a guttermorality news round-up

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i know, i know--i've got a story to finish.  problem is,  i'm white-knuckling my way through a week of sobriety currently off my medication, which means that all warm, fuzzy thoughts of the past have evaporated and i've found myself forced screaming into the random ugliness and stupidity that constitutes the present--which fact would explain not only my last several posts, but this one as well.

whatever--let's begin.

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from the guttermorality national affairs desk:

wow, it's already starting (part 1)

remember that healthcare bill that obama just signed that's supposed to save us all so much money?

yeah--almost immediately upon its passage into law, company after company came forth announcing huge charge-offs against earnings in order to comply with its provisions--companies like caterpillar [$100 m], john deere [$150 m], 3M [$85 m], and (saving the best for last) AT&T [$1 billion].

this, of course, isn't what makes this story noteworthy--i mean, the fact that this was gonna be a financial disaster for big business was a given, right?  it's the reaction of congress to these companies' announcements that makes me wanna simultaneously laugh and hurl.

wow, it's already starting (part 2)

so the AP has determined that, once the mandatory insurance requirement kicks in in 2014, premiums for young people will probably rise by at least 17%.  a couple paragraphs from their story:

Consider 24-year-old Nils Higdon. The self-employed percussionist and part-time teacher in Chicago pays $140 each month for health insurance. But he's healthy and so far hasn't needed it.

The law relies on Higdon and other young adults to shoulder more of the financial load in new health insurance risk pools. So under the new system, Higdon could expect to pay $300 to $500 a year more. Depending on his income, he might also qualify for tax credits.

now, the jump between nils' present payment of $140/month and the AP's projected payment for nils of up to $640 four years from now is a hell of a lot more than 17%--guess when you go from a bare-bones policy of your own choosing to one the government picks out for you, the hit gets much, much worse.

this story illustrates two points: (a) nils is fuckin adorable; and (b) no shit that when you're forced to buy something, they're gonna jack up the price.

[a personal note to all you young people who voted for hope and change:  as long as you're happy ponying up 5-6 hundred bucks a month for coverage you don't need in order to keep me and my fellow baby-boomers current with the cutting edge of gerontological science, then i assure you, we're happy too.]



from the guttermorality anti-terrorism desk:

this makes you feel safe, right?

the above pic is from a new york post story about american reaction to the moscow subway bombings.

after our scared-rabbit overreaction to 9/11, i long ago postulated that all it would take to plunge this country into total police-state lockdown would be a couple well-placed suicide bombings--say, one at mall of america, another at disneyland and maybe a third at some random chuck e. cheese on a saturday afternoon, all in quick succession--and to this day, i can't for the life of me imagine why they haven't done it.


from the guttermorality world affairs desk:


yeah--it's china's fault

of all the idiocy i've come across this past week [and there's been a lot--the above only scratches the surface], this story from a canadian paper is the one that scares me the most.

a couple featured paragraphs:

More than 100 members of U.S. Congress signed a letter in mid-March urging the Obama administration to label China a currency manipulator when the United States issues its twice-a-year report on currency manipulation on April 15.

Meanwhile, Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winning economist, wrote in his New York Times Op-ed column a couple of weeks ago that the United States should slap imports from China with a 25% tariff.

in other words [for those of you who haven't been paying attention these past 25 or so years]:  the very monetary policies china followed in order to keep their shit dirt-cheap so we could afford to bankrupt ourselves buying it from wal-mart whilst simultaneously destroying our domestic industrial/manufacturing base in the process--all the while being cheer-led by administration after administration into doing so--yeah, all of a sudden they're being made the scapegoat for all our problems.

basically, what congress and krugman [and why anybody ever listened to this asshole i can't even begin to imagine] are asking the president to do is try to force china to make the cost of their goods more expensive to the rest of the world, in order to throw a bone to american labor--you know, make 'em think we're doing something to protect their jobs.

i.e., we're demanding china jeopardize its economy in order to pacify our unions before election time rolls around.

what these idiots seem to forget is, we forfeited the right to call the shots with china long ago--hell, they own us.  i mean, it's like a dead-broke junkie trying to dictate terms to his dealer.

today as we speak, the united states of america is borrowing fully 40 cents of every dollar we spend, and we are totally dependent on the goodwill of china to continue this idiocy for as long as they'll let us.

start a trade war with china?  yeah--look back at history, you'll find that's the way shooting wars start.



finally, from the guttermorality fuck-all-the-naysayers desk:

goddamn, what took daylight saving time so long to get here?