Reagan's Dead for Good and What That Means for You.

Sure his mind left us long ago, and his body left us a few years ago, but outlasting both were his treacherous financial plans. Now as we all sit back and watch our investments fall, college graduates unable to find jobs to pay off their student loans, senior laborers calculate the increased number of years they will have to work if their 401k's don't turn around, and the newly unemployed wonder if they're going to make rent among hundreds of more dismal stories, we can take to optimism in the fact that the Reagan era is over.

Apparently the problem is, is that human nature causes us to be-live for the moment idiots. Otherwise why would we repeatedly allow ourselves to be duped into allowing for less controlled markets for temporary gain? Reagan certainly wasn't the first Head of State to masturbate to The Wealth of Nations and unfortunately will not be the last.

It certainly is hard to say no to great economic gain. The Internet bubble of the '90s made a lot of people phenomenal amounts of money. Unfortunately the fall afterward cost many of those same people most or all of that money back. The current bank situation is just another example of how, when allowed to, greed takes over good sense and lot of people get hurt.

The reason that these greedy bastards running the banks were willing to make such shaky business decisions is because they knew that in a “pinch” the government would step in to save them. The same expensive suit wearing, limousine riding, caviar eating assholes that have been touting free market capitalism knew that if their greed got out of control socialism would step in to protect their investment. Suddenly Socialism isn't such a bad word.

It is an atrocity that the American taxpayers are forced to bail out multi-billion dollar companies because they are unable to make good business decisions. Isn't that the reason that they have boards make financial decisions rather than singular people? A room full of well dressed, white businessmen weren't able to realize that giving loans to people who have no chance in hell of paying them back was a bad idea?

This of course isn't to take all of the attention off of idiot American who borrowed too much and can't pay it off. I sometimes wonder if maybe the term “adjustable rate” only rings a danger bell in my head. If you're taking out a fifteen year loan with an adjustable rate, wouldn't it seem likely that somewhere along the line the rate would increase creating a situation where you couldn't afford your premiums? In fifteen years?!

But alas we were left with the decision, very possible financial ruin or a $700,000,000,000 federal bailout. It was a complete necessity, a shameful necessity. Not one penny will be seen by the millions of common people suffering joblessness, homelessness, and 'furturlessness,' This bailout is set up only to help those that already have to much money and want more. Unfortunately the way the system is built, without them we all go down.

So the moral of the story is, we as Americans need to stop being short sighted idiots. Sure we might not see skyrocketing profits when we have a little extra socialism stirred into our economy but at least when the time comes for the cyclical downward slope of the economy it drops like a bunny hill and not like the Atom Bomb.

How is your 401k doing? Aren't you glad we didn't privatize Social Security yet?

Update: "The stock market's prolonged tumble has wiped out about $2 trillion in Americans' retirement savings in the past 15 months [401k], a blow that could force workers to stay on the job longer than planned, rein in spending and possibly further stall an economy reliant on consumer dollars, Congress's top budget analyst said yesterday."~Nancy Trejos, The Washington Post

Space Race Number Two, Even More Pointless to Me and You

Forty years after the U.S put a man on the moon it is now extremely important that we invest billions more into our space program in order to beat China there, says Buzz Aldrin the second man to set foot on the moon back in 1969 (article ). He further wishes to put more money into the NASA pocketbook in order to remove the five year gap in which they will not have a regular shuttle fleet to travel to and from the International space station. God forbid we had to rely on the commies....I mean the Russians.

Granted I was not alive in 1969 when the Apollo Shuttle landed on the moon so that romantic patriotic happening is nothing but a story to me, but that may just be why I can think about this situation a little more clearly than Mr. Aldrin. During the cold war the American people were built up beyond any sense that we had to beat the Soviets at everything, we were brought down as a country into the world of grade school playground competition.

Now its 2008, there is no sane person or country in the world that would argue that the U.S is the most powerful nation in the world, but yet we still feel the need to prove our preeminence by re-beating China to the Moon.

