Or is it Living in a Dream? I watched last nights The Presidential Joint Congressional Address which it seems most Americans were encouraged and enjoyed! I for one found it somewhat uplifting. My problem is that I just don’t believe any of them anymore. I should say mostly. I mean it is difficult to believe them. On the one side I see stick-in-the-muds and the other I see groupies. Neither side actually acknowledging any good no matter where it come from! I mean honestly, who would not stand and applaud any young boy with brain cancer for receiving an honorarium acceptance into the Secret Service or another being acceptable to Westpoint. It seems I live in a dreamscape where all Americans are just people trying to live out a decent and respectable life without being bothered by others. I believed this to be the American Dream. I believed it was real.
Now that I am awake and realize that nothing could be further from the truth, I saw a room mostly full of children spatting ad nauseam. How did I get here? How did it happen? How have we become this lot of people? Where do we go from here?
One question I ask myself is am I truly awake? I mean how do I know. It kinda looks like this. One day I thought I was awake, President Regan was running the sh** show and was fixing things. As time went on I began to realize how crooked things were altogether and who were the players. I thought I was waking up. Along come 911 and bam, no you were asleep. Another wake up call seemingly perpetrated by outside sources. An alarm clock advising as to the reality of a world we live in. Almost 25 years later and the alarm clock is still ringing because its from within not without! My American Dream is being murdered in front of my eyes by corruption, selfishness, childishness and lack of leadership. Oh lord what shall I do, the priest is corrupt, the judge is corrupt, the court is corrupt and the king is corrupt, what shall I do?
Here I sit writing as a vent. I am quite upset. What can I do besides write and bitch? I have a life and I wish to live it but I see peril coming if I do not do something about the grifters. The life I dream of pursuing is being threatened by those who should not even have the power to get beyond their homes. At every turn I run into a ratio of 3 to 1 government employees who set up road block for to the one who earnestly helps me on my way. Most of these people have their dream in hand, a home, government paycheck with no signs of disruption and a rather lazy schedule comparatively. No one works less hours, does less constructive work and gets paid regardless of whether or not their effort has a beneficial product attached. A zero value proposition. I can’t compete with this.
I live in a dream that I will be able to pay employees the same wages for doing tremendously more benefit. It’s not happening. Even with the ridiculous cost of housing it is not possible. We build houses, houses for everyday people, the least expensive housing in our market area and my top paid employees can barely afford one of the mortgages. The rest of them a farts chance in a wind Wyoming wind storm.
I live in a dream thinking this is reversible. Why? Well if I raise all of their pay the cost of the house goes up and not a little. If I raised the wages of all of my peeps so that HALF of them could afford to buy I would be paying out of my pocket for that to happen. Why have a business? This is where we are. The system is corrupted beyond repair and no one I saw last night seems up for the job of fixing it. I applaud Trump for routing corruption and waste if that is truly what is happening. I believe to a large degree it is but no one is talking about how most of us are not doing anything of value!
Let me give you an example. People pay us to build houses. Building houses creates wealth in that there is a tangible product (asset) that is resultant. Now let’s take into consideration that approximately 20 to 35% of that house depending upon where we build it is government regulation that has no provable real benefit to anyone. Simply government mandates that are accepted as “the way it is” and move on. If each person was to individually assess the value of each mandate and choose to spend his or her money independently most of these mandated items would not exist. Additionally let’s take my accountant, his only purpose is to do for me what is way too complicated and involved for me to do myself and file tax documents. Every dime I pay him and the others like him are added to the cost of housing. Every fee I pay the municipality for no services is added to the cost of housing. If a house costs $300,000 and 20-35% is of no benefit then a buyer is overpaying anywhere from $60,000 to 100,000 in “no value” propositions. Forced contracts. No fix being discussed nor suggested.
I have a dream has become I live in a dream. Not reality. And this is the best country in the world? It still must be as everyone is still trying to get here. Evidence for sure. A friend of mine says, ” he who goes into the salt mine comes out salty”. The only solution I see to this dilemma is to give up my life and dream to go fix the problem, get salty. Dread. Not what I signed up for but if someone kills my dream in my reality then before long not having one is the same result and giving it up to save it for everyone else. Please wish me well.