Tue, May 13 2008
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Published March 16, 2008 04:26 pm - Hey, “Brother, can you spare a dime?” It has been 77 years since that song by Yip Harburg (lyrics) and Jay Gorney (music) helped capture the times. The times were the Great Depression. Perhaps a dime and nothing more A NEIL FRIEDER column Star Beacon Hey, “Brother, can you spare a dime?” It has been 77 years since that song by Yip Harburg (lyrics) and Jay Gorney (music) helped capture the times. The times were the Great Depression. There are a lot of people still around who went through the Great Depression and will forever have these words stamped in their minds: They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob, Where there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job. They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead. Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread? Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time. Once I built a railroad; now it’s done. Brother, can us spare a dime? It was the American dream they were building. That dream seemed to end for a while with the Great Depression. No one is saying we are in a depression today, and some would say the haunting words of “Brother, can you spare a dime” have no relevance today. Actually, this country has not been in a depression since President Franklin D. Roosevelt led us out of the great one sometime in the 1930s. I can’t help thinking this song has a lot of relevance today though. We are in a recession... a deep one. That is a step above a depression. There are a lot of people without jobs, retail prices are escalating rapidly, many people are losing their homes, the value of the dollar is plummeting and Wall Street is on a roller coaster ride, but mostly going down. There is a point I want to make. On March 4 Ashtabula County voters went to polls to nominate people for political offices and decide a number of money issues, including five school issues. All but one of those school issues failed. The only one that passed was the textbook and technology renewal levy for the Ashtabula Area City School District. It barely passed. All the losers were new levies. 
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