Government Waste

With all our economic woes right now, there’s a lot of people with answers they think might work to put us back on track. All the big boys in the financial industry are pumping billions into the system to try and jump-start it, as we speak. All the Government heads in all the States are talking about either cutting back on Government spending programs and/or raising taxes to try and solve the quagmire we find ourselves in right now.

I’m wondering if simply cutting out Government waste could solve the entire thing.

Everyone I talk to who works for any branch of the Government, be it the Military, State, County or Local has incredible tales of huge wasteful expenditures they see everyday at work.

Maybe we should invest in a new Government Program heaven forbid, whose entire purpose is to root out waste on every level and get rid of it. I have a strong feeling just getting rid of all the waste would more than pay for an entire new program, by a hell of a long shot.

I would like to take this to the limit however. This is not going to make me any new friends but I think at the least, we as a nation should at least start discussing this theory and see where it might take us in trying to keep our economy solvent on into the future. Obviously, it doesn’t have to be an “all or nothing” plan. Maybe something in between would work. If anyone has any other realistic ideas, I sure would love to hear them. As you know, our “Leaders” have no intention of ever bringing this up.

Ok, how about knocking off ALL benefits to everybody who works for the Government in any way. No more medical, health, retirement, transportation costs, special clothing needs, safety equipment or any extra expenses at all to employees who work for the Government, State, county or local. I can see some exceptions on the special equipment part for the Military but no one else.

Now lets get something straight here. I don't mean we should just jerk all the benefits with no alternative. What I'm guessing is, if the government were to stop automatically paying for them, the price would be forced down to a reasonable level. The reason everything like that costs so much is the companies have always expected the government to have "unlimited funds". That enabled the companies to maintain rip off prices in place, forcing everyone in and out of the government to over pay for all benefits. If everyone were to be forced to pay their own way, the prices would have to come down to a level regular people could afford.

My reasoning behind this idea is simple. I as a private business owner receive absolutely nothing from anyone for any of these special gifts. I am required, as all business owners are, to buy all these things out of the profit I make with my business. On top of that, I and all the other business owners have to pay extra taxes to support all those gifts that the Government workers receive.

Is there some way we could pay our government workers a living wage and then expect them to go out and pay for their own special needs, just as we businesses have to? I’m sure you’ve heard that lots of big businesses are already talking about dropping the benefit programs or at least modifying them because they are reaching a point where the benefits are driving them out of business. The best example of that right now is the Auto industry.


I hear from people who work for the Government that they see people all the time setting around doing nothing or just have a hard time signing their name, much less having the intelligence to actually do the work they are assigned. They sometimes see the hiring practices as this foolish: “Are you breathing? Ok, you’re hired”. The other issues I hear all the time is even if someone is plainly not qualified to do the job or just a nutcase, the act of firing is so convoluted and hard that most managers just don’t bother with it.

What these facts tell me is there are probably far too many government, state and local employees. I’m going to make a wild guess that about a quarter to a third of all of them should be let go. Can you imagine how much that would save the rest of us who pay taxes to support these do nothing people?

Again, let me make myself perfectly clear on this. If I say a quarter to half are not needed at all, that means that three quarters to two thirds are doing a fine job and their work is important to us all.

Another crazy program I hear of is the funding process at work with our government. If at the end of the year, they don’t spend every penny they were funded, they would get less next year, and so they make damn sure they spend it, even on plain nonsense crap. What the hell kind of idiotic shit is that? I would think a far better plan would be to give rewards and awards to any department who actually saves us money and spend far less that they were allocated. Christ, give them an all expenses paid weekend in Tahoe for saving us, the taxpayers money.




Ok now, another idea that will get me in some trouble. How about us dropping the whole tax exemption for all religious organizations? How and why should they run their hugely profitable businesses without paying one cent in taxes to help support our economy and way of life? Especially when for the last several years, they have chosen to participate in the whole political arena, by influencing their parishioners to vote one way or the other on whatever issues they bring from their faith and set of ideas. I really do think it’s time religion pays its fair share, since they are enjoying the same benefits and freedoms as everyone else here in America.


Ok, there’s my take on some of our financial problems.

Lets hear yours.

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Overpopulation

I saw a news piece on TV the other night talking about a worldwide emergency with a growing problem of not enough rice, which is the main staple for people around the world. They then cut to a women in the Philippines…………..who was talking about the price getting too high and becoming harder and harder to find. How her kids were suffering from hunger. They only got one rice meal a day. Then she went on to tell how hard it was on her 9 kids.

WHAT?????? Did I really hear her say she had 9 KIDS? By the way, we always say “She had kids” but you know what? There’s a man hiding somewhere in this analogy who gets equal, if not a little more blame. Holy shit, I take it people in the Philippines don’t know where babies come from! I have a sneaking suspicion that EVERYWHERE there are starving people, there are far, far, far too many babies mysteriously appearing out of nowhere. Are the people of the world who take total responsibility for those they sire now somehow financially responsible for all those idiots who make it a habit of breeding like damn rabbits?

