Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Immigrant's Song

Greetings good citizen,

As predicted, the Dow has handed back the irrational 175 point gain it made a little more than a week ago and is currently plumbing new depths as the emptiness that is US productive capacity remains hollow.

But fear not good citizen as we see from this ‘fluff piece’ written to demonstrate to the rest of us ungrateful slobs how foreign nationals still have the ‘drive’ to make lemonade with the lemon that is ‘The American Dream’.
PHOENIX — Hussein Al Hamka is going to farm his famous cucumbers on a 15-acre vacant lot in the heart of this city, where nearly half of all lots sit empty and unused.

If his piece of fertilized dirt had a price tag, it would cost much more than he could ever dream of affording; the lot is valued at $25 million, or at least it was before the housing market collapsed and it was left undeveloped. To survive, Mr. Hamka, 50, an Iraqi refugee three years into his life in the United States, grows and sells cucumbers just like the ones he ate in his home country.

On Friday, Fidele Komezusenge, 25, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, picked rocks from the loose soil in the raised beds next to Mr. Hamka’s. Mr. Komezusenge was planning to plant carrot and cabbage seeds, his first farming foray since arriving in the United States in June. Nearby, Safala Chhetri, 50, a refugee from Bhutan who arrived in 2009, wavered between planting spinach or kale, but then decided to give onions a second chance.

Left unstated is where the time to tend these garden patches is coming from (are they all unemployed, like half of all working aged US citizens) or do they work the night shift at the local convenience store?

Then there is the other issue, only briefly touched upon by the vegetable garden writer…what was the lot BEFORE it was abandoned?

(Did they house the shops that Wal-Mart drove out of business?)

Can’t say as I’ve never been to Phoenix.

But it’s the same old story, everywhere you go.

What (like so many things) ‘disturbs’ me about this story is the clear evidence it provides regarding the ‘pauperization’ of our civilization.

There was an article that I should have jumped on yesterday, an article explaining (actually debunking) the conservative position that we don’t possess enough trained manufacturing personnel to fill the open jobs.

I am living proof that the problem is NOT the lack of personnel but the unwillingness of the employer to pay for that talent!

Just yesterday I was passed over for a job I low-balled! It can’t be the ‘experience’, I’m a twenty year man and 3 times a foreman! (not only can I do the job, I can run it as well!)

They just didn’t want to pay…

Which reflects on our current situation.

Do you KNOW why our economy is ‘stalled’?

Too many of us only earn enough to keep us alive. This excludes us from being able to participate in and thereby 'expand' the economy...our other needs go 'unfulfilled'. (This is what happens when (idiot) ‘entrepreneurs’ decide they are going to become billionaires too!)

They screw their employees until they are forced to close because NOBODY can afford to work for them anymore.

Worse, good citizen, the well-trodden path has a name. Do you know what that name is, when the vast majority of the population lives in abject poverty while a, er, ‘fortunate few’ live in the ‘lap of luxury’?

When this happens they call that place a Banana Republic.

Well don’t look now. Worse, the people responsible for this phenomenon honestly believe it is not their fault…(they just played the game better than everyone else!)

And THAT’S part of the problem too…considering the very real business of life ‘a game’ where winning is accomplished by pauperizing all of the other players…

I’m going to stop right here so you can ponder the wisdom laid down for you to absorb…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner


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