WARNING: Rant ahead. It jumps around because it’s a huge mass of topics rolled into one and I have a three year old boy making a lot of noise.
State of the Union. What it is…
The single largest screwing the John Q. Public has ever gotten.
The enormity of the screwing isn’t even apparent yet.
We had politicians spending and legislating us into a grave using practices that would land a family of four (with 2.3 kids, no less) in the poorhouse, bankrupt, incarcerated, ostracized, and just plain beaten silly.
We have company CEO/CFO/Others who have been greedy raised to some exponential power that I can’t even begin to fathom. There’s a business model that has been used for some time now that says a company must see growth every single year. Let me explain why this just chaps my nads…
Have you heard the sayings “Everybody is Special” or “Everyone is a Winner”? It’s just a way of saying “No one is special” and “No one is a winner”. Not everyone can be profitable every single year – in a system of finite resources you cannot have neverending gains!!! ARRRRGH!!!
Yet this is EXACTLY how corporations have been behaving, tailoring their practices to make it appear to shareholders as if they were able to achieve large returns every year. It’s called a “short-sighted/term business plan” and relies solely on a predatory every-man-for-himself attitude.
You say “But wait, Lemur King! That’s how Capitalism works!”
No. No it doesn’t. Capitalism never espoused making decisions that destroyed the business in the long run.
If you tailor your business model to show gains without end, the market forces which are heavily linked to political forces will tend to follow the path of least resistance, which is to legislate in such a way as to support the very practices that are inherently wrong! So now you have an attitude that espouses profit at any price and a system of laws set up to encourage that and set up state-mandated entities to that end (Fannie/Freddie).
A system and a collective group of individuals/corporations that demands neverending profits will see all facets of the system incrementally adding nudges to inflate need to a level far surpassing actual consumer need. I don’t like the bubble analogy. Think of a balloon being filled with hot air – every single part of the party balloon will expand slightly (as a drunken Bozo huffs and puffs into it) to add to a vastly overinflated balloon. Some parts don’t contribute down near the neck, but overall everyone else adds to it. Then it pops.
Throw in incentives for individuals to profit quickly and painlessly and you have – dot-com and housing blowouts. You also have many people losing their investments when things go south. Even if you didn’t buy a bigger house because the economy was booming (we didn’t) your home value dropped precipitously when all the un-needed homes littered the landscape.
So how is John Q. Public getting screwed?
By bailouts to: Greedy corporations and CEO’s, individual states that could not follow budget practices that make or break every single family in the long run, companies with business structures that are outdated and self-defeating (auto industry), and every single politician wanting to be a savior to their pet project or constituents.
To the tune of TRILLIONS of dollars. Go look up the national debt. Eventually the debtors want their money. You can only drop interest rates just so far and you can only print just so much money before inflation takes off like a wildfire. The money has to come from somewhere just as you must pay off your credit cards someday. Not surprisingly, the very people contributing to this trillion-dollar screwing are understandably very reluctant to do anything other than hide the bottom line cost of their actions, so expect to hear that bottom line incrementally grow for years to come as hidden facts continually come to light.
Add to this mess the upcoming looming disasters that have been avoided for years – Social Security and Medicare. It was a bad idea all along, but in spite of paying into it for years now, I don’t expect to see my Social Security. I don’t expect Medicare to be around. I don’t expect to see very much at all except for the government to eyeball my paycheck ever more greedily. No, those things won’t come to fruition and the debt won’t be paid down.
Unless this country is turned into a Socialist state and squeezed for every drop it can generate.†
Which for some sick reason was what a lot of politicians wanted all along. They’re smiling and slapping each other on the back because of a mass self-delusion that they’re saviors of a social and political kind. Expect President-Elect Obama and his fanatical ideological adherents to command the Charge of the Light Brigade in this matter.
† And even then it still won’t happen… look to Europe for a great example.
Want an example of bailout madness?
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If you read this far, you deserve comic relief. What if bitches on forums for D&D players mad at Core Rules changes were worded as if they were bitches about recipe books? It’d be pretty damned funny but only if you played D&D at some point in your antisocial life.
