Right now I am thinking about the movie "The Grapes of Wrath," my family experienced all of that during the Great Depression, my Grandfather hitchhiked from Arkansas to California to find work, and my Grandmother's family came from Colorado to California, and they all picked fruit. They became extremely hard workers, and they rose, but they went through hell for a time.
We need to remember the lessons of the Great Depression, and we need our anti-trust, anti-monopoly rules to be enforced, etc. And we should not be having baby food shortages, WIC should not have only a few suppliers, they need to open up and allow more suppliers.
Also, a lesson from the Great Depression was the importance of labor unions, and when workers are paid fair then it helps the economy. Starving people are not able to negotiate for high wages, so the workers need to join unions so they can bargain collectively. When the workers are paid fair then everyone wins.
We cannot just have a free economy, we need to operate within a framework of rules and laws that prevent another Great Depression from happening, and the workers need unions.
Right now I think a lot of our problems are do to corruption, people are putting themselves first instead of being honest and serving our nation with honor. And here in Anaheim we had a Mayor who was so corrupt that he was going to sell Angel Stadium and get a million dollar kick-back.
Some things that we need to look at are how we brought ourselves out of the Great Depression and steps that were taken to make sure that another Great Depression never happens, and we also need to look at how Reagan saved the world economy when he was President. ( And we know that Reagan got Health Care and Retirement Benefits for the actors when he was head of the Screen Actors Guild. )
One scene from the movie "The Grapes of Wrath" that still rings true, is that the fortunate people never understand what it is like for the poor people, and as they looked at the Joad family the fortunate people said that they could never understand how the poor people live like that, as if being poor was a choice that the people made. If people knew what it was really like then there would be more of a sense of urgency to help our homeless people and our poor.
We need to learn from the Great Depression, and we need to make sure that another Great Depression never happens.
Salute,
Tony V.
Who would Tom Joad believed cared about his familys plight, Rick Caruso or Karen Bass?
Why?
Rick Caruso seems smarter, and he wants to help our homeless people.
Of note on the current situation with the inflation, in order to give more money to workers then the USA can lower taxes for workers and let them keep more of their hard earned money. Instead of giving people stimulus checks, then instead the Government can lower taxes and let people keep more of their own money.
And the retired people and disabled people need a raise on Social Security.
We also need to continue to strive to better educate our people, and to prepare our people for the jobs of the future.
Of note, in California one third of our people are foreign born, we need to educate and train them, and we need to teach them what America is all about and what it means to be an American. And people need to learn that America is not just about being selfish and making money, the American Dream is about more than that, it is about having a good nation where you can raise your family, and where you can be a part of a community.
And we need for the companies to be altruistic, they need to care about the communities where they operate. For instance, the neighorhood around Paramount Studios is a ghetto, the studio has a high fence, and Paramount does not give a shit about their community, and that must change, Paramount needs to hire the people from their community, and they need to give schollarships to send the youth to film school to work at Paramount, etc. Hollywood needs to train the people for studio jobs, and the studios need to hire local workers. The studios need to care about the people of Hollywood.
We are making progress here in Anaheim, as Fullerton Community College, and Cal State Fullerton, are training people for jobs at Disney now, so people can get an education and training and then they can go right to work for Disney, so that is great.
Salute,
Tony V.
