Well….just looked back at a few from the past couple of weeks and I didn’t know I was so angry and combative….I’m getting tired of being pissed off and I’ll bet you are tired of reading it here so, let’s try to lighten things up a bit and smile a little. Hold on….need to take a shower first and get the pork loin cooking so I can have it for lunch….be back in about a half hour….going to try some of these little, round potatoes with it that I’ve never cooked before but were on sale at Meijers for a buck for a three pound bag…and I have become hooked on fresh broccoli too, and I am going to start trying some new recipes for cooking and seasoning it…okay, now I’m going to take that shower…..back in about a half hour…go!
Hi, I’m back…have the food cooking for lunch and it is starting to smell good in here…..I think what I’m going to do is come back all day and add to this one…don’t have a lot to say right now….I used to be funny and I don’t know where that went but I do want to try to reclaim it…I think it will help my mood a bit and a SF with K would get me out of this place…in the snow…come on..it’s March already, can’t it stop snowing so I can get on the bike? I have gained the normal 12 pounds that I gain every year in the winter but I started at a lower, leaner, level…..say that three times fast….that is fun to say…lower, leaner, level….so I don’t feel as bad about it this year….as I said, I’ll be back later….have been moving around since 6 and want to take a veg hour….
Well…..have to comment on an article by Michel Barone in the Detroit News this morning that finds it is a bad thing that unions give money to Democratic candidates and makes the assertion that since public employee unions give to the Dems it is the same as taxpayer money going to them with no say by the people paying the salaries. Yikes, what a leap of logic this guy is pushing…by that same reasoning any time a business gives money to the repubs, that I have helped make possible by purchasing a good or service from, they are making political contributions that I have no say in. Michael, of course the unions are going to give to the dems, they are the only party that gives a damn about the middle class and still fights for people to have a chance against the manipulations of corporations that are aided and abetted by the repubs. He continues with the spurious, circular argument that asserts that since private sector employees have been beaten down and have had their real compensation stall or recede over the past 20 years, the same should happen to those who have managed to stay even or even improve their lot; while corporate profit is at it’s highest level in history. I have a question for you Michael, when will you on the right be happy? When there is no middle class left to purchase anything from your sainted corporations? Geez….
Well…if this stuff keeps coming to me, it may be a record day here but I think this just may be compensation for the uncontrollable stuff that is happening in my life right now…could even be avoidance, but who knows? One thing that I am taking away from the protests that are happening across the midwest is hope, hope that the workers of this country are finally waking up to the organized assault on the middle class and are starting to do something about it…and I have to thank governor Walker for being so open about the right’s agenda, pulling the curtain back on the coordinated effort of the repubs to steal the entire country for themselves. My only fear is that this may fizzle out before it can be converted into electoral gains for those who value the middle class and the dignity of labor….
Well…I promise this one will be shorter but it is something I need to get down before I forget it. I was musing about the class warfare aspect of the fights that are going on in statehouses across the country and one thing struck me: that this is a new kind of class war…one that is being fomented by the rich and powerful and uses working folks as the soldiers, pitting powerless people who have seen their pay, benefits, and security decline by the fake necessity of givebacks against those who have found at least a little protection of their status by their membership in unions. And, the puppet masters who are pulling the strings have been masterful in getting people to vote against their own interests, and to believe the lies that all of the economic problems in this country are caused by greedy workers. You have to hand it to them…first they gut funding for education so they get an ignorant populace, then they overwork them so they have no energy left to even think about how badly they’ve been deceived…..and the downward spiral for labor continues while the rich sit in their clubs and laugh their asses off at you and I….
Well…if you needed another example of the repubs concerted efforts to kill organized labor, look no farther than Wisconsin, where the repub governor and legislature are trying to take the collective bargaining rights away from all public employees, and you know who’s next..any other union that tries to keep it’s members in the middle class. This is being done on the pretext that they have a 137 million dollar budget deficit and something has to be done. but the only pertinent fact here is that, until they gave away a matching tax break to business, the state was running a surplus…just another example of these repub thieves trumping up crises that don’t exist to attack the middle class. I sense the beginning of a revolt here…where the repub plans are finally being exposed and getting the coverage that was lacking before the election…at least I hope so…the pie here in the US is big enough for everyone if the repubs would stop thinking they deserve it all….
