The Olympian Onion Throw

 

I had the joy of watching my kid the other day.  My second son just turned 2 recently.  He is really into apples, he loves them.  And for some reason he thought onions would be just as tasty.  So he bit deeply into the succulent layers of the onion as he would any apple.  Now he being young in age, small in stature and ignorant regarding the taste of onions, decided to show his dislike for this onion.

He didn’t just throw this onion, he launched it like a mortar.  Much to my amazement he went over to it again and proceeded to degrade and berate it for being in his life.  Granted, it was all in toddler-speak so I understood not what the wee lad was saying.  The intent of his verbal thrashing was quite clear though.  He wanted this onion to know its place in the universe, that it was beneath him and that it definitely didn’t belong near him, especially in his mouth.

I had no idea my little kid was pint-sized dragon of Scottish fury.

The fun part of this is that I warned him as he was looking at it.  I warned him that it wasn’t going to taste good and that the spice was going to cause him some discomfort.  He is a toddler with a well developed sense of selective listening.  So of course with the willing ignorance of a toddler he bit into this onion like he would an apple not only to find the taste unpleasant but the spicy aftermath of his decision.  He was quite put out to say the least.  Hence the utter rejection of the onion in question.

We can learn lessons from my onion-hating child.  Recently we passed Obamacare in this country.  The supporters of this bill did their best to paint it like an appetizing apple.  You can sugar coat an onion, but the end result is something more disgusting than the original onion.  The sugar is gone, and all you have is onion left over.  Plus the newfound feeling of anger after the realization of being flimflammed by a group of silver tongued devils.

Let me be clear, this is not a debate of what is or is not healthy for a child.  I use this only as a prop and a background to illustrate my point.

We were told many nice things about this health care bill before it was signed into law.  Probably the most notable being that there would be no rationing of care.  Turns out there was rationing built into the bill.  I personally read aspects of the bill to find out that there isn’t a death panel per se, but if you reach a certain age you get to have “advanced care” planning sessions which are mandatory every five years.  Also there is a special commissioner that you have to submit reasons to receive care after a certain age.  Smells fishy, why on earth would I need to submit a reason to live to some commissioner?  Here is a better variant on the above question- Why should I have to submit reasons to live to some commissioner?  Don’t I have a right to live and pursue happiness or something to that effect?

There is another fun aspect of the health care bill.  Apparently they now require all of your account information for every banking institution in order to make real time claim adjustments.  On the surface it seems fairly benign, altruistic even.  The obstacle is this, I do not trust the government’s ability to manage my funds on any level.  Having been in the military I have had to deal with pay problems numerous times.  I already have to keep the bank in check, with this I have to deal with an even more obnoxious opponent in regards to my money.  I don’t do auto-pay for a reason with any card.  The idea of the government with instant access to my cash to make withdrawals or deposits is a frightening aspect to deal with.

And so once the onion is bitten and the truth is discovered, of course we are trying to get rid of this thing! 

Make ready the onion cannon!  Launch that onion far, far away.

If only our house representatives  and the senate had the fervor to do such a thing.  The house made a largely symbolic move to repeal it.  Basically they identified who was for the health care law and who was against it.  They drew the line in the sand.  Apparently that was it though.  They still are working with the cretins who put this thing in place.  They have been distracted by important issues like a budget battle, but have bypassed a critical issue.  Priorities are mixed up a bit.

The republicans in the house own the house.  The best thing they could do is nothing.  That’s right, just do nothing.  Pass no other legislation, no votes on budgets, debt ceiling nonsense, or any other topic for that matter.  Just bring everything to a grinding halt.  The liberals do it all the time and it works.  Republicans can do it, they just aren’t doing it.  If republicans bring congress to a screeching halt they can get their way.  They control where the money goes, so why not yank funding from every bill that passes your way until they get the law repealed?  They were sent to do a specific job, and they tried, just not very hard it seems like.

