Health debate not new, same old stuff

The health-care debate that's going on in America right now is not a new debate. It is historic and most likely is a game changing decision that will come from the supreme court, that will change the face of the debate, politics, health care, legislation and presidential politics for a generation. This debate however has been going on since about the time that Social Security was created.

Essentially we are still wrestling with the same questions, we are still asking the same things, we are restating what has already been said thousands and thousands of times and we are going around in circles. This debate really is not about health care, not really. The argument is framed around health care, the discussion is centered on states rights versus constitutional federal authority, and at some level is about your grandchildren and your grandmother at the same time.

Depending upon two things you will have a different opinion of this than the person next to you. The two things are your age, and your politics. This is really a transparent debate that is about paying for service. No one is debating that health care costs are higher than they've ever been. No one is debating that the cost of health care is rising, is going to continue to rise and that we have to do something drastic and radical as a society to rein in the cost. No one is saying that expensive medical procedures should only be offered to those that can pay for it ,although that is insinuated heavily throughout the language of the law and in the appeals.

Essentially if you are younger and you lean toward the left a little you favor this law. The same holds true if you are older and you lean a little to the right you probably still favor this law. More than likely if you view yourself as a centrist and not as a liberal or a conservative in a strict sense on either side you probably favor this law. The people that do not favorite are the ones that have money, insurance, and jobs. That is a broad stroke generalization I understand. Asking who is not in favor of this law is sort of like saying who is in favor of letting old people starve? Of course no one is in favor of that.

Here is the problem. If you do not have a job, or you have a job that doesn't make much money or you work in an industry that does not offer insurance, or quite possibly you are young and healthy and have not considered the need for insurance to be a priority or any of a host of reasons for not having insurance, then when you are an eventual consumer of health care, then one of  two things happens. One you are treated and are then saddled with a large medical bill or several large medical bills, and then you are paying on them the rest of your life. Or two, same thing happens you are saddled with a large bill and you just don't pay for it, or pay very little of the total cost. This is the sticking point. This is why people are not in favor of Obama care.

What do you mean Mike? The people that are not in favor of this law say that without regard to the ability of someone to pay, and without consideration of paying for people that cannot afford health care, that it should be universal. The people that are in favor of this law say why should my health care costs be larger because you did not look forward enough in your life to have the insurance necessary to help defray the costs. In other words it was your problem why do I have to pay for it?

This is what the so-called individual mandate attempts to correct. I think they went about it the wrong way and I think the Supreme Court will overturn this portion of the law, but what they were trying to do is level the playing field because eventually everyone is a consumer of health care, whether they are insured or not. Eventually every human being on this planet needs a doctor's care for something.

In some societies physician care is a socialized issue and everyone gets care, in other countries like America is a democratic society and you choose where and when to consume that care. In some societies the health care is substandard, in others is provided for free or doesn't exist. In the United States of America however we choose to treat health-care like grocery shopping. Pick your own plan, cafeteria style insurance, exist on the fringe and use the emergency room as your Dr., or ignore medical care altogether and do without. Up until now that has been perfectly acceptable policy to allow individuals to make health care decisions based on this model.

What the law attempts to do is similar to how many states regulate automobile insurance. the state doesn't tell you what kind of car you can drive, what time you can start driving, what time you have to stop, what road you can take or where you can go. The state however does say that if you're going to drive a vehicle in the state,  that vehicle must absolutely be insured or you lose your licesne to drive.

Essentially (with much more structured language) that's what this law says about personal health. It says you can still make the choice about what Dr. go to, about whether you want to go to the doctor today or not, about whether or not you still want to use the same Dr. and whether or not you would rather use an intermediate care facility instead. All of those are still your choice according to this law. The only thing that is stipulated is to say that you have to have insurance,  because eventually you will be a consumer of health care at some point,  for some reason, and society should not have to pay for it. It makes the argument that everyone else should not have to pay for your health care and/or choice to not have insurance.

The problem is with all of its penalties and fines and mandates is it does not address the inequality in American life in any way. This law will never affect the millionaire, the big high-tech tycoon, the rich CEO. It will never affect the millions of people that are fortunate enough to have employment that provides insurance throughout their adult working life. Every professional athlete can safely ignore this law and all of its structure because it will not affect them .These people will only benefit from this law if and when other people are forced against their will to buy insurance or pay a fine because it will allegedly reduce health care costs overall by collecting revenue from everyone instead of only a portion of the cost from the consumers of health care. I'm very skeptical that even if this law was put in practice that my health-care costs will go down any. I think that even if 100% of the American public had healthcare insurance, because we allow the insurance companies to set up shop in such a disjointed fashion our healthcare costs continue to rise no matter what because it is built into the system for insurance companies to collect more revenue.

It will affect however hundreds of millions of people negatively from the moment that is made law. Rightly or wrongly it require every person that earns an income to have insurance. Rightly or wrongly it will require every person that earns an income to pay for insurance at some level. They will either pay for it out of every paycheck or will reduce the tax refund at the end of the year because they were fined for not having it. Or it may cost them the ability to work somewhere because the employer had to absorb that cost and did not hire that one more person that would've gave them a job where insurance was provided. There is a virtual world where this fallacy of universal health care exists. It doesn't exist anywhere in reality however. There is no model on the face of the planet were universal health care actually is practiced effectively.

Here is what is the coming perfect storm that no one is talking about.

The largest consumer ofsociety in the world (USA) with the largest number of soon-to-be retiring workers (baby boomers), are all going to be retiring in the next few years. At just about the same time as the Social Security system begins to have its largest payout ever, the Medicaid and Medicare systems will also start paying on a larger scale than ever before. Put into the mix of this, a health care law that creates a new confusing dynamic and regulates a market that hasn't even been created yet today as we speak, and millions of people that are aging and will be the largest by percentage consumers of health care, will also be the sickest the most in need of medical care. It's a health care Armageddon waiting to happen.

That's what the argument is about really. Who pays for your grandma and grandpa. if you're 30 years old I think the answer is you do based on this law. I think that's true because grandma and grandpa's is going to be living with you (or you moved in with them 10 years ago).

The last part of the argument is to ask the question why are we not hearing anything from the health insurance industry on this law.? the answer to that question is fairly easy to find. Just look directly at the reelection campaign signs of every liberal congressman and senator in the United States. Every one of them are taking hundreds of millions of dollars from opposition groups and healthcare organizations and drug companies and everything else that's associated with medical care in the United States. Almost every size insurance company is backing this law to become law, and to be fully implemented across the board. You know why that is?

Because it's about the money. See we allow our healthcare industry to operate in such a manner that it forces premium costs to rise because that's the way the system was built to operate. Every company is rated according to their employees ages and sexes and other factors and then each company is assigned a group number. Each group was then offered a series of choices for insurance that costs a certain amount of money to obtain. Inside the group you pay less outside the group you pay more. They also rate the companies by their size about how many people would be in their group, about how many of their employees would choose to pay for the insurance and several other factors like that. This system has been driving healthcare costs up since the 60s. This is really what is wrong with health care cost.

We rate individuals in their individual companies and assigned them payment structures based upon their group level. Then we talk about healthcare as one number $2.6 trillion or 15% of the annual gross domestic product like it is consumed at one level in every location. That's how the healthcare companies want you think about it, that's exactly what they want you to hear.

This means nobody ever asked the question,"why don't you just rate everybody in America as part of the same group and charge us all the same thing for what ever kind of insurance protection we desire?"

