Dear President Obama

Dear President Obama,

     I am writing to you in the hope that you will not intervene in the Syrian civil war. There has been enough blowing things up in Syria without our adding to the misery. Even if we knew who the bad guys were, our intervention would bring unintended consequences which would escalate the situation. I urge you to avoid any actions which would involve us more deeply in that terrible quagmire. 

Sincerely,

I have also sent similar letters to both my Senators and my Representative. If you oppose U.S. intervention into the Syrian civil war, let your President, Senators, and Representative know! 

Who gets prosecuted?

This really puzzles me. Why is our government prosecuting Roger Clemens who is a jock but as far as I know has been unwilling to prosecute the Wall Street bankers who brought financial disaster on so many. Could it have something to do with the foxes being in charge of the hen house?

I don't give a fig about Roger and whatever he was injected with. But I would like to think that their is someone, somewhere who will keep the crooks out of my retirement accounts. Fat chance.

Reinstate Glass-Stegall.

Let's arm the Syrians!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/20/world/middleeast/mccain-and-graham-suggest-helping-syrian-rebels.html?hp

Then we can send in a limited number of troops to train them.  And advisors to advise them. Then we can provide air cover.  And then we can...Wait!  Haven't we been here before? and before that? 

Thank goodness, McCain lost in 2008 or we would be hip deep in another war.

Payroll Tax Holiday...or not

I do not particularly like paying taxes any more than anyone else but I have come to the conclusion that I hope Congress doesn’t get its act together enough to extend the current Payroll Tax holiday.  Why??  Because that is the money that funds Social Security.  Everyone runs around crying that the sky is falling because “Social Security won’t be there for me when I reach the age to need it.”  Well, duh, if you stop funding it, yes, when you need it, it probably won’t be there.  This is so typical of the American penchant for wanting the goodies without paying for them.  I happen to think that Social Security is a good thing as part of a retirement program and I want it to be there for me and for my descendants.  Therefore, it needs to be funded.  What a novel concept: If you want something, like say you want to start two wars on the other side of the world, you need to take out your wallet and pay for it. Same goes for Social Security.

My Fair Share

It's April 15 and my taxes have long ago been filed and the small refund deposited and used to finish paying off our house. We are not among the 47% of my fellow countrymen who paid no income tax. You know what? That's fine with me. I use the services and believe in paying for goods and services received. I use the interstate highway system, I am protected by the military, my food and medicines are monitored by the FDA, and on and on. I am also willing to pay for the common good such as public health and education. I do not begrudge the 47% who paid no taxes at all but I do wonder about the economic policies that have led us to where 47% of our people are too poor to pay taxes. And I also think that when people do not pay they become less inclined to care how the money is spent. That's why I think that a bill should be sent to every American household for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan each year. If we really believe in the wars, we should be willing to pay for them in cash and with our own children.

Census Irritation

We received our census form today. Essentially there were 4 questions :
1. Names
2. Age / Birthdates
3. Are we of Hispanic heritage?
4. What race are we?

I really wish that 1/2 of the information collected was not about ethnicity/race. I think it is irrelevant; we are Americans.

Government by Lay-away

Boomie at http://wastrelshow.blogspot.com/ has a post up about lay-away making a comeback. Those in my generation remember lay-away but for those who grew up with credit cards, it was a system by which if you wanted to purchase something, say a dress, you went to the store and picked out the dress, put a portion of the price down, the merchant kept the dress while you made monthly payments (usually 3 to 6 months); when the payments were complete you took the dress home. There was no interest charged. You got the merchandise only after it was completely paid for.

I was thinking that this is a concept whose time has come (back) only now we will put the government on a lay-away plan. You want a bailout? No problem, just $100 billion a month for 7 months and you've got your bailout!! Want a war? Great, $100 billion for 10 months (or if you are in a hurry $200 billion for 5 months) should cover a moderate sized war. There are some great possibilities here.