We pondered the stupidity of former Congressman Wiener for roughly 2 weeks in the media because he apparently has fairly promiscuous and adulterous hobbies.  No wonder we aren’t making progress on important issues like the health care law.  Deliberate misdirection if you ask me.

Perhaps they say they want it repealed but are otherwise content with it.  This seems like the most obvious case.  If they really wanted it repealed it would be done by now.  They can sit on the wallet and their hands and their opponents hands but they do not do it.  The liberals have in the past and would happily do it again if it gave them what they want.

Democrats are the left wing, Republicans are the right wing.  Problem is that they are both wings of the same bird.

But the bird is a vulture.

Vultures will patiently circle a dying creature for days if need be waiting for the banquet to begin.  Once it’s dead it’s fair game and chow time.  America is not invincible, right now America is quite vulnerable.

Technorati Tags: obamacare,health insurance,health care

Oh the Glorious Union…

 
I usually don’t rag on something unless I see the need for it to be ragged upon.  This time however, it’s personal.  It comes out of my check and I get zero say in the matter, because others have taken the liberty to remove my choice in the matter…needless to say this vexes me greatly.

It goes back to the idea of somebody else knowing what is best for me regardless of said person never even knowing me.  Forget the fact that I am a grown man who can do his own taxes (okay so the wife does it), ties his own shoes, and has managed to stay out of jail his entire life.  This person who doesn’t know me assumes I lack the above mentioned life skills.

Let’s do some math.  $1600 a month gross.  Not stellar, but it will suit my family’s needs.  The wife and I are frugal people who frankly don’t go out to eat or do much in the way of spending money on entertainment.  We entertain ourselves, but not to the point of financial risk.  It doesn’t take money to have a good time, in fact I can remember several times where I spent money and wanted a refund on my life.

The last job I had paid the exact same, only I had the privilege of paying about $350-ish a month in gas alone just to get there and back each day.  At first when I got this job we were thrilled because hey, we just saved 350 bucks or so a month by being able to walk to work.  We were elated.  That is 350 extra bucks towards our minivan payment.

They say the devil is in the details.  This just happens to be the insidious truth of this particular matter.  1600 bucks a month gross isn’t too shabby for pushing a mop at the facility in question.  My beef is when they said “union”.  I immediately felt my pulse and temperature rise.  However, I managed to keep my calm.

The wage was more than perfect, until the union takes their slice out of it.  Mandatory 125 dollar membership fee, plus 36 bucks every month until I find another job or quit, that is just to be a member of this….thing.  And thanks to the marvelous union bargaining nonsense I have to contribute 6.9% to a retirement fund which I never plan to see a return on.  I say this because apparently the states don’t know how to run one properly-check the news.  It gets better, now I also have to shell out 435 bucks a month for health insurance that I didn’t want in the first place.

You might say “Chill out Daniel, you’re getting a stable job with great benefits and two different pensions to draw on when you retire, ease up man.”.  I can see why others might say that.

Here is my side of it.  We all already have insurance coverage.  We don’t need to pay extra for something we already have.  And when you have two different insurance companies they love to fight over who has to pay the bill.  In the mean time the bill doesn’t get paid, and you the consumer, are left on the hook for the bill.  Any wife knows this, and almost inevitably the wife is left to call both insurance companies up and make them do their job.  More isn’t always better, but it’s almost always more complicated than it needs to be.

The retirement plan is a joke, a sick joke at that.  Let me decide what I will do with my money.  I am intruded upon continuously by their mandating the spending of my earned cash.  This really irks me to a degree which words fail to deliver.  If I choose to invest my money, I will do so.  Frankly I have seen just how reliable these pensions are in the news recently, I think I’ll wait for a better option.  State run pensions are a disaster when they are run improperly.  Unfortunately most are run improperly.  A perfect example is social security, a federal pension for everybody.  I received a letter from the Government regarding my pension where they openly admitted to being short of funds.  I could only expect 71 cents out of every dollar I was supposed to get.  So basically they screwed up with my money. 

