Porkulus

In President Obama’s uninspiring Inaugural address he made it a point to stress bi-partisanship and, in reference to gloomy economic prospects said this, “We have chosen hope over fear.”

Whenever any politician speaks (and, sorry to say I include Obama as just another politician), you’d be foolish to accept the words have any meaning until they’ve been run through the reality-grinder. Because the very next week, in explaining why we need to spend another $800 billion after the first $850 billion had no positive effect, Obama was quoted as saying, "A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe." So much for hope over fear.

Bi-partisanship? Republicans, except Northeast whackjobs, weren't even invited to discuss the content of the latest spending spree.

It’s words like "catastrophe" that actually turn crisis into a catastrophe. Is there any evidence out there that indicates successful problem-solving by Congress when in the midst of crisis? We end up with quick fixes, pork-barrel spending to move reluctant legislators and a lot of proud back-slapping that the Union has been saved by their thoughtful and quick action. The problem is, it’s doubtful any of the owners of the slapped backs completely read what in the 1,000 pages they voted for. God forbid anyone have a chance to read it in its entirety – especially those prone to leap from buildings from such bad news.

There is a delicious irony that there are hearings on financial Ponzi Schemes in one part of the Capitol while Congress creates the world’s largest scam a few hearing rooms down the hall. The difference in the hearings is the victims of the Congressional scheme will be future generations saddled with debt that will bury them in red ink their entire lives.

This isn’t to say Obama is solely to blame (although I want to remember all the headlines referring to this as Obama’s stimulus bill). The new president is just another political snake oil salesman peddling the same cure Bush and his team offered just six months ago. In case you’ve forgotten about the purpose of the first $700 billion – with the added $150 billion Congressional surcharge – was to stabilize the financial services industry. Anyone out there try to get a loan for anything lately? Anyone see any difference before and after the government threw our money at the problem with little debate and little open information?

When the two “stimulus” packages are added together the cost to benefit ratio to the taxpayer is criminal. Obama’s stimulus promises tax breaks that work out to $13 per week and drop to $8 per week next year. By contrast, if they just gave each and every American a share of both programs, we’d each receive almost $7,000. That’s $28,000 for my direct family alone. And, what would we do with that money? Who knows? Maybe spend it, creating jobs, maybe save it, making banks more liquid and secure, maybe invest it, taking foreclosed properties off the books or save sagging stock values, maybe give it to charity, creating opportunity to others less fortunate. Neither stimulus bill does anything close to what the average American would do if given that money.

Of course when you get to the bottom line, spending priorities is far from the main point. Congress, which has only one trained economist among members, needs to remember that the money they spend has to come from somewhere. They either have to print it, borrow it from China or take it from taxpayers. Either way, it sure looks like we lose.

Pelosi: Not The Brightest Speaker We've Had

Imagine if a republican had said this at a press conference. Now, try to find this comment in any major newspaper.

Pity The Girl

The Girl has a new blog that I have linked to on the right. It's about two of her favorite subjects, American Idol and Allen Iverson; both nicknamed AI and hence her blog's name, "All Things AI."

Her writing is quite good, especially considering a public school education and her reading list being limited to US Magazine. It's not as good as mine, but I set the bar pretty high and I think she knows that.

Anyway, she has this thing where she wants people to read her blog and comment often. I have no idea where she gets her "neediness." It certainly doesn't run in my family. I will ask Mrs. Laz about the milk man this evening. Anyway, show some pity and read her blog. For the love of God, please read her blog!

A Generation's Final Bow

A few weeks back, the missus and I went to a funeral. I didn’t know the man we had come to honor, but I know his daughter and her family very well. When listening to people talk about his life, one thing stood out; they were talking about a man who personified a generation that is slowly dying out.

His generation went through the Great Depression, proudly fought in World War II, was a part of building the greatest sustained economic growth in our country’s history and witnessed, but perhaps did not agree, with great social upheaval in the Sixties. His generation had its faults too. It was often a hard-drinking, heavy smoking and naïve generation, but it was also self-sufficient and strongly believed in family and cared about the community and the values it stood for.

During the funeral, I began to wonder what subsequent generations will stand for; how will we be remembered when we begin to die out? It’s difficult for me to imagine future generations will equate my generation with the same grit and can-do attitude.

What motivated me to write about this tonight was seeing the incredible movie Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood latest, and likely final movie. His movie was about many things, but the underlying and inescapable theme was about the generation Eastwood’s character represented. In the same way I’m told my friend’s father approached his life, Eastwood’s character was driven by a strong sense of right and wrong and the understanding that he needed to do what should be done. While he was crass and prejudiced, he also understood who he was and lived by a code that is singular to his generation. I will be sad to see it burn out.

Long Post On Music Appreciation

While I was having a late lunch at my favorite high-calorie diner in Sacramento I was listening to the music track the owner plays. Since it was all Sixties music, many of the songs brought back memories. So while breaking New Year’s resolution #1 by eating a French dip sandwich, I started to go over in my head the various songs that moved me from when I was a kid to today. It got to be an interesting list (in my head, anyway), so I thought I would share it with you. It would be nice if some of you would list the songs that you remember being a big part of your lives too.

Other than my grandfather loudly singing Onward Christian Soldier in church (in an unrecognizable key), the first song that really hit me as something special came on my first day at school on the second time though the second grade. I remember Jon Thoits running around the playground singing, She Loves You by the Beatles. Overnight it seemed everyone knew that song, so I guess that’s where the notion of becoming an “overnight sensation” comes from.

In the ensuing years I remember listening to my Japanese transistor radio and waiting for songs like Honey and Little Green Apples (I know, I was young) and any Beatles songs. About a year later, my parents took us to the music store and allowed us to buy one 45 rpm record (parents, please explain what a 45 is to your kids) and I chose Love Is Blue by Paul Mauriat and His Orchestra. I think Bill bought Sugar, Sugar by the Archies and Peter bought a Moody Blues song. We played those songs in order all day long back then.

My first album really blew me away. My parents, in an attempt to seem sophisticated, saw the movie The Graduate and then bought me Sounds Of Silence by Simon and Garfunkle (it was the only album you could buy some of the music from the movie at that theime). I wore the grooves out of that record and still listen to that music often.

Almost every week my family ate at Buddie’s Pizza Parlor in downtown Grand Rapids. My parents gave us a nickel to buy three songs from the jukebox, one song for each son. Bill always, and I mean always, played something from the Archies, Peter bought a few different songs like California Dreamin’ and Monday, Monday and I usually chose Build Me Up Buttercup by the Foundations. I think the pizza was good, but getting to choose our songs was the real treat.

