Lisa's Musings and Perusings

The economy should be like the Law of Conservation of Energy. Money can neither be created nor destroyed, but transferred. In this aspect, given the current economic situation, in order to keep the country (not just the government) operational money must be transferred into it. Obviously, this is done via taxes. The government cannot spend what it doesn’t have, and cannot keep borrowing and increasing a debt it cannot pay. Thus I repeat, this is done via taxes. Taxes, I know touchy word. Who can afford to pay taxes? Well, the the middle and lower class obviously cannot. We struggle to get by as it is. The logical solution is raise taxes on the rich and wealthy, as well as large corporations that can afford to pay. This also means not giving them subsidies, so that it doesn’t cancel out the purpose of taxing them. It’s for the benefit of society. Funding shortages affect all. Schools lose money, cut staff, class size grows, and education depreciates more than it already has. Unemployment needs to survive. Without that, people will suffer further in regard of not being able to simply provide for their families. The lower and middle class need a break in regards to healthcare. The cost goes up as the longer some wait to receive treatment because they can’t afford to pay and prolong their illnesses. Then there’s the simple fact that the cost of healthcare and it’s procedures send people into bankruptcy, which affects them and the economy even more. Sadly, I believe medicine shouldn’t be a business, it should just be. If taxes go down any further these services continue to be cut, cuts mean loss of employment and that does not help the economy. I hope I’ve made the point to raise taxes. Taxes are not the root of all evil. They really do help fund the most helpful of programs. Just think, if taxes go up the government can rehire those that it fired, schools can hire more teachers and aides, it really just results in jobs that people can return to. I know people talk about shrinking government, but given the size of our country and the size of the population struggling, it only makes sense to raise taxes. Otherwise, everyone suffers. If the people don’t work, they can’t spend, if they don’t spend, businesses fail, if businesses fail they look for another bailout that probably won’t happen…

I love this country. But, I must ask: can we go back to pre-epic-bombardment-of-celebrity times? I’d like to go back to a time where privacy was respected. Back to a time where Hollywood was seen as glamorous and artistic from a distance, it’s celebrities’ privacy respected. It’s actually become disgusting how overwhelmed we are by all things celebrity. The media seems to focus on celebrities as news makers, rather than actual important news stories. It’s an unfortunate development of how society has evolved. It’s sad to see the youth now aspire to be famous, rather than focus on something like going to college to be a teacher, scientist, or engineer. Any wonder why this country, that’s touts itself as so great, has such a low ranking regarding education when compared to others. This nation looks more and more like a nation that promotes being rich and famous over being middle class, educated, and striving to make a difference.

Can we NOT focus on these celebrities and give them more attention than they deserve? I can appreciate a good artist and good entertainment, but some of these celebrities have done nothing to deserve their notoriety. The ridiculousness of these “reality” shows is incomprehendible. The paparazzi should become real photographers and not stalkers. I actually feel bad for some celebrities for the way they are treated. The focus should be on their art or contributions to society, not them and the intimate details of their personal lives, then that of their family’s. Let our society focus on improving education and providing it to everyone, developing innovators and inventors, encouraging scientific discoveries. Let the media focus on reporting actual news stories like the acts of the governement, laws that are enacted, climate change, heroes, generally fixing problems, poverty, world events, civil wars, the list can go on. We need to work on evolving our society and country into one that deserves to be called “Great” again.