Dear Pleasanton City Council…..Signs

Good Evening, My name is Chris Mosser Owner and Survivalist for my business Faith & Survival and a Pleasanton resident. Signs are all around us every minute of every day, week and month.  I see them while I am jogging, driving my car, eating lunch, filling up my gas tank.  These signs are indicators to me that something is wrong with the city, state, and country that I live in.  Let me share a few of these signs with you tonight.

ACE Train Parking Lot Pleasanton CA 8AM Thursday Jan 20th

This is a picture of 57 cars that are using the Altamont Commuter Express parking lot at 8am on Thursday January 20th 2011.  The lot holds over 250 cars.  The Altamont Express Train runs from Pleasanton California to the Silicon Valley.  San Jose CA once was a great jobs hub and the ACE train once was welcomed relief from the gridlock known as the Sunol Grade, AKA 680.  Long ago this parking lot would be full daily, now it sits almost empty.

Parking Lot FULL for the City of Pleasanton Employees

However in contrast I present to you the City of Pleasanton Employee’s parking lot, taken at 11am on Friday January 21st 2011.  Here over 80 cars can be counted in a lot FULL, the only empty stalls I could find where the ones labeled visitors parking.

Chevy Volt

President Obama touted in his state of the Union of Address his dream for 1 million electric cars in American driveways by the end of 2011, I would argue that is a nightmare, perhaps he has missed this sign called the Chevy Volt.  This new car produced by the reborn General Motors, brought back from the graveyard by our tax payer dollars. On the surface such a shiny car….but let’s look a little deeper…such as the window sticker.

Chevy Volt Made in Austria and Japan only costs $43,700.00

Notice if you can the MSRP of $43,700.00, that is right you can have this shinny example of a middle class people mover for $50,000.00 dollars after tax and registration.  Well not really, because over 90% of Americans that buy cars finance so really we are talking $65,000.00 after five years of payments.  Now consider that the current median American citizens GROSS income is $32,000.00 per year. So, if you work for two plus years, with no payments to things like, food, shelter, health insurance, child care, insurance, and ahhhhh taxes you could drive off  with one of these fine fine cars.  For the rest of us that pay 40% of what we make to taxes 55% to everything else and if we are lucky can save 5% of our income that means only working 33 years to be able to save enough to buy this car…assuming no inflation.

But it is worth it to work most of my adult life for President Obama’s dream because obviously this car must be made by Americans in America so I will be supporting American workers, and its got that electric motor thing so it must reduce my carbon footprint.  Wrong…look at that sticker.  Lets see here:

Parts:  Made in Korea

Engine: Made in Austria

Transmission: Made in Japan

Emissions:  About the same amount as your typical Honda Civic.

WHAT!!!!  You must be kidding…surely though I will make some type of cost back in reduction to my fuel cost.  No, even according to the window sticker calculated by the EPA, (I would take that with a dose of skepticism) it will cost you a combined average of $2,000.00 per year in gas and electricity costs. 

So as an Average hard working struggling to get by Pleasanton Resident would I purchase this new Chevy Volt that has been born from my tax dollars through the General Motors bailout…no, of course not.  This car will be purchased by the “Green Elite’s” whom want to look cool in the car pool line while they stare at the rest of us worker bees.

Gas Price in Dublin California on Friday January 21st 2011

But the signs continue…..Let’s talk about inflation. Have you noticed the price of Gas.  Yes, for us here in the East Bay over the past year gas has gone from $2.96 a gallon to $3.47 a gallon, that would be an increase of 17% or $40.00 more per month. How about things like your Starbucks Venti Drips moving from $1.85 to $2.15 an increase of 16%. Have you seen you health insurance premiums since the passage of Obama care..ya, skyrocketing up, mine personally up over 20%, and psss for some reason I was not granted a waiver..have you been? PGE just went up in both electric and gas rates this month, how about college tuition costs…going up…and what about FOOD.  Perhaps you have started to see the alarming upward trend in general food commodities such as dairy, wheat, corn, soybeans, rice and basic necessities of life.  These food prices are causing roits and revolutions right now in countries such as Tunisia and Egypt. But yet our Government puts out a report called the consumer price index in which they say that Inflation is only 1.1% and EVERY news channel, newspaper and magazine tells us there is no inflation because this report states we have only 1.1% inflation for the year. 

I have copy of that report put out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, US department of Labor.  The number that they report to all of us on inflation does not include food or energy. That’s right, the report excludes; food, energy, and the vast majority of other categories are statistical averages, which are seasonally adjusted, for most categories they don’t even physically go out and check prices.

Downtown Pleasanton Restaurant row....empty at Friday's lunch

But let me just give you one more sign that focuses squarely on the economic trauma of downtown Pleasanton   This photo is of the outdoor dinning row in the center of the downtown, the picture was taken at 12:05pm on Friday January 21st 2011. The temperature was 60+ degrees, no wind, wonderful sunshine, and it is a Friday lunch, usually your most busy lunch time for all restaurants.  As you can see..one table filled, from Alberto’s to Cafe Main….One…..

Why are these signs, (AKA pictures) so important for you to see.  Because they offer a reality in sharp contrast to what MSNBC, FOX News, CNN, CNBC, Contra Costa Times, NY Times, Tri Valley Hearld, and almost every other major media source would have you believe right now.  They spend every minute of there broadcast time or print pages stating, the economy is improving, the recession is over, things are better, everything is peaches and cream in America.  But yet the reality that I am showing you today is none of that. Why is what I am showing not being covered by the main stream media?

This is a very important question for you to ask yourself.  If you believe what the media is telling you than you begin to think, hey maybe we can tax the citizens a little more because they are back on their feet, if they can afford a Chevy Volt at $50,000.00 surely then can pay an additional tax or fee for education, city or state government.  We don’t need to reduce our cities budget as much because obviously our revenue stream will be turning around, that is what I hear on the news every day…things are getting better….

What do you believe, the signs that I am showing you, or what the media is indoctrinating you with?

God Bless You

God Bless America