Isn’t the real problem, too damn many people in the world? Isn’t that the truth everywhere? Even here in the United States, there are now people indiscriminately pushing out babies right and left, without having any intention of taking full physical or financial responsibility for them.

The truth that everyone knows but are afraid to admit because of the “PC” bullcrap is that the very people who should not be having children, much less a dozen or so, are the poor, illiterate and in a lot of cases Immigrant folks.

So, people who bother to learn English properly, pay their own way, live in society as full partners, responsible for themselves in every way are replacing themselves less and less. At the same time, those who basically just want to live off of the government (which of course is US) can have all the chillins they want, with no limits at all.

So how does a sane responsible society handle this mounting problem? This problem, that no one wants to talk about? Have you heard ANY politician even have the nerve to mention it? If it just might be the main problem of the human race on earth, how could that be?

I’m guessing western religions are a huge part of the reasons it’s such an untouchable subject. Even though we left England so long ago to escape the religious rule over there, we somehow brought a ton of puritanical ideas along for the ride. One of the main ones is no birth control. I’m told the Indians knew and used natural herbs and methods of controlling when and where to have a child. Maybe instead of our forefathers killing the Indians, he should have taken classes from them in the realities of life.

My learned answer to what we, as a sane society should do to fix or at least better this leaning tree that’s going to fall someday soon?

I have no idea………….Do you?

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Real Life Economics

I really do think about 5 years from now, we are going to look back on these economic times as the best thing that could ever have happened to us and the rest of the world, for that matter. The reason is it's going to force everyone to come back to the simple realities that our forefathers lived with.

Several important factors are involved here. The first and foremost would be this new thing that was invented called "Credit". Instead of only buying things that one could afford and paying for them BEFORE you took them home, these new fancy pants shysters came up with this insane plan where you could borrow the money from them and take it home right now. Of course there was quite the price to pay. They called it "interest" and the longer you took to pay them back, the more "interest" they received.

If you're old enough, you heard your parents or grandparents say "That's nice but we can't afford it". I'll bet you haven't heard that statement in years. With the credit thing, we all got to the point where we thought we could afford anything, anytime. Huge mistake huh?

The other insane factor we all got caught up in was buying crap we didn't even need. No regular person needs a pair of $350.00 sneakers, $200.00 pair of Cotton pants, a $40,000 car every three years, a 4,000 square foot McMansion or any number of other high priced garbage we see in the slick magazines about the rich and famous and their "lifestyles". We then started extending these insane practices onto our children, making them think they "deserved" the very best at all times.

Because of our willingness to go into great debt, the business world jumped at the chance to rip all of us a new one and greed then became not only fashionable but standard practice. So eventually, they invented a new form of credit, called "easy credit". At first, they actually expected you to be able to afford the payment on your "loan" with them. The next logical step was to drop that requirement and just go ahead and give us whatever we thought we needed without thought of the future consequences of our choices at all. Let the future take care of itself.

Well folks, we are now seeing the outcome of all that greed and wastefulness, to say the least. Now when I see all the terrible news about car dealerships and fancy pants stores going bankrupt all over the country and world I say "GOOD, we didn't need any of those things anyway". I'm going to guess about 1/4 of ALL businesses were just trying to sell us crap we didn't come close to actually needing and they can and should just go away.

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Wonderful, Natural Nature

So......last night, when we arrived home from our work, we opened the slider to the back deck to put the cat's food dish out and there as often is, was a skunk. I Psssssst! real loud and off the deck he went. Then, as I was setting the dish down again, low and behold, there was another one hiding behind the chair just inches away from my hand. It kinda surprised me and sorta pissed me off, so I reached down, picked up the large water bowl we have there and threw the whole thing straight at the skunk, hitting it broadside with all that water.

Well.............in that split second, without me even seeing it or knowing it, the son of a bitch let loose with his gun full force at me. Holy shit, all of the sudden, my wife and I could not even breath, it hit us so hard. We slammed the slider shut and stood there in shock, barely able to take a full breath of air, right in our own living room.

So......all the doors and windows wide open. Ceiling fan on full blast. Air Freshener sprayed throughout the whole house, as we try and return to some kind of normalcy with our evening routine feeding the cats and starting dinner as the whole house smells like the end of the world.

As time went on, it started calming down a bit but my wife kept saying every-time I got near her, it got worse. So I went into the bedroom and started stripping off clothes and smelling them. Took a bath in damn ketchup, then a shower. Everything I had on was screwed, including my slippers, so off they went outside, where they are still. We think we are probably going to have to just throw away everything I had on.

So, on my way to pick up my wife again from work, I stopped off at Rite aid and bought new slippers.

So, there ya go. The wonderful realities of living in the damn mountains, with all it's wonderful, natural wildlife. Damn Nature!!!

