Opinionopolis

Lots going on in the consumer world… we’re preparing action items concerning our 3 favorites here, due out in the next couple of weeks:

“Lacie, redux”

“T-Mobile, OMG!”

And, last but not least, a new ongoing series entitled:

“The MTA owes me some muthafucking money!”

Or, some other title that *might* be more fit for consumption

Stay tuned, and thanks for the hits.

e

A month ago, after way too much research, I finally plunked for the Dell 2408WFP SuperSharp (and super sexy) LCD monitor. But since it’s one of these newfangled “wide gamut” monitors, I realized I couldn’t get by with the ‘ol Apple “sysprefs” calibrations I’ve been doing for years. And since I need to “soft proof” ads and photos for a living… I realized I needed a real calibration tool.

So, after a lot more research I settled on the X-Rite “Eye-One Display 2”. Aka “the best mid-range calibrator with the worst name.” And, well, I bought it.

http://www.xrite.com/product_overview.aspx?ID=788

$299 retail. And here’s the skinny.

When you first open the box, out comes the main unit, which is dangle “tool” that looks like a computer mouse. How it works is you hang that over your screen, and the software sends information to the screen. The donglemouse thing then reads that information, and sends feedback about the monitor back to the software. And viola! A perfect calibration.

Sounds great, right? Well. Not so fast.

Aside from the danglemouse, a weight for the cord (to help secure it) and a plastic “rest/ambient light detector” there is almost ZERO documentation.

No manual. No bullet points. No nothing.

The only bit of information you get is a “Quick Start” Guide, which is just a folded piece of paper that opens to about 10 panels. 4 of which are filled with legal mumbo. And each of the remaining panels supposedly giving you a “step” (in 10 languages at the same time, no less). Overall it’s very, very basic. Weirdly basic, actually. And not very helpful.

So then you go to plug in the dongle mouse, and there’s a warning on it: “INSTALL SOFTWARE BEFORE PLUGGING IN DONGLEMOUSE!”

Wait. It didn’t say anything about that in the comprehensive quickstart guide!

So I put the CD in my computer, and I noticed right away there are some very “OS9”-looking icons in the menu, which is never a good sign. But I soldiered on.

The CD contained a bunch of folders; way, way too many folders for any install disk. And among them I noticed there were some “tutorials”, so I tucked my pride behind my ear and opened the first tutorial. And, well, it was okay. Aside from the announcer pronouncing random words badly, and loudly, the whole calibration process seemed simple enough. The important thing being it gave me more information than the quickstart guide.

After the tutorial was finished I was still left with a jumble of files and folders on the CD. And not knowing which I should click, or what to install, I first tried dragging the icon called “EyeOne” onto the desktop, simply because it was the only “professional-looking” icon of the bunch. But when I double-clicked it, it showed an antiquated-looking menu screen with “Match” “Share” and “Diagnostics” buttons on it. And when I clicked each of them, it didn’t do anything.

So, I opened the folder on the CD called “installers”, and found the same names as on the zombie program, plus one folder entitled “Pantone”. So I painstakingly installed each of these from this folder. Each one seeming to use a different installer program. Seriously, really?

Of course I had NO idea what each of these do. Or did. What the hell is “Match”? Is that where I match my monitor to something else? Is “Share” a utility that allows me to give and receive calibrations, somehow? And what is “Diagnostics”? How is it different from “Match”? Of course, I know what “Pantone” is, but is it really a necessary install? Again, there was ZERO information on what these things are, and I really, really hate installing unnecessary software, especially bloatware onto my computer. But I felt I had no choice here. I wanted this thing to work. I NEEDed it to work, and work well. So I installed everything… and to this day I have no idea what I installed. Or changed. Or, more importantly, if I screwed anything up on my system.

Okay. So everything was installed, I think (?), and I clicked on “Diagnostics” first, because my gut told me that that was the main calibration program.

My gut was wrong.

Apparently “diagnostics” is a program that is supposed to tell me if my monitor “is okay”. Whatever that means (again, zero documentation).