My family used to drive to Florida every spring and my father’s Cadillac came equipped with an 8-track player (parents, explain 8-track to your kids). Each trip my dad bought new tapes so he could drown out our complaining about how far the drive to Florida from Michigan was. One of the tapes I remember wanting to listen to over and over was Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band, again by the Beatles. It seemed every track was a leap forward in modern music. I had the same feeling when he bought Bridge Over Troubled Waters by Simon and Garfunkle a few years later. I always link those two albums (and Juicy Fruit chewing gum) with those trips. And, thinking back now, my dad was pretty hip to be buying those albums back then – although he also bought 101 Strings Play The Beatles and When You’re In Love, The Whole World Is Jewish.

Some songs have strong meaning to me because what they represent. I remember when the Beatles released Hey Jude. At that moment, music changed from something you danced to, to something you listened to. It also changed the way radio stations played music from the typical 2-3 minute song to the entire 7:09 of Hey Jude. It also meant that when the song was played at my local roller skating rink when I was 12, it was time to find Lynn Andrews and beg her to skate with me. I doubt she wanted to spend seven minutes with me, but I did with her.

A year later I went to my one and only junior high dance in Michigan at the end of the school year. Knowing that I was moving to California a month later I was feeling a bit sad at the dance. Then Lynn Andrews walked up to me! Finally my years of scheming for her had paid off, or at least it seemed that way. She asked me if I would do her a favor. Anything for Lynn, of course. She wondered if I would be willing to dance with Lynn Shackleford (not the basketball player) so she could dance with George Skiff, who was the other Lynn’s date. Damn George. Naturally I obliged and then had George killed that night and exchanged Lynns as the objects of my infatuation. Lynn and I danced to Touch Me by The Doors. Then I must have said something improper because it was our one and only dance.

When I came to California, there were certain songs that just seemed Californian. Joni Mitchell was big as was Melanie, Santana and Canned Heat. But the group that stood out in 1970 was Crosby, Stills and Nash and their great song Suite Judy Blue Eyes. It was very apparent then that CSN had replaced the Beatles and the Stones as the latest "super" group.

The first album I bought for myself was Who’s Next by, coincidentally, The Who. I’m not sure if I bought it because the group was photographed peeing on a monolith on the album cover or because it seemed kind of cool to be buying a record by The Who. Just the same, I played Behind Blue Eyes and Baba O’Riley until my dad threatened to turn the record into a Frisbee. A year later, my girlfriend at the time, Cindy, told me I had to visit her and listen to this new album that had just come out called Harvest by Neil Young after he left CSN&Y. Every song was a masterpiece, especially the very haunting A Man Needs A Maid, which is still one of my favorites. The title song of that album also carries some delightful meaning as I think it was the first song I stole lyrics from to impress a girl. And she even married me despite it!

When I was about 16, I used to go to morning swim practice at a huge pool at Miramar NAS. Each morning I mooched a ride to practice from either John Hagey or Stuart Henshall. With John I got Cat Stevens’ Tea For The Tillerman or Mona Bone Jakon, and with Stuart I got Best of Bread that Mrs. Laz forbids me to play now. No matter the mooched ride, the songs on those albums played in my head as I tried to wake up at 5:30 a.m. to get the nerve to dive into a freezing, dark pool.

For my 18th birthday I got albums from one new girlfriend, Beth and from the aforementioned Cindy (I was a playa!). Beth bought me Elton John’s Yellow Brick Road, an incredible musical breakthrough in my humble opinion, and Cindy bought me Band On The Run by Wings, which was the best album you could have when craving the Beatles.

During my college years (or the years people of that age are supposed to be in college) there were a number of songs that inspired a number of fond memories. I remember coming home with Phil after watching his brother’s band play an all-night party and, barely awake, hearing the song Miracles by Jefferson Starship on the radio. It was the first time I heard the song and, in a state of no sleep and the sun just rising, the song had a very strong impact on me. Phil and I also played Chicago 2 and the Doobie Brothers’ Captain and Me until the windows of his house shook.

About that time, I shacked up with Sladed and he turned me on to Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd (and man-love). Besides the obvious big name songs by those groups, the album-long song Thick As a Brick by Tull and Obscured By Clouds by Floyd were the most memorable. Other albums coming out at that time that shook my music world were Breezin’ by George Benson, Silk Degrees by Boz Scaggs, Rumours (by Fleetwood Mac) and the very remarkable Songs In The Key Of Life by Stevie Wonder -- maybe one of the best albums of all time. All were playing on my turntable at all hours.

There was a special song from Neil Diamond that meant a lot to me personally (and one other person) and shall remain, well, personal for personal reason, and that was his song Lady-Oh. I guess Mondern English’s I Melt With You falls into the same “Bolero” category as a song I have a personal relationship with. On the heels of these songs came a few artists Mrs. Laz introduced me to; Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell. The standouts were For A Dancer and The Late Show by Jackson and River and Little Green by Joni.

There were two songs from Texas that have a special place in my heart. While exiled to Tyler, TX, I was a two-bit reporter for the local two-bit newspaper and knew all the two-bit radio and TV people since we were the only people in town in the “entertainment” business. I mentioned to a radio DJ that I liked the song Lou Rawls had just recorded, Wind Beneath My Wings (sadly no link), still the best rendition of that song, I think. As I was driving for my final day at the paper before moving back to California, the DJ played that song and said it was for me and that I would be missed. So I was kinda important, in a small-town sort of way.

After the Boy was born, we bought a house that was near a very picturesque lake. I remember taking him down to the lake one day and I held his hand and watched the sun set across the lake. At that moment I could hear Willie Nelson’s Hands On The Wheel being played at the lake’s clubhouse. Because it is a song about simple times and fairy tales, I always associate the song with that very fond memory.

Speaking of the Boy, there were a couple of songs that we loved because he loved them and I associate them with his youth. Not particularly masterpieces, but he really liked Tequila by The Champs and I Just Called To Say I Love You by Stevie Wonder. The Girl was partial to the Shoop Shoop song from the movie Mermaids, Wolly Bully from the movie Splash, and Kiss The Girl from the Little Mermaid soundtrack (I am sensing a certain mermaid pattern here).

The kids inspired other music with me, too. I remember the Boy turned me on to Nirvana, and we used to listen to them when I drove him to school in Virginia, especially the David Bowie re-do of The Man Who Sold The World. I also remember playing Alanis Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill and TLC’s CrazySexyCool with the Girl in Virginia. My musical range while driving into Washington, DC was fairly limited to U2’s Zooropa (I’ve since learned it was far from their best music), anything by Van Morrison and the Gin Blossom’s New Miserable Experience.

