Now that my muse has kicked me in the...................

Since my muse has visited me and I hope will be around for awhile, I decided publish some stuff I wrote but never got around to complete or post. The following is something I wrote 3 years ago and for whatever ever reason never shared it. Needless to say, there has been much water under the bridge since I wrote this. I promise to revisit the subject with today's view.


OPTIMISM IN A CAPITALISTIC SOCIETY

What do capitalism, communism, free enterprise, and socialism all have in common? Well they all suck in their own ways, and if you talk about them you might just as well stand on a busy street corner and shout “abortion!” over and over. I think some of the worst parts of each are endemic to humans. Free enterprise and capitalism are disastrous without regulation. Communism and Socialism deny individual rights and lead to fascism. History proves that each system fosters greed. You can, however, have common good and the individual right to make a profit.

I’m like mostly everybody else in many ways. I am concerned with people losing jobs, not having healthcare, not having enough money to pay all the bills, etc...

Add to that a worry about war, the possible threat of terrorist attack at anytime, and a flu or chicken plague,,,,, hey! There is much to be concerned about. I am also like most other people in that I worry about me; me and my family; how I will get by and provide for them. Is this selfish? Yes, but since I am human (and I think this is the common flaw) it is how I relate to everything.

I read through the President’s economic stimulus plan and wondered how it would affect me. I’m not sure it will. Don’t get me wrong…….I trust President Obama and his financial advisors because I am optimistic and haven’t been thrilled with our government in many, many years. I am very hopeful that this plan will help the Economy in general and therefore eventually make my life a bit easier, more enjoyable, or at least a bit less laden with stress. I just hope so.

In order for me to figure out how this latest economic stimulus plan will help me I must look at how the present economy is affecting me. Basically this is my situation: I think I am pretty typical middle class. I am a government worker (job pretty secure for now) with good health insurance, retirement plan and fifteen years of loyalty (both me to them and them to me). I am about to have 3 kids in college, and my wife works at home. I have a mortgage, a cell phone, 2 dogs, 2 cats and more consumer debt than I would like. Does any of this sound familiar? I hope so, because I think I am pretty typical. I have a second job, and I am barely making ends meet. I have it good.

Really! My life could fracture at any time for a number of reasons but why focus on what if? I am paying my obligations…….all of them. I am feeding my family. I have no car payments. I occasionally take my wife out for dinner or to see a show.

The biggest problem I see that many people have right now is consumer debt. I have many friends whose stories go like this: One day "Bob's" bank and one of his credit card companies fail to agree on the paying/posting date of a bill. Of course, they each said that Bob needed to deal with the other about it. So what happened is that one payment got messed up and this caused all of Bob's other credit card companies to cut his credit in half, which in turn made his balances very near or at their limits, which in turn made Bob's credit score go down, which in turn made his interest rates skyrocket. Talk about a snowball effect! Many, many, many phone calls resulted in no help. Eventually (maybe in 10 more years) Bob will get everyone paid off and have mountains of available credit. But wait! No one has credit anymore…….it doesn’t exist because when the Government bailed the big banks out they still paid big salaries, big bonuses and according to CNBC bought: “curtains for $28,000, a pair of chairs for $87,000, fabric for a “Roman Shade” for $11,000, Regency chairs for $24,000, six wall sconces for $2,700, a $13,000 chandelier in the private dining room and six dining chairs for $37,000, a “custom coffee table” for $16,000, an antique commode “on legs” for $35,000, and a $1,400 “parchment waste can.” Lest I forget about the $50 million corporate jet (French made) Citicorp just bought.

The present state of the economy is directly affecting me very little. If things don’t get better or if gas prices rise again I will have a tough time. So my hope is that President Obama’s stewardship will help things improve in general and therefore I will be able to look forward to better times.

