Archive for the ‘Ruminations’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

My Cat “Paid Me a Visit” Last Night….and Brought His Complaints

Monday, May 7th, 2012

Just as my head hit the pillow, I heard “we gotta talk” in a Tony Soprano accent. Didn’t sound exactly like my wife…….but it was close. Who could it be?

I turned the light on and there he was: my 4-month old cat. But not in normal dimension; he was larger than me and standing on hind legs, wearing chains around his neck. He had two similar feline sidekicks.

“Sorry to disturb your sleep but I got some bones to pick with you and as you’re running around like an idiot all day long, I figured now is the best time. Got a problem with that?”

“No, of course not,” I answered, somewhat taken aback.

“Good. Now for starters, you wanna cut my whats off??? Have you really thought about this? Better yet, have you thought how you would deal with the prospect of such? I hear you bellyaching with the Mrs. about the price of $160 but I can tell you, my concerns run a bit deeper and yours would too if it was gonna happen to you. I think you should re-think this thing and if need be, put it in female anatomical terms that your wife can understand, to bring the point home. You with me?”

“Now, about the chow, how would you like tooth-breaking hard food that smells like 4-day old roadkill in a food dish that has remnants of a week’s worth of tooth-breaking hard food that smells like 4-day old roadkill encrusted on it? Given that you spare no expense when it comes to feeding your pie-hole, I think the answer is pretty obvious. And worst of all, you begrudge me even that! What’s the problem? I’m clearly not cutting into your food budget. Lighten up and let me eat, Tubby.”

“While we’re on the subject of your food intake, would you please include me on the warning distribution list when you are about to take a bath? I agree with the wife that seeing you in the buff is not the most appetizing experience. Yeh, you think that it is just a coincidence that I have hairball attacks every time I have the lousy timing of being in the bathroom when you’re disrobing. Think again, Jack LaLanne. I’ve lost count of your folds, in part because nausea always takes over.”

I started nodding off and his colleague gently slapped me on the face; “wake up, I’m not finished!” my cat yelled.

“Now, as you can tell, I have a sense of humor as good as the next cat’s. But when I hear you joke that you want to add excitement to my life by putting me in a miniature hang-glider and take me to Mt. McKinley, let’s just say that I lose my ability to laugh. Ditto to your suggestion of playing “wheel-barrow” with me.”

“Speaking of excitement, let’s talk about your 7-year old son. I love the nipper, really do. But if he pulls my tail one more time, I’m drawing blood. If I hear you rationalize that ‘boys will be boys,’ I’m gonna disembowel you. Are we clear?”

“The litter box. Need I say more? Yeh, yeh, who in their right mind wants to change it? But a ‘thankless job’? Hardly. Every time I step into a fresh batch of Tidy Cats I profusely thank you, Purina, the good lord, President Obama and whoever invented kitty litter. So don’t wait until I’m climbing a veritable Mt. Everest of cat dung before you clean such hallowed ground. Would you wait several days to flush your toilet? On second thought, don’t answer that. I may not like the answer.”

“Why do you question my intelligence? ‘Just a dumb cat,’ you say? Who’s the one running around for the family like a maniac and constantly getting the verbal and emotional rolling pin over the head from such ‘loved ones’ versus who’s always lounging comfortably somewhere in the house, rent-free, except when fleeing your son? Maybe the ‘dumb cat’ is smarter than you realize. Think about it, Einstein. When you come to your senses and give me my due, I’ll tell you of some good hiding places, better than your lame ones that always wind up getting you flushed out.”

“Finally, and related to my first complaint above, what’s this garbage about me not being allowed to prowl the neighborhood and canoodle with the feminine gland? I don’t recall taking any vow of celibacy or, similarly, getting married like you. So stop cramping my lifestyle.”

“Ok, that’s enough for now. I trust you’re gonna make things right so we don’t have to have another talk like this. Let’s go, boys.”

I opened my eyes and it was morning. I heard the cat outside my door but for 20 minutes, I did not have the nerve to open it. Finally, I did. He was his usual self, like a normal cat.

Unlike normal cats, though, he gets “surf & turf” and hourly kitty litter servicing from now on.

-I.M. Windee

Posted in Ruminations | No Comments »

Is Society Going in the Wrong Direction? Only the Vocal Minority

Friday, May 4th, 2012

********************************************************************

President Nixon’s “Silent Majority” is doing fine, even if the Kardashian mob, as magnified by the media, is not

********************************************************************

Recently, writer Peggy Noonan asserted that people in politics talk about the right track/wrong track numbers as an indicator of public mood. A week ago, Gallup released a poll showing only 24% of Americans feel we’re on the right track as a nation (read: society). That’s a historic low.

