Archive for September 25th, 2008
September 25th, 2008
At 6:15 p.m. in the Amtrak Sleeping Car Passenger lounge, the talking heads on CNN and Fox are reporting that President Bush and congressional leaders ended their summit meeting on the bailout bill in a huff.
The Amtrak announcer, who five minutes earlier had ordered Cardinal passengers to line up at the boarding gate, now says, “All passengers for the Cardinal may be seated. The train is in the station, we’re tying on an engine and will leave shortly.”
Scott Morgan, our photographer, has now joined me, and we approach Chris Juskewycz of Fairfield, Iowa, who’s waiting to board an eastbound train; she’ll get off in Erie, Pa., to see her 91-year-old mother. Chris and her husband own a sports memorabilia store in Fairfield. Business is down, she says.
“I’m very concerned about the economy, although I am not very knowledgeable about it.”
Does she favor a bailout?
“They definitely have to do something. It’s Armageddon if they don’t. To think there’s a Republican in office when this happens. They were always talking about the virtues of deregulation. Bush has very little credibility. People don’t trust him.”
She says a bailout will only work if independent people not connected with the failed banks are put in charge of managing it.”
“Congress has to hold firm. Dont’ give in on everything. Don’t give Wall Street a blank check.”
Although she liked Joe Biden in the Iowa caucuses, “I think Obama is the best hope we have of being bipartisan in office.”
I wondered, did Juskewycz think John McCain did the right thing in suspending his campaign and asking for Friday’s debate with Obama to be delayed?
“The debate should take place. I read somewhere that the McCain people were canceling this debate in hopes of rescheduling it in place of the vice presidential debate,” to keep Sarah Palin out of the line of fire.
She usually flies to see her mom but took the train because it’s difficult to make air connections in Fairfield and Erie. “I came to Chicago on the California Zypher, and now I’m waiting for the Lake Shore Limited. It’s been a great ride. I plug in my iPod, read a book and relax.”
SCOTT MORGAN | RRSTAR.COM
Chris Juskewycz of Fairfield, Iowa, waits for her train Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008, at Union Station in Chicago.
September 25th, 2008
Ray Clyburn looks at the giant, flat-screen TV in the Amtrak Sleeping Car Passenger Lounge in Chicago’s cavernous Union Station. We were tuned to CNN, but a patron asked if anybody would mind if he switched to Fox. Everybody shrugged, and he changed the channel. On both channels, talking heads were going on about the proposed $700 financial industry bailout.
Clyburn said, “It looks to me as if we are going to be rewarding people for buying homes they couldn’t afford, that we will continue the moral decline of the young people. In a capitalist society, we shouldn’t be doing bailouts.”
Clyburn, 70, lives in Norfok, Va., a military city. He’s retired from a career as a Nationwide Insurance agent.
“I always have been an independent, but I’ve voted Republican mostly because I thought they would do best for the economy. I think McCain is a very good person to lead our country now.”
Clyburn admires McCain for his fortitude during more than five years of captivity in North Vietnam. He has two grown children, “and I have no idea who they’d vote for.”
And what of Obama?
“My thoughts are that he’s a Muslim. I think he must be one and not practicing it, but it must have been instilled in him as a youngster. He has no experience in business or politics.”
Clyburn volunteers that he’s on his is his third major train trip. A decade ago he took a deluxe, $10,000 trip across Canada and stayed in fancy hotels. And then there was the Costa Rican experience.
“My wife and I rode on a banana train. The windows of the coaches were broken out, and we rolled from side to side brushing trees and big plants at 10 mph. When we got to a creek, the train stopped and people got out and went for a swim.”
September 25th, 2008
Sue Allen of Virginia Beach, Va., is one of those “Red Hat Society” ladies who are over 50 and have a sense of adventure. “We go out to eat, go to movies and we love to travel.”
Allen and her friends have just returned from Branson, Mo., where they saw several country-themed variety shows. Now Allen is waiting in Chicago’s Union Station to board a train back to Virginia. She’s a nurse at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, Va.; her ex-husband was a career Navy man.
Who will get her vote for president?
“McCain,” she says emphatically. “My number one reason is that he was involved in the military for many years. I don’t think Obama has the experience. My three daughters are staunch Democrats, but I like McCain. He made a very good move when he chose Sarah Palin for vice president. She’s a strong female.”
But Allen doesn’t necessarily agree with her candidate on the war in Iraq. McCain once said American forces may need to remain in Iraq, in some capacity, for 100 years.
“Get ‘em out of the sandbox,” she says. “Sandbox,” Allen explains, is military speak for Iraq and Afghanistan. “I think we need to support them and get them home. I don’t really think either candidate is going to get them home faster.”
