Good Deeds Punished

Are we a Nation of Nitwits? Or am I just stuck spending time with the wrong sorts?

These are the questions I ponder as I listen to the folks I meet throughout my days who feel quite comfortable in sharing snarky political opinions about President Obama. These folks really don't like Obama. And why should they? Him being a big government Socialist who caused the Great Recession and all. Except of course for those days when he is being a big government Fascist who caused the Great Recession. Or those days when he is a big government Muslim . . . well, you get the idea.

So Clever!

Yesterday's experience was pretty typical. I was dealing with an elderly couple who were, of all things, refinancing their home mortgage. They were very old to be doing this, which brings to mind a few questions about personal responsibility and the virtue of thrift. But, thanks to Fannie Mae, such concerns can be set aside because our federal government has allowed folks like them to get a brand new mortgage loan on their home at 4.5% interest, which they are scheduled to payoff in full at the age of 114.

No wonder they have such negative feelings about the government.

These folks are supported by government welfare payments called Old Age Insurance Benefits or Retirement Insurance Benefits. This "insurance" apparently is designed to provide protection against the risk of becoming old or becoming retired. Go figure.

Old Age Benefits come from the federal government's Social Security Administration, which sounds suspiciously socialist to me. So we can all understand why these oldsters would be hostile to these Big Government programs. And much to what I am sure is their chagrin, the oldsters are also forced to get socialized medical insurance through Medicare, yet another government scheme to destroy Capitalism and redistribute wealth.

With all of this government intrusion into their lives, no wonder they feel resentful about it.

Of course like most of the folks I deal with who are over 65, they wanted to know if they needed to renew their exemption from paying school taxes. That's right, here in Georgia schools are funded through property taxes. But if you are over 65, you are exempt from this. This may seem shameful to people who care about things like children, or their country, but it was the only way that the people of Georgia who do care about education could get the oldsters to vote to fund the schools. It was a deal.

As one elder put it to me, "We want to make sure we get that exemption, especially since our kids are out of school now." Of course this is a perfectly sensible and self interested view. If you assume that self interest is perfectly sensible.

This is the Republican Party view of good democracy in a Capitalist America. If everybody votes for their own self interest, then that will translate into better results for all of us, and the country as a whole. It seems to sound OK. The fact that it doesn't really work, and that we all really know this, hasn't dampened our collective enthusiasm for repeating it as a sort of conservative mantra.

Like the senior citizens I met yesterday, most of the old folks I deal with don't like President Obama. Maybe because I'm a middle aged white guy, they assume I share their "Fox & Friends" worldview, and they feel free to share the Fox-ignorant-talking-point-of-the-day with me. Usually I say something non-committal, like, "We'll see what happens" or "I hadn't heard that." There really isn't much that can be said that would make a difference. Folks like this don't do much actual thinking for themselves. They listen to what fits into the established mail slots of their brains, and things that don't fit simply don't register, and fall by the wayside. They sit in front of their televisions nodding along with Glen Beck and sharing his frustration at how the federal government and unions and liberals are ruining the country, in complete self-denial that they themselves are living on the dole.

"Fair & Balanced" - and Friendly!

But of course the real frustration on my side of the fence is that they are us. These are Americans. It is embarrassing to realize that this is true. Their muddled mind mush of beliefs that our country was founded on principles of Capitalism, but also Christianity, while failing to take note of the inherent conflicts this implies, or what this means to us today, really brings up the word "stupid." That all of these folks at the bottom of the economic food chain love Capitalism so much is testament to the power of repeated suggestion. I doubt whether 99% of these folks know a true capitalist who would accept their call. And I doubt whether half of them actually know what a capitalist is.

So how do Fox and Rush and Hannity get away with selling such obvious baloney to our citizens? And why are we as a people still so gullible in such large numbers? Here's one explanation from a long ago anti-communist that still rings true,

". . . because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying."

Karl Rove could not have said it better.

For a better written take on Fox News, check out an interesting take by Deepak Chopra by clicking HERE.

Coming Back to Normalcy

FEELING BETTER BUT GRUMPY

Miscellanous Idiotic Ravings

Like a lot of folks, I've been busy freaking out about the recession. Like totally, as the kids say.

But lately, as the Dow Jones indexes go back up without me, many of us seem to share a feeling that things are at least stabilizing, even if they are not actually getting better. My brain doesn't really believe this, that things are stabilizing, because there is too much quantitative evidence that, economics-wise, we are maybe not even half way down the cliff yet. But my heart is feeling less panic, and so I want to make this positive feeling real by giving it a name. And so does everyone on the tv financial channels. I'm going with "stabilization." The tv people are going with "recovery." But of course, we are all just fooling ourselves to varying degrees.