Mistakes happen, I understand people are human and mess up sometimes.  Simply put this is my beef, they never asked me if they could take my money- they just took it.  If I don’t pay into social security men with weapons will come and take me away for a lengthy amount of time.

I’ll put it this way, a couple hundred years ago a bunch of people in colonies got pissed off about taxes being raised.  They killed people over it.  It isn’t about money; it’s about food.  When you reduce my income you reduce my food supply.  When I can’t feed my kids and wife gears start to turn.  Rarely when these particular gears turn do they produce anything kind or forgiving.  So we adapt.  My loving and industrious wife now grinds wheat and makes our bread to cut down on costs.  My point is that we can only adapt so far before I start feeding my kids poached meats and eventually Cannibal Big Mac’s.  Let’s face it.  I am a predatory creature.  My eyes are in the front of my skull for a reason.  I have canines and incisors for a reason.  When the young get hungry, the parents find food wherever they can get it and will eventually do anything to get it.
Back to the math. 1600 *6.9%= 110.4 that is for the mandatory retirement that I never wanted nor will I ever see.  1489.6-435=1054.6 for the health insurance that is going to complicate my life more and also another thing I didn’t want in the first place.  Lastly, the all-important-ever-invasive-dictated union dues. 1054.6-36=1018.6 being my taxable income per month.  We’ll say Uncle Sam is kind; we’ll say he only takes 5%. 1018.6*5%= 50.93,  which gives us a whopping 967.67 bucks a month to live on.  Keep in mind that I have a family of 5 including my grubby self.

The Union says it has my best interest in mind.  Sick thing is this, I believe that they really do believe they are doing what is best for me.  There is only one problem with their plan; They Are Wrong.  This might be tolerable for anybody who doesn’t have a family.  Even then they would struggle because 967 bucks a month doesn’t amount to much.

Not all unions are bad.

The unions have their good points too.  The formation of unions shows that the power is in the people and people can make things happen.  Kudos to the people.

People wanted to defend themselves from merciless capitalists who would chain children to factory machines. Unions gave people more family time, a better wage, protection from retaliation by superiors and so on.  These are all good things…within reason.

There are some employers out there who need to get thrashed for bad practices against employees.  I have worked at some places where I gambled my life everyday.  I have also worked at places where I couldn’t do my job effectively because of union mandates. 

Most unions have lost their way and corrupted their original purpose.  Unions seem like they were designed to work only for a while, flounder a little longer like a turd that just won’t flush and then finally meet its pre-destined demise.  Want some facts?  Here is a link to a government page that illustrates that private sector union membership is shrinking.  The private sector only does things when they are profitable, more effective, or because the laws dictate them to do so.  Anyways, here is that site.

Unions formed in response to something that needed combatting.  This was admirable and necessary.  However, once the dragon is slain, just get back to doing business as usual.  Unions should not invent problems to keep themselves in power.  If somebody has a problem at work now days they can just call any one of the abundance of lawyers out there and usually the problem will stop instantly.  Threatening somebody with legal action is fairly formidable these days.

These aren’t just my thoughts either.  Here is another site says that unions are basically job destroyers.  They harm the company which in turn harms the employees.  Backwards, eh?  Take a look over here for some enlightenment on the topic.  The video at the bottom of the page is very informative.

Forbes even pitched in their two cents.  And not surprisingly they predict the
demise of unions as well.  They too illustrate the job destroying practices of unionized work forces.  Sure you get paid more as a union worker but you squeeze the company.  Then the company hires less people and eventually the company can’t compete with others in its field.  Eventually, the workers (unionized or not) are pitched over board in massive layoffs in a desperate and futile attempt to save the company.  You can check out the article here.

And the fun fact is this- I bet you that the lawyer involved in correcting an abusive company is in…
…the non-union private sector.
Beautiful… just beautiful.