Had a good day at work. :) It's been a good week on the whole. I've been able to do some volunteer work for the campaign that has been very rewarding. :) That makes me happy.
So I got home, the weather was nice. I wanted my birds to have some seeds out in the morning so they will continue to party in my backyard. Appetizers are essential for a good party. And I'm feeling frolicky. So I'm running to the car to get the birdseed out of the trunk and I hit the gravel at a wierd angle and down I go. Bloody knee, twisted ankle, and I just sit there in pain for a few minutes. When I get back in the house, with Mike's help, my hands are cut up too. Wow. I just bust out laughing remembering when I was a kid and on more than one occasion this very thing would happen and I would be accused of trying to swim in the parking lot. I'm a 30+ yr old woman and still falling down and going boom. Anyway, I'm OK. Nothing broken, preventing me from walking, or necessitating an ER visit. Just laughing at myself. My BFF Leah, who teaches ballroom fulltime now, would say its cause I'm a dancer that I trip over myself like that.
I did video on Big Words that I posted on Clipser if you want to take a peak. I will keep the "aside" but the rest I will reshoot before going on Youtube. Over on Clipser I get mad views, but never any comments... It kinda bums me out. Makes me think I get clicks for clipser dollars but no one is ever really sticking around to watch... eh. But on the other hand, there are plenty of videos over there that get MUCH fewer views than me. It's almost like I'm the niche girl that DOESN'T take her clothes off, therefore they watch. Dunno. Anyway, my big words video will be reshot and on Youtube soon. Special preview on Clipser.
Yay. We finally got our night out swing dancing. :) There was an amateur dance contest and we WON! :) Yay. It was awesome. Let's see... how can I phrase this so as to make my co-workers nervous for a split second? ;)
I think I might do a Youtube on social swing dance etiquette. Not as a critique of anyone, just to encourage any noobs to get out there and learn. It always helps if you have a few pointers on culture and practices. Might help you feel more comfortable at first... Plus its a topic I'm keenly interested in.
Mike finally broke down and went to the eye doctor to find out how bad his eyes are. The resulting glasses are coke-bottle thick. Poor guy. But he's so excited to be able to SEE things. He's also feeling much better after his surgical adventures. It's weird they poked holes in him, inflated him, stuck a camera inside him and yanked out an organ. But he's all better.
We've been enjoying better weather here. We have nice grass at the house and got an old-fashioned mechanical mower to cut it. It's great fun. In kind of a Tom Sawyer way. (ooh ooh, let me try!) Cheaper upfront and we'll never buy gas for it. And we got a charcoal grill and had some steaks the other night. Better than anything you get at a restaurant. I have a supersecret steak marinade that is to die for.
We saw Smart People on Friday. We both liked it. Interesting commentary on being so wrapped up in your own self-importance that you can't have fun or relate to other people.
Ok, so in the midst of all this tumult with the house, Mike starts having stomach issues. We think at first its from the stress, then maybe an ulcer, and finally he went to the hospital to get checked out.
He had laproscopic surgery this afternoon to remove his gall bladder. The doctor said it looked pretty bad. Yikes. And to think he had a similar episode a couple years ago, went to Duke and they missed it. They diagnosed him with gastritis, basically did nothing for him, sent him home. !!!!!
He’s been pretty out of it and miserable. Poor guy. But I hope I can bring him home tomorrow.
I’ve been busily trying to put our house back together. The guys moved all our stuff back in and neither of us were here to tell what goes where, so I have boxes of kitchen stuff in the upstairs bathroom, boxes of clothes in the kitchen, stuff like that. It’s painstaking. I’ve spent hours just moving objects from one room to another. Most of the furniture is in the right place, but not all. At least I’ve found sheets, pillows, towels, reconfigured the TV and satellite service, stuff so he’ll be comfortable when he gets home. But everything is in pretty random places and very few boxes are labelled, or are mislabelled from the first move.
The landlord seems to have no concept at all that this was inconvenient for us. That’s frustrating.
Recently a morbidly obese woman fell on her 2 year old nephew and killed him.At 800 some pounds she was confined to her home and could barely walk, let alone control a fall onto the child whose skull she crushed. The police had to come to her bedroom to charge her with murder, but she is already in a prison.