Disco killed a lot of music in the Eighties and Nineties and Rap finished it off in the Nineties and into this decade, so I am sorry that most of my best musical memories are from days gone by. But I do remember hearing Eva Cassidy singing Fields Of Gold for the first time and wondering, a decade later, why I had never heard of her before. I still get goosebumps hearing that song. Norah Jones had that same affect on me with Don’t Know Why and Natalie Merchant with Wonder, an ode to River Phoenix.

Recognizing this post has becoming excruciatingly long, I will just mention a few of my other favorite musical moments, many coming from movie soundtracks. In no particular order, I was deeply moved by a few opera songs when I first heard them, like Puccini’s Musetta’s Waltz first heard from the movie Moostruck, Nessum Dorma (also Puccini) that I heard in the movie the Witches of Eastwick, and O Mio Bambino Caro (also Puccini) just from general opera listening. I will also never forget the first time I heard Vladimir Ashkenazy playing piano on Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto (Emperor); it made me want to learn the piano, something I fell well short on, but did a reasonably good job on part of the adagio. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I once watched a man play Handel’s Ombra Mai Fu on his trumpet on a solitary street in Munich. The music bounced off the wall and draped over me. Simply wonderful.

Even though I may get giggles with some of this, I was really mesmerized by Tamyra Gray singing Bachrach’s A House Is Not A Home. I had heard the song before, but never the Luther Vandross version she performed on American Idol. The other sort of silly one was from Sister Act II, of all movies, when Lauryn Hill sang His Eye Is On The Sparrow; pure beauty.

There are songs from other movies that I will list, not because they are the best songs ever written, but because of the mood they set in a particular movie. In no particular order, they are: Hotel California by the Gipsy Kings in the Big Lebowski, Mrs. Robinson from the Graduate, Rhapsody In Blue by Gershwin in the movie Manhattan, Cat Steven’s Trouble from Harold and Maude, Joe Cocker’s version of Bye Bye Blackbird from Sleepless in Seattle, Down To The River To Pray from O Brother Where Art Thou, Dry The Rain from High Fidelity, Van Morrison’s Philosophers Stone from Wonder Boys, Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head from Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Coal Miner’s Daughter from the movie of the same name, Springsteen’s Secret Garden from Jerry McGuire, Nina Simone’s Sinnerman from The Thomas Crown Affair, Silent Sigh by Badly Drawn Boy in the movie About A Boy and, finally, two from Garden State, Coldplay’s Don’t Panic and Simon and Garfunkle’s The Only Living Boy In New York as they are staring down into the infinite abyss.

As long as this post has become, I have a feeling I left many songs out. I know there are the easy ones like Over the Rainbow and almost anything from the Sound of Music, but I was just trying to limit the songs to the times I sat in awe listening to a song for the first time. Please think of what some songs meant in your lives and list them. Let’s have some fun with this.

New New Year's Resolutions

While I know it may not matter to you how well I did on last year’s New Year’s resolutions, it is possible that my successes and failures can serve as inspiration, or warning, depending on my ability to keep promises. All in all, I am pleased with achieving many of my resolutions, but I know I left a few on the table.

My favorite met resolution was something of a no-brainer since I had a good hunch. I resolved to attend a wedding of people that I cared about and, this June, that wedding turned out to be between the Boy and the Ber. Since I care deeply about them both, I think their wedding qualifies.

Despite predictions of coming up short on this one, I resolved to have five blog posts per month. Well, I didn’t do five every month, but I did a total of 62 posts for an average of five per month, and that’s good enough in my book – even if a few posts were neither interesting nor readable and I posted eight in December.

Over-promising on your resolutions is to New Year’s what Trevor Hoffman is to blown saves (sorry about that, Mrs. Sladed, but it’s the truth). I hoped to lose a total of 60 pounds, which seemed as reasonable as posting on my blog 60 times. When you break that down over 52 weeks, that’s less than one pound each week. Well, I didn’t make it, but I also knew when I wrote it a year ago, I had no expectation of losing any weight. Weight loss is something everyone resolves to do, but nobody seems to ever do it and that’s why all the gyms are so crowded until about the third week of January.

I did nothing to help my cause until April when I joined a club and got some nutritional and exercise advice and got a BodyBugg for my birthday from Mrs. Laz. From roughly May until mid-November, I lost a total of 36 pounds, but had a bad lap around travel, Thanksgiving and Christmas and ended the year losing 31 pounds. Just the same, I didn’t expect to lose any so I am very happy with the results and it gives me a more realistic goal for this year.

I came up disappointingly short in four areas: I didn’t keep my name from being dragged through the mud of newspapers and blogs last year and even had to watch negative stories written about my brother who, as we all know, is no longer with us. I also didn’t finish my novel and wrote very little on it; quite disappointing. My annual plea to earn money in a different ways turned out to be a mixed bag; I didn’t earn money in different ways, but came to terms with how I earned and will earn my living. This is a big step for me and leads me to my biggest disappointment. I offered an obscure resolution to be free of fear. I fell short on this for the first nine months of the year, but I think I finished strong by ridding myself of two pieces of trash. The “fear” thing is important for me because I think all failure in life comes from living in fear or making decisions on the basis of fear (even though the current economy isn’t helping my decision making).

So what follows are this year’s resolutions:

1. I resolve to lose the rest of my 60 pounds. This may be difficult as I think I lost the easiest part of the 60 this year. Off to good start as I am ready and focused to reach my goal and I feel so much better with the weight loss this year that I am giddy about losing more.
2. I resolve to finish my novel. Again. I really want to do this so this may have an impact on my random blogging, but you never know.
3. I resolve to rebuild my company not only in a financial way, but also to reestablish it as a market leader respected by my peers. We have the opportunity right now and I intend to start making our case.
4. And, finally, become more settled in everything.
5. The final one is not really about me, but I want it as much as anything I would want for myself. I resolve for the girl to get answers to her health concerns and get to feeling back to normal (not that she was ever normal to begin with).

That’s all I want to try to tackle this year. There are other things I hope for, but they are just part of living a good life and should be less a resolution and more a life mandate. If I can reach all five of these resolutions this year, I would be a happy camper. Thank you all for your support since I began this vanity blog in 2005 and hope to keep entertaining or infuriating you in the years to come.

Merry Christmas To All

It’s difficult to deny this Christmas is something of a bah-humbugish Christmas. With sorry financial news everywhere around us, jobs lost and the U.S. turning into Bailoutistan, there is little to persuade any of us to break into impromptu caroling around what’s left of our neighborhoods.

