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Monthly Archives: December 2016

Boy King


We have 4 years of wondering, assessing and regretting (in any order) what is ahead of us with the Trump Presidency. Since the new method of mass communication is the tweet, the next state of the Union will be about 15 minutes and will have no details. It will be interesting to see how the neer do well Congress does with “their” candidate. It is my hope that  nothing dire occurs during his tenure but looking at the candidates’ selections for his cabinet one has to wonder what can we expect and the long-range effect. Looking at the first campaign promise to be kept:The Carrier deal is no deal for 1300 people and not much of a deal for the  700 who will remain. Looking at the numbers:7 million is what carrier gets in tax incentives this amounts to three hundred & fifty thousand dollars per  (retained or not) worker. Needless to say not many if any of the remaining workers will be compensated anywhere near the saved thousands per year even with benefits. This leaves the question of where is this money going? Some may go to severance, pension payouts, unemployment or perhaps factory upgrades (robotics?). In the end there will be 1300 fewer jobs in Indiana and 1300 more jobs behind the Southwestern wall. A promise kept on the backs of the workers who supported the Boy King.

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Smoked??


I am trying to understand why smokers blow smoke out of the windows of their car and fail to realize that they have more smoke in their lungs than the amount that is blown out of the window. If the reason for hanging 1 hand out of the window for ashes and the smoke from the burning cigarette or what ever the media is , then why smoke at all? All of the known issues due to smoking & using smokeless products should be enough to convince anyone that smoking is bad for you aside from the high cost of smoking (or using smokeless products). Current cost of a pack of 20 is about 5 to 8.00. A carton is $50 to $80 each or the price of 3 to 8 fill-ups in your car, a Doctors visit for a check up, oil change/ car wash or just a meal at a nice restaurant. What’s in your lungs?

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Rauner Roundup


Illinois issues appear to be more apolitical and inane than based in reality. The current governor in my opinion won based on the weakness of the former governor and the publicly perceived impotence of the legislature. Since Mr. Rauner has had the office, the state has rapidly gone down a dimly lit path to stability. A State is NOT a business! The statement of running the state like a business is a great sound bite but just another election ear grabber. Most voters have no idea what that statement means but in the Governor’s mind it means running the state in the same pinch penny fashion as he has apparently run his businesses. In business these are the facts: you produce a product of some sort. You hire people to manufacture this product and of course you pay what is required for these hires to get the job done. Next you price the product to sell and pay for the labor and material including cost of shipping , receiving and other business expenses. As costs rise for whatever reason you have to adjust your selling price accordingly. This is not how it works in Government where your product is public service and the raising of costs is tied to taxes. So it appears that the way to make a Government solvent is to raise taxes in a way that still will benefit the population. Raising taxes is one way but if you stated that you would not raise taxes when you were running for office it becomes a bit hard to then raise taxes. So the issue is how do you fund a government without taxes? Attack the workers whose Union you see as the problem? Or take a sit down with the Unions to determine what can be done? How about starting a full blown assault on the Unions and the established political system (no matter how flawed)?  I would offer that perhaps explaining to the taxpayers how their demands influence spending in relation to the basic needs of  running a Government (which includes infrastructure maintenance and the agencies that provide services). Meanwhile this long lasting stalemate has cost jobs, stopped education for some and caused untold issues for others. It appears that this business model has failed and looks a lot like the companies that have gone under due to this impasse. I do not see a second term in the Governors future and of course it is not an issue as his financial picture is quite rosy unlike many Illinoisans who have suffered under his actions or lack of.

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