Jerry Summers
The four-day fireworks extravaganza with the beautiful exploding display of “non-bombs bursting in air” are finally over but a few questions remain:
(1) Are the past few months of high gas prices, insufficient groceries, and supply line shortages finally over?
(2) Is the pent-up frustration of putting up with COVID for two years a justification for the desire to travel on clogged up freeways and over booked airlines?
(3) Was the Delta Airlines pilots strike over the Independence Day period just a coincidence or designed to put pressure on the company for a contract salary increase?
(4) Has all of the stimulus money for not working getting depleted enough so that citizens might actually decide to go back to work now that wages have been substantially increased for employees?
(5) Is the $25 billion we have invested in the defense of Ukraine stopping or slowing down the Russian invasion?
(6) Are we putting enough economic pressure on China to reduce the trade deficit and maybe bring back American jobs from overseas?
I don’t know or even profess to know enough to express an opinion on the above topics and many others.
However, while enjoying each night's fireworks celebration from my home setting and the television productions from the nation's capital and other locations, I suddenly had the urge to check my computer for answers to see what the potential cost of the beautiful explosions might be taking away from the needs of Americans and citizens around the World.
Although only the 2021 data on the total amount of money allegedly spent on the “Big Bang” items are available they are revealing.
In 2021 the total cost of exporting fireworks was allegedly $762.6 million with our good trading partner China getting $640.7 million (84 percent) of the proceeds, while America received $7.7 million (one percent)!
No statistics were discovered showing what the former USSR (Puttin’s play toy) spent on fireworks in 2020, but it would not be a big stretch of the imagination to assume that there would be a conversion of “firework funds into firearms” to kill Ukrainian citizens and ravage the cities and towns of that war-torn nation.
An acquaintance sent the following Facebook attachment from an undisclosed source which puts an additional perspective on the questions presented above:
“I don’t know what fireworks cost nowadays, but apparently they’re cheap enough that all of my dirt poor redneck neighbors who “can’t afford gas let's go Brandon!” can buy enough to spend three days exploding them into the sky for eight hours every night.”
(This is not a political statement in favor or against any political party, but the beauty and excitement of the fireworks displays over Hamilton County did provide sobering moments and raise the above questions.)
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Jerry Summers
(If you have additional information about one of Mr.
Summers' articles or have suggestions or ideas about a future Chattanooga area historical piece, please contact Mr. Summers at jsummers@summersfirm.com)