I sent this story to my daughter in Las Vegas and told her "DO NOT LAUGH!" Well, as you can imagine, she laughed and wrote this back:



AHHHH! HAHA! that is hilarious... Dad oh dad oh dad, you just simply CAN NOT have bad thoughts about skunks when they
are within a 20 ft proximity. NO BAD THOUGHTS. you must continue to think 'oh how adorable and cuddly and fluffy' until you are out of firing range, then you can think 'listen up you $%#@ &*%$#@%' and pull the trigger (be it a water bucket or a shotgun)... ;)

Remember, those are like really, really smart cats with a BIG STINKY GUN, and they have an attitude problem bigger than the devil himself.
Cute, fluffy, adorable and extremely dangerous.

She's still laughing.


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America's "Us against them" mentality

Today I got another long winded e-mail from a friend trying to tell me all about Obama's "anti-American" views and attitudes. It actually surprises me to no end how people can believe every little thing they are told by the right wing nutcases or the left wing weirdo's screaming out there on the radio, TV or the internet. I can see them now. Spit flying out of their mouths, red faces, their veins sticking out in their neck and with blood shot eyes from no sleep. Trying to tell the world that the sky really is going to fall at any moment.

This was my reply to him and to everyone who thinks I would possibly be interested in this kind of slop journalism.

"You know, I have to interject something here. Probably 99.9% of everything you and a lot of other folks are hearing and repeating about Obama is made up garbage from the extreme right wing nutcases they get from the fat drug fiend idiot to the right wing TV weirdo's.

I try and not pay a bit of attention to that kind of hearsay garbage as it does nothing at all to help us see reality with our election coming up. I really believe the extreme of both sides is the REAL AND POSSIBLY ONLY problem we have in America at this time and both sides need to grow up, shut the hell up and try to actually get things done "for the majority", not the right wing rich businesses or the left wing liberal elitists. This "us against them" mentality, no matter which side you are on, is hurting America big time. I really believe that until we stop this, nothing will get done at all, that needs doing. If you need more proof, just look at the politics in California right now. The entire budget is at a standstill because both sides are convinced only they have the correct answers.

Every time I get these long winded misinformation pieces, I automatically hit the most important button on the keyboard, without reading one word of it."

Maybe that's what we need.............A universial delete button. One that would make these kinds of people just.........go away..........never to be heard from again.


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Outlandish Disability Rules

There's something happening right now that is unbelievable, to say the least. Some rip-off, lowlife idiot in a wheel chair, actually more than one, is going around the country, looking for businesses that are not disability compliant. When he finds one, he threatens them with a law suit unless they pay him some money. His motive has nothing whatsoever to do with making buildings accessible to people in wheelchairs, it's just the money baby.

Now let me make myself perfectly clear here. I am not talking about all people with disabilities. I'm ONLY talking about the low life types who are using this excuse to make a living and potentially destroy small businesses in the process.

Now, I have almost nothing against' making newly built buildings accessible to people with disabilities, although it's perhaps unreasonable to expect building owners to cater to the .000003% of people involved to the tune of thousands of extra dollars for the cost of elevators, giant bathrooms ect. The huge rip off problem in this new money making scheme is these money grubbing idiots are now including ALL buildings already built. This is of course impossible for old buildings in many cases, with the original small doors inside and out, small hallways and tiny bathrooms well inside the buildings. Somehow the "Grandfather Claus" got thrown out with the garbage because somehow these idiots changed the logical rules in our stupid court systems to now include old established buildings.

I can not believe that there are judges out there who let this happen. Come on judges. Get some balls and do the right thing here. Quit bowing down to whoever yells the loudest and do what you know is right. If the laws do not accommodate logic, then change the damn laws.

Politics in America

Everyone I know agrees that American politics and life in general in America was at it's very best around 1950. Politicians actually went to work and accomplished real work. They did work "for the good of the people" then and everything was pretty straight foreword, honest and relatively simple. Most men could go to work and make enough money to afford everything they needed within reason. The wife of the family could stay home and take care of the children. Can you imagine, children were raised exclusively by their own parents?

Ok, jump ahead approximately 50 years and what do we have now? Politicians who work full time making far, far too much money with every benefit in the world. What do they do now? Absolutely nothing, that's what. When was the last time ANY politician talked about or did anything that actually means something important to you personally? Something that helps your family and personal financial resources?

What they do nowadays is whatever is blowing in the wind, from whoever yells the loudest. They talk about abortion, gay issues, helmet laws, cell phone laws, food product problems. These things are social and or private issues that have no place at all in the realm of government. I really don't think the founding fathers were thinking of these issues when they made the constitution and bill of rights. I really think they had far more important things in mind.

The things that are vital like our totally failing heath care system, prison system, immigration system and a whole bunch of other REAL problems are mentioned once in a while but generally are just ignored by ALL the politicians. Our present system, with only two parties is extremely good at doing absolutely nothing. The price of doing nothing is a fortune, by the way.

My solution to all this is pretty simple, as most real answers are. We need to fire everyone of those do nothing, good for nothing idiots and start over with a new batch. Also, take the whole thing back to a part time job. That way all the politicians can get a real job and pay their own bills, like all of us have to. Another great idea would be to take every new law created since around 1950 and dump them in the garbage. Obviously all those new laws haven't done us any good at all, except to complicate the hell out of life for no good reason at all.