Growth Industry

After the usual morning surf through all my favorite websites, I finally got around to looking at today's issue of the T&G. It was interesting enough reading and mildly informative, but I didn't trip over anything that I'd want to call attention to or snarkily deride today. In fact, there hasn't been anything along that line in at least a couple of weeks, now. It looks like the editors are back on the job, catching anything that would need to be caught.

Nope... today I'm posting about the T&G because Dianne Williamson made me feel sorry for them. Her column in today's paper was apparently written from a place that I've also been, myself. It's that awful place at work when you know the trend is definitely downhill for the business. The handwriting is on the wall, the downward trending statistics are in plain sight, and you know that they're looking for ways to cut expenses... ie- whose heads they can afford to roll.

I worked at Parker Manufacturing, over at Kelly Square, for six years in the 1980's. The handwriting was on the wall over there for more than a year, and I would ask my boss and my boss's boss, and even the owner... "Am I going to be next?" ...as just about every month they'd lay off a few more people. "Oh no! Not you, Jeff! Your job is secure, believe me."

Well, they're out of business now, and I obviously did get laid off after a while. But I always managed to easily find another good job, ...until the Bush administration arrived.

Dianne has done her best to maintain her own unique level of Williamsonian wit today in her column. But I read it with that sense of what it would be like to be in her shoes, seeing the handwriting on the wall, seeing the downtrending statistics, and wondering whether I'm going to be next... It's an awful place to be, as I said, and it's an awful place that I am very familiar with.

Not only am I familiar with this situation, my current resume includes only one former employer that's still in business. That's after a lifetime of working for a living, and making an above average income. And now I drive a taxi. That pretty much says it all, doesn't it?

I mean, I consider myself to be, essentially, unemployed. But the newspapers and the government don't. And so the statistics of how many people are now in a situation greatly compromised and vastly lowered, economically, is largely hidden. Basically, the fourth estate has failed to report this, and many other basic facts to the American public concerning what's actually been going for the past seven years. Had they done so, had they not been so willing to kiss ass and play at "the king's new clothes" these past seven years, perhaps things would be different today.

But now... it's just too late.

So, although I do feel sorry for all the talented folks who write for the T&G, I don't feel sorry for the ass-wipes who've been running newspapers and other traditional media in this country during this rape and pillage of our way of life over the course of this last seven years.

The only growth industry left in this country now is the corrupted government.

And Dianne? Well, the only thing I can say to Dianne at this point is, "I predict that you won't really like your new job at all... and that's if you can even find one."