I asked her about the financial crisis. Allen said she’s got some savings, “and I think, am I going to lose those dollars? But I try not to dwell on this stuff.” And just like that, she changed the subject, describing the series of buses and trains she’s been on during her “America By Rail” tour.
“It’s my first trip by train. I’ve been very pleased. “
September 25th, 2008
It’s 4 p.m., and I’m ensconced in the spacious, nicely appointed Union Station sleeping car passenger lounge. A group of 20 or so are sitting in the comfortable couches and chairs, eating free munchies and watching Wolf Blitzer and the CNN pundits try to describe what’s going on with the $700 billion scheme to bail out the Wall Street investment banks that made a mess of the economy.
Amtrak passengers shake their heads and laugh in disgust as Wolf explains that the president and Congress can’t agree on what the bailout should look like, and indeed, whether there should even be one. Wolf announces a poll that says by 53 percent to 42 percent, Americans believe John McCain should fly to Ole Miss and debate Barack Obama.
I strike up a conversation with Leo Kennedy of Perrysburg, Ohio. He’s going home with his wife on Train # 30, The Capitol Limited. Now retired, he was plant manager at a factory in Michigan that makes plastic packaging. “See that Coke bottle,” he says, pointing to a nearby table. “I designed that.”
So, what does Leo make of the economic situation the country’s in?
“It’s an absolute disaster,” Kennedy says. “There’s been no regulations, and you have the fox guarding the hen house. People bought homes they could not afford, cars they couldn’t afford. My 401(k) is almost gone. What the hell am I going to live on? President Bush pops up on the TV screen, which prompts Leo to call him an “idiot, a moron” and other words that you know but which I shall not repeat.
“I’m tired of getting screwed. If I were 19, I would start a revolution. The two-party system sucks; you’ve got crooks on both sides. Take that $700 billion and cancel all the foreclosures, just cancel ‘em out. Help the little guy.”
“Bill Clinton may have been an (deleted) but at least we had a surplus, I could afford a gallon of gas and a T bone steak once in a while.”
So, who will Kennedy vote for on Nov. 4?
“Bugs Bunny,” he says. “Obama has pie in the sky; McCain has nothing in the sky, including brains.”
September 25th, 2008
I’m off. Getting ready to board the Van Galder bus to Union Station, where I hope to talk to some travelers in the cavernous, busy downtown terminal, where commuters bound for the suburbs mingle with passengers bound for California, New York, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Seattle, Portland, Denver and numerous destinations.
Even if you’ve never been in the station, you’ve seen it in countless movies, including “The Untouchables” and “Derailed.”
While most people fly nowadays, Amtrak is enjoying record ridership as people seek alternatives to high prices of driving and going by air. Amtrak could handle even more passengers if it had the extra coaches and engines, but it lacks the money to buy new ones.
That’s because Congress treats the national passenger train company as an orphan, giving it just enough money each year, about $1 billion , to keep operating. Meanwhile, Uncle Sam will spend $1 billion to build a superhighway connecting I-88 and I-80, the Prairie Parkway long pursued by former U.S. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert — Denny’s Drive or Hastert Highway.
Photographer Scott Morgan and I leave Chicago, bound for New Orleans at 8 p.m. There are no hurricanes headed for the Gulf Coast this weekend, which is a good thing.
September 25th, 2008
I watched President Bush deliver his “rescue” speech Thursday night. He urged Congress to quickly pass a version of the $700 billion bailout of Vinnie, Slats, Guido, Spike and Bruno, and all the other guys in the the -mortgage-backed securities boiler room.
If we don’t act now, those boiler room guys are going to pile into a big Lincoln and take the economy with them, el Presidente warned. Those guys, Bush warned, are threatening WSMD. (Wall Street Mass Destruction.)
Do you believe this stuff? The crooks screwed up. We have to pay. Now. Or else we lose our homes, jobs, EVERYTHING.
This sounds a lot like the same president who warned in 2002 that we had to invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein had WMDs. (Weapons of Mass Destruction.) But it turned out they were just Weapons of Mass Distraction.
Sorry, but I don’t believe a word “W” says. I can’t wait for him to go.
Congress needs to take a long hard look at possible solutions to the financial crisis, and NOT be stampeded into acting because of panic peddlers on Capitol Hill and the White House. We need to shift this country back to a producing economy that creates real wealth, instead of the Ponzi Scheme consumer economy we now have. Because Ponzi’s house of cards is tumbling, as I suspected it eventually would have to, because it was based on phony assumptions.
Why does Bush propose bailing out failing boiler room rackets and not providing help to ordinary people whose homes are in foreclosure?
I hear that phones are ringing off the hook on Capitol Hill as citizens demand their reps and senators n.ot reward these Wall Street schemers. Who will our leaders listen to?