It seems there are more and more examples of what used to be shocking Discovery Channel fodder: people who are so morbidly obese they are bedridden.They can do nothing for themselves.They can’t walk, let alone get to the bathroom.I know of no job you can hold in that condition, so I can only assume they are not bringing in income with which to pay a caregiver.So someone in their life is enabling them to be that way.Someone is bringing them food, otherwise instead of being so fat they can’t move, they would starve.Even if they ordered out for pizza, someone has to walk to the door, get it, pay for it, and serve them.
Their entire existence is based on massive consumption.No productivity, just chronic destructive consumption that will lead, in most cases, to their ultimate demise.
It reminds me a little bit of our economy.In a way, our expanding waistlines, our whining about body acceptance and moaning about the various ailments that accompany extravagant consumption, are interesting by-products of our over-consumption.
We live in a consumption based or service economy, as opposed to a manufacturing or production based economy now.We have lost a ton of factory jobs in recent memory, due to profit-killing regulatory burdens here and/or cheaper, easier labor environments overseas.We now paint eachother’s nails and buy cheap things at WalMart that are made in Asia.Actually most of my manicurists seem to be Asian as well.So what is it that we do, exactly?Shuffle around TPS reports, flip burgers, scratch each other’s backs… or something.But its not manufacturing or making anything, really. Except maybe software or weaponry stuff. Jobs you need a Master’s or better to get. No, we’re more and more made up of services.Many analysts think an economy based solely on spending money is just as valid an economy as any.The government affirms this by sending checks to spur our consumption when market indicators hint that we might be trying to get out of bed, erm, debt. A consumer bail-out, of sorts.
But is it really just as valid?Would the world economy really collapse if we stopped consuming?What about the caregiver to the morbidly obese person?When the patient dies, does that caregiver now starve because they’ve lost their job - feeding an unproductive person to death, at their own expense? No, they are now free to seek more productive things to do with that time.It will be the same with the global economy when US consumers stop their gluttony.We will stop being a type of broken window.The question is – will we stop overconsuming because we found the willpower to change to a healthier lifestyle, one of production and saving, and not beating up on our businesses with overburdensome, job-killing regulation, or will we just die of massive coronary thrombosis? In other words, complete economic collapse.
Our debt is like 1,000 pounds of flesh imprisoning us in our own body.Its no sin to borrow and have debt, per se.But it is one thing to borrow investment capital to build a factory.Quite another to ship that factory off to some other economy, and keep borrowing so that we can have a big screen TV instead.
Consider David Meza, whose story is not uncommon:
"David Meza, of Beaverton, Ore., is struggling to escape that trend. Meza, 47, worked 14 years assembling heavy-duty trucks for the Freightliner truck company. But when most of the production operations were moved to Mexico, he was laid off in March 2007." Quoted from here
Now, I’m not saying American workers are lazy – no, we work our butts off. There are thousands of David Mesas who would love to still be working, but sadly he is now an economic muscle that will atrophy from disuse. Our economy on the whole has stopped producing hard goods.We import everything, and we basically export dollars and weapons now.And you wonder why our military industrial complex rules the world and why the constant saber rattling.Sure we could talk and negotiate for peace.But war is so much more expensive. I digress.
We consume massive amounts of STUFF and don’t make anything anymore.We have to pay for all of this STUFF with value, not just money.Money, you can print all day long, and it will continue to buy more stuff for awhile, but soon China will realize the position they are in when they keep buying our securities and sending goods.They are bringing us buckets and buckets of fried chicken and getting nothing in return.Nothing but promises that someday we’ll get out of bed, walk again, get a job and pay them back.We keep promising.Will they keep believing?
Oh, and here’s a man who has actually lost 500 pounds and might break the overconsumption model the not-6-foot-under way. He lives in Mexico.
While at our extended stay hotel (from being moved out of our rental so the landlord can get the house inspected for its final CO) Mike’s car gets broken into. Joy.
