The government is stealing your beer!

I heard that the House voted against the bailout package and I was pretty shocked, as I think everyone was. Congressional leaders were hyping this up to be a done deal over the weekend and it seemed all but inevitable that it was going to pass. Wall Street was definitely caught off guard because the rescue that they thought they were going to get didn’t happen. That caused the Dow Jones to plunge almost 800 points. It’s fun time to like economics and a bad time for pretty much anything else.

After the initial shock wore off (having to teach 30 14 year olds Algebra will make you move on pretty quickly) I started thinking about whether or not this was a bad thing or a good thing. The bailout plan was created to clear out the illiquid securities that were clogging up the arteries of the financial sector (figuratively speaking of course, it’s just plain diner hamburger cholesterol if we’re speaking literally). By removing these assets, it was thought that banks would once again be willing to offer credit and thus help out “Main Street” (aka you and I). There was a possibility that maybe we’d break even or make a little money if we can resell these assets in a few years. Maybe it won’t be that bad, right?

Then I got to thinking. Would a recession really be such a bad thing? I know what you’re thinking. I’ve had one too many sniffs of those sweet smelling scented markers. I’m serious. I wrote earlier today about how we’ve all been living well beyond our means. We’ve been spending on credit for years both at the federal level and the personal level. Eventually, those bills always come due. Now is that eventually. So any way we look at it, we’re going to have a rough few years recovering from this. The way I see it, if we bailout all of these banks with tax payer dollars, it’s setting us up to repeat this cycle down the road. The financial institutions will be more likely to do this again if they knew that the government would be there to help them out when it all melts down. As long as these investors have their big bonuses and the government is going to help out, there’s no reason for this to stop. So let’s let them fail. Let’s suffer through slightly harder economic times right now and save the next generation the pain later. Let’s teach ourselves how to live within our means and stop relying on credit to purchase beyond our means. Ron Paul uses the metaphor in interviews that these bailouts are like another hit for an addict. The hit is going to make the addict feel good for a little while, but it doesn’t address the problem that he’s an addict. It’s a long and painful process for an addict to clean up.

If we let the government bail out these financial corporations, it’s going to be the middle class and the poor that suffer. Not only is $700 billion dollars (a conservative estimate) going to inflate the debt and cost us interest charges for years down the road, but it’s going to cause inflation in the short term. I don’t think that a lot of people have a firm grasp on exactly what inflation is or what it does in terms of the money you have. In essence, inflation is an accidental (or maybe not) tax on all the money you have. When we speak about inflation, what’s inflating is the amount of money in the system. It happens when we print money.

Let me give you a simplified example of how this, in essence, transfers wealth from you and I and into the hands of the corporations.

Let’s say for simplicity’s sake that there is $1 in all the world and you own it and that there are 5 of the exact same good, let’s say pints of beer (mmm, beer). Simple math would dictate that each of these beers (mmm, beer) has a value of 20 cents (that $1 divided into 5 parts) and you’d be able to buy all 5 beers (mmm, 5 beers). If I were to then inflate the money supply and create 4 new one dollar bills out of thin air and give them to other people, then the market is going to adjust to this increase in money supply by increasing the price for their beer (sometimes referred to as the end of happy hour). So now we have $5 in money and 5 beers in the world (a crisis all its own), so each beer has a value $1. You didn’t get any of that new money, so while your actual dollar holdings hasn’t changed, your purchasing power has. Instead of being able to buy all 5 beers, you can now only purchase one (insert sad face here). You kept the same amount of money, but now it buys less, which makes you poorer. The government has taken some of your purchasing power and handed it over to someone else. The government has taken your beer! I’m sure you hate inflation now.

Back to more serious, less beer related talk, inflation is a tax any way you look at it. The reason that this hurts the poor and middle class is because prices go up before salaries do. This means that you and I are going to pay for inflation adjusted prices for goods without inflation adjusted salaries.

So I say, let the banks fail. Let’s all suffer together and learn to adjust our spending habits for a few hard years. We’ll be better in the long term for letting it happen.

“Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” Thomas Jefferson

Living within our means

(Note: I started writing this before I heard about the economic bailout failing the House vote, I’ll write about that separately shortly)

I’m still stuck on the whole economic situation. I watched the debate on Friday and it didn’t impress me enough to bother writing about it. My one sentence response to the debate is this: They said a whole lot without really saying anything. It’s just not worth a whole post to break that down.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how this economic downturn (or if you’re in the media and you want to scare everyone, we can call it a CRISIS or a CRASH!) will effect the way we act as regular, everyday citizens. The way I see it, it’s going to be a major adjustment in lifestyle for a lot of people, especially those that are in my generation (the 20-30 year olds).