Who cares if Russia, China, Japan or any other country in the world makes leaps into space exploration? Isn't that a good thing? Isn't it about time that more and different minds started to figure out the questions of the universe? Would working together on international science projects not bring the people of the world a little bit closer?

When the over zealous finger on the button Americans see China making efforts to gain a foothold on space they immediately connect it with an attempt at military supremacy. It's as if there is an instantaneous flashback to the cold war. Fortunately, the world has changed a lot since 1969, at the time the United State's communist witch hunt was tearing the world apart. Now in 2008 the majority of the world has a different attitude in which countries are trying their best to get along and compromise rather than wage war (At least theoretically, in practice, eh we're working on it). This isn't a time for space race number two, this is a time when space ready countries should be working together to further science more quickly and efficiently.

I say efficiently because this is yet another point that must be brought up about the space program. This is not to say that there have not been scientific discoveries directly attributable to the space program, but it seems for the amount of money that is poured into NASA much more should be expected. Sure, with 300 years of funding we may be able to move to a distant planet when we destroy our own. Unfortunately, at the rate we are going this one won't make it that long. Maybe saving the planet we're on should be just one of the things that we should more thoughtfully invest our money in, rather than making a command post on the moon. Poverty, health insurance, disease, starvation, pollution and global warming are just a few of the things that come to mind as being more important than an elitist's ability to go on an “Out of this world!” vacation and stay on the moon.

So Mr. Aldrin although I recognize the romance in what you are saying, it is time that we re-think and re-organize our space program, turn competition in cooperation and see if we can't further some science and save some people at the same time.

Hi My Name is Minority and I've Been Under-appreciated for Too Long...

I vote. It doesn't count. Why should I bother? What I mean by this is when elections are being out and out stolen by political parties such as that little incident in 2000 my vote continues to have no significance. In 2004 I stupidly voted for Kerry, I had no interest in the guy, he's nearly as stupid as Bush but my fears of the splitting the liberal vote and giving the election to Bush won me over and I voted democrat. I forgot about that one little point however that the state of New York has been voting democrat for years and will for years, so it doesn't matter whom I vote for, my vote is already cast for me. That's great, you know how that voting thing is supposed to make me feel empowered and all-american? It doesn't.

You see neither presidential choice will ever excite me because in order to get a freaking majority vote under this democratic system you have to be so close to the center that you can't tell who you're voting for. I'm sure a good chunk of the country would feel this way, and would probably vote for politicians other than the Democrat and Republican if they felt they had the choice. How many times have you heard, "That's just throwing your vote away?" Is that right, should you be forced to vote for someone that you don't want to rule your own republic and represent your country in the global world? It seems a sham to me, I know that I will never be in this "majority" (quotations because I kind of just said that I don't believe that it really exists) therefore at times I feel as though my government is pulling me around, much like its tyrannical. I can voice my opinion all day just like J.S Mill tells me I must do as the minority, but I will be lucky if I can change one mind on one issue. Sure social change has occurred but only after exhaustive efforts have been put out by the minority. It seems as though at some points that the giving in of the majority just occurred when it was good and ready to do so. Should it really have taken thousands and thousands of protesters to end legalized segregation? Shouldn't it have just struck us as wrong right away? It seems so obviously wrong now but it was a tireless effort of a minority just to get an institution ended that was blatantly against the constitution.

So we have this government that we all seem to be slaves to, with limited choice of who we want to rule over us and all. We choose the representative that doesn't seem to suck so fucking much as the other and they make all of our decisions for us. These people then extract money from us that they use to fund all the programs that they choose with very little oversight by us as the donors of the said funds. Sadly all governmental action can be traced back to money, without money the government can't do anything. Money is truly the root of all evil but if put to a proper use can be the root of at least some goodness. It has been said that money can't buy you happiness, that seems true. In a governmental standpoint however happiness isn't the end that we are looking for. The democratic government was put in place for the sole reason of giving its citizens the options that they can not give themselves. In essence beyond the life of cave dwelling, human beings are not self-sufficient. Governments set up by the people allow for the regulation of building, transportation, etc. we all know what the government does, and all of these services help keep us in cooperation within the borders of our country.

Beyond the services that are provided to us it should be obvious that the government could be doing other things for us that they are not, and could do so without stepping over the borders of privacy that we (for good reason I think) hold dearly. Many of these services are constantly being brought to the forefront of political discussion including universal health care, welfare reform, increased funding of primary and secondary schooling. These systems however seem to be pushed aside without much attention being applied at all. Privately it seems that the people in power are probably laughing at our meager attempts at getting our money distributed in the way that we want.

The point that I have been trying to make, using far to many words is that this republic style voting is never going to be fair. Possibly if there was a chance of 10 or 20 candidates for each election it would be more fair but they would seemingly all be about as far apart politically as the two that we have now. It seems that we would be better off voting for the tool of these politicians we must half-heartedly put into office. This tool is of course as I said before money, money is the single most important tool to any politician. If we as citizens could just gain control of where we wanted our tax money to be spent we would enormously increase our power as democratic citizens. Voting could be completed after the general elections in which each citizen gave their input for each of the taxes that they pay (local, state, federal) as to what proportions they wanted where. It would be an enormous undertaking to figure out the percentages in the end, but would it not be worth it in order voice your own opinion on the country and the world rather than the person's whom you voted for?

This system would of course not be perfect, in a perfect system everyone would be satisfied but unfortunately at least with current knowledge that is impossible. It does however bring up the power of the minority and allow it a loader voice than that of a single speaker on a soap box or as this new generation seems to take....blogs....

All of this talk of money really does make me sick though, you know?

Don't get sick, capitalism says you can suck its left nut.

The other day I was blessed with an infection in my eye. I can't say enough that I am glad that I still get health insurance from my parents. I do feel horrible however about the poor bastards that don't have it, and worried as I only have a couple years before I have to get my own. Health care in this country is so fucked up, I know I've said it before but this infection was a prime example of how capitalism is killing the American people. The doctor I saw prescribed to me medicated eye drops, two tiny little bottles of medicated eye drops 5 milliliters a piece. The grand total for these pieces of crap that in the end did no more than saline solution...$168. I can't even imagine if this was actually a medicine that I absolutely needed and didn't have insurance. I decided to crunch the numbers to find out how ridiculous this price actually was. At $168 that is $16.80 per milliliter, put into terms of 20oz mountain dews thats a $9,928.80 bottle. Somebody is making too much money and it is making my brain bleed. It goes like this folks, the pharmaceuticals raise there prices, so the insurance companies raise their rates, so employers drop their policies and the employees have to pay for the full prices of medicine, or they die. Greed doesn't work for everyone, there's always a losing side, and they have children that need to eat too.

I've heard the argument over and over about why America's capitalist economy is the best system that there could ever be. Unfortunately I must be dumb or something because I can not for the life of me understand how that could be. If its so high and mighty why is it that some people don't have to ever use the same toilet for 2 shits in a row but other people can't afford to eat? It's not that the poor person isn't working as hard, they're actually probably working much harder. So how is it justified that the basic principle of capitalism, that you earn more money the harder you work, doesn't even begin to work out?

My oh so favorite quote as for why capitalism is the best will always be that “it is the best economic method because it uses people's inner most pull, greed.” I was told by my high school economics teacher that greed rules the world, and without it humans would still be living in caves. I can't argue with that, but at the same time I think its important to point out that if we didn't also have the ability to control our greed we would still be eating our young. Greed might very well be a central part of our minds as humans but we have also evolved quite a ways since our caveman days. Just like the Geico commercials point out, cavemen are stupid, should we really be basing the system that allows us get food and medicine on a cavemanian way of life? Do you think maybe we should be looking to evolve a little bit, maybe towards not allowing the children of our human race to starve? I'm not to keen on competing for anything, especially when its resources that sustain the lives of people. There's is plenty to go around if we can just learn to share.

Sharing and Caring it can be fun.