daddy’s pay day is not enough...

after a few decades of worshiping at the alter of the "free" market, the dollar is dropping steadily, deficits are rising, inflation (real and under the government's bogus calculations) is crushing, manufacturing is all but dead, the financial world is crumbling upon itself, and we have run out of bubbles to keep it all running. thanks freidman-ite sheep...I really did not want to have a legitimate future in my own country anyways...

I mean - I always joked how my secret plan was that my debt in student loans, car loans, bar loans and credit cards would become worthless as the dollar inevitably collapsed with the boneheaded economic policies our leaders have followed throughout my lifetime...I just really hoped I was wrong...

but then if there is one lesson of history, it is that noone ever learns from history...

does anyone seriously still believe that all those nations that are shoring america up against total collapse consider us "too big to fail"? especially china...anyone notice that china, russia and the middle east now have a strategic interest in the united states being weakened - all the more so when their trade with the european union and asia is more profitable anyhow.

and what is one to do about it? I was asked this last night and could only come up with three solutions - suicide, becoming an ex-pat immediately and waiting. and since most of us will still be waiting when we are dead, here's betting that suicide rates start exploding...

hell, murder rates are already on a serious rise...

just as greyhound launches a new marketing campaign with ads declaring there is a reason you never heard of bus rage - a kid is hacked apart, beheaded and eaten on a greyhound. a really fucked up...but pretty apt metaphor for so much...

the government basically destroys a scientist's life by hounding (an extremely overly nice way of putting it) him and trying to pin the anthrax letters on him...and then they have to admit they were totally wrong and pay him a bunch of money. now the government destroys a scientist's life by hounding him and trying to pin the anthrax letters on him - and when he kills himself from the pressure they just say "trust us...it was him." and then they give all kinds of it-could-be-maybe-possibly-nothing-concrete evidence to say "told you so."

is it just me? or has the government become like every stud athlete these days - they say "I never ever ever never ever never!" and we all raise our eyebrows and think riiiggghhht just before the inevitable crying apology comes when they are outed.

which is why I cannot help but laugh that the white house and the cia are acting so appalled that anyone would even suggest that they would concoct a plan to plant evidence in order to bolster the case for war...because any good american knows it is preposterous that an american president would use the cia to lie...

nevermind that saddam was so paranoid that there were 50 of him around iraq to get shot at so the real one would be saved...and I am supposed to believe this guy is letting his top generals send him letters about his cooperation with terrorist networks aimed at the united states?

just out of curiosity - when does actual discussion begin as to which direction we should be taking? I fear we may have to have tom brokaw knocked off first...

seriously, brokaw is the last straw - if I am an american journalist, I am ashamed to admit it...

two years ago the army told a cadet at west point that he should stay on and continue to play football for them because he was good enough to make it to the nfl, and if he did, they would allow him to put up his service time through advancing army recruiting by his position. so, rather than transfering to another college to finish and move on to the nfl, he stayed - perhaps due, in part to the cadet honor code. then, he gets drafted and shoes up in training camp. only the army changed its mind a couple weeks before...they just forgot to tell him. as he prepares for his dream - he is told the army is pulling back on its promise - perhaps it forgot the honor code. they will now insist on his two years of service...the first of which (get this) will be spent coaching football at west point. then he will earn the right to go off and get killed for nothing.

so there you have it...the soldiers are honorable, those giving the orders are lying scumbags. perhaps the guns are pointed in the wrong direction...

not that much will change...countries that are falling from their perch atop the world order (especially as they watch their role of economic top dog disappear) have always fallen back upon hollow belligerence and chest thumping...

so we will continue to send young people off to kill and be killed, we will continue to destroy ourselves and others, and none of it will bring back the good old days, and it will only hasten the fall...

and yesterday we remembered that only one nation has ever stooped so low as to incinerate hundreds of thousands of women and children in an instant, that only one nation has ever had the gall to use the ultimate weapon of mass destruction...ours...

maybe all I need is a shot in the arm...