Most of the problems that we’ve been running to are due to the illusion of wealth that we’ve created for ourselves. I’m a part of this. I own a 37” LCD Hi-Def TV, an $800 camera, a $1600 laptop, well over a thousand dollars in video game hardware and software, I go on trips that I can’t afford…. I could go on. I’m a teacher so I certainly don’t make the money necessary to make these kinds of purchases like I have. I use my credit and pay it off over time. This is the illusion of wealth.

For the last few decades, we’ve been living backwards. Instead of saving to buy that TV, we’re buying that TV and then paying for it (with interest) over time. Instead of putting 20% down on a home and having good credit, we’re maxing out credit cards and putting nothing down on a home we can’t afford.

The federal government is no different. Prior to the 1930s, our monetary system adhered to the gold standard. What this meant was that, at any time, you could exchange $20.67 in US dollars for one ounce of gold. This was important for a couple of reasons. First, it meant that people had confidence in their money. They knew that they’d be able to use its purchasing power later. That’s because gold is a valuable commodity anywhere, so if the dollar were to be devalued, you could exchange it for something of value and still have purchasing power. The second reason that the gold standard was useful was that it stopped the government from printing new money and running up a deficit. In essence, the bailouts that we’re seeing now and the entire war in Iraq (plus more on top of that) are funded by money that we don’t have. But since the government prints the money, it can just either print new money or just borrow some from a foreign country. On the gold standard, the government could only print money if they acquired enough gold (aka they could print a $20 bill for every 1 oz of gold that they had on hand… no gold, no printing). After we dropped this standard, the government has been running up its credit the same way that a lot of Americans are right now.

This economic downturn is the market (which I really think is a living creature) telling us that we (both the government and its people) need to stop. We need to stop buying on credit except in real emergencies or to buy a house or car that we know we can afford to pay for comfortably over time. If we want something nice like a new TV or a nice trip, we need to plan in advance and save for it. It’s not going to be easy to do this, especially for my generation. We’ve been raised in an era of loose credit where doing this was ok. I liken it to the problems that we see with peoples’ diets. Many people try to lose weight but can’t because it’s so difficult to change the things we eat and drink. We’ve been eating and drink those things are entire lives. I found out that the only way to truly lose weight and keep it off is to change your whole perspective on eating. You have to change your lifestyle. You need to stop fooling yourself into thinking that you can keep eating whatever you want and there aren’t going to be consequences. Only after you are at peace with this idea can you really begin to change your lifestyle and head down the path that you want. Credit addiction is no different.

In addition to the major purchases that I already talked about, I used to use my credit cards for almost everything. It was as much a convenience thing as it was that I wanted stuff, but it created a false sense of wealth for me. I had a $3000 limit and I always thought that I’d just buy now and pay for it out of my next paycheck when my credit card bill game in.  The only problem was that I said that about too many things and I couldn’t cover the whole balance.   I’ve been starting to ween myself off of using credit cards. It’s tough when you have very little in your savings accounts to pay for things instead of relying on credit. You still need to be able to operate on a day to day basis. You still need to be able to buy food, groceries, and happy hour beer (I swear, it’s a necessity), so in the short term, you will have to rely on your credit to stay afloat. The goal is that you use your credit less and transfer the savings into paying down your debt.

The way that I’ve been handling it is to purchase everything on my debit card. I know, roughly, how much money I have in my bank account. (use Quicken or Microsoft Money to track your finances) All the small purchases, like a sandwich or a coffee never end up on my credit card. That really adds up. Also, I have to be a little thriftier with my spending because I don’t want to empty my bank account. It’s caused me to second guess a purchase when I’m in the store. I only rely on my credit cards right before my next paycheck to have that small bridge, if I need it.

I’ve found that I’m saving a little more money each month and my credit cards are going towards zero. It’s definitely not a short process to make this adjustment. You can’t, as they say, quit cold turkey. I’ve been doing this for about 6 weeks and I don’t know if I’m halfway to my goal yet.  The idea is that you will slowly remove your dependence on credit and live a savings and cash life style. You have to plan in advance if you want to go on a trip and save a little extra money each month. You might have to join the Christmas club at your bank, but in the end, you’ll be living a lifestyle that suits your income and your means and you’ll removing the stress that debt can place on a person.

