Stop Pulling the Wagon

Question:  What do you call a building where people prostitute themselves for money? 

Question:  What do you call the people who work in a building where they prostitute themselves for money?

I am ashamed of what is going on in the halls of Government.   I am ashamed of backroom deals.   I am ashamed of those who sell their votes.  I am ashamed of those who violate their promise to serve the people they were elected to  represent.   I am ashamed of those who betray both the letter and intent of our Constitution. 

I am ashamed that a man who has never run so much as a Lemonade Stand can bring in and lecture, in a condescending and contemptuous manner, those who have spent their lives making payrolls and working in business and commerce.  What arrogance!  And he wonders why jobs are not being created.  DUH!

When I served in the military I remember taking an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States.  I took pride in that oath and I ncver violated it.  Countless others have done the same.

Too many of those who supposedly serve us in Congress serve only themselves.  They  have sold out the Country and  the  people they promised to serve. 

In their ambition, arrogance, greed and self indulgence they are Bankrupting us as a nation both financially and morally. 

Forget “Contempt of Congress”,  I have “Contempt for Congress”.   They do not Represent the American Values I believe in.    

Bob Bandy

I do not believe that I am the only one to recognize that what Osama Bin Laden tried, but failed,  to do to the United States, we have done to ourselves. 

When those planes flew into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on 9/11 it was the intention of Osama Bin Laden to cripple or destroy the economy of the United States.

Many States (California, New York, Michigan and others) as well as the Federal Government are financially dysfunctional and  virtually Bankrupt.  The States have not filed the Bankruptcy paperwork (yet) and the Federal Government cannot file Bankruptcy but will finance its insolvency with inflation (more later).

California (where I live) is in a 25 Billion Dollar hole and is still digging deeper with no realistic options to get out of the hole.  They “burned” the ladder.

The Federal Government just blew past their 12 Trillion Dollar “credit card limit” and Congress is looking to raise the limit to 14 Trillion Dollars with the hope that this new limit will get them past the next election.

In California, the state has three major sources of revenue (plus an endless array of fees, assessments etc).  Those are Property Taxes, Sales Taxes and Income Taxes. When the housing “bubble” burst it triggered a financial “Perfect Storm”.  Since California was/is dependent on property taxes that are based on a percentage of property values, when those values declined 40-60%,  revenues plunged.  What followed was like a snowball going downhill.  Fiscal disaster.  And, the State has already “pre-spent” the planned for future revenues which are not going to come in.

At the Federal Government level our elected representatives are not willing to make the hard choices needed to cut spending and instead just keep running up the debt.  At some point just paying the interest on that debt will consume a significant portion of the nations annual tax revenues and then the “Feds” will have to greatly increase the printing of “Fiat” (worth less and less) paper money.  In this process any savings you have will be devalued.  If interest rates go up, and they will have to, “Katie Bar The Door”, we will either have hyper-inflation or we all need to learn to speak Chinese.

Our Leaders need to stop spending money we don’t have, stop creating “Entitlements” we can’t afford, stop borrowing the future of our Children and Grandchildren and stop lying to us.  So far, they are not showing any inclination of changing their ways. 

I don’t like gloom and doom scenarios any more than anyone else.  Somebody please show me where I am wrong in this analysis.  Its the old Ant and Grasshopper story.  We taxpayers are the ants and those in charge are the grasshoppers. 

Who do we blame?  We (the People) elected ‘Em!          

Bob Bandy

Someone sent this Norman Rockwell/Barack Obama  “Self Portrait” “Take Off” to me by email and it got me to thinking.  Is this just a perhaps unfair caricature of our President or is there a deeper and more troubling truth here?

How do those who govern us see themselves?

When what we get from those who govern us is “Talking Points” and “Spin” how do we know what to believe?  I would suggest that what we can believe is facts.  Not “Spin”.  Not “Talking Points”.  Not fancy speech’s.  Reality.  Facts.

The “Troubled Asset Relief Program”  (T.A.R.P. for short), which began under the Bush administration,  was originally scheduled to be a $700,000,000,000.00 (700 Billion) program to “Save” the Banks and get them to start lending again.  A big chunk of this money seems to have disappeared;  maybe to the 15th Congressional District in Arizona?  And, the banks have tightened up on lending.

We were told (by the Obama administration)  that if we passed the $787,000,000,000.00 (787 Billion) Stimulus Bill that millions of new jobs would be created and unemployment would not rise above 8.5%.

By the governments own statistics the unemplyment rate is 10.2%.  This same government does not deny that there is another group that has given up looking for work and still another that is “under”employed, that is working either just part time or at jobs that pay much less than the jobs they were working at 6-18 months ago.  Total unemployment rate is somewhere in the 17+% range. 

I could go on with many more examples.  The question is:  Are they lying to themselves or are they lying to us? 

Another question:  How long will it take for our government to figure out that what they are doing is not working?  Its been tried before and it didn’t work and its being tried now and it is not working.  The first rule is: When you find yourself in a hole – stop digging!  You cannot borrow your way to prosperity! 

At some point the old addage comes to mind:  Lie to me once, shame on you!  Lie to me twice, shame on me!  What do I see when I look in the mirror?  Do I see the truth or only what I want to see?     -Bob

Living in California is a little like being trapped in an episode of The Simpsons.

I am specifically thinking of the episode in which the entire family went to Electric Shock Therapy at Doctor Marvin Monroe’s Family Therapy Center.  Each of them was given a button with which they could Zap another member of the family during the Therapy session.  Once started, they continued to Zap one another until they finally caused such a drain on the electrical grid that  the lights across the whole town started to flicker.

California is now like that.  A dysfuntional state that is in the process of Zapping itself into darkness.  Functional if not literal darkness.  Zap, lets solve our financial problems by laying off fire fighters and law enforment personal.  Zap, lets solve some more of our financial problems by releasing felons from prison.  Zap, lets solve this years financial woes by borrowing from future budgets.  Zap, more Regulations to drive business out of the State.   And, maybe my favorite:  zap, lets raise taxes so more people who pay taxes will leave the state.  Zap, Zap Zap —- The lights are starting to flicker.

When Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected Governor I think many of us Californians thought we had Conan the Barbarian riding to our rescue.  Certainly he would jump in, muscles rippling, crack some heads, slay the evil Serpent King Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) and we would all live in peace and prosperity.

But Conan had never met an enemy before quite like the Simpsons.  Little did we all suspect that we would see our hero morph into a kind of Conan the  Simpson.         

 Bob Bandy

Credits: The Simpsons 1994 – Theres No Disgrace Like Home – Matt Groening/Creator  Conan the Barbarian 1982 Directed by John Milius – Universal Pictures/20th Century Fox