At this very moment, I have the flu. Not swine or chicken, but it's the flu. Fortunately, I have government sponsored health care and a "boutique doctor." one who you pay a small fortune to, but you get his cell phone number so that you can call him at 2 AM and he can tell you to drink some chicken soup and call him in the morning. Less expensive boutique doctors tell you to take two aspirin, but we wanted one who learned as much from his mother as from Johns Hopkins.
So I drank my chicken soup which my wife was kind enough to make and freeze before she set off for 10 days to see our grandkids. I read the newspapers going back a week, and then I got sick again. Not the flu. Sick of those who are supposed to be representing us and governing though I'm beginning to wo0nder if they know what governance means. In case they forgot it means to govern; to exercise authority; to control; or to manage. But I'm almost convinced that what it means to those in power is self-aggrandisement or, if that is not possible, hanging onto to what you've had for 20 years and will probably have for 20 more. (Take a look at the photo of the House's Big Shots at the podium after the bills passage. Keep this in mind: each of the five people standing there is a multi-millionaire. They have no idea how much anything costs except a condo in Marin County.)
Here are some facts for you to consider: 1. California's real unemployment is close to 20%. Yes, one in five is out of work or working part-time and are still making a sub-standard living. I know the true unemployment figures for California because I live here and have been writing articles about the REAL unemployment since 1982 when it was 18.6%. The following figures are what some of the states were reporting in September, not the real unemployment: for that, add 5-12%!
Michigan reported 15.3% but their unemployment was/is 26%, one in four. Nevada reported 13.3, but yesterday reported actual unemployment was 21%. To hell with it. The national figure in September was 10.2. Yesterday, it was 13.2% And remember, most of these are estimated lies. If you are retired, no longer able to collect unemployment, working part-time (no matter how little), or started your own DBA because you couldn't find work, you are unemployment and uncounted. The average length of time it takes to get a job in 1982 at the height of unemployment since the Great Depression was five months. Today, for full-time managerial work, it is 14 months and you end up with 15-22% less than what you were making before.
Speaking of government chutzpah, the GDP is up 3% and the only one who believes that are computers working the stock market (what, you thought people ran the market?). The reason productivity is up is because those who are lucky enough to have held on to their jobs are now doing the work of those who got laid off, and some, such as state workers in California are not only carrying the loads of others who have lost their jobs, but they do their own jobs after taking 3-5 days off a month on furlough without pay! Our Legislature, in the meantime, knows that the budget is due in August, but they really haven't come up with last year's. This will be the sixth year in a row when California doesn't have the money to operate, but through accounting prestidigitation borrows against the future to pay for the past.
Don't go knocking the Legislature so fast. YOU in California (and Nevada and Rhode Island and Michigan and South Carolina and on and on) not only gave them permission, you reelected them time after time even though you've been screwed for at least 25 years. And then you have the stupidity - yes, stupidity - to vote in a $65 billion bond to build a high speed rail between San Francisco to Los Angeles. And then Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader from Nevada, gets Nevadans who are broker than us, to vote for a high speed rail from Vegas to Anaheim. That's what we need, a high speed rail between the playground of Nevada to Disneyland, but that's okay 'cause that's only $35 B yes billion. It doesn't matter that there's no transit from L.A. to Anaheim, from anywhere outside the Bay Area to San Francisco unless you think AmTrak can get you there which kinda makes high speed rail, low speed rail to high speed rail to taxi and Anaheim. What is wrong with us people?
We don't think a bond has to be repaid ... with interest? Just like the Lottery was going to pay for our schools, and this is before they were broken. Maybe the promise of all the money that all the states' lotteries were supposed to bring in are what broke the educational systems in every state. When I moved to California, tuition at a community college was $12 a semester. Books ran another $35. Want to guess what that costs today. How about the fact that a state university used to be $1,000 and is now $23,000 and that's without room and board or, as one radio talk show host just announced, $181 for one text book in chemistry!
Not only are we stupid enough to okay all of this - from high speed rail to places nobody wants to go - but we're also dumb enough to have allowed the state legislature to gerrymander the districts so that we have a one-and-a-half party system. When I moved into this home 30+ years ago, George Miller (you'll hear more about him in a minute) was our U.S. Congressman. When it looked like he might lose his seat, they gerrymandered the district so that it looked like the "Don't Treat On Me Snake" and he was no longer out rep. He hasn't been out of Congress since ... I don't know, how about 1982. And we allowed this. There's a district in Northern California that snakes its way through six counties. In one spot, the district only covers one side of a street.
