Well….this one just popped into my head a few minutes ago and I wasn’t even thinking about it….to preface this one, you just have to remember how the repubs have been screeching and screaming about how public employees are overpaid leeches sucking the life out of our state and something must be done to cut their pay and benefits. But then, in comes the new governor and pays his top aides significantly more than the outgoing administration, saying that you have to pay more to get people to take government jobs. You see the inconsistency, don’t you? It’s okay to pay the top people (like the ceo’s and vice presidents) whatever they want, but the regular workers that take public jobs are not top, qualified, people but are just lazy, greedy folks that don’t really want to work. Just more of the same class warfare crap where the people at the top take as much as they can…where’s the “shared sacrifice” governor Snyder? Geez….
All posts by James DeVol
A couple of things this morning…
Well…I am getting to the point that I am ashamed to be a resident of this great state of Michigan with what out legislators have just done…we’re now the first state to cut off unemployment benefits to help ease the tax burdens of corporations who are wallowing in the highest profits on the history of the world. Yep, you heard it right, we are going to cut off the unemployed here just to make sure that business can keep their tax rate lower than it’s been in 30 years. I am getting tired of pointing out the immorality of balancing our budget here on the backs of the poor, retired, and unemployed when a small tax increase across the board would wipe out the deficit and give us some breathing room until the economy recovers. If this is gov Snyder’s idea of “shared sacrifice”, then I am being forced to recant my support for raising my own taxes to help….these guys have been exposed for what they are…just the same old repubs dancing to the tune of their corporate masters who will not be happy until all of the wealth of this country is in the hands of the top 1%.
The second thing I want to talk about is the downright idiocy that is passing for fiscal policy here in the US. If you’ve been following the european economy, and Ireland and England in particular, you see that they have implemented exactly the same austerity measures that are being proposed here; cutting spending and lowering taxes. But what the right here doesn’t want you to know is that these measures are not working in any economy where they’ve been tried…in fact, the deficit reduction that is being championed here as a job growth measure has resulted in a loss of jobs and tax revenue which will make the deficit worse over the long run, not better. When did we become so stupid that proven economic theory (deficit spending in the midst of a recession) has been replaced by fear that deficits will cause the mythical “bond fairies” to stop buying our debt? Now, I’m all for reining in government spending in good times, but not in a recession where these cuts will create a permanent underclass of the unemployed. Geez….
March 26th
Well…kind of a bore of a day yesterday with the car being down….I never go anywhere anyway but it is different when you can’t go anywhere…I hope the part I’ve ordered is the one that has failed or I’ll have to take the wreck in to have it fixed…it has been such a reliable car but I think I’ve used it up and have to get started looking for a new one. If I can’t fix it, that will mean 4 or 5 days of not being able to go anywhere but the bike may be an option to go out for coffee…I don’t go on the weekends so maybe it will be warmer Monday. Not much to do today….I will have to push start the car since I do have to go to G’s and the bank this morning, and if I’m out, I might just as well go for coffee…will have to leave the car running for the whole time and that is kind of weird but you gotta do what you gotta do…..more later…
No Luck…
Well…it has just been one of those days where reality squashes my creativity and crowds out most other thoughts…and without the newspapers today, there was less raw data to draw from. So, you didn’t get anything topical but if you’ve been here before, you shouldn’t be surprised, I have these problems sometimes….I think part of it is that winter still won’t release it’s grip on Michigan and it is a pain to have car troubles when it is so cold….
I did get the paperwork into my financial guy…but I had to suit up and take the bike out to the mailbox since they didn’t deliver the mail here today…in a building with 6 units in it, you would think there would be some kind of mail for one of us…but nothing today and that included my Netflix dvd that was supposed to come today. Yep, I’m a little cranky…as you can tell…but maybe tomorrow things will be better….I will be able to pay my rent for April, after all…..more tomorrow…
Okay, here’s one topical thing that made me laugh so hard I thought I was going to cough up a lung…..Michelle Bachmann is going to run for president……don’t blame me if you die laughing…..
March 24th part two…
Well…the car is still not running so I didn’t go out for coffee and papers today which does put a cramp into my commentary…I am now reading the online papers to find a topic but it’s not going too well right now…I did just read an article by Brian Dickerson in the Detroit Free Press online that is almost an exact copy of mine from a couple of days ago…I don’t know if I’m to be flattered or a little irritated but I guess the truth is the truth no matter who says it. I’ll keep trying for a while but I’m not sure if I can get anything to form up….
