Sequester or fiscal cliff?

Nothing on television sit-coms is as hilarious as the action, or as often,  inaction of people in charge of huge amounts of money. Especially, if it isn't theirs in the first place. Numerous headlines seem to appear almost daily regarding the mishandling and embezzling carried by financial officers and accountants. A few dollars here, a half million there and soon an unknowingly and trusting company is bankrupt with large groups of employees losing their jobs and added to the unemployment roles while the embezzler gets a few years in the slammer and public service taking care of poor people. I guess hilarious is probably not the correct word. Sad maybe, extortion, terrorism, theft, inept, careless, the list could go on and on. The fact remains that when certain people are put in charge over other people's money their brains seem to turn to mush and nobody can make the appropriate decisions. When an accountant embezzles money the motives are clear. When an official is careless the motives are less obvious. Most often officials get all caught up in some sort of power game struggle. Impact at the expense of those depending on them. In relative terms it is basically dictatorial behaviour. Dictators, in the United States of America? Yup! Just try and hold an elected official responsible. Just try and get Congress, the Senate or even the President to put off a vacation, even in the most dire financial crisis and see if it has any affect. Nope! They will go away and play anyway. Ask any of them to actually admit some of the resulting difficulties may in fact be partially their fault. Not a chance.

Whatever happens with the financial situation we are in at this moment, we'll work it out. Americans are a resilient people. Some of this may not be easy but if it doesn't bankrupt us it'll make us stronger. Maybe it'll work in the same way that Chemo and Radiation therapy works against cancer. When we vote in any future elections it's our vote that is the Chemo or the Radiation needed to rid us of the cancer of irresponsibility. Meanwhile, no reason to panic. That won't stop me from bellyaching though. Some things remain constant throughout history. If you drink from a glass of water and do not refill it, it will eventually dry up. If you deplete the well you drink from you are in real trouble. The moral: Take care of the well and don't blame the guy that owns the well for the water you took.

Hah! Just figure that one out. Kind of hilarious isn't it?

Rumors

Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive! Those terms used to be used at the beginning of radio and TV shows to describe Superman. Now they can be used for another purpose: To describe rumors. This Internet is a most powerful center of knowledge isn't it? The world is at our fingertips, with the stroke of a key we can obtain information on almost every imaginable subject the human mind can conjure. But........There is one slight difficulty....Not everything we find is complete or even true! This simple fact may well be a major factor in why so many apocalyptic rumors are spreading across the planet.

My parents, teachers and mentors constantly warned me about believing rumors. Rumors were simply another form of gossip and gossip is a terrible thing. For the most part, I followed their advice. Some rumors have been downright silly: "A friend's, cousin's, next door neighbor, heard a truck driver telling a waitress about this guy in Nevada that wanted to sell his new Corvette for $600 because he went hunting, shot and killed a deer, put it in the storage area but ran out of gas in the desert before making it back to his house, he walked to a highway, got a ride with a trucker, stopped at a diner to eat, got food poisoning, went to the hospital and stayed there for a week until he got better. When he finally got home and had someone give him a ride back to the Corvette with a can of gas, the deer had decomposed and stunk up the car so bad they can't go near it. I know a woman that actually took a bus to Nevada to find that Corvette and bring it home for only $600. Never found it!

In the past year several television news reporters have uncovered breaking news stories without checking and double checking the source and wound up passing on unfounded rumors. Eventually the truth was discovered and they apologized but in many cases the harm was already done. That's what rumors do.

Yesterday a guy called me at my business. (I own a clean up shop for cars, trucks and motor homes.) He was all excited. "Can you get the smell of Horse manure out of a brand new motor home?" he asked. I explained that it is quite a process but, "Yes!" I was sure we could. "Why do you ask?" I'm just about to leave for Gaylord, a few hundred miles up North. My boss told me about a guy he know that knows a guy that talked to a woman that had just bought a new Bluebird motor home for $750,000 and her ex husband filled it with horse manure just to be mean. Now they can't get the smell out of it and she's going to sell it for $1500 just to be rid of it.

If he brings it back I'll help him but I'm not going to hold my breath. Rumors, I guess we'll never learn...............Here's one for you: Don't worry about anything, the government's going to take care of us. I saw it on the Internet.

Tax time chuckles

In a free society or a dictatorial society, taxes are inevitable. The main difference is that in the dictatorial society taxes are mandatory. Hey, wait a minute, I guess that's where I get confused.

