Balancing Budgets

All over the world countries have gotten into serious debt and are attempting the tricky maneuvering out of the red columns into the black. Some were lucky to have played "monopoly" in their childhood and realize that the game only works when there is a free flow of money, every player has some, taxes are paid and the bank does not run out of money.  When this board game is out of balance, one player controls all the property or the bank runs out of money, then, the game is over.
   It is interesting to watch how other countries are dealing with this problem.  It is always nice to learn from other's mistakes and their successes and then we could avoid the learning curve that can bring so much havoc and bring governments down.  Austerity has not worked in Europe.  It just brought down the French Government and Greece is toppling towards a far right wing  Nazi type over reaction to their economic mess.
When people can't eat or keep a house over their heads there will be riots in the streets.  That is how revolutions start.
   Our own Republicans in the House want to balance the budget by eliminating "meals on wheels"! and other social programs for the elderly, woman, and disabled.  I hate to put those three groups into the same category!
I would hope women had more power to let this not be the case.  The Republican approach is to balance the  budget through elimination.  I remember my monopoly games as a child.  When one player drops out, has to go home or loses all his money, the game is soon over.  Keep it balanced and the game can go on and on and on.
   Here in a nut shell is what happened.  There was a Congressional "Super Committee" made up of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats who were charged with putting away their differences and working for us!  They were to come up with ideas to balance the budget through a mixture of tax increases and curtailments
both cutbacks on government waste, analyzing what we simply couldn't afford and altering the tax structure to "more fair and balanced".  In order to put some pressure on them to be level headed and get the job done, it became "the law" that if they failed to reach agreement the balancing would be from an automatic 10% reduction in the military budget!  What it should have been was to come up with a solution or your fired!  We paid them once to work for us and they didn't do their job.  Now they want to do it by getting rid of "meals on wheels" and other social programs!  That didn't work in Greece and the same reasoning brought down the French Government.  It won't work here also.
    You have all heard of the expression, "it takes money to make money."  When are we going to rebuild our infrastructure?  We have leaking water systems and over flowing sewers over a hundred years old! Bridges that are falling down and roads with more potholes than asphalt.  Out Inter State road system was built in the 1950's and '60's  and has not been attended to since. "Those" were the heydays when we were working and industry all across American would follow the road system.  China has better railroads than we do and soon they will have better everything.  At one time we spent 17% of our Gross National Product on infrastructure and now it is less than 7%, that is 70% less!
   I like the automatic laws that say "fix something" or it will automatically come out of a particular budget.
How about "fix it now" or automatically get a 40% reduction in your wages?  Whatever we are paying our congressmen it is too damned much if they can't get 'er done!
   Two weeks and I can plant tomatoes!
    

Farm Aid

 Here it is; here I am. Much ado about nothing.
a simple gate after a ton of bickering and lot of lawyers!

Wow, they are trying to balance the budget and I am wondering where they will start?

  I used to think, not the poor farmers, those who toil from before sunrise to after sunset, those who rely on the fickle weather to eck out a living scratching their existence from the hard clay of this Earth!

   My "Hatfield and McCoy" feuding vintner's job is being resolved.  Yes, I still have their gate near the front of my shop!  You might remember this story.  Three "vintners", one road and the argument over who pays the bills and who can use the road.  It all went to court and now it is resolved.  Maybe...

   At any rate they called me to say they are ready for the installation of their gate.  After three months, "what gate?" I said, "Who are you?"  Too subtle for them they saw no humor in my quibs. 

   I will install this gate today but went out there yesterday to make sure there were no problems, at least no anticipated problems.

   Forty acres seems to be the minimum size to get significant "farm aid" around here and that is what they have.  Unkempt, poorly trimmed and looking abandoned.  Forty acres of grapes and weeds.  But I got to see "the House"!

   At least 4,000 square feet, at the top of the knol, brand new and just on "the tour of homes", it was a showcase for sure!

   I could go on and on about this, describing walk in closets bigger than my living room, but just so you get the idea I want to tell you about the kitchen appliances.  No, not the whole kitchen which could comfortably seat twenty onlookers as the cook (chef?) prepared the evening meals, just the stoves and refrigerators and stuff.  $58,000 worth!  That is way more than I paid for my house, fifty-eight thousand dollars just for the appliances!  I didn't even know there could be such a thing!

   This guy sells used cars for a living.  A used car salesman with a farmer's aid package that cuts his property taxes to less than mine!

   He might, on a good year, produce one bottle of wine, a vinegar based cooking wine.  Something to give you a sour taste in your mouth.

My art and garden is HERE

Working Harder

That is my approach to tough times, I work harder.  I haven't done much art recently, that is a luxury for me.

