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Sunday, June 8, 2014
ISSUE #800
Worst trade since Babe Ruth?

#800   June 8, 2014

Here’s a headline in today’s Columbus Dispatch: “Country stagnating amid political fighting.” The story had a quote by an economist, “People are just holding their breath. Until the political uncertainty is resolved, a lot of people do not want to invest.”  Wow, does that describe our economic problems? Then I read further. The article was not about the United States; it was about Haiti.

Fortunately, we’ve had some good economic news. (We’re not really as bad as Haiti.) Our economy is getting back to normal after suffering from a severe case of frostbite during the winter.  We are back up to the same number of workers we had six years ago. The bad news is that’s the slowest job recovery since the Great Depression 80 years ago.

In the six years since 2008 we added more than 10 million people, so we have a long way to go to add enough jobs to keep up with population growth.

You might point to the stock market for good news. Yes, the Dow Jones is close to 17,000; but it has only gained 3 percent a year since it peaked in 2007.

President Obama asked the Amir of Qatar to negotiate a trade, getting one American soldier returned by the Taliban in exchange for 5 top radical Islamists held at Gitmo. Can we get the Amir to negotiate a trade for our Marine in a Tijuana, Mexico jail? You may ask, what can we offer in return? Well, maybe we could offer to return a few million Mexicans.

This deal for Pvt. Bowe Bergdahl may be the worst “trade” since the Boston Red Sox sent Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees for a measly $125,000. Of course we’re glad Bergdahl is free. But we released 5 Islamists who are responsible for killing Americans and thousands of Muslims. Yes, they killed women and young girls of their own religion. We’ll be out of Afghanistan in a year or two, but the Afghans will still be there, including plenty of terrified women and girls.

I’m happy to see Joni Ernst win the Republican primary for Senate in Iowa. I don’t know anything about her Democratic opponent, so my “happiness” is based on her experience at “cutting pork.” For comedy purposes, if nothing else, we need more hog farmers in Congress to debate the best way to castrate overly fat budgets. They also know how to shovel out waste.

Historic quote by Will Rogers:

    “I am glad for once in our lives we got our Marines back home. I know they are laying off, waiting for some war somewhere. There is one in Afghanistan. But we got nobody in Washington that knows where it is, so the Marines will have to stay till Hoover tells the War Department where this place is.”  WA #335, May 26, 1929

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