Some Republicans in Congress are worried that if money were sent out to taxpayers directly we would save it instead of spending it to stimulate the economy. Heck! When the Government sent me a stimulus check last year I paid bills with it. I didn’t save it or “spend” it on anything. I gave it to the banks just like they did. But I owed it to them. The American people owe the money grubbing banks and Wall Street firms nothing. I read the fine print and I understood what the banks backing my credit cards could do. I just really believed that would act in good faith and they haven’t. I want the Government to make the banking industry act in good faith. Most of us bear some responsibility for the place we are in but the greedy money mongers at the top (who may be losing more then anyone else but who also are feeling it the least) need to act in good faith. They can make things better simply by making it as easy for people (like me) to get in better shape just as they made it easy for us to get into trouble. Why not sacrifice some profit (profit: making anything more than what it cost you) to get the money moving again? The Government could make them do this. If Mr. “A” could afford to buy House “B” at 5% interest but not at 10% interest and Bank “C” lent money to Mr. “A” to buy House “B” (money that Bank “A” borrowed at less then 5%) then the Government should force Bank “A” to only charge 5%. In my case; as long as I am acting in good faith (I pay them every month) the interest rates on my credit cards should not be automatically raised across the board because of an error. If I showed any pattern of mistakes or missed payments then all bets could be off………I would deserve it. It doesn’t take an idiot to see that the Banks have not acted in good faith. I think the Government should step in and make sure that profit is made at no ones great expense. Regulate the amount of profit that can be made and measure profit realistically. Just because I made $100 profit this year and last year I made $125 profit doesn’t mean I lost money. I still made $100 profit.

As humans we can overcome ourselves if we will only choose to think of each other at least as much as we think about ourselves. Communism could work if not for greed, and I am sure that Capitalism can too.

Lamentations of a middleman

"Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am....." with all due reference to Gerry Rafferty and Stealers Wheel: I feel like I am stuck in the middle........again. Maybe it is because I was born a middle child. Well, I wasn't really born a middle child. I was born a baby; the baby in my family......the youngest. I hated being "the baby of the family". This lasted until I was thankfully given a younger brother when I was 8. So at first, I loved being in the middle. I most certainly wasn't the "baby" anymore (at 8 years old this is important for a boy). I soon learned however, that being in the middle wasn't all it's cracked up to be.

I worshiped my older brother. He is only two years older (and wiser) than me, but he has always been a larger than life, monster of a guy in my eyes. He knew everything I didn't and he knew how to manipulate the world around him to exist. He was god and I was his minion, shadow and best friend. Then one of his peer group would come around and my status instantly dropped to "tagalong" & "little butthole". Mom was always a great solace during these times of utter rejection. I didn't understand what horrible thing made me lose my older brother's love, but Mom could always distract me by saying something like "let's bake a bunch of brownies" or "come help me plant some these flowers". Thus I learned to love cooking, digging in the dirt and the wonderful power of the smile. You never get over rejection, you just learn to deal with it as part of life (humans' ability to choose,,,,,,,,another subject for another day) and go on until it rears it's ugly head again.

So Mom was always there to prop me up when life dealt me a blow. Then the new baby came along and I became the middle child. Seemingly this was great. Now I had someone to look up to me. It soon became apparent that because my younger brother was so much younger then me he needed and got the majority of Mom and Dad's attention. I understood. I had to learn self-reliance. I learned how to see and understand things from both sides and decide which way was the path of least resistance. This is both a blessing and a curse.

Where is the worse place to be in any conflict? The guy getting pummeled? No,,,,,the guy who has to step in and stop the guy whose animal instincts smell a kill. When you are in the middle you become the defacto peace maker who tends to fight for survival of the underdog. This puts you at risk for being pummeled too. To survive in the middle you understand that discretion is the better part of valor because that is all you believe you have, and it very often works.

Being in the middle means you come across as being non-committal. I do commit: just after much analysis. So am I a Democrat? Oh heck no! Idealist ideas I might have but I do keep an eye on what is,,,,,I call it reality. And unlike Will Rogers I really need organization in my life. So a Republican? I am too kindhearted and trusting. Also, I believe in looking real hard at this thing reality: shit flows downhill and the those with money have the power and the golden toilet seats at the top. There must be reason a gold toilet seat is cold. So I get pegged as being "moderate". Not really true. I have strong feelings about many things. I am not a fence sitter. Whatever the subject I stand on one side or the other. I just can usually understand why the other side feels the way they do. I like to claim that I am either the most liberal conservative in the world or the most conservative liberal in the world. I just very much hope that I am open minded.

I'm not sure whether I like being in the middle or not. It has served me pretty well. I have survived this way for a number of years. It is somewhat safe as long as you listen to both sides. I liken it to a scene in the movie "Shenandoah": the Confederate and Union armies are facing each other across a field taking a break from an obviously bloody stalemate. Just before the fight begins again, a skinny cow marches out into the field between them, oblivious to the fact that it looks like a good meal to both starving armies. All the men on both sides have a good laugh before a brave sole with a white flag rides out and chases the poor animal away. Then the reality resumes. Like the cow: the middleman has little hope of changing anyone's mind. But the middleman is almost always good for a laugh, and laughing is a good thing.