DO THE MATH! You CAN'T "Lower Taxes. Raise Spending. Balance the Budget."
"I'll lower taxes, raise spending on the war, and balance the budget." John McCain.
It started with Ronald Reagan and his famous "Reagonomics," which was code for, "I'm going to tell you I can do the impossible, because that sounds so much better than telling you the truth, and that's what you want to hear anyway."
That's like me saying, "I'm not going to earn as much money, I'm going to spend more, and yet somehow I am going to magically make my budget balance at the end of the month.
How? HOW?
DO THE FREAKING MATH, PEOPLE!
Amazingly, no one bothered to ask how Reagan would do it. The press simply never asked the question so he didn't have to answer.
And the result--the largest deficit in history--until now, of course.
Then President Clinton managed to not only pay off this deficit in record time, but turn it into a surplus.
Then along comes yet another Republican who, in nearly the blink of an eye, not only burns through the surplus but plunges the country into a unprecedented, huge deficit that, as of July 2008, is approximately $31,000 PER PERSON. That's right -- because of George W. Bush and Dick W. Cheney and the Republican W. Pimps in the congress and senate, you and your children owe over $31,000--and that's just for the deficit!
Um, let's see, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO PAY IT OFF?
Huh?
It WILL come out of your pocket eventually.
The war debt alone is more than $10,000 PER PERSON!
Where will this money come from? Well, not from corporations, oh no, we can't tax them, that's bad for the economy! Gas companies, no, they're only making billions, that's not enough.
WTF?
By the way, the current national deficit is
9,528,997,575,696.25
I think that's a quadrillion, but it's so big I don't know, and so big none of us can envision that much. I can't even really envision a billion (a thousand million). But I can envision $31,000, I know what that will buy, and what you and I won't be able to buy as we have to spent it paying off George W. Bush's debt.
(See the National Debt Clock)
Friday, July 25, 2008
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Drugs and Oil
I think medicine has been in decline ever since insurance and drug companies took over.
Now they're talking about giving cholesterol lowering drugs to kids as young as 8. That's really, really sick. They have no idea of the long term implications on kids, yet they are happy to risk the lives of millions of children (who will become millions of adults with as now unknown ailments because of it).
Why? So they can sell more drugs. The insurance companies will pay the pharma companies and it ensures that we all need MORE insurance and drugs. I'm suspicious of all those drugs, since you can get Red Yeast Rice at any health food store, it has the same NATURAL chemicals in very low dose, which works fine. Even then, don't give it to kids. Jesus F. Christ on a cracker.
What's amazing is that we have managed to grow into reasonably healthy human beings without it, and wow, our parents did and they ate eggs and bacon every day. How is that possible?
Pixar's Wall-E presents a wonderful and sad vision of humans in the future--a vision that "nanny corporations" are working tirelessly to achieve. They want to turn us into Matrix-like beings that do nothing but consume and spend.
And they're doing a great job of preparing us for this future, one news bite at a time.
Yesterday regular gas cost $4.45 a gallon in Northern California.
And yet I found myself being grateful it wasn't $6. Why? Because in that one day I'd I heard three different people say they'd heard gas was going to $8 a gallon! This after the "gas is going to $7 a gallon" a month or so ago.
This is clearly all designed to make us grateful to pay $4.45 now, and $6 (or $7!) in a year, because at least it's not $8. How adaptable we are! How stupid we are!
And the citizens of this country, most of whom are more like farm animals than people, are just going, "Oh, well," instead of getting furious and screaming, "Those f-ing fascists Bush and Cheney are screwing the entire economy so their friends can suck up all our money!"
Do they not remember that gas was under $1.50 a gallon in 2000? That even after 9/11 when it jumped to $1.70, it went back down?
It's only after the concerted efforts of the Bush Fascists (and they are fascists--because fascists are corporate-run governments), starting a war on the oilfields *partly out of the insane stupidity of thinking they could take over Iraq's oil, and partly because it was their way to getting total power--look people, we're in a war!) that gas is the price it is.
And when it's $7 or $8 this country's lifestyle is going to change drastically. No more WalMart "Buy it cheap while we screw everyone!" (which is a little like those psychological tests where normally people off the street would give apparently lethal shocks to other people because they were told to--not caring who they hurt because they were following orders and getting theirs).
No more relatively cheap food (yes, a loaf of bread is now an amazing $4, but our parents complained about bread when it was a quarter, and overall I'd say food is cheaper based on the value of the dollar). No more cheap clothes and cheap everything from China--too expensive to process and ship.