Despite bad news at seemingly every turn, Christmas endures as more than just an opportunity for retailers to fatten up for the slow times and for each of us to engage in mass gift giving and subsequent cash refunds to said retailers. Christmas is the placeholder for memories we all carry, the reminder of what is good in each of us and the promise of hope in the love we share when we gather ‘round the Christmas tree and complain we didn’t get what we want (at least that’s what I do, not sure about you all).

And I do have renewed hope and faith that times will be better in the New Year and that the memories we’ll make this year will be something to remember and cherish always. We’re doing very little gift buying this year, but we are spending this Christmas a bit differently from others. Because the Girl is working in San Francisco, the Boy, the Ber, Mrs. Laz and I decided to bring Christmas to her and are staying at a lovely hotel that has a living room and a dinning room so we can share a Christmas Eve dinner together. On Christmas Day we will head to Sacramento to join our new in-laws and my brother and his family for their Christmas celebrations.

Like most people, I have a Christmas gift wish list. It’s doubtful someone will answer my request since I want one of those Air Force Drones so I can smite my enemies from 15,000 feet anytime I want. It would be a most useful gift, too, because this year I have collected a few more enemies worth smiting. But I would even go without such a practical gift for an evening with my family (and I think that’s the right thing to say here).

Sometimes we get so caught up in making sure we find just the right gift for our loved ones that we forget that just being with them is a gift in itself. To that end, we will be overflowing with what we all want for Christmas: peace and love. Can’t wait to unwrap it. May all your Christmases and various holidays be filled with the ones you love close at hand.

I'm Full Of Gas

As difficult as it is to believe, it was my pleasure filing up my gas tank today. It truly was. My car gets about 20 miles per gallon, has an 18-gallon fuel tank and requires premium gasoline (so they tell me). So just a few months ago, when premium gas was more than $4 per gallon, it cost me more than $70 to fill up the tank. Today it only set me back $31.30. It was a weird feeling to see such a small number on the pump screen.

With oil prices continuing to drop, there are predictions that we’ll be paying less than $1 per gallon in the not so distant future. All this is good news to everyone except to two classes of people; loudmouth politicians who still don’t understand that commodity prices fluctuate and those people whose entire economy is based on petrol-dollars.

There are some concerns for such a sudden drop in oil prices. The oil producing countries are by-and-large populated by people on the fringe between sanity and blowing up Western cities and the only thing keeping them in line is the gift of their share of the oil revenue. Since our gain is there loss, we probably ought to be switching colors on our threat codes soon. And, really, I would be thinking about this problem more and worrying about the cost to oil producing countries and the loss in oil companies’ revenue if I just wasn’t so happy thinking about that much smaller number that was charged to my gas card today. Please pass along my regrets to the Sheiks and stockholders of Exxon-Mobil.

Blago v Royko

Please don’t interpret this post as me backsliding on my earlier pledge to tone down the political commentary. This is more about missing a good newspaper columnist than it is about politics.

The abuse of power in Illinois by its governor Rod Blagojevich – and I’m having fun learning how to pronounce his name, Bla-goi-ya-vich – brings up some of the better Illinois political thieves of days gone by. Most notably this brings up former Mayor Richard Daley and, by extension, Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko. I don’t miss Daley so much, but I do miss Royko who died in 1997. His column always appeared in my local newspaper on Wednesdays and gave me something to look forward to. After he died, I stop reading the editorial page altogether.

Royko dogged Mayor Daley, calling him on every misstep, misdeed and overt illegal act he ever did. He even wrote a book called “Boss” about the mayor, perhaps the best book ever written about local politics. As antagonistic to the mayor as Royko was, when Daley died in 1983, Royko wrote what you would call an appreciative column detailing the mayor’s immigrant beginnings and how that played into the Machine Politics still practiced today in Chicago. In that column Royko wrote: “The people who came here in Daley's lifetime were accustomed to someone wielding power like a club, be it a czar, emperor, king, or rural sheriff. The niceties of the democratic process weren't part of the immigrant experiences. So if the Machine muscle offended some, it seemed like old times to many more.”

One could only wish Royko was around today writing about the new Machine in Illinois led by Governor Blagojevich and in Chicago by Daley’s son. He’d be having a field day and would have likely known more about the governor’s offenses than the special prosecutor. It’s also a safe bet that Royko’s writings would have been so devastating that Blagojevich would have already resigned.

If anyone has an interest in reading some old columns by Royko, if for no other reason than to understand there is no journalist like him today, you can buy a collection of his columns. R.I.P Mike, we still miss your steely eye, sharp wit and dogged determination.

Movin' On

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately because, well, I've had a lot of time to think.

The weeks since the presidential election, I have been getting dozens of e-mails ranging anywhere from urging me to make calls on behalf of both Senate candidates in Georgia, to dire warning of financial collapse because Obama is in the driver's seat on the Good Ship Recession, to even e-mails that explain in great detail how Obama is the Anti-Christ.

Enough!

So I don't feel like that Japanese soldier who gets stumbled upon in 1958 on an outer island still fighting World War II, I have decided to stop paying attention to these e-mails. I've also decided no more conspiracy theories and no more conservative talk radio for a while. I think it's time to move on politically and just have fun with the process of living. As one of our leading modern philosophers, Rodney King, once said, "Can't we all just get along?" Hope so.

Better Than Me

Well, as usual, someone said it better than I did. What hurts about this is, it has come from someone who doesn't live in the U.S. and is not written in her native language. To make matters worse, she is not living in her native country and therefore has at least three languages rolling around between her ears (I also think she speaks French, so maybe four).

She decided to be long-winded on a comment to my post What Is Wrong With The World?, and wrote her response on her own blog. It's worth reading and poking fun at her misspellings and getting her to explain her yoghurt and soup metaphor. I will also link to her blog on the right column because she always has something to say and, occasionally, it is interesting and usually well-written.

In Memory Of My Grandma (and others)

Seven years ago my grandmother died and three years ago I wrote this about her. I would write about her again, but what I wrote a few years ago seems to sum it up best.

This year, the anniversary of my mother's death and the day my mother-in-law passed went without notice. I'm not sure, but I think it is a good thing that we eventually forget such solemn days. Maybe it's a sign we're moving on, if that's possible, with losing people we cared about so deeply.

In any event, I wanted to remember my grandmother on this day and it made me look back at what I wrote earlier and I know I liked reading it again. I'm not sure if you will but, what the heck, this is a vanity blog.

Editor's Note: I originally had this planned to post on December 3, the actual anniversary of her death but my friggin' Dell piece o' crap computer froze up and I lost the post.

Bailing Out The Big Three

Just a quick thought on hypocrisy and perception. Last month, CEOs of the Big Three automakers came to Washington in private jets to explain why they should be able to gobble up a big share of taxpayer largesse. All had received multi-million dollar bonuses for losing billions (I’m sure their bonuses were minor in comparison to the cost of the mistakes they all made) and each came with what seemed like a chip on their shoulders as they appeared to be demanding money.