I don’t think that I’ll cut my credit cards in half when I pay them down to zero, but my perspective has definitely changed. I’m much more willing to shun off things that I think I need because I don’t want to use my credit card. I don’t have the cash, it can wait a month.

I’m willing to bet that in 5 to 10 years, this will be the default perspective once again.

This explains a lot

New Site Design

As you can see, the site has been completely redesigned and renamed.  Since I’m no longer using this as my thirty day challenge, the title was no longer appropriate.  I changed the name to “The Butterfly Effect” because I thought it was appropriate for what I’m trying to do.  I don’t really promote this blog, except to let my friends know when it’s been updated via myspace or facebook.  My hope is that the small amount of knowledge that the 20-30 page views that I get per posting conveys will have a ripple effect.  The butterfly effect is actually a mathematical situation.  It basically says that if you make even a minute change in the starting conditions of some scenario, it can have a tremendous impact down the road.   That’s the expectation that I have.  I hope that I can help inform my 20-30 readers, who will then spread that knowedge or act upon it in their own life.  Maybe I’ll change a few perspectives of people who will then change a few perspectives.

So welcome to The Butterfly Effect.  Change you can really believe in.   (Hey, everyone else is using it)

Ignorance is Bliss

I’m sure a lot of people have been reading about the financial crisis that’s hitting Wall Street in the past few weeks. There’s talk about bankruptcies and bailouts and the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression. I’m typically pretty good at removing the media hype from a situation like this and finding out the real facts. I’ve been quiet for the past week or so because I’ve really be trying to understand what’s going on and if it’s as severe as the media is hyping it up to be. It’s such a complicated matter, looking at all the causes that got us here, their effects on the economy, the reactions from the government and Wall Street, and the effects of the government actions on the economy, the financial sector, and citizens. As far as I’ve been able to discern in my week of reading, I can say this: it is definitely at least as bad as you’re hearing it is. In fact, it may be worse because the media is too short sighted to talk about how this effects us in a year or five years.

Let me see if I can briefly and clearly describe what happened. (I doubt this is going to be brief)

The whole downturn of the system started about 2 years ago when the housing market started going under. Big lenders were giving out loans to people who were hardly qualified to take them on or pay them back. In the lenders’ eyes, if the people defaulted on their loans, they still have the house as collateral and with the long trend of upward housing prices, they’d at least make back their money, if not turn a profit. The assumption was that housing prices would continue to rise. These risky loans are what you hear about when they talk about “subprime” mortgages. Subprime sounds nicer then “risky.” Eventually, prices of homes did start to come down and these subprime borrowers started to default on the loans in large numbers which caused the banks to begin to fail. I believe that so far we’ve seen 9 major consumer banks go under because of this.

So the question is, why was this money being given out so freely? There are a few reasons. First, the government helped to keep interest rates artificially low, which makes it easier for banks to get money and give it away. Also, the government pushed through regulations on banks that basically said that they need to offer loans to a wider group of people under the “everyone should own a home” initiatives of the early part of this decade. Essentially, the banks couldn’t say no to some people that they would have deemed too risky in the past. Third, there was no fear of lending because of the previously stated perpetual upward trend in the housing market.

The decline of these mortgages caused a domino effect in the financial industry because everyone had their hand in the pot of what seemed to be an endless supply of profits. Little known to most people, mortgages are bought and sold all the time. These troublesome subprime mortgages were cut up and repackaged into what are called securities. Investment banks and Wall Street firms purchase these securities all the time as a part of diversifying their investment strategy. These particular securities that they were buying and selling were very exotic in nature, being a complicated mix of a bunch of different parts of different mortgages. Thus, even the smartest of economists don’t really know what they’re worth. When the subprime market started to go under, all the banks shut down their credit, even to other banks (banks exchange cash all the time). The big investment banks, like Bear Sterns, had a problem in that they had no liquid assets. This means that they had plenty of money, but it was tied up in these exotic securities. When the housing market went under, no one wanted to buy them anymore because no one could figure out what they were worth.

Ok, everyone breathe, we’re getting there.

Next question: How does having your money tied up in these housing securities make an investment company go under? There are credit rating agencies that give grades to banks based on their assets. The two major ones are Moody’s and S&P. When these credit rating agencies downgrade a bank’s credit grade, it requires the bank to post a higher collateral on their debt assets. As an example, if you’re rating was an E, you might have to post $1 on a $100 debt, but if I lower your rating to a D+, you might have to post $5 instead. Because these investment banks had all of their money tied up in these securities that no one wanted to buy, the credit agencies lowered their rating and the banks didn’t have the extra collateral to post to cover the lower rating. This is what got Bear Sterns and AIG (more on them in a sec).