I get amused when I watch the news on TV or listen to it on the radio or read it in the paper. Especially when it comes to tax supported agencies. Lots of lip service is being given to reducing federal government spending and waste. Or are those the same thing? Anyway, those in charge of those agencies speak in circles and double talk to hide their agenda's which are mainly to make sure they spend every dollar allotted to them so they will get at least that much and hopefully more the next year. That is the common wisdom of government subsidization. The joke goes like: "I don't care what you spend it on, just make sure it's spent by the end of the year! And, spend it wisely!" What a chuckle huh?

Today, as I tied my shoes before going out the door to go to work so I could earn a living and pay taxes, the superintendent of a school was making the case for hiring 6 more teachers. "If we don't hire the additional 6 teachers we will have to lay off 6 other teachers already on the payroll to make up for the loss in revenue." Now I am sure there is far more to that reasoning than my small window of information provides but on the face it sound rather amusing to me. The joke goes like: "Pay now or pay later, if they don't get enough money all the teachers will quit."

I guess the part I find so laughable is where anyone involved in budgeting tax money talks about that money as if it wasn't ours. By voting we provide a group of elected folks that disperse our "voluntary" tax payments according to our wishes. That's what the Boston Tea Party was all about, oh so many years ago. The hilarious part is that those that actually spend those taxes on specific items or services are not elected. And, in most cases they are not held very accountable for those expenditures. The joke goes like: "No taxes without representation!"

Then there is the part that is so funny I darn near fall off my chair thinking about it. Certain people receiving government aid because they are looking for just the right job to match their goals whine because they have to make do with so little instead of being grateful for the helping hand that was provided for them by others that work hard to earn money and regularly do without so they have enough to provide for their own families. The joke goes like: "Did you hear about Greece? Everyone retired and now there isn't anyone left to pay the taxes!" Now that's funny isn't it?

A smile always comes to my face when I hear of how the oil companies would face financial ruin if they were denied government subsidies and tax breaks. I can hardly contain my joviality or restrain my infectious giggling when I hear that. The joke goes: "Did you hear about the oil company that went broke selling oil and gas?" Hard to top that one isn't it?

Sacrifice or whining or fraud

I was just thinking about some of the things I heard on the news. Are we becoming desensitized to the true meaning of certain words? Are they overused for the sake of shock and awe? I was just wondering. Sacrifice for example. Just what does sacrifice mean nowadays? Way back in history virgins were sacrificed to appease some sort of deity. That's not done so often anymore is it? A few years back on September 11th hundreds of people sacrificed their own safety to save others. Every day soldiers, police and firefighters are sacrificing so much with little or no fan fare. Fathers and mothers are working untold hours for minimum wages with little or no health coverage, following the loss of their regular, well paying jobs and sacrificing their own wants and needs to help their kids achieve a better life. We read from time to time about one person sacrificing one of their own kidneys to save someone else who's kidneys aren't working. That's always been my definition of real sacrifice. In these times of financial difficulty for most of us, when it's hard enough to pay our bills let alone the ever increasing taxes and fees to local, state and Federal government agencies, there is much talk of the "sacrifice" of those people being paid from the very taxes we are struggling to pay. Such as: Receiving a reduced cost of living increase in pay. Having to pay 10 or 20% of their health coverage. Having to buy some of their own supplies. Getting fewer days off when they work less than nine and a half months a year in the first place. Some people who are able in every way to support themselves physically ands mentally are forced to sacrifice their lifelong dependency on tax supported programs by having to work for pay. I realize I may not totally understand the concept surrounding the difficulties endured through these individual "sacrifices" here but still, I'm just wondering if we may, just may be using the word sacrifice improperly sometimes.

Another, somewhat related, tax supported thing I was wondering about was our child tax credits. That is a credit a wage earner receives for having kids and earning less than a specified amount. In some families it amounts to several thousands of dollars. 4, 5 or 6 thousand or more. Wage earners who are working in the United States illegally, have no social security numbers and are not authorized in any way to work in the United States can use what the IRS calls an "individual taxpayer identification" number to receive that tax credit of thousands of dollars, often fraudulently. Amounting to around 4.2 billion dollars a year in our tax strapped economy with 14.5 trillion dollars of debt. Senator Orrin Hatch wants to examine a put an end to those refunds to illegal workers. I don't understand all the workings of government or have the golden key to solve all our financial problems but I think that if we paid 10 million dollars to a group of investigators with the authority to stop fraud and misappropriation of our tax monies in all branches of government we could save billions and billions of dollars, perhaps a trillion in a year or two. That'd be a good investment I think. But the people that did it certainly wouldn't be making any new friends doing it. No, I don't think they would.

Meanwhile, I will do my best not to overuse the word sacrifice or take any fraudulent tax credits or spend money taken from overworked tax payers. If we don't all start doing that there will be no one left working to pay the taxes for all those poor people who sacrifice so much. How does that old saying go?: "Will the last one out please turn off the lights?"

