Screw Austerity, I have a new theme song
by Daniel Becker
Being that we’re about to experience austerity because we are convinced we can’t spend money properly such that we actually end up with more after rather than less … which is very depressing to me and defeatist in presentation, I present my new theme song: That’s how it goes.
I just find it fascinating that we will accept the argument that government needs to run as we run our own houses and thus need to not spend more than we have, blah, blah, blah yet we seem not willing to apply the concept that we apply daily in our own household to get ourselves an education, a house, our own business, improvement to our property and self. We do this all the time because we understand it is building our wealth, and we do it even though we can’t print our own dollars like the government can. (Yeah, we’re not Greece in that way.)
Really, just listen to both sides presenting the austerity program arguments. Can’t you hear how disjointed the reasoning is? Can’t you hear how selective they are in presenting examples of proof of their argument which is resulting is a totally disjointed line of reasoning. Ask one question you are told we need to save to prosper. Ask another question you are told we need to spend less just like you, to prosper. Ask a third question and you are told we have no money, just like you. Ask a forth question and we’re told the economy is growing (more money produced) NOT LIKE YOU. Ask a fifth question and we are told to better yourself, NOT LIKE WE THE PEOPLE. Ask a sixth question and we are told to get an education, NOT LIKE WE THE PEOPLE. Ask a seventh question and we are told to…(fill in your own).
My favorite verses of the song and why it is my new theme song:
I help you and you help me
That’s the way the world should be
Tit for tat and give and take
Just be good for goodness sake
I’ll pick you up if you should fall
It works both ways if it works at all
Hold in your heart the people you love
Always thank the powers above
Everyone deserves a share
So keep your promise, fair is fairSo gather ‘round me people
And help me while I sing this song
I’d rather have you with me
Together as we travel along
It’s the feeling of the wind in your face
The sound of the music they play
The friends you make along the way
Don’t you know, that’s how it goes
Dan–Clearly you are still operating under the illusion that we have a mutual interest in each other as human beings. I would urge you to read Ayn Rand as soon as possible to dispel this false notion and steer you to a proper Galtian perception of society. 😉 NancyO
ok dan, so how do i answer emails like these?
I am just so tired of this political game being played out at our expense. *** and I are rightfully worried to death as our entire income is based upon..entitlements. Not that we aren’t entitled of course..but knowing that someone else controls your finances really keeps me and him up at night. We have nothing to fall back on. We are f*cking scared shitless at this point.
I’ve been thinking about pretty much the same thing. And yet, here I, too, go.
Setting aside the differences between a household’s and the US Government’s options and limits, what follows is the kind of analogy that those who insist on the “kitchen table” metaphor should be making.
Timing is everything. Most people think about a rainy day fund when it’s raining cats and dogs, the car and the garage have already floated away, the water in the basement is rising… If they have one, great. If they don’t, what do they do the next time someone hands them money? Do they rush to pay off their credit cards? Do they squirrel that money away for a rainy day? Or do they spend it to drain the basement, mitigate for mold, repair the water damage?
IN GOOD TIMES, it’s important to save for a rainy day. This doesn’t mean we should ignore investing in both infrastructure and ourselves, whether times are good or bad. When times are bad, survival is Job One, and right behind it comes rebuilding. If that requires borrowing, you do it. What’s the alternative? Huddling in a cave? Teaching your children to accept that fate ordains they will scavenge for food, or that suffering by the many will allow survival of the few who MAY, some day, give them a job? This alternative is defeatist, pessimistic, and ignores the human spirit that leans toward improvement. What we need is the exact opposite of what they propose with their CutCapBalance crap.
When the Republicans succeeded in convincing people that government is the enemy, people forgot our government is meant to be by and for US. Working in or for the government used to be called Public Service! And where are these Republicans, as they spout this poisonous rhetoric? Some of them are in Government! They don’t want it gone. They want to use it as a tool to impose their Calvinistic/Libertarian views on the rest of us. (hmmm…. maybe that’s where the contradictions come from?)
“…. maybe that’s where the contradictions come from?”
Libertarians for empire.
I have a friend we love to agrue, he always starts with “you gotta admit, you leftie…….”
To which I respond “there you go basing your entire argumrent on irrefutable blither”…..
Like me he is a career public servant, and a libertarian for empire and a secure tradition OPM retirement, not the new fangled mix of SS, and thrift savings with a small defined benefit.
Despite the banter we are good friends.
The “lefty” and the “libertarian for empire”.
I am thinking a two person play.
Good song, it does seem that the dialogue about what the 21st century might become is starting to happen, a few years earlier than I had anticipated. Not to say that fear can’t overrun the possibilities, but perhaps there are enough people out there thinking of good solid arguments to help us hold on to the civilization we had, albeit it in an altered sort of way.
As they say, “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!!!” What I love most aboout history, especially England from the 17th century and back to pre-Roman times and France one year before the Revolution, is the degree of murder and mayhem that has occurred repeatedly. France in the second half of 1788 and early ’89 is so clearly falling into disarrey and no one can get an act together to relieve the pressures that have come to bear on the beneral population. Now I grant you that we aren’t there, or anywhere near there at present, but it took a long while for the economy of France to get so totally fucked up and grossly skewed to the benefit os so few. Are we now on that same road if not so extreme yet? Read the details of life during that time period and one begins to understand the results of 1789. The Terror had its precursor and wasn’t a sudden and big surprise. When the cork pops an ill wind can blow every thing and every one to Kingdom Come. Here’s a good place to start, Hippolyte Taine in a single chapter makes the situation graphically clear. Equally clear is our ability to ignore the lessons of the past as we gorge ourselves with avarice in the present.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23524/23524-h/files/2578/2578-h/2578-h.htm#2HCH0001
Skip down to CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNINGS OF ANARCHY;