Ms. Noonan then went on to say that she believes the public dissatisfaction is about our culture, and mores specifically, “the American character—who we are and what kind of adults we are raising,” and backed such up with examples of a tourist that was beaten in Baltimore while young people tape it on their smart-phones, the latest store surveillance tapes of flash mobs and the General Services Administration and Secret Service scandals.

Much can be said about the seeming disintegration of civility and social mores since the 1960s, as amplified with social media tools on the internet. Poster children for such an ongoing breakdown include Madonna in the 1980s and now the Kardashians, amongst other infamous characters.

But to indict all of society, or even the majority, because a poll found the respondents cranky at a time when few are happy about anything, is misleading. If those same people’s stock portfolio significantly increased in value over the next few weeks, the 24% who currently feel we’re on the right track as a nation would jump to 75%. It’s the American way, and perhaps the mode of how we think (or poll) deserves both scrutiny and re-calibration.

Thinking about where society is going, I, too, wanted to get caught up in the tides of pessimism. But then I thought of the following examples of people who are clearly not part of the Kardashian posse:

  • Recently, I mindlessly left my wallet in the shopping cart and drove home without it, only to realize such as soon as I got home. I rushed back to the store and, lo, a good citizen returned the wallet to the service desk, in its entirety, as found. Putting aside that the person could have made use of my credit cards, there was no obligation for the individual to walk it to customer service, such person could have just left it in the cart, but did not. Recognizing the anxiety and angst that a lost wallet causes, they took the extra effort to make sure I got it back.
  • As someone who donates blood religiously every 8 weeks, I can attest that the volunteers at the blood bank who serve juice, donuts and try to schedule follow-up donations are the truest of heroes in that process. They are because they are not the phlebotomists being paid nor the donors who are reminded that they are “saving lives.” They are an indispensable part of the process, like the line worker in World War II, who was every bit as integral in the effort but did not have the pronounced role. In truth, they are probably responsible for more donations than perhaps anyone else in the process.
  • My son’s Little League coaches. If a Congressional Medal of Patience were ever created, these folks would be one of my top picks. They are in it for the love of the game but, more importantly, the love of seeing kids develop and grow. When I last checked, their compensation is 0% of A-Rod, but they give their all nonetheless.
  • This country’s armed forces who “take [or defend] the hill at all cost.” All too often we hear of death tolls and don’t hear of the thousands who are wounded and/or maimed in places like Afghanistan. These people show a level of sacrifice (and character) that tells me someone knows how to act honorably.
  • How about today’s much-maligned “helicopter parents”? Yes, they are annoying and over-wrought, but they care and want to see the best for someone other than themselves. Just like my parents and the parents of many of my contemporaries; they pump quite a bit of money into their progeny.

These are just a few examples but show that the Kardashian cabal is likely (and thankfully) the exception, and not the rule. Our society, on the whole, is in good hands.

-I.M. Windee

Posted in Ruminations | No Comments »

Wisdom? No thanks, I’ll Just Babble & Tweet

Monday, April 30th, 2012

********************************************************************

Intellectual flatulence takes the day

********************************************************************

One of the more depressing realizations I’ve had over the past decade with the proliferation of social media on the internet is many people’s preference for the inane, the superfluous. I won’t get into the grittier details of the babble that people indulge in on forums like FaceBook as I’ve done such prior (see: FaceBook: People’s 15 Megabytes of Fame, August 7, 2011).

Some people who I’ve had the highest respect for have gone out of their way to make clear to me that they have little or no time for this publication, even as they pour their souls into the likes of FaceBook and God knows what other thought puddles.

Fair enough.

We’re all very busy and choices must be made about how we spend that very precious and limited commodity: time. My prima dona writer’s ego will recover. And while I want to think that my utterances on these pages are Periclean wisdom, they are not. It’s fair to say that all too often, more sage insight can be had by reading an Archie & JugHead comic book than my missives.

But then when I look at the time and energy that such people place into the trite babble on social media platforms, I almost wish they were constantly reading and following the wisdom of Archie and/or JugHead.

And the choice to partake in such mental atrophy, by otherwise intelligent people, has me wondering what is going on.

Daniel Henninger wrote a good op-ed piece last week in The Wall Street Journal (“The Age of Indiscretion”, April 26, 2012) in which he talks about the official death of discretion. Mr Henninger says that “the new age’s booster rocket, the thing that finally killed discretion, was social media…..Social media of its nature is about compulsion and revelation.” Yes, indeed.