I guarantee you that the minute you do that two things would happen, and nothing would get accomplished.

1) The Conservatives would raise bloody hell. The reason why the conservatives would raise bloody hell is because that would sound like socialized medicine. Nothing could be further from the truth but that would matter. The truth doesn't get a plate at this dinner table.

2) The Liberals would raise bloody hell. the reason why the liberals would late raise bloody hell is because it would cut off their funds (their war chests) for reelection. No healthcare company/drug company nor any other healthcare related company would bother donating millions and millions and hundreds of millions of dollars to reelection campaigns if it wouldn't allow them to set the agenda and accomplish their own goals.

Would not do a single thing to help the American public, to help the uninsured, to help the struggling family, or make America a better place to live. It's the same thing as the reason why were paying too much for oil.

Greed in America corporate life and the crossover greed in American political life. It is essentially the same thing.


Thanks for reading my rant

– Big Mike

Telephones are more important than pacemakers

It's getting to the point where I don't think that society could function anymore without telephones or some other kind of electronic device. Everywhere you look and everybody you look at has got a phone plastered to their ear or a Nook or a Kindle or a tablet and their heads down there looking at their feet while they diddle with the electronic gizmo. If the phone isn't up to their ear, they are texting, looking at a web page, shopping, or all the above usually while doing something else. That something else is usually something insignificant like driving. I really don't get it. There isn't that much to say. There isn't that much to do on one of those things, unless you make your living on it. That I can understand, sort of .

I have a cell phone. I have a home phone. I have an office phone. Everybody in my family has a cell phone. Everybody I know has cell phone. The problem I have is that none them of really have anything important to say when they call, except for the people you want talk to and then they don't answer the phone. Standing in a line somewhere waiting to be waited on, the personal cell phone of the clerk will ring, the clerk will look right at you and say "Excuse me, I have to take this." Or you're standing in a line somewhere 2-3 people back in the line and the place is pretty busy. The telephone of the business rings, the clerk will answer the line, put the customer that he was working with on hold and take care of the customer on the phone. I saw that happen Saturday.

I was tempted to whip out my cell phone,  call the business and just have the clerk take care my business over the phone. It would've been more efficient, had it not been so stupid to begin with. I was really tempted to be a jerk but I didn't. I merely said "Should I have called instead of coming up here, because it seems as if when someone calls their call is more important to you?"

On the other hand there's nothing more annoying to either be in a business or be the person calling a business and listening to the business phone of the place where you're at ring off the hook. there has to be a middle ground somewhere, for Christ sake.

Everybody you look at on the roadway has a telephone up to their ear. Just almost every car you pass has someone in it talking on the telephone or texting. It is really an amazing phenomenon that is truly an indicator of the time we live in. I know one of my friends will read this and know say "Hey big Mike, you are one of first guys I saw with one of those Blue tooth stupid headsets". I would have to say guilty as charged. I don't text and drive, and I don't really talk on the phone a lot when driving but I do use the phone to conduct a lot of business. I try to be polite and correct about it though.

I don't know maybe I'm weird, but if there's two people in line and the phone rings I answer the telephone and tell the person on the phone that there are two people in front of them and I'll be right back as soon as a take care of  the other two people. The next question is would you like to hold?

if I forget my phone or leave it at home accidentally it doesn't really bother me. I actually feel a little bit of relief. Oh well I'll answer when I get back. Not my children. They won't leave the house without their phone. They will drive back to the house from 20 miles away to get their telephone, in case somebody calls. Call waiting what is that?, voice-mail what is that?, I'll call you back later when I'm not busy what is that,? someone will actually call my house and no one will answer, then they will call my office telephone line and no one will answer, then they will call my cell phone and no one will answer, then they will send me a text and say call me when you get a second I need to talk to you. So I call them back and they say "what are you doing?" Are you serious? it just makes me want to hit the end call button and walk away.

I know, I know I'm a jerk.

My brother said to me why do people feel like they have to answer the phone just because it rings? I understand the desire to stay in contact and and I also understand the desire to answer the phone. I have to tell you however if you call me at 3 AM, and you expect me to answer the phone, you are probably going to be disappointed. My house phone doesn't even have a ringer in my bedroom. I could actually care less if anybody calls or not,  I hate the telephone, although I use it, I tolerate it and I actually do call a lot of people. Full disclosure here, I'm on the phone a lot, I make a ton of phone calls. in terms of using the telephone to conduct business talking to customers or clients family or friends I would have to say that I am on the phone a lot.  I make a lot of small single digit minute phone calls, and maybe two or three per week that go over 10 min. if you use the telephone in the conduct of your personal life and your business it's kind of sort of unavoidable that you're going to be on the telephone a lot. I get that.

You are bored and you call home just to find out what somebody's doing, or you call someplace with no real purpose behind the telephone call that I just cannot understand. Somebody calls me and says what's up I say what do you want? My wife says it's rude. I say well I'm annoyed what do you expect? Geez Louise !

It's annoying when the phone just won't stop ringing, it gets in the way and  I don't get anything done when the phone's ringing. On the other hand when one of my friends calls I answer and I'll talk for an hour and a half. My opinion on this is one that is split as I am a divergent dichotomy (person of two brains with two separate opinions).

If you're one of those nut jobs that text me and says what's up and you never get an answer from me, well there's your answer. There's probably 10 people on the planet that when they communicate with me it's always more important than whatever I'm doing and I pick up the phone immediately or will text right back. if I didn't get right back in touch with you it is entirely possible and probable that I was either asleep or I was busy with something else more important. That happens.

The rest of you leave me a message I will get back with you eventually, maybe. Unless you annoy me, and that's with the delete key is made for.

Thanks for reading my rant,
– Big Mike

Why is it so hard? I don't get it and can't understand

It seems like in the last few weeks no matter where I go the conundrum I run into is not that there is a lack of availability of product to buy. Nor is there a lack of places to buy the product. No the issue is usually that either the people that are supplying the product have such poor attitudes that  I can't shop there or the people are asked to do too much with too little support. Secondary to the issue of not enough folks on the premises in order to take care of the business, is the one where some brilliant strategist gets the absolutely great idea to try and replace people with machines and then have those machines wait on people. It never works.

In the first case it looks like somebody is at the controls of an airliner and they're purposely trying to fly that airliner in the ground and managing the business into a slow painful excruciating decline.  In the second case it seems sort of pointless because it's never any faster, it's never more accurate, and it aggravates the hell out of the customers. My problem is that I am watching these people that supposedly know how to run businesses manage theirs into the ground, by making poor choices about capitalization expenses, the utilization of labor, hiring decisions (which is different than the selection of staff), and day-to-day operations.


I see it everywhere I look. And trust me it's not hearkening back to the good old days where there were 62 people waitingto take my two dollars. Trust me I'm not naive, I've been in business a long time. Either as an employee of someone else's business or as an owner of my own I understand how hard it is to make a dollar. I understand sometimes it is more about what you don't do that about what you do.

Go into any big-name big brand box store. Almost all of them have tried this. Some people will tell you they actually enjoy it. At the front of the store there will be 15 or so checkout lines, maybe more, in the space where 2 or 3 of them used to be is now the automatic check out yourself cash register. At the end of the self service cash registers will usually be one person overseeing the operation of the registers (If you are lucky). During the peak of the day this person looks like they are managing an insane asylum and are running back and forth pulling their hair out trying to keep up with all the crap generated by self checkouts. Authorization problems, errors, pricing mismatches, entry errors, you name it they have to run back and forth and swipe their card and fix whatever. Every once in a while one person will walk up with a pack of batteries scam them and pay for them and walk out the door happy as a clam. Usually though, the customer looks more harassed than the employee, and by the time they leave you can see almost exactly what they're thinking on their lips. It's almost as if the business wanted them to say "I'm never coming back here again."

