THE VIEW FROM THE BOTTOM |
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The blog for those just a lottery win away from wealth 
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Wednesday, January 28, 2004
Visit "The Independent Writer" and have a good laugh on Jim Ippolito American Citizens Are Getting Bushwacked Vicente Fox, Mexico's President, has given his stamp of approval to U. S. President, George W. Bush's plan to reward lawlessness. He said it's OK with him if President Bush forgives the actions of millions of his fellow Mexican citizens, who are in the U.S. illegally, and grants them some sort of semi-citizen status. What the hell, he doesn't know what to do to help his own people, so he may as well reduce their ranks. What a great example this sets for our nation's children, commit a crime, get a pass, be granted privileges. What a great example from the President, our nation's number one role model. What a terrific impression of America this creates around the world, just sneak into the U.S. and demand rights. What strength this will add to the ability of our Chief Diplomat, the President, to negotiate with foreign powers. What a terrific message this sends to our gallant troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, sacrifice yourselves protecting Corporate America's interests so your homeland can be handed over to criminals by your Commander-In-Chief. Perhaps we should just poll the leaders of all the world's countries when a decision faces America. Should we build a new road? Let's see what the president of Russia has to say about the proposal. Should we change our tax laws? Let's query The Sultan of Brunei and the president of South Africa. Should Federal election laws be modified? Let's elicit input from the leader of Austria. Why not, everyone but the legal citizens of America, save the Corporate lobbyists, seems to have a say in the decisions made in Washington D.C. Whatever happened to majority rule in America? All the polls show that the majority of Americans, which includes many Republicans, oppose the President's plan, but he ignores the majority because Corporate America and the rich want an open border policy allowing the continued flow of the cheap labor they cherish. Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board says new jobs will be created to replace those taken by illegal aliens. Oh, I'm sorry, calling persons what they really are is politically incorrect these days. I meant to say, "undocumented workers," yeah right. And where are those jobs going to come from? He didn't address that issue, the rich never do. Is this man unaware of the number of highly educated, qualified workers in the U.S. who are unable to find employment? Illegal aliens are demanding driver's licenses in California and Kansas, and there's a move afoot in California to allow illegal aliens the right to vote in non-Federal elections. Have our country's legislators gone nuts? What incentive is there to be a legal, law-abiding citizen of our country? Are our politicians determined to prove that crime pays? It seems so. I'll be posting an expanded report on this matter, including shocking revelations by the U.S. Border Patrol, on my website in the near future. Be sure to check for it. In the meantime I suggest you visit: "Lou Dobbs Tonight", on The CNN website for additional information about the problem and a link to a list of U.S. Corporations engaged in exporting American jobs. Friday, January 23, 2004
Visit "The Independent Writer" and have a good laugh on Jim Ippolito If There's Any Money Not In Their Control Corporate America Is Scheming To Get It. The President delivered the State of The Union address on 01/20. I missed it due to a desire to do something meaningful but did catch the highlight's of it on ESPN, I think, or was it that other station that broadcasts nothing but reruns of the past 30 year's shows? Whatever, it was the same thing we've been fed by the Feds for quite some time now and I'm fed up with it. I must say though that I was impressed with the President's honesty when he shouted: "Americans are the hardest working people in the world." Sure, when so many people have been let go and the volume of work remains the same or increases the remaining employees have to work harder to get the job done. Now that Corporate America has fired enough people to get the stock market back over 10,000, and redistributed the "savings" to it's shareholders and board members it's time to tap some fresh resources to keep it going. After all, as much as Corporate America's CEO's would like to see everyone fired except for their personal assistants, chauffeurs, nannies, housekeepers, gardeners, personal trainers, attorneys, investment counselors, caddies, chefs and what nots, all the wishing in the world will not get the work done without at least a skeleton workforce. So, the President has resurrected his plan to privatize the Social Security fund, once again turning to the have-nots to provide the means to indirectly help the rich secure their third or fourth vacation homes. This is a dangerous concept which the Republicans feel will be appealing to the younger workers in the job force. The President's cry to "let people decide for themselves," is nothing more than a thinly veiled disguise to throw some money to their Corporate allies (big time contributors) on Wall Street. After all he can't send all the money to Halliburton and NASA's contractors. Someone might notice. Rest assured that while the Enron and Worldcom criminals are doing the "perp" walk to their jails cells others are eager to take their shots at lining their pockets with this new found source of wealth. Young people rarely feel the need to prepare for