But such explains how we reveal what we do, to the world, but not why and, better yet, why we waste our time on such trite claptrap?

I believe there are three reasons why otherwise intelligent and reasonable people pick the gibberish of social websites over more heavy thinking: 1) a need to control the conversation; 2) a need to feel important; and 3) perhaps caused by the prior two, what can best be described as a dopamine spike when using sites like FaceBook.

Regarding the first, Maslow, Freud and the rest of the immortalized official observers of the human condition have listed the various human motivators and, if not already mentioned, I’d like to add the desire to control: whether one’s self or, better yet, others. FaceBook affords a person full control of what a person writes (or shows), even if the person is figuratively out of control as is often the case in social media. Thus, a person controls not only their communications but also what the viewer is seeing. And whether we realize and wish to admit it, we are creatures that, in large part, do not control our every day selves. Whether having to be at work, a child’s event, or social confab, we are controlled by a calendar and others. But when we go to a social media site, it is we and only we who are in the pilot’s seat.

The second, a need to feel important, is very easy to understand, especially if you are a husband and father in this day and age, like myself. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that most of the people who shares their thoughts on the social media that I have perused likely do not go to Board of Directors meetings nor are the first person that the State Department calls when a diplomatic crisis needs fixing. People know that and, thus, search for a forum where they can be the focal point. Social media provides this.

Finally, the tv show 60 Minutes did a piece last night on bad habits and the brain chemical dopamine, which has been tied to feelings of pleasure, to put it very loosely. One could make the argument that the relative ease and lack of any strictures of social media cause a dopamine rush, which is what attracts people to social media. After all, there is no right or wrong for material on social media; the only requirement is just “showing up,” to borrow from Woody Allen’s formula for success.

It’s easy to think that, as we are in the Age of Kardashian, this is the new norm and it is here to stay. And certainly one can make the argument that today is just part of the cultural linear descent that began in the 1960s. Yet this country has shown a remarkable resilience and self-corrective reflex when needed. Let’s hope it shows such again as I would hate to think I left my kids a cultural legacy of babble, tweets and intellectual flatulence.

-I.M. Windee

Posted in Ruminations | No Comments »

President Obama Sharpens His Campaign Theme: The Poor, Rich Candidate

Thursday, April 26th, 2012

********************************************************************

The President will flout that he doesn’t have the money of Mitt Romney, but he does have the money of Barack Obama

********************************************************************

This week, the President on the campaign trail revealed what will likely be his strategy regarding that seemingly sordid issue of money in the Presidential campaign: claim wealth is a vice but campaign cash is a virtue.

On Tuesday, at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, President Barack Obama went after the college vote by pitching cheaper student loans. Espousing the virtues of not having wealth, Mr. Obama told students at the University of North Carolina that he and first lady Michelle Obama had “been in your shoes” and didn’t pay off their student loans until eight years ago.

“I didn’t just read about this. I didn’t just get some talking points about this. I didn’t just get a policy briefing on this,” the President said. “We didn’t come from wealthy families. When we graduated from college and law school, we had a mountain of debt. When we married, we got poor together.”

Of course, Mr. Obama was contrasting himself with his presumptive general election opponent Mitt Romney, who likely paid off his private jet long before the Obamas paid off their student loans. Look for the silver spoon versus the wooden spoon theme constantly at a Democratic stump speech near you, as if that were a key indicator to whose vision for the country is best.

Unfortunately, Romney dodged this fight and said this week that he agrees that student loan interest rates shouldn’t be raised. It’s almost a given that risk-taking, as assaulted over the last few years, is not a topic that any candidate would consider debating in this environment. In a better world, Mr. Romney would hold the kids, who willingly take on student loans, to reasonable and not sweetheart interest rates on their education investments even if such takes us back to a seemingly bygone era of risk and reward. But one cannot fault Mr. Romney for picking his fights and this would’ve given too much ammunition to the Obama campaign to warrant taking such a principled stance; there will hopefully be plenty of time in the White House to re-impose good, old-fashioned responsibility.

And not missed is the irony that Mr. Obama’s policies of government intervention have hindered the economic recovery, which has caused those with student loans to not have jobs, or poorly paying ones, and thus not be able to pay back their loans, regardless of the interest rate. It is an unvirtuous cycle, to say the least.

