U.S. Unemployment Rate Only 4.6%!

According to the U.S. Department of Labor/Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate in the United States of America in January 2007 held steady at the "low" rate of only 4.6%.


Wow! Only 4.6% out of a workforce of 153 million citizens? That means only 7 million Americans are unemployed!

Those are some pretty impressive numbers! This means that the number of American citizens who are willing and able to work, but have no jobs:

• Would fill only 70 Rose Bowl stadiums to capacity!


• Represent only 7/8 of the population of New York City


• Represent only 2.5 times the entire population of Seattle, Washington


• Would provide you with only $7 million cash, if they each gave you a dollar!


• Is not even enough people to reach "from sea to shining sea and back again" if they stood hand in hand (5303 miles)--they would only reach from San Diego to New York City, and back to Phoenix!

Damn, that's impressive!

Of course, unemployment statistics don't count unemployed homeless people, or people who used up all their unemployment insurance before they could find a job, and therefore have neither a job nor any other form of income. But hey, that probably only includes a few million other people. No more than another 7 million people, I'm sure. So the government's official unemployment rate probably counts at least half of the people who really are unemployed, and that's close enough for government work.

If anyone wants to show their gratitude to the Bush administration for keeping our unemployment rate so low, by offering jobs to the 4.6% of George W. Bush's family who are evidently unemployed, please send your employment offers to the address below.

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500

Just don't forget the drug test and criminal background check before hiring members of the Bush family.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

I recently found a non-profit, non-partisan organization whose website provides a wealth of useful information and analysis on federal and state budget priorities. Visit the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and browse some of their reports.

If I were to recommend a good place to start devouring all this information, their Federal Budget Outlook Slideshow would be it. One look at the pie chart on slide #2, combined with a little bit of thought, makes it clear what our government's (i.e, elected officials') priorities are:

32% - Social Security and Medicare

It sounds pretty benevolent of our government to spend a third of its budget on Social Security and health care for the poor, doesn't it. But what's the alternative for any politician who wants to be re-elected--drastically cutting these programs all at once? And don't forget, the way these programs are administered is an exercise in waste and inefficiency. We could get so much more mileage out of this same amount of money if our government focused on improving its competence, rather than constantly seeking to increase spending on these programs.

21% - Defense and Homeland Security

Let's call this what it really is: a little bit of pay for our military personnel, and a hell of a lot of corporate welfare for defense contractors, like Halliburton. Almost none of this astronomical expenditure actually defends or protects us from any real threats. In fact, it creates so much hatred and animosity toward the U.S. worldwide that we are less secure (more at risk of attack) than ever before. (See International Spending below).

21% - Other Entitlements

Food stamps, Temporary Assistance For Needy Families (TANF), Earned Income Credit, etc. Same problem as with Social Security and Medicare. A foolish government and its money are soon parted, leaving millions of poor Americans with fewer benefits than they otherwise could have enjoyed. Doesn't really matter what percentage of the budget goes toward programs that are administered poorly, much like giving a raise to a cocaine addict doesn't tend to improve his or her personal savings.

17% - Domestic spending

Here's your American education, federal job salaries, transportation/highways, border guard, etc.

Did I mention education? Visit Student Loan Justice and The American Debtors Prison to learn the catastrophic effects of infinitesimal federal spending on education, which forces impoverished Americans to seek desperate solutions for obtaining a higher education. Also visit MySpace and observe the grammar on profiles in the 18-24 age group to witness how well our public education system from K-12 and beyond really works.

And don't forget--highway funds are primarily used by the federal government as leverage to force states to "voluntarily" comply with the federal government's wishes, effectively overriding the states' autonomy. So much for the union of independent (and unique) states that our Founders created. It also explains all the potholes, and the miles of construction cones where no one is working, on our interstate highways.

7% - interest on the national debt

How much praise would YOU expect to receive from others if you told them that you spent 7% of your annual income paying just the interest on your debts, while piling on even more debts through deficit spending? Brilliant fiscal management by our elected officials, most of whom are re-elected over and over again, before they run for President.

2% - international aid

International aid spreads economic stability and goodwill throughout the world, to improve our own economy, and to remove any basis for other nations to want to attack us. Nations, like dogs, don't bite the hand that feeds them--especially when that nation doesn't just hand out fish, but teaches them how to fish. (See Defense Spending above for President Bush's well-funded alternative to a peaceful, prosperous, and stable world.)

Also, see Pennies For Peace to learn how one man has used pennies to accomplish more in the fight against international terrorism than President Bush has accomplished with trillions of dollars.

---

Here are some other highlights from the Center on Budget Policy Priorities annotated slideshow:

Slide #6: "Even With Iraq And Katrina, Federal Spending Is Below Average For Recent Decades"

Slide #8: "What Would It Take To Balance The Budget While Preserving The Tax Cuts?"

Slide #10: "Under Current Policy, Deficits Will Grow Dramatically Deeper in Coming Decades"

Slide #20: "President's Proposed Cuts in Domestic Discretionary Funding Grow Deeper Over Time"

Slide #22: "President's Budget Calls for Large Cuts to Broad Range of Domestic Programs"

Slide #23: "Since 2001, Funding for Domestic Discretionary Programs Has Fallen as a Share of the Economy"

Slide #29: "The Current Recovery Has Been Weaker Than Average. Only Corporate Profits Have Grown Rapidly"

Slide #30: "Job Growth Has Been Especially Weak in This Recovery"

Slide #33: "Likely Consequences of Unbalanced Approach To Deficit Reduction"

All the best,
Paul

Bush Takes Stand Against Outrageous CEO Salaries

President Bush visited the financial center of New York today to deliver his "State of the Economy" speech, where he called upon U.S. corporations to behave more responsibly when determining executive compensation.

It is refreshing to hear President Bush acknowledge the existence of a growing wealth gap in the United States. "The fact is that income inequality is real. It has been rising for more than 25 years.... The earnings gap is now twice as wide as it was in 1980," Bush said.

However, Bush framed his comments mainly in the context of how executive compensation impacts shareholder confidence and value, with little mention of its impact on American workers. But then again, he was not speaking to millions of hard-working, low-paid Americans. He was speaking to an assembly of well-to-do businessmen at Federal Hall. So perhaps the focus on shareholders can be forgiven in this instance.

It is interesting to note that this assembly of fine, upstanding American businessmen remained silent as Bush encouraged them to behave responsibly. Does this mean he would have received cheers and a standing ovation had he encouraged them to continue behaving irresponsibly instead? Or did they silently agree with him, and were simply too afraid to make their feelings known among their peers?

Does it really matter, since this means our American business leaders are either ruthlessly selfish, or cowards? In either case, we all lose.

President Bush made it clear that he does not support government intervention in determining CEO salaries. "Government should not decide the compensation for America's corporate executives... But the salaries and bonuses of CEOs should be based on their success at improving their companies and bringing value to their shareholders," he said.

The question is, what does it mean to "improve their companies" and to "bring value to their shareholders"?

When an American corporation announces massive layoffs to cut costs, their stock value rises.

When 60 Minutes did a segment on Sallie Mae and the student loan racketeering industry, Sallie Mae's stock price rose the next day.

But what happens when the hard-working employees who make a company successful at every level--while the CEO gets all the credit and compensation for that success--unionize to protect themselves? It doesn't "bring value to their shareholders". I can tell you that much.

So Bush is generally on the right track in this case, and it really is good to hear the President of the United States take a stand against a corporate obscenity that brings shame and instability to the entire nation. Unfortunately, there is one fatal flaw in his call to have shareholders determine CEO compensation.

To illustrate the problem, imagine that President Bush was held to that same standard, and America's "shareholders" were allowed to vote on his compensation, based on his performance as chief executive of the nation.

The question is, exactly who are these "shareholders"? If we are talking about the people President Bush has devoted himself to serving the most--corporate America--then I would expect them to raise his annual salary from $400,000 to around $400,000,000. But if we are talking about the American People--voters, and their families--whom President Bush has effectively ignored for six years at their expense while pursuing war profits for his corporate friends, well, I suppose they'd reduce his annual salary to around $40. And he'd only receive that much because he hasn't caused Armageddon. Yet.

The idea that corporations exist to increase shareholder value one of the fatal flaws that is leading America into decline. When a corporation first goes public, those who buy IPO stock are infusing the company with capital, and that initial capital is what allows it to do business. But from then on, as those shares are traded dozens, hundreds, and thousands of times, those stock transactions do not provide capital to the company. All that buying and selling of stock is little more than legalized gambling at that point, which can benefit or harm shareholders, but does nothing for the company itself (apart from driving the perceived "value" of the company up and down like a roller coaster, while the company itself might be maintaining a steady course in terms of revenue, etc).

