I just listened for the first time to President Obama’s inaugural address.  It was very inspirational.  However, I have learned over the years that it is easy to give a great speech.  It is entirely different and much more difficult to live the speech.

I do hope that our country can come together and bring into reality some of the things he hinted at.  To do that, each one of us must first work to get ourselves straight, to take positive action to improve ourselves and then to reach out and help others to improve themselves.

We can not continue to bail out companies that made bad business decisions and that produced poor products and services.  I do not understand why Toyota, Honda, and other auto companies are able to do well when Ford Chrysler and General Motors are doing poorly. 

Actually, I take that back.  Upon further research I got some answers to my question.  Perhaps Toyota, Honda and others aren’t doing any better.  Maybe we don’t need to buy a new car every other year.  Maybe more and more people are realizing that, which is why the companies are hurting.  They have over produced for the market place and we should not bail them out, unless of course they are willing to sell us vehicles at a much lower cost to make up for our increased taxes.  Or instead of taxing us more, just print up more money for us to spend.

I had recently read that the average GM worker’s earn $70/hour.  I thought this a bit high and did some research.  It turns out that the way $70 was arrived at was a bit misleading, sort of bending the figures to make an outrageous point.  The $70 included wages and benefits and the benefits included pensions and health care for retired employees.  So the $70/hour actually represented the average cost per hour to produce a vehicle for GM, a totally different picture.

Looking further I read about Delphi, the largest auto parts distributor going bankrupt.  “One blue-collar Delphi worker interviewed by the Detroit News makes $103,000 a year operating a forklift and fears the consequences if his pay is drastically reduced. But many Americans will ask how a forklift operator felt entitled to a six-figure income in the first place (according to Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average forklift operator wage in the U.S. is $26,000).” 

Now, that I find interesting. If it is true, I should have been a forklift driver for Delphi.

My point, in the last three paragraphs, is that we can manipulate facts to get across whatever point we want to make and if people see it in print or hear it on the news, they will believe it.  Luckily, thanks to the Internet, we can research whatever we want, to get closer to what the truth is, for us.  Unfortunately, most people don’t have the time, energy or desire to do the research and they just follow like sheep to the slaughter.

President Obama has his hands full and I wish him well.  If he is to be re-elected in 4 years he needs to make decisions that many people will not like at first.  If I were to make a guess, I would say he will not make those tough decisions since no one before him had the strength to fight off the people who have the real control and power on Planet Earth.

So that leaves each one of us to make ourselves stronger by learning all we can, be taking directed action to improve ourselves and to add value to the lives of others and/or to our environment.

Each one of us has a purpose on Planet Earth and we must discover that purpose and then take the action necessary to follow our purpose.