Go into any restaurant, it doesn't make any difference whether it is fast food or sit down you will see the same things.

In a fast food restaurant where they do not seat you, you will stand in line during the peak time longer than if you had cooked the food yourself. When you finally make it to the register to order, the person taking your order doesn't know the menu, doesn't have a clue, can't answer basic questions, has the math skills of a turtle, and is about as fast as one.

In a full-service restaurant where you do wait to be seated, the person at the front door who is your hostess, is also probably a 16 or 17-year-old very pretty young girl, who because she cannot get an alcohol serving license, is the poorest trained person in the building. Somebody told her her job was to triple seat the server (who is a table hog) that scares her the most. Secondary to that she thinks her job is to get your cardiovascular exercise in for the day by running to the other end of the restaurant, waving the menus to get your attention, showing you where the table is with a downward point , all the while throwing the menus down on the table and passing you on the way back to the front door, telling you to "enjoyyourlunchKatieisyourservershe'llberightwithyou." Zoom, zoom .

Harassed servers with that deer in the headlights panicked look on their faces, not a busboy in sight, management that you couldn't find if you had an electron microscope, and then when you go to pay your bill and either you pay the harassed server or the person at the register has to find a manager because he doesn't know what to do with the seven cents you just handed them. Yep, I'll be coming back here.

Keep cutting labor costs though, because that is exactly the answer to the problem.

Does anybody else see this lack of service that I see? It is pathetic and ridiculous.

I called my cable provider yesterday and asked where the application was that allowed you to reset your cable box. Then I spent two hours searching for it online. I'm hardheaded, I should've just said "Please reset my cable boxes they are displaying the wrong time", but no not me, I have to do it myself. So I go where the lady sent me. It's not there. I call them back "You guys said the DVR reset application was at whateveritwas.com and it is not there". She actually says to me "That's where it is at on my computer!". If I had not been so aggravated and pissed off to begin with, I probably would've laughed. Instead I said "Obviously you don't know if the difference between the Internet and an intranet. Please put a supervisor on the phone". after another 10 min. of hold and getting to the supervisor I find out that I'm right ,they are wrong, they reset my boxes and they work now. And it's my fault. I am so stupid.

Next I call my wireless phone provider. I discovered on my bill that they charged me for something I should not have been charged for, and I have a double charge on one phone. I explained to the woman very politely what the problem is, and she promptly tells me I am wrong and Oh by the way I'm an idiot,like every other customer that calls in to speak with "Customer Service Representatives"  well not in so many words, however her condescending tone, her superior knowledge and attitude, and the audible sigh that she could put into her answer made me understand just how stupid I was.

Then, as we got into the details of the bill I discovered that I'm not so stupid after all. After $20 in removed charges and $80 in adjustments later, She actually says to me, "is there anything else I can do for you today, have I answered all your questions?". I said "yes ma'am, there's something  you can do for me and for every other customer you talk to for the rest of your employment with this company. I said "You can go attend every customer service training class that your company offers because you don't have any skills, and you made my face red and my blood pressure go up by treating me like an idiot."

I don't think anybody had ever told her the truth before, I'm not so sure she understood what I said or why I said it. Oh well.

Then the poorest choice of the day comes next. I really am an idiot for subjecting myself to this crap again. I went to Walmart. The largest company on the planet with the largest number of locations, I'm not sure but probably the most employees, the biggest buildings you've ever seen, staffed by some pretty nice people who just don't have a clue. So I was led to believe that it had become a quieter less aggravating place. All my family and friends said "Oh you should try it, its quieter, they remodeled it, the people are friendly etc, etc, :::::: Ha ha ha - I call Bullsh## !! Same old overhead mic every 5 minutes, same old unfriendly staff, same old stupid crap waiting forever on a 15 minute thing. No way I'm gonna do this ever again.

I am pasting a note that I sent to Walmart on their website yesterday. the upshot of this story is that 3 tires, 1 tire moved from the front of the car to the back of the car, 2 windshield wipers took 3 and 1/2 hours to complete. I know it probably won't do any good, and that any response I get if any will be some canned were so sorry letter, will try to do better in the future, our management has been apprised of your complaint, and then somebody can get bitched at because I complained. Not the way they should go about it but that's what'll happen. Next Saturday they will probably be busy too, and guess what ? I will wait until Monday and buy my tires for my other car at a local tire shop. Obviously they don't need the money.

Here's the text of my note to Walmart:

I had not been the Walmart in my town (in NW Georgia) for a couple of years. It is so aggravating to shop there with the constant loud overhead microphones and the lack of staffing . Today was the first time I have made a decision to go back here to make a major purchase. I just spent3 to 3 1/2 hours or so in the auto section purchasing $401.29 worth of tires and assorted items.

Most of that time I spent waiting. Waiting in line to tell you I wanted to spend money, waiting in line outside at a fence line to tell the service technician what I wanted done to my car and then waiting and waiting and waiting some more while I had 3 new tires balanced and rotated and had 1 tire moved to the rear end of the car.

Didn't you guys know that on Saturday in the springtime at 12 o'clock noon you were going to be busy in the auto Garage ? If you did know that you're going to be busy, then how come there was not enough staff there to handle the business? It was and is ridiculous.

See here's the thing. No matter what the reason is for how long it took, it is irrational and unreasonable for you to expect the customer to understand it. Should it take 2 hours let alone 3 to 3 1/2 hours to get 3 new tires? How long should it take? What should happen when it takes longer?

I did speak to a couple of your folks. A supervisor named Sheila and I spoke to manager named I think Edem. They were very apologetic and listened and responded appropriately and sincerely with great empathy. In my view she was good and he was perfect. I also spoke to one of your associates whom I think was named Brandon, as well as one of your technicians in the shop. All of your folks were great. They were nice pleasant people trying to do too much with too little. Your manager instructed the cashier to take money off my bill as an apology for the wait or service. I didn't want that and it wasn't the point of my complaint, and I didn't allow the cashier to do it.

I understand that labor hours must be watched very closely because it is one of your largest expenses. For whatever it's worth whoever is paying attention there doesn't understand. If the point of cutting back all the people in that section is to save money, I think you're looking at it wrong. If I could have found someone when I was very aggravated I would have got my keys back and left, and followed the other three or four people who left rather than purchase tires because they did not want to wait. they left and didn't spend somewhere between 300 and $1000. Save two or three man hours or sell $1000 worth of tires, on Saturday at noon in the springtime? Which one do you think is a better way to look at it?

I'll tell you one thing, from the look on your managers and associates faces from having to deal with people like me and other angry frustrated customers I would not want to work for you under these circumstances. I'm surprised you can even keep the staff you have. I would've quit long ago.
 
 
In I could've went on and on and on but you get my point.
 
You guys have a good day. Thankx for reading my rant !!
 
- Big Mike

Political Junk!

Here's the part I don't understand.We been changing Republican candidates like they are underwear.It's making me a little crazy trying to keep up with it.

Well anyway this is crazy. One candidate is making fun of another. One of them is crying space and the fruitcake. Ron Paul thinks he is a viable candidate . I don't get it.Are we supposed to take any of these clowns seriously. The woman is a goofball. The pizza guy cannot keep it in his pants,one of them has a half $1 million credit line at Tiffany's,the other one created Obama care. He says he's a conservative,and were supposed to vote for him even though he doesn't believe in the same God that every body else believes in.

