At twenty-two, I thought I knew everything. Now, at sixty-seven (69 in Mr. Dickie's case), I find I haven't tasted a drop from the sea of knowledge. The more I learn, the more I find out how little I know. (John Copage in Abounding Grace by M. Scott Peck, p. 382)
- Yesterday was the scheduled date for the cutover from analog television to digital television. In the last few weeks the national government decided to postpone the cutover date until later in the summer. Apparently the main reason for doing this was because millions of people were going to be left with no television reception. The government plan to issue coupons for convertor box rebates failed when the coupons weren't used fast enough and when the program ran out of rebate money. If our government couldn't plan and manage this program what makes us think that the government can manage the current economic crisis?
- Last night I watched about half of an excellent one-hour PBS program on the show, Frontline. They discussed in very clear fashion the various factors that lead to the current economic crisis, the worst since the Great Depression, and thus the worst in my lifetime. One of the most disturbing things about the situation is that some of the people who work on solving the problems for the country are the same men who earlier were top executives on Wall Street. If they couldn't manage billions of dollars on Wall Street what makes us think they can manage trillions of dollars as government officials?
- Yesterday there was a piece on the news about the financial situation in the state of Kansas. It sounded like the state is broke. They don't have money to pay their bills. And, worst of all they didn't set aside funds to cover the tax refunds they knew they were going to have to pay. That is to say, they spent money that wasn't theirs in the first place. Will the people of Kansas ask the rest of us to "bail them out?"
Mr. Dickie
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