I clicked “start” and immediately it chastised me for not having my mouse dongle plugged in. So I quickly plugged it in, and it asked me to put it on a “neutral surface”. I remembered the ancient-looking tutorial told me something about a “black” surface, so I put it on the little bit of the box that was black. I have no idea if that was the right thing, or not. Oh well. Pressing on.

And… well… it froze.

Somewhere between checking the output of something, and the black level of something else, it completely locked up my system.

So after a generous 10 minutes of le beachball du spinno, I had to force-quit.

I relaunched, and again, right in the middle of measuring the “black” swatch, it froze.

I restarted. Tried again. And it froze. Again.

Oh well. Maybe I didn’t need that part of the program? I mean, on the whole, based on the price tag, that’s a $98 program right there that doesn’t work. So, thanks for that.

Moving on.

At this point I looked into my Applications folder, where everything is usually placed, and, as I guessed, there it was… an “Eye-One” folder. And in there was a program called “Calibration”. Aha! I opened it up, and it looked just like the program they used the old-school tutorial movie.

I let out a sigh of relief, and quickly wiped the breath fog off my new monitor.

I should point out here that I *still* don’t know what that other program was, or what the “Match” “Share” and “Diagnostics” buttons on it did. Well, we know that it didn’t work. But I digress…

Turns out the main calibration program is called “Eye-One Match” (aha! …wha?), and it gives you a simple window that offers “easy” and “advanced” settings, and there are, surprisingly, instructions on the top right of the window that you can access by clicking the little buttons. It tells you what you’re supposed to be doing, and even clarifies some terminology in case you need it. A novel concept.

I did an “easy” calibration first, and it took almost no time at all. However, the end result was a bit too dark, and I realized that, for my monitor at least, there were still some pretty heavy brightness/contrast settings to mutz with, and even some RGB sliders that pack quite a wallup. So I decided to dive right into “advanced” mode.

To my surprise, even that went swimmingly. In a nutshell, all you have to do is let the donglemouse do it’s measurements and give you the results, then you tweak your monitor’s settings, and then let donglemouse do a re-measurement. And repeat.

This worked very well for “manual” RGB, which I ducked to 75% for all of them initially, so I’d have room to move.

And, well, I ended up with a damn gorgeous calibration! It was significantly “deeper” in saturation than my previous, “by eye” calibration. But, unfortunately, the “contrast” portion of the calibration didn’t work at all. It kept telling me that it was 100% spot-on, even though I would wildy swing the contrast values back and forth. Obviously it was broken, which sucks. But I like to set the contrast where I like it to “look” anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal to me. But the fact that it simply didn’t work is pretty crappy. Also, there was no “brightness” adjustment phase, even thought the tutorial, and the program itself, promised there would be one. Again, not the end of the world because I just set the brightness (like contrast) on my monitor to levels I like, which I did this time and then had the Eye-One concentrate on the RGBs.

Well, there you go. A damn convoluted review of a necessary, but poorly executed calibration device. Did I get the calibration I needed? Yes. But the rub here is that X-Rite just didn’t do their powerful little “donglemouse that could” justice. The documentation is spotty at best, completely confusing, and otherwise non-existant. And, perhaps more importantly, the software is woefully out of date and seriously flawed. It’s almost as if the same guys who built the hardware also designed the software and wrote instructions. Which we all know is never a good idea.

Honestly I feel like I’ve gotten about $50 worth of my $200+ spent on the Eye-One Display-2. And that sucks, because I really, really wanted to like thing.

THE RESULTS:

YAY:
It does what it says it does. It gives you a decent calibration quickly (ala “easy” mode), or a great calibration semi-quickly (via “advanced” mode). Not a lot of parts to keep track of. Solid build.

BOO:
Uninspired presentation. Absolutely horrible documentation. Embarassingly out-of-date, confused, and crippled software.

GESTALT:
Not worth the money. But these problems could be easily fixed by manufacturer, and then it would be well-worth it.

No matter what El Rushbo may say publicly, it would’ve been better for the GOP had Hillary in won North Carolina. A LOT better. Or, at the very least, won Indiana by a more commanding margin than she did. Which wasn’t very commanding at all.

The numbers:

Clinton: 641,734 51%
Obama: 623,294 49%

Clinton won Indiana by only 18,440 votes. And yet John McCain only won 77% of the Indiana vote. Which means there were 33%, or 92,127 Republicans who were actually voting for people OTHER than John McCain.