the future, especially in today's "extreme" youth society where the live for today attitude runs rampant. By the time they realize the error of their ways, should this scheme be adopted, it will be too late to turn back. These are the same people who have already lost small fortunes gambling in the stock market under the guise of investing. What makes them think that the persons selected to manage the SSA funds in The Casino of Wall Street will fare any better with these public funds? Tax Cuts For The Rich, Part Deaux The President also called for a permanent extension in the recently enacted tax cuts for the rich. Tax cuts? I don't think so, it's more like a transference of "tax burden" to the country's already beleaguered cities and states. I don't think the rich should be taxed at rates higher than common folk, but they should pay tax on all their income, regardless of its source. I mean the Federal Government goes so far as to tax unemployment benefits so the least they can do is tax the money the rich take when they fire their Corporate workforces. Food For All Yesterday First Lady Laura Bush kicked off a campaign encouraging Americans to donate one dollar from their Super Bowl party funds to ease hunger in America. Excuse me but didn't her husband recently authorize the release of about 70,000 tons of food, to charter member of the "Axis Of Evil," North Korea, on top of what has already been sent? This is quite interesting since North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-il, maintains a "military-first" policy whereby their army always gets first pick of food supplies while the rest of the population starves. How about a little "charity begins at home" movement? That will never happen because there's nothing to be gained from it by the rich whereas the taming of North Korea means new markets and yet another source of cheap labor. I wonder if the President will try to enlist Willie Nelson and John Cougar Mellencamp for a "Farm Aid" concert for North Korea? Monday, January 19, 2004
Visit "The Independent Writer" and have a good laugh on Jim Ippolito CORPORATE AMERICA CELEBRATES Unemployment is creeping upwards dragging the Dow along with it. If anything makes Corporate America and it's greedy shareholders blush with pride and pleasure it's cost cutting in the form of firing people. The CEO's and their minions know the remaining employees will gladly work even harder to avoid the axe. The President says Corporate America knows what's best for the working class and the populace should be patriotic and go along. Meanwhile money monger VP Dick Cheney drives the point home by inferring that those who question the President's actions are harboring treasonous thoughts. So on 12/15/03, IBM announces their intention to outsource 4700 jobs to China and India, as a cost cutting measure. Actions like this confirm that patriotism is for the little guy and gal, and money matters are best left to those who have the most and control what they can't purloin for themselves. White House spokespersons always say, "Corporations create jobs." What's not stated is that the jobs will now be in foreign countries. Again With The Space Shit On 01/14/04 the President announces his commitment to NASA by calling for support for their recent wish list consisting of the completion of the mostly American funded international space station, a new shuttle fleet, a moon base, and manned missions to Mars. The President beamed when he said: "This is something that will lift our national spirit." This is nothing more than feel good nonsense in the guise of patriotism. The pretext to justify this massive increase in Corporate Welfare, is that jobs will be created. I guess these jobs will replace those being outsourced to foreign countries by other members of the Corporate America Club. Funny thing though is that the places that will reap the lion's share of the jobs will probably be Texas, the President's home state, where the Houston Space center is located, and Cape Canaveral, in Florida, where baby brother Jeb Bush is Governor. Ah what the hell, the Super Bowl is nearly upon us so it's time to lighten up and allow it to distract us from contemplating dreary matters such as unemployment. After all didn't the masters of ancient Rome provide entertainment in the form of feeding unpatriotic citizens to the lions in order to keep their populace from thinking about their problems? This year's half-time show is supposed to be spectacular, but unfortunately that's when I clean the kitchen and take out the trash so I'll miss it again. On 12/10/04 Time-Warner announced that they paid $7.5 million for the privilege of sponsoring it. An early Christmas gift for the masses I suppose. They then slipped in another announcement regarding the firing of 450 employees, as a cost cutting measure. A little something for the shareholders I guess. I wonder if those 450 people are football fans? Saturday, January 10, 2004
