May I ask you a question? How’s this great economic recovery working out for you? It’s really affected the cardboard recycling market adversely, did you know that? Because everyone is raiding the cardboard recycling bins to get cardboard to make signs that say: “Hungry, please help” and “Spare change, anything will help”. Yeah, great economic recovery! If we recover any more, we’ll be asking the UN for food drops here.

My wife and I were returning from Bisbee some weeks back and I looked over at the railroad mainline and see this siding with what looked to be hundreds of locomotives sitting there stashed like mothballed C-130s over at the nearby Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. I thought this to be very unusual because it’s not every day you see hundreds of railroad locomotives sitting there idle. Those are expensive pieces of equipment. Those cost money and if they’re not moving, they’re not making money. But, weeks later now, the truth has been revealed.

Imagine that! Undeniable proof the economy is in the toilet without the Tidy Bowl Man in sight! Gosh, what happened to all the great reports from the government about this “recovery”? Well, look, if the railroads are not moving freight because—and THEY TOLD US—-the economy is so bad there isn’t enough freight to be moved, we are obviously not in a recovery! Well, shucks! And we had such great hopes that the economy would be the same Obama success story as Obamacare and installing a democracy in Syria and defeating ISIS have been.

But why would the government be covering this up? Because can Hillary gets elected if people realize she was a part of the administration responsible for the reduction in force for 16% of a major railroad’s prime movers? Why do I say the Obama administration is responsible? Because if you say you can fix the economy and you don’t, look, there’s only so long you can keep blaming George W. Bush some eight years later after the fact. Of course, Hillary hasn’t got any answers as to how she’s going to fix the economy. She admits people are struggling but, look, lady, this was YOUR BOSS that has been at the helm of this economic Titanic for eight years now. So what the blue blazes are you going to do differently?! Ask Bill what to do?

If 16% of the locomotive force for what may be the largest railroad in the nation (or second largest) is sitting idle, that means several industries are sitting idle also. You think “consumer spending” is going to pull our collective butts out of these flames? I think we’re whistling in the graveyard here. The impact of this has not yet hit us. The idle locomotives are merely a warning sign of what is yet to come, has not yet fully manifested, but is manifesting as we speak. I think we’re about to run out of gas, overheat the radiator, and get four flat tires—right there between Barstow and Needles in July.

The Democrats need to sweep all this under the rug in the desperation to save Hillary’s campaign. Since they have a lot of friends in the media, this is not hard to do. But why are they so attached to Hillary? Well, I daresay she was promised the 2016 run back in 2008 if she would throw in the towel and let Obama be the guy and get behind his campaign. This is how deals are made, after all. It’s like kids playing ball. “You can bat first the next game if you just let me bat first for this one.” Well, the Democrats have been striking out all over the place, too.

A federal court just ruled that Obamacare can’t pay subsidies to private insurance corporations without approval from Congress. Right, Page 12 news, are you surprised? But this is huge. Such a ruling could torpedo that tramp steamer once and for all. Now, you would think such a thing would have been obvious. You can’t just spend government money without Congressional approval. Unless you’re the CIA, of course. However, they’re just trying to patch Obamacare together long enough for Hillary to get elected, at which point she can enact even worse laws to force compliance and keep it going. Obama can’t do that right now or Hillary will flat out lose. Obamacare has already damaged their chances enough. But it will be Hillary that will have to force more Obamacare compliance—and she has already said that she will do so “aggressively”—or Obamacare will literally collapse under the weight of its own stupidity.

Therefore, the Democrats are burning the midnight alternative energy to keep all of this under wraps as best as possible. They’re also busy doing the, “Look what Donald Trump said! Oh, hey, look over there at this wonderful new economic recovery where we created 50 new part-time jobs across America!” Many people are dumb enough not to ask, “Hey, what are all those locomotives doing over there?” Or see the story in the paper and think, “Hmmm…if the railroad isn’t hauling freight, that means factories are shut down and there’s a whole new wave of unemployment and a bigger recession coming. Maybe even a depression.” It is not surprising that the Democrats want to cover that up to try to save Hillary’s campaign. What is surprising is Hillary wants the job knowing this. But, they say there’re people power-hungry enough that they’d still want the job of fuehrer in 1944, even knowing how it ends.

I don’t know about you folks, but I think it might be a good idea to put off major purchases for a while. Because when you hear the government telling you we need to bring consumer spending back up, that’s the red flag warning that they’re in the outhouse crapping bricks. You can’t just see warning signs like we’re seeing and think nothing is going to happen. Oh, it might be several months yet. They’re going to use duct-tape and sandbags as much as possible hoping to get past the 2016 elections. After that? Well, I think then we’ll see a lot more cardboard in our future. Spare change you can believe in.

The Best of Jack Perry

Jack Perry [send him mail] is an arrowmaker and writer who lives in the Four Corners area of the Southwestern United States. He has been a truck driver, a purchasing agent at a now-defunct renewable energy company (don't even ask him about the "Green energy" scam), and served in the 101st Airborne Division. He spends his time practicing traditional archery, making arrows in the wilds of the Arizona high desert, and finding himself only mildly amused by the antics of the Great Father in Washington.