A LOT of jobs lost, as people can't pay for luxuries and entertainment (except people at the top end). I've read that the first thing people cut out are restaurants, movies, clothes. We are now mostly a service economy and people will cut out the services. Great.
But gas companies will still be making billions--and getting billions in tax breaks at a time when we have McCain going the Reaganomics route of saying, "I'll lower taxes and keep the war going and balance the budget."
How? HOW? Do the freaking math people! No one bothered to ask how Reagan would do it and he created what was, at the time, a gigantic deficit. Now we have one so huge (the war debt alone is more than $10,000 PER PERSON), where will this money come from? Well, not from corporations, oh no, we can't tax them, that's bad for the economy! Gas companies, no, they're only making billions, that's not enough.
WTF?
OK, enough of all that. I know that China and India's increasing need for gas has a little something to do with, and that mostly, we're over peak oil and we can't continue on this way forever, so rising prices and lower consumption can be a very good thing.
But there were smart ways to do all this and literally insane and stupid ways of doing this, and we have allowed the insane and stupid to chart our course. Sigh
Now they're talking about giving cholesterol lowering drugs to kids as young as 8. That's really, really sick. They have no idea of the long term implications on kids, yet they are happy to risk the lives of millions of children (who will become millions of adults with as now unknown ailments because of it).
Why? So they can sell more drugs. The insurance companies will pay the pharma companies and it ensures that we all need MORE insurance and drugs. I'm suspicious of all those drugs, since you can get Red Yeast Rice at any health food store, it has the same NATURAL chemicals in very low dose, which works fine. Even then, don't give it to kids. Jesus F. Christ on a cracker.
What's amazing is that we have managed to grow into reasonably healthy human beings without it, and wow, our parents did and they ate eggs and bacon every day. How is that possible?
Pixar's Wall-E presents a wonderful and sad vision of humans in the future--a vision that "nanny corporations" are working tirelessly to achieve. They want to turn us into Matrix-like beings that do nothing but consume and spend.
And they're doing a great job of preparing us for this future, one news bite at a time.
Yesterday regular gas cost $4.45 a gallon in Northern California.
And yet I found myself being grateful it wasn't $6. Why? Because in that one day I'd I heard three different people say they'd heard gas was going to $8 a gallon! This after the "gas is going to $7 a gallon" a month or so ago.
This is clearly all designed to make us grateful to pay $4.45 now, and $6 (or $7!) in a year, because at least it's not $8. How adaptable we are! How stupid we are!
And the citizens of this country, most of whom are more like farm animals than people, are just going, "Oh, well," instead of getting furious and screaming, "Those f-ing fascists Bush and Cheney are screwing the entire economy so their friends can suck up all our money!"
Do they not remember that gas was under $1.50 a gallon in 2000? That even after 9/11 when it jumped to $1.70, it went back down?
It's only after the concerted efforts of the Bush Fascists (and they are fascists--because fascists are corporate-run governments), starting a war on the oilfields *partly out of the insane stupidity of thinking they could take over Iraq's oil, and partly because it was their way to getting total power--look people, we're in a war!) that gas is the price it is.
And when it's $7 or $8 this country's lifestyle is going to change drastically. No more WalMart "Buy it cheap while we screw everyone!" (which is a little like those psychological tests where normally people off the street would give apparently lethal shocks to other people because they were told to--not caring who they hurt because they were following orders and getting theirs).
No more relatively cheap food (yes, a loaf of bread is now an amazing $4, but our parents complained about bread when it was a quarter, and overall I'd say food is cheaper based on the value of the dollar). No more cheap clothes and cheap everything from China--too expensive to process and ship.
A LOT of jobs lost, as people can't pay for luxuries and entertainment (except people at the top end). I've read that the first thing people cut out are restaurants, movies, clothes. We are now mostly a service economy and people will cut out the services. Great.
But gas companies will still be making billions--and getting billions in tax breaks at a time when we have McCain going the Reaganomics route of saying, "I'll lower taxes and keep the war going and balance the budget."
How? HOW? Do the freaking math people! No one bothered to ask how Reagan would do it and he created what was, at the time, a gigantic deficit. Now we have one so huge (the war debt alone is more than $10,000 PER PERSON), where will this money come from? Well, not from corporations, oh no, we can't tax them, that's bad for the economy! Gas companies, no, they're only making billions, that's not enough.
WTF?
OK, enough of all that. I know that China and India's increasing need for gas has a little something to do with, and that mostly, we're over peak oil and we can't continue on this way forever, so rising prices and lower consumption can be a very good thing.
But there were smart ways to do all this and literally insane and stupid ways of doing this, and we have allowed the insane and stupid to chart our course. Sigh
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