The Trust Factor

According to a recent AP-GFK poll two- thirds of Americans don’t trust each other anymore. That’s beyond the natural level of mistrust in government, Wall Street and insurance companies. In the 1960s,73% of Americans trusted government to get things right,today only 19% trust the government to get anything right.

The level of mistrust leads to gated communities, gun sales, protests, long-winded contracts and 2000 pages of legislation.

 A good example of mistrust is President Obama’s  “honest and trustworthy” poll number. More Americans don’t believe he’s trustworthy and I don’t blame them, given the media’s attention to charges that have never been substantiated. Another good example of that comes from a 2016 presidential candidate Jeb Bush who has always operated above partisan fray. Last week the State Dept. merged the Vatican facility with the larger Embassy in Italy. As expected, the right wing media went nuts saying that Obama was closing the Vatican facility. Jeb Bush responded with a tweet saying, “ Why would our President close our Embassy to the Vatican? Hopefully, it is not retribution for Catholic organizations opposing Obamacare.” The Jeb Bush staff would normally make a couple of calls before embarrassing themselves but the tweet did give Bush some tea party credibility.

It’s going to take the younger people to turnaround the level of mistrust and they will do it with technology. New norms will have to be reestablished using new metrics to reflect the current population. For example ,we now know what the numbers will look like for corporations if they raise the minimum wage; we no longer have to take their word for it. A good example is the largest retail corporation, Wal-Mart’s paying practices. How can people be upset over people being on the government dole and not be equally upset that their tax money is being used to subsidize the health care of Wal-Mart’s employees?Now that's classic 'redistribution of wealth.'

I often hear Rep. Paul Ryan say that we shouldn’t be creating a climate of government dependency but he continues to vote for tax incentives for oil companies.

The other day, I heard a discussion as to whether the Affordable Care Act would have to establish death panels in order to get the cost curve down. The dissenters were referring to the advisory panel but couldn’t call it that because it might give the panel some legitimacy. Insurance companies make life or death decisions everyday. The argument then becomes “do you want a government bureaucrat to pull the plug on granny?” It’s not as if a three star general roaming the halls of the White House or a golfing buddy of Obama will sit on the panel. It’s going to be human beings making that choice, whether it is a selective panel or several insurance companies.  

I remember an old blogger named “thewaywardwind” asking me to explain something that I had written in a blog without inserting my usual political spin. The colorful blogger wanted me to write something he could believe because he didn’t trust my version of the facts. I told him that he was perfectly capable of writing a blog that supported his beliefs. We eventually established boundaries because after many discussions, we understood where we came from. A continuing dialogue will eventfully lead to understanding and from there we will get closer to trust.

We can’t expect everyone to accept the views we had about race, culture, ideology or religion that we had in the 1950s because the demographics have changed. The 1970s were a prosperous time but many were benefiting from the G.I. bill, strong unions, good pay/ benefits and affordable education. Today we are a war weary nation coping with a high level of income inequality, which leads to mistrust.

We need to get our nation back to work so the conversation switches to the positives that are achievable. The employed people will find a way to form a community organization to help others and eventually trust will reemerge.

Do we have be so distrustful?

Pudge taking it easy.

It sure would be nice if my days were all like my wife's Persian cat Pudge? He gets to sleep 20 hours or more, eats, drinks, does his business and pretty much what he wants for the remaining hours he's awake. My wife thinks I'm pretty close that..:-) He's able to sleep in that position, without a care in the world because he trusts us to protect him and care for his needs. We humans don’t want to be that content because we like a lot more excitement than that but we could be more trustful.

Even without a set schedule, I'm still a procrastinator when it comes to getting my truck's state annual inspection and vehicle registration sticker. I thought that I would change this year, so I headed off this morning to Larry's Texaco on Lone Tree for what I thought was going to be a 10 minute yearly ritual of checking my insurance card, tapping the horn, checking my lights and tires, brakes and the then the mechanic would say, " $14.50 please." As I started to turn into Larry's, I noticed 10 vehicles that had the same idea, so this morning was as if I would have waited until Tuesday. What the hell, I don’t have anything else to do, I'm retired?

Larry's service station reminded me so much of the service station that I used to own and it's run pretty much the same. The car drives up the pump, running over a rubber air-hose drive way alarm, which makes that familiar “ring-ring" sound. The attendant approaches the customer with the familiar red rag strapped on his shoulder asking “how can I help you today." He then puts in the gasoline nozzle, opens the hood checks the oil and windshield washer dispenser, closes the hood and then cleans the windshields, as the vehicle is filling. In today's world of self- service, we just don't see that anymore. It’s even worse in the big cities where the attendant is barely visible behind bars and security cameras. Don’t ask him for directions because he probably doesn’t know the area he’s working in.

The mechanic who inspected my car was nice enough to tell me that I may need some new belts, but it was more in advisement not like what I used to hearing when I used to take my old truck to the dealership or Firestone. I would get a simple oil change and get back a two-page computer printout with over $800 of repairs that were needed right now. It's an old truck people; just give me the basics.

While it was still fresh on my mind,  I drove my truck over to my daughter's mechanic Mickey's and he gave me a reasonable estimate, so I made an appointment for next week.

It was my first time ever stepping foot in Mickey's so the old building and small office, reminded me of garages from years past. You what I'm talking about, the old unpainted small desk, repair manuals lying around, and old and use parts on the bench. It doesn’t matter because they keep their overhead down, which they pass along to people like me. As long as they are open, they’ll always have me as a customer because I trust them.

I may be old fashioned, but I think we’re lacking trust in our fellow human being. It may be because of what we read on the Internet or see on the news, and it might be warranted in some instances but it seems like we've grown more skeptical than ever before. I'm sure you know several local store owners you trust, and you don't mind paying them a dollar or two more, just to keep them around. I still will shop at major chains and purchase items online, but it's nice to know if there's still a trustful mechanic for my old truck.

Well, I'm pretty much though for the day until 7:00 tonight, when I catch up with the news, politics or whatever; not quite as easy as Pudge has it but life is good. Enjoy it people,smile, and approach each day as if it’s going to take a lot to get you angry.