Meanwhile, the virtue of campaign cash has been re-discovered the last several months as the Obama campaign has amassed tens of thousands of small donors. Apparently, money is acceptable to Team Obama and its supporters when it is in small (unmarked?) amounts. For the past few months, the Obama re-election campaign and its Liberal wing-men have been emphasizing that small donors are playing a big role in bankrolling his efforts. Last month, Obama’s campaign said that 98% of February’s contributions were $250 or less, and that 348,000 people donated.

Such a position runs contra to the Liberal campaign finance scolds who have held that money, in general, is a corrupting influence and must be exorcised from campaigns whenever possible. By their (il-) logic, it should not matter if many or the dreaded few (“rich”) help a candidate amass a large war chest; their stated fear always is that large sums of money can drown out any other voices. But somehow the Obama contributors have been ascribed a virtue because of their small size which will presumably ensure a benevolent use of the money by the President’s re-election team. With such crack thinking, it is no wonder serious campaign finance reform has never occurred.

Which leads us to not only to that great politician, but contortionist: President Obama.

In an exercise that might make even Bill Clinton blush, Mr. Obama will take one side of the coin that wealth is a wholly-disqualifying trait for a Presidential candidate but, in an apparent contradiction, mountains of money contributed to a Presidential candidate is a clear validation of that candidate’s worthiness as President.

Instead of campaign finance reform, perhaps campaign logic reform is in sore need.

-I.M. Windee

Posted in Ruminations | No Comments »

As the SS Dewey Hit A Financial Iceberg, the Band Played On…..

Tuesday, April 24th, 2012

********************************************************************

The Housing and Tech Industries Are Not the Only Places for Irrational Exuberance

********************************************************************

Over the last few months, the venerable New York law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP has been losing partners in large part because of what has been seen by many of its partners as a compensation system that does not reward everyone fairly. The exodus could put the firm in danger of breaching loan covenants, which typically require firms to maintain a certain head count or income flow.

And it has been reported recently that it is more deeply in debt than was previously thought, according to a person familiar with the matter. As a result, the firm has been weighing a bankruptcy filing, and it is exploring other options that include merger scenarios.

The story of Dewey & LeBoeuf is an all too familiar one found in many industries where organizations are unable to manage their growth, or what they perceive will be their growth. Dewey & LeBoeuf became one of the largest law firms in New York five years ago when Dewey Ballantine LLP, which was founded in 1909, merged with LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae, founded in 1929. Like the Titanic whose 100th anniversary of its sinking we celebrate this year, Dewey & LeBeouf was a behemoth that was considered unsinkable.

As the newly merged firm pursued an ambitious plan to become one of the elite Wall Street firms, it relied on compensation promises to hold on to big earners and to recruit additional lawyers with big books of business. This was at the expense of adequately compensating other “non-star” lawyers. The guarantees to those chosen few were increasingly unsustainable and ate into the share of profits for the partners who lacked such agreements.

It’s unclear just how many clients the firm has lost as a result of the partner defections but as the departures continue, it is all but certain that Dewey & LeBoeuf has limited time and will be out of existence in short order.

This is a cautionary tale that “irrational exuberance,” which Alan Greenspan described during the height of the housing bubble, is not restricted to any particular industry: from government that thinks peak tax revenues will last forever (and spend as such) to even the cautious legal profession, all are susceptible to delusions of grandeur that can wind up dooming seemingly perennial and august entities like Dewey; few are immune to “bubble-think.”

And another ironic aspect of all of this, one to perhaps evoke schadenfreude from some, is that throughout this saga, Dewey leadership has been telling all to remain calm and that everything is fine, like Kevin Bacon did at the homecoming parade in Animal House when everyone was going berserk. Clearly everything is not fine and one must wonder if any partners, especially those who stayed, will bring some kind of breach of fiduciary action against the leadership of Dewey. If they do, Dewey can at least hire itself as it handles derivative litigation. That would help their bottom line.

-I.M. WIndee

 

Posted in Ruminations | No Comments »

Congress tells GSA: Do As We Say, Not As We Do

Wednesday, April 18th, 2012

********************************************************************

Congress doth protest too much

********************************************************************

Congressional hearings this week examining the General Services Administration’s conference in Las Vegas that cost more than $800,000 along with violations of travel and spending rules was a first class exercise in chutzpah, something congress excels in.

Members from both parties on Wednesday called for the agency at the center of a spending scandal to clean house as it roots out corruption.

“The party’s over,” thundered Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, at one of four congressional hearing so far this week on the controversy.

At a Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing,  Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, wondered how the hundreds of GSA employees exposed to the excesses failed to question the obvious misconduct taking place.  “It’s appalling that someone didn’t say, ‘Wait a minute. Isn’t this going overboard?’ ” Durbin said. Was he talking about the GSA or congress?