McCain: 318,374 77%
Huckabee: 41,063 10%
Paul: 31,557 8%
Romney: 19,507 5%

Look. No matter what you think of John McCain (and I’m certainly not his biggest fan) he IS the Republican nominee. So it makes absolutely NO sense to vote for Huckabee, Romney, Paul or even Keys at this point. “Sending a message” is all fine and dandy if the Democrat nominee was in the bag as well, but when you have an opportunity to muck up the the opposing party without affecting your own party, there’s never a good reason NOT to do it.

And yes, Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos, which owes nods to the styles of strategic election politics in many parts of Europe, was a brilliant idea. Yes, I said it. Simply because the Republican party benefits the longer the Democratic primary process drags on. And that is a fact. It is not arguable. And the only way to do that is to keep Hillary in it. But barely.

And when you have Republicans not only voting for McCain, the guy who’s ALREADY won the nod, but voting for people who are no longer even in the race… you are wasting your vote, and hurting your party.

Let’s look at North Carolina: Obama won by 232,726 votes

Obama: 890,723 56%
Clinton: 657,997 42%
No Preference: 22,722 1%

And here’s where the Republicans really shot themselves in the foot:

McCain: 381,146 73%
Huckabee: 62,888 12%
Paul: 40,277 8%
No Preference: 20,306 4%
Keyes: 13,591 3%

Not only is that 73% of the Republican party wasting their vote on someone who’s already won, that’s a whopping 26%, or 137,062 votes that easily could’ve gone for Hillary. And for chaos. And for a Red State victory in November. Something that, based on the last 8 years, really should not happen.

At the very least, those 137,062 votes would’ve made Hillary look a lot better, and more likely to stay in the race a lot longer.

Sure. Hillary could still decide to stay in this race until the convention, which would be the best possible scenario for the Reps. But even if she decides to drop out in the next week, the damage caused to this point by Operation Chaos will be better than no damage at all.

Oh well Rush. It was better than nothing. Which is what McCain was doing.

Explode. As in a good way.

A few years ago I got a low-rez .mp3 off of pitchforkmedia from a TVT band called Ambulance LTD. Which I immediately confused with Son, Ambulance, on Saddle Creek Records, but no mind.

After a few months of this sneakily catchy song, “Primitive”, creeping onto my iPod playslists, I decided to investigate further, and I immediately bought everything of this addictive young “Spanish Harlem” indie rock band I could get my hands on. Which, unfortunately, was not a lot: a self-titled EP, a full-length, creatively-titled “LP” (album-naming clearly taking a second billing), and a smattering of loose demos, three songs released especially for DKNY, and finally, in 2006, another EP: “New English EP”.

And then nothing. For two full years.

So last fall I went searching again.

And of course they have a website (not-often updated) and a myspace.com page (slightly less not-often updated), but nothing more. Just a lot of comments asking the question I wanted to ask: “where the fuck ARE these guys?”

Then, over the Holidays last year, I heard their song “Anecdote” on a commercial. Of course I had my usual reaction when I hear a band that’s near-and-dear to me show up in a commercial… “Oh hey… wow… FUCK!”.

I know, I know. Pretty conflicted for a marketing guy, but moving on.

What made their commercial debut slightly better for me was the immediate rash of metoo songs in commercials that rather blatantly ripped them off. A very good sign for a band, methinks.

And then, last week, I re-checked their myspace page: …”Oh hey… wow… FUCK!”

They announced a tour…! The first one in YEARS!

And it was last month. Great.

Anyway. Even though I am beyond super-bummed not to be able to see these guys live, even though it was at the fight-or-flight-inducing Mercury Lounge (drink or pee, the choice is yours)… despite many, many lineup changes (never, ever good) …and despite this video of the lead singer/guitarist/creator Marcus Congelton blathering SoCal-style in a grimy wifebeater (which, apparently, unfortunately, he wears a lot)… I am making the call. Right here. Right now.

The call: Very soon Ambulance LTD will be a household name.

If you’ve been watching TV at all in the last two weeks you just might have seen the latest Red Lobster commercial, advertising their “Jumbo Shrimp”.

