Scairy Tale

      . . .  between the Atlantic and Pacific called the United States of America. The people there lived in freedom. They did as they pleased, went where they wanted, surfed the internet, practiced the religion of their choice, went to school, ate what they wanted, and spoke freely. Life in the USA became so good that the common Ignorant Ones did not notice a threat coming toward them. The Ignorant Ones elected a President named Wilson who believed that the Smart Ones must care for the Ignorant Ones. Other Smart Ones followed, and built on his platform.  Another president named Roosevelt also decided the Ignorant Ones could not take care of themselves. So he gave them Social Security, and the New Deal.  

     Then, President Johnson decided the Ignorant Ones needed a Great Society, and he made sure they got it. He needed money to pay for the Great Society, so he took some back from Ignorant Ones who were getting Social Security. They will never miss it he said. It is for the good of everyone. All the Ignorant Ones will benefit, and the Smart Ones will get more.

     Along came President Clinton. He wanted to give all the Ignorant Ones a free house. Everyone should live the American Dream. He signed a law to make the banks lend money to everyone to buy a house. When the banks said “no,” to the Ignorant Ones because they could not afford it, he sent ACORN to picket until they gave in. Eventually, millions of the Ignorant Ones owned the American Dream.  Meanwhile, the Smart Ones prospered more.   

     Eventually, a silver-tongued fox named Obama spoke to the Ignorant Ones. He hypnotized them with lyrical poetry, and his smartness. They named him The One. While they were in The One’s trance, he promised to change the greatest country in the world.  “Amen,” shouted the Ignorant Ones, “Go for it.” They voted for him to be their great leader.

     The One, came into power and immediately hired Radical Ones to set his policy. Like ants on a hill, they went about changing the greatest country in the world to remove freedoms from the Ignorant Ones. The One’s lyrical speech hypnotized the Congressional Ones, and Senate Ones to vote for radical laws. All of the new laws took from the Ignorant Ones and lined the pockets of the Smart Ones. The One chastised bankers for giving themselves raises for giving the American Dream to the Ignorant Ones. He called them Fat Cats, except the banks that he kept for himself. Those banks he called “Smart Ones.”

     The USA was the most powerful country in the world, and Lesser Countries looked up to the USA. They were insanely jealous of the USA’s freedom and success. The Smart Ones said, “War is bad.” The Lesser Countries said, “Three cheers for the USA, they finally got it.” Obama said, “We must weaken the most powerful country so everyone will love us.” We need to destroy all of our nuclear weapons, and let the Lesser Countries develop their own. That way the Lesser Countries can annihilate our allies.

     The Smart Ones created new policies that destroyed jobs. The Ignorant Ones became more dependent on the Smart Ones to give them aid. The aid came from taxing the Ignorant Ones. The Ignorant Ones became slaves to the Smart Ones, and bowed before them.

     That is the story of how the Smart Ones changed the greatest country in the world into the least respected, and least powerful. The Ignorant Ones in all the Lesser Countries were happy because the Ignorant Ones in the USA were the same as in the Lesser Countries. The Ignorant Ones in the USA were sad.

     In the end, the Smart Ones lived happily ever after, while the Ignorant Ones, their Ignorant Children, their Ignorant Grandchildren, and their Ignorant Great Grandchildren worked their asses off wearily ever after.

Nice Kitty

     CATS! People either hate ’em or love ’em. They are probably the most mis-understood animal on earth. I happen to be a middle of the roader cat person. I love to kid Peggy about what I would do to her cats if she were not looking, but in reality, I wouldn’t hurt a single allergy inciting strand of  fur on their bodies. They are the most popular pet in the country.

     Just for fun, I Googled “cat phrases,” I was shocked. There is a cat phrase for every thing in the book.  Phrases are listed under the following categories: lolcat, funny cat, cat chat, cat quotes, cat sayings, cat idioms, cat poem, and cat proverbs.  I finally found the one I wanted which is “fat cat,”  under idioms. President Obama used that phrase to refer to certain Bankers who he forced to take TARP money. It seems the President is upset with the amount of money these bankers awarded themselves in bonuses.

     There is one bank, however, located in Chicago, that has the President’s favor. Why? It seems the CEO is a big Obama fund raiser. It was my belief that this kind of behaviour would be revised under the guise of “change, and hopium.” Some things never change.

“Shining City Upon the Hill”

Ronald Reagan inspired me with his speeches. None excited me more than the image he painted of the “Shining City Upon the Hill.” My heart swelled with pride as I envisioned our great country pictured as a beacon of hope and opportunity.

Barack Obama inspires me also; to move to Australia. He is chipping away at the concept of the shining city as rapidly as he can. He has employed several czars (32 to be accurate) to change policy in every conceptual institution that the shining city is built upon.