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are federally backed mortgage companies. This means that if a loan defaults through one of these companies, the government will back them up and make sure that they get paid. During this time of loose spending, these two companies backed up some $5.4 trillion (yes, trillion with a t) in mortgage debt and, when they couldn’t keep up with the defaults, were taken over by the government.

AIG is the world’s largest insurance company. Their situation was a little different. They offered an insurance plan to the people that were buying all of the wacky mortgage securities. (It’s called a credit default swap if you care). In essence, this insurance said that if there was a default on the mortgage, AIG would make sure that the investor didn’t lose money. AIG got a premium every month for this guarantee, kind of like what you do for your car, but in obviously larger payments. When the defaults got crazy, AIG couldn’t keep up with the payments to people who lost money and went under. Think of it like if you were Geico and all of sudden, every one of your customers got into a major accident in the same day. You’d be hard pressed to come up with enough cash to pay out all of those claims. AIG has been given an $85 billion line of credit from the government to keep afloat in exchange for an 80% ownership stake in the company. So, in essence, the government owns the two largest mortgage companies and most of the largest insurance company in the world because of the whole mess. Talk about socialism.

As you can see, it’s a long, complicated mess that took me over a thousand words to briefly write about. I’m sure I’ve oversimplified things a lot to get it down to a thousand.

The big question that I’m sure a lot of people care about is: How does this effect me? The best answer that I’ve been able to gather so far is that it’s impossible to be sure right now. In the short term, it’ll be really hard to get a loan. With the shock to the financial system, banks are a little wary of giving away any money to anyone but the most reliable borrowers. If you want to buy a house, you’ll probably have to go back to the old days of having good credit and 20% down. (Fortunately, with housing prices readjusting down, 20% isn’t near as high as it used to be).

As a taxpayer, it’s a big waiting game right now. The bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has the potential to be profitable in the long run since that debt could turn a profit in the same way it does for a mortgage company. The same goes for the money that we used as a bailout for AIG. There is, still, a huge sum of money that no one knows about because the major bailout package still isn’t through Congress. The bad part of this that in order to cover all of these bailouts, the government will need to print money. We didn’t have any money before the bailouts and now we’re looking at a ton of money that we need to come up with that we don’t have. This money printing causes inflation which will probably lead to higher prices for middle America and the poor.

From everything I’ve read, we haven’t seen the bottom of this yet. I guess it’s time for all of us to tighten up our spending and actually get back to saving and waiting for the mess to blow over in a few years. This knowledge definitely makes me fear the next few years. I guess what they say about ignorance is true. Knowing what’s really going on is the opposite of bliss.

Failure?

As you might have figured out from reading through the blog, I was not able to complete my 30 day challenge.  I had gone about 25 of the 30 days as of Thursday.  I had a long day at work, then had to go to grad class, and had a major headache.  I literally came home and fell asleep right away, with my clothes still on.  Friday, I’ll admit, I was simply too drunk to type.  So did I fail?  By the strictest interpretation of the challenge, absolutely.  But, to me, it doesn’t really matter.  I’ve learned a lot about myself during the challenge and was able to start a new hobby.  I’ve found out how much I really enjoy writing and how much sifting through your own thoughts can allow you to realize things about yourself and your views on life that you never realized.  I have no plan on stopping the writing that I’m doing just because the challenge is over.  So, in a sense, it really wasn’t a failure.  The whole point of the 30 day challenge was to try something new for 30 days and commit to it to see if it’s something that you’ll enjoy.  I know that after only 25 days, I definitely enjoy doing this.   I probably won’t post EVERY day as there were certainly days during the last month that I was hard pressed to find something to write about.

Either way, I’m pretty proud that there are about 22 really solid pieces of writing already.  I think there will be many more to come.  My hope is that if you like something particular that I wrote, or if it stirred some emotion in you, that you’ll pass along the link to your friends or family to read as well.  It feels really good to check the site every day and see that you had 15-20 people read your thoughts.  Heck, there were a couple of posts that exceeded 50 views.  Overall, I’m sitting at over 650 page views in 25 postings.  Not too shabby.  I’d love to gain more readers so please help me out and spread the word.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment.  I enjoy the debate that comes along with sharing your thoughts.  Be sure to check back every couple of days and comment away on the new stuff that will be coming.