Newt Gingrich space says he's not good do negative political attack ads. However, all of his competition who are also Republican conservative politicians are spending all their time beating en up on each other. And then when all this is over. We are supposed to forget everything they've said and just focus on the candidate that is the last one left standing. It makes me nuts. It's no wonder the average American will not pay attention to politics and more. How can they? Space you can't take him serious. Space Herman Cain Herman Cain never met a brassiere that he couldn't tame. I told you it's making me loop. When is it going to stop?

I found out today that we had a Republican candidate that dropped out of the race and is now a Libertarian candidate, and I did not even know he was in the race. I used to be a student of politics loved it. I couldn't get enough. I would read about it all day, research it, blog about it, write about it, talk about it, e-mail about it, and generally pontificate until I can watch the eyes on the people that I was talking to start to roll back into their head as the drool come out of their mouth ever so gently and start to leak down their lips.

Now, not so much. I mean think about it was I supposed to vote for Bob Dole? Al Gore? John Kerry? John McCain? Sarah Palin (you have to be kidding right?) . People sit around and weep about how George W. Bush got elected, and the best they can do. Are these dried-up idiots or millionaires that think they deserve a shot at the presidency because they been there longer than anybody else.I'm a Republican.

I just want Obama to go. I don't think he has been good for America. I don't think he was qualified to be the president in the first place. He had no work experience, he had no life experience , he was an unknown state legislator,whose claim to fame was he married a good-looking woman and he had a law degree. He had also written a couple books.I'm still waiting to be impressed. Jimmy Carter has wrote way more than a dozen books and he was still a terrible president. He was a pretty good writer, though.

The point is, just because you're good public speaker that doesn't mean you're qualified to be someone that can make decisions of this magnitude. There are people that believe very strongly space that he was the right man for the job at the right time in history. I am proud of America for having the guts to stand up and say his race did not matter. Space I wish they also would've said "his race didn't matter because he was not qualified for the job. " But we were so head over heels in love with the guy space that we could see our way to the end of the election without destiny getting in the way.

I felt sort of the same way about Hillary Rodham Clinton. My objection to her was not because of her experience level, because I think she would've made a better president than Obama. My objection to her was because I think she's as crooked as her husband was. And I can never forget her famous vast right wing conspiracy speech,where she stood by her husband and blame the vast right wing conspiracy for this mere allegations in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Although if my choice was either Hillary or Obama, I think I would've picked Hillary even though I don't like her. She had at least been exposed to the operations of the White House and understood it and had been a politician most of her adult life. Space I never understood and still do not understand what people see space in the presidency of Barack Obama.

I will tell. I know people don't always agree with me and that's okay. You don't have to. Space we can agree just to disagree. I'm okay with that.

Let's take a little time this election cycle and may be asked to candidates are real important question. What qualifies you to be president. I still have not heard that one answered and I haven't been real impressed with any of the candidates. I have seen so far ..



Thank you for reading my rant.
 Dictated with Dragon NaturallySpeaking space version 11.5–
Big Mike

Politicians are no Help and never have been

Over the years I have had occasion to listen to a great many political speeches and to pay close attention to the descriptions of a lot of political promises. In the final analysis I don’t know why WE ALWAYS fall for the same tired old crap but we always do. Politicians promise us the moon and deliver a piece of green cheese.

It happens every single stinking time.

It just irritates me that a politician can blithely promise anything and it is written off as a “Campaign promise”, and if we were to do the EXACT SAME THING at work, it would be called a lie and we would get fired. See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya !

I’m not going to go back to the beginning of time; however I am sure you will recognize a few of these gems.

• We are going to mark a DMZ at the 38th parallel that will define the two countries so that we can train the local troops, which will allow Americans to come home. This was the idea in 1955 in Korea. We still have thousands of troops deployed there and hundreds of other places around the globe that have very little to do with the original reason we went there to begin with. If you don’t believe me, just answer what the hell we are still doing in Germany, decades after WWII, and have thousands of troops deployed there and Korea and Japan and etc.

• We are going to create “Enterprise zones”, which will encourage investment in poverty stricken areas, thereby preventing gentrification and the wholesale destruction of local neighborhoods. This was the idea behind one plan pushed by Ronald Reagan, and was the force which basically unleashed “Eminent Domain” actions by localities, thereby ensuring the wholesale destruction of local neighborhoods.

• Tax cuts will help those less fortunate to be able to “Insert latest lie”. Tax cuts do not help low income wage earners. It is no help to have your taxes cut $5 per paycheck. When you roll it up it allows a politician to say they have cut taxes by millions or billions of dollars, however the individual person isn‘t helped at all. Someone who has a billion dollars on the other hand? Well I guess it depends upon if you call a 20 million dollars reduction in tax liability “help”.

• The latest round of tax plans, Housing ideas, College tuition programs that all the candidates are blathering about have one thing in common. They are all so full of holes, tests, disqualifiers and so called “means testing” that they are more confusing than a tax form and when you get right down to it, a very low percentage of affected individuals are eligible for their “savior” programs and an even lower percentage will take advantage of it.

Here is why Its just another lie.

If you have to be 100 % caught up on your mortgage payments, have great credit, have “X” dollars in savings then your program is not designed to help people that are “underwater” or “in trouble” on their home mortgages. It is designed to help the doctor that lives next door to the Politician and owns a million dollar (or more) mansion. It certainly will help no one who is currently in foreclosure or bankruptcy , because by virtue of the fact that they have had to declare bankruptcy , it virtually ensures they will have no money, be behind on mortgage payments, and have ruined or wrecked credit.

Who do these idiots think they are fooling anyway? Why don't they just have Ron Popiel do all the political ads? Then at least they would be funny, memorable and you wouldn't mind being lied to so much because you would know it was a ridiculous boast to begin with.

I'd love to talk more about it but my pocket fisherman in the glove box is calling.  We are having fish for dinner tonite and I'm gonna cook. Just put it in the Oven and "Set it, then Forget it!"

I see my wife on the corner over there. ":Hey Good Looking, I'll be back to pick you up later!!". 'Scuse me while I spray my hair on.......

So I was wondering if Its just me

Seems like the more we talk about a recovery the longer it takes. If I remember right this has been going on since early 2007 in some sectors and tanked for sure about a month before the election that saw Obama swept into office. So under two Presidents, three different Congress's and getting ready to be three election cycles, nothing much has changed has it?

Lets see.

• Banks are still foreclosing on people and charging stupid outrageous fees to use our money right ? 

• Jobs are still headed over seas and no one is hiring except Fast Food restaurants ?

• Unemployment is still "Officially" over 10 %, reality is closer to 20 % right ?

• We still have a war going in Afghanistan and whatever you call that mess in Iraq right ?

• We are still TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS in debt right ?

• Bankruptcies are at an all time high still , right ?

• Advertising dollars are still lower than they have been in years right ?

• Meaningless statistics are still being touted as a useful measure of the Economy right ? (Housing starts for one)
• Wholesale prices have began to rise triggering Inflation in  some very important sectors including coffee , Right ?
• Oil prices are still high, Auto sales are still low and not much over last year if at all, right ?
• We are still fighting about the "debt ceiling" (14.9 trillion dollars) right ?
• Access to credit is still tight , right ? Most credit cards are close to 20 % on average, even though large banks borrow money at close to 0 % right ?

