More Things For Which I'm Not Thankful

A year ago today, on the cusp of Thanksgiving Day 2009, I made a brief list of things for which I was not thankful:
http://streffblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/im-thankful-for-this-but-not-for-that.html

Today, on the eve of Thanksgiving Day 2010, I bring you more of those things:

Far right AND left wing media personalities. I'm now convinced the lefties exist, just not in as great of numbers. I also hereby expand this to include anyone outside the political mainstream, media or not. (I'm looking at you, Bob Vander Plaats.)

Iraq / Afghanistan / North Korea.

Subsidies.

Homophobes. (Again, I'm looking at you, Bob Vander Plaats.)

People who oppose medical marijuana at the least, and who oppose criminalization of marijuana at the most.

Anyone working on commission.

Malingerers.

People who live unhealthy lifestyles, especially if they're smokers.

Politics 1, Action 0

Now that the mid-term elections are over, and we have a presumed mandate to restrict spending in the country, you'd think we would begin to see some action on that front. But politics as usual will keep anything substantial from happening.

Already this week, Congress is debating the unfunded extension of unemployment benefits that will expire for some at the end of the month - benefits that already last up to 99 weeks. What's to debate?

Did we not all just agree by majority vote that we didn't want to do this anymore? I consider myself a social liberal, so I'm not averse to helping out the downtrodden. But I'm also a fiscal conservative, and we can't afford to keep paying people not to work. For a longer rant on that click here: http://streffblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/paying-people-to-not-work.html

So why aren't things changing? For one, it's a lame-duck session of congress, and I suppose the so the 'mandate' hasn't officially kicked in yet. But another reality is, both Republicans and Democrats feel like they can get more political mileage from doing nothing.

The Ds would use inaction to show how the Rs don't care about the unemployed, and the Rs would use inaction to get what they really want in two years, the presidency.

This week, Newt Gingrich was in town to promote his latest book. And Sarah Palin is scheduled to be in Iowa twice before the end of the year to promote her latest book, or maybe her TV show, who knows. From this, one can make three undeniable conclusions - the 2012 presidential election race has begun in Iowa, politics and political money never sleep, and we already have two unelectable people campaigning to be president. (Yes, folks, they are unelectable. Just ask Hillary Clinton if you can win as a polarizing figure.)

Just wait until we get some actual, electable people in the race - then for sure nothing will get done!

50 Words Of Advice For Investors

Focus on things within your control. Understand that in which you are investing. Choose an asset allocation that fits your own goals and risk tolerance. Know what your investment costs are. Diversify your investments as broadly as possible. Change your investments only when your needs or circumstances change. Be smart.

Best Song Lyrics (Part IV)

So far in this blog, I've covered songs from The Eagles, Dave Matthews Band, and John Mellencamp. There are lots of great songs and songwriters to go, and this IVth installment brings me to the classic singer/songwriter Billy Joel.

Here again, Joel has many good lyrics from which to choose, typically from uses a variety of relationship topics. I'm going with the following classic narrative from Scenes From An Italian Restaurant. Getting married too young still ends up like this:

Brenda and Eddie were the popular steadies / And the king and the queen of the prom
Riding around with the car top down / And the radio on
Nobody looked any finer / Or was more of a hit at the Parkway Diner
We never knew we could want / More than that out of life
Surely Brenda and Eddie / Would always know how to survive.

Brenda and Eddie were still going steady / In the summer of '75
When they decided the marriage would be / At the end of July
Everyone said they were crazy / "Brenda you know you're much too lazy
Eddie could never afford / To live that kind of life."
But there we were wavin' / Brenda and Eddie goodbye.

They got an apartment with deep pile carpet / And a couple of paintings from Sears
A big waterbed that they bought with the bread / They had saved for a couple of years
They started to fight when the money got tight / And they just didn't count on the tears.

They lived for a while in a very nice style / But it's always the same in the end
They got a divorce as a matter of course / And they parted the closest of friends
Then the king and the queen went back to the green / But you can never go back there again.

