MarbleBlog

Lest we ever forget:

Merry Christmas to EVERYONE in the whole wide world!

Have been dealing with some difficult peoples lately. It’s enough to make a person want to build a fire in the fireplace and sprawl out in the recliner and watch some “Sons of Anarchy” for a bit.

Off to Thanksgiving

And my 3rd favorite podcast is back after a long break so I get to listen to The History of Rome all the way down there. Among other things. Yippee.

1) I vote for Democrats, mostly. The Democrats, in general, do much more to protect individual liberties and the environment than do the Republicans. And they aren’t nearly as war-mongering. That’s pretty much why I vote for them. But I am not a Democrat. The Democrats want to bail out the auto industry with taxpayer dollars that don’t even exist and have to be underwritten by Chinese loans. I’ve already ranted about this so I’ll spare you, but I do want you to know that I have not been as viscerally outraged by an idea since the circus that took place in the months preceding the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Granted, I am nowhere near as viscerally outraged now as I was then, BUT after the Iraq war and the talk about bailing out the car companies, the rest of the stuff that has annoyed me has been pretty far down the line. Unless we count Sarah Palin, but I still don’t even believe that happened. Anyway. Too bad Ralph Nader is such a dork and has no idea about marketing.

2) I love the Somalian pirates. Love love love love them. I suppose if I had a personal stake in whatever it is they’re robbing, I might not love them. But I don’t and therefore I do.

3) We now have pictures of other planets. Only 25 light years away unless I heard wrong. If I got on a ship, I could be there while still in my 70’s. Sign me up, Scotty.

4) My fuschias are in full blossom for the first time this year. I don’t understand.

5) My macintosh apples are almost gone. They sure were tasty.

6) How come nobody has bunions anymore?

Will somebody please remind me to

oh crap

I forgot what I wanted somebody to remind me about

Never have I been more happy to be completely wrong about something.

I don’t care what the polls say, I stand by my prediction of last spring or winter or whenever it was that I made it. Not that I’m happy about it, but I am relatively certain that this country will not elect a black guy with a Muslim name. When the Moment of Truth in that voting booth comes, that crazy scary moron from Alaska (and ol’ grampa) will get the nod. This is what I believe.

I hope I’m wrong.

So I shouldn’t get all riled up about living in a country with greedy idiots and an incompetent hypocritical government.

If they’d quit canceling World Series games, I wouldn’t.

Blame Bud Selig.

And God. Of course.

Government should not be bailing out ANYONE. Period. The end.

a) I heard today now the auto companies are whining and wanting to be bailed out. If they’re in trouble it’s because they spent a couple of decades making SUVs and Hummers instead of coming to grips with the reality of future oil shortages and cutbacks and alternative energy sources and working on designing and selling us transportation that we would want to buy in the future instead of catering to the immediate gratification conspicuous consumption over-indulgent spoiled brat greedy whims of consumers who can’t see past their own fat noses. They deserve no help.

b) Banks and investment companies deserve no help. I didn’t ask Bank of America to keep raising the limit on my credit card every time I got close to the current one so if I file bankruptcy it’s their problem, not the government or the taxpayers’ - and conversely I didn’t have to run the card up to the limit so the government should not bail me out. We are grown ups. We made choices. I made my choice and the bank made its choice. If my 401k continues to lose value until it’s down to zero, I should not be bailed out. I could have put my money, or at least some of it, into a more stable investment. The investment company should not be bailed out because it bought up a bunch of bad mortgages. Who COULDN’T have figured out that the sub-prime mortgages were going to cause everyone to go belly up. Duh. The banks stuck with these foreclosed houses should have to figure out what to do with them without any assistance. And the people who took out mortgages they couldn’t afford should have to suck it up. We know that there is risk in this stuff. We all know it. We don’t want to believe it, maybe, but we know there is risk in credit. That’s what the whole credit concept is - it’s ALL about risk.

c) Don’t even get me STARTED on bailing out insurance companies. Don’t.

d) Alan Greenspan was revered for two decades to the point that no one seemed even to question his edicts. He blew it. He admits he blew it. ANYone with a lot to lose could have asked him during those two decades: “Uh, Mr. Greenspan, is your market philosophy on which you are basing your complete control over our entire economy based on the theory that banks will actually look out for the interest of their own shareholders (which you most likely developed during the long lonely nights as a frustrated adolescent while you were hiding under your covers with a flashlight reading Ayn Rand instead going out and getting drunk and laid like any normal teenager)?” And then: “Do you suppose you could be wrong about that?” And maybe, just maybe, Congress should have done its job and actually explored the fundamental theories and looked more closely and spent less time trying to get re-elected and more time trying to make sound decisions for their constituents. It’s not so far fetched.

e) We all assume risk and what that means is that when the things change that we could have foreseen would change, which is everything, then some people lose. Sometimes all people lose. The government should do a few things: 1) pay us our social security that we have earned when the time comes to pay us, 2) help with emergencies that truly are beyond our control, like weather-related catastrophes, 3) keep our transportation infrastructure sound, 4) a few other things but not much. The government should NOT be bailing out ANYONE right now. How can we call ourselves capitalists and pride ourselves on being capitalists and try to impose, by force, capitalism on third world countries, and have “communism” and “socialism” as two of the most egregious insults a politician can level against another politician when at the first sign of a serious failure of our blessed free market, the government steps in and bails everyone out with taxpayer dollars? HOW? Seriously? Is this completely ludicrous and insane or what? LET IT FAIL! ALL OF IT!! If you believe in the Free Market, let it CRASH. You just can’t have it both ways. If I decide to jump my motorcycle over 28 school busses but I know that if I’m about to come up short and crash on the last bus and break all my bones, I do not WANT the government to see my imminent crash and push a button (a very expensive one, by the way, paid for by taxpayers) and turn that last school bus into a giant yellow cushion. I have taken no risk at all. There is no risk when the government bails people out. If we don’t really take the risks, we don’t deserve the rewards. The whole model falls. LET IT ALL CRASH, I say. We will be miserable. And we will all deserve to be miserable. And then maybe the next generation will learn from our gigantic mistake and they will make different choices. And maybe, just maybe, the human race will have a slightly higher chance of surviving.

The End.

All these school fund-raisers, that is. Killing me, I tell ya. I think it’s retribution for never caring much about my own kids’ fundraisers.

Anyway.

Other than that, life is good.

I know, I know. Facebook is taking up all of the time I have allocated to “farting around on the internet” lately. Sorry.