And That’s the Way it Was, 2009
No Virginia, 2010 is not the beginning of a new decade. Contrary to popular belief, 2011 is the beginning of the new decade. It’s really quite simple. “Deca” means ten; you start with the number one, and count accordingly. Just as 2000 was not the beginning of a new millennium, 2001 was, as you start with the number one, not zero, as zero is not a number. Got it?
When I started writing this blog earlier this year, I did so for several selfish reasons. Primarily to have some creative outlet to voice my opinion in hopefully some cogent manner on any subject that happened to catch my attention. The second was to spawn someone to think about something in a different light (or think about it at all!)
This year was full of change, and a polarization of politics that has not been seen since Abraham Lincoln was sworn into office in 1861.
I’ll be brief as the political pontiffs on both sides of the fence have beat this one and watched it bleed to their own amusement. Simply put; shame on both parties for branding to their own self interests instead of the best interest of the American people.
The media frenzy that has followed has been nothing less than deplorable, and their unrelenting attention to events that had absolutely no influence on the world as we know it has been nothing less than remarkable for the distraction that it caused away from the true issues that the media need to focus on.
But let’s face it, we don’t want to hear that the planet is going to hell in a hand basket, we’d rather be distracted by what drugs Michael Jackson was taking when he died, that’s real journalism in it purest form, right. That’s Pulitzer Prize reporting at its finest! Less we forget about President Obama having received the Nobel peace prize. Some peace we have! I don’t even have peace of mind!
I’m sorry, President Bush learned nothing from the war in Iraq, other than to make all of his closest friends extremely wealthy. Did you know that food service to our troops is no longer a duty of “KP”, it’s out sourced to private firms. Big business when you’re serving 3 square meals to thousands of American troupes every day; do the math! And that’s just the tip of the preverbal iceberg. Where’s Molly Brown when you need her?
And now we’re involved in a war in Afghanistan/Pakistan against an allusive enemy that we’re not even sure who they are, yet alone where they are in a part of the world that is so inhospitable not even the people who live there want to. And are governed by one of the most corrupt political systems in the world (I guess we set a pretty good standard).
We’re spending BILLIONS of dollars to protect the “homeland” abroad. What if we spent those billions improving our schools, roads, power grids and investing in local economies, we’d have the infrastructure to defend ourselves from these “enemies” at home, where we should! I’ll say it “GET OUT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN NOW!”
And of course there was the financial bail outs. Started by the prior administration and carried on by the newly elected one, the plan has been to infuse money into small businesses.
Guess what, the banks aren’t lending money to small businesses. Surprise, surprise! God forbid they should aid a democratic half black, half white president succeed in their all white world!
Now you’re thinking, “oh, you can’t say that, that’s taboo!” It’s time we call a spade a spade!
Case in point; I am retained as a consultant for a small business, and they received a letter from their bank, a small enterprise that specializes in regional business banking, stating that they had received $140 million in government stimulus dollars to lend to their small business clients.
This is a no brainer. The business has a great credit history, as do the owners of the business, a corporation, the business has hard assets of over six million dollars so establishing a line of credit with the bank should be a slam dunk.
Think again. In 1996, one of the principals of the business was involved in another business (also a corporation) that filed for bankruptcy. Thirteen years ago, and guess what, the bank rejected a line of credit for $50,000 because of that.
So it’s business as usual and the money that has been given to banks to spur the economy as ended up in interest bearing accounts to the bank’s own interest. Never mind that 5 people could have been kept on the payroll for 3 months instead of being laid off and collecting unemployment, oh, which by the way cost the system more, and this small business more in unemployment taxes in the future.
Every cause has an effect, Aristotle was one to put it into some objective prospective, however, we have taken it to extremes.
“The horse is out of the barn, lock the barn”.
Yet again, when a would be terrorist tried to blow himself up on an airplane all of a sudden, AFTER the event, there’s “heightened” security at every U.S. airport. Never mind that this guy got on the plane in the Netherlands, not on U.S. soil. How could Homeland Security let something like this happen???
The last time I checked, the Netherlands wasn’t part of the U.S., it’s not a territory and I don’t believe that they’ve ever given any thought to joining the good ole U S of A. They’d have to give up their universal health care!
But in the news they did say that their information on terrorists was not as “robust” as that of the U.S. They probably don’t have innocent citizens in their database like we do.
But in the end, someone, a customs official or someone from the U.S. embassy had to take his passport, scan it, take a rubber stamp and issue a visa to this fellow for him to enter this fine country. They have the list, don’t they? Or, maybe not. In any case, the guy, who had explosives wrapped around his waist, got through airport security, with a visa and got on the plane. So now we are even more inconvenienced when flying than we were before (that I find really hard to believe!)