What’s strange is, although this seems like your ordinary, run-of-the-mill Red Lobster commercial with the nautical imagery and the gratuitously suggestive lemon wedge squrtings… they’ve actually broken new ground in marketing. Yes. It’s true.

Normally, they would call it “Jumbo Shrimp Week” or “Jumbo Shrimp Extravaganza!!!”. And the copy would read something like:

“Come on in to Red Lobster during our Jumbo Shrimp Extravaganza!!! and get all you can eat buttery, golden-broiled shrimp”… blah blah blah.

But, since Red Lobster is now defiantly re-shaping the English language, the copy goes like this:

“Come on in to Red Lobster during Jumbo Shrimp and get all you can eat buttery, golden-broiled shrimp”…

….um, wha?

That’s right. Red Lobster has apparently run out of catchy “event” monikers, and have decided to just go with the proper “sea name” instead. We can look forward to “seabass”, “scallop” “fried clam” and even “cod” sometime in the near future. They were even too cool to simply put the word “week” after the damnd thing. How can we know how long it’s supposed to last?

So it’s “Jumbo Shrimp”. Now acceptable to be used like other terms meaning “extended length of time: eg, “Rhamadan”, “sweeps” or “finals”.

No, not the end of the advertising world. Just. Damn. Weird.

Her response is even longer than the original email, so be patient. And I must point out here that I don’t know if HER facts are all in order, but you know what? This is the internet. Facts are pretty much beside the point.

Enjoy the ride!

+++

The Social Security system has been a contentious political issue ever since it was proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and implemented in 1935.  Arguments regarding how the system should be used, administered, and funded — and even whether it should exist at all — have been the subject of debate for many decades now.  In this vein, the above-quoted item seeks to enumerate (and assign blame for) alterations to Social Security that have supposedly betrayed the intent of the system as originally conceived back in the 1930s.  Most of the entries contained therein, however, are inaccurate regarding what changes were made and/or who was responsible for making them:

. . . participation in the Program would be completely voluntary

There was no provision in the Social Security Act of 1935 (nor has there ever been any provision) for the payment of Social Security payroll taxes (now commonly known as FICA, from an acronym for the Federal Insurance Contributions Act) to be voluntary.  Since the inception of the Social Security program, the law has required that payroll taxes for persons working at jobs covered by Social Security “shall be collected by the employer of the taxpayer by deducting the amount of the tax from the wages as and when paid.”

It is true that Social Security provisions originally  applied only to “workers in commerce and industry (except railroads) under age 65 in the continental United States, Alaska and Hawaii, and on American vessels,” and thus those who worked in fields not designated as “commerce and industry” (e.g., government workers, farm workers, doctors, lawyers) neither paid into the Social Security fund nor received benefits from it.  Nearly all of those exemptions have been since phased out.

. . . participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual incomes into the Program

Social Security taxes were never limited to the first $1,400 of annual income, nor was there any provision in the Social Security Act of 1935 to permanently fix the tax rate at 1%.  The Social Security Act of 1935 set the original rate at 1% of the first $3,000 of annual income, with provisions to gradually increase that rate to 3% over the next twelve years:

(1) With respect to employment during the calendar years 1937, 1938, and 1939, the rate shall be 1 per centum.
(2) With respect to employment during the calendar years 1940, 1941, and 1942, the rate shall be 1 1/2 per centum.
(3) With respect to employment during the calendar years 1943, 1944, and 1945, the rate shall be 2 per centum.
(4) With respect to employment during the calendar years 1946, 1947, and 1948, the rate shall be 2 1/2 per centum.
(5) With respect to employment after December 31, 1948, the rate shall be 3 per centum.

These figures have been adjusted many times over the years.  Under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act, as of 2005 participants pay 6.2% of the first $90,000 of their income (with their employers contributing a like sum) into what is commonly known as OASDI (from an acronym for Old Age Survivors and Disability Insurance, the official name of the basic retirement benefits portion of the Social Security program).

