Bail Out

I don’t like the pressure that has been applied over the bail out package.  I don’t like the high pressure sales tactics because it’s been my experience that if someone is working so hard to get me to buy something, it is usually the salesperson who will benefit from the sale, not me.

I have been struggling to live within my means, pay my bills on time, and work hard at my job.  I carefully evaluate whether or not I can afford something before I buy it.  I drive a fuel efficient, economical car that is paid for.

There are millions of people who have bought what they want.  Who have borrowed money to get that big SUV because they “needed” it (nobody really NEEDS an SUV – except the executive at GM who needs them to think that they do), and have thousands of dollars in credit card debt.  The average American family now has $10,000 in credit card debt.  That’s the AVERAGE!

There are also “fat cats” who have skimmed the cream off the top.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives made $15 Million per year and others similarly lived large.  Executives in this country make on the order of 300 times as much as the clerks at their office.

And now I am supposed to bail them out because they haven’t been managing their money well?  And now I am supposed to write these same executives a blank check and not ask questions about what they are doing?  The average MBA grad fresh out of school would do a better job, I think.  This is just a scheme to keep the rich from losing any wealth at all.

They should have seen this coming.  The careless fiscal policy espoused by the Bush Administration (cut taxes so we won’t have the revenues to pay for anything and keep interest rates artificially low) created a house of cards that has crashed.  But they should have seen this coming.  I did.  And I don’t make anywhere near the money that they do.  I am not saying I should make more.  I am saying “Why are we paying them so much?”

My mother always told me “Life isn’t fair.”

Sarah Palin: Right to Life

The other day at the pool, while waiting for our kids, my neighbor asked me what I thought of Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican convention.  I confessed that I had been too busy to watch and she groaned at me, but the man I don’t know at the end of the table jumped all over me.  I couldn’t believe it.  I don’t know who he is and I wasn’t talking to him.  After a brief tirade he said “Aren’t you Right to Life?”  I felt cornered.  “Of course I am,” I said, “but I don’t think criminalizing abortion is the way to save lives.”  You would have thought I just poured acid on his face.

My mother-in-law tells stories of friends she had in college back in the 40s who went to Mexico and back alley practitioners for abortions.  Some of her friends died.  Surely we can’t return to this.  Surely this isn’t the answer in a civilized society.  Women are the ones who pay the price.  The “father” of the child gets to walk away.  Like it or not, he does.  That’s the way it works.  As a modern society, we need to be able to empower women, not make them criminals.  Empower them to get abortions?  Of course not.  I was sickened by the story out of Arizona a few years back in which a 13 year old went to Kansas to get a late term abortion.  Surely there has to be a better way.

Peeling this right to life onion one more layer, I ask what about the right to life of thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqis?  I know people who will argue that the Iraqi people did that to themselves.  The insurgents did it.  They wouldn’t have done it if we had not attacked a sovereign nation.  What about the thousands of lives of those in our precious military?  Tonight on the news they showed the names and faces of 18 more soldiers who have died.  “Are you looking for your brother?” my young son asked.  “No, he wouldn’t be here.” I answered.  “But each one of these soldiers is somebody’s brother.  Somebody’s daddy.  Somebody’s son.  Somebody’s best friend.  Somebody’s hero.”  Isn’t diplomacy a better answer?  The international community hates Americans right now.  We have squandered all of the good will afforded us after 9/11.  We can’t continue to act like a bully in the global playground.  My mother always said “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”  America will be more prosperous if we work with the global community instead of against it.

The man at the end of the table began getting sarcastic and saying things to my companion like “When you get older, Honey, you will understand.” He was sounding like George Bush and Dick Cheney. Kill the discourse with sarcasm and humiliating jabs. I walked away.