To fix a problem, you must see it first and then you must admit it

Big Red Car here.  The Big Red Car is feeling a bit blue these days which is very, very difficult to do for a Big Red Car.

We seem to be overwhelmed with problems but the Big Red Car is deathly afraid we cannot see them and therefore we cannot admit them and therefore we cannot solve them.

Big Red Car is discouraged

The Big Red Car is discouraged because our government — both the White House and the Congress — does not seem to be able to see, admit or fix real problems.

And, worse, it is not only not getting better — it is getting worse.  We have entered a seemingly fairly land of not seeing, admitting and fixing the REAL problems which bedevil us as a Nation.

What problems, Big Red Car?

Well, the Big Red Car does not think that our government sees that the big problem is the economy and the job situation.  It keeps getting distracted.

Since the beginning of the year, the government has not spent a minute dealing with the economy or jobs — instead they have been flailing us with gun control, immigration and the sequester.  None of these things have any impact on the economy or jobs.

Really, Big Red Car?

So, Big Red Car, what is the evidence that this has had any impact on our government at all?

OK, so the Big Red Car is going to unload on ya’ll — you asked for it.

1.  The economy is not fundamentally getting any better as measured by the other consideration — jobs.  We are engaging in a wholesale sham pretending that folks who drop off the rolls — are no longer considered to be “in the labor force”, all 8,000,000 of them — are not unemployed.  The Labor Force Participation Rate is at a disturbing level.

Absent this sham, the unemployment rate is about 12% and U-6 is almost 20%.  These are truly terrible numbers.

The economy is not getting better.  The government has no new ideas.  What they have been doing is not working and will not work.

2.  Shovel ready jobs elude us.  The Stimulus was an exercise in futility.

The government attempted to spur the economy but has only provided the most monumental financial failures at orders of magnitude beyond belief.  Solyndra and Fisker are laced with corruption, inept judgments and cronyism.  Governments are not venture capitalists particularly with the citizens money.

3.  We are at all time high in the creation of dependencies — welfare, unemployment, disability, housing assistance, food stamps — and are creating entire generations who look to the government not just as their first choice of support but as their only source of support.

The Boston Marathon Massacre bombers are welfare recipients.  Their parents were welfare recipients.  They were not grateful.  They were hateful.  They murdered the hand that was feeding them.  Their first target was Boston and their subsequent target was apparently New York City.

We are at an all time in the number of Americans living in poverty.

4.  The health care situation is impossible.  This monster called “Obamacare” is no better understood than the day the President signed it into law.  It is impossible to understand, implement or administer.  Even the Congress is trying to obtain an exemption for its own staffs and themselves.  The exchanges will not be done in time.

The conditions it was supposed to alleviate — cost, coverage, care — are worse than ever.  It is a disaster.

Every year we contend that we will fund this monster with savings created by eliminating waste and fraud — and we have not saved a penny yet.

5.  The world is aflame with strife, hate and war.  The Iranians are closer than ever to a nuclear bomb with no resolution in sight.  The North Koreans are beyond anyone’s ability to deal with.  The entire Middle East is aflame.  Chemical weapons are being used against the citizens of countries we have vowed to assist.  We are alternatively engaging or disengaging.  We are killing almost indiscriminately with drones.

And, yet, our President is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.  Where is the peace?

6.  Terrorism has made its way to our shores and we are unwilling to even call it by its first name.  The murderous jihadist — his own description — of Fort Hood is a “work place purveyor of violence”.  We grant asylum to terrorists who live off the fat of our land and then kill our children, women and citizens.  We are told that they are to be watched and we ignore them until they are covered in our blood.

7.  Our law enforcement institutions do not work when their work is preventive in nature.  We are more vulnerable than ever before and still we do not put voice to the reality of Islamic jihadist terror.  We allow it to be exported into our country and pay its transportation costs to boot.

8.  Our justice department is unable to function coherently whether it is the failure to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in any venue or to explain Fast & Furious.  It is simply dysfunctional.

9.  We are promised transparency and truthfulness and full disclosure and we have Benghazi — the death of an Ambassador and three other good and faithful Americans serving in harm’s way and here we sit — no reasonable explanation of any kind whatsover as to what really happened.  We do know now that it was not a bunch of wayward movie critics who happened to own a mortar, crew served automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenades.  We have been lied to and having been lied to there is no greater initiative to find and tell the truth.

10.  Anything related to the accumulation of data and its use is beyond the capabilities of the government — pertinent to background investigations, immigration watch lists, terror watch lists, no fly lists, eVerify lists.  And yet, American Express can give me my exact balance on my credit card within 10 seconds.  Visa can verify my creditworthiness while standing at the gas pump.

I just want a government that works as well as Visa.  Hell, I would even take American Express.

Ten laments is all the Big Red Car can handle today.  It is discouraging.

Government is not working for us.  It is sad.

But, hey, what the Hell do I know anyway?  I’m just a Big Red Car.

 

12 thoughts on “To fix a problem, you must see it first and then you must admit it

  1. i hear you.

    Big government, like big companies are really difficult to manage. It takes professional managers to do that, yet in government we let amateurs with no management experience or credentials be in charge.

    I’m not directing this observation towards the US. This happens all over the world.

    We almost need a re-engineering of politics. Separate the legislative/executive bodies totally from the operators. Hire only professional managers to execute, not politicians who procrastinate and don’t have a management bone in their body.

    This crisis you’re describing will be solved via sound management principles and common sense approaches, not political meandering.

    • .
      Thank you, friend.

      Perhaps The Boss will work the Visa card out a bit this weekend.

      A certain BRC needs a bath and an oil change. I love it when they hand dry me.

      BRC
      .

  2. Buck up. A big car recently said:

    In times like this — the economy in shambles, the Boston bombing — we need to remember our roots. We came through when the oddsmakers were not in our corner and we shall prevail again. Stiff upper lip and carry on. We are exceptional.

    • .
      Big Red is very discouraged.

      But never suggest he is “blue” — who wants to be a Big Blue Car?

      Besides, The Boss may get ideas and paint me blue.

      BRC
      .

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