A sense of urgency

There’s nothing exciting to talk about politically until the debate next Thursday.   During this lull, I wanted  to talk the effect this election has had on me as it has been a fairly significant one.

I just got finished reading Ron Paul’s book called The Revolution: A Manifesto.  It’s a short read.  It’s only about 150 pages, but it’s packed with more information then I’ve read in weeks or months anywhere else.  I’ve been caught up in the political process for about the last 10 years and it was such an eye opener to read about things like foreign policy, economic policy, and social policy and have it all make sense.  I don’t mean that he dumbed anything down in the writing.  Quite to the contrary actually.  Many of his positions are quite sophisticated.  The thing that made sense was that his positions were actually backed by sound historical and empirical information.  I can honestly say that I rarely, if ever, see this done before by a politician.

He spends time reminding us about how health care was affordable before government created HMOs and other managed health care.  He reminded me about how prosperous we were before we let our budget explode out of control.  He actually said something in the book that made me seriously rethink my current prochoice stance on abortion.  The entire book just cut through all the nonsense and got right to the heart of these matters.  Without all that smoke and mirrors, it’s possible for a regular guy like me to have an opinion on these topics and make an informed decision.  I’m happy to lend this book to anyone who wants to read it.  It has had the same effect that many college courses had on my views about religions (I promise I’ll write about this later.)  Before college, I had only known one way: Roman Catholicism.  After these courses, I was hit with a barrage of perspectives and ideas about religion that I was forced to completely reshape my views.  Politically and as a citizen, I’ve had that same experience.

I was especially impressed with Paul’s amazing depth of knowledge on monetary and fiscal policy.  It inspired me to go pick up some economics books and learn about all this stuff.  It’s amazing to think that 30% of your money is taken away and spent by the government and most people have a difficult time figuring out how the whole system works.  Grasping a concept like inflation is important.  Understanding what’s actually happening when the Fed cuts the interest rate effects you.

The depth of the inspiration that I got from reading this material, coupled with a lot of other sources that I’ve used to learn about politics and government over the last year, has made me decide that when I’m finally settled in somewhere and know it’s where I want to put down some roots, I’m going to run for elected office.  I’m definitely not a suit and tie kind of guy, but I’m also not the type of guy to sit around and wait for someone else to do something.  I’m putting this idea that’s in my head out to the people that I know to act as a motivation for me.  It’s important to me to follow through with my words and placing this out there makes it all the more likely that I will.

There was one amazing idea in the book that’s really stuck in my head and been influential in this new found desire.  The Constitution was created to protect the people from the government yet the government forcibly takes a percentage of your paycheck every week.  We all work about a day week for the government.  It can force you to go to war if it wants to reinstate a draft.  The government owns you.  It owns me.  It wasn’t meant to be this way.

It has to change.

Re-runs

I was thinking about what to write today and I had an idea, but then I remembered that I wrote about it years ago when I used to post randomly on my myspace blog.  At first, I balked at the idea of copying over those posts because then I’d be breaking my 30 days of writing, but then I started reading some of that old stuff and I really enjoyed it.  Then I remembered that I don’t care what you think so I’m going to run a best-of from those postings and some from an old Livejournal one as well.  These are things that I wrote about 3-4 years ago at the tender age of 22-23: (I just realized that this paragraph counts. The streak continues!)

Originally posted 12/6/2004:
Ok can we all please stop living in this imaginary world and just agree that new born babies are ugly?

I have no idea how people can look at a baby that has just been born and possibly say, with a straight face, that he or she is cute. They’re just wrong and I’ll prove it to you. I’m going to describe the average new born baby and we’ll see if they are redeeming qualities.

The average newborn is pudgy to say the least. Their average body fat index is probably like 40%. Not a muscle on their body. Now I’m not saying that they should have muscles because less face it, they’ve never used their arms or legs so that wouldn’t make much sense. Either way, someone with that little muscle and that much fat is not looking highly upon in our society.

A typical newborn is also usually bald (not by choice) or has thin hair. Ask any girl whether they’d want a guy with thinned hair or no hair or a guy with a full head of hair. I think more often then not, they’d go with the latter. (Better yet, think of a guy and whether he’d want a girl with no hair)

A newborn has no teeth. Who in their right mind would think that someone with no teeth is cute?

Also, who could possibly think that a human being that has no control over their bowels and that pukes every other minute is at all desirable? Makes no sense to me.