They offered Members of Congress little more than threats of the imminent demise of the domestic auto industry and the loss of potentially millions of jobs (and, by implication, millions of votes). At no time did they offer a concrete plan on how they would rebuild their companies to turn or profit or even produce a product Americans want.

Since they were asking the taxpayer to take a stake in their company – and I’m still a taxpayer (for the moment) – it would have been nice for them to be a bit better prepared and give us more of a plan and fewer overt threats. I certainly couldn’t go to a bank and ask for a bailout on the basis that I would go out of business without their help. In fact, because of the actions of companies like the automakers, I can’t consider asking the bank for even a free toaster anymore.

Predictably our representatives in Congress used the Capitol pulpit to preach austerity to the CEOs, chiding them on wasteful spending, lack of leadership and poor planning. Just to be clear, weren’t these lectures coming from the same people who tacked on $160 billion in pork to the “bailout” bill and who seemingly have a blank check to spend our money buying up every industry that hasn’t moved to China? Isn’t this the same group that built the Capitol Visitor Center because Senator Reid had difficulty with “smelly” tourists visiting his office with an original price estimate of $71 million and a final cost of $650 million? Who are they to lecture, and who do we complain to when they blow our money like an alcoholic on pay day?

Eventually the automakers were shamed enough that they regrouped, huddled with their lobbyists, and went through a crash course on how to grovel with panache to elected officials who think they own the country. Two of three CEOs promised they would take only $1 in salary next year, which would leave them to have to live on the $30 million in bonuses they received the previous year (memo to self, let three of the maids and two butlers go to make it through the pay cut). On the second visit to beg for money, the CEOs chose not to fly their private jets – even went so far as to say they would sell them – and instead drove to Washington from Detroit (no details yet on whether or not they were chauffeured and if they ate breakfast at Perkins along the highway heading south).

Despite their new etiquette, it looks like it won’t be enough. Predictions by Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi indicate they don’t have the votes for a bailout of the domestic auto industry. It should be noted that Speaker Pelosi, who spared little sarcasm in her attack on the wealthy CEOs, doesn’t drive to out-of-town meetings or take the Metro to work. She flies on a taxpayer-funded Gulfstream G3, the same make and model flown by the automaker CEOs. Her reasoning is that the president and the vice president get their own planes to shuttle them around and, since she’s third in line to the presidency, she can’t be bothered going through security and sitting on JetBlue to fly between San Francisco and Washington. I’ve seen plenty of Congressional Members sipping wine with me in first class to Washington and even saw Janet Reno stuck in economy. I think Pelosi will be fine flying like the rest of us, and even picking up some frequent flyer miles for a really cool vacation!

In some way, I am interested to see what happens if they don’t get the money. It may tell us a lot about the use of taxpayer money to bail out any industry, including the banking industry. There are no visible signs that the financial services bailout has done anything for the average person and it would likely be a safe bet that the world will continue to spin on its access if the Big Three were forced to shut down or reassemble in a leaner, meaner fashion. It may tell us that the financial services sector should have been forced to do the same thing. I say, Let ‘em squirm.

What Is Wrong With The World?

It’s an old cliché but maybe it’s so old because the question is still on the table: What is wrong with the world?

Recently we’ve been witness to vicious attacks on innocent civilians in Mumbai, perpetrated by hate-filled and cold-blooded killers. Of course these attacks are more noticed because the international press is all over Mumbai and we were able to see graphic photos of the attacks and read even more graphic details as the killers methodically picked their targets throughout the city.

But the 60 hours of fighting in Mumbai is just the tip of the iceberg in other parts of the world. Untold numbers of people have been killed and displaced in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since hostilities between government forces and rebels broke out in 1998, more than 5.8 million people have been killed, the most in any war since World War II. Following a brief break in the fighting, the killings began anew in September and there are no good estimates on the number of people killed recently.

In Nigeria, as many people were killed last week – and the week before – as were killed in Mumbai due to ethnic and religious struggles that have plagued the region for decades. We hear little about the all-too regular Nigerian violence unless it interrupts the flow of oil.

Just 30 miles to the south from where I am writing this, sensational murders between rival Mexican drug gangs are in the dozens each week. Police have also been targeted and many executed in recent months. All of this is due to the fact that Colombian drug lords decided to outsource drug sales into the U.S. and now it’s probably safer for an American to take a stroll down a street in Baghdad than it is in most Mexican border towns.

But this is the macro. Evil has been present in some form since the first bite of the apple. We in the U.S. don’t often meet the face of such evil that those in the rougher neighborhoods of the world do. The terrorist attacks on 9/11 were a rare exception. Instead we have to look at a more civilized evil, if you will, one that can turn perfectly well-adjusted people into self-preservationists with a kill or be killed attitude.

The recent financial meltdown is an interesting sociological experiment. How people are responding to it says more about who they really are than how well they behaved when money and toys were piling up. This recession is scary, don’t get me wrong. But will it be remembered for a store clerk being trampled to death so shoppers could save a buck, or will it be remember for how millions handled pressure with grace and charity? The jury is out still, but it doesn’t appear we have come close to finding our bottom and so many people seem so restless one must wonder how long before they all begin to snap.

Tough times have come to people I love and cherish and there is one thing I know of them: they are the kind of people who will face the challenges that lie ahead with perseverance and a respect for the needs of all. I believe their Judgment Day, if there is such a singular day, will be kind to them during this time of uncertainty and maybe they will lead us to the point when we’ll no longer have to ask the question, What is wrong with the world?

The Girl Turns 25!

I feel a bit older today because my daughter seems a bit older today. She turned 25, a quarter of a century. I can remember when I celebrated my 25th birthday and, for some reason, I felt I had reached adulthood. Of course it would be decades later before I could get anyone else to agree on that.

It was also the Girl’s first trip back to Carlsbad after moving to San Francisco. I’ve seen her twice since she moved and Mrs. Laz hasn’t seen her since the end of September so it was great to see her smiling face walking out of the airport terminal. She’s only here for a few days, and likely mostly here to see her dog Spooner and her three-legged cat Nubs, but she’s coming back south for Thanksgiving – so we have that to be thankful for.

As the photos indicate, she was warmly welcomed by the fury members of the family (although the Boy, with his pony tail, could be considered a fury member these days). Being without her animal friends was one of the sacrifices she had to make in moving to San Fran, but they are making up for lost time.

