Hostage situation

                       

Seems like everybody is being held hostage. The Syrian people are held hostages. The Egyptians are hostage to the Morsi government and Morsi is held hostage to the Muslim Brotherhood. Palestine of course is held hostage to the Israelis. Even the U.S. is held hostage by a congress that won't act to get a budget passed. Republicans hold tax increases on the wealthy hostage to cuts on the poor or would that be the other way around? Seems professor backwards is having his 15 minutes of fame. 

In any given day somebody somewhere is holding someone else hostage. Firefighters near Atlanta had to wait for their freedom just yesterday and while that was happening a man in his car with his girlfriend held police at bay when he put a gun in his mouth holding himself hostage. And don't you just love the expert analysis? Can hear the program director now "who wants to be the expert today" because after all we don't know these people from Adam. I consider myself knowledgeable  about hazardous waste but I'm no expert by any means. All the degrees in the world doesn't necessarily make you an expert. I've know degreed people who didn't have enough sense to check the oil in their car.

Also we seem to be hostages to fear and failure. We saw that after 911 with institution of Homeland Security. Tell me again just why Bozo, Tennessee needs an armored vehicle or enough arms to fight the Civil War all over again. And the mayor of that small southern town will definitely win a prize at Halloween when he shows up wearing the towns' $10,000 haz mat suit. 

Constant fails too. After researching the consumer mags for the best of the best affordable car they land up on a recall list two years later. Guess the brake or the gas line engineer didn't get it quite right but, no problems, there's always a fix only then you have to worry if the part was made in China and the repair man was on the up and up.

Is there any good news? Depends on how you look at it. Those out of work, myself included, are told that the jobless rates are falling. Not exactly. It's just that the job offers out there would barely support a teen living at home much less a family. Who'd take a job that would barely cover the gas to get there with little left over to pay rent? And those who had an unemployment check eventually run out and are no longer counted. Would you waste your time or driving to the employment office when you know there aren't any jobs? Everything has a price but not much value these days. And of course for every negative story there's an opposite and equal positive one but never on an equal scale. Just enough to fool the suckers in this poker game of life. It gives the scammers something to quote when selling their snake oil. 

It's all a scam if you ask me. Capitalism is based on an individual or company borrowing money with the hopes of somehow paying off that debt at some future time. The problem is that never happens. Once a company comes close to that position another company goes out, borrows money to buy the first and the cycles is started all over again. Again hostages to our own system. And you thought Bernie Madoff was a bad guy.