Some sells and some doesn't but I can't count on it.  For a retired person the most horrible thing has happened to me.  I am working...hard!  I have lots of work now, none of it is art and in better times I would reject it all.  They are just tedious, heavy, very heavy, welding jobs.

   What happens if our Government can't come to any kind of solution?  We pay them for this, right?  I wonder whether they could be fired?  for incompetence?  I wonder whether I will get my Social Security check next month?  I should.  They had a huge surplus before they stole it.  Put that money into "the General Fund" so they could spend it on something else.

   So much goes on that we don't know about and I think they like it that way.  There are issues within issues and conflicting agendas, everything is obfuscated.  We have a government just like Greece! If we were talking the philosophies of Socrates and Plato and a search for truth I would be so proud, that was the incubation of our own Democracy.  We are really talking massive Societal Failure here and a total failure in communications.  Nothing to be proud about.

   I really think every borrowed dime should be felt.  I would like to see a letter enclosed with each Social Security Check that said something to the effect, "Your Check is short xxx amount of dollars this month because of Lybia, because of the Auto Bailout, because of Katrina, the Oil Spill, or we had an expensive State Dinner last month!"  All other recipients of Federal monies would get a similar letter.  Their wages would be short too.

   A part of the problem is that we really have no clue as to what is going on or the price of anything.  We live in La La Land.  I know math.  I am pretty good at it.  I know people on unemployment who are not really hunting for work is an irritant.  I know assistance for public housing and food stamps is abused.  I also know that these are just pennies... the dollars to be saved are in the military, aid to industry, the corporate farmers,

and tax breaks to the wealthy.  Corporate income has raised 15% this year, the best showing in the last six years!  The uber-wealthy feel no effects of this depression.

   The bottom line is I do not trust our government.  I think we have elected people with no concept of anything.  I can develop an opinion based on my feelings but I don't want them to do this!  It would be like hiring school teachers based on their love of kids.  Teachers who couldn't read!

   No, I do not trust this government.  I am lucky.  As is said, "the harder I work, the luckier I get."  They can keep my August SS check, I will make it on my own.  They stole my money in the first place and are mismanaging the rest.  I don't think they have my interests in their hearts and frankly, I don't think they have a clue as to what they are doing.  No sense of consequence at all.

   I think America needs to be reinvented and I don't think I want them to be doing it.  If there is a failure I know one thing for sure.  It should come out of their check first!  I am embarrassed!

When I make art, which is not now, it can be found HERE

Truth and Consequence!

   Now is the time in the United States where we will get a year and a half of Political BS from the politicians.
This is a tradition in America, it is a multi-billion dollar a year industry, an economic driver in itself.  They are all lying, of course, both sides and the "independents" and just everyone.  We are lied to and attach blame to
how we got into this mess and we are lied to any way out of it. We form opinions based on distortion, fired with emotion.  The easiest way is to obfuscate the issues with hatred.
   We don't teach literature anymore, or ethics or even logical thinking.  We know nothing about economics;
we don't even know our own history.  And we Vote!  Politics today is a bit like "American Idol" and this seems to be okay with us.
   Henry Ford had it right.  100 years ago he invented the assembly line, mass manufacturing and ushering in the era of modern industry.  One key to his success created the rise of the American Middle Class.  He paid his workers enough that they could afford to buy what they were making.  Pretty simple arithmetic.
   These were the days, and they lasted for almost one hundred years, where a CEO of a company made about six times the wages of their average worker.  Now that figure is thousands of times and in some cases
with stock options and bonuses, millions of times!
   I am not discussing what is fair here or whether these people really work that hard, this is only a discussion about math.  Money is not printed on demand, there is only so much available.  If one person is getting a LOT, someone else is getting less.  It would make no difference if the money were all taxed at the same rate and if the money stayed here and continued to circulate, eventually "trickling down" so everyone could have a chance at it.  But that is not how it works, not today anyway.  Money is shipped overseas, invested in foreign manufacturing, off shore bank accounts and otherwise hidden and taken out of circulation.
We STILL offer tax incentives to the oil companies as if Billions of dollars a month in profits weren't enough!
We STILL offer tax incentive to the mega-farmers, giant chemical corporations and others.  "Mega money"
before the loopholes are figured in is taxed at 15%.  General Motors paid NOTHING! There are a lot of loopholes!  This money is NOT taxed for social security, Not taxed for Medicare.
   Why is this kind of wealth so sacred?  ONE simple tax would solve our budget problems and offer a surplus.  Close the loopholes and have a 3% tax on money OVER 100,000 dollars, or $200,000 for a family of four.  What would be the down side to this?  Do you think they would quit working in protest?
   Congress will get the money somewhere but they won't cut their wages or their benefits.  One term in Congress and you have benefits forever!  That is a pretty good deal.  I should have gone into politics!