OK, so I am obviously confused.
What is it that is better ?

Behold, the future is here

Well, I'm not saying it will never happen again, but I think I am about done writing about politics. It seems as if I write for the benefit of myself and a couple of other people and that's about it. It is almost the same way when the subject comes up in conversation. I'll answer a political question from someone with more than the standard , often repeated answer and slowly but surely the eyes begin their travels. First its side to side, then add in the up and down motion, then a look of panic and I get amused and now I can't stop talking because you look scared and then the eyes begin their travels into the back of your head as you slowly begin to gurgle.

Similar when I write about it. 8 paragraphs with facts and research and opinion and hard hitting concise comments and it gets turned into somebody Else's comment that usually is two words and the last one is either "sucks" or is "You". As in "He sucks" or "F**k you".

So whats the point ?

Its not like I work for Newsweek. I just think about this stuff and thought others would like to share in the dialog.

Guess not.

So until I find an audience for it, in a place where we can be as full of crap as the politicians, I am gonna find other topics I think.

An Important Lesson in Political Math

10 Steps to Bragging about what you are doing for the American Taxpayer

Or how politicians say they are saving you Money , therefore leading to their own re-election because of their historic voting , strong record and pro-business stance.

1. Propose a program that will lead to some dubious untested benefit that does not have to be quantified, qualified or proven. Do not worry about whether or not the program will work as the other party will bash it greatly no matter what you say nor what you do.
2. Come up with a final cost number in the Press release for the announcement of the Program something on the order of "Senator X says 60 Billion dollar jobs plan will help economy".
3. Also somewhere in the statement guess at the number of "jobs" (or other benefits) that will be created as a result of implementing your plan. "Senator X says his job plan will create 2500 jobs."
4. Ignore and do not count any jobs that are lost as a result of the plan and always count low paying non union jobs that replace high paying or unionized jobs as equal positions. For reference please see "NAFTA - What the hell happened to my job , by Dr. Suess"
5. Create rules for implementing the program that keep out the Riff Raff, meaning anyone who has no need for the money created by this program.
6. Add up the final expenses for the program and narrowly define as expenses only those items you really cannot blame on someone else. Assume this number is half of the original estimate no matter what the facts say.
7. Add up the final jobs you say were created for the program and narrowly define as a created job every item for which tips, wages or barter like trading was used to pay anyone like a paperboy, your babysitter or the morning wino you give spare change to on your way to work. Include the homeless bum who holds the "Will work for food sign at the Interstate".  Assume this number is double the original estimate no matter what the facts say.
8. Form exploratory committee and PAC to advise you on important issues. Staff both organizations with your cronies. Loan both organizations your top speechwriters. Have everybody except you put out press releases and articles to newspapers etc, saying what a wonderful job your program did for the American People. Have both organizations distort the facts and further muddy the waters by claiming wild claims like for example Tell one of them to say Your program has cured AIDS.
9. Book several appearances on Sunday Morning Talk shows and talk to Important Newspaper writers, television news celebrities Like Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer. Make no public comments until you begin to speak out on the issues.
10. Announce you are running for President and then ask for time to set the record "straight" in order to counter claim some of the more wild things that have been said in the past few days. Announce that your program saved the American Public 30 Billion dollars (Even though you actually spent 30 Billion dollars) and that it created 5000 jobs and spent less money than was projected in order to do so. Call this productivity at its highest level and then spend some time being humble , admitting somebody got it wrong by saying your program was a cure for anything.

Cue American Flag.

Cue Pictures of Family.

Fade to black.

Ride to Elected office in big black limo smoking fat black stogie.

Life is good.

Obama's New Job Plan - DOA

So the latest is that Obama has a new Jobs plan. Big whoopee. Another stupid political lie.

Supposedly it includes 300 Billion dollars and a lot of spending. Most of it I suspect is smoke and mirrors and a bunch of typical Washington DC Lies.

It will not be released until Thursday  when in a speech before a joint session of Congress he will propose to lift the ailing economy through the familiar and tired yet useful  litany of tax credits, job training for the unemployed , school renovations and a program to prevent teacher layoffs. Also somewhere muddled in this morass of jumbled items is a proposal to ask lawmakers to renew the 2% payroll tax cut and to once again extend jobless benefits to the unemployed. These details are fluid and could change as this is what is called “informed sources”; meaning leaked on purpose to gauge reaction and won’t be finalized until the Administration is ready to give the Speech.

That part pisses me off because what it says to me is that it really is not important enough to be a good plan as long as it looks like a good plan.  That means you and me? We are not important as long as we don’t do enough to make the Administration look good. This is probably one of the biggest arguments for term limits in my opinion. They work for reelection and don’t work for us. Democrats and Republicans alike are more worried about what they say and how it plays out in the press than they ever are worried about doing the right thing and helping the country get back on its ”proverbial feet”.

They are more worried about how it looks than they are about what it does. Actions mean nothing to this crop of Politicians. I could not serve with this bunch. I would be arrested once a week from slugging a few of them in the mouth every time they said something stupid or told another in a long string of lies.

See here is the part they won’t tell you. It may be a “Quote 300 Billion Dollar Program”, but when you look at the overall picture and at the total number of unemployed as well as the impact made by the 2% tax credit continuance which is part of that big number and the other parts you realize it really isn’t all that much money being directed at a trillion dollar problem. It doesn't spend the money creating jobs and won't help you ar me one bit. Just like always.

They are all scared to tell the American public that it will take at least another Trillion dollars to fix this mess.

We have almost 10 % Unemployment in this country. Just using these numbers to calculate against that represents at least 30 million unemployed. This number does not take into account all the adjusting and the people who are not counted in this number like the chronically unemployed, the underemployed and so forth. The 2% tax credit renewal counts for about 1/3 of the 300 Billion (about 90 Billion dollars) and this is not money we will spend at all, it is money we will not collect.

Without even doing any serious math you can see the cost of the program starts out at 210 Billion and the politicians lie about the non collection of future income being counted as expenditure. The tax credits amount to the same kind of thing. Revenue we will not collect and never see is counted as an expense.

Here is why this is important. Let’s talk about it like it is paycheck money.

Let’s say I am your employer and I tell you I am giving you a 25 % raise in the form of a credit. In order to earn the credit you must drive a brand new car that burns Bio-Diesel fuel, seats 9 people, participates in a car pool and is available to the local police department as a loaner vehicle. Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it.? That’s no kind of raise at all is it? It’s not real money is it?

Well this is exactly how congress gives a tax cut and how it counts it as spending. When they project how much it will cost they say enormous sums like 45 billion dollars if it is fully utilized. Then reality sets in and people start to try to use the credit and they find out they do not qualify, because they do not meet the "reasonable conditions" of the program (sort of like the Loan Modification Programs in the housing loan mess huh ? ) .  

It turns out that nationwide only 5% of employees can meet the requirements of the program and the entire program only costs 5 Billion dollars.

If you ask a politician to explain it he will tell you that the American taxpayer under his watch saved 40 Billion dollars and nowhere in his response will he mention that he spent 5 billion bucks to implement a silly ass program like this in the first place.

The next thing is they are going to renovate a bunch of schools. I am asking FOR WHAT PURPOSE?? You have already fired all the teachers. Do any of you numbskulls read the news? What are you going to do, build a bunch of classrooms, and not have any teachers to teach in them?

I can’t wait to see the real numbers associated with this bull**t.

