The past two weeks the media and the stock market has been giddy about the weekly unemployment numbers. They have been down slightly from the report three weeks ago. The numbers are still well over 500,000 and the total number is over 9.1%. That is somewhat misleading since it only accounts for those filing for unemployment. It doesn’t count those who have used up the benefits and those who have just quit looking period. The impact of this is not understood until you dig down to the local level.
Take a community like Wilmington, Ohio, where the major employer, DHL, pulled out and took 10,000 jobs away. One out of three people in Wilmington worked at DHL, sometimes both parents in a family. The unemployed in Wilmington are trapped. They were living the American Dream, with a house and a decent lifestyle. Now, they can’t sell the house and they can’t find work. They are in serious trouble. This same situation exists in Elkhart, Indiana, where the RV business went south. The new CAFE standards assure it will stay south. The Cap and Trade bill that just passed the House will further assure that. Same deal, can’t sell the house, can’t get work.
The entire state of Michigan is like this, as the auto industry cuts back. In Tennessee, last week, job openings at a packing plant caused a near riot since so many were willing to work for $11 an hour, and many were perceived as illegal aliens. The argument that illegals do work here that Americans won’t do won’t play in Wilmington, Elkhart, Michigan, and, evidently, in Tennessee.
Trillions are being spent in Washington to bail out banks, insurance companies, UAW workers, for earmarks, for the greening of schools, for two wars, and maybe to bail out California.
Yet, it will fall on you and me to help the people in Wilmington and Elkhart. I am more than willing to help as long as no government touches my help. Like most of you, I don’t trust one politician to do the right thing with money.
So, I’m donating to Feed the Children, a program to bring food to Wilmington and Elkhart and all the Wilmington’s around the country. I have true compassion for these people. I believe they were hardworking families who did nothing to bring this on themselves. They did not destroy DHL like the UAW destroyed Chrysler and GM. They are people who have not been working the system for years. They would take a job doing anything to feed the family just like my Dad did during the Great Depression. These are the true victims of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and the Freddie and Fannie mess. They are where they are because Bush behaved like a man who just couldn’t stop spending. They are victims of our special interest driven idiotic government.
So, I will help. We were taught in my generation to help a neighbor. We didn’t snicker when a neighbor hit a rough patch. The neighborhood got together and helped. We are all neighbors of Wilmington and Elkhart. It may be coming to our neighborhood if we don’t reclaim control of our country.
Be a good neighbor, sit down and write a check to Feed the Children, box 36, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73101. They will take donations as small as $7 which will fill two boxes with food. The food to goes to families out of work with children. The kids didn’t do anything to bring this about, and they need our help.
Write the check, it’s Memorial Day Weekend and you will feel even better when you hang that flag out.
