frontpaged at My Left Wing
Water, grapes, yeast and sugar. What do they have to do with each other? Seemingly nothing. But mix them in a sterile container, put a lid on and then walk away for a while. Come back, drink heartily and feel good.
A rattlesnake is as much afraid of you as you are of it. Encounter one in the wilderness and, despite its venom and noisy tail shaking, it will slither on its merry way given a chance. However, should you get the bright idea to pick up a stick and start poking it repeatedly, you do so at the peril of your life.
What are the lessons here? Mix the right ingredients together and you get wine. Torment a rattlenake and you'll get bit.
So what you ask? I'll tell you.
If you're gonna make any kind of wine, you'll need the right ingredients first. The leaders of the USA are hard at work on a batch right now. These are their ingredients.
1) People have less money. In a nutshell, the Bush economy has created 4.5 million jobs. However those jobs that he has created pay on average $9,000 less per year than the jobs lost under his administration. $9,000 isn't exactly chump change to the vast majority of us who are middle class or below. Translation? Hundreds of thousands of Americans, many of whom were already working two jobs in a desperate attempt to make ends meet, are gonna have to spread themselves that much thinner as time goes by. Spending on "extras" like a new car or a vacation go out the window first. Ouch, there's a further strain on the economy. But what shall people do if they find they still can't quite meet their necessesities despite their best efforts? Why, dip into their savings. It's why we have savings.
2)Oh shit, we don't have any savings. The article is full of economic detail that makes my eyes cross because I'm not smart enough to understand it. I am, however, quite sharp enough to grasp the money quote: "Americans spent $42 billion more than they earned in 2005, cutting the personal saving rate to minus 0.5 percent, the lowest since 1933."
Even an idiot could figure that out, folks. Americans are already eating into their savings at a rate not seen in 73 years. And what was going on in this country at that time?
I believe John Steinbeck had something to say about that.
Well, we're out of savings. Damn, now we've got nothing. I guess that's why FDR created the Social Safety net. The government helped get us into this predicament, and now they can help us get out of it. We'll rely on social programs to provide the extra means to dig ourselves out of the hole.
3)Not so fast there, cowboy.
According to David Sanger of the New York Times:
President Bush proposed a $2.77 trillion budget on Monday calling for increased spending on the military and domestic security and substantial cuts in domestic programs as disparate as education, farm subsidies and the national parks.
The budget bears all the hallmarks of the Bush presidency: his overriding priorities are national security and making permanent the tax cuts passed by Congress in recent years.
...
Republicans are caught between pressure from conservatives to make real headway in limiting the size and role of the federal government, and the political reality that votes to cut programs that touch the lives of millions of people could make them vulnerable to Democratic attacks in the fall.
The budget is chockablock with proposals that could give Republicans pause, like one to scale back programs that help the poor insulate their homes.
...
he main proposals in the budget include:
*-An increase in military spending of $28.5 billion, or 6.9 percent, to $439.3 billion, and an increase in financing for programs directly related to domestic security, about a third of which are outside the Department of Homeland Security, of 3.3 percent, to $33.1 billion.
*-A reduction in spending on all other annually appropriated domestic programs of $2.2 billion, or one-half of 1 percent, to $398.3 billion. That reduction encompasses cutbacks in the budgets of 12 cabinet agencies, including education, housing and environmental protection.
*-Tax incentives to encourage people to save more to cover their own medical costs and a mechanism intended to prod Congress to hold down the growth of costs in Medicare.
...
But he is also asking Congress to shut down programs in vocational education and two other programs -- legacies of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society program -- to prepare poor and minority students for college.
...
"While working Americans are facing higher prices for everything from health care to gas to college tuition," Mr. Reid said, "this president's budget continues to hand out costly, budget-busting favors for special interests like the drug, oil and H.M.O. industries."
He added, "The president is asking our seniors, our students and our families to clean up his fiscal mess with painful cuts in health care and student aid."
Well, fuck. Here's a ticklish situation: we've got inadequate income, no savings, and no way to have the government help us out. I guess that means we'll just have to bite the bullet and file for bankruptcy. Get our debts erased and start over as best we can.
4)No can do, son! Haven't you heard the new doctrine? Those who declare bankruptcy are just lazy shirkers trying to duck personal responsibility!
It used to be that the majority of people could file for bankruptcy under Chapter 7 provisions, meaning creditors were legally barred from continuing to hound them and eventually many could look forward to total expurgation of their debt.
What now?
AUTOMATIC STAY
Amended law:
The automatic stay is hedged or conditioned in many circumstances, creating less certainty about immediate protection of the debtor. Filing bankruptcy will not stay acts to collect back support, including revocation of driver's licenses or professional licenses. Creditors omitted from the official list of creditors are free to continue collection action even if they have actual notice of the bankruptcy. If a prior case is dismissed, the duration or even the existence of a stay is limited in subsequent cases. Landlords are freed to complete evictions, even when the tenant-debtors are paying rent.
DISCHARGE OF DEBTS
Amended law:
More debts become non dischargeable in Chapter 7, including privately funded student loans; all debts arising from divorce; and debts incurred to pay non dischargeable debts such as taxes or support. Presumptions of fraud are broadened to include purchases of "luxury goods" of $500 within 90 days of filing or cash advances of $750 or more within 70 days of filing. The Chapter 13 discharge won't cover taxes for which the taxing authority didn't file a timely claim, unfiled tax years or debts tinged with dishonesty.
Did I mention the same law also includes a huge boon to credit card companies that allows them to obscenely increase your minimum payments and jack interest rates up at their whim? Well I have now.
And what about that someone's home and property values? For many, that's their biggest solid asset. Too bad it's rapidly on the way to becoming worthless.
A fine mess this is. Quite a recipe our governmental masters have devised, eh? Step by step they have inexorably and repeatedly shoved many of their own constituents into a corner and then--almost maliciously, it would seem--sealed off all the exits. Trapped. Nowhere to go. The wine is fermenting.
Poke, poke, poke.
What are people to do? Perhaps join the military. Hell, it's budget is being beefed up to previously unimagined levels! Thus, perpetual war is maintained and facilitated.
Speaking of war, let's add a secret ingredient to the recipe. That special something that hides in the background and makes a person go "Hmmmm...what is that?"
In this case, it's post-traumatic stress disorder. According to Wikipedia, roughly 350,000 United States soldiers have served in Iraq. MSNBC reports that 1 in 8 Iraq war veterans have suffered or will suffer from PTSD. By arithmetic, that gives us a total of nearly 44,000 veterans who will have their lives forever changed. They will never be same again. Marriages will be ruined. Families will be torn apart. Children and spouses will be abused. Suicides will result.
And what about the families of the 2,249 U.S. soldiers killed in action or the 16,606 wounded in action. The families and children of the dead are already destroyed. Many are left with no income and, as we have seen, nowhere to turn. How many of those wounded are permanently disfigured or mentally scarred for life? How many of those marriages, spouses and children will be harmed? How will those soldiers earn a living? Social Security benefits are being slashed. What shall they do?
My friends, it has long been an article of faith (at least to myself) that Americans, above all, want to be left alone to live their lives in contented peace, much as the rattlesnake wants only to get away. Push the snake enough, however, and it will strike back. Self-preservation is the first and most inviolable law of nature.
I do not think our lawmakers--hopelessly corrupt Republicans aided and abetted by many shameless Democrats--truly understand that the wine they are making is poisoned with the venom of the rattlesnake. Blindly, they prepare to fill a glass and raise it to their lips.
Drink deep, motherfuckers. Drink deep.