Saturday, December 8, 2007

Have Yourself a Scary Little Christmas

Notice how Christmas seems to start earlier and earlier each year? Now, it looks like Halloween may become a year-round business. I mentioned in my first post on this blog that ghosts and ghost hunting have become big business. If you click on the link under the title of this post, you will be able to read about a haunted house in Texas that used to run from October-November, but is extending its run into December with a Christmas version headed by a grinch named Creep Cringle and a rogue elf. I heard on the radio yesterday that the USA has fewer manufacturing jobs than in 1950. We are building less and less in America. That's bad on many levels, but people need jobs and I suppose even haunted house theme parks provide jobs, and since divorced dads and tourists seem to need a fun place to take the kids on the weekends, more power to these folks.

2 comments:

  1. I'm glad the comments are moderated since I'm feeling particularly polically incorrect. Just a friendly warning.:>)

    Last night while cruising the Internet looking for a gift made not only in America, but locally, I found some interesting sites discussing a new push to buy American and support American companies. Apparently after the big revelation about China's practices, a lot of people are going out of their way to avoid buying anything made there. Which is not easy to do since everything is made in China.

    I live in an area of the country where mills and clothing manufacturing was the life blood of the communities. They are all gone now. I suppose people are having to become creative in making a living. Ghost hunting is hot right now, so I don't blame them either for making hay while the sun shines.

    And personally, I'd like to see American companies come home. The claims that Americans demand cheaper goods so they're made overseas doesn't wash. Even if the companies are paying workers nothing, which they are, the cost of shipping must be astronomical. The only people getting their cake and eating it too are the companies and shareholders. The consumer isn't getting a less-expensive deal. The company is simply making a much larger profit. It's obscene when CEO's make 500 million a year and get even higher bonuses. I'm sorry, but if he (and those immediately under him) made a salary somewhere grounded in this universe, the excess would pay a lot of workers and consumers wouldn't have to pay more. The whole system is screwed up. Now the companies are going to feel really screwed by moving to China and American consumers refusing to buy their goods if they're made there.

    As you can see, I'm still angry about the pet food and toys and all the other tainted products made in China that have made it to our market, sometimes simply by way of an ingredient used here. It's been going on for years. China has a history of doing this kind of thing to their own people, so why not the stupid American corporations who are too dazzled by their huge profits to pay attention? Or care. The Chinese companies got caught because they got greedy and started adding more poison to the pet food and tripped themselves up. That started the hunt for other tainted products. And they're everywhere.

    You don't have to post this to your blog. In fact, I wouldn't if I were you since this is way off topic. I'm just venting my frustrations by having to pay attention to every ingredient in dog food and everything else I buy. I'm really ticked off at our companies who have gone overseas, raked in the dough, and screwed us over in job losses and poison products. My dire prediction is that sales will fall so significantly over the next few years, companies will start talking about coming home. Plus our dollar is so devalued on the International Market at the moment, it's cheaper to manufacture here. So when the American companies start looking homeward, China is going to be really ticked. I expect them to seize holdings of these companies on their land and the Americans to flee like rabbits getting out of the way of a pack of hound dogs. Our companies will come crying home and want to the government to set them back up in business. Idiots.

    And I'm tired of Christmas shopping. I think I'm cranky. Sorry, but I feel better now. Back to Santa's list.:>)

    The Bad Booklady

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  2. Not off topic at all, Booklady. Rant away! One wonders, when the "American" companies have sold America off to China, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, how long it will take us to buy it back or if we shall fall, like Rome, into oblivion within our own lifetime! Greed is at the heart of our nation's ills. Our children or grandchildren may lead a revolution, but our generation seems to have settled into a state of oblivious self-delusion.

    As long as we let the multi-billon dollar multi-national corporations run our governments and write the new laws, all of us middle-class types shall keep moving downward to the serf status the very rich think is all our due.

    When the only hope for security the average person has is winning the lottery or having Ty Pennington show up at their door to build/give them a nice house for free, it's a sad, sad day for America.

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