March 24th
Well…it was an okay day yesterday except that the car is giving me trouble again…I did order a part that I think is the problem but it won’t be in until Friday so I’ll just have to leave it running after I push start it…or it might start and that would be even better since it is slick. Had a nice surprise with a lunch with T that wasn’t planned and that made me smile the rest of the day…then, when I got back, my printer started working again….maybe the good luck will hold and I’ll win the 303 million in the lottery Friday…I can always hope. Not much to do today….just have to get the papers back in the mail to the financial guy and then probably clean this place up a little…and I promise I won’t do any more Manny columns….I will do the work to be lucid later and add something to the discourse…more later….
Manny sure has a thin skin….and other things…
Well….it was an interesting article this morning by Manny Lopez where he goes on to bitch about getting hate mail responses to his columns and tries to tar the entire progressive/ liberal part of the political spectrum by these outliers. One of the false analogies this moron makes is that because people are protesting the inequality of the ‘shared sacrifice” that is being foist on the people of Michigan, they must be far left liberals and he decries their usage of violent imagery as being hypocritical. Who says that people that are protesting unfairness have to be liberals? But, that fits into his biases that says that all repubs and right leaners must just love what Snyder is doing and it is just the professional left that hates this new budget. Sorry Manny, but many of us on the left (or those of us that think) agree that tax increases need to be a part of trying to balance the budget, but we just want fairness; don’t expect us to like taking money out of our pockets and transferring it to a bunch of ceo’s.
He goes on to relate that he has gotten e-mails questioning his citizenship by his Hispanic last name, what he conveniently forgets is that he has questioned whether Obama is a citizen and makes the leap immediately that this questioning is racist. I think he is so eager to play the discrimination card that he completely missed what the commenter was saying….that if the birthers can question Obama, than his readers can question him. Fair game to me….
I know, Manny is such an easy target that I should do more work and find better ones….at least I’m not writing about sister Sarah….geez…
March 23rd
Well….fun day yesterday but feel like crap today…worth it, but haven’t felt like this in a while….I did lose at pool but it was a hard fought loss so I don’t feel bad about it. The frickin Netflix wasn’t working last night so I watched my concert dvd’s and may have had it too loud….did the DT thing, too, which always makes me cringe when I get up in the morning but I think my friends understand….hope so…not much to do today….need to keep trying to fix my printer and I think C is coming into town…might have a lunch with T if everything works out and that should be fun. As I said before….I feel a little crappy so I’m going to stop now…more later…
The Czar of Michigan strikes again….
Well…I am continually amazed at the governor of this state who espouses limited government and local control and then does what he did yesterday. In an interview in GR yesterday, this idiot tried to explain away his power grab that will take money away from local government unless they do exactly what he says…using blackmail and justifying it with this statement: “the goal here isn’t to punish people,it is to reward the success and crate a new culture based on best practices”…and whose best practices are those and who says they are the best? This, coming from a faith-based party that only believes the numbers they pull out of a hat? This, coming from a former ceo whose only claim to fame was to make hundreds of millions of dollars shipping the entire company of Gateway computers to China? This is his idea of “best practices”? Why aren’t the businesses that he is showering 1.8 billion dollars in tax cuts on being held to this bogus claim of “best practices”? No, they don’t have to do anything to get this transfer of wealth except exist and continue to give money to his and other repub’s campaign.
This is nothing more than a naked power grab that is based upon bludgeoning his enemies with his control of the purse strings and if the localities don’t agree, guess what? He will use the recently passed emergency manager law to remove elected officials and install more of his cronies that will then. without debate, drive their right-wing agenda down our throats. Where are the tea partiers who say they despise the “takeover” by centralized government? What’s next? Rick Snyder becoming the only government that Michigan has, and his pronouncements will become law no matter how misguided they are….we need to rise up and throw these idiots out in the next election before our democracy is gone forever…geez…
March 22nd
Well…an interesting day yesterday and I had a bunch of stuff to do which is really unusual as you know. I did get to meet my new financial guy and found out that I’ve made a bunch of money since December and I feel quite a bit better that I’m not going completely broke. The repair guys came for my dryer but there is more work to be done there so that makes more work for me in the next couple of days…oh, well. It looks like I’ll be able to pay the rent for April so I’m even going to go grocery shopping this morning…I am getting so tired of chicken that I’m not buying any this week, going to buy a lot of stuff that is bad for me but tastes really good and splurge a little…well…turkey isn’t that bad, is it? I am going to buy some chips and some burger but I only eat red meat about once a month now so that’s not too bad. Need to get some more broccoli, too. Not too much to do today…you already know part of it and I am going out to shoot pool today…the veil of darkness is starting to lift and the brain is working again so you may get three today….more later…
Oh, hope the car starts this morning…