Marty's Bon Mots (Selections found in: Glad You Asked)

Economic Insensitivity

After having exercised a certain level of introspection and a general connecting of the dots I find it of no surprise that we find ourselves in the economic quagmire of the day.

I was witness to several incidents which had occurred over the last few days serving as both microcosms of our American existence while serving as an explanation of the embarrassing economic debacle being performed on a world stage.

One incident is indicative of several observed at least twice on a daily basis. To drive on a daily basis, at least where I drive, is to regularly observe selfishness, stupidity and bad judgment. For example, there I was, attempting in vain yet again to behave like a good citizen and provide input to our local re-cycling center. Upon my return I was confronted with another individual wanting to exercise the same privileges. Separating the south bound driving populace from the re-cycling center is a double yellow line. I was driving northbound. The approaching individual thought absolutely nothing about cutting me off by turning left across the double yellow line, mandating, as a matter of course, that I stand on my brakes, screech and smoke tires and narrowly miss caving in his passenger door and my front end. I, of course, left my Epictetus-like inclinations towards my hindmost and replaced said inclinations with loudly decibeled rude utterances and even more vile hand gestures. These were returned with a mere shrug of the shoulder by our transgressor. Bottom line: he could not have cared less who he inconvenienced or how his behavior was received. He had a mission, and the rest of the world could go screw.

Then, of course, was my Saturday night. I play classical guitar at a local restaurant. These guys have double booked me once where I walked in with my gear on a Saturday night only to find a young gentleman strumming chords and singing Jim Croce songs whilst seated in my designated performance place. Since my weekend planning, and those of my wife, need to take into consideration this bit of social scheduling, our Saturday evening was replaced with our spending time together and dining at a local pizza joint.

Let me regroup here. I know this may sound as though I do not enjoy my wife’s company or our local pizza joint. This is quite the opposite. I love my wife dearly and I relish our time together, even if it might be spent in non verbal proximity. The pizza place is pretty good, too.

But, and the fact remains, this bit of incompetent scheduling threw the proverbial spanner in the works insofar as our weekend was concerned.

To be fair, the place acknowledged their role in the mishap and, the next time I played there, they comped my wife and our friend their respective dinners as a means of retribution and good faith.

And so I sojourned out yet again on another Saturday night. As I drove in, I noted the marked and profound dearth of automobiles in a parking lot that I would normally have to scout in order to find a suitable parking arrangement. Cleverly, I found myself speaking to myself yet again. “This can’t be good.” I had run across this incident once before where I went to play at an establishment where I was so scheduled. The parking spaces were empty, and the establishment was dark. That place, as it turned out, went belly up, and no one was notified. And with this in mind I approached the locked door and discovered a message advising that the entire staff was attending a wedding.

So the place was not out of business. That was the silver lining. When I was double-booked about a month previously, I was genuinely pissed. On this occasion, I found myself disappointed. I was disappointed over the fact that I was not notified. In my mind, if you’re not going to be able to follow through, you advise the necessary parties of the issue at hand. My disappointment was focused around the incompetence and lack of general consideration for those affected by this.

And I have seen these minor occurrences in my negligible existence as indicative of larger and more substantial indiciae of carryings on within the realm of high state.

And it is with this that I see posturings of John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Barack Obama, Mitch McConnell, Harry Reid, Joe Biden and the talking heads who so enjoy pontificating with no regard to the bile projectiling from their selfish, evil, egocentric faces.

These guys take the attitude of the guy crossing the double line to a greater and more intensive stratosphere of piggishness and self righteousness.

They do not care about you. They do not care about the double yellow line. They are unheeding of your weekends, your time, your money, your income, your livelihood. What is important to them, is their posturing, their ability to fund raise, to get re-elected, to walk in the lime light.

In short, our representatives care only for their agenda, not their respective constituents’ representation.

After all, what will it do to them if the United States’ bond ratings are lowered, or if there is no money to pay out benefits or social security. They’re rich. They’ll be fine. What do they care?

I suppose what is worse is the downright stupid economy lessons they have so obviously and so successfully jammed down the throats of our teeming masses’ throats.

Cut taxes and inexplicably, government revenue rises. Do you believe this? I don’t. Has anyone seen this occur anywhere, in any civilization? I haven’t read of such a thing. Give money to the wealthy and jobs will be created. Do you really believe this? Reagan attempted to foist that on the great unwashed during his Presidency. ‘Trickle-down’ theory. Remember that? No? Look it up. As you may or may not recall, the trickle-down theory is explained roughly as follows: Rich people win big, the crumbs will fall off and the little people will benefit, too.

Turned out that this theory, like all the other nonsensical bits of whimsy and drek attempted, was just so much hooey, as usual. When the rich get money, they keep it. And why not? If someone gave you money, wouldn’t you keep it? Of course. This isn’t really being selfish or stupid. The theory is selfish and stupid. Do you really in a half a minute think that a business creates a job merely because there happens to be extra bread lying around? Hell no! Let me explain or reiterate something pretty basic in business. A business hires someone, not because they have the cash to do so. An individual is hired to do a job because the business needs that individual to provide goods and services to the business’ customers. Without the individual doing the work, the goods and services do not become available and the customers go elsewhere. Yes, yes. I know. It’s not necessarily that simple. Yes, yes. There are certain incentives the government provides in hiring veterans, minorities and the handicapped, etc. etc. But even the veterans, minorities and the handicapped wouldn’t be hired if the business was not able to support the head count.

FDR got it right in creating the WPA. The Works Progress Administration spent the cash America did not have in order to create government based jobs which jump started the economy after the selfish bastards on Wall Street nearly crippled the world economy.

And we find ourselves, yet again, in the same situation. The selfish bastards on Wall Street damn near crippled us and businesses close all around us. The government tries to kick start the economy but now, all of a sudden, the rich guys raise their eyebrows and all of a sudden they develop an economic conscience. “How are we going to pay for it?” is the mantra these hypocrites voice to us in order to try and get us to believe this.

In order to answer this, you have to understand another fundamental aspect of running a country. Running a country is not even remotely like running a business. Yes there are executives and you can’t just go blindly bumping about making bone headed decisions. Yes the government is not a charity. In this, there are similarities between businesses and governments. However, the fundamental distinction between business and government is the fundamental agenda which the two do not share: the objective of business is profit. The objective of government is the welfare of its people.

And it is with this frame of mind that I find our dear darling Federal legislature missing the proverbial boat. The question you ask first is not “how much is this going to cost” or “where are we getting the money?” These are business questions. The question our dear darling legislative types need to ask is, “how can we best serve the people of the United States of America?”

To behave otherwise is to cross the double yellow line with no concern or sensitivity to the people they serve.

Our legislative branch is behaving with acute economic insensitivity.

posted by Marty Brounstein @ 11:08 AM