. . . the money the participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year

The original Social Security Act of 1935 specifically stated that  Social Security payroll taxes were not to be allowed as income tax deductions:

For the purposes of the income tax imposed by Title I of the Revenue Act of 1934 or by any Act of Congress in substitution therefor, the tax imposed by section 801 shall not be allowed as a deduction to the taxpayer in computing his net income for the year in which such tax is deducted from his wages.

Social Security payroll taxes have never been deductible from income for tax purposes, either when the program was originally instituted or at any time since.

. . . the money the participants put into the independent “Trust Fund” rather than into the General operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program

The Social Security Trust Fund was established in 1939  to receive monies collected for Social Security through payroll taxes.  The monies in this fund are managed by the Department of the Treasury; they are not, nor have they ever been, put into the “general operating fund.”

However, whether the Social Security Trust Fund can truly be said to be “independent” is problematic.  The Social Security Act specifies that the monies in the fund may only “be invested in securities backed by the full faith and credit of the Federal government,” such as treasury bills, treasury notes, and treasury bonds, as well as special issue bonds.  So, essentially, the government can “invest” Social Security funds by lending them to itself, then spending that money on programs not related to Social Security (e.g., defense, foreign aid, education).  The government “pays back” this money when the Social Security program redeems the bonds, but critics of the program contend Social Security will eventually fall into deficit by 2018, and the Treasury won’t have the necessary cash on hand to redeem the bonds and pay back the fund.   As the Social Security and Medicare Trustees themselves noted in their 2005 Annual Report.

In 2005 the Social Security tax income surplus is estimated to be more than offset by the shortfall in tax and premium income for Medicare, resulting in a small overall cash shortfall that must be covered by transfers from general fund revenues. The combined shortfall is projected to grow each year such that by 2017 net revenue flows from the general fund to the trust funds will total $515 billion, or 2.3 percent of GDP. Since neither the interest paid on the Treasury bonds held in the HI  [Hospital Insurance] and OASDI Trust Funds, nor their redemption, provides any net new income to the Treasury, the full amount of the required Treasury payments to these trust funds must be financed by some combination of increased taxation, increased Federal borrowing and debt, or a reduction in other government expenditures. Thus, these payments along with the 75 percent general fund revenue contributions to SMI will add greatly to pressures on Federal general fund revenues much sooner than is generally appreciated.

. . . the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income

It is true that Social Security benefits were not originally considered taxable income.  However, that status was not due to any promise or act on the part of President Roosevelt, nor was it specified in the Social Security Act (or any other law); it was the result of a series of rulings by the Treasury Department in 1938 and 1941 that excluded Social Security benefits from federal income taxation.   Those rulings were overriden by amendments to the Social Security act enacted in 1983.

Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the independent “Trust” fund and put it into the General fund so that Congress could spend it?

A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the Democratically-controlled House and Senate.

As noted above, the monies paid into the Social Security trust have never been “put into the general fund.” The requirements for how the Social Security Trust Fund is to be financed and invested have not changed since the fund’s inception in 1939.  The reference to Lyndon Johnson indicates that someone was probably confused by a change implemented at the end of the Johnson administration (1969) that altered how the fund was accounted for in the federal budget but did not change the actual operations of the fund itself:

Beginning in fiscal year 1969, Social Security and other Federal programs that operate through trust funds were counted officially in the budget. This was done administratively by President Johnson. At the time Congress did not have a budget-making process. In 1974 Congress adopted procedures for setting budget goals through passage of annual budget resolutions. Like the budgets prepared by the President, these resolutions were to reflect a “unified” budget that included trust fund programs such as Social Security in the budget totals.

Beginning in the late 1970s, Social Security faced financial problems, and over a period of time legislation was enacted to restore the financial health of the program. However, because the Federal budget deficit remained large, interest in reducing Social Security spending continued. This routine consideration of Social Security constraints led to concerns that cuts in Social Security were being proposed for budgetary purposes rather than programmatic ones.

In response to this concern, a series of measures were enacted in 1983, 1985, and 1987 making the program a more distinct part of the budget and permitting Congressional floor objections (points of order) to be raised against budget bills containing Social Security changes.

This method of accounting for the Social Security Trust Fund in the federal budget was reversed in 1990.

Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?

A: The Democratic Party.

