Back to Main
July 1, 2005
WB: The Irrepressible Conflict
Comments
Billmon is spot on, this is about slavery versus freemasonry, if you will, but before you get too caught up in SCOTUS and the nuclear meltdown in Congress, do a little doodling to see just whom is going to be slave or freemason to whom.
Having nothing better to do at my workstation, since today is our corporate division’s massive RIF last day, and we’ve been told to just sit in our cubbies until we get our pink slips, I ran a little spreadsheet, which is what I “do” around here, an actuals management rollup on … me.
Projecting combined income, assets, expenses, kid’s tuition, actuary tables, retirement and the HMO hospitalization expenses, even when I get a replacement job Tuesday, (I have ever reason to believe I can find work until I retire), by the time I hit 72, even with the most optimistic bond investment returns and lowest cost-of-living inflation allowance, my kids are gonna have to start ponying up to support their old parents to the tune of $25,000 in their peak income years.
Assuming they land your average American job at some $40,000 a year, and are saving the average American 0.5% and falling, then they simply won’t have any way to support their parents, other than for us to go live with them during their own peak family years expense curve themselves.
Even before their financial help was to have kicked in, of course, our life savings would be drained, net zero, and our options reduced to sitting on the couch, watching the kids go to work, come home, watching whatever passes for television, a bib, a wipe, and off to bed.
What a reward after fifty years of wage slavery.
Now multiply that by some 40,000,000 Americans retiring in the next ten years, and then tell me about Sandra O’Conner, and why we should care about the nuclear option, when the center cannot hold, and our way of life is about to come apart.
Maybe the Enrons and Worldcoms and Adelphias and NeoCons are simply those folks that did the math.
Posted by: tante aime | Jul 1 2005 18:39 utc | 1
why we should care about the nuclear option, when the center cannot hold, and our way of life is about to come apart.
Because it’s a big part of the piece on center stage called “Back to the 1920’s”. One has to fight each of the issues or all are lost.
And yes, I am sorry for you and currently jobless myself.
The grand political theater will start now. Unfortunatly it will take away the views from all the other issues that do need so much attention. Gonzales for SCOTUS – how deep can the U.S. sink?
Oh, s–t! I forgot to factor in Fed income tax, plus paydown of the massive and growing Federal operating and war deficit! I’m almost afraid to fill that spreadsheet cell….
Posted by: tante aime | Jul 1 2005 18:54 utc | 3
Jesus! Never forget to factor in Federal taxes!
One of the kids will have to fight in Oceana and go to college on the GI Bill, we’ll have to refi the house to zero to help them get started, and then move in with them as soon as we retire, or else keep paying on the refi mortgage, turn off all the utilities, and eat tofu and yard greens.
Maybe that’s what this whole Neo thing is about, this massive consolidation of Federal power and debit … robbing the kids to pay the Fed piper?
Habla Argentina?
Posted by: tante aime | Jul 1 2005 19:09 utc | 4
the supreme court with few exceptions is owned lock stock & barrel – the replacing of o’connor will only confirm its corrupted status & if they should place gonzales – then it should be considered – a state of siege
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jul 1 2005 19:36 utc | 5
Just FYI, billmon, the link for the Hertzberg quote points to Seward speech.
Posted by: netro | Jul 1 2005 22:25 utc | 6
So Billmon, what odds do you now give on another Civil War to resolve this irrepressible conflict?
Posted by: lonesomeG | Jul 1 2005 22:31 utc | 7
The center indeed cannot hold … but to answer yesterdays query by bill … Michael Jackson is apparently vacationing in Bahrain as a guest of the king’s son.
Posted by: John | Jul 2 2005 5:52 utc | 8
The compromise candidate will be Albert Speer and thus having avoided Heydrich there will be dancing in the streets.
Or something like that.
Posted by: Lupin | Jul 2 2005 6:14 utc | 9
Quote:
why we should care about the nuclear option, when the center cannot hold, and our way of life is about to come apart.
———
I tend to agree with you but on the other hand I also tend to agree with b here:
Quote:
One has to fight each of the issues or all are lost.
———-
I never understood quite well this saying “That’s the way cookie crumbles” but I believe it’s appropriate here…or not?
Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 2 2005 12:32 utc | 10
ô lupin
the kind of cadre – that a reinhard heydrich imagined – is already in place in all the seats of power of the empire
an elite that doesn’t mind a bit of blood & butchery
Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 2 2005 12:42 utc | 11
I know we’re here for serious talk, but it is the fourth weekend and the Declaration of Independence is worth celebrating even if our country was eventually taken over by greedy elitist.
So, today we are having a cookout, a few beers and I am going to forget about the court wars that are coming until more is out about Bushies pick.
But, some commentary first. I don’t believe abortion will be the main issue. If you look at Bushies picks in Texas, like Gonzales, the main theme was pro business and anti labor. They could care less about social issues. They hate workers rights. There, thats my two cents.
Please, have a great fourth and Bernhard, thank you for the year here at the MoA. I didn’t get a chance to post at the other thread.
Posted by: jdp | Jul 2 2005 13:28 utc | 14
I performed my personal ritual reading of the Declaration early this year, as usual marveling over the rhetoric. That boy sure could write good. The climax for me is “plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns”. Heh.
This year, I was struck by how many of his complaints could be echoed by the inhabitants of former Mesopotamia.
Posted by: Roger Bigod | Jul 2 2005 16:35 utc | 15
Agree with jdp: in the fight to replace Justice O’Connor, abortion will not be the main issue for the male-dominated Democrats. It will be expendable in the pursuit of defending Roosevelt’s New Deal from any ‘constitution-in-exile’ nominee — a battle Dems will eventually lose anyway when Renquist is replaced. Dems will compromise women’s rights to appeal to their ever-dwindling labor constituency. After 06 and 08 the Dems will be finished.
Posted by: gylangirl | Jul 3 2005 1:08 utc | 16
“expendable”
Many things are expandable. Apparently the New Deal constitution is expandable (which, is another victory for the Overlords, since the New Deal constitution is essewntial to the modern corporate Overlord – they just want to use the New Deal Constitution to their purposes. Scalia’s speciality is administrative law – that is, New Deal Constitution law.) A false dischomoty between expendable abortin rights and new deal rights is exactly the kind of thing that has made the American Left a joke and is destroying the Democratic party.
Posted by: razor | Jul 3 2005 1:58 utc | 17
What a chilling quote by William Henry Seward. Seward’s analysis and the parallels between the political climate in the country immediately prior to the Civil War and today’s bitter partisan conflicts are truly frightening.
Posted by: Gabby | Jul 3 2005 3:08 utc | 18
tante aime
Brilliant post! I’ve gained a lot more respect for the economists and the work they do in the past few years. I think there’s much to be said for your statement that:
Maybe the Enrons and Worldcoms and Adelphias and NeoCons are simply those folks that did the math.
This is the price those of us pay who have been too busy defining ourselves with consumer products to “do the math.” It seems to me our country is full of people obsessed with defining themselves to the detriment of the reality that exists everywhere around them and to which they are mostly oblivious.
Posted by: Gabby | Jul 3 2005 3:15 utc | 19
Sorry, it’s late and my brain is running on a few sputtering fumes. The last sentence was supposed to say something roughly equivalent to the following.
to the detriment of their perception of the reality that exists everywhere around them and to which they are mostly oblivious.
If it doesn’t make sense after this revision just make it make sense in your head and sign my name. ;-))
Posted by: Gabby | Jul 3 2005 3:18 utc | 20