The vicious cycle

Oil is at record prices right now. The American economy is staggering under inflation. Food prices are soaring and putting the squeeze on people of lower income levels. And it can all be traced to corporate greed, off-shoring and outsourcing that has become the hallmark of the Bush administration's disastrous policies. Sending jobs to hugely populous countries like India and China in search of cheap labor has meant that these countries have become rising industrial powers that are now in need of massive consumption of oil in order to fuel their factories. In turn, that has meant that already diminishing world supplies of oil are being priced higher and higher, meaning that the prices we pay at the pump are going to continue to rise exponentially. High fuel prices means we pay far more for everything, and the US economy is already in bad shape due to the sub-prime mortgage crisis. So the whole thing mushrooms and it causes a catastrophe for the economy and since job salaries can in no way keep pace with the rapid rise in cost of food, fuel and everything else, it means that we're all going to be much poorer for a good long time to come. There won't really be any real tangible way to curb oil prices, growing more food is getting harder because of how much land has been gobbled up in development and the push for biofuels is also putting a squeeze on food prices because it's causing shortages of certain commodities. I don't know what the answer is or how these problems are going to be solved, but if we'd begun to wean ourselves from oil after the embargo of the early '70's, we might have solved that problem by now. The trouble is that research and development takes years and years and years to accomplish, so I doubt that we'll be free of oil in my lifetime. The Presidential candidates are all talking about an economy based on green technology jobs, which is great, but we need to have started that years ago. Sure, we can start now, but again, R&D takes years of work before real solutions can be accomplished. Green jobs will be good, high paying jobs that will hopefully not be shipped overseas again, but how we stop that is to enable universal health care so that employers aren't footing the bill for their employees medical insurance, perhaps the highest cost they pay anymore as Baby Boomers age, retire and need increased medical attention. There are answers to the problems we are having in this country, but ones that will take years and much negotiation to accomplish. I only hope that these things can get done and that we can turn around our sagging economy before it's too late.

ACHILLES TENDONITIS LIFT

I went to the orthotist yesterday to have a heel lift fitted into my right shoe to ease the Achilles tendonitis I have in that foot. The doctor wrote a prescription for an eighth of an inch lift, but the orthotist thought that I'd do better with a quarter inch lift due to my condition, so that's what I have right now. I have to admit, it feels better, because when I took of my shoes to do T'ai Chi last night, my tendon hurt like hell, but when I got my shoes back on after class, it did begin to feel better. The picture you see here doesn't really look like what they built for me. The one they built for me comes in layers, so that in 6 weeks after I see Doctor Mineo again, I can reduce the size of it to an eighth inch and then wean off it as the tendonitis begins to heal up. In the meantime, I start physical therapy tomorrow afternoon. Honestly, it seems that anymore, a year doesn't go by that I'm not shipped back to PT for some kind of complication from my short leg problem. That seems to be something that will continue to be a problem for the rest of my life, regardless of what I do to keep it from being just that. I've been working out, getting stronger and leaner, but still, the tendonitis is from working out with two different sized soles on my shoes and the increased strain on the longer leg as a result. So it really doesn't matter what I do, it's just always going to be a problem, I guess, which frustrates me to no end, because my insurance won't pay for what I need it to. Of course, at this point, I could break into a rant about health care, but I've done far too much of that already here, so I will spare you another one. Suffice it to say that we've got to fix this problem as one measure of repairing our broken economy, and we must do it soon, if not now. The longer we continue to argue about it, the worse things are going to continue to get, and we can't afford to keep waiting for half measures to staunch the bleeding. You need to save the patient, not just half do so and hope it survives. But anyway, in the meantime, between high gas and food prices and increasing medical bills, my budget is going to be a total wreck for a while. I can only hope that I can keep my head above water, but it's going to be tough. At least I'm not alone, though. This is hitting us all below the belt. And we'd better hope that a rising tide of anger - and yes, bitterness - will be enough to wake up those in power to change things and make them hear us and do something about it.