I sit around and I see everyone oohing and ahhhing and awwwing every time a little kid gurgle or makes a sound. Let’s rip out the video camera when they finally figure out what their legs are for. Hello people!! These are things they’re supposed to do!! Civilized human beings should be able to walk, communicate, and goto the bathroom somewhere other then their pants.

So let’s summarize the basic attributes of these children:
1)Pudgy and flabby
2)No muscles
3)Bald
4)Toothless
5)Pukes and craps all over the place
6)Uneducated
7)A real high maintenance individual

Those are some of the least desirable physical qualities I can think of. That’s not cute! That’s ugly. So can we please get past all the politically correct bullshit and just come to an agreement that newborn babies are ugly. It’s not their fault. They were born that way. They’re a work in progress. Maybe when they’re 2 or 3 and mildly self sufficient, then we can start that cute meter going up, but until then, let’s stop lying to ourselves.

Originally posted 3/17/2005:
Pink Starburst rule.

Thank you.

Originally posted 3/24/2005:
I was sitting here at work….avoiding work..and I got to thinking. Does the colored shell on the outside of an M&M really effect the taste? I can never tell. It’s things like this that keep me up at night.

Originally posted 11/19/2005 (Don’t drink and blog)
welcome to my drunken blog entry. i decided that since i can’t think straight, i should post a blog about world peace. world peace is important to the world because it leads to peace. it is important to have peace in the world because it leads to peace.. I can’t remember what i was saying but i think it had something to do with drinking. it is important to drink because drinking leads to more drinking and if we had a lot of drinking there would be a lot of peace and that’s good to have. i’ll drink to that. amen and allehigjua. fuck i suck at spelling when i’m drunk. praise jesus for this drunken night!. woot! amen!

Originally posted 01/09/2006:
Know what I was just thinking about?

Why do they call it a pair of pants when you only get one? It’s not a pair of anything… and shouldn’t it be a pant? The word pants is plural, again implying some other missing pant.

I demand my other pant.

Originally posted 12/07/2005:
Today’s lesson: The turn signal

I’ve had about enough of people misusing their turn signals. What the fuck is the point of hitting your brake, then turning on your turn signal. Hello asshole, the point of a turn signal is to LET ME KNOW YOU’RE GOING TO BRAKE. Why the fuck would you turn it on after you’ve already almost caused an accident? If you’re going to be a complete moron, at least just be inconsiderate and don’t use it at all.

I bet if they were to chart the usage of foul language, there would be a severe spike at the age a person learns to drive.

Originally posted 02/08/2006:
i close my eyes and think of what is
i think of what could be and what never was
a feeling of calm washes over my mind and a smile warms my face
because i know, in that moment, that what is is what should be
what could be could still be
and what never was was never meant to be
i take a deep breath, empty my mind, and fall into a peaceful slumber

Originally posted 03/20/2006

Originally posted 03/22/2006:

Originally posted 03/27/2006:

Originally posted 05/24/2006:

I was bored today so I found out that my alarm clock beeps at 93 beats per minute.

Now THAT’S some useless information.

Originally posted 07/26/2006:
Want to know what I learned today?

It’s not a good idea to eat a powdered sugar donut while driving with the air conditioner on full blast.

Also, powdered sugar burns when it gets in your eyes.

Originally posted 09/15/2006:
“On the dresser, there’s a dildo made from the same soft pink plastic as a million Barbie dolls, and for a moment, Tyler can picture millions of baby dolls and Barbie dolls and dildos injection-molded and coming off the same assembly line in Taiwan.”

from Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Originally posted 09/26/2006:
I was just thinking… (brace yourself)

If I used the same naming technique that Sam Walton did when he named Walmart, my store would be called Martmart. How awesome would that be? People would come in and buy shit just because of the naming novelty. I could make a fortune.

Originally posted 09/21/2007:
“I am an invisible man… I am not complaining, nor am I protesting either. It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves. Then too, you’re constantly being bumped against by those of poor vision. Or again, you often doubt if you really exist. You wonder whether you aren’t simply a phantom in other people’s minds…. It’s when you feel like this that, out of resentment, you begin to bump people back. And, let me confess, you feel that way most of the time. You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world, that you’re a part of all the sounds and anguish, and you strike out with your fists, you curse and you swear to make them recognize you. And, alas, it’s seldom successful.”

An excerpt from The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Originally posted 09/27/2007:
I’ve seen a recent trend among men that needs to be stopped. It’s been growing and growing and I just can’t take it any longer.