Ellen Tauscher was our rep for some years, and then took a position in the Obama Administration, like the State Department needed another Under-Under-Under-Under-Secretary of State. And we just replaced her - and she wasn't terrible - with John Garamendi, perhaps the worst Insurance Commissioner this state has ever seen, costing individuals who had invested in a fairly good company (Executive Life) millions. But Garamendi had to label them "junk bonds" and with the loss in confidence, Executive Life went under. He got elected, and I felt as though Huey Long had been resurrected, but in the wrong state.
What has this got to do with you? Well, every state has its John Garamendis, Harry Reids, Gavin (Where The Hell Did You Go To Now) Newsoms, Nancy Pelosis, and even George Millers. Good ol' George. Having nothing better to do, and thinking nothing of the "law of unintended consequences" came up with a proposal that there be five mandatory paid sick days for every employee in any company with 15 or more employees. Instead of the law of unintended consequences, maybe we should just call it "collateral damage." Congress doesn't think. They've never owned a business. How can they know what the consequences are going to be for their scatter-brained ideas.
What will Miller's initial bill cost businesses? Will some people actually go out of business adding to unemployment? What will this universal health care cost us on top of the one trillion (it's okay, it's over 10 years) that is only a projection because who can read through 5,000 pages of law? We can't even get flu vaccinations out to the country, and we're talking about universal health care? Sure, it's easy for Congress. They get everything first, and their jobs are as a secure as if they were sitting on the Supreme Court!
Miller's bill in a nutshell - again - is that, if you have a business with 15 or more employees, you must give employees 5 days off with pay as sick leave. After all, we wouldn't want sick employees to sicken other employees. First of all, about 45% of all companies with 15 or more employees, already have sick leave. (And that doesn't even count the San Francisco ordinance making 6 days sick leave a year mandatory passed in 2008. What the hell? Why not? It's not our money. Besides, we pass a law, and the business just passes it on to their customers ... until the time when customers no longer was to pay the prices for all the other surtaxes - that's what they are - that have been tacked on.) Why 15 employees? Why not 100 employees where we know that most with that number of employees can pay?
Well, first not all companies can pay for 500 days of sick leave if everybody got sick. Second, if it's 5 days, why not 10? Have you ever known Congress to be happy with what they started with. And I'll guarantee you that, somewhere in George Miller's bill, there's money to fix potholes on Route 80 between his home and Sacramento. Then there's the unintended consequences. This was begun because of the flu, but it won't be just for flu. It's also suppose to expire in two years. You know, when I went to the University of Oregon, I took classes in "temporary World War II classrooms" that were used until 1969. Show me something "temporary" in Washington.
Drum roll please.
And now the kicker! What is the greatest problem this country faces right here, right now ... other than trillions of dollars in debt? UNEMPLOYMENT. You have people who are not working. People who don't work don't pay taxes. They don't pay into Social Security which is okay because Congress spent guaranteed monies in Social Security years ago instead of leaving it for the purpose for which it was intended. Unemployed people can buy Christmas presents, but some idiot in Washington - probably an economist - will say, "I don't understand why sales were down," hence why local, state, and federal income is down. Maybe we should raise taxes?
The unemployed also can't afford health coverage. The government may well have to pay for the health care of all those who can't afford it and didn't opt in or out or whatever the opting is for private insurance. So is universal health coverage "socialized medicine?" I don't know. But we have to pass this thing by the end of the year! Why? Ego and politics? In the name of Teddy Kennedy? To show that we've done something? Yes, but in the meantime, we have one in five out of work. You want to do something worthwhile? Try a kind of "Civilian Conservation Corps." Of course, they can't work in the national parks. We're closing them, maybe until we can drill for oil and clear cut the forests within these pristine wildernesses. And I suppose we'll have to feed, clothe, and pay the CCC workers? Bad idea. We need people to work for nothing. And since they can't afford houses, let's resurrect the nothing down home loans, and let's give $8,500 credit if it's a second house. So what if they don't have jobs? That didn't stop us the first time.
Forget universal health care. Forget cash for clunkers. Forget about "lending" money to people who can't pay it back. They used to say, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Well, Congress. Which is it?
It's unemployment, stupid! There are 100 senators and 435 representatives. You mean to tell me that 535 privileged educated people can't come up with any ideas. If Ford can do it, why does Congress have to be Chrysler? Independents had better rise up, and fast.
November 2009
All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2009. Ethan A. Winning