Viva la Revolucion!

Greek "anarchists" took to the streets to protest the austerity plans of the Greek government has in order to secure more aid from the rest of the Euro zone. First off, that's a balls move calling yourself anarchists when your argument is essentially that you want more government. "I want Greece to return to its quasi-socialist state!" Boom, rock through a McDonald's window. That makes sense. Moltov Cocktail at the police because you can't retire with a full pension at 45?!? Also, technically if you are fighting the cops, aren't you fighting the same people whom you want benefits to be restored to? All of these "anarchists" are full of crap anyway. You're nineteen, you will use any excuse to flip a car over. That's why there are parking bans and police in the city that wins a championship all the time. You're not an anarchist, you're just an asshole who now has the luxury of mob rule to cause mayhem. You know these people, they riot at World Bank meetings, start sentences with "It's these corporations", and think most people in power actively work to destroy the rest of the world. They don't have any real convictions. They just like the yelling and sticking it to the man. The mission is filled in the [Insert Cause Here] line after the protest has been organized.

And Greece, seriously, what do you want the government to do, default? You still won't get more money. Your train company's payroll is four times bigger than sales. (The frugal MBTA's is only 1 to 1). Half of the population can't work for the government. The government doesn't make money. Other people have to give the government money for it to work. Yeah, everyone would love to retire and party on Mykonos all day. But, you can't have the government slopping bonuses and pensions around like they just hit Powerball and expect that to last. And to think, all this time, you thought you were helping your people out. Now what? They hate you because you were so generous. HA. I relish this type of stuff though. Greece spent and owes too much money, but the rest of the Europe (Germany) won't give them more unless they stop spending so much, only the people they spent it on don't want that. Show down! Real actual consequences.

...But, I do want a football season though.

-K

So Much for Fiscal Responsibility

Stephen Crowley/New York Times

The House of Representatives is getting ready for a dogfight. They are going to cut $100 billion dollars from the budget this year. That shouldn't be too hard since Congress authorized a $110 billion dollar auto bailout and spent $109.5 billion dollars on something called the Term Auction Facility that bought up banks (now pretty much worthless) mortgage-backed securities. Nope, it's going to be near impossible.

Why? Because when you keep giving people more and more money they get used to having it. So, when you try to take it away from them, they get mad and feel it's owed to them and will fight you to the death. They feel like it was their money all along and you are trying to rob them. It's pretty basic human psychology that Congress never seems to grasp. That and you don't spend other people's money, especially if its giant sums, like you would spend your own.

But, besides Congress' unreasoned thinking, they are going to try and cut the $100 billion dollars out of non-security discretionary spending. Which is the equivalent to implementing a salary cap in the NBA, but only on head coaches. Let's see, Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, and the military account for 60% of the budget. Let's exclude that and apply the cut to the departments that probably shouldn't exist anyway, but will reactively (in a purely innate survival instinct kind of way) cause a huge stir should their money get touched. Why not bring everybody home from Afghanistan and Iraq? That was costing $100 billion a month last time I checked.

Unless, you touch the stuff that actually affects the systemic fiscal instability of the United States, Congress, you are not serious. This is the same arguing-for-show that people who actually believe in this stuff hate. If you are going to "do something about the spending" then ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING.

Eternally frustrated,

-K

Cut the Deficit, Just Not Anything That Causes the Deficit

I saw this graph attached to this article and immediately wanted to explode in rage. Apparently, people think the deficit is a problem that needs to be addressed either now or in the near future. (Yes, agree!) But, when given specifics with how to cut the deficit, most people don't want to touch anything that would actually do that. (Aaahhhh!) The two things that got a majority of support had to do with evil rich people or federal workers. My guess is that most people polled did not fall into those two groups therefore were able to agree with statements that would not affect them. That seemed to follow the theme of the poll. Yeah, cut the budget, but nothing that affects my life.

Listen people, Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, and Defense are a large majority of the budget; two of those have their own tax. If you are not ready to touch those three things then you are not serious about cutting the budget. This why most of the Tea Party people are full of crap. Yeah, it's nice to say you're a fiscal conservative, I'm one, but if your not ready to privatize Social Security, use vouchers for Medicare, and dial down the Pentagon, you are not a budget hawk. America has 11 aircraft carriers in service. Do you know how many the country with the second most has? Two (UK and Italy). We are currently building three. Maybe we don't need a new $15 billion dollar aircraft carrier every four years since we have the only blue water navy in the world capable of projecting and sustaining its force. You know, stuff like that. Plus, terrorists don't have navies (or jet fighters).

Nobody wants real change, they want a nice speech that blames other people for their problems. I am probably going to scream about this until I die with nothing to show for it. America is finished. Buy gold bars and call it a life.

-K