Mark Knows It All

Do you ever wonder what things actually cost? Sounds like an easy question...just look at the price tag. Walmart has the little yellow bouncing ball showing that its prices are continually going down. That will stop when the Chinese discover trade unions. The government tells us on a monthly basis that there is no inflation. This is demonstrated by the CPI, the Consumer Price Index. The only problem is that when the government figures it out, it removes the "volatile food and energy prices". Huh??? What a novel way to stop inflation: just remove the things that cost too much!!! A case in point is my mother, who had me buy her a Sunday Vindicator for $1.25. She buys it for the coupons, and after using the clipped coupons at the grocery store, the cents off coupons more than pay for the Vindicator. So the Vindicator cost her...nothing. Then she goes shopping at Giant Eagle, and uses her cents off coupons to get discounts on everything from napkins to Campbell Soup. So her groc...

I watched the Emmy Awards on Sunday night. Other than the Tony's, I am not an award show fan. But I wanted to see Ellen DeGeneres, who now that she has gotten over her "coming out" issues, is one of my favorite television personalities. (I really like her American Express commercials. She has me dancing in the elevators!!!) Unfortunately, most of these types of shows have taken on a political tone which takes the fun out of them. Case in point, Miss America was "politically corrected" to death. At the end of the day, I really don't care if Miss Arkansas has 3 graduate degrees and spent 5 years in Africa. I just want to see some "T and A". The network did try to suppress the political harrangs that have become common place in Hollywood award shows as of late. (Didn't Marlon Brando send some Indian, excuse me, Native American, chick, I mean lady, to accept his Academy Award years ago?) To some extent, the network succeeded this year. But what was...

When I brought my wife to Youngstown for the first time in 1971, the first place I showed her was the Brier Hill Route 422 corridor, and the drive along the Mahoning River through Youngstown, Campbell and Struthers. US Steel, Republic Steel, Youngstown Sheet and Tube and Commercial Shearing were among the largest of the companies. Medium size companies such as Aeroquip and Wean United were sprinkled in for good measure. One could look right into the blast furnaces from the Center Street Bridge, and the fire would light the night sky. Then came September 17, 1977, better known as Black Monday, Lykes-Youngstown, the old Sheet and Tube, announced it was closing its Youngstown operations. 25,000 jobs were lost. Mill after mill after mill followed. Company after company closed. When it was said and done, the primary job loss estimates reached upward to 75,0000. 24 blast furnaces were located in the Mahoning and Shenango Valleys in 1968. There are none today. In the carnage, people lost ever...

How much does America expect from its government? Apparently a lot. In the coverage of Katrina, it has been comical to watch the various media outlets querying whether FEMA could have done more, or did Governor Blanco freeze, and of course, the whole thing is the fault of George Bush. The truth is that the blame for the hurricane rests squarely on the shoulders of Mother Nature. The breach in the levees is just one more in a long series of man-made follies trying to defeat her....and failing. We live in a world of instant gratification and solutions. Two hundred and fifty five cable television channels blaring 24/7 have taught us that most problems can be solved in an hour, with the more serious problems taking the length of a mini-series. We have totally lost our ability to be awed by forces larger than ourselves. That is, of course, what has made America great. No job is too big. No work is too hard. There is no task that can't be accomplished. We demand perfection in all our ins...

There isn't anyone in the entire country who could have watched the suffering along the gulf coast without wondering why our government didn't respond sooner than it did. The good news is that once it responded, it did so magnificently. The bad news is that people died during the 24 hour delay. There is plenty of blame to go around between the Democrat Mayor of New Orleans, a total zero; the Democrat Governor of Louisiana, clueless; and Republican George Bush, who, for reasons known only to him and God, flew to California for a fund raiser and speech on Iraq while New Orleans drowned. Much has been written about the failure of the government to build the levees so that they could have withstood the storm. In the blame game, that discussion will probably not be as intense as the one surrounding the 24 hour delay, but will figure prominently in the debate over how to rebuild New Orleans. Adjectives I have heard on the issue so far are short sightedness, cheapness, pork spending, ...