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Only in Michigan can you see some of the uniquererer strange-ish stuff… twins born on different days, months, and years.
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The lesser appreciated biblical hordes/hosts of pests…armadillos… are wreaking havok upon towns inTelluride, Colorado. They lock in on woodstuffs meeting their stringent requirements and go to town, eating upwards of $100,000 of trees.
Trees you could live(out) with since they don’t scream, but the little rodents display angry tendencies towards tires, clothes, shoes, and tool handles… what are islamic dissidents going to be able to throw at Bush – gnawed gucchi… ewww, blech.
I’m not experience with armadillo poo, but I gotta believe it stinks as an other excretia does in confined rooms. Could it be worse than my dog’s poo? One wonders.
I tell you, when this specimen of dog (Zöe) has been blocked up by one of my earplugs and the “dam finally breaks” the resultant miasma is enough to strip paint off the walls, wallpaper dissolves, the enamel of your teeth cracks off in little flakes, and children are temporarily bereft of the senses of smell and sight. Small creatures in the attic and basement die off within hours and no pesticides are ever required.
It is traumatizing to the little waifs when all they can do is hear adults screaming, but a few psych sessions straightens them out enough to pass them off as “normal” in society. PTSD is just not allowed to stick.
We keep the earplugs locked up pretty tightly under my pillow now. And we are working with the US Military to develop nonlethal modes of attack – artificially constipated English Shepherd poo ought to take those aggressors down.
Oh, man. Don’t push my button on Media bailouts.
I say – let ‘em fail and good riddance!
I think we should let the auto industry fail, too. but more gently.
I am dead set against most of these bailouts, for many of the reasons you mention.
And – by the way – I stand to lose a nice-size chunk of money if the auto folks default on their bonds. I own some of those bonds! So be it! I’ll live.
Yeah, my portfolio is a lot thinner.
Then again, I have the luxury of taking a longer-term outlook w/o panicking. A lot of poor slobs don’t have that option.
A relative of mine invested a whole lot in an infamous energy company a few years ago. Lost his shit… all of it, and retired at the time, too.
I’m glad you feel that way about the auto industry, McGoo. It is very easy to sacrifice your ideals when they impact you negatively.
The only bailouts I could have argued for were Fannie/Freddie, but a certain individual whose name rhymes with “pnb” talked me around on it. I waffle some days.
But Las Vegas wanting bailout money for new roads? What? Huh?
Yep. The portfolio is lighter now. But my dear departed Dad taught me something to consider: I still own EXACTLY as many shares as I did a year ago (more or less, skipping re-invest on mutuals, etc), so the only thing that’s changed is SOMEONE’S OPINION as to what they’re worth.
Dividends are down some, though.
But this, too, will pass.
I was kinda iffy on Fannie/Freddie too, but have hardened my position on them too.
pnb is wise…
But we need new roads LK! The old ones are all cracked and tacky looking. This is a perfectly cromulent use of taxpayer money. Everyone else is just being greedy though.
Enas, you need to come up and see a Michigan road up close and personal-like. Then we can discuss roads and road conditions.
The best Michigan road was only approximately equal to any number of the crappy-to-moderate roads in Oregon. At least in the southeast part of Michigan anyway.
“Cromulent”?
Cruel Wife once I said “I am overly wroth with you.”
I’m not sure which sounds sillier. The Simpsons still rock either way.
Oh, I’m sure y’all have nasty roads. That’s not really the point though. Las Vegas is way cooler than any other city so we deserve special treatment.
The Simpson’s used to be pretty good, but that show declined a lot and I haven’t really watched it in years.
I hope your dog is feeling better. That sounded like quite an episode there.
Zoe is clean as a whistle – inside and out.
Funny thing about those earplugs. They stay in but when they… oh nevermind.
Dog is fine.
Blech.
Vegas does indeed deserve special treatment…
[...] should be noted that many of these companies also expanded during the ridiculous overexuberance (there’s that overzealous greed again). Because spending has been so out of control in the [...]