Visit "The Independent Writer" and have a good laugh on Jim Ippolito SILLY SPACE STUFF The European Mars rover, Beagle2, is still missing but the first of four of NASA's newest toys, the half-billion dollar Spirit, is alive and well and sifting through the dirt and rocks on Mars, much the same as I did in my parent's backyard when I was six-years old. The results will be the same, that is to say, nothing will be gained from said expedition. An astonishing 59% of recently polled Americans agree with the President that the U.S. should conduct manned, or womanned trips to the moon and Mars. Why? What possible practical good will come of this insane spending spree? Will this wasteful endeavor eliminate the National Debt or secure health care for all Americans, or create jobs? No. However, it will eliminate personal debt, insure good health care and continued employment for the precious few, otherwise useless egotistical eggheads involved in the space program. This is another corporate welfare program approved by the members of the party of the rich and funded by your tax dollars. The average American gets bragging rights as a result of this folly. I can imagine a debate between a non-space program involved American and an average resident of Italy, Germany or some other industrialized European nation. It would go something like this: "So, Joe Average American, what's new in the U.S.A.?" "We're going to the moon and Mars." "Why?" "It's really neat." "Why?" "It's like way cool man. You know, space travel." "What do you get out of it?" "It's like so cool. So what are you doing next week average European whose country lost WWll?" "My family is going on the first of three two-week vacations this year. How much vacation time do you get?" "Fifty-two weeks a year?" "Are you rich?" "No I'm unemployed." "I'm sorry for you." "It's OK, I can watch the news about the space program all day at my parent's house." "You still live with your parents?" "Yeah, I'm only thirty-seven." "Are your parents retired?" "Are you kidding? They're only in their early seventies. They got over fifty years with The XYZ Corporation." "When do they get their pensions? We can retire on full pension at age fifty-five, our government sees to it." "What the hell would they do if they retired? They like working, and besides, they don't have any money to do anything anyway. Their medicine takes up most of their income." "Oh, in Europe most people have free, government provided health insurance." "Yeah, but that's like Communism or something right?" "No it's just the way our governments use the tax money paid by it's citizens." "Yeah but that's like Communism. In America everyone has the right to make it on their own. The government doesn't make us do anything, like go to the doctor." "How many astronauts do you know?" "None, they're like special, you know. But anybody in America can become an astronaut if he or she wants." See "Federal Government Moons Entire U.S. Population" and "The Space Program, What's In It For Me?" in "The Curious Cat Archives" for additional enlightenment on NASA's madness. Monday, January 05, 2004
Visit "The Independent Writer" and have a good laugh on Jim Ippolito WHAT'S NEW FOR 2004? Well so far, for me at least, nothing. People certainly haven't become more polite or developed better manners. During the first two days of the New Year I received 5 phone calls for other people. Of the 5, 3 resulted in slam-downs at the sound of my voice. I guess these cretins can't bear admitting that they had made a mistake. Certainly it couldn't have been the mellifluous tones of my Jersey boy accent that incensed them. I made several short jaunts to take advantage of post holiday sales and encountered endless episodes of ridiculously bad driving, usually by those piloting SUV's or some other truck type vehicle. I guess size does matter to these mostly lone occupants of silly dinosaur sized livery vehicles. Anyway it was worth risking my life to get a nice new jacket at 60% off their "already heavily discounted prices." Funny about people and their choice of vehicles, which so many seem to feel represents their status in society. Maybe it's just me but I always thought that farmers, for example, used pickup trucks, to haul things. These days, however, someone piss poor, who owns less stuff than would fill a short pickup bed, seems to feel that this is the way to go. People really do buy into Detroit's bigger is better marketing tactics. So guess what? The new American philosophy, fostered by Corporate America, apparently has most Americans believing that "backwards is better." Instead of producing reasonably sized, practical, safe, fuel efficient vehicles, today's "Detroit Iron" is offered in the form of behemoth trucks and now, by Pontiac, the reintroduction of the GTO, the overpowered gas-guzzling muscle car of the sixties. Chevrolet, America's self-billed "traditional car company" has upped the ante as well. New on their menu is an almost truck, almost sports car, almost convertible, almost sedan, sort of new, sort of retro vehicle called the SSR. Apparently it is intended for those confused about what image they want their vehicle to portray. It sports 300 horsepower, costs $42K+, and has a pickup-like cargo area so a farmer can race the nouveau GTO owner while relocating a load of animal manure. It's bad enough that America didn't learn its lesson from the oil shortages of the early seventies, but now, in the midst of the Iraq war, which costs American lives every day, the automakers are back to the old horsepower and size war, which will make us even more dependent on foreign oil and the whims of its purveyors. In the 40's, 50's, and part of the 60's it was fashionable for those with money to burn and a desire to practice conspicuous consumption to buy an overpriced, undersized two seater sports car in addition to their American land yacht. The idea was to let everyone know that they could afford impracticality. Nowadays, it's an oversize, usually 4 wheel drive off-road capable vehicle, that sits in one's city or suburban driveway assuring that everyone who notices will be aware of the owner's ability to buy something overpriced and impractical. So that's the start of 2004. Did I make a New Year's resolution you ask? Yes, the same one I've made for the past 57 years, "to have a better year than the previous one." Do I have any advice for you? Yes, never watch a TV show that has a laugh track. |
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