So why feeling better? The USA lost half a million jobs last month. For anyone who doesn't know, that's a really really lot. But it is less than we've lost in a single month compared to the prior six months. (Maybe more. As I said, I've been busy.) So, the question is begged: is this good news?

Well, maybe. Maybe losing these jobs is like losing weight when you're sick, and we had too much fat in our banking and retail and carmaking booties anyway, so shedding these jobs is like shedding unhealthy excess mass so our body economic can use it's calories to build muscular work forces in green tech and health care and education and other long neglected systems. So maybe the recession is like a rough fever that will burn out the sicknesses that plague us.

Or, maybe losing these jobs is like losing blood and we are running out of life force, and our economy will begin a domino-like series of system failures as the inability of different segments to pay their bills leads to further weakening of other markets, until we are all in an economic coma wondering why we ever thought money was worth any more than the paper it's printed on. And even though I'm kind of curious about how that scenario might turn out, I don't think anybody who's not a crazed western hating Muslim wants to risk it for a real tryout. So we are all crossing our fingers real hard and hoping that our houses will somehow become overvalued again. Because that paper money value is real. It really really is. It just has to be. And someday if we hold on long enough it will all come back.

But I am just tired of worrying about it. So screw it. I'm done worrying about money and the news and the daily issues of worry. Whatever happens I'll just have to find a way to keep my family just fine. What can happen? The Taliban takes over Pakistan . . . , so what? It's Pakistan! All the smart people who were there moved here to manage gas stations and not clean the restrooms. I'll bet their nukes don't even work anymore.

What other bad things might happen? Gay marriage? All the homos get married and become DINK's. Sales of hybrids go sky high, and William Sonoma rakes it in. Florida condominium sales stage a huge comeback as Judith Martin is crowned Queen of Miami Beach. Iowa, Vermont, Maine, and Massachusetts declare that only Subarus are allowed in the carpool lanes. Wolves will dwell with wolves and leopards will lie down with leopards. The Great Plaid Debate rages on Sunday morning tv. Who are the idiots who are worried about that?

Chrysler and GM go bankrupt and consumers might stop buying their cars. Guess what? We've been slowly stopping buying their cars for years. Know why? Their cars suck. Even the people who buy them know it. They just buy them because they're cheap. Every time I buy an "American" car I regret it. But if a Tahoe costs $10,000 less than a Land Cruiser, then I'll be giving it some serious thought. The carmakers going bankrupt won't make a dime's worth of difference to consumers. Their cars will still suck, but some people will still buy them because they are cheap.

Budget deficits. Obama's a socialist. Terrorists are bad. Wall Street is greedy. China is big. Manny's on steroids. And the Asian kids are taking all of the Ivy League spots.

Oh noooooooooo!

So, what to do in times like this? One thing I've started doing is really more like stopping. I've stopped paying so much attention to the news. Oh I know things are happening all the time. But stop paying attention all of the time and it just doesn't seem like it matters very much. It's like being away for a few months and coming back and seeing tv again. It all seems pretty silly what folks are in an uproar about. You can get the same effect by simply turning off the tv for a week, then watching Fox. The ridiculousness of it all suddenly becomes striking. Glen Beck? O'Reilly? Sean Hannity? For Pete's sake.

So, in response to the recession I've stopped losing money as much as I can and started doing odd jobs for cash. In my particular professional parlance this picking up of available work is called "practicing law." But as a business model it's pretty similar to plumbing or housebuilding. All the jobs are temporary and last as long as you're needed. And you might not get paid if you're not careful. So far I've managed to keep paying the bills, but work is harder to find than it used to be. And I'm getting pretty bored.

It's not just me. Lot's of guys my age (a youthful beginning of middle age) are re-engineering their careers to find some way to make some money in this climate. And most of us are pretty happy to be making less than we used to as long as we are making anything. This makes talking to people who have been largely unaffected by the recession an annoying undertaking. These are people who have regular jobs. They "have talked to lots of guys who are struggling." Stupid job people.

I kind of wish I had a job. But then I think about how it would totally screw up my vacation habits. I like to go on vacation when I want. In my family, we go on pretty standard vacations. Nothing too fancy. But we go fairly often. We like vacations. So we go. But not now.

Now summer is here and like most of America, where we live has pretty much all the amenities of any vacation spot. That's one of the reasons why we moved here. We like it here. It looks like it's going to be a nice summer here at home for this typical American family. And I am really looking forward to it. Just a regular low stress summer at home. Beer and burgers on the grill in the backyard. Yeah, Baby.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter!