The soul has greater need of the ideal than the real for it is by the real that we exist, it is by the ideal that we live

Monday, August 9, 2010

Ambiguity abounds

Though it would be wonderful to say that I knew where things were headed.  That I had a clue.

Alas, I don't.  every single thing in my life is up in the air right now.  Employment, (will my classes make?) living situation, (if not will I be able to afford both the apt and the car?) health, (when will I stop making myself sick over these things I can't control?) and L'Amour! (Am I being foolish to encourage someone I don't want to be with in the final analysis?)

See, up in the air.  Juggling literally every single thing that I think is important to me.

Guidance wold be nice, someone to take me by the hand and say, "Ok, here's the first thing not to worry about, and now here's the second, and finally take a look at this.  You cannot control any of this stuff and you simply have to wait and see what's gonna happen and then formulate your response. Stop worrying about it, and step back and let it go."

Hehe, that sounds so like me,  (step back and let go ROFL)

Well, onto other matters.


Arnold and Jerry Brown want Vaughn Walker to lift his stay and let same-sex marriage resume in California.  This is a good thing.  But possibly too much of a good thing.

This ruing needs to wend its way through the courts.  It needs to be the decision that the Supreme's are forced to rule on, and to be the litmus test for this civil rights issue.  Anyone reading this document in it's entirety would see the how simply the courts could rule on its validity.  It's an impeccable document. If they manage to stop it's progress through the court system, they'll win marriage rights in California, but it won't have the effect it should have, to rule once and for all on the constitutionality of marriage rights for all. 

Ted Olsen, (on fox news of all places) makes an excellent analogy while talking with Chris Mathews yesterday:

"Well, would you like your right to free speech? Would you like Fox’s right to free press put up to a vote and say well, if five states approved it, let’s wait till the other 45 states do? These are fundamental constitutional rights. The Bill of Rights guarantees Fox News and you, Chris Wallace, the right to speak. It’s in the constitution. And the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the denial of our citizens of the equal rights to equal access to justice under the law, is a violation of our fundamental rights. Yes, it’s encouraging that many states are moving towards equality on the basis of sexual orientation, and I’m very, very pleased about that. … We can’t wait for the voters to decide that that immeasurable harm, that is unconstitutional, must be eliminated."

Well, actually we shouldn't have to wait for the voters to decide. We should not only decide the issue because of the unconstitutionality of the Proposition, but because of the flim-flam that was pulled to get people to vote for it in the first place.  People should sue the supporters of the Proposition based on it's linguistic tactics to confuse the voters and get it passed when people who voted yes were actually voting no and didn't even know what they were doing.

Trust me , people are stupid and in California that goes double.  They got taken in many cases, and those who exploited the language should be taken to task for it.  In this country that means "It should cost them money." because that's the only thing we understand.

And another thing, Barack Obama, he of the easily berated economic policy, is not anti-business.

And here are a few things to support that statement:
This White House has “vilified industries,” complains the Chamber of Commerce. America is burdened with “an anti-business president,” moans The Weekly Standard.
Would that all presidents were this anti-business: according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve, corporate profits hit $1.37 trillion in the first quarter—an all-time high. Businesses are sitting on about $2 trillion in cash reserves. Business spending jumped 20 percent last quarter, and is up by 13 percent against 2009. The Obama administration has dropped taxes for small businesses and big ones alike. Maybe the president could be anti-me for a while. I could use the money.
The reality is that America’s supposedly anti-business president has led an extremely pro-business recovery. The corporate community has recovered first, and best. The populist tone that conservative magazines and business groups decry is partly in reaction to this: as corporate America’s position is getting better and better, the recovery is looking shakier and shakier. Unemployment is high. Housing looks perilously close to a double dip. Job growth is weak. And corporate America, for all its profits, isn’t hiring. The 71,000 jobs the private sector added in July aren’t sufficient to keep up with population growth, much less cut into the ranks of the unemployed.
Pundits have expended a lot of energy on this puzzle, but there’s actually no puzzle at all. A look at the history of financial crises shows that our slow, halting recovery is right on schedule, and the business community’s caution is predictable.
In their book, This Time Is Different, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff look at every financial crisis over the last 800 years. It’s an exhaustive study, and its conclusions are depressing for a country that believes itself exceptional even in its suffering: we’re not special.
If you look at unemployment, housing prices, government debt, and the stock market, Rogoff says, “the U.S. is just driving down the tracks of a typical post–WWII deep financial crisis.” In some areas, we’re even a bit ahead of the game: economic output usually drops by 9 percent. We held the drop to 4 percent.
Even the unevenness of our recovery is predictable. “Housing and employment come back much slower than equity and [gross domestic product],” Reinhart says. GDP usually falls for two years and then recovers. Equity can move even faster, which helps explain corporate America’s rapid recovery. But employment tends to fall for five years, and sometimes it never quite recovers. And housing? That’s usually a six-year slide.
So business may be back, but its customers aren’t. That’s the Catch-22 of our recovery. Businesses will start hiring when the economy recovers. And the economy will start to recover when businesses start hiring. But that shouldn’t obscure what is, in fact, sort of good news (the frustrating stuff recoveries are made of): businesses can expand, they’re just waiting around to do so. “If you’re running a business, you can’t start hiring on speculation [that the economy is getting better],” says Joseph Kasputys, chairman of IHS Global Insight. “You have to wait until you see market signals that things are getting better. The smart businesses are looking for the early signs so they get the first advantage. They’re ready to move.” That’s a lot better than a world in which they don’t have the ability to move.
So what can we do to speed things along? More government stimulus—either through direct spending or further tax cuts—could offer some quick help, but Senate Republicans won’t allow anything large enough to make much of an impact. The Federal Reserve could step into the breach, but so far it’s been reluctant to do so. The Republicans want to see the Bush tax cuts extended and Obama’s health-care and financial-regulation bills repealed, but none of that will make a big short-term difference.