And speaking of visas, did you know that if you live in Latin or South America, you have to pay a $500 filing fee to apply for a visa (per person) to visit the U.S.? Now, that doesn’t mean you’ll get a visa, it could be denied and guess what, we keep the five-hundred bucks!
Airport security, or the TSA. Now I did a lot of traveling in ’06 and ’07. Went through the take off your shoes, belt, jacket, remove your laptop from its case and do the merry dance at the end to reassemble your things without the room to properly do it as your pants begin to slip down below your waist. In my travels I did notice one thing. Among the people working for the TSA there was a lack of racial diversity. And I’ll go as far as to say that the organization is ripe with nepotism, among other things.
What I found most disturbing, however, was a conversation I overheard while eating lunch one day, where a woman in the booth next to mine was confiding with a friend saying that her brother worked for the TSA and he could get her anything she wanted; a Rolex, digital camera, jewelry – you name it; for a price, of course.
Now these are people whom we are trusting with our safety, and our luggage, which, by law, has to remain unlocked, even though they run it through an x-ray machine that has enough gamma rays to wipe out a small city. On several occasions I found a card in my luggage left by the TSA saying that they had opened the bag to hand inspect it. Jockey shorts, socks, some folded shirts and a pair of shoes. Maybe they thought I had a bomb in the heals of my shoes. Can’t be to careful, can we!
Once I paid cash for my ticket. When I got to the security gate, they pulled me aside, placed me in a separate room, tested my baggage for chemical residue and had me strip down to my underwear. It wasn’t a pretty picture, I can tell you that! But I was obviously flagged as a person of suspicion because I didn’t use a credit card (and therefore traceable), even though I did have to present my drivers license.
This is madness in the highest degree! It takes longer to fly to San Francisco now because of all the crap you have to go through than to drive the five hours, and you don’t have to disrobe once!
So here we are, at the end of another year. Many people think this was worse than 2008, that the recession has been really bad. It is my belief that most folks in 2008 didn’t understand the severity of the recession and thought as soon as we got a new guy in office all would be well with the world. But in truth what people realized is that it’s going to take more than a new face in the White House for all to be back the way it was. It isn’t, it will probably not be, at least in my lifetime, like it was. We were all mesmerized by how much money we could borrow and spend, rather than the hard truth that at some point you have to pay the bill.
And no, Virginia, Santa Claus isn’t going to bail us out, it’s something we’re going to have to do on our own.
Happy New Year!
No Virginia, 2010 is not the beginning of a new decade. Contrary to popular belief, 2011 is the beginning of the new decade. It’s really quite simple. “Deca” means ten; you start with the number one, and count accordingly. Just as 2000 was not the beginning of a new millennium, 2001 was, as you start with the number one, not zero, as zero is not a number. Got it?
When I started writing this blog earlier this year, I did so for several selfish reasons. Primarily to have some creative outlet to voice my opinion in hopefully some cogent manner on any subject that happened to catch my attention. The second was to spawn someone to think about something in a different light (or think about it at all!)
This year was full of change, and a polarization of politics that has not been seen since Abraham Lincoln was sworn into office in 1861.
I’ll be brief as the political pontiffs on both sides of the fence have beat this one and watched it bleed to their own amusement. Simply put; shame on both parties for branding to their own self interests instead of the best interest of the American people.
The media frenzy that has followed has been nothing less than deplorable, and their unrelenting attention to events that had absolutely no influence on the world as we know it has been nothing less than remarkable for the distraction that it caused away from the true issues that the media need to focus on.
But let’s face it, we don’t want to hear that the planet is going to hell in a hand basket, we’d rather be distracted by what drugs Michael Jackson was taking when he died, that’s real journalism in it purest form, right. That’s Pulitzer Prize reporting at its finest! Less we forget about President Obama having received the Nobel peace prize. Some peace we have! I don’t even have peace of mind!
I’m sorry, President Bush learned nothing from the war in Iraq, other than to make all of his closest friends extremely wealthy. Did you know that food service to our troops is no longer a duty of “KP”, it’s out sourced to private firms. Big business when you’re serving 3 square meals to thousands of American troupes every day; do the math! And that’s just the tip of the preverbal iceberg. Where’s Molly Brown when you need her?
And now we’re involved in a war in Afghanistan/Pakistan against an allusive enemy that we’re not even sure who they are, yet alone where they are in a part of the world that is so inhospitable not even the people who live there want to. And are governed by one of the most corrupt political systems in the world (I guess we set a pretty good standard).
We’re spending BILLIONS of dollars to protect the “homeland” abroad. What if we spent those billions improving our schools, roads, power grids and investing in local economies, we’d have the infrastructure to defend ourselves from these “enemies” at home, where we should! I’ll say it “GET OUT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN NOW!”