You can imagine the items a Ron Paul Republican might own and carry in his car while he is homeless. Luckily nothing was really taken that we can determine. They didn’t get in the trunk. They didn’t even take the GPS on the dash. But he will have a very drafty ride to work and lots of broken glass on the passenger side seat to avoid.
That phone call from the front desk will jar you awake and into a state of sheer panic in a matter of seconds. But the worst didn’t happen, just a broken window. So, yay for those enterprising (non) theives. They must be enrolled in a government economics course and want to stimulate the economy.
Welcome to Maryland.... ever feel like the universe is trying to tell you something?
OK, we’ve been in DC awhile. It’s exhausing to get anywhere, but that’s why we live spitting distance from the Metro. And there is a dance on Friday that is spitting distance from another Metro.
Ya can’t just live in the city and not enjoy it. DC has a GREAT swing dance scene. No more excuses. This Friday its time for us to get our West Coast on. If ya don’t know how fun and sexy West Coast Swing can be.... take a look (the real magic begins at minute 2:00)
I’m now addicted to Dateline shows where they "Catch" a predator, a con man, an ID Thief. You can watch it all online.
I really thought I would start spasms of near sexual happiness when they baited the Nigerian 419 scammers. Now they are baiting ID theives. I’m just.... in bliss.
I’m the girl who devoured "Catch Me If You Can" by Frank Abagnale before Leo and Steve made the movie.
Just heard on the radio this morning that in spite of the Fed cutting interest rates, most people's credit cards are raising interest rates. As if this is counter-intuitive. The Fed just made money cheaper, less valuable. That means your credit card company has to charge you more for it to keep up.
But don't worry. The rebate checks we're all getting should help you make the new payments. See this is why going in to this they say don't owe anybody anything if you can help it.
Mortgage rates will go up too because the yield on 10 year notes is declining. Same reasoning basically. Same reasoning you want a raise to keep up with inflation. Will you get it? Or will you get laid off and have to go live in a tent city
Celebrities appear in music videos flashing euros instead of benjamins, stores in the US are beginning to accept euros... It seems the days of competing currencies are upon us. They are all fiat tho, so this will be interesting.
Iran is opening its oil bourse which is yet another step to unpropping the dollar with oil. Our biggest exports are dollars and weapons. This is not good. People are beginning to shun one of those, and we wonder why all the propaganda for perpetual war. Well, when your entire economy is fundamentally based on keeping the world at war...
So sad in the land of the free. I used to think that specialization in economics was a really good thing. And normally it is. We should buy food from whoever makes it best and cheapest. We should buy everything from whoever can do the job the best and give us a good deal. But we've gradually stopped making things for ourselves. We've turned into a "service" economy. In other words, we sit around scratching eachother's backs and trading money all day, no one actually producing anything anymore. When our dollars are no longer in demand...
who will feed us?
It's going to be an interesting 10 years. We will go into a deep deep recession, and then a deep deep depression. Our politicians will once again make it just Great with their backwards understanding of the whole situation.
Someday the world will wake up or die off. Actually those are the only two choices. And those of us that survive, the Remnant, will be left to pick up the pieces and move forward.
I think 10 years is when it turns back around. 2018. But that's not never. Can you hang on, winter soldier? Can you prepare, buckle down and survive till then? Keep spreading the word. More and more you will make sense to those around you. But patience and perseverance is the name of the game.
The saddest thing about Socialism is that is turns people into liabilities, not assets, to their governments. Knowing that governments have killed 262 million people in the last century, can you imagine a more dangerous place to be than in the wrong column of some bureaucratic bean-counter who is wholly beholden to a military and medical industrial complex whose bills are coming due?
We have $60 trillion in unfunded liabilities. For every person they can take off the ledger somehow, they save $200,000.
Think about that the next time you put your hand out to your government.
Think about that the next time you hear of a presidential signing statement that allows Americans to be rounded up into work camps. It's getting more and more convenient and necessary to label lots and lots of Americans as "terrorists" oh, right about the time they are done paying taxes and ready to shift to the other column in their accounting books.
And I don't want to hear anymore about how we haven't been attacked since 9/11. We did it to ourselves, just as planned
