This afternoon I got my daily e-mail from Crossing Broad. Sometimes I read it, sometimes I don't. Today I read the article about the house Superflop is having built in Florida. The house is going to take three years to build and will come in at around $23,000,000. In the spirit of being somewhat fair I need to point out that Howard is not the only athlete to do something like this. Tiger Woods and Derek Jeter have similar abodes as do many of the folks who have a lower tax rate than you do.
What sets Howard's crib apart from the others is that he is having a moat built around his place.
A moat? Does he believe that he is a medieval lord? What the fuck does this asshole need a moat for? Also included is the obligatory pool, bowling alley, and God knows what else. Maybe he ought to include a trophy room where he can display his spit soaked batting gloves or his little boy bats, or his body armor.
That's it! The asshole wears that armor on his right elbow (which has to effect his swing) so maybe he thinks he is King Arthur - thus the moat. Look, the guy makes (steals?) a ton of money and can do with it what he pleases, but the excess seems in bad form when millions of Americans are sitting at home worrying if they will get their Social Security checks. Talk to some of these folks and unless you are a Tea Party flaming asshole you will immediately understand how scared they are. Or talk to someone struggling to keep their child in college who now has to worry whether or not the Pell grant they desperately need to pay the bills is going to come or not.
I suppose that many of the rich folks don't get it - because everything is honky dory for them. Some of them are hedge fund managers who take down in excess of a billion dollars a year and pay the cap gains tax rate of 15% while the schmuck who makes $50,000 a year pays a rate nearly twice that. Duh. Science fiction writers couldn't make this shit up, but it is true.
Now some politicians tell us that we must cut spending dramatically, but cannot increase taxes or close loopholes on the very wealthiest of individuals or corporations as they are the job creators. Uh huh - so where are the fucking jobs for the middle and working classes? Well, a bunch of them are now somewhere other than here. I hope I'm not the only one who gets crazy when calling Comcast and gets to speak with some dude who is in some city in India that I cannot pronounce. Americans should have those jobs.
Both parties have now given up their "deficit reduction plans" and both ask those in the middle and working classes to once again bend over and grab their ankles tightly. Have they all lost their minds and their souls? It looks like they have. We need to throw them all out of office and start over - but we won't - trust me on that. Lastly, I wish that Obama will beg Michelle to allow him to wear his balls the next time he speaks to the nation and when he sits down at the table with Boehner, Cantor, and the rest of the Nazi contingent. I'm at the point that I would love him to address the nation to tell us that he will veto both plans because neither includes new revenue, and if we default - so be it. Then he needs to outline what he will sign, and stick to his guns. After the speech he should call the Chinese and tell them not expect interest payments until the congress does the right thing. He should tell them that with the funds available he is going to pay our troops, our seniors, and continue to fund grants and scholarships for kids.
I figure it will take the Chinese about one minute to be on the phone with our congressional leaders demanding that they end this madness - as in now.
I believe that we must get our fiscal house in order. If we don't then we will drive this country to the ground. For those of you that believe that drastic cuts must be made now while we are in the grips of the worst decline since the depression need to read the history of the Great Depression. The economy was coming back by 1937, and then collapsed again because congress, in its infinite wisdom, decided that all was well and started to cut back on spending for programs that employed millions of Americans. Without the spending, these people lost their jobs, stopped spending and the country nosedived again and stayed down until the Second World War when we had no choice but to spend, employ people, and make things.
After the war, after a small recession, we saw America's greatest decades where middle and working class people had good jobs and were able to become solid members of the middle class. The middle class now is in a death spiral and will not recover unless and until good paying jobs are there for the taking.
This recession might have been caused by the excesses of the financial services industry, but continues because of a lack of demand. People without jobs do not spend money on anything but the bare necessities and those who are still employed cut back their spending as they are afraid of losing their jobs. My solution is to create a federally-funded jobs program that will really put people back to work. There are thousands of infrastructure projects which are not being done because of a lack of funding. How many bridges have to be declared unsafe or fall down before our elected darlings get the picture? Bridges need steel. In my world, the law would require the use of steel made in the U.S.A.. No foreign subsidized shit allowed! Next time you take a ride on our superhighways, count the miles of deteriorating concrete and the number of potholes you drive over. Fuck the deficit for now, let's rebuild our highways and byways, by employing Americans using American concrete.
I could go on all night with this, but let's just say that I am in favor of another Marshall Plan - this time directed internally. It will create jobs, increase demand which will cause American companies to hire Americans and reinvest here.
I was going to stick to baseball today, but it didn't work out that way. Yes, the Phillies could not find a way to beat the Giants last night. FLASH: Carlos Beltran to the Giants - he is expected to be in the lineup tonight against the Phillies! I wish I could give a shit, but there are more important issues on my plate at this time.
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