Saturday, April 2, 2005

MCGURK

APRIL FOOL, KODAK STYLE

This photo is courtesy of Eastman Kodak Co. Its size is 990 KB, so it may take a while to load. It's well worth the wait, so go read a book or watch TV, procure a snack, or visit the bathroom - whatever.

Perhaps you could say that this represents a change-of-life for Mariah, or you could say, as some have, that she felt it necessary to hire a nanny (if so, I hope Mariah's paying the Social Security taxes; she could get in trouble, is all I'm sayin'.)

Allow me a small rant, if you will.

To the arrogant politicians who believe that they can run roughshod over the aging voters of this country:

We are the baby boomers. You cannot marginalize us, you cannot ignore us, you cannot fool us. We are legion, and we vote. Do not underestimate us. We understand perfectly well what you are trying to do. "Ownership society", indeed. You expect the hard-working wage earners of this good country to take all the risks for their health care and their retirement funds. Do you think to trick us by claiming that you are trying to "save" Social Security? If you divert tax receipts from Social Security into private accounts, there will be little money left to pay contemporary retirees. Where is the money to come from? Will you borrow it and radically increase the national debt? Will you cut our benefits after we worked all our lives to pay for our parents' retirement?

It is obvious to us that your intent is to let Social Security wither and die. Your tax cuts were intended to deprive the government of income, so that you will have only enough to finance the armed forces and (maybe) homeland security. You would like to completely do away with any program which is meant to help those among us who may be unable to help themselves. When you are finished, there will be no "entitlements", for there will be no tax money to fund them.

Why are corporations said to be "flush with cash", and yet they are forcing their employees to shoulder more of their own health care costs, reneging on their promises to pay into their pension funds, and limiting their workers' wage increases to a paltry amount? Why do they pay their CEOs so much and their workers so little? Do you really believe that a nation of wage slaves is a boon to the economy?

Consumer spending accounts for roughly 2/3 of the strength of the economy. Consumers are constantly bombarded with advertising from every side, encouraged to spend their "disposable income" on all manner of glitzy, expensive toys. "BUY! BUY! BUY! MORE, MORE, MORE!" Incomes of wage earners have risen 0.3%, consumer spending has risen 0.5%. We are spending more than we earn, and you in Congress enact legislation that ensures that we must pay what we owe even if we are hit with sudden hardship and perhaps lose the ability to earn a living. WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?

I probably have more to say, but apoplexy is threatening, so I'll wrap this up for now. The continuing adventures of Lona will be along later today, after I calm down and maybe get some sleep. Thanx for listening.

May you find peace.

 

 

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