Giving the world a hand since February 3rd, 2002. "If you're gonna dine with them cannibals, sooner or later, darling, you're gonna get eaten."




Comments by YACCS

 
WHEW!

I start a new job this next week. It's a moderate raise, good hours, and most importantly, a full benefits package.

Y'all have no idea how much of a relief this is to me. My old insurance was set to run out on Feb 4th, and my Prevacid costs (sans-insurance) about $3.25 per pill.

These may only be baby steps, but I've started my way back up that Sisyphus-ian hill.
so wrote Leper around about 11:23 PM

 
A TAX BREAK?

I'm feeling grumpy and irritated. Not at anything in specific, just in general. This is par for the course for me during this time of year. I'll be better after Valentine's Day and after the weather warms up.

In the meantime...

How stupid does Dubya think the American people are? The so-called "stimulus package" coming out of the White House is nothing so much as a thinly-veiled kickback to the current administration's major campaign contributors. The main persons benefitting from this would be the already wealthy, who are less likely to reinvest anything in this weak economy. They'll hold onto it & earn interest from the bank, as they already have enough money on which to live comfortably. Any corporate benefactors will use the extra money to pad their bottom line, making themselves more attractive to investors, rather than spend the money on new employees or infrastructure/equipment. Think Enron, but without the fraud. See, Wall Street? We made a big profit this quarter! Won't you please buy our stock?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole purpose of a stimulus package is to stimulate the economy by putting extra cash in the hands of people who are most likely to spend it. By having the cash circulating back into the private sector rather than languishing in the bank, more consumer goods are purchased, causing an increase in manufacturing to keep up with demand, causing an expansion of the manufacturing sector, etc. The "trickle down" theory of economics is a polite way of saying that the wealthy are pissing on the heads of those less-fortunate beneath them.

For a more humorous angle, check out this story from the Daily Probe:

Bush Proposes Tax Cut for People with Butlers, Maids

WASHINGTON (DPI) - In an effort to stimulate the economy, President Bush announced plans for a tax cut to benefit taxpayers who employ butlers and maids. While Democrats were quick to criticize the proposal as a "thinly veiled tax break for the wealthy," the president defended the plan as a measure to assist lower-class Americans. "By providing tax relief to those who employ butlers and maids, we will free up cash flow for those same individuals, giving them the ability to hire additional butlers and maids, and even possibly a gardener and chauffeur. This will result in more jobs for working-class Americans."

This would be funny if it wasn't so close to what Dubya is trying to do.

Isn't it interesting that the same Republicans that made a stink about a balanced budget for all eight years of Clinton's presidency now seem to pay no mind to the fact that this incredibly stupid stimulus package will cost the federal government in the neighborhood of $900 billion over the next ten years. This is at a time when the government is already running a major deficit, all due to Dubya's mismanagement. Where is their moral outrage now? What happened to their fiscal responsibility? You're not saying that all of the big talk about "big-government Democrats" was nothing but (gasp!) partisan politics, are you?

Seeing at how the government has expanded in the past two years under a Republican president, yes, I am.

I'm pissed off. Dubya will be a one-term president because, just like his dear ol' dad, he talks big on the international front but knows dick about the economy.
so wrote Leper around about 3:31 PM

 
BLAH

Feeling unmotivated. Like an empty glass, waiting to be filled by.....something? Someone?

I need a vacation.
so wrote Leper around about 2:37 PM