and if I didn't cut it in math, they had their own process to weed out weak students - the front door.
There is new discussion in academe to re-enter the "no-fail" concept of the 70's. That was a total failure in New York, but, statistics not withstanding, it may fly again, falling bridges, failing roads, deteriorating buildings long before their time, testimony to that failed policy may be repeated again.
Columnisst George Will reports that math proficiency is increasing at a snails pace and, at the present rate, we will pull along side Singapore in 20 years.
The number of American children in hunger has increased over the past five years to one in ten. American corporations are shipping jobs overseas at the highest rate ever, yet, unemployment in our country has hit records that are breath-taking and congress locked in fighting stalls any and all progress as we slip every closer to the drain.
Only in the last twenty years has our government closed down, shut completely because of debt we owe and can't pay, the national credit card has split it's seems, and the politicians can think of nothing except ask for an increase in the credit line. That's all! Just raise the credit limit and print more greenbacks to cover it.
I learned that will eventually drive prices up in the first year at Wharton. Being a politician in Washington MUST be so cushy as to drive them to these outter limits. It is beyond my comprehension.
If it were me, I would pack and head for home.
Now comes, Atlas Shrugged: the book is about society of the future who saw all this coming, and it was written in 1948. Prophetic as it was it was VERY accurate. It is over 1,000 pages, but it is shocking as to how dead-on it is. Predicting the collapse of our country to the control of lousy politicians, unions power grabbers, ignorant publics who spend their precious time watching junk TV (read 1984) and being lulled into a mass hypnosis, accepting anything anybody tells them (when is the last time you believed ANY used car television ad?). Atlas Shrugged, all the brains, the movers and shakers just disappear, go away into the mountains and start over, small, and build a utopian society built on common sense, without the stupid rules of those above. Recently, a reporter asked Donald Trump of higher taxes would drive HIM out of the country, he responded, " No......not yet." (wake up call, folks)
My wife tells me that at one time she read that both Bill Clinton AND Pat Buchanan agreed that America would some day be a third world country. News articles I read only yesterday said that Hispanics now outnumber Black people as minorities in this country. I am assuming by Hispanics, they mean that most have probably come from Mexico.
In southern Arizona just recently there has been some foolish talk about breaking away from the United Stated and forming another state called Baja Arizona, Tucson being the capital. While on jury duty recently, a Mexican American woman read the article to another on break, and said to her, " AHA, we're finally going to get it back, mile by mile, without firing a shot!"
Slowly, our country circles the drain, this is not the country I was born in. Hatred and violence of the mind preclude any chance of us coming together unless open dialogue surfaces and we can air ALL our grievances.
At one time in my life, I stood on the very spot Abe Lincoln delivered the Gettyburg Address. I stood on the very spot George Washington was sworn in on the second term as President. I sat on his death bed in Virginia. I sat in Jefferson dining room chair, and on his death bed. I stood on the crest of Little Round Top at Gettysburg and at the Bloody Angle. I still hear the guns, and love this country.
I refuse to let it go down in a boiling cauldron of hate and division at the hands of its enemies foreign and domestic
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