The most unusual twist has occurred in my life: from an anticipated permanent move to Europe, I have momentarily taken root in Las Vegas, Nevada. Several steps created my departure from West Hollywood to Paris, France, and subsequently to Nice on the Mediterranean Sea. And more thereafter.

I spent two weeks in Paris searching for an apartment, and one month in Nice doing the same: striving to achieve the goal of renting a long-term studio in the city of lights, however shady and somber its mood has become.  Archaic French laws hindered my goal. I decided to visit the birth source of our democracy.

I was captivated by Greece. It is delightful to spend several days in Athens. Next time, I must get out into the country. I doff my hat to the Greeks. So quickly from the European Union’s poorest nation to the vibrantly alive Athens of today is quite remarkable.

Athenians’ ever-clean streets demonstrate their social focus. They deal with tangible facts. And do something about them. Contrary to the United States, which has unkempt streets and 90,000 unfilled jobs in Nebraska alone, the Greeks work. They get things done.

The Greeks would likely view the solution to America’s unfilled truck driver jobs is to tap the reservoir of eager workers just across our Mexican border. These homeless refugees would make excellent drivers.

A number of them are educated, staff managers, supervisors. But our corporate world does not even take note of those immigrants seeking entry to our labor market, let alone consider setting up driver schools for them to help solve our backed up trucking delivery problem.

If the near sightedness of the American corporate world is foolish, that of our local governments is embarrassing. Many of our major cities are dirty. San Francisco, for example, is filthy. Trash everywhere. One wonders what the city government is doing, beside still paying off large sums to transportation engineers who many years ago designed the city’s tram and cable car system.

My point is that 10,000 years of Athenian Greek thinking gets them back to work immediately because citizens accept their situation, buckle down, and go where necessary to get a job, and do it right.

A substantial number of Americans seem to have become lackadaisical in work. Yes, probably a lot of this came about because of the largesse of the Federal money-printing machine, while giant corporations were busy figuring out how to further digitalize and automate the last still active people jobs.

The chasm between America’s labor needs and some still unwilling native workers and highly-willing refugees demonstrates the unsettled mental state of Americans today. Add the unimaginative minds of corporate leaders and their financially-supported politicians, and you create a muddy bog that delays  our economic progress.

Am I accusing big business and government to be the cause of our national dissension and our financial shortfallings? Well, yes, I am. Big corporations fund almost every political campaign. They provide millions of jobs. They complain loudly when the economy doesn’t go right.

What they don’t do is note and acknowledge that most of the political divide and income gap in America is caused by big business and politicians, not by us 330 million people. We are all trapped within their profit-seeking digital control of mass media communication.

It now takes days of emailing and texting to get many things done that we used to complete in five minute phone conversations. It is like pulling teeth with a pair of pliers and no anesthetic to find large corporate entities with functional telephone access to any level of management but the lowest.

The corporate mentality does not habitually aid real business creativity in America. Creativity exists, but those controlling our economic levers are so far removed from the down-on-the-ground needs of us citizens, they haven’t a clue how to smooth human progress.

They might as well be blindfolded. They keep trying to digitally automate everything when our problem is matching still available jobs with available and willing workers. And more accurately placing any government handouts and accompanying then with training.

Our $ billions of government economy-boosting payoffs went directly into the hands of known millionaires and non-profit organizations, including churches – while millions of poorer and poorer-educated black, brown, yellow, red people, and tens of thousands of homeless, went without a dime.

We are a bit out of kilter here in America. Spoiled, I’d say, to say the least. Maybe that’s why I’m in Las Vegas. It’s thriving as gamblers and people worn thin by naturally disturbing events look for some human enjoyment with other humans. Maybe I’ll learn something new.

Some Casinos, I notice, further automated their gambling during the pandemic’s launch. What used to be a friendly Roulette table party with people from around the world – that is now sometimes gone. It’s been replaced by a lone person conducting a boring, cold, meaningless gamble with a digital wheel.

Even the casino operators have forgotten what their own customers’ needs are. Digital profits trump customer satisfaction now. It’s all about profit. Bugsy Siegel knew better. He knew it was as much about just pure fun as either winning or losing.

Ahh, geniuses sometimes do die young. Let us hope our country does not.