Something To Think About Archive

There is currently $1.7 trillion in student loans outstanding. Nine million of those loans are in default or serious arrears. This is now all taxpayer money, as President Obama essentially nationalized student debt, taking it away from private lenders and putting it under the auspices of the Department of Education. He claimed, at the time and knowing that it wasn’t true, that the government would actually make money off of that move. Given the attempts to “forgive” those loans, it’s our opinion they never meant for them to be paid back and was nothing more than blatant vote buying.

Coach Vince Lombardi believed that “People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society.”

Pete Rose, known as “Charlie Hustle,” made the observation that “I’m no different from anybody else with two arms, two legs, and forty-two hundred hits.”

Ben Franklin once noted that “If the rascals knew the advantages of virtue, they would become honest.”

According to early American poet James Russell Lowell, “Not failure, but low aim, is the crime.”

Educator Booker T. Washington said: “Few things help an individual more than for another to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that he is trusted.”

There’s been more of an effort to return wrongly deported El Salvadoran Kilmar Ábrego García to the U.S. than there was to keep him from entering the country, illegally we would add, in the first place. The angst on the Left is much more than they ever expressed over the arrival of eleven million illegal immigrants these past four years. Meanwhile, illegal border crossings in February and March were down to 12,000 versus 189,000 in each of those months last year, under the Biden Administration’s less than watchful eye.

Economist Roger Babson wrote that whatever the economic circumstances, “…character, health, knowledge, and good judgement will always be in demand under all conditions.”

Marcus Aurelius advised us to “Dream big dreams; only big dreams have the power to move men’s souls.”

French mathematician Blaise Pascal wrote, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” And that was well before smart phones.

Automobile magnate Soichiro Honda claimed that “…success represents the one percent of your work which results only from the ninety-nine percent that is called failure.”

Pubilius Syrus said: “Anyone can hold the helm when the seas are calm.”

Uber-Progressives Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are flying about the country, in private jets no less, holding rallies railing against the “Oligarchies; whoever they are. Meanwhile, her district of Brooklyn is awash in prostitution and drug dealers. Remember her rented evening gown for a gala with “Tax the Rich” emblazoned on it? Turns out she rented a $5000 a night suite to change clothes in for the event. Even liberal billionaire Michael Bloomberg noted that “Marxist”, his term, Bernie Sanders had a net worth 25 times the average American and owned three houses. Only in America.

Henry Ford believed that “Enthusiasm is at the bottom of all progress. With it there is accomplishment. Without it there are only alibis.”

Columnist Erma Bombeck advised us that when at a low point, “Tell yourself, ‘I’m not a failure. I failed at something.’ There’s a big difference.” noted Bombeck.

As organizational theorist Myron Tribus once noted: “You can manage what you do not understand; but you cannot lead it.”

According to Brigadier General Hugh C. Cameron, “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”

Journalist Wilma Askinas wrote: “There is no better measure of a person than what he does when he is absolutely free to choose.”

The problem with assuming that tariffs on foreign made cars will bring back American manufacturing from Mexico and Canada is this: Its costs $6 an hour to make a car in Mexico. It costs $40 an hour to build a car in Canada. And, thanks to the Administration’s new best friend, the UAW, it costs $70 an hour in labor to build a car here. That and the fact that 60% of the parts that go into the final product come from foreign countries, primarily Mexico and Canada. Bringing those jobs back to the U.S. is next to impossible.

Mark Twain — ‘Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.’