Hello all. First a quick update. I am still in a hotel in Austin. There is still no power at my house. I wish it would come back on because I am tiring of the hotel life. I guess it has been 11 days since the storm.

I am writing today about something I have mentioned before in other blogs on other sites. basically, it is about the economy. For years, people have thought the economy was great because the amount of money changing hands was making investors lots of money. As many of you see now, it was all smoke and mirrors. We have become a country of consumers and not producers. The US became a power because of its industrial might. We build nothing any more. To solve the problem, we need to bring our manufacturing jobs back home. A product needs to be built and sold here. No matter how you look at it, outsourcing jobs sends money out of the country.

There is no substance any longer. I see the government about to put $700,000,000,000 into a bailout plan so the banks will not fail. Ok, good, the banks need to stay solvent. However, the problem is really not with the banks, it is with the homeowners. They will lose the homes, the banks will get them and ultimately own them, thus making them richer.

The government, if it wants to fix this problem, needs to bailout, or invest in, companies building factories and plants here in the US. Give tax breaks to businesses so it is profitable to invest here again. We have become soft and lazy. We are a service economy. The smoke and mirrors must stop. We have to get back to the industrial giant that put fear into the Japanese Admiral Yamamoto.

If we dont keep high paying jobs here, the difference between rich and poor will continue to grow. We need a strong middle class. If we do not have one, we will be top heavy. And if you no anything about stability, if you are top heavy and have no rock solid foundation, you will eventually collapse.