Weekly Fear-Mongoring: Death of an Empire Part IV

Crazy week so far with all this Cyprus stuff going on (hours ago they just agreed to NOT confiscate tax 10% of bank deposits). This means that the government will have to find $10 billion another way. HA! Good luck with that without firing up the printing press. The Euro was such a brilliant idea. Not. So they basically avoid civil unrest (for now), and have guaranteed a banking collapse in Cyprus. This has weakened the Euro and made the dollar marginally more attractive. Europe has basically been put on notice - the bankers can try to take your money. Act accordingly.

Dianne Frankenstein suffered a big loss today when Congress refused to move forward with her assault weapons ban. This does NOT make the administration happy. Predictably, something bad will happen in the next two months that will be blamed on some crazy veteran/conspiracy theorist/2nd amendment advocate/psychotropic user. I pray that it doesn't happen, but it will.

Well lookie here! Reports coming out of Syria stating that 30 people have been exposed to chemical weapons. Both Assad's government and the rebels are pointing fingers at each other. Conveniently Obama is in Israel to talk Syria and Iran this week. Expect military action vedddy vedddy soon as Syria has crossed one of these phony red lines.  

Now onto the last of my four part series on how we got into the global predicament we're in. We've blamed the Fed, Congress, and Wall Street so far. Guess who the fourth culprit is? Walk into the bathroom and stare into the mirror. It's YOU!!!!!! You stupid bastard!!!! YOU played a role in this!!!! What's your freaking problem? Do you need all those creature comforts? Those gadgets? Those $300 jeans? Trendy glasses? Kanye's sunglasses? The latest iPhone/iPad/iPod that offers marginal benefits from the previous one? Ohhhh but you don't have the money for it!!!! So you put it on credit card!!!! And never bothered to pay it off!!!! #microcosm (oh wait this isn't Facebook, I can actually elaborate).

Oooooh look at me in my trendy hipster jeans!!!

Here's the deal - just like Congress, John Q. Public has a tendency to want things NOW instead of earning, saving, and developing a budget and savings plan to pay for the things they want. You graduate from high school with useless classes under your belt, but no 'Reality 101' class. You don't know personal finance, you don't know basic accounting, you don't know how to manage a checkbook. All you do when you come out of high school is say a silent prayer that you didn't get pregnant or contract an STD (among other things). But at least you know how the hunter-gatherers got by during those frigid winters!!!! And how feudalism worked!!!! And how Charles Dickens could snooker publishers into paying him by the word for overrated shit!!! You get a credit card in college, to be used in emergencies only. My left nut it's for 'emergencies only'. You start to run up a tab on dumb things other than gas and stomach pumping. Your own parents add fuel to the flame and tell you, "Hey Lonnie and Hildagard, it's ok to have a credit card, cause you need to build up your credit so when you get a car you'll have a credit history."

Then when you're at college, you don't seek out majors that will sustain you when you go out into the world. You study what's easy, cause you're lazy. I won't name the joke majors since I'll lose half my friends, but YOU KNOW DAMN WELL that certain majors are a waste of time. You take out tens of thousands of dollars to finance your education, and stupidly don't study subjects that can actually propel you to high earning power. God bless those that don't go into the workforce expecting to get rich. I respect the shit out of you. That's why, as much as I hate unions, I don't pick on teachers because they are doing the Lord's work (its a phrase dummy, God isn't really allowed in schools). Just STFU about how overworked you are. Agreed? Cause we are too. 12 months a year. Let's recap - lots of money in debt, crappy liberal arts major that guarantees you are living with Mommy and Daddy until you're 30, and a constantly increasing credit card balance that you have no means or intention of paying off.

Then you start growing up, getting married, having kids, accumulating goods and wares, buying the latest technology to keep up with the Jones's, buying large HDTV screens, leasing cars, financing furniture, and blowing your tax refund on useless trips in lieu of paying down credit card debt. And guess what? Congress and the Fed have made it real easy to be a zero-down homeowner!!!! So you and your crappy credit can STILL get a house!!! Yayy!!!!! Hey, sign me up for an adjustable rate mortgage that looks really good at first because it seems manageable and then BOOM the rate goes up and you are starting to pit out of your shirt over your monthly mortgage payments. Then you get laid off. And its hard to get a job with a xxxxxxx major. So you stop paying your mortgage, eventually default and foreclose on your home. Back to an apartment for you. Oh, and you raid whatever meager 401k savings you had in the first place, taking a 10% early withdrawal penalty. Never reduced that credit card debt, did you, asshole? So you have no home equity, no 401k, and a mountain of credit card debt. YOU ARE THE AVERAGE AMERICAN!!!!! You did this to yourself! I don't want to hear it!!!! Position yourself to always land on your feet. Pretty easy advice that any 17 year old can embrace. And you didn't take that advice from that old aunt of yours. You weren't curious during the college years. You think stuff is owed to you because you are in debt over it.

And guess what? Every November these clueless souls march to their local polling center and vote for our leadership. Ever hear the phrase 'low information voter'? Yup, that's your average American voter. Doesn't matter which party they belong to. These are the people whose sole voting issue is student loans or save the whales or who likes abortion less or who pretends to promote women more. This past election cycle was embarassing. You heard short phrases and buzz words like bayonets, binders of women, Big Bird layoffs, Etch-A-Sketch, stupid rape definitions, and 'You didn't build that'. And we thought the overused but never verbalized 'I can see Russia from my house' and '57 states' from 2008 was bad. We are a nation of mouth-breathers who refuse to research issues before voting. We trash Congress and their 14% approval rating, but send 90% of them back for a second term!!!! How stupid does that sound? We deserve the government we get, because low information voters on both sides with economic baggage and cluelessness vote them back in!!!! How do we fix that when we don't know better?

Go J.O. to this......in your parents' basement, you stupid turf major

Here's a clip from a recent Jimmy Kimmel show about the sequester. You know, the popular roving reporter asks relevant questions to Johnny on the Street. This is the epitome of the 'low information voter':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3gXOV_XWJck

You know when the Kardashians are menstruating, but you don't know what the effin sequester is. "I ain't know what a sequester is, I just voted for 'eem cause he's black." This is ouuuuuur countryyyyyyyy.

So yeah, this is the end of my rant of all rants. Everybody has blood on their hands. We all need to use our brains so we can come out of this alive. Do your part at home, because you can't lecture government's spending problem when you refuse to address your own. Back to goofy posts real soon folks!!!!!