Debt Ceiling

Today the US House of Representatives voted not to raise the debt ceiling for the country. This bill had no riders or adjustments requiring that such and such happen. It was clean. And it got voted down by all the Republicans and a good number of Democrats.

This vote meant nothing, really. It was political in nature so Republicans can campaign on the raising of the debt ceiling in 2012. Fine. It's gotcha politics and Democrats did it with Paul Ryan's medicare killing budget by making the Republicans vote for it.

The thing that I find irksome is the fact that the debt ceiling has to be raised and everyone knows it but they are willing to play games with the economy. Not just the US economy, but the world economy. Republicans want spending cuts or they won't vote for anything, and it can't raise taxes. Are they fucking kidding me? Who taught them math?

OK. Here's a small demonstration of economics as I understand them.

Say hypothetically my bills are $3000 a month to live. Rent, food, car, everything. I make $2000 a month. Every month I am $1000 short of my obligations. With Republican thinking I need to cut spending. Ok. So I am able to cut spending $500 a month, but that is it. More than that and I don't eat. That makes me now $500 short every month. I could live with being in the hole $500 a month, but that is a bad thing. Wouldn't the smart thing to do be to raise revenue? Get a second job to cover the $500 a month I need to live? Yup.

Second Republican scenario, same numbers. $3000 a month expenses, $2000 a month income. Working the same cost cutting, we get down to $2500 a month expenses. But in the cost cutting, you also get less revenue because you gave tax breaks to the wealthiest 1%. So less revenue. It would be like cutting spending to $2500, and cutting revenue (income) to $1750.

Who taught the Republicans math? You may need to cut spending, but you also need to generate income. i.e. TAXES. It's a simple fact. If you think ideology will save you, you are a fool. Numbers don't care about ideology. And the Republicans were fools for signing a pledge to never raise taxes or eliminate loopholes that would be considered a raising of taxes. Sometimes you need to raise taxes. To fight back at the one man who had them sign such a silly pledge they should all rise up as a group and do what is right for the economy, the country and the people who hired them. The voters. Funny thing, though. When Bush was in the White House, the Republicans raised the debt ceiling 19 times. 19.

Too bad voters will fight against what is good for them because they believe one side of the equation without ever looking at the other side. But it's human nature to talk and listen to the side of the argument you like...

Last Man Camping

One last thought on Harold Camping.

He said that Saturday the 21st was a "spiritual rapture." Now, he had to say something, however this makes no sense. The Rapture is where people are bodily taken to heaven. So a spiritual rapture is where, what, the soul is taken to heaven? Their bodies are still here walking and talking and eating.

So Camping and his followers have no souls? Does that mean they are zombies? Or vampires? Or some kind of undead? Undead Christians? Hmmmm...

I need just a bit more clarification...

Triple Down, Mr Camping

Ok. So Harold Camping is a bit off. He's pushed the Rapture until October 21, 2011.

Got that? It's just delayed a little bit. He's not vamping because he was WRONG.

Math is just so tricky. Especially biblical math. I mean, there's all those numbers and stuff. And then there's the Bible Code which you make numbers out of the words in the bible. And then there's just plain bullshit. That's what guys like this come up with. He's got a little Doomsday cult going on. He's not deluded in the same way as Jim Jones, or the Hale Bopp comet folks who poisoned themselves. But they are just as deluded as those people.

I would like to hear an interview with one of his followers now that he has tripled down on this bet. This end of the world bet. Are they still along for the ride? And if so, WHY?

It's 5 months away, so now we will have to live thru the same thing again. This Harold Camping is 89 years old. I don't want him to die before October 21st. That would be cheating. I'm sorry, but this fucker needs to be proven wrong again so no one will ever listen to his bullshit prognostications. He needs to see that he is wrong. Again. And then I'd like an apology to the world for this foolishness.

Is that too much to ask for?

Camping Gone

Harold Camping predicted the end of the world. He was sincere in his belief and in his calculations.

And he was wrong.

But so have the others who have been predicting the end of the world for over 1900 years. This must be a devastating blow to him. But it's more of a blow to the people who believed what he preached and planned to get rid of all their worldly goods by May 21st. They are now homeless and without jobs I imagine.

Supposedly 1/3 of them will lose faith in the person who preached it. 1/3 will have stronger faith in the doomsday prediction, but not know when it will happen. And 1/3 will be in the middle. If it was me, I'd bang on that guy's door and want reimbursement for the money I had gotten rid of following the charlatan. And then I'd never buy into a load of shit like that again.

Predicting the end of the world is a good business for charlatans. But if you are selling that load of crap to your flock, you never pick a date. Because that would be the end of the gravy train. This is the reason I think he believed his own prophecy. If he was just in it to make money, he would never pick a date. Everyone else who has picked a date in the past has been wrong.

In a history class in college I learned that people generally stopped building large things around 950 AD because the church said that Christ was coming back after 1000 years. 900 had already passed, so why work on a large multi year project? So big things stopped. Around 1050 they started building things again because, well, Christ was late, and you need to build stuff.

With interest I watched the news yesterday to see if there was a wave of earthquakes circling the globe. Nope. There was a quake in New Zealand. Probably a aftershock of the one that hit Christchurch a couple months back. And a small one near San Francisco. But if you look, there are small quakes all over the globe every day. Oh, a volcano in Iceland erupted. But no end of the world. How disappointing must that be? If you put all your stock in something like that and then it doesn't happen?

Luckily, I don't think the world will end that way. It will be in maybe a few billion years when the sun is old and expands to gobble up the solar system. Or an asteroid hits like the event that killed the dinosaurs. It ain't gonna be Christ coming back.