"Businesses are sitting on about $2 trillion in cash reserves."

hmmm, Cbs news says in an article dated March 16, 2010:
(Credit: AP) The latest posting from the Treasury Department shows the National Debt has increased over $2 trillion since President Obama took office.

I have to wonder where that money went?

They go on to say:
The debt now stands at $12.6 trillion. On the day Mr. Obama took office it was $10.6 trillion.
President George W. Bush still holds the record for the most debt run up on his watch: $4.9 trillion.

And in George's defense for some reason it matters how long it takes to spend that much money they say:
But it took him over four years to rack up the first two trillion dollars in debt. It has taken Mr. Obama 421 days.

I once spent $4500 in a week,  would it have been a different story if I'd spent it in a day?  I could have, I'm just too cheap to part with money that quickly.  

The point is the money's gone and in one instance, Barack Obama, of whom I'm not a particular fan, he's not really gotten as much done as he said he would, but the difference, in my opinion is that while Obama stands in front of the world and says, "Here's how were' going to spend this money and here's how much this will cost."  George Bush would stand in front of the country waving his right hand in protestation, railing at those who didn't think he was doing the right thing, while his left hand was reaching in the cookie jar and giving out all our money to his friends and their friends and their friends.  (yes I blame him for everything from Iraq to diaper rash, he's the anti-christ)

So, yes it's popular to blame the guy in office for our woes, and yes in some cases it's warranted, but the fact remains that Obama didn't buy a new car or a new helicopter,  or spend our money on buying baubles for his friends and those he wished to ingratiate himself with.  He spent it on us. George Bush conversely spent his 5 trillion on what he calls his base.  Those, who msnbc this morning said actually run the economy who possess most of the wealth in this country...AND AREN'T SPENDING ANY OF IT!"   At least not on hiring people.

These "let them eat cake." attitudes are what bring down cultures, and contribute to their ruin.

If you can afford health insurance no matter the cost I applaud you, because I can't.  The car and the apartment account for 95% of my income, and if you've ever seen them you know I'm not exactly living like a king. BTW I work two jobs and would happily take on a third if it would mean that I could stop worrying about money for at least a little while.

So let's be grateful that even though not enough to really make a huge difference in our lives is being accomplished that we're not being taken to the cleaners every day for someone else to benefit from our tax dollars. Let's be grateful that the money is being spent on us and not Haliburton, or is that Xe...lol

It's difficult in this world to be gay. It shouldn't be difficult in this country to be gay though.  We supposedly stand for so many great hings, but we don't we allow a few people to get those things and then give those very people the power to keep everyone else from getting them too.  It's outrageous that  Mexico, Norway, the UK, and other countries have acknowledged that people shouldn't be denied full civil rights simply because of who they love, and yet, America, that bastion of self-righteousness, still routinely practices hate and division as a rite.

And we don't even have the good sense to be ashamed.

And so it goes: