Friday, December 21, 2012

It's The End of the World (as we know it)

But not because of the Mayan Apocalypse.

As I said over and over, what happens isn't the end of the world, it's just the end of the calendar.  So everybody just settle down.  Now we turn the Mayan pyramid over and start back at the beginning of the calendar, no problemo.

But in other news, Speaker of the House John Boehner's own so-called "Plan B," the counterproposal from Boehner's own mind to Obama's assorted proposals to fend off the upcoming "fiscal cliff," never racked up enough support to even go to the floor for a vote.  It was, in effect, stillborn.

A couple of interesting things come out of this.  First, it sharply undermines Boehner's stock in Congress.  If a challenger shows up to unseat him, he'll really wish he hadn't stuck his neck out quite so far with this Plan B.  Secondly and this is probably a lot more important, it leaves the ball flat in the Republicans' court.  Not only did their golden boy's proposal not gain any traction, but it was the Republicans themselves who let it fail.

So all the teeth-gnashing conservatives out there can rant and rave and rail against that bleeding-heart liberal, socialistic commie wannabee Obama all they like, they can froth and fume at how the liberal Democrats are ruining the country, but at least the Democrats aren't doing it by squabbling amongst themselves.  We're, you know, trying to help.  Meanwhile, the Republicans are bickering amongst themselves: one faction of the Republican party is saying, "we can allow the severely rich to hoist a slightly heavier load because they don't have to wait for sales at the grocery store," while the other faction is saying, "no, we don't need to raise their taxes any higher than they already are, not even for the people who make more than twice as much as the severely rich."  In that impasse is where Plan B crashed, burned, and embarrassed John Boehner.

Frankly I'm pretty disgusted at all of them.  Social Security should be rolled back a little bit.  Not much, just a little.

There are too damned many people receiving food stamps, and many people who do receive them are doing it fraudulently.  Get those people under control and you start saving a lot of money right there.

Encourage people to settle for lower wages, working at an assembly line, doing things that aren't exciting or especially engaging.  Having a job - any job - is a good thing.  Paying your own way for what you eat, where you live and what you want in your off time, that's a good thing.  Get off your butts, Americans.  Get back to work.  Sick and tired of seeing everything that passes through your hands being made in China?  Well, whose fault is that?

You don't deserve $10, $20, $30 per hour.  Nobody deserves anything.  And for doing a job that could as easily be done by a robot, you'd better be thrilled to get the job at all, at any wage.  Suck it up, get to work.  Pay your own bills.

Pay the taxes on the wages you earn.  Be willing to pay a little more.  If it means you have to eat a little bit less for a few weeks, well, 30% of Americans are obese, we could afford to lose the weight.  Take the job, pay the taxes, work a full, healthy life and continue paying into Social Security so you can expect a little support in your sunset years.  Suck it up.

This country needs a paradigm change.  The Fiscal Cliff is an opportunity for the short, sharp shock that people need, to make them aware that the way they've been living, the expectations they've had, are unrealistic and unsupportable.

The time has come for a whole new world.  Let the old one die.

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