As noted above, Social Security withholding has never been deductible from income for tax purposes.  The original Social Security Act of 1935 specifically stated that monies paid into Social Security via payroll taxes were not to be allowed as income tax deductions.

Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities?

A: The Democratic Party.

Prior to 1984, income derived from Social Security benefits was exempt from taxation.  Amendments to the Social Security Act passed by Congress in 1983 allowed for 50% of Social Security benefits to be considered taxable income for taxpayers whose total income exceeded specified thresholds.

Responsibility for this change cannot fairly be assigned to either political party.  The idea originated with a proposal issued by the Greenspan Commission, which had been appointed by President Ronald Reagan, a Republican.  The amendments were passed by a House of Representatives in which the Democrats held a clear majority of the seats (296-166), but the proposed amendments received “Yea” votes from members of both parties, and they were signed into law by President Reagan.

Q: Which political party increased the taxes on Social Security annuities?

A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the “tie-breaking” deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the U.S.

In 1993, Congress passed legislation that increased the percentage of Social Security benefits subject to taxation from 50% to 85%.  As with the 1983 amendments to the Social Security Act, this increase applied only to taxpayers whose total income exceeded specified thresholds.

This change to Social Security was but one element of the massive Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act introduced in Congress in 1993.  OBRA was barely passed by a vote in the House of Representatives, with not a single Republican voting in favor of it (although 41 Democrats voted against it).  Likewise, the Senate on OBRA was deadlocked at 50-50 (again, with not a single Republican voting in favor of it, although 6 Democrats voted against it) until Vice-President Al Gore (a Democrat) cast the deciding “Yea” vote.   The bill was signed into law by President Bill Clinton (also a Democrat).

Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?

A: That’s right! Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party. Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, began to receive SSI Social Security payments! The Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into it!

No one — whether he be a citizen, immigrant, or illegal alien — is eligible to collect Social Security benefits unless he (or someone else, such as a parent or spouse) has paid into the system.  Someone has confused Social Security itself with Supplemental Security Income; the latter is a federal welfare program “designed to help aged, blind, and disabled people, who have little or no income” by providing “cash to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter.”  Immigrants can qualify for SSI benefits under certain conditions, but SSI is financed by general revenues and not Social Security taxes. SSI was not enacted by the administration of President Jimmy Carter (a Democrat); it was created and signed into law in 1972, during the administration of President Richard Nixon (a Republican).

+++

…discuss…

This is the email in question. I managed to extract it from the HTML “layout” it was in, and it is presented here in all it’s plain text glory*

*note the homely tone… and you gotta love the TJ kicker at the end.

+++

*Your Social Security*

*Just in case some of you young whippersnappers (& some older ones) didn’t know this. It’s easy to check out, if you don’t believe it. Be sure and show it to your kids. They need a little history lesson on what’s what and it doesn’t matter whether you are Democrat or Republican. Facts are Facts!!!*

*Our Social Security

Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. He promised:
1.) That participation in the Program would be Completely voluntary,
2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual Incomes into the Program,
3.) That the money the pa rticipants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year,
4.) That the money the participants put into the independent “Trust Fund” rather than into the general operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program, and,
5..) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income.

Since many of us h ave paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the Federal government to “put away” — you may be interested in the following:

————————————————————-

Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the independent “Trust Fund” and put it into the general fund so that Congress could spend it?

A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the democratically controlled House and Senate.

——————————————————————–

Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?

A: The Democratic Party.

———————————————————————–

Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities?

A: The Democratic Party, wit h /Al Gore/ casting the “tie-breaking” deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the US

——————————————————————-

Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?

AND MY FAVORITE:

A: That’s right!*
*/Jimmy Carter/** and the Democratic Party.
**immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, began to receive Social Security payments! The Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into it!
———————————————————————-

Then, after violating the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away!

And the worst part about it is uninformed citizens believe it!*
*If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of
**awareness will be planted and maybe changes will evolve. Maybe not, some Democrats are awfully sure of what isn’t so.

But it’s worth a try. How many people can YOU send this to?

Actions speak louder than bumper stickers.*

*/AND CONGRESS GIVES THEMSELVES 100% RETIREMENT FOR ONLY SERVING ONE TERM!!!/*

*/A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
-Thomas Jefferson/*

Okay.

