Last summer, when I was in Tacoma, I started questioning the sanity of just about everyone I had contact with. I got back here to Texas and all seemed sane again. But then about a month later I started to think that the world was going insane.It's not so much the supposed ever-spreading economic meltdown, it's the things being done to supposedly stop the meltdown. Like yesterday the government came to the rescue of Citigroup to the tune of $20 billion.
Citigroup has cut over 53,000 jobs. While paying the New York Mets $400 million over 20 years for the naming rights for the Mets stadium.
Why would this not be one of the first things you cut back when things get tight? Here in Texas the Rangers played in The Ballpark in Arlington when I first moved here. Then a business that got in trouble long before the current troubles, paid to have the Ranger's home called Ameriquest Field. I forgot how much Ameriquest paid for this honor. But whatever it was, they quit paying and so now the place where the Rangers play is back being called The Ballpark in Arlington.
The first time I was in Houston I saw where the Houston baseball team plays. The name of the team escapes me, but the ballpark was Enron Field. Enron disappeared during an earlier meltdown. We sure have a lot of meltdowns. Enron Field is now Minute Maid Park.
So, it is not unheard of for a failing business to get out of the ballpark naming thing. I don't believe either Enron or Ameriquest were given taxpayer's money to bail them out. It seems reasonable to me that Citigroup should not be spending money on such a thing after getting a Federal bailout.
On another note, except for my bank, Washington Mutual, failing, I've had no personal contact with this supposed economic meltdown. If it weren't for reading that bad things were happening, with worse to come, I would think everything was hunky dory. Gas prices are about a third of what they were a short time ago. I go in Wal-Mart and the store is packed with what looks like happy people with carts full of goods. By 5pm every weekday the freeway that goes by where I live is backed up with a traffic jam. I go to a park and see a lot of happy people having fun. I know a lot of people with new flat panel TVs. Every McDonald's I drive by is busy. Last night they were lined up 20 deep at my local Super Wal-Mart's McDonald's.
This just doesn't look like the Great Depression to me. It's perplexing.
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