Brenda and Eddie had had it already / By the summer of '75
From the high to the low to the end of the show / For the rest of their lives
They couldn't go back to the greasers / The best they could do was pick up the pieces
But we always knew they would both / Find a way to get by

That's all I heard about Brenda and Eddie
Can't tell you more than I told you already
And here we are wavin' Brenda And Eddie goodbye.

Alcohol Defeats Marijuana Again (Sigh)

The following is from an article published on November 1, 2010:

"London, England (CNN) -- Alcohol ranks "most harmful" among a list of 20 drugs -- beating out crack and heroin -- according to study results released by a British medical journal, The Lancet. A panel of experts weighed the physical, psychological and social problems caused by the drugs and determined that alcohol was the most harmful overall. Using a new scale to evaluate harms to individual users and others, alcohol received a score of 72 on a scale of 1 to 100, the study says. That makes it almost three times as harmful as cocaine or tobacco, according to the article."

I bring this up as a precursor to one of my bigger disappointments from Election 2010. While some good things happened, such as Iowa replacing its pitiful governor, at least two states failed in attempts to pass laws that would have eased restrictions on marijuana use. South Dakota rejected medicinal marijuana (they obviously didn't pass along enough copies of my blog post on the topic at http://streffblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/medicine-and-marijuana.html), and California rejected a proposal that would have essentially decriminalized (at the state level) possession of very small amounts of MJ.

So to recap, people continue to use -and via advertising are encouraged to use - alcohol, but are severly restricted from not only using, but just possessing MJ. This is despite the fact that alcohol is just as addicting and mind altering, and based on the story above, far more harmful. (There was no mention in the article where exactly marijuana placed on the list of harmful drugs, but it obviously was less so than alcohol.)

Who knew it would be this difficult, well into the 21st century, to get Americans to understand how screwed up they are when it comes to using alcohol versus MJ. We have once again proven that we are, hands down, the most repressed free society in the world.

A Plan For Planning To Plan

The following is edited from a recent press release:

"The Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines and the Greater Des Moines Partnership are collaborating with local government, education, healthcare and other local business and community leaders on a strategic community and economic development planning process to create a shared vision and strategic plan for Greater Des Moines and Central Iowa. A community and economic development consulting firm will facilitate the work. The steering committee findings will generate an action plan with a long-term perspective, implementation strategies and a framework for measuring results and progress."

As someone with experience at a large Dilbert-like for-profit entity, as well as financially-inept non-profit entity, let me interpret this for you:

"As organizations that pay their employees from membership dues and/or taxpayers, we feel that every so often we need to act like we're doing something to justify our otherwise useless existence, not to mention our unnecessary jobs and salaries. Therefore, we're joining forces to have a bunch of meetings, which of course requires us to pay for the services of a consultant because that makes it look even more important. In the end, you can bet that we'll keep our jobs, the consultant will make a bunch of money, and nothing will actually come from this, except that members and taxpayers are going to get rolled."

Lighten Up, France(is)

When most people think of the country of France, they might think of Paris or romance or food. However, when it comes to the people of France, all I can think of is a bunch of wine-sucking, chain-smoking, work-strikers.

Case in point this week: Many French citizens have been protesting for days against the proposed increase of their retirement age from 60 to 62, leading to riots, school closings, and the shutdown of a major airport.

That's tremendous, France. You're already part of a socialistic Euro culture with a poor work ethic. Might as well take a few more days off to protest this very small change that will save your society from itself.

I especially get a kick out of how stdents are so involved in these rallies. They say it's because this later retirement age will keep people in the workforce longer, meaning the younger generation will be less likely to find jobs. Of course, this makes no sense, because the lower retirement age also means the student will ultimately pay higher taxes on the wages from those jobs, to allow the goverment to subsidize the above-60 crowd. (I think the real reason the students are rallying is because they don't want to work anyway, and by getting behind this protest, at least they can miss class for several days. More time to drink wine and chain smoke.)

Like most protests in France, I suspect this one is nothing to worry about. Both sides will surrender soon - it's another part of their culture.