The market has been dropping like a stone, incinerating trillions of dollars worth of wealth in the process. To begin to understand why, let’s go to the grocery store. I love the grocery store. The grocery business is so intensely competitive and the margins are so razor thin that you have to be very, very good at what you’re doing to succeed in grocery retailing in America. As a consequence, our grocery stores are just...
I hate talking numbers. If you’re not careful, talking numbers in a forum such as this can become a crashing bore. But the times dictate a conversation on numbers and I’m going to do my best to keep everyone engaged. Let’s talk money. We’re going to play a little time and money game. Imagine that you are spending money at the rate of one dollar a minute. But instead of moving forward in time with...
The U.S. economy has entered a stall. Some would say it has entered a spin. But just like a Cessna 152, the U.S. economy is designed to fly. The best thing our policymakers can do is let it.
On the White House website (www.whitehouse.gov) you can read, listen to or watch President Obama’s inaugural address. In the slug to the post, it says, “President Obama delivered his Inaugural Address, calling for a new era of responsibility.” (Click here to listen to the excerpt.) I’m a big believer in personal responsibility. Personal responsibility is the ultimate expression of freedom. In the 18th century, when large numbers of ordinary citizens were first given freehold tenure...
As we speak this morning (Fri, Jan 16, 2008, 7:53 a.m.), in just 4,987 minutes we will have a new president. And not just any new president. As we have been reminded almost constantly since late in the evening of Nov. 4, we will have the first African-American president. It is a signal moment in American history. On Nov. 6, just after the election, I spoke in this space on one very significant aspect of...
Miss Campbell was a sweet old lady. She was among the last of a large cohort of American women. The Miss Campbells of the mid-20th century had three things in common. They never married. They unapologetically retained the title ‘Miss’. And they taught school. These women once constituted a sizable plurality of American school teachers. By the late 1960s, they were nearing the end of their careers and were being replaced by younger, married, fertile...
Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday, December 19, 2008. With all of the news of the past weeks if I could I would wave a wand and the federal government would take a giant step backward. I mean a giant step. The two biggest stories of 2008 are the home mortgage meltdown and the auto industry collapse. The federal government is neck deep in both....
The so-called auto bailout bill, a $14 billion bridge loan intended to give automakers sufficient cash to continue operating in the first quarter of 2009, failed last night in the Senate. As far as getting government cash into the hands of the automakers this year, it’s over. Not gonna happen. That is a very big problem for GM and Chrysler. Less so for Ford except for the fact that if GM in particular fails, it...
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” – C. S. Lewis Here’s a simple civics lesson. Take a piece of paper and draw a horizontal line. Mark the ends of the line and label one end “No Government” and on the other end, label it “Maximum Government.” Above the Minimum Government label write the words, “chaos” and “freedom” and above the Maximum Government label...
The first presidential election of which I have any recollection was the 1960 Kennedy election. I was six going on seven years old. In those days I was living in Amarillo, Texas and my dad and I used to go watch minor league baseball. In Kennedy’s first year in office, the 1961 Amarillo Gold Sox were affiliated with the New York Yankees and played in Potter County Stadium. That 1961 team featured future Yankees pitcher...
I was at a gathering on Saturday in Dallas in the brand new home of a couple that is somewhat close to me. When I describe the home, don’t draw any conclusions about me. Though they are close for reasons I won’t disclose, I am a visitor in their home no more often than two times a year. The home sits on about an acre in Highland Park, the wealthy enclave just north of Downtown...
On the slim chance that John McCain wins this election – let me rephrase that – on the slim chance that John McCain doesn’t defeat himself in this election, he will need to invite Joe Wurzelbacher to sit with him on the platform at the inauguration. God knows Joe will have earned it. If John McCain wins, it will be Joe Wurzelbacher that drags him across the finish line. Joe Wurzelbacher is, of course, Joe...
Let’s pick a middle class home in Tyler at random and eavesdrop on the conversation taking place inside between husband and wife. HIM: “Honey, we need to rein it in. We talk about it every year before the holiday season begins and we promise that we’re going to keep a lid on things at Christmas but then we each go out and see just one more thing and we reach for the plastic and boom....
“I’m mad as hell, and I”m not going to take it anymore.” Peter Finch as Howard Beale “Network” 1976 If you’re not mad as hell, you’re not paying attention. And even those of you who are mad as hell, too many of you are mad at the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Let me illustrate. Wednesday afternoon I went to school to pick up my daughter. I was waiting on the school lawn with...
It has been a tumultuous two weeks. Let’s review. As a result of poor lending practices in the home mortgage market and particularly egregious practices at mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, non-performing loans have served to dry up lending capital. This lack of capital is putting the squeeze on individuals and businesses that need ready, affordable access to credit in order to buy cars, houses, inventory and to cover payrolls. In order to...
The beautiful thing about living in a free society is that you get exactly what you want. You want a government that hands out benefits by the truckload? There are politicians that will make that happen for you in return for simply marking a ballot. Do you want to drive a huge vehicle that requires a lot of fuel? No problem. Just buy the car. Want to avoid the muss and fuss of producing the...
Wow! What a week. Since last we spoke, the earth has wobbled on its axis. First, there’s Hurricane Ike. Here at KTBB we prepared for the worst right here in Tyler but in fact, we suffered very little. Not so in Houston, Galveston and along the Texas Gulf Coast. Those areas got hammered. Galveston was the wealthiest city in the United States in 1900 when a devastating hurricane killed as many as 8,000. The city...
Yesterday (Thu., Sep 11, 2008) marked the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 in which three important U.S. buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged and nearly 3,000 innocent people lost their lives. It’s actually to our credit as a nation that we were able to mark yesterday with as little note as we did. The fact is, the memory of the attacks of 9/11 has faded dramatically in the past seven...
Did you call the president like I told you? I know some of you did because you called the station and asked again for the number. Get a pen and paper because I’m going to give the number out again. If you missed last week, I urged everyone to call the White House and urge the president to exercise his constitutional authority to call the Congress back to Washington from the August recess and put...
It’s August and if you think it’s hot and miserable here, you should go to Washington, D.C. If you’ve ever been in our nation’s capital in August you know. If you haven’t, take it from me it’s about the most miserable place in the country this time of year. Geographers can give you all of the reasons for Washington’s summer discomfort. I don’t really care about the particulars. Suffice to say that the heat and...