Well…one of the themes that has come out of the budget nonsense here in Michigan is that of “shared sacrifice’ and is being sold that everyone needs to give a little to help our state survive. But, again, those that are being asked to sacrifice are only the workers and the retired folks here…and this increase in taxes on you and me is going to be used to give business billions in tax breaks since these idiots still believe that giving tax breaks preserves and grows jobs here in Michigan. Let’s take a look at one example that I am personally aware of here in GR where Steelcase was given huge tax breaks to keep jobs here and build state of the art manufacturing facilities…well…guess what was just announced a few weeks back? Steelcase is moving the remaining manufacturing jobs from Michigan to low wage states and Mexico. No matter what the state does, no matter how much the workers give up, it is never enough for business and the repubs that run them…they will never be happy until all of us work for minimum wage no matter what our education level or our contribution to the bottom line. I’ve never shared this from my personal work life; shared how I was treated by business that didn’t care about anything but the bonuses that the ceo’s get….in the week before I was axed…I gave that company over 5 million dollars in cost reduction that went right to the bottom line…and over my career, I was personally responsible for almost 100 million dollars of these lower costs…and they axe me because they were consciously trying to rid themselves of people over 40, my average salary of 60 K a year and 28 years of service meant absolutely nothing to them….
So, giving tax breaks to these fools is not going to ensure that jobs stay here….it will only result in you and I paying for their folly and huge executive bonuses…when will this nonsense stop? Geez….
Well…had to get this one out while I’m still seething abut it…I hope you’ve read about and have the same outrage that I have about comments made by senator Chuck Grassley yesterday about the bonuses that GM is paying out to it’s hourly and salaried workers…they are going to pay out about 400 million dollars since the company is profitable again after the trip through bankruptcy. Ole Chuck is bitching about the fact that they have only paid back about half of what they owe to the US gov’t and feels that there should be no bonuses paid until all of the loans are paid back. Oh, really Chuck? Where the hell were you when the big banks that were bailed out by the TARP program were paying out 20 times more than that in bonuses before the TARP loans were paid back? Not a fricking peep from you, Chuck, because those bonuses went to the rich and connected and just shows your underlying hatred of the middle class and the workers of this country.
Why isn’t this inconvenient fact being reported in the media? I guess it’s now our job to hold these hypocrites accountable….geez…
One last inconvenient fact….the three top guys in the banking industry got more than 400 million dollars in bonuses….that’s three guys, folks…and old Chuck is pissed because 76 thousand workers are going to share 400 million…but, as you know, he was one of the ones on the right who wanted the auto companies to just fail and go away because they have unionized workers…no matter that they are American workers in the middle class..or is it because they are middle class…
Well…I’ve had lunch and have been watching Man U play but it’s halftime and I thought I’d get a few more ideas down. Have been looking for the Chuck Krauthammer article from a couple of days ago but have had no luck….so I can’t comment on that idiot…I really don’t know what else to talk about……oh, there is one thing, why aren’t companies that are sitting on all that cash looking for ways to expand into new markets? If I remember my college econ….the way to maximize profit is to get into new markets first or to create new markets that no one else has recognized yet. It doesn’t take much work to just sit on your hands until all of the excess capacity in your business is taken up by the recovery, but it does take smarts, vision, and guts to go out and lead the market by making a bet on what you think is going to be the next big thing. That means building new plants, hiring new talent, and opening the checkbook to grow your business. I think it’s one of the things that is currently missing in our economy; no one is willing to take any risk since the ceo’s stand to lose if their ideas aren’t successful. But that’s the problem…the ceo’s get exorbitantly rewarded for caution so why would they do anything different? There is plenty of talent just sitting on the sidelines waiting for that vision but it won’t be there forever….geez…
Well….was just sitting here thinking after I paid my taxes this week and a thought came to me…and it is one that should anger everyone like me that is unemployed and struggling to keep their life together. Since employers get tax credits for supplying health insurance to their employees, you and I are buying health insurance with our tax dollars for those who are still employed, even though we can’t afford to buy our own…now, how sick is that system? According to a study that I read in the Post, if we stopped this subsidy right now and applied the cost to universal coverage, we could cover everyone in the entire US….that’s all I have to say right now…just wanted to share that little bit of the bizzaro world we live in…geez…
Well…how can you not be proud of the human beings who rose up and took control of their own destiny in Egypt? I have been watching this story unfold and have been humbled by the dignity of the protesters that said enough; enough of being treated like children who were not mature enough to set their own course and run their own country. I am a little disappointed by the lag in our government’s response to the events there, but I also understand that diplomacy is usually deliberate and works in small increments.
But, things have changed….events move much faster these days and we need to adjust our foreign policy to be able to keep up…and I am tired of hedging our bets when people are trying to become free…it is one thing that we need to support anywhere that the flower starts to burst through the ground….let’s stop basing our actions on fear and and the belief that we are the only ones that know what freedom means…..