Yet it is the company--not the shareholders--that employs hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of American workers, providing them with the means to survive in exchange for their labor.

To illustrate this in a different way, imagine that a company goes public. Bill, Warren, and Donald buy all the stock, so they are the original shareholders, and the money they pay for that stock goes directly to the company as capital. The company uses this money to pay salaries, earn revenue, and get the ball rolling.

But then Bill sells his stock to Martha, and Warren sells his stock to Oprah, and Donald sells his stock to Paris. How much of the money that Martha, Oprah and Paris paid for that stock actually goes to the company? None of it. Zero.

Not only that, but Martha, Ophrah, and Paris don't even have to pay taxes on those stock purchases!

Yet the company is now obligated by its commitment to "shareholder value" to ensure that the value of Martha, Oprah, and Paris's stock keeps rising. It is not in any way obligated by a commitment to serve the employees who actually did all the work to make the company successful. Instead, the company is obligated to serve the individuals who had the very least to do with the company's success--the later generation "shareholders", who never gave a penny to the company itself.

So President Bush's call for shareholders to determine CEO compensation doesn't make much sense, because shareholders will be happy to raise CEO salaries to outrageous levels if the value of the stock they own is rising--even if that stock is rising not because of the CEO's actions, but because of a generally improving economy, or because the hard-working employees at that company do a good job at every level.

In other words, having the shareholders determine CEO salaries will have no impact on the wealth gap whatsoever. Conceivably, it could even increase the wealth gap.

The only way America's decline will stop is when every employee of a company benefits or suffers based on the company's overall performance--when the employees themselves are the only shareholders, rather than trading those shares thousands of times until they reach people on the other side of the world who have nothing to do with that company's operations, apart from cashing dividend checks.

When that happens, if a company is wildly successful, it won't matter much if the CEO is paid a $50 million annual salary, because the employees who made the company so successful will also enjoy excellent compensation and increased "shareholder value". It's difficult to criticize Bill Gates for being worth half a trillion dollars when he made many of his original employees millionaires in the process. Compare that to Home Depot, whose CEO accepted a $25 million annual salary, and then quit the company to enjoy his $210 million golden parachute--while Home Depot employees generally earn wages fit for a pauper.

There will always be a wealth gap in a hierarchical system. That's what a hierarchy is. The problem isn't the gap, it's the exponential growth of that gap which, over time, boosts CEOs from being merely rich, to being extraordinarily wealthy, while leaving workers living paycheck to paycheck, just as they always did before.

So I appreciate President Bush taking the time to chastise corporate America for the outrageous CEO salaries we see today. Yet a closer look at Bush's proposed solution of giving shareholders the power to decide CEO compensation fails to address the problem. A real solution can only come from focusing on the needs of millions of American workers, not the desires of a handful of executives and shareholders.

All the best,
Paul

The Downside of Giving a Damn -- No Pets Allowed

Sometimes I really hate myself for giving a damn.

One of the more difficult aspects of attempting the Third World American USA Tour from a position of abject poverty is that I must do it all alone. Of course that means no dating in any meaningful sense, which is bad enough for a 30-something bachelor who appreciates the joy of romance far more than your average married & cheatin' redneck. I haven't seen one member of my family since 1993 either, and it pains me to know that my nieces and nephews grew from toddlers to adulthood without knowing me, just because I gave a damn.

Perhaps worst of all, even the companionship of pet is out of the question when I face situations like I'm in now, with literally zero dollars to my name, struggling just to get back on my feet, with my dream of the Third World American USA Tour itself on indefinite hold.

Pets have always meant a lot to me, especially dogs and cats. A pet greets you when you get home with degree of genuine happiness to see you that no human could ever match. As you get to know each other, your pet learns to sense when your spirits are down, and always does its best to cheer you up with a lick to your face, or a gentle purr. And of course, when your spirits are high, they are always ready to play. Just play--not gossip, not politicize, not philosophize, not argue. Just play. Sometimes we all need to throw our cares to the wind for a while and just play. Pets never fail to remind you of this essential tool for the art of living.