Politicians are all Crooks and here is why

My Dad used to say "Figures Lie and Liars Figure".

He was right I think because so far with all these Politicians all I have heard is a bunch of nonesense and lies.

So far I have heard them talking about a lot of things including the debt ceiling, the Economy in General, Growth, Unemployment (benefits mostly), what all of you are now terming as "ObamaCare" (which is stupid because both parties voted for it), and all the other cliche`d to death platform ideologies like abortion, Social Security, Medicare and Tax cuts.

Nothing has worked, we are still in a mess, nothing has any real traction they have not still ever addressed the real issue, and we get to watch them take several vacations, play golf and , drink beer, sail yachts and fly airplanes and la-te-freakin-da.

Surprise !! Rich people are still rich , Poor folk (like me) are still poor ! Not one damn thing has changed and nothing has gotten any better. Ooooh, wait I apologize, the one 2 lane bridge you rebuilt in my county is the best 2 lane country road bridge that money can buy. They say 17 million dollars was spent here, most of it towards schools, but you couldn't prove it buy looking. What a joke. What we have the most of is plywood windows. I wonder is the stimulus package paid for the wood?

You've talked about home mortgages like they were some kind of can on a grocery store shelf and introduced new programs which were supposed to be designed to help our struggling homeowners. Then you turned around and put the same jackasses in charge of the programs that created the problems in the first place. You bailed out the banks, told them their lending practices sucked and then put the banks in charge of helping the same struggling homeowners they were over charging and gouging to begin with. Oh yeah, that's gonna fix it. Good strategy, sorry I missed that meeting. What a bunch of dip shi**.

Now you idiots act all surprised like you didn't know they added an eighteen inch stack of paper and denied every single person who applied for help. You act like you didn't know they made the process so onerous and so complicated that no one normal person can understand it. You act like you didn't know that this was another boon for lawyers to scoop up the gravy on.

So if I understand the strategy and can analogize it, you spotted a theft, called the police, and arrested the cops. Smooth move !!

I mean, please. Quit lying.

That was the way it was designed in the first place. There was no way this was ever going to work, even I knew that. Hell, It is also why virtually no one has been able to use the so called "Loan Modification programs" why everyone in Bankruptcy was automatically excluded from participation and why now you want to Investigate and Prosecute the misdoers involved in the process. Please. What a load of crap.

Just tell the truth for once.

The Banks do not want to help us. They want to foreclose on us and sell the property to somebody else again. as they are protected against loss by their Insurance. Why the hell should they care, just cause you said so ? They are using the same tactic a Buy here -  Pay here car lot uses. They don't give a damn if you keep the house, they want to sell it and collect fees on it as many times as they possibly can before somebody actually buys it and pays it off.

The Cashier will help you understand this government program.

I have also seen you throw money at the issues without a concern for what the affect was after the fact. You have made medical care more expensive, passed more laws in the past two years than ever before, spent over a trillion dollars on a so called stimulus package and passed some real loopy ding dong laws , not the least of which was your ignorant cash for clunkers program which just made used cars more expensive and put thousands of auto mechanics who could have used those parts out of business because of the stupid asinine restrictions you put on the programs.

All that program did was create and artificial bump in sales that they will not be able to reproduce next year, and destroy a lot of good used cars. It was and is a dumb ass program.

Tax cuts by the way, DO NOT WORK for the middle class. Rich folks love tax cuts, the middle class can't use them, because they don't have any money to begin with. What the heck good is a tax cut gonna do for somebody with 3 kids, a mortgage and a car payment. They don't have any investment money !! The only people you are helping are the idiots who don't need it like bankers and Investment gurus and Millionaires. Normal society doesn't benefit from most of the tax cuts.

I have yet to hear one single politician say anything about the real problem which is this

NOBODY CAN GET A FREAKING JOB !!



Another fine example of Government at work, while you are left hanging.



How about this huh ?



One of you guys stand up and say "The Problem is we need to figure out how to get the American Worker, working again. That is the problem.

Guess what idiots ?



If I had a job, I can pay for my mortgage. If I had a job I can buy a new car. If I had a job I don't need unemployment benefits. If I could get a job I would not file for bankruptcy or be foreclosed upon. I'd pay my credit card Bills, I'd take a vacation, you would not need to spend money on a non-working stimulus package, you would not be bailing out car companies and banks and watching the rest of America slowly close up shop because the banks will not lend any more money because NOBODY HAS A FREAKING JOB !!

I mean, come on. It is not that hard to figure out what is wrong and in my opinion none of you have the guts to stand up and say it and propose something that will actually work. Instead all of you are just interested in not having the blame assigned to you by the opposing party so you can get elected during the next election.

I could care less if any of you get elected again.


You left me hanging when I needed you so I figure whats good for me is good for you.

I just might sit this one out

Okay. New political season and a lot of new players. Usually I am so interested and involved that I drive all the people around me nuts with the details and the strategies and the articles and etc. This season not so much. I know why and its sad but true. So far I have not been able to take one candidate from either party seriously. I just can't drink that much Kool-aid and also, they just don't seem to get it. None of them.

If you are a conservative you know Obama is in the White House and the objective ought to be to throw his but out and elect a conservative Republican candidate that will work on the Republican agenda. To elect one that will work to lower taxes, to make government smaller and to advocate spending less money on smaller government programs. The number one objective is to beat Obama for the Presidency however, lets not forget that. Instead we are worried about gay marriage, abortion (again) and the spending limit. None of those issues will help the economy directly, but hey Its about LOOKING GOOD not being good, right ?

If you are a liberal, your primary objective is to keep Obama in the White House, to continue to push his liberal agenda and to keep control of at least one of the houses of Congress, preferably the Senate, as it is now. Your secondary objective is to make Republican's look like they are trying to weaken America and make them look selfish and self centered so the average American sees Republicans and thinks "Elitist". The idea is to make the Democrat seem like he has the interest of the average American in mind and to paint the Republican as a very short sighted,  pro big-business schmuck and the representative of the rich.

The thing that has me the most concerned is the Republicans don't seem to understand this. They don't seem to understand it and they are acting like it won't take anything special to beat Obama.

I mean maybe they do, but they sure are not acting like their number one issue is to remove Obama after one term. It seems to me that all they have done so far is to pander to the Tea Party crazies and fight amongst themselves and take nothing stands on nothing issues that do not matter in the first place. I don't know about you, but in my household, whether you are for or against Gay Marriage doesn't do a thing to help me pay the light bill. Being for or against some mythical standards (like birth control) does exactly NOTHING to help the average American. It does however make the politician look like they are taking a stand , when they really are not.

I can't take these idiots seriously. So far it seems like this race is The President (Obama) versus the bunch of no-names morons who are pitching new reality shows to the American Public. Most of them we haven't ever heard of and the ones we have are loony !! Give me a break ! They all look like red shirted security guards in a bad Star Trek episode.

One of these geniuses are going to beat a sitting President on the issues? I don't want to get into a point by point comparison of candidates (but you can if you look here http://2012.presidential-candidates.org/ ) but my point is this:

A) There is a ton of candidates , most of whom are unknown and
B) None of them really have the money or experience or organization it takes to unseat a sitting President.

The way I figure it the Republicans have decided to sacrifice this election , let Obama win again, then spend both terms opposing everything he does so when 2016 comes around they Democrats will be out of ideas and gas that they can not mount an effective campaign for the presidency for another 12 years. It looks like Muhammad Ali is writing their strategy and he came up with another version of the rope a dope. They are going to lay on the ropes and let the Democrats take all the blame for the next 6 years and then come back in 2016 and say "See, America, I told you how bad it would be. Now we are here to clean up, but don't expect too much, because it took them a long time to make it this bad.". You could almost call it the reverse Bush Strategy.

