Home » Posts tagged 'fear' (Page 2)

Tag Archives: fear

Risk Aversion

Posted on by | 10 Comments

The economic news out of most of the world points to a continued, if not new, slowdown. Japan is going nowhere, Europe may be shrinking, China is bleeding capital, and the rest of the world is hanging on. The only place there is good news is here in the US where … there was a net slowdown in the number of jobs gained in May. None of this looks good.

For everyone outside the US, it doesn’t. But most of that money from China is coming to the US – or, more accurately, coming back. Why aren’t things looking up?

Global instability doesn’t help anyone, which is why the Fed stopped raising rates. We can’t go it alone anymore, not in this inter-connected world. It spooks everyone to see this much risk. Yet there is still reason to believe that the US, alone, will see a period of higher growth by the end of the year. It’s all about that money coming back – and when it gets put to use.

Continue reading →

Be Thankful, Not Fearful

Posted on by | 11 Comments

This is a time to be thankful for what we have. We gather with family or friends and celebrate the bounty of a great and prosperous Promised Land. The material wealth of North America has always been obvious, as it was demonstrated to the first Europeans by the natives.

But this is not a Promised Land for many people who live here. The systems that we have set up, often credited with our wealth, do not always work. When we are thankful on these days, it is rightly for the great gifts of our Democratic Republic – Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Hapiness. But as we have seen in the last few days, none of these are guaranteed to all by our system.

It is impossible to be truly thankful for our great gifts when we know that they are jealously kept from others.

Continue reading →

Say, Can You See?

Posted on by | 11 Comments

Oh say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave
O’er the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave?

Not according to Wayne La Pierre of the NRA, it doesn’t.  He has a vision of a nation imprisoned and afraid, an America I simply cannot recognize.  His call for a new security regime with armed guards posted at every school, every place where the vulnerable cringe with fear from gun violence, has drawn detractors from every corner of the country.  That’s only reasonable, of course.  But I have to thank him for starkly painting the picture as to exactly where we are going if there is not a change of some kind.

A school in Connecticut, a church in Pennsylvania, a trap set for fireman in New York – every week it seems there is another event or two.  The corrosive action of fear creeps in like rust, never sleeping and eating its way gradually to our core.  A change must come because this is intolerable.  The change, however, must not just be one of law.  The change has to be one from deep inside us as a people.

Continue reading →