This is a notice to all men: You should not have your suitcase on wheels rolling behind you. It makes you look like a giant douchebag! Be a real man and pick the damn thing up. It can’t weigh more then, what, 3-4 lbs? If you’re too much of a fucking wuss to carry a suitcase or small bag, you must turn in your balls because you are officially no longer a man.

The next time I see a guy walking to the train with a suitcase on wheels, I’m going to grab it and throw it on the god damn train tracks.

I’m tired of this shit.

Response to my writing

A colleague of mine sent me an email with some great critiques of my political viewpoints.  He didn’t want to post them on the site initially because he didn’t want to step on my toes and create a debate.  I actually encourage the debate so I asked if I could post it and respond.  So thanks for the responses Eric!  The original email is in regular text and my responses are in bold below it.  I welcome anyone who’s reading to join in on the debates as well and comment on any of my writing.

————————————————————————————————

I think it’s dangerous to argue that on the presidential level a choice between this or that (not much of a choice, I’ll admit) will have little impact on the future. I think you gave a kick-ass reminder in another blog of the number one fundamental of politics: Politicians say what they say to get elected, including the one I like and the one you like, and nobody’s got a crystal ball on election day.

Still, every decision alters everything all the time. I don’t know which promises my candidate will keep and which ones he won’t and what will get in the way of his commitment (even if it’s himself). Maybe election is choosing the person you trust and believing in choice. Choice makes a difference.

You’ve argued that our candidates are similar, but similarity is not sameness. Take two compounds with similar formulas–one is explosive while and the other is inert; one is harmless while the other is poisonous. The difference may be one atom to every molecule.

I agree that it’s dangerous to be debating these types of choices but more so in that it distracts from the debate we should be having. We’re focusing on these sometimes trivial issues and talking about a set of choices that offer only a microscopic change and expecting a great deal to change as a result. I think that everyone genuinely wants change in the way things are running. That’s obvious because both parties are running on a platform of change but how can we wait 8 years and be satisfied with only a molecule of progress? If we’re going to see the real change that people want, we need a drastic change in policy.

What we’re really offered is “the lesser of two evils” (which is a phrase used frighteningly often in presidential politics) That’s not a choice that I’m willing to make. It shouldn’t be one that anyone is willing to settle for.

The problem is that people see voting for a third party as “wasting” a vote. I can understand this viewpoint because no one wants to vote for a guaranteed loser. I look at it as “wasting” my vote if I vote for a major party candidate because both of their views are similar enough to the status quo that we’re not really going to see much change. If there’s enough “wasted” votes, we’ll start to see some of that real change and not the fluff that the major parties are going on about.

You’ve argued that going after the corporations will trickle down to the consumer; to an extent, it will. I would also agree that anything that harms the corporations throws off the economy’s balance, which for most of the last century has been extremely dependent on consumerism. However, for whatever proportion of corporations are in sales, the basic laws of economics dictate that any increase in prices for non-essential goods will cut demand. Raising their prices could actually reduce their revenue. To at least some degree, corporations would be forced to reduce their insane profit margins.

Again, the problem here is more fundamental. I’d argue that we shouldn’t be raising taxes on either the corporation or the consumer. In fact, we should be lowering taxes on both and lifting regulation on business. You stated yourself that meddling with the corporations throws off the economy. If we lower taxes and shrink the size of the budget by cutting all of the unnecessary spending, everyone wins. Less of your money is given to the government. Less of the corporations money is given to the government. This means that you have more money to spend on cheaper goods, thus increasing your buying power AND the profits of the corporation (As a side bar, profit margins for corporations are not a bad thing. It’s a horrible trend in a capitalist society to have the image of evil empire.)

To argue that it makes no difference where we are fighting is another thing I’d like to address. I’m glad you mentioned the facts about McCain and Obama’s military policies (I didn’t know those facts); with either candidate, a bully military and the Bush doctrine of preemptive strikes could survive (and although Obama is strongly interested in diplomacy and using the treaty before the gun, the logic we’ve set up is that words only count some).

But something we must “never forget” is that there never was any satisfactory justification for making war with Iraq; in fact, we were misled, misinformed, and deceived. Afghanistan, different cup of beans. While I believe very little of the hype because of how it is used, we seem to have forgotten the very things we said this war was about: making sure 9/11 has no sequel, the Taliban’s role in Al-Qaeda, and capturing Osama bin Laden. Without going way off into that territory, let me simply say that bombing Mr. Johnson’s neighbor Mr. Thompson for something Mr. Johnson did, encouraged or permitted isn’t fair, and there’s an important difference between the two.