It’s great to have her here and seeing her in our family room seems like old times. I know she’s happy up north – I can hear it in her voice when she calls on the phone – but I know Mrs. Laz and I really miss her. She’s such a character, particularly around her birthday because she demands the center of attention – even more than usual.

Happy birthday, sweetheart, we both love and miss you greatly but are happy for you to be where you want to be. It will sure be interesting to see where we all are one year from now as we celebrate your 26th.

This Says It All From The Onion

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

About Moving Objects

There use to be a day when I thought about writing the Great American Novel on a daily basis. Shortly after my kids were born (and after I had resisted the urge to sell my daughter to a Gypsy family), I used them as my muse or my inspiration. I was in my car a lot in those days and had a tape of Bob Seger’s Greatest Hits that I listened to constantly. As I drove and listened and drove and listened, it occurred to me, whether the artist meant to or not, that his songs told a story. I may have also been hallucinating.

At any rate, I began to formulate an idea for a novel based on the songs and, being a Midwestern boy myself, it settled around a guy who moved from Michigan to California to find himself, only to discover he had already done so in his children. I wrote 20-30 pages before I gave up (as usual), but I remember one line I wrote that has always stuck with me: God only helps moving objects.

Fast forward 20 years and the line has come back to me. It is a natural inclination when times are tough for people to freeze. I’ve frozen many times and I can say from experience nothing good comes of it. So I began to create my own inertia recently and have begun to push for things to happen. To my surprise, my movement has led to movement from others and suddenly I am feeling much better about my business and personal prospects.

Twenty years ago, I wrote a short line and then forgot about it. I wish I hadn’t because I really believe we have to create our own success and create our own opportunities. And it doesn’t hurt to have God’s help when you’re trudging up a hill.

This Righteous Wind Blows

Presidential candidate – and we must remember he is still just the candidate and not actually the president – Barak Obama has taken to mentioning his campaign has a “righteous wind” at its back, a biblical reference to being ordained by God to do His work. Yikes. Obama did admit to having a “healthy ego,” although believing you are anointed by God to become president doesn’t fit only in the healthy ego category. Perhaps it crosses into delusional.

And this is where I have the greatest problem with moving Obama into the White House. There are far too many people who believe his election will amount to such radical change and the people of the world will all be standing hand in hand, bringing universal peace and understanding to the planet. He’s a skilled orator and very good at keeping his messages short and simple for the masses to understand, but I am still not convinced he is anything more than a typical Chicago-style political hucksters selling us what we think we want to hear.

The other day I was talking to an old dog republican consultant who goes back to the Nixon campaigns. He told me he had been in many winning and losing campaigns and, regardless of the way the election went, he still woke up the next morning with the knowledge that not much had really changed. However, he worries that the expectations on Obama are so large that there is no way he can live up to the self-inflicted hype. He worries more that if McCain were to win, people would be leaping from buildings believing the world will soon end.

But getting down to just the factual basics of this election, I have the following reasons why I would support John McCain over Barak Obama in tomorrow’s election.

1. Foreign Policy. Believe it or not, I think both candidates are just plain awful in this category and I if it was possible to find two candidates and running mates with such weird foreign policy views. McCain has been famously misquoted as saying we will stay in Iraq for 100 years and labeled a war monger for suggesting Iran was next on the target list. Obama hasn’t mentioned Iran as a potential target, however he did say he wouldn’t rule out attacking nuclear-armed Pakistan with a population of 175 million people if they didn’t behave better. Both of these statements are irresponsible and show a complete lack of common sense.

I have further problem with McCain because of his devotion to the U.S. version of democracy at all costs. McCain has routinely supported outright dictators who have won rigged elections because they were simply an enemy of our enemy and therefore a friend. He’s an active meddler in the affairs of other countries and there is no place for that kind of behavior if we want to see America’s standing in the world restored. Nixon engaged China, Clinton sold out to China and Bush sold the country to China. It would be nice to move back to just engagement.

My concern about Obama’s foreign policy is that he doesn’t have any experience and is dangerously naïve. We all know what he meant when he said he would meet various despots without “preconditions” and no parsing of the phrase now will convince me it meant something different. It’s what Kennedy believed before meeting in Vienna with Khrushchev and it resulted in absolute disaster, bringing us the Berlin Wall and communist Cuba. Kennedy’s move told the world he was weak and that America no longer had a backbone, which left the door open for bad people to do bad things. There are still bad people willing to do bad things in the world and I am deathly afraid that they will believe Obama lacks the stones to stand up to them. He may be able to keep the Barbarians at the gate by boring them with lengthy speeches about the audacity of hope, but, in the end, he will be tested and tested frequently. How will he respond? He could blunder us into a war by attempting to look tough, or he could just go back to his standard way of ducking issues he doesn’t want to deal with by voting “present.”

Sure Obama will make the Europeans happy and give rise to American popularity as we vacation in Paris, but in the end, I worry about his judgment in key foreign policy areas and his unknown reaction to challenges much more than I worry about McCain handling the nuclear football.

2. Economy. Presidents get far too much credit for economic good times and far too much criticism to economic downturns. In other words, presidents do very little to disrupt or create economic prosperity. In most cases, it is just wise for presidents to stay out of the way of the economy and not try to micromanage something so large and diverse. The most recent downturn and the monumentally stupid reaction to our economy will saddle the next president with huge liabilities and a message that will tell business leaders and consumers that no matter how stupid they are, they can always count on the taxpayer to bail them out. Not really a good message, actually.

From what I have seen of McCain for the past 20 years, he is a fiscal moderate who sees the best role for government is to meddle in the economy the least. He believes higher taxes on businesses and producers during a recession will make the recession worse and he would like to see an end to earmarks and other pork-barrel spending. I doubt he will get it, but it’s admirable to have as a goal.

As for Obama, he is selling the same snake oil that has been sold in a different bottle for the past century. Herbert Hoover promised a “chicken in every pot” to voters desperate for the hand of government to help them in the toughest of economic times. Franklin Roosevelt gave us the New Deal and Lyndon Johnson gave us the Great Society. All were promises to have government fix whatever ailed the country. Looking back, none succeeded because, if they did, why are we still required to help the “needy” in this country? Weren’t all the other programs, with trillions spent and nearly a century to get right, able to crack the code to help the needy? Apparently Obama feels we still need something to level the playing field to help the needy at the expense of the wealthy.

