Patrick's Rants

Note: I was parked to the right of this rock climber when I exited Burger King. When I parked the space was empty.

Gentlemen,
You work for the people of the United States. All of the people of the United States. It’s time to stop playing games, stop pretending that we can give tax cuts to the rich and create jobs. It hasn’t happened any time that you have done it. The real wage for the middle class has been going backwards for decades while CEOs take larger and larger pay packages.

How about this? Extend the debt ceiling. By itself. Remember that default means the Treasury doesn’t pay back the money borrowed from our retired seniors, investors or the next looming menace, China. The CME has already downgraded Treasuries for margin. Butter, eggs, beef, hogs, corn, coffee, orange juice and oil will all cost more. More money sucked out of the economy and burned away due to your inability to get your jobs done.

Now you want to start ripping apart Social Security. The President’s bi-partisan debt commission said Social Security is currently sound. They even did not include Social Security and Medicare in their harsh plan to right the ship of state. (Go ahead, prove me wrong).

Gosar, you won the last election on a fluke. You might be my legal representative in the House, but you do not represent me.

Kyle, your quotes on Planned Parenthood and their mission puts your completely out of touch with reality. You aren’t running for reelection so you can at least do this for the country. Vote to raise the debt ceiling when it comes to the Senate, encourage Gosar to move to a more centrist, reasonable position.

McCain, how can you tell me you represent me when you own ten, twelve, thirty homes? You have no idea what your actions or inactions are doing to the sub-$40k/yr Americans. Coffee is over $10 per can based on purely environmental reasons. Add the Treasury “haircut” at the CME and it’s going up by another 10%-20%. Fix this. You pride yourself on reaching across the aisle. Now would be a great time to do that.

Obama, the Republicans are constantly threatening and cajoling. Boehner lies and cries to the cameras regularly. It’s time to man up Barack. This is the big game, put on your big boy pants and knock some heads together. The Republicans have threatened a nuclear option when things didn’t go their way, refusing to work with Democrats unless their pet projects are considered. We are beyond these games. We are beyond tossing around the word “nuclear” for dramatic effect. (And what effect does this have on our seniors who practiced hiding under their desk while missiles floated toward Cuba)
Obama, you have the Constitutional option. Pardon me, you have the Constitutional REQUIREMENT to ensure that there is no default. If the House, each member required to defend the Constitution, cannot get this done then it rests on your shoulders. Each House member who refuses this vote, refuses to raise the debt ceiling with no strings attached, as required by the Constitution of the United States, is guilty of an impeachable offense no less.

To add your $.02 and send an email off regarding the debt ceiling: Tell your Congress Critters to stop playing games and follow the Constitution

The Repugnicans cannot agree on anything. They refuse to negotiate and compromise. 4000 federal employees and contract employees are furloughed over at the FAA because the GOP wants to make it harder for FAA employees to unionize? Airlines are making a grab for the $200 million per week in air travel taxes that aren’t being collected by the FAA. Is there so much danger of unionization that the agency has to be shut down? Demonization of unions led to protests in Michigan just this year.

So, to paraphrase Crybaby Boehner, this is job killing anti-legislation. Around 4000 jobs. When they apply for unemployment Boehner will likely blame Obama for that too.

Here’s an idea, let’s save some money by furloughing congress until they can get their shit together and stop pretending Obama is the one not doing anything. If you don’t come up with something to send to Obama to sign how is it Obama’s fault? Boehner, get off your fake tanned ass and get to work.

You know, I did a search on John Boehner jobs bills and I get a couple of hits from Boehner’s own site that claim gutting (doing an end run around, whatever) the EPA will create more oil drilling jobs and another claim that not being able to get your idea patented kills jobs, so they made that easier. Really? How long has he been at the House bar? How about some real jobs bills?

A commission of Repugnicans* wants to outsource the state of Arizona. The lottery would become public run, the state environmental agency would be contracted out, the department of education would give school funding directly to each school instead of the district to dole out, state workers could be fired more readily, and state employees – who are required to participate in the retirement system – would be forced to contribute even more to their retirement balance.

So, we want the lowest bidder to decide air and water quality? We want schools to be directly funded? Here’s the blurb on school funding,

“principals would decide how to spend the cash — and how many staffers to hire — rather than having those decisions made by district administrators. The money-saving aspect, according to the report, would be that school districts would not need large central offices to handle the finances.:

I’m not saying the centralized office is more efficient, but how much more efficient is it if each school in a district has to write their own checks and pay their own staff? Is it a wash or do costs go up because you just added 14 more people to do what three-five people did previously?

How about outsourcing police and fire protection? House on fire, don’t forget to pay your conscription fee. How about outsourcing the governor? I’d be good with that.

*This article doesn’t mention it, but there were no Democrats on this panel.

My god (FSM) aren’t we tired about hearing about this debt ceiling limit? Don’t we all want the government to put away its credit card (paid by us) and stop “kicking the can down the road?” The Tea Bagger Party* wants to pass a constitutional amendment that would rape the military and tie the hands of the entire government over an ideal. Ideals are great, but in a time of extreme financial fragility do the American people really want to have to decide between unemployment insurance and the border fence, between grandma’s Lipitor or another drone aircraft, a responsive fire department or a box of ammo for our troops? That’s what a balanced budget amendment would require. Imagine if George W Bush in his most outstanding moment as commander in chief grabbed that bullhorn atop the rubble pile in New York City yelled, “the people who knocked down these buildings will hear all of us, just as soon as I can shake the change from the West Wing couch and stop paying all of the seniors back the money we collected from them over their earnings lifetime. And just as soon as we do, we are coming at you with our hang gliders and slingshots!” That would have given a rousing cheer from the first responders – assuming they were even allowed to show up without congress taking a week to vote on extra funding. Wait, that means congress passing an unbalanced budget constitutional amendment and having three fourths of the states ratifying the amendment.

So, because Dubya spent all of Bill Clinton’s surplus, we must borrow to re-right the ship of state, not pretend the Titanic can never sink. Once our collective heads are back above water the payment plan can begin. Former VP Dick Cheney has said, “deficits don’t matter.” It seems they don’t matter when Repugnicans hold the White House but not when Democrats hold the House of Power.

*Tea Baggers they will continue to be called here. Tell why they shouldn’t be. Coherently.

This angle makes it look like this driver is well within his rights. Next…

In case it’s not completely clear, the post just over the driver’s side mirror is the left side boundary of the alley.

Here, I marked the line of the fence post in red and the fence line on the ground in black, just for a slightly better look at this parking scofflaw.

Wear a colander to honor your starchy creator? Niko Alm has spent three years fighting to get his pasta strainer recognized as religious head gear for his driver’s license photo. Now, he is able to don his pastafarian head gear
It’s awesome. Niko has truly been touched by the noodly appendage of his creator.

I think I’ve figure out what John “Cry Baby” Boehner is planning with the debt ceiling stand off. Like so many home owners who realized their home is worth less than they thought and less than they owe Boehner and the Repugnicans may just be planning a “strategic default”. This is where home owners have just walked away from their homes and let the bank have the house back. If the GOP has enough cash, they can probably buy Greece outright and move in over the weekend leaving the bank to board up the windows and mow the grass twice a year. Of course the way US bonds are sold that means Social Security recipients (the trust fund is “invested” primarily in US bonds) and the Chinese will be buying billions of board feet of plywood and tacking them in place over the White House windows.

The last straw that caused Repugnicans to take their ball and go home was the ballsy idea that millionaires pay more taxes in the state. For that .3% of the state the GOP stopped working. The budget deficit is $5 billion. Each week the state is closed $23 million is spent or not collected. To protect .3% of the state population. Screw the other 99.7% of all state citizens. And that $23 million gets added to the deficit. Why is the line drawn so sharp and hard that 99.7% of the state is hurt? Because repugnicans have gone to the mountain top and seen the promised land of no government and no taxes. Roads, teachers, firefighters, police officers, clean air and water. These things don’t matter. What matters is that the extremely wealthy don’t have to pay higher taxes.
The bottom line according to former Michigan Gov. Granholm is the GOP refuses to compromise on fiscal issues

Not really, but I am taking a step back to remind myself of my investing/trading rules. I had bought 300 shares of CNU on 5/10 at 4.99/sh. I had an order into sell at 5.40 based upon recent chart activity. Just before leaving town on vacation I decided that the lackluster performance of the stock meant I needed to “cut my losses”. I placed my order to sell and got out at 4.20/sh. on 6/23. On 6/24 the price jumped to 4.77. On 6/27, CNU opened at 6.26. Had I maintained my normal patient “hold until it makes it” I would have had a nice gain. That’s a huge reminder that you don’t lose until you sell.

Now where are my newsletter subscribers?