For this, it’s important to consider why we got attacked on 9/11 in the first place. Most people buy in to the rah rah patriotic propaganda from the government that we were attacked because they were jealous of our freedom and prosperity. No one stops to think how completely insane that is. They bombed us for the simple fact that we’re over there meddling in their region in the first place. We’ve been doing this for sixty years. We overthrew the Iranian government in 1953 for oil and never left. We’ve established bases, put in missiles, gotten involved in wars, and generally stuck our nose where it doesn’t belong. Of course, I agree that Bin Laden is a criminal and a murderer and should be brought to justice for his crimes. I’m concerned that we’re still in Iraq and Afghanistan and now they’re debating whether it’s OK to cross the border into Pakistan (a nuclear power) without authorization to chase Bin Laden. If the goal is to “make sure 9/11 has no sequel,” I’m just left to wonder if continuing to meddle in the region is going to end up undermining that in the long run.

Those who can, do.

There’s a common saying out there that I’ve heard a lot. It goes “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” First of all, I’m entirely unsure if the commas I wrote in that statement are appropriately placed and it’s far too difficult to write, so I already don’t like it. Even before I had to type it, I didn’t really agree with it. I’ve been teaching for a couple of years now and I can honestly say that if I wanted to, I could… but I choose to teach anyway.

I can understand where this statement comes from. Many people enter our misguided college education system and come out with a degree in English, math, philosophy, communication, marketing, etc etc and I would guess that at least half have absolutely no practical plan for employment in their major field when they get out. Unless you’re pre-med, pre-law, or some other field that is extremely geared towards one specific profession, your options are wide enough and you’re young enough at the time of graduation, that it’s very easy to be missing that necessary sense of direction towards a career. These people then decide that if they don’t have anything else to use their degree for, they’ll teach it. So, as the phrase alludes, these people can’t do something practical with their major, so they teach.

The problem with this idea is that many (not all, but many) should have never gotten into teaching in the first place. These people choose English or math or science and then fall back on teaching when they need to start making some money. In my opinion, you have to love the art of teaching and really believe in what you’re doing more so then what subject you’re teaching. I’ve told some of my students that I’d teach them Latin if the wanted to know Latin. (I know nothing about Latin)  There really is a difference between a teacher who loves history and wants to convey that and a teacher that loves teaching. I think that longevity of the individual in the profession comes from this distinction.

Let me stress that I’ve worked with many people who probably took this path and are effective teachers. I do, sometimes, wonder if some really love what they do or if they’re just launching their 5 year plan towards something else. (as in “I’ll teach until my Ebay business takes off)  Some might have come in through this path and have realized that they love teaching as much as their subject specialty. I don’t really ask about that kind of stuff.

I just wish more teachers would realize that if you enter this kind of profession that it’s a service job. It requires sacrifice and a lot of hard work. You won’t be recognized or paid well and you’ll be blamed when things go wrong.  You’re going to do a lot of hours of work that no one sees or acknowledges. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard “You work from 8:00am to 2:30pm and get two months off in the summer. I wish I had your job.” To that I answer, Ha! and leave it at that.

If you want to be successful and happy working as a teacher, you have to really love what you do. I’m convinced of this.  You have to take your payment in having old students come back and beg you to teach them again. You have to acknowledge that if you take a moment to be lazy, your students suffer much longer because you wanted to watch “My Name is Earl.” (That puts it in perspective, doesn’t it?) Granted, you need to balance your work and your home life and part of the art of teaching is being both effective and efficient so that you can get that. In the end, however, it’s about the 30 kids that sit in front of you for 45 minutes every day. If you half-ass it, you’re messing with their future.

It makes me happy every day when old student actually try to sneak into my classes. My thanks doesn’t necessarily come in words but in seeing a student a year later and knowing that if I didn’t fight them for a year to help them mature, that they wouldn’t have made it to where they are.  If your payment must be in dollars and not in personal gratification, see the currency exchange window on your way to Wall Street.  (The exchange rate is extremely low)

There’s another saying out there that I’ve quoted here before: “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.” That’s what should be running through your head if you’re teaching. The moment you think you’re going to work, you should leave and never come back. I haven’t worked a day in the past 2 years.

So let’s amend that first statement to be accurate: “Those can, do. Those who can’t, try to teach for two years and then quit. Those who stick around, see line 1.”