Treating Quotations | Page 4

The company had virtually shut down operations in Jackson by that time. They were no longer sending payroll and wouldn't pay Harold. We discovered that they were treating Harold as a self-employed person, although he was working for them from 8 a.m. to sometimes midnight. They didn't take federal taxes or Social Security taxes out of his check or pay their share of Social Security tax for him. And he was not covered under workers compensation. We don't think that was right.

The markets are basically not treating this as an 'if' scenario but more as a 'done deal' scenario.

If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it round. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't embrace trouble; that's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it.

The importance of local governance may not be obvious to an America accustomed to treating city and state downfalls with doses of federal comeuppance. Sometimes there's a reason for that - the Civil War. More often, all reasoning seems absent - No Child Left Behind.