Well…with the negotiations that have been ongoing across the country on the debt ceiling and even the NHL, one thing has struck me is the similarity between them and the way that they resemble hostage dramas on tv…when did we lose the ability to negotiate as adults? Why can’t the people running out government just stop this crap and do their jobs? I will place the blame on the government problems right where it belongs, on the repubs who were sent to Washington to govern but are so crazy that they only want to destroy the government not work with it to do the people’s business; trying all the time for partisan advantage instead of governing. That was highlighted by the idiot McConnell’s statement that “we’re done with taxes” implying that all of the rest of the movement toward cutting the deficit is going to have to be cuts in expenditures when there has been absolutely no work done to reform the tax code other than some noodling around the edges….what about the tax code that allows billionaires to pay 10% on income while the rest of us pay three times that? We are not done with taxes and Obama needs to come out today and tell the country that, that ole Mitch is wrong…and stupid…geez…
January 7th
Well…running really, really, late today and it was almost like I forgot to come here and do this…and that would be weird with all of the time I’ve spent here over the past few years…it was an okay day yesterday but I lost at pool, badly, just couldn’t get in synch and that is continuing today for some reason….I did sleep okay last night and didn’t even get up until almost 8 which is weird in itself…and I had dreams that I was really hated by everyone for reasons that were never revealed to me…I wonder if that is real? I did have to go out to get batteries for the remotes and I also bought real butter and popcorn to try to save some money but have snacks since I know I’m not eating enough….okay…I need to get a workout in before 11 so I need to get going…I will be back later for more…
Thankfully, I was wrong…
Well….while I was over at J and K’s last night, we were talking about the prospect of even having an NHL season this year and I felt that there was not going to be one…thankfully, I was wrong. Woke up this morning to the news that the NHL and the players have reached an agreement and there will be a season starting in two weeks! It has been one of the things that has been a big hole in my life since the fall, not being able to watch the Wings on a cold wintry night with a cocktail and texting…so, let’s play!
January 6th
Well…running late again this morning and this time it’s by choice…I chose to read the papers and have my coffee first and I don’t feel bad about it….it was a nice day yesterday with getting out for a while over to J and K’s and having some drinks and homemade sushi that J made…it was pretty frickin good and it was just nice to get out of here for a while…and then I broke down and had cocktails last night so that might be another reason I’m running late…but, I really don’t need a reason, do I? I did get the bathroom cleaned yesterday and it is surfaces in the kitchen for today if I feel like it but not much else to do today…Man U played yesterday so there are just second tier teams to watch today and I guess I’ll just use it as background noise as I re-read the papers later….but, I need more coffee right now so that is what I’m going to do…I will be back for more later…maybe…
Laughing at Billo….
Well…just a short one on the comments made by ole Billo this week on how he can’t understand why Asian Americans voted so overwhelmingly for Obama in the last election when their “values” of family, industriousness, and intelligence should line up better with the repubs…but, one thing that ole Billo just doesn’t get is that their intelligence allows them to recognize one true fact that everyone should remember…repubs are dicks that do nothing but hurt the middle class…I could go on about the ugly stereotypes that ole Billo used in his original comments…but that may obscure the salient point…repubs are just plain dicks…geez…
As I said, austerity doesn’t work…
Well…I have had a few posts here that dealt with the severe austerity that has been imposed by the IMF on Europe (not the personal austerity that prompted me to try to use coffee grounds twice with no success), and have been adamant that trying to grow any economy with austerity just doesn’t work. I have even been supported by a Nobel prize winner, Paul Krugman, but anyone that has had Econ 101 would recognize that going against Keynes is a bad bet. Now, the IMF has come up with a report on the imposed austerity that has sent Europe back into recession saying that the negative multiplier effect (yeah, I know kind of an arcane term) is much larger for budget cuts than they thought it was. What this report said was that the estimate of .6 Euro in lower growth was wildly wrong when the data was in….the negative multiplier actually was closer to 1.5 Euros per dollar of cuts….which means that the planners in Greece, Spain, and Portugal were misled by the IMF and the austerity hawks into tanking their economies just to protect the banks and the rich…how many more times are we going to allow the rich to rig the game and steal more and more from the middle class across the world? The real problem here is that the IMF is not even reading their own reports since they are still pushing the austerity nonsense here in the US when they know that it will result in making the economy worse…right now, with the pushback on austerity by the dems, our economy is still growing which should be the model across the world instead of the crushing of middle classes to keep the banks happy…geez…
January 5th
Well..Sitting here waiting for the car to thaw so I can go out for the papers and thought I’d get this done before that happens….it was a day yesterday and I had a little money so I actually bought food for the first time in two weeks and I am looking forward to cooking again…I do need to get going, though, since the under 20 hockey world championships are on in a couple of minutes and the USA is playing and that goes with Many U playing right after so the morning is pretty much covered…I am trying to re-use the coffee grounds from yesterday in an austerity experiment since they were still in the coffee maker and I’m not a coffee snob…just as long as all of the caffeine is not gone, it might be okay…more later…
The crazy continues…
Well…if you had any doubts that the delusions on the right were going to be tempered by their ass kicking in the elections, you were right…with people freezing and homeless out on the east coast, guess what the first bill that the idiot Bachmann introduced at the start of the new session….and if you had the human thought it may be to help these people, you just don’t understand the modern repub party. The first bill was…ta dah…the 34th attempt to repeal Obamacare! Nevermind that the Supreme Court upheld the law and nevermind that the last congress got the least work done of any in history…these terrible, terrible people on the right are back to their old ways of screw everyone but their rich donors and corporations. I know you’ve heard this before from me but you have to look at it objectively…with unemployment and underemployment still rampant…not one bill out of the House to help regular Americans find work….not one bill to eliminate corporate subsidies when corporate profits are at an all time high….and not one bill to restore fairness to the tax system and eliminate the tilt toward the rich. We need to do whatever we can to restore the America of “one for all and all for one” to steal the phrase from Dumas….and send these idiots back to the hell they came from…geez….
January 4th
Well…getting another early start today and I think I’m starting to feel better with being good two days in a row…only two months to go and I think the toxicity should be gone and feeling good could be the permanent state….it was an okay day yesterday and I did have lunch with T that made me smile….and I made just enough money to buy some groceries so I will be able to eat for another week…it is funny how your perspective changes when things go from bad to worse…I could never have imagined cheering that I have enough money to just eat but I guess that is what my life has come to over the past couple of years…don’t like it very much but the way it looks now, even with 4 fricking degrees, I’m pretty much unemployable and the money is going to run out this year….oh, well…at least there is soccer on this weekend…more later…
Where’s our progressive warrior?
Well…watching the fiscal curb nonsense that has been going on over the past month or so, a question has come to mind about Obama…”where’s our progressive warrior?” Where is the person that we elected to take the results of the election and turn it into policy? Where is the person that was supposed to protect SS and Medicare at all costs and get the revenue side of the economic equation back in balance? After all, government spending and taxation is at its lowest point in almost 50 years as a percentage of GDP and the economy is sluggish because of it…take one look at Europe and you will get the idea of what the repubs plans to continue to cut spending will do…we will certainly have a double dip recession with more people out of work and less tax revenue coming in…I have had enough of compromise with the terrorists on the right…they have changed politics from the collaborative art of compromise to one of take no prisoners…to one of winner takes all and no matter how much Obama may want it, we aren’t going back to compromise any day soon and he needs to wake up to the new political reality and be the tough warrior for the middle class that the repubs are for the rich…and he needs to do it now before this country is forfeit to the know nothings on the right…geez….