Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Accountability

Accountability

One of my students wrote me that the technique she learned in Lesson 2 of the One Act Play was very helpful in a mystery she is writing. It is always good to receive this type of feedback. In the references I used to create the course the importance of character development was stressed so much I had to give it a major treatment. This class isn't about what I think but about time tested techniques. However you can have a great outline and character sketches and still fall sort of a good drama. Some playwrights take a year or more on what we covered in the first two lessons. I am pushing the students hard and risk losing them to discouragement and realize fully the thin ice we skate together. A drama is the highest form of story telling and I believe if you can ever figure out how to write one you will have success in all your other writing endeavors.

Another student turned in an exceptional Lesson 2. Anyone who wants to see a good effort in this area should go to “eventrap”s port and see her submission under her One Act Play Folder. When I initially read her outline I had a vision of what the characters looked like and the photographs and written criteria strongly confirmed that impression.

Shifting gears, I risk boring my readers with views on government but being involved in this hugely important process is something I think everyone should be more involved in. I do not feel particularly partisan and see both parties as seriously deficient. Neither is following the Letter or Spirit of the Constitution and where we are headed as a nation is into dangerous and uncharted waters. Indulge me while I hammer The Federal Reserve and Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Federal Reserve is the nation’s Central Bank. It sounds like Socialism and Central Planning to me. The other night the candidates were talking about the Federal Agencies they would shut down and I was hoping to hear the Federal Reserve mentioned. I might feel differently if they were audited and accountable to the American People but they are not. They operate under a shroud of secrecy and either need to be shown the light of day or boarded up. A big and unappreciated reason the nation is in the mess it is, is because they print too much currency….How much is that…? Your guess is as good as mine…. They won’t say. That and Americans are entitled to know about the Gold Reserves and how much is actually still in Fort Knox. Ron Paul and Barney Franks both think so and these guys are politically at opposite ends of the universe.

Another Federal Agency I have problems with is the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They need to run their algorithms and post the results. All this massaging and adjusting just undermines their credibility. All this disregarding of criteria like energy and food has to stop Why can’t they just run the numbers and post the results. If they feel obliged to explain spikes and downturns then by all means do so but don’t mess with the numbers and try all this slight of hand. Even if they are not politically motivated having the capability to fudge the statistics with these seasonal adjustments mean that values are being played around with and inserted into the formulas to make things come out the way someone wants, or put the best possible spin on the bad news. We know all Federal Agencies are run by political appointees and when an agency starts messing with the data it makes us even more skeptical. This isn’t Venezuela. Right now if you accept their numbers and run their inflation calculator comparing this year with last year you see inflation at 3.89 percent. That is almost 4 percent. It is to my view grossly underreported. When I look at what gold sold for this time last year and what it is selling for now… that to me is a much better indicator of inflation that what the BLS is telling us. On investments today you are lucky to make 2 percent and on savings one percent. By this estimate people who once depended on interest income are not getting any and so have had to go into their principle and even that is being eroded by inflation.

The new aristocracy is Government claiming to be champions of the downtrodden and disenfranchised…. What they are setting in place is the same old Socialist claptrap that has failed in every country it has ever been tried in. We need to get the Democrats (Socialists) and most of the Republican (Status Quo Party) out of office and start over. I would love to see about half of the three letter agencies closed down and the remainder significantly reduced. I would like to see a flat tax and term limits. Mostly I would like to see Americans return to the Constitution which is not a panacea but much better than the social welfare state we have become. We need to have policies that grow the middle class rather than destroy it and quit trying to reduce everyone but politicians and civil servants to the poverty level.