Why call it "I'll be your huckleberry"?
I saw the movie Tombstone again just recently and was inspired by Val Kilmer's powerful performance as Wyatt Earp's and the Earp brother's sidekick and confidante, Doc Holliday. Kilmer was at his best when facing off bad guy gunslinger Johnny Ringo, and drawling his trademark "I'm your huckleberry."
To be one’s huckleberry — as the phrase "I’m your huckleberry" — means to be just the right person for a given job.
I hope to be a huckleberry and plant a seed, inspire an idea, spread knowledge and be a huckleberry for truth...I'll try and disseminate facts, thoughtful opinions, helpful criticisms and suggestions and the occasional smart-ass remark to prod the body politic out of the slumber induced by the endless opportunities to be distracted in our modern hi-tech world which entices us at every level of our lives - on TV, radio, print, satellite, cable and the internet with shiny baubles "on sale" guaranteed to satisfy our near addiction for instant gratification.
A world that seems to equate self-absorption with enlightenment, celebrity with reality and material wealth with prosperity.......
America's Epitaph
I thought America's epitaph would be "They entertained themselves to death" and then I thought it might be "They shopped themselves to death." but more likely, it will be "Greed killed America" at all levels.......
Banks and Credit Companies - Fatally Flawed Business Model
Banks and credit card companies are like giant ticks on a hound dog. They haven't killed him, but he is listless. Like ticks, these companies bleed the consumer dry with USURY - I DON'T CARE WHAT THEY SAY IT IS "USURY." And, unfortunately, our out-of-control capitalism bleeds the lower class dry first, creating a perpetual underclass and an invisible society of credit scoreless poor.
WOE UNTO THEM WHO MAKE MERCHANDISE OF THE POOR - THE ALMIGHTY DOTH NOT LIKE IT
HE is watching
"God's Eye" as Photographed by Hubble Telescope
Banks and credit card companies can and did serve a useful purpose, but now "fee" us to death. Banks and credit card companies can and did play a vital role in helping economically, but now, since a Supreme Court decision moved the power to set interest rates for national banks from each state's legislatures to the home state where the corporation is "headquartered", interest rates have gone up faster then hemlines did in the 1960's.
Credit Card companies will thwart Obama's stimulus
Usurious interest rates and fees are one reason why Obama's "get the money to consumers to spend and jump-start the economy" won't work......the poorest will pay basic bills and debts....a great editorial cartoon would show the ticks as those companies, the dog as the consumers and then show the politicians throwing $$ into he feed bowl and wonder why he remains so listless.
The lower and now mid-level folks of the credit card class will pay off the credit cards and not "stimulate the economy". Why should a person with $5,000-$10,000 in debt at 28-32% interest go on a spending binge? They won't! They will pay off credit cards and the whole process then results in an indirect transfer of wealth to the credit card companies......
WHEN A BUSINESS MODEL IS DEPENDENT ON PENALTIES AND FEES FOR AROUND 1/3 OR MORE OF ITS INCOME INSTEAD OF FROM PROVIDING ACTUAL, USEFUL SERVICES, IT IS FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED AND PARASITIC IN NATURE.
HARMFUL TO THE MOST VULNERABLE IN SOCIETY.
SUCH FLAWS AND OTHERS THAT SPELL "GREED" WITH A CAPITAL 'G" CAUSED THE CURRENT ECONOMIC CRISIS.
Corporate Greed and Obscene CEO Compensation
Bastiat's The Law warned of the dangers to society when:
"The Law is used as an instrument of plunder."
The subversion of the law and the better angels of human nature by the slow grinding of the poor (and now middle-class) by banks and financial service industry companies is only heightened by the outrageous compensation packages of publicly-traded companies......
Many corporate execs are not satisfied to live like Kings....no, they must ascend Olympus and live like the gods.......that is a rant for another blog soon. If you think a nude photo is obscene you should see the ratio of wages for execs to the average wage-earner for real obscenity......
a 2006 Study by the Economic Policy Institute showed that:
In 2005, an average Chief Executive Officer (CEO) was paid 821 times as much as a minimum wage earner.
An average CEO earns more before lunchtime on the very first day of work in the year than a minimum wage worker earns all year.
This extreme compensation ratio reflects....the extraordinary growth of CEO pay... The ratio wasn't always so extreme.
As recently as 1978, CEOs were paid only 78 times as much as minimum wage earners.
A 2006 Report by the House Financial Services Committee revealed the disparity in executive wages compared to the common worker, the nation's "worker bees" so to speak.
1965 - CEOs made 24 times the pay of an average worker
2004 - CEOs made 431 times the pay of an average worker.
1995 to 2005 -
average CEO pay increased 5 times faster that of average workers.
comparing CEOs to minimum-wage earners.
2005 - median pay for CEOs 100 largest companies rose 25%
2005 - minimum-wage earners made the same amount as last year.
The huge disparity in pay of CEOs (execs) to the average worker threatens the social contract that keeps our society stable. The concept of fairness and respect for the law is diminished when it appears to the most of us that the "rich" get away with anything.
History is replete with civilizations felled by the underclass when the "elite" became too far out of touch with the common man. The collapse of Enron, Worldcom and other companies that destroyed the life savings of hundreds of thousands of workers and the modern-day economic meltdown should serve as canaries in the coal mine that something is about to blow unless we change. We cannot continue to deficit spend ourselves into prosperity on the savings accounts of Chinese and Japan consumers, and money from sovereign wealth funds and foreign governments.
Kinda windy, but it was one of those days. That's my first shot at adding some "common sense" in this "crazy, mixed up world" to the national conversation that is being carried on in hundreds and thousands of blogs simultaneously around America.
But, don’t misunderstand me. There is nothing wrong with being rich. But, the answer to changing our country is not the emasculation of the “rich.” This economic conundrum was aptly put by Ten Years After in I'd Love to Change the World:
Tax the rich
Feed the poor?
Till there are no
rich no more?
What is needed are reasonable taxes on the "rich" [another blog],among other things, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY a reorientation of the meaning of success and wealth in "Capitalism rightly-practiced."
True Capitalism would result in the rich vying to outdo one another in helping mankind, their city and the less fortunate, instead of outdoing one another in conspicous consumption, self-promotion and ignoring the cries of the poor.
It is not a sin to enjoy one’s wealth, just give more for others and let overly self-indulgent ostentatious behavior be a thing of the past. If you “party like a rock star” and spend $32,000 on champagne, the first thing you do the next morning is write a check to a homeless shelter or local soup kitchen, the Red Cross, Boys & Girls clubs, the Salvation Army, etc…..put some balance to the blessings bestowed upon one.
We, individually and corporately, need to prune back the overgrowth of self-centeredness we all so easily fall prey to and seek to return to innocence....to doing good for good's sake and seeking to uplift the downtrodden.
Like Doc Holliday, I'll try and be your huckleberry.
Peace
huck
Wishes of Happiness and Prosperity
