Corn pone: noun, Southern U.S., 1. Corn bread, especially of a plain or simple kind. Adjective, 1. Of or characteristic of an unsophisticated rural person, especially from the South: a corn pone accent.
In my mind a corn pone opinion is one centered on pocketbook issues. History shows that Americans tend to vote according to how an issue may affect their finances. Mark Twain wrote an essay entitled Corn Pone Opinions where he quotes a young black slave imitating a preacher, saying,
"You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, an I'll tell you what his 'pinions is."
A few years ago, I was visiting with a young nursing student. He was married and they had just had their first child. Obama and Romney were the presidential candidates. I asked this young man, who, by the way, is a Christian, if he had a preference for president. He looked kind of sheepish and said,
"Well, I really like Romney and I don't care for Obama's politics. But...," and here he looked really uncomfortable, "my wife works in a government office that Romney has said he is not going to continue to fund. It would put us in a real bind to lose that income."
So, you can see that sometimes people vote their pocketbooks even if it goes against their principles. Romney talked about the 47 percent that were dependent on some sort of government payout. I don't know how accurate his percentages were, but I do know two things:
First, it probably cost Romney the election to have his statements become public. And, secondly, there really are a large number of citizens, and maybe non-citizens as well, who are dependent on government largesse. My question would be: "Is this a sustainable situation?"
On the international scene, it isn't much better. Greece has been in the news quite a bit lately as it has defaulted on its loan repayments to the European Union. Greece's debt compared to its gross national product is so out of whack that it simply can't make things work any longer. One interesting thing about the Greek national debt is that it is probably just a reflection of where the United States will be if we don't do something very soon to reduce the debt we carry in this country. For all the vilification of the Tea Party from those on the Left, the biggest reason the Tea Party started was a deep concern for America's indebtedness and deficit spending. America is deeply in debt to countries like China and Japan. Deficit spending will catch up with us at some point, just like it did for Greece. It's just a matter of time.
Now we read that China's stock market is crashing. The Chinese government has dumped billions of yuan into their stock market in an effort to stop the bloodletting but, so far, to no avail. I doubt China is willing to continue to prop up our deficit spending like it has in the past by buying U.S. treasuries at the same time it is having to prop up its own domestic markets. This could have serious ramifications for us here in the U.S. We have become dependent on foreign governments buying our treasuries backed by the full faith of the U.S. government.
Here's how it works: China takes in billions of dollars of our money by manufacturing almost anything imaginable and then turns around and uses those dollars to buy U.S. treasuries. It seems almost amazing to me that a supposedly sovereign nation, such as we purport to be, would allow a nation, which in many ways is hostile to our national interests, to accumulate such financial power over us. All China would have to do would be to not buy any more treasuries from us and we would be in a world of hurt. To be honest, China would be in a world of hurt as well, but if worse comes to worse, do we really want to be in a position of weakness when it comes to one of our biggest adversaries?
Plus, the supply chain from China to the U.S. is long and could easily be disrupted so that goods from China upon which our economy depends could quit making it to our shores. This would cause a tremendous ripple effect on our economy.
We are also almost totally dependent on China for our supply of rare earth elements which are essential to our high-tech computer manufacturing, as well as to our automobile and defense industries. For instance, an F-35 fighter jet contains about a half ton of rare earth elements, while a Toyota Prius has about 25 pounds. Rare earth elements are found in cell phones (they make them vibrate when they ring), and many other devices. And China supplies almost 95 percent of the world's rare earth elements. The sad thing is that the U.S. has plenty of its own rare earth elements (they aren't really all that rare), we simply abandoned mining them for environmental reasons.
What was it Lenin said about us selling them the rope to hang us? It may be that they will actually sell us the rope. Just saying.
Sam Byrnes is a Gentry-area columnist for the Westside Eagle Observer. He may be contacted by email at [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 07/29/2015