Great job opening

Excellent pay!
Paid holidays!
A staff of dozens to help you do your job!
Free transportation!
Weeks and weeks of paid vacation!
Huge retirement package!
Unlimited sick pay!
Take time off whenever-Paid!
100% paid health benefits!
Private office!
Too many more benefits to list here!

From where I sit, several of these high paying, cushy jobs will be opening up very soon.

We elected a president, senators and congressmen to take of our countries business and finances. Apparently, they can't do it. They have been aware of the upcoming deadline concerning our budget crisis like, forever. It is their job to work it out. Many of them still took a lot of time off during the last few months of negotiation. I guess they didn't think shutting down the government and destroying our countries credit standing was any big thing. I disagree! I believe the elected leaders have a responsibility to get the job done and get on with the next job of supporting the economic revitalization we need so badly at the moment due to the recession.

I am a citizen in good standing and have the right to vote. I can guarantee that I will not vote for any of our politicians that fail to do their job. I frankly don't care their party affiliation either. That's what I think about what's going on in Washington right now. That's why I think some of those cushy jobs will be open soon. Only hard workers need apply. Good luck!

What people say

Last night I watched John F. Kennedy look out across his audience and say: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country!" Wow! When I saw it live, that statement had a profound impact on the rest of my life. In all these years since then I have done as much as humanly possible to not be a burden on society. He also reinforced our responsibility as a nation to not neglect the poor and downtrodden who need a hand up. I've done my best to honor that too. It's amazing how one man's words can influence us isn't it?

Throughout the history of the United States there has been controversy and disagreement. From a country made up of all the other nationalities and opposing cultures of the world I suppose it is to be expected isn't it? So why do we act so indignant when the politicians we voted in have differing opinions of just about everything? Isn't that what our government is set up to do? I don't particularly like it myself but at the same time I remind myself what all the bickering has brought. We've got a balance of power with separate governing bodies, the House, the Senate, the Judicial and then we have a President too. Of course there's going to be differing ideas and how to implement them, even among members of the same political party.

In light of all the words spoken these days I am still looking for someone to say something as profound as John F. Kennedy did back then. I remember the words of another man very well too and I think a lot of folks would do well to think about them. "Love your neighbor as yourself and Do onto others as you would have done onto you." I'll be watching and listening...........

Feeding the poor

I wonder if someone needs another job?

I am the first to admit that I'm no Einstein, my writing shows that. The job I am inferring to right here would never be within my scope for consideration. But, I think someone else got the job for all the wrong reasons. I'm talking about the person in charge of how to feed the people in America, and more specifically the poor. With many of the statements I hear from these very smart and educated people, it makes me wonder what got them the job in the first place.

There are two situations that are being addressed by governmental and charity services:
The poor don't have enough food to eat.
And, a vast majority of the poor are overweight.
Are these two problems actually related? Ya think!
As I said, I'm not formally educated enough to be considered for a job overseeing such important stuff. I did, however grow up on the minimum staples of nourishment for sustaining life. Some might say we were poor. During that time two things were constant, somehow we had enough to eat and none of us were overweight. Although my parents made use of surplus food a couple times in an emergency the rest of the time it came from our own efforts. Meals were sometimes an adventure. So was the rest of life. In my home, the less governmental assistance, the better. School lunch wasn't as good as what my mom or dad packed in a paper bag. Usually if there was no sack lunch I went to the corner drugstore and bought a bit of candy. I didn't starve. Some of my friends came from large families of up to 9 kids. Although they were often in the same financial situation they didn't starve either. I learned at an early age that if I didn't eat what was on my plate I was hungry until the next meal. If I ate too much I felt bloated and lacked the energy to enjoy life. I learned that it was everyones responsibility to help those that couldn't help themselves. I wonder what the difference is between then and now?

In my uneducated but experienced life there are two things that usually caused excess weight: Eating too much and not enough exercise. (excluding specific health issues of course) When a family is receiving food supplementation from the government along with food cards and charitable food banks at home I see no reason to provide breakfast, lunch and dinner to their kids at school. I do see neglectful parents being prosecuted for not feeding and neglecting their own kids. That's not happening any time soon I'm afraid though.

To me, this begs the question, "Are we being groomed to be totally dependant upon the government for all means of sustenance in order to provide some egotistical elitist with a cushy, high paying, great benefit, powerful jobs? It's probably a simple matter of my lack of education in these matters. Maybe eating a lot and a lack of exercise doesn't cause obesity. I probably missed that part in school. The part where someone came into class and said, "Hi, I work for the government and I'm here to help feed you."