And of course there was the financial bail outs. Started by the prior administration and carried on by the newly elected one, the plan has been to infuse money into small businesses.
Guess what, the banks aren’t lending money to small businesses. Surprise, surprise! God forbid they should aid a democratic half black, half white president succeed in their all white world!
Now you’re thinking, “oh, you can’t say that, that’s taboo!” It’s time we call a spade a spade!
Case in point; I am retained as a consultant for a small business, and they received a letter from their bank, a small enterprise that specializes in regional business banking, stating that they had received $140 million in government stimulus dollars to lend to their small business clients.
This is a no brainer. The business has a great credit history, as do the owners of the business, a corporation, the business has hard assets of over six million dollars so establishing a line of credit with the bank should be a slam dunk.
Think again. In 1996, one of the principals of the business was involved in another business (also a corporation) that filed for bankruptcy. Thirteen years ago, and guess what, the bank rejected a line of credit for $50,000 because of that.
So it’s business as usual and the money that has been given to banks to spur the economy as ended up in interest bearing accounts to the bank’s own interest. Never mind that 5 people could have been kept on the payroll for 3 months instead of being laid off and collecting unemployment, oh, which by the way cost the system more, and this small business more in unemployment taxes in the future.
Every cause has an effect, Aristotle was one to put it into some objective prospective, however, we have taken it to extremes.
“The horse is out of the barn, lock the barn”.
Yet again, when a would be terrorist tried to blow himself up on an airplane all of a sudden, AFTER the event, there’s “heightened” security at every U.S. airport. Never mind that this guy got on the plane in the Netherlands, not on U.S. soil. How could Homeland Security let something like this happen???
The last time I checked, the Netherlands wasn’t part of the U.S., it’s not a territory and I don’t believe that they’ve ever given any thought to joining the good ole U S of A. They’d have to give up their universal health care!
But in the news they did say that their information on terrorists was not as “robust” as that of the U.S. They probably don’t have innocent citizens in their database like we do.
But in the end, someone, a customs official or someone from the U.S. embassy had to take his passport, scan it, take a rubber stamp and issue a visa to this fellow for him to enter this fine country. They have the list, don’t they? Or, maybe not. In any case, the guy, who had explosives wrapped around his waist, got through airport security, with a visa and got on the plane. So now we are even more inconvenienced when flying than we were before (that I find really hard to believe!)
And speaking of visas, did you know that if you live in Latin or South America, you have to pay a $500 filing fee to apply for a visa (per person) to visit the U.S.? Now, that doesn’t mean you’ll get a visa, it could be denied and guess what, we keep the five-hundred bucks!
Airport security, or the TSA. Now I did a lot of traveling in ’06 and ’07. Went through the take off your shoes, belt, jacket, remove your laptop from its case and do the merry dance at the end to reassemble your things without the room to properly do it as your pants begin to slip down below your waist. In my travels I did notice one thing. Among the people working for the TSA there was a lack of racial diversity. And I’ll go as far as to say that the organization is ripe with nepotism, among other things.
What I found most disturbing, however, was a conversation I overheard while eating lunch one day, where a woman in the booth next to mine was confiding with a friend saying that her brother worked for the TSA and he could get her anything she wanted; a Rolex, digital camera, jewelry – you name it; for a price, of course.
Now these are people whom we are trusting with our safety, and our luggage, which, by law, has to remain unlocked, even though they run it through an x-ray machine that has enough gamma rays to wipe out a small city. On several occasions I found a card in my luggage left by the TSA saying that they had opened the bag to hand inspect it. Jockey shorts, socks, some folded shirts and a pair of shoes. Maybe they thought I had a bomb in the heals of my shoes. Can’t be to careful, can we!
Once I paid cash for my ticket. When I got to the security gate, they pulled me aside, placed me in a separate room, tested my baggage for chemical residue and had me strip down to my underwear. It wasn’t a pretty picture, I can tell you that! But I was obviously flagged as a person of suspicion because I didn’t use a credit card (and therefore traceable), even though I did have to present my drivers license.
This is madness in the highest degree! It takes longer to fly to San Francisco now because of all the crap you have to go through than to drive the five hours, and you don’t have to disrobe once!
So here we are, at the end of another year. Many people think this was worse than 2008, that the recession has been really bad. It is my belief that most folks in 2008 didn’t understand the severity of the recession and thought as soon as we got a new guy in office all would be well with the world. But in truth what people realized is that it’s going to take more than a new face in the White House for all to be back the way it was. It isn’t, it will probably not be, at least in my lifetime, like it was. We were all mesmerized by how much money we could borrow and spend, rather than the hard truth that at some point you have to pay the bill.
And no, Virginia, Santa Claus isn’t going to bail us out, it’s something we’re going to have to do on our own.
Happy New Year!