It is classic class warfare spun a different way in order to sound populous. The only candidate who really admitted he was going to take from the rich and give to the poor was McGovern in 1972, but since he was the victim of one of the largest landslides in presidential history, those who came after him have repackaged the message. Unless you count Obama’s “spread the wealth” statement he made when he didn’t think the cameras were on, he has always talked of his tax plan as 95% or Americans getting a tax cut, which probably sounds fair to 95% of the voters. If this is what he really means and his 95% figures are accurate, then 47 million Americans who pay no taxes at all will be getting a refund. Let that sink in a bit: People who currently pay no taxes will get a $500 refund ($1,000 for married couples) according to his own tax plan calculator. Where will this money come from? From me and the dwindling number of people who will be paying an increasingly larger portion of our income in taxes. In other words, it is an unstainable tax program as we will all eventually be taxed out of existence. The OECE, an organization loosely governed by the U.N., recently release a report saying that the U.S. had the most progressive tax system of Western democracies. This means our country has the dubious distinction of having the largest tax burden fall on the wealthiest taxpayers. And Obama wants to increase this burden.

My political consigliore Paul Gann once told me there was a sad change in the expectation of government between his generation and the current generation. Paul, who was born in a small town in Arkansas, told me that when Brother John’s barn burned down, the community got together and rebuilt the barn. They didn’t do this because the government told them they had to, but because they knew it was the right thing to do to lend a helping hand and because they knew Brother John would do the same for them. The trend now seems to be that most people wait for the government to take care of them, now in such a way that many people in New Orleans blame the government for not forcing them to leave the city when a Category 5 hurricane was bearing down on them. I find Obama’s message that government can be all things to all people at best pandering for their vote and at worse continuing to destroy our true sense of community where people help each other and not because of coercion from the government.

It has always been puzzling to me why so many wealthy politicians support higher taxes for the “wealthy” since most of them are wealthy. But there is nothing in the tax code that precludes these wealthy individuals to pay more to the federal government if they really believe they are better stewards of their money and better able to take care of the needy and poor. Hell, Obama can start with his own family and get his relatives living in poverty in Boston a check.

3. Healthcare. Obama wants to see every American covered by health insurance, be it a government or employer-backed program. As I understand it, he wants to either get the government in the health care business or give employers the option to cover their employees or pay, essentially, a fine so the government can provide the coverage. McCain has been on record of wanting to get the government out of the health care business and getting the employer out of the business of supplying healthcare to workers. He believes that too many people get screwed over when they rely on their employer to provide their health care coverage both in the options available and the fact they lose their insurance if they lose their jobs. McCain wants to see the market work with individuals being able to better tailor their health care insurance plans to their own needs and to have it regardless of employment status. Sounds a lot better to me than the DMV running our health care system and having rationed care.

Lord knows there are dozens of other reasons why we support the candidates we do, not the least of which are all the side shows. I am not at all happy with McCain’s choice for VP and neither am I pleased with Obama’s choice of one of the least intelligent members of the Senate, especially when there were far better choices available to both of them. I am also very aware this post will persuade no voters and the election is a foregone conclusion.

Some days I get ideas about writing different books before it goes down my sinkhole of procrastination. One of the ideas I had recently was to take an academic look at where we would be today had Gore been elected in 2000. I even had a good idea for a name; 538 Votes. I did a bit of research on it and I basically figured things wouldn’t be too different. I know that may sound odd to some of you, but based on who would have made up a Gore Administration, I think a lot of the key decisions made by Bush would have been made by Gore. Basically, it’s the way I feel about Obama. I think he could cause huge problems but, in the end, I hope he will do no greater or less harm than McCain would do if he would have been elected. Maybe that’s where this idea of “hope” comes in, for me at least.

UPDATE: Now remember, republicans vote on Tuesday and democrats and independents vote on Wednesday. I wasn't sure if my readers were aware of the change in voting laws. Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to forward this information on.

The Final Six Demands

Sorry to do this to you all as I know everyone is pretty damn tired of the election by now. I’m sure you feel overwhelmed with the bombardment of last minute advertising on all of the measures on the November ballot. Aren’t you glad we’re not in a swing state for president having to be hit every two minutes with an ad tearing down one or the other candidates? I’ll post my comments on the presidential election tomorrow or, if the mood doesn’t strike me, I could post on Tuesday or Wednesday as I am sure my position is well known by my readers and passersby.

But, as promised, what follows are my thoughts on the remaining six ballot measures and, if only I could vote, which way I would cast my ballot. Now, see that line in the photo, go get in it and do your duty.

Proposition 7: RENEWABLE ENERGY GENERATION. INITIATIVE STATUTE.
This initiative is sponsored by Peter Sperling, the son of the founder of University of Phoenix and a more frequent gadfly in California politics. He has donated more than $7.5 million for the Yes side of this initiative while PG&E and Southern California Edison have spent more than $28 million to oppose. Sperling may have his heart in the right place, but the measure is flawed in a few areas. First, it requires more bond money; $5 billion ($10 billion more in debt obligation). With a state already reeling in bond debt, why add more? Second, it is far too aggressive in its requirements to have 50% of energy produced in the state to be renewable by 2025 (and 20 percent by 2010). Most energy observers believe this is impossible and the measure will impose stiff penalties (along with huge development costs) on the state’s utilities that will be passed on to consumers in the form of rate hikes. Third, it can only be changed if agreed by two-thirds of the Legislature, and with energy policy in constant flux these days, Californians and the Legislature need more flexibility to change what is likely a flawed law. Finally, it is supported by Tom Hayden and anything supported by him has a certain odor about it. Laz urges a No vote on Prop. 7.

Proposition 8: ELIMINATES RIGHT OF SAME–SEX COUPLES TO MARRY. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
I have a tough time getting too worked up about this entire issue because I just can’t seem to figure out why there is such a fuss with opponents of same sex marriage. It is almost too easy to use the line that gays and lesbians should be able to marry so they can be as miserable as the rest of us, but, really, how would people in committed and loving relationships getting married, regardless of their orientation, hurt the notion of “traditional” marriage? Opponents believe that marriages between same-sex couples would serve as a bad moral message. However, there are many straight couples who divorce regularly (a bad message), who cheat on their spouse regularly (a bad message), who live together while not married (I think a good message, but opponents wouldn’t think so), or people who continue to stay in loveless marriages (a terrible message). If gays and lesbians want to make the ultimate commitment and get married, more power to them. You’d think opponents would be happy that gays and lesbians would stop “living in sin.” I, along with divorce attorneys throughout the state looking to increase their business, urge a No vote on Prop. 8. However, I do have bone to pick with the gay and lesbian community (do I really have to include “transgender” to be cool?): Give us back the rainbow as your symbol. I can’t believe you stole refracted light from us.

