Wanted: A true leader

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

There are numerous news sources talking, or reporting, about President Obama’s need to help the middle-class of America’s population. One of my previous contributions gave some statistics on incomes used to define our various classes. All I know for certain is my position on the scale doesn’t fit into any of the definitions they use for middle-class. If they want to divide middle-class into enough sub-groups, I might end up in the lowest category. For my personal purposes, it doesn’t matter where I fit. What does matter for anyone on a fixedincome is that the hidden inflation can very quickly affect one’s lifestyle.

Our household probably qualifies as being on the high end of the low-income scale if not the bottom of the middle-class. It doesn’t matter what you call it.

What does matter is a dollar doesn’t buy as much asit used to and it’s getting less valuable all the time.

When we talk about housing being “down,” it means our house, a non-income asset, is not worth as much. If we are forced to sell it we talk about a different meaning than having it as part of our “net worth.”

If you inherited a diamond worth one million dollars, it will increase your net worth but won’t add a single dollar to your disposable income unless you sell it or charge people to view it. That’s the way gold is viewed so it is fairly easy to recognize that I’m not going to own any significant amount of gold at any price. Owning gold might be a great inflationhedge, but I’m not in a very good position to deal with the price of an ounce of gold much less a lot of it.

Gold is like the diamond in many ways, a non-contributory asset.

Because our nation is struggling and we are all affected, Democrats, Republicans, TEA Party and Independents, we had better be aware of the Republican Party’s primary election candidate selection process. If Obama is going to raise one billion dollars in a re-election campaign, the Republican choice will need to be someone capable of raising a lot of campaign money. That money is going to come from the middle class and those not mentioned elsewhere inthis article. The candidate the Republicans choose is likely to be our only other choice than the president. Unless the president makes some enormous strides with our economyand convinces American companies to bring back manufacturing jobs, he might well be unemployed, too.

The nation needs a leader - a genuine leader who can be respected for his or her accomplishments, not just for the office they hold. What political party they belong to is not important to me, but as a nation we have gotten into a two-party system because it is easier to control with just two sides to the issues. Knowing what to expect from our next president is vital to our economy as well as us as individuals.

That’s something to think about.

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Editor’s note: Leo Lynch, a native of Benton County has deep roots in northwest Arkansas. He is a retired industrial engineer and former Justice of the Peace.

He can be contacted at [email protected].

Opinion, Pages 4 on 08/24/2011