Priming the Pump

We had a Briggs and Straton lawn mower when I was a kid that refused to start. I would have to pop off the spark plug and pour gas into the cylinder, blow out the gap in the plug, put it back and start pulling again. The mower would start with a quick burst and then sputter. I had to do this three times before the mower heated up and ran again. Dad called it priming the pump and when I got minibikes and motorcycles then snow blowers it became my go to method to get an internal combustion engine running again.

This is what we need now. We need to prime the pump with some raw gas and get things going. If an economy is a motor then ours just wont start. Middle class people are the gas of an economy. Sorry but they are. Without buying power it doesn't matter how many times the spark plug fires there can be no combustion. People have no buying power anymore, no gas. We have to pull off the plug and pour rag gas into the cylinder and see if can get the motor to catch now. It is a last resort but that is where we are.

Do not insult me with trickle down nonsense. Nothing trickles down. Let me say it again. Nothing trickles down. The rich stay rich and companies say fat. They will not suddenly release all their millions and employ people. They will find things to do with their money no doubt, but we now need to put the gasoline directly into the cylinder. We do need New Deal style muscle.We need to give people jobs. Any kind of jobs. Call it Grow Up. But the gas must be poured into the engine and not sit in the tank.

People need money to spend. This is how the economy gets rolling. Oh but it will sputter. The stimulus didn't work. Bull and so what. Something is better than nothing. Forget about rich people bailing us out.  That Republican mantra is just bull. We will bail ourselves out by giving to the people who will spend the money to buy the goods and get the economy rolling.

A lot of times I had to put the gas in several times before the mower would start. We will probably have to do this several times also. But priming the pump does work, and eventually, the motor  starts again.

Mr. Perry Comes to Washington

Those Texans. They have their guns and their horses and their hats and all that land of cactus and sagebrush and land. Think Giant with Rock Hudson and now Obama is James Dean trying to get a toehold on the big ranch of jobs. Mr. Perry just  comes a blazing with his six guns shouting JOBS JOBS JOBS and the town folk are impressed. There haven't been jobs in these parts for a long long time and now comes this big Texan saying now you listen and you listen tight! Were going to get the jobs and were going to get them now.

The President is nervous on his pony. Mr. Perry has a big American stud and a large hat and he has the jobs or so he says. And now that is half the battle isn't it? The assumptive close. Say it and it will come true. This evangelical secessionist swaggering governor could just upset the whole applecart with his Texan ways. There is a reason people hate Texans. They brag. They swagger. They assume they are better than everyone else and more of a man for that matter.

And I'm not sure the President is really up for Mr. Perry. I don't know if Mr. Perry knows any high faluting words like bipartisanship or compromise. God is on his side anyway and he don't have to compromise if he don't want too. He does have a Reagan swagger. The question is how big is his boot and will he stick it all the way in his mouth? Only time will tell, but President Obama better saddle up, because there is a new sheriff in town.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
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Maybe this is as good as it gets

As a writer you are used to hard times. You do not question those hard times and think well easy times are on the way. You just accept the hard times as the way things are and deal accordingly. This allows you to navigate the very hard existence that is the writers lot and get on with the business at hand. After you accept the situation then you are empowered because you are not waiting  anymore. This is the way it is. This is as good as it gets.

Our economy might be as good as it gets. If you turn off the crack cocaine of easy credit for the last twenty five years and accept we now live in a global economy with no lock down on markets, then you start to think well maybe this is really our economy  Take away that rocket fuel of stimulus credit and the good ship prosperity does not seem so close anymore. It is a sobering thought.

We are waiting though. We are waiting to uncork the champagne when the good times return. We envision a starting gun going off or damn being opened or a tidal wave of pent up  demand to sweep over the country and the good times will be back and we will all wipe our brow and say, wow, glad that's over. But what if the situation we are in right now is the real economy? If you take away the artificial stimulus of money for nothing and accept we must compete in world markets, then maybe this is what our revved down economy feels  like. Not a Mustang, but maybe a slow steady Buick.

This would mean millions of people are waiting for nothing. Millions of people are not taking bad jobs or menial jobs on the bet that the good ship prosperity is just over the horizon. I know twenty somethings who have come out of stellar Universities who have been out of work for years. They are waiting for their anointed jobs to return. But maybe the straight commission job of the insurance salesman, the door to door salesman, the Amway salesman, the copier salesman, the telemarketer, the fry cook, the MacDonald's position, the cable technician...maybe these are the real jobs of our economy and we better start going after them. Maybe, this is as good as it gets.

Bestselling author William Hazelgrove is the Hemingway writer in residence for the Ernest Hemingway Foundation. He has written four novels, reviews and features for USA TODAY and been the subject of stories in the NY Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and NPR'S All Things Considered. His forthcoming novel is Rocket Man. More information can be gathered at www.billhazelgrove.com