Proposition 9: CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM. VICTIMS’ RIGHTS. PAROLE. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AND STATUTE.
I have a good friend who had the guts to stare down the murderer of her brother and give a powerful speech to deny him early parole. Everyone in the penal system told her she was wasting her time, but her impassioned plea to the parole board kept the killer locked up for at least another 10 years. She did this not only for her brother, but also because she knew this killer wasn’t the least bit reformed and would likely harm someone else. Prop. 9 gives empowerment to the family members of victims of violent crimes in California by letting them know when parole hearings are scheduled, when criminals will be released from prison and even giving family members needed protection if and when these violent animals are out of prison on bail. There are some holes in the California justice system that favor criminals over crime victims and this just levels the playing field. Laz demands a Yes vote on Prop. 9.

Proposition 10: ALTERNATIVE FUEL VEHICLES AND RENEWABLE ENERGY. BONDS. INITIATIVE STATUTE.
I have difficulty with this measure. For one, is it another $5 billion in bond – or, remember, at least $10 billion in state obligations before it is paid back. The money is to go toward the production and use of alternative fuels and, ostensibly, have us less reliant on foreign oil. The initiative has been bought and paid for by T. Boone Pickens, a Texas oilman whose net worth is $2.7 billion – or at least it used to be. While by all appearances Pickens believes this is the best thing for future energy consumption, I am a bit uncomfortable supporting his idea when he is asking for the California taxpayers to entrust him with $10 billion on the hunch he’s right. Pickens is a smart man and he may have the right idea, I’d just rather see him put up his own money and fund alternative sources himself. If Californians flock to his ideas, he’ll be worth billions more. If the idea is good enough for the taxpayers, then certainly it is good enough for private investors. While it appears there are good intentions here, Laz urges a No vote on Prop. 10.

Proposition 11. REDISTRICTING. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AND STATUTE.
I have worked on similar measures in California at least five times and all five failed because they never got bipartisan support. In the past, it had always been republicans trying to amend the way legislative districts get drawn up to keep the democrats from creating so many safe seats for their incumbents. This measure finally has bipartisan support and, while the change offered may change nothing at all, it deserves your vote. There has always been a wolf-guarding-the-henhouse problem with legislators drawing up their own districts. It has been too easy for the party in charge to draw district lines in such a way that it creates a permanent majority. With so many safe seats drawn up to protect incumbency, it has made elections a farce and requiring voters to only have the choice of candidates handpicked by the party’s hierarchy. Prop. 11 will create a 14-member commission to draw legislative district boundaries and let’s hope they can do a better job. Laz says Yes to 11.

Proposition 12. VETERANS’ BOND ACT OF 2008.
Like policemen and firemen, it’s difficult to say no to veterans, but I am saying No to this bond measure. The $900 million in bond money (so $1.8 billion) is to go to veterans so they can buy farms and homes. I respect veterans’ service to our country, but can’t see why we should single them out over others. There are many people who serve their country (police and fire workers included), so it strikes me as unfair that one group would get money from the taxpayers to buy what all the rest of us are struggling to keep, thanks in no small measure to the amount of taxes we pay. The government shouldn’t be segmenting the population and letting one group get something that no other group gets. I think that’s called state-sponsored bias. Laz is telling you to vote No on Prop. 12.
So that’s it for now folks. Go figure out where your polling place is, stand in line and vote and get your “I Voted” sticker. You’ll feel better and I will rest easy that you will be voting against me and saddling me with bad laws. Thanks a lot.

Living On A Thin Line

This is a difficult thing to write about but even more difficult to keep bottled up. Lately I have been lamenting (yes, Lazlo laments) about the personal affect the economic downturn has had on me. Sure, I get the macro and even have my own villain’s list, but that aspect of the mess seems so trivial when it touches your own life and the lives of the people you care about.

Over the past few months I have had to lay off friends and associates to stem the bleeding in my own business and have seen others I care deeply about lose their own jobs. With very little in the way of employment prospects out there right now – made even more troubling by the fact that most companies don’t consider hiring leading up to the holidays – it’s very depressing for those without jobs. Add to the fact that most of the people I know who are looking are in professional fields or fields hit the hardest by the economy, and it is very bleak indeed.

It’s so difficult to watch people I know and care about go through this, and it has been very painful for me to make my own economic-based decisions that I know affect the lives of some very good friends and hard workers. It has offered me no solace that I know what it feels like to be on both sides of this equation; just anger. I can never say I am sorry enough to those whose jobs I took by putting my own financial needs ahead of their own. I will suffer through this more than people will ever know because I know it is due to my own failures to be a better steward of my business that caused it.

Most of us were raised with the understanding that we had to fend for ourselves, create our own opportunities, become educated or trained and, especially, be responsible. I think we’ve all been aware of the downside of failing in these areas. Lately, however, there has been a subtle shift in many people’s thinking and what they expect of themselves. I sense there has been a growing expectation that we’re all working with a safety net and others are ready to catch us if they happen to fall, even if they fall out of their own carelessness. Once someone gets to this way of thinking I guess you expect the safety net will get as large as necessary.

It has become far too easy to walk away from responsibility lately. The ability to walk away from one’s problems with little debris left in the way may be the hallmark of the first decade of this century. I know far too many people, responsible people, who have walked away from their homes and businesses; some who could have either avoided the underlying problems that pushed them to their decision or who made bad choices in the first place. I don’t pretend to know what went on in their minds as they made their choices or how agonizing their decisions were. I am sure it has not been a picnic to lock the door in their empty house for the last time. And far be it for me to chatise them when I have walked away from some of my employees.

I guess where I get selfish in my own thinking is that these decisions, when added together with so many similar decisions by others, begins to bring the rest of us down in this slow death spiral. When one house gets taken back by the bank and sold at a hugely reduced price, it causes all the other houses in the neighborhood to lose value. When you get too many houses being sold by banks that are under no pressure to get top dollar, suddenly the whole area sees a drop in home values. Naturally this has a negative impact on the economy in general, causes governments to bail out banks who made these loans (many unsound loans, mind you) and tightens credit to the point that it is essentially unavailable.

And here’s the part where it gets personal: The safety net is now gone for me and my family. Our retirement account has been devastated by the stock market crash, my business has been nearly shut down due to a collapse of personal and corporate wealth and now the one area where I thought I could always count on as a nest egg, my home, is losing value so quickly that I am panicked.

OK, so woe is me. I get it that there are people worse off and many who didn’t want to walk away from their homes. But the fact that it has been made so easy and in such large numbers is trickling up to those of us who took out a fixed rate loan and have (had) 40 percent equity in our homes. The message almost seems to discourage people from keeping their job and their house; the government will be there to pick up the broken pieces. The same is true for businesses. Why should anyone work at keeping a business afloat when a bailout is around the corner? I guess the part that troubles me and worries me to the core is, what happens when there is nobody left to hold the safety net, and are we almost there?