Musings on Life and Living

I'm not really sure why Christmas is called "the most wonderful time of the year" - here in East Central Illinois, it is cold, drab, and grey. Snow won't typically show up until mid-January. Some folks are extra cheery, but they tend to be the folks who are cheery all year long anyway. Folks say that people are more caring and more willing to give during the holiday season, but these days, with the economy still depressed, I don't know that I particularly see it. Lots of people complain about the commercialisation of Christmas, but that is a complaint that has been around for decades . I admit that I don't understand why Christmas decorations show up in department stores in early November (or even late October). I understand that consumers don't buy stuff for Thanksgiving, but that doesn't really explain why the stores have to jump straight from Halloween to Christmas. All that being said, I do enjoy the holiday season. It is the time of year that I ge...

President Obama recently held a "Job Summit" to discuss how to get the economy rolling again. Presumably without flooding the market with money that nobody seems to have seen yet. It has been somewhat difficult to track down what was actually accomplished during the job summit, though. I did find a bunch of videos on the White House web site that showed what they talked about, but, of course, all it was was talk. Looking at them, though, I was struck by something that Linda Chavez wrote on this same subject: " If the president were really serious, he'd put more money back in the hands of those capable of creating jobs — and far more efficiently than government can — individual investors and private business." I concur. While recognising that part of the growth of our business depends upon the amount of work we have available, there are also limits to the number of employees we can hire. Simply put, our business only has so much money. And when we have to spen...

"If data cause a re-examination of previously held assumptions, so be it." ~Larry Elder "Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong." ~Ayn Rand Discuss.