What happens when one of those partisan “fact filled” email “forwards” gets forwarded to someone who actually knows a thing or two about a thing or two?

…Hilarity! That’s what.

Here’s the beef. My brother forwarded me this about Social Security. This email essentially blames the Democrats for everything that is wrong, or could possibly go wrong with everyone’s favorite social program: Social Security.

Now, as the center-right leaning skeptic that I am, I was torn between kindof secretly wanting it to be true, and not having the time, nor the vim, to research this thing myself. Knowing that these kinds of emails are usually at least 110% out-of-their-tree wrong. So what did I do? I forwarded it to my Mom, naturally.

And here’s where the fun starts.

My Mom, like most moms with email accounts, just LOVE to forward shit. And oh, forward this shit she did. Eventually landing in the hands of someone who actually WORKS for the Social Security Administration.

And Holy Shit, looks what happens:

(I’ve split this up into a couple of posts to make it more digestible)

blah blah I I I
typical american
Me Me blah blah crap

-submitted by my sister

Well Bear Stearns, you did it.

Sure, there were a lot of greedy bastards in all of this, both on the bank side and the consumer side. But you, sirs, somehow managed to be such monumentally large douches, you’re actually taking the rest of the World down with you.

“Too Big To Fail” is the term that’s been bandied about.

And of this, I’m fairly sure you were well aware. I mean, why else would you ignore just about every news report for the last 3 years and somehow decide that actually *buying* these rotten loans was somehow actually a *good* idea?

Okay, you’re right. You were not alone. But you weren’t satisfied with merely being one of the pack. No sir ree.

Not only did you hold you nose and drink the tainted subprime tequila shot-for-shot with those other greedy douchebag banks, you chased it with a 4-foot bong of northern lights, a whippet, and then went streaking.

And before you say that’s the worst analogy you’ve ever read, let me clarify. …A little back story.

When I was in college there “the rich kids” and the “rest of us”. The rich kids were lucky enough, to have their parents pay for everything: school, food, housing, and even a little spending money for booze. Whereas the “rest of us” had to pay for everything ourselves, either through school loans, or if we were smart, actual jobs.

Well, somewhere between freshman and sophmore years, there was this rash of rich kids who went nuts with their parents’ money. They bought booze, drugs, music, clothes, and everything else you can think of like it was going out of style. Drunk with their first taste of freedom, and a little gratis spending money, they let loose.

And there was always that one kid who took even that way to far. And I knew one of those kids.

On top of the booze, drugs, clothes, music and what have you, this kid signed up for a bank account, and a credit card, and in a desperate attempt to gain some ephemeral small time fame, went and spent as much money as he possibly could buying booze, drugs, clothes and anything else he could think of, for anybody and everybody.

He threw parties. He took other kids on shopping sprees. And for about 3 full months, nobody on campus had to buy any beer or weed because he had it taken care of.

This lasted for several months, and by various accounts he owed well into the tens of thousands of dollars when it was all said and done. And when I asked him why the hell he did that… why, when his other friends were topping out at, say, $1,500… why he had to go so overboard?

It was simple, he explained. You see, those other kids ended up having to pay for their debt themselves, because it was relatively minor. He, on the other hand, was more conniving.

Or was it smart?

Since he had made his situation so bad, so untenable, he was in a unique position. And his parents were in an unenviable one. Since the level of damage was so great, their unfortunate choice was simple: either “teach their son a lesson”, and insist he pay for his monetary misdeeds, which would surely mean dropping out of school, a mountain of mind numbing legal problems, possible criminal charges, and assured bankruptcy? Or, in lieu of “ruining his life”… reluctantly bail him out, but with a stern talking to?

You know what happened.

And who can blame these parents for bailing out their son? As much as they probably wanted to see him suffer because of his idiocy, they couldn’t let his entire future get thrown out the window with the proverbial bath water. So they bit the bullet and did what they had to do.

This kid is Bear Stearns. And the Government is, once again, the parents.

And you thought that was a bad analogy.

So bravo Bear Stearns. Your plan worked perfectly. And only time will tell if you  threw the World’s entire future out the window with your dirty bathwater.

Okay that was a bad one.

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