But if it is him, try to look busy.

Dub

Last week I was working a job in Las Vegas where the former 43rd President spoke. It was a hedge fund conference. So the place was jam packed with republicans. As a democrat, I watched the crowd as they went nuts for this president that jacked the economy, started an unnecessary war, and thought torture was a good thing.

I must admit there was electricity in the air. But that might have been attributed to the secret service and the bomb sniffing dogs and all the anticipation. The funny thing to me was there was a billionaire I'd never heard of who had much more secret service protection than the former president. But really, after they are out of office, they really don't raise the ire and hate like a sitting president does. They are a footnote in history. All their mistakes are done, for better or worse.

I saw him walk in. He was a good old boy. Joking and the life of the party. I watched him speak on a closed circuit tv. He spun history and current events the way he saw it. And in a roomful of republicans who are paying me to do a job, I just kept my mouth shut. BTW, fraking does pollute the water table. Ask the woman who can light her tap water on fire.

But hearing him speak in a relaxed setting did nothing to change my opinion of him or the job he did in office. He seemed just as unengaged and incurious as he did while running the country. His attempts at humor fell flat for me, but I'm not one of his ilk.

So I wish him well. I was not cleared to shake his hand and have my picture taken with him. I was not given the option. And I wouldn't have done it other than to put it on FB and make a snarky comment. The world doesn't need more snark from me. There is enough.

Ballsy

A friend of mine is contemplating a move.

A pretty ballsy move.

To Spain. Or New Zealand, Or Australia, Or South Africa. Somewhere other than America.

Part of it is for a change. Part of it is for economic reasons and the high cost of college for their child in the USA.

I do understand the urge. I have thought of never coming back from some of my travels. The world is a big place and it begs to be explored. In Australia when I was on a dive boat on the Great Barrier Reef, I thought to myself; 1. This might be a very expensive hobby, 2. Wouldn’t it be fun to do this forever? 3. I love the dive mistress.

Obviously I didn’t run away and join a dive boat or marry an Australian girl, but I thought about it. For something that is so cool and everyday being a different adventure, I could give up the acting bug.

People (Americans especially) get trapped in life and stuck in a job and don’t really see the possibilities that are out there. The "American Dream" is to work for one company for 40 years, have 2 weeks of vacation every year, retire, and then go fishing until you die. The world doesn't work like that any longer. You might have multiple careers or many jobs at the same time.

Europeans seem to have a different view of things. They work to live. Not live to work. They have 4-6 weeks of vacation a year. After college they might take months or a year off to travel before figuring out work and jobs. When I travel I meet people from all over the world. Some of the ones who impressed me are the ones who travel for months to years at a time. They are out of school and seeing the world. I met a German guy who had been out there for over a year traveling, and working odd jobs. When he had money to go to the next place, he did. Now my American brain had an objective to the traveling I did. I had places to go and things to see. So I was out for 3 weeks but with a plan. To go and not know what was next is something that never really crossed my mind. My travel plan is structured improvisation.

But if you go to a new country and get a job doing whatever, aren’t you just living a life in another place? Got to live somewhere and somehow, though. I met someone years ago who wasn’t happy. She had a good job in Phoenix, but her dream was Seattle. She was going to go to Seattle. And that would make her happy. I didn't ask what about living in Seattle would make her happy. She would be the same person in a new place. It was the thought, the dream of Seattle that gave her hope. I guess humans need hope. Or religion or something to make the chaos and uncertainty of life make sense.

Sometimes you need to go somewhere to find what is in yourself. And you always got to do what is best for the family.

Ego Partis Proinde Ego Sum

I share therefore I am.

Which is a paraphrase of Rene Descartes and "Cognito Ergo Sum."

At the Global Economic Conference this year at the Beverly Hilton I heard a panel about technology, multi-tasking, and how the internet is making people stupid. The panelists were researchers dealing with various studies. Most involving kids anywhere from 8 to college age.

They talked about how people are hyper-connected to each other thru many devices and various social and business networks. This tendency to over communicate is having an effect on kids today. Kids are constantly communicating but they are not connecting. I've seen kids texting each other as they sit a a room together. But for all the communication, they don't know how to read a person's face as they deal with them one on one. They lack the empathy training which you learn as you grow up talking to people and seeing how they react to what you are saying. By bypassing this personal connection kids are missing the visible cues that are part of human relationships.

One researcher studied college kids in a dorm. They were asked about the interactions they had with a person on their same floor. He asked them if they have a question for someone down the hall why they texted instead of getting up and going down the hall and knocking on the door. There were a number of reasons they preferred texting.

1. They don't have to engage in any social pleasantries. "Hi. How's it going? Can I ask you a question?" They can get straight to the question.

2. What if they are not in their room? They just spent all that energy to get up and go down the hall. What if they are not in? They feel rejection if no one answers the door.

3. What if they say "No"? It's a rejection again, but to their face and that would make them feel bad.

Kids also equate technology as part of an emotional event. They feel an emotion and they are driven to share it via text or tweet or FB post. They don't necessarily know how to deal with an emotion they are feeling without sharing it. The feeling of an emotion is now tied into relaying the thought. They have a thought or feeling and have a need to share it to get validation for thinking or feeling it. So without the sharing, does the emotion really happen for them? Does the urge to share go part and parcel with the feeling?

By being so connected the kids are never truly alone. Friends are a keystroke away. If you don't teach kids how to be alone, they only know how to be lonely.

Now I got to go share this blog on some social media...

Osama Bin Ladin

IS DEAD!

FUCK YEAH!

I want to go watch Team America: World Police just for the America, Fuck Yeah! song now.