Pets lay around sleeping all day, while you are out earning the money to pay for the residence where they get to spend all that time relaxing. Naturally, this inspires some envy among pet owners, yet it also makes us feel valuable that we are able to provide another living, breathing creature with the ability to enjoy a life of leisure, since working Americans like themselves will certainly never know what that is like. So we live vicariously through our pets, wishing it was us who gets to stay home all day, every day, just doing whatever makes our lives enjoyable and meaningful, rather than wasting the only life we will ever live manufacturing, selling, or marketing pointless products and services, and making our employers rich enough to enjoy the same kind of charmed life of leisure and privilege that a domestic dog or cat enjoys.

Pets teach us about life by showing us the way that humans should--and could--be: loving, forgiving, playful, horny, and always seeking meaningful leisure rather than pointless labor. Pets don't know or care anything at all about the things that consume human beings' thoughts and actions from cradle to grave: money, religion, politics, fear of death....

Yes, pets are fearless. Sometimes that gets them killed, although that is usually because they came across something that is completely unnatural--something man-made, like a car, or rat poison. Left alone, without the influence of human conveniences, they do pretty well for themselves, overall.

Pets are amoral--they are neither good nor evil. Better yet, we don't feel any need to constantly evaluate them as good, evil, or some degree of in-between. We just don't care when it comes to pets. But we sure do when it comes to our fellow humans.

If the Third World American USA Tour actually had some kind of funding, I would definitely consider taking a pet with me around the country. John Steinbeck took his faithful poodle, Charlie, with him when he traveled around the nation in his GMC truck back in 1963. It would be really nice to have some good company on an otherwise lonely 10-15,000 mile journey, and it probably couldn't hurt to have a little protection with four fast legs, a loud mouth, and a wagging tail.

So it really broke my heart today when I received a MySpace bulletin that featured several dogs at a Los Angeles animal shelter who have been "Red Listed", or scheduled to be euthanized if they are not adopted soon. One little wet nose in particular really caught my attention--a 13 year old coonhound mix named Sandy.



No one adopts 13 year old dogs. But I would adopt her in a heartbeat--if I could. Unfortunately I live in poverty. I'm a third world American. I can't afford to give Sandy the care she needs and deserves. Unless of course I give up on the Third World American USA Tour and "just get a job", like the inhumane non-thinkers who created this pointless existence for human beings are so quick to suggest that I do. Or unless I suddenly get funding for the tour, before she is euthanized.

If you live in or near Los Angeles, I hope you will consider adopting Sandy, and give her a good home where she may live out her remaining years the way "superior" humans refuse to live: seeking meaningful leisure rather than pointless labor.

At the very least, if you visit the North Central Los Angeles Shelter, give Sandy a big hug for me, and tell her I'm genuinely sorry that I give a damn about my fellow humans. Otherwise, I would "just get a job" of pointless labor, begin contributing productively to America's decline rather than attempting to stop it, and adopt her.

Tell her I'm sorry I live in a third world nation.

Visit the Los Angeles North Central Animal Shelter website. Sandy is dog #A830972.

All the best,
Paul

Consider Nominating Edhi For World Peace Prize

Hi Everyone,

Please visit the Edhi Foundation website and consider submitting your nomination for the World Peace Prize. If nothing else, it'll make you feel good to see what one person can accomplish in Pakistan, and maybe one day, in America.

The deadline for nomination is February 1, 2007.

All the best,
Paul

St. Petersburg Police Shreds Homeless Peoples' Tents

Is it any wonder that young people in the great state of Florida think it's fun to viciously attack and murder homeless people, when their adult role models treat the homeless as something less than human, while tossing the Golden Rule aside like just another unfinished meal down the garbage disposal?

Police and fire officials in St. Petersburg recently raided a homeless tent city and shredded their only shelters, apparently without recognizing the irony of using box-cutter's to attack these defenseless American citizens.

Here's a fair question: If dozens of armed men suddenly drove up to your home or shelter, and destroyed it right in front of your eyes, which of the following emotions would YOU experience:

Love
Gratitude
Peace of mind
Anger
Fear
Terror

The great state of Florida, and particularly St. Petersburg, appears to be committed to demonstrating to the rest of the world that it refuses to evolve, no matter what century it is, no matter how many third world nations are seeking the very basic human rights that St. Petersburg city officials casually obliterate, no matter what the founding principles of the United States might be. They are going to harass and terrorize the homeless no matter what the rest of the world thinks. And if their children learn to attack and murder the homeless in the process--well, they'll only punish those kids when their vicious acts are caught on video and leaked to the national news media.

So who is going to get punished when the world sees this video:

New Report of Police Shredding Homeless Tents.

Please, contact St. Petersburg city officials and invite them to join the 21st century, and to immediately cease committing atrocities against those who are least able to defend themselves.

City of St. Petersburg
175 Fifth Street North
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
Phone: 727-893-7111
Fax: 727-892-5102
TDD: 727-892-5259
www.stpete.org

UPDATE: I'm happy to report that something GOOD is arising from the shredded remains of these homeless peoples' shelters. Public outcry against the police and city officials has been strong, despite the number of inhumane Florida residents who continue to spew nothing but hate and bile concerning the homeless. More important, this police action is leading to legal action that may benefit the homeless in the long run.

Read some of the public outcry in St. Petersburg.

The Great St. Pete Homeless Tent Raid (St. Petersburg Times column by Howard Troxler).

Read about the potentially positive outcome and legal action.

Keep in mind that the homeless themselves are helpless to fight this police action their own. It is because the local news media had the courage to cover this story responsibly, because concerned citizens all around the nation are making their voices known to city officials, and because attorneys are representing the homeless that something good might come out of this. That is the Power of the People.

Kudos to Fox 13 in Tampa Bay, all those concerned citizens, and to the attorneys who are trying to make our legal system serve The People. The combined efforts of all these people are helping to assure that, in this instance, at least, some justice is served.

All the best,
Paul

Media Coverage of Social Issues

I've posted a new 5-minute video on YouTube, which takes a really quick look at the way our mainstream news media covers poverty and homelessness, and the low priority these issues are given compared to such crucial matters as Tom Cruise's honeymoon and the latest styles of luxury sedans.

You may view the video here.

The key point is this: local news media defines our local priorities, and national news media coverage defines out priorities as a nation. If the mass media only discusses celebrity couples and television shows like Survivor or American Idol, then America's only priority as a nation will be voyuerism. Why? Because even if 300 million Americans do have other personal priorities, like unemployment, health care, poverty, drug abuse, crime, and education, nothing productive can actually happen on a national scale if the media doesn't maintain Americans' focus on those issues.

Sure, communities will always have their own local activists devoted to important social issues. But without our mainstream media focusing on it, that is ALL we will have--random, isolated activists with limited resources and virtually no publicity or support, each desperately trying to tackle monumental problems by working independently or within small, relatively powerless organizations.

I can't count how many of these people I've met who consider it a "success" when they are able to assist one out a dozen people who come to them for help, or when they finally get one city ordinance passed after a year-long campaign. You have to be pretty desperate to settle for that low standard of "success". Contrast these well-intentioned, but weak efforts with real national goals, like going from the age of black & white television and Studabakers to landing men on the Moon and returning them safely to earth in less than seven years. Without the national media making the Moon landing a national priority, it could never have happened at that time in our nation's history.

Of course, there will always be large or national organizations devoted to important social issues. However, by definition, these large organizations suffer from the same inherent flaws that plague any large bureaucracy or institution. They are bound by 501(c)3 status restrictions in order to obtain tax-deductible donations. They have limited budgets, and are forced to waste much of their time on grant writing and fund raising just to stay in existence at all. They need publicity. They are forced to prostitute themselves by wining & dining those politicians and corporate executives whose own flawed character and intelligence created and maintain the problems these organizations seek to solve.

And then there are the international organizations, like Bono's ONE campaign ("the campaign to make poverty history"). Bono and other certainly mean well, but look at what they are doing--appealing to the G8 and the World Bank to end poverty? That's like trying to pressure Pablo Escabar to end the drug problem.

If we look at those organizations and movements that have been successful at creating truly monumental changes--whether for good or evil purposes--they all have one thing in common: constant, focused attention from the mass media. Think about it, the Moon Landing, the Cold War, the Iraq War, AIDS, Gay rights, the anti-smoking movement, and of course the German Nazi movement--the mass media was fundamental to making real action on each of those issues possible, and the amoral news media never gave a damn whether it was serving good or evil purposes.

Notice that in contrast to these heavily-promoted issues, the mass media hasn't bothered to say much about the methamphetime epidemic, so this epidemic is devastating communities all across the United States at an increasing rate. Meanwhile, few Americans have any idea that the American pharmaceutical industry's control over Congress is what prevented the DEA from stopping the meth epidemic dead in its tracks back in the early 1990's. The mainstream news media never told the American People about this. You see, pharmaceutical companies provide huge advertising revenues to the mainstream news media, and an amoral news media cares more about revenues and ratings, than about right and wrong.

Also notice that those televangelists who have built mass media empires have continued to get richer and richer, despite their demonstrated hypocrisy and poor characters. The mass media defines our priorities. Or am I the only person who remembers that Christianity used to be characterized by charity, compassion, and humility, rather than self-serving slogans like "God wants you to be rich"? A 2000 year-old religion has been hijacked by profiteers, using a media weapon that is so powerful, that no one even remembers the values that religion represented just a quarter century ago.

It may appear that I pick on Yahoo News a lot, and I do. There's a good reason for that. I was in graduate school studying computer science when Yahoo first became popular as the most useful web directory. At that time, Yahoo offered real hope for the future--hope that the internet was finally going to equalize the mass media's monopoly on setting our local, state, regional, national, and international priorities. Hope that individuals and small groups who give a damn might finally be able to reach the masses with their message, before they also grew into large, bureacratic, ineffective organizations. Yahoo offered us real hope when we needed it most--during the media consolidation of the 1990's that left nearly all of America's national news media under the control of a small number of individuals and corporations.

Today, just ten years later, Yahoo pulls its news from the Associated Press, Reuters, Bloomberg, and other mainstream sources. Yahoo is a mainstream source. Yahoo uses the exact same policies, procedures, terms & conditions as any other national news media source to ensure that ordinary citizens with meaningful messages and noble goals will never be heard from in any way that actually matters. Somebody at Yahoo sold out in the last decade, and because they did, all that hope we witnessed in the late 1990's is gone. All that hope is nothing but a memory today. Or was it all just a dream to begin with? Yahoo should go down in history as one of the greatest potentials that ever failed, one of our nation's greatest betrayals of the American People.

Today, what does Yahoo set as our national priorities? Try keeping track of their headlines for a week, or a month, and you'll see. Or I can save you time, since I've already done that research. Yahoo's national priorities are celebrites, overpaid athletes, war, crime, and national spelling bees, with human interest stories about the salt of the earth thrown in every once in a while, just for flavor. In other words, it is indistinguishable from any other of the major news sources that are consolidated in the hands of just a few individuals and corporations.

It's like Henry Kissinger once said, "I don't read the newspaper. I only read the headlines, so I will know what the American People are being told is important" (paraphrased). The media defines our priorities. And a few token stories about poverty and homelessness from time to time--especially during the holidays, when such stories are expected--is not going to change anything.

At the risk of sounding like John Lennon, imagine what this nation would be like if our national newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and internet news organizations focused their attention--and remained focused--on issues that actually matter--unemployment (downsizing/outsourcing), poverty, homelessness, debtors imprisonment, the power of corporate lobbyists in Congress, bureacracy, incompetence, corruption, police brutality, etc.

Does anyone honestly believe those issues would continue to be ignored and remain unaddressed, if the media replaced Britney Spears' love life with THOSE issues, as our national priorities?

All the best,
Paul

Welcome to the Third World American Blog!

Welcome old and new friends alike, to the new Third World American Blog!

This blog is a text companion to my Third World American podcast, which is meant to be an audio documentary of my Third World American USA Tour. The tour itself is my attempt to spend a year traveling the 48 lower U.S. states, living out of a car (by necessity, not choice), and investigating the reality of poverty, the wealth gap, and debtors imprisonment in the United States of America--the reality of America's decline.

The podcast takes a tremendous amount of effort to produce, especially under the conditions of deprivation in which I am working, and I seem to gather twice as much content to share for each podcast I produce anyway. So this blog is a place where I can share that additional information more quickly and easily, and give you a better play-by-play on how the tour is progressing or stagnating, as the case may be.

Thank you for joining me, and if you enjoy what you read here, hear on the podcast, or see in my videos, I hope you will help support my efforts with financial assistance by shopping at the Third World American store, or offering a donation.

All the best,
Paul