I sat in church this weekend and listened to a great priest who was “begging.”  His job was to travel from parish to parish around the country and tell the story of homeless babies in the Caribbean countries like Haiti, and in South America where a million children a year starve to death. The organization is called “Food For the Poor.” They are a volunteer organization. With their efficiencies in place, 96% of the money collected is converted to food and necessities. I thought to myself, what a great bunch of people to create and run such an effort. As I sat and thought about what they do, and what my pledge will be, I began to wonder what future the kids who are being saved from starvation will grow into.  Currently, I don’t see the government of  Haiti providing for their own. Yet, I bet the leaders of the country all live in some opulent housing and are not starving as their people are.  They do depend on “Food For The Poor” and similar organizations to do it for them. What is that government doing to create the “Shining City Upon the Hill,” for their children?

Here in America, I see the new government spewing rhetoric about the need to re-distribute the wealth. Who will they re-distribute it to? Like in Haiti, I see our own leaders living in opulent housing, being driven by chauffeurs in very nice bullet proof sedans,  to even more opulent dinners. While we the tax payers sit in squalor waiting to be thrown a bone. I see the leaders tearing down the fabric of the Shining City to make life for the masses so much harder. I see tax dollars going into government departments that do not have a ninety-six percent efficiency, but less than fifty percent efficiency. In the meantime the number of  fat-cat government positions  increase and they  become the recipients of the re-distribution. 

Come to think of it, I’ve never heard  Barack Obama’s vision for his country, have you?

POTUS and His Army of Czars

Obama Will Give Me An “A” For This One(Edited)

My Flag Flies Everyday

My Flag Flies Everyday

One of my good friends called me on this one. She pointed me toward Snopes. It turns out that Nancy Pelosi never proposed taxing 401K plans.  To see her entire proposal check it out on Snopes. In the meantime I’ve editied my post below to correct my mistake.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/pelosi/windfall.asp

 

WOW! Taxes on the rich, the middle class, and the poor. Stimulus money galore, bonuses for the fat cats, Deficits going out of control, what else?  Nancy Pelosi recently said the following “…windfall profits and income created by the Bush  administration need to be taxed at 100% rate and those dollars redistributed to the poor and working class.”

Well my 401K is a part of this category of investments. If they are to be taxed 100% why have a 401K at all?

They were  set up so “we the people” could have a way to raise money for our own retirement. We needed the 401K because Social Security is not going to be here much longer. Worse yet, try living on SSA alone. You will have to learn to like cat food . Don’t be in such a hurry Nancy, we’ll pay taxes on the money, after we begin to use it. She wants to tax it as we go along. Like I said, why even bother to have a private pension fund?

The one thing I haven’t heard anything about is taxing campaign funds. Why not? The weasels are getting millions to spend. They use the money for all kinds of personal purposes other than running a campaign. Why did Blagojevich work so vigorously to build his fund?  If we have to pay, why not them too?  This is another case of our politicians forgetting who they work for.  Once they get a taste of money from outside interests they set themselves apart from the rest of us. They begin to think of themselves as demigods.
I think a Senator or Congressman should be taxed ninety percent on his salary, and campaign fund. In fact, I think that is being too liberal. They should work for one dollar per year, and be required to use campaign funds to pay off the deficit. They create the debt, let them pay for it.

Yep! Tax the campaign funds; it’s the best idea I’ve had today. .

“$1,000,000,000,000.00 Like It’s Chump Change”

My Flag Flies Everyday

My Flag Flies Everyday

We hear an awful lot of commentary these days about the stimulus bill, the budget, the Porkulus Bill, on and on. Each time we hear the amount of money being spent, politicians and commentators alike bandy about the phrase “a trillion dollars,” like it is pocket change. The number, one trillion, continues to fascinate me. Probably, because  in my mind that number is so large, and unreal I cannot mentally process the information.  

It has taken me fifty five years to accumulate a nest egg large enough to feel comfortable with. In spite of the nest egg, I still have to rely on Social Security to make ends meet.  The egg became scrambled in three short months, and my fifty five years of hard work went down the drain. I must now consider returning to the working population.

My dilemma is this; I spent fifty five years working in a number oriented business, if I can’t process the number, one trillion, how in the world can a bunch of lawyers elected to congress do it? They can’t. They have no clue as to what is happening to their constituents. If they did, they would have done the right thing, and voted the  trillion dollar packages into the toilet where they belong. They would also impeach the president and his cabinet as being incompetent.

As an excercise to get an understanding of what a trillion dollars is, I made a spread sheet to calculate how long it will take to pay off a trillion dollar debt. The numbers are too large to show the entire spreadsheet on this page.

      years to pay off debt
           
debt in trillions   1 2 3 4
payback rate          
1 Million per day   2,740 5,479 8,219 10,959
1 Million per hour   114 228 342 457
100 Million per day   27 55 82 110
1 Billion per day   3 5 8 11
1 Billion per hour   0 0 0 0

My three year old  grandchild will be thirty years old if we pay back one trillion dollars of deficit at a rate of one billion dollars per day, and not spend another dime along the way. We don’t have one trillion dollars of deficit, we have ten,  and it continues to grow exponentially. Only the fat cats in congress will survive.  

 Send the tea bag, vote them out of office, do what it takes to get the lazy bastards out of office. Elect some people who are real citizens, and  who care about the country, and its people. If we don’t take radical action now to stop  “Change We Can Believe In,” only the fats cats will survive. The rest of us will spend the rest of our lives waiting in lines to get a roll of toilet paper.