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Maybe
there is some good news in Bay County's future after all. With this
weeks' election in Cedar Grove to dissolve the city, it may be the
first of the nine dominoes that have to fall to take the county to a
Metropolitan government. Yes, there are concerns about loss of jobs for
soon-to-be former employees, but it seems reasonable to me that as many
as half of those folks will be absorbed into the Bay County government
system. If that is the case, there will be 15 fewer people on the
taxpayers back. Now, if only the other eight little fiefdoms
surrounding Panama City will see fit to dissolve, county taxpayers
could actually save some serious coin, and eliminate the regular news
reports of scandal by community leaders and/or employees. A merger
between Panama City and Bay County, forming a Metropolitan
government is the best and most economical solution for the region. It
is working well for other communities. It could work well for us.
As
we continue to monitor the economic meltdown that has produced the
greatest drop in the DOW ever, there are some names and faces who are
conspicuously absent in the media. That would be the CEO's, CFO's, and
members of the Board of Directors of the affected, and the potentially
affected, financial institutions. Isn't it strange that those folks
with egos large enough to demand multi-million dollar annual salaries,
and who have collected more millions in bonuses predicated on
profitable annual reports (that in the light of today may be more
fraudulent than factual), are nowhere to be seen. These corporate
pirates have taken a very low profile as they await the outcome of
congressional efforts to "right the ship" by buying up the "toxic"
paper generated by wheelers and dealers of Wall Street. Wouldn't it be
prudent for congress to have hearings and drag the scrupulously
challenged investors out of the shadows and hold them accountable for
their personal and their firm's misguided decisions affecting millions
of small investors? Aren't we all just a little sick and tired of
seeing the guilty go rewarded and the innocent be punished? Or maybe
this will never occur because congress would be extremely embarrassed
to be reminded that it was their initiatives that triggered the
"subprime" mortgage roll-outs. And now they are really going to "fix"
it for us? Oh, brother can you spare a dime!
And finally, I'm not Nostradamus but, ..........this week in 1959, Rod
Serling's "Twilight Zone" premiered on CBS-TV. There is unspeakable
irony and significance of such a coincidental occurrence of events.
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