This seems true to me because they  have no coordinated response to Obama, have left an old gasbag like Mitch McConnell to do all the talking and that guy looks like he's lying every time he opens his mouth.

Also the candidates they have put forward so far are pretty disappointing. For the first time in forever I am thinking about skipping election day because who gives a crap when it won't matter because there will not be one decent candidate in the whole lot of them? Who are we supposed to vote for in this group of lightweights anyway ? It makes me understand it when my wife tells me I am boring to talk to about politics because of this. I get it when I see the eyes start to roll back into someones head when I start a conversation about Politics.

If you have to be a Washington Insider or a lobbyist to know the candidates, then something is very wrong with not only how we pick candidates but is also wrong with how perverted we have allowed the process to become.

Here is the list (along with the links I got from Wikipedia and others)
Google it or look it up here for yourself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2012
www.livefreeordiealliance.org/2012
www.politics1.com/p2012.htm

Democrat -
Barack Obama, incumbent President of the United States from Illinois
Randall Terry, pro-life activist from New York

Republican -
Michele Bachmann, U.S. Representative from Minnesota
Herman Cain, former Federal Reserve banker and businessman from Georgia
Newt Gingrich, former U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives from Georgia
Jon Huntsman, Jr., former U.S. Ambassador to China and former Governor of Utah
Gary Johnson, former Governor of New Mexico
Fred Karger, political consultant and gay rights activist from California
Andy Martin, perennial candidate from Illinois
Thaddeus McCotter, U.S. Representative from Michigan
Jimmy McMillan, perennial candidate from New York
Roy Moore, former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court of Alabama
Ron Paul, U.S. Representative from Texas
Rick Perry, Governor of Texas
Buddy Roemer, former Governor of Louisiana
Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts
Rick Santorum, former Senator from Pennsylvania
Jonathon Sharkey, perennial candidate from Florida

No kidding. Mitt friggin Romney is the best they could do ?  I am supposed to actually vote for Rick Santorum ? You cannot be seriouis. That guy is a certified lunatic. Michelle Bachman ?, that's the person who wants to take away a VA pension and along with it their health care, if they get  Soc Sec disability payments.

I look at that list and then think , people were actually pissed off that John McCain picked Sarah Palin ?

Its no wonder Obama won.

Shoot, before I would vote for any of these idiots, I would have voted for Palin.

I just can't believe any of these jackasses can stand up and compare themselves to Ronald Reagan .

Here is what it looks like to be well respected, well known and honored . Even if you don't agree with his politics, you can't seriously think the same way about the current crop of wanna be can you ?

What are we becoming ? Or maybe what have we became ?

I Look around see things in the course of a normal day that makes me think "What the Heck was that ?"  Things like :

• We now fight "wars" against groups and ideologies and ideas, not other countries.
• We have "Black Ops" going on in 70 or so countries around the world , fought by "special operators", who shoot and kill people on are behalf and are not called soldiers , at least not in the traditional sense of the word?
• You can protest at the funeral of a soldier who has died in combat, but you have to stand in a fenced in designated area to protest the President or at political functions.
• Things you "tweet", even stupid things, can get you arrested if other people do as you suggest.
• We will pay $1.69 for 12 ounces of water in a plastic bottle and yet will yell our heads off if have to pay $3.50 for a gallon of gasoline.
• It takes a billion dollars to get elected to the Presidency (give or take a few million dollars). The job only pays $400,000 a year. I'm supposed to tell my kid they can be president and somehow convince them that you should spend 200 times what the job pays, in order to get it? Is that Right ?
• A Senator can serve as little as one term (6 years) and has a lifetime pension and health care. The same things for the average citizen if they can even get it, usually takes 20 plus years of service, and can be wiped out by one bad business decision by one ignorant executive?
• Conservatives are getting excited about Michelle Bachman and Rick Perry. I'm just stunned. This the best we can do ? Really ? Seriously ? No joking ? Ahh man...
• Instead of Shows and movies that have plots and make a point , reality TV is what people want to watch ? Are you joking me ?
• California is considered the most liberal state, yet IOWA is the first one to allow gays to marry ? Huh?
• And speaking of gays marrying, these fruitcakes now are calling for Bert and Ernie to come out of the closet and get married? On a kids show? What ?
• Ashton Kucher will be the highest paid sitcom star once the new season of Two and 1/2 men starts showing. Ashton Kucher is a star ? The Highest paid Star? I hear the twilight zone music.
• There are people who actually think that MMA and UFC fighting takes skill and talent?  That think that watching people fall off of padded swinging turn styles into the water is entertainment ? That watching a fake competition about fake tribes on a fake set, in a fake jungle, has anything at all to do with Survival? Shows about crackheads and wino's and gang bangers and prostitutes being chased by the police and booked into jail actually have some sort of value ? People who have drug problems and are crazy are TV stars ?
• 

C'mon and Do the Obama-Pokey with me !

You put your Hope right in, you put your change right out
You wiggle at the flag and freedom and then you shake it all about
Do the Obama-Pokey and never have a doubt
Thats what its all about !!

You put your tax cut in, you put your tax cut out
Then they kill it and then they raise it and make you have a doubt
Do the Obama-Pokey and wallow in self doubt
Thats what its all about !!

You put your bail out in , you put your bail out out
The banks they get healthy and you have to go move out
Do the Obama-Pokey and then you go get the heck out !!
Thats what its all about !!

...and finally

You put your Marine Corps in, you take body bags back out
Fighting and dying in a rocky land that struggles with disease and drought
Do the Obama-Pokey and then you struggle to explain it and then blame it on the other side !!

Thats what its all about !!

Computers are not self sufficient (They should be !)

As my friends can attest, I am a nerd, a geek, a computer electronics maven. You couldn't exactly call me an early adopter though, because I never buy tech in version 1.0, but If they make it I've probably had one or considered it anyway. I have closets full of junk I have not thrown away yet to prove it. Ask my wife. We don't have linen closets, we have electronics closets.

The myth is that you can buy a computer and it just works (insert I'm a PC commercial with Intel sound here) and the facts are that I have never found that to be true. Never. As a matter of fact, I've never had anything that was truly maintenance free and never had a computer or any electronics at all that did not require some level of care to keep it operating. Remember when car batteries had those tops you could remove in order to refill the water? Then along came "maintenance free" batteries. Still had to replace them every 4 years or so huh?

So no repairs and no keeping them full, just plan them to be obsolete on a twice as frequent scale?

The thing that kills me though is that NO ONE considers reliability or repair cost or expected life when buying electronics, televisions or computers. Some of the most studious people I know research TV prices and components until they could sell them, but when they buy a printer, laptop or a desktop computer, the only thing they look at it price. The only thing in the AD is price. The only thing looked at with any diligence is price. I get these phone calls and the only thing I hear is "...And I only paid $XXX for it". Who cares, but, Good for you.

Here's what I mean.

Look at your brand of Laptop or your brand of desktop. Chances are, in the next year you may need to replace a power supply on your desktop or the screen on your laptop. Why? Because on desktops, heat is never exhausted as fast as it should be because it always increases noise level unless you use a more expensive solution (like water cooling) they usually do not have enough fans and almost no one ever takes the back or side off their computer and vacuums the dog hairs out of it.

And the laptop screen, Why ? Because we lug the thing around like a women's purse, forget what it is and stop putting them away in their padded cases and sooner or later fat Uncle Bill will set on it. That's why.

With every new generation of products there is also a planned obsolescence factor and a planned discard/replace factor to consider as well. Yeah the printer was only $18.The ink is $175 a cartridge and you cannot find it 3 years from now, but hey, IT WAS CHEAP !!

Now , go to your computer manufacturer's website and price a power supply for your computer. Chances are you are like everybody else and you have one of 2 or 3 major brands of desktop (Compaq/HP, Dell, Gateway) or one of the top 5 laptops (IBM-Lenovo, Toshiba, Compaq/HP, Dell, ACER). Here is what you will find. Take a stress pill and price a new screen, if you can even figure out which one your system uses.

Parts are expensive. Putting them in is confusing. Having them serviced costs about twice as much as the parts do. Oh, and parts for one model do not fit parts for another model, or brand. HP and IBM used to be famous for using single brand power supplies that would not fit any other machine.Now you start thinking. Since you only paid $XXX for your computer in the first place, should you spend $XXX to fix it ? After all its a toaster isn't it ? A better non brand specific power supply is probably 50 % of what IBM or HP charges for the mediocre system you have, but hey, IT WAS CHEAP !! Don't worry about your files, your software you will have to re-buy and re-install, just throw it away and keep going. Think e-machines at Wal-Mart. Cheap and plentiful too !!



The sad fact is this.

Every Tech company has the ability to add sensors and to standardize parts and to simplify their replacement. Everything could be a plug in module if they wanted it to be that way. That would not keep you coming back to the supply chain to buy a new product though would it ? Every product made could be engineered to be simple to maintain. You ever looked at the back of any TV , Radio or virtually any electronics where it says "NO USER SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE? yeah, well right about there is where the door ought to be that allows you to open it and vacuum it out.

Ah well. I like getting paid.

Keep buying net books and tablets and touch screens.
Keep sitting on them. Keep ignoring the dog hairs.

It s a lucrative business.

Ahhh, the recession is almost over. (right?)

I begin this remark with an understanding that not everyone shares my point of view and really I am OK with that. Many times I don't have my opinion fully formed as I write these blog entries, and like many people I may not know all the facts or my opinion may be colored by my personal circumstances. If this describes you and you don't want to read this , well I understand. I would however like to know one thing though,

How the hell is everybody else doing it? How is everyone else surviving? I just am stupid I guess, because I don't get it.

You see , ever since the economy turned south in about early 2006 I've been trying to figure out what in the hell I am doing wrong.

We'll be driving down the interstate and get passed by a big old decked out motor home or a huge pickup truck pulling a boat and I think "Where in the hell do these people get the money?" Friends of mine go on vacations every 6 months or at least once a year. I haven't been able to take a vacation in about 7 or 8 years. Haven't been able to find the money or a job for that matter to get a new car since 2003. We came about 7 days from having my house repossessed. I lost my position in 2007 and have been basically underemployed ever since. I am extremely grateful for the job I have and thankful my Boss saw some value in keeping me around, but I have to know "What the Hell am I doing wrong?".

On top of that, health issues get in the way of doing physical things. My brain works just fine, my back sucks, so I can't even cut lawns for money. Couple that with the price of EVERYTHING going up and I wonder how we are supposed to hold out and how much longer until and before we just collapse in upon ourselves and start forming the soup lines. Gas is 4 times as expensive as it was in 1999, Milk and Bread are both double or so what they used to be. All my utility Bills are higher than they were 3 years ago. We basically do not have any savings anymore. Its been wiped out slowly but surely , one drip at a time until all that's left is the memory of money. I've combed through expenses over and over again eliminating , reducing, doing away with and cancelling everything we don't absolutely have to have to live and It feels like I am just about out of options. 

Jokingly I told my wife that we needed to buy a new refrigerator, just in case, so we would have a spare house, if worse comes to worse.

Now , its not that bad, but its dumb enough to piss me off, you know what I mean. ?

Then talking heads on TV, newspaper columnists and Internet reporting are all saying "Well its bad, but not that bad." , "Its getting better", "The end of the recession is in sight" and so forth and so on. I wonder in amazement where these guys are looking? I mean if you mean that the recession is almost over for the BANKERS and for the POLITICIANS , then I would have to agree.

The only thing I see at the end of this tunnel is an oncoming train.

Hell you can't use an ATM to check your balance without a fee being charged and just getting your own money out of one can be like getting charged 30 % interest to use your own money. Say you want to make a 30 $ ATM withdrawal. Your bank charges a fee if you use a "Foreign ATM", the "Foriegn ATM" charges a fee for not being a customer of their bank, and you have just paid $6 or more to get to your own money. When you say to your bank, "Why don't you guys have an ATM on my side of the county", they say the business isn't there to support it. Then I look at their balance sheets and see they made 38 MILLION dollars last year on fees and administrative services. Looks like they are doing just fine what with all that hard work they are doing printing receipts and cashiers checks and counting access charges and the like. Oh and don't get me started on "NSF charges". Lord knows it is real expensive to accidentally overpay 12 bucks. It has to be at least three times the value of the charge to make it worth 35 bucks a pop right ?

Personally I don't see how most of those greedy bastards sleep at night. I really don't. They are bleeding us dry like the mafia would and what they do is "legal". It shouldn't be, but heck, there isn't a Washington DC Politician, Attorney, Lobbyist, or Banker alive who understands what it is like to try and live on less than a quarter million dollars a year. They don't have a clue. It pisses me off that we are in such bad shape and they still don't get it. What has to happen to make them understand that we are dying out here, while they keep getting re-elected and keep collecting 30,000 dollars a speech?

There is over 10 % unemployment by the way Washington DC  and the states measure it. That is millions of folks out of work, and barely getting by. What they do not tell you is that this statistic is designed to be misleading. It really only represents those folks who are currently drawing an unemployment check or have filed for it. It doesn't include anyone who is underemployed, unemployed but not filed for unemployment, self employed business owners who lost work or businesses, people that used to work two jobs to make ends meet that cannot find a suitable second job and it doesn't include students who don't work or anyone who has exhausted their unemployment benefits and still can't find a job. It also does not include anyone discharged from the military medically even if they have no other income, every retired person and every homeless person in America even if they don't have any other income and anyone scratching to survive in the underground economy like illegal aliens, the mentally ill, the mentally handicapped etc.

If I had to guess I would say we are actually closer to 20 % unemployed and its not getting any better.  There could potentially be 60 Million people without income and under the gun tonight in America. Does this sound like it is getting any better to you ?

Will someone please tell me how the news coming out of Washington DC about our debt limit and John Boehner and Mitch McConnell fighting with President Obama is helping us right now? If I don't have a gallon of milk, a job, a loaf or bread, or money for gas to get any of it how does what these morons are doing help me? And then , if it doesn't help me , somebody please tell me how it takes care of Senior Citizens, the disabled or injured or disabled military veterans ? In the past 3 to 5 years, what benefit have we gotten by having higher prices for gasoline, food, natural gas, health care, credit, and everything else. What good have we gotten from  a policy of billions of dollars spent on waging war overseas? What good have we gotten from sending hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign countries just to see our jobs and bonds and raw materials go there with them. What good has come of removing any of the price supports for farm products when the end result has been nothing more than higher prices?

So please, feel free, tell me, unload on me, make me feel stupid. "What the Hell are we doing wrong ?"