Ranking Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma said of the GSA that “if there’s anyone who has a propensity to do something dishonest, that’s where they ought to be” because “they deal with huge numbers.” He went on to say “I am concerned that this type of waste has become an embedded part of the culture at the GSA.”

This posturing, in an election year no less, is preaching temperance from the bar stool.

Senators Boxer and Durbin are integral parts of the Democratic Senate cabal that passed blow-out spending in the 2 years that Democrats owned both houses of congress and the White House resulting in annual trillion-dollar deficits. They never saw spending, on virtually anything, that they didn’t like, from “Bridges to Nowhere” to “Bridges to Re-Election.” Now they are shocked that there is wasteful spending in government? Mark this down as Congresses’ Inspector Renault impersonation that Claude Rains would admire: yes Senators Boxer and Durbin, there is wasteful spending in government; now about the latest bill you are proposing?

As to Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, he is correct that when dealing with “huge numbers,” there is always the propensity for malfeasance; absolute power corrupts absolutely. But the good Senator would be more credible if he were not a defender of earmarks. When that was a hot topic seemingly forever (2 years) ago, he said “Getting rid of earmarks does not save taxpayers any money, reduces transparency, and gives more power to the Obama administration…”

So while it does not excuse the GSA or any government agency from wasting taxpayer money, it is understandable that when congress sets the spendthrift atmosphere that it has, others believe that it is encouraged, if not condoned.

-I.M. Windee

Posted in Ruminations | No Comments »

Observations from a Family Vacation (continued)

Friday, April 13th, 2012

Paradise Resort, Myrtle Beach, S.C. – Further observations from my week-long family vacation (March to Bataan):

  • Are joggers on the beach exercising or doing a fast-paced “cat-walk” to show off their physiques?
  • Anyone who accuses me of taking my kids from one activity to another to another in order to wear them out (war of attrition) is correct: it’s an effective strategy that I highly recommend.
  • Watching a pouchy 45 year-old trying to embark a water tube in a river pool can only have 1 of 2 possible endings: hilarity or hilarity with injury. I’m relieved to say that this year I mounted the water tube without injury, but was immediately ejected. The phrase “fanny over tea kettle” is apropos.
  • Seinfeld introduced us to the “Soup Nazi.” The resort I was at had the “River Pool Nazi.” Among the written rules, only one person in a tube, every person must have a tube……or a night in the box (Cool Hand Luke). And an unwritten rule that the pool warden reminded us was 3 strikes (warnings) and you’re out. I’m all for law and order but I was hoping to escape, just for a few days, the regiment of the corporate world with endless (and unnecessary) rules and protocol. Hopefully this pool warden will not become the next George Zimmerman.
  • I’d like to add a tenth circle of hell to Dante’s Inferno: a hotel elevator full of screaming kids (impatience). At a minimum, we should use such technique in Guantanamo for the most hardened terrorists; we’d break them immediately.
  • I walked the beach and saw no interracial strife despite what the MSNBC carnival barkers and the Reverends Sharpton and Jackson say.
  • Sitting on the beach, sipping a beer and enjoying the ocean breeze, I was  glad to be where I was rather than in my parent’s ’69 Chevrolet station wagon as a kid on vacation.
  • Future leaders who will take their country to war (or CEOs) are the kids now who will get into a fight over beach toys with no provocation.
  • I do not recommend resting your face into a chaise lounge that has sweat, alcohol and suntan lotion baked into it by the sun. Again, perhaps a technique to be considered for Guantanamo.
  • It is very easy to differentiate the married from the unmarried couples on the beach: the unmarried couples hold hands, talk to each other and listen attentively; the married people walk a minimum of 10 feet apart, act like the other doesn’t exist, talk to themselves and listen attentively.
  • What are people thinking when, in front of large-lettered signs prohibiting reserving beach chairs by placing items on them, they go ahead and do such?  Is this further evidence of the failure of the American education system as I assume such people can’t read the signs?
  • “No Diapers Allowed in the Hot Tub”. This was a posted sign in the recreation area and I believe I might have found the one thing that anyone, and everyone, in this country can agree with. From the bellicose Liberal to the bloviating conservative talk-show host, everyone can hold hands like a Pepsi commercial on this precept. Let us unify the nation around this rallying cry!
  • Too many people are more than willing to give driving directions, in a very authoritative manner, when they have no idea what the hell they are talking about.
  • If you’re going to travel anywhere with the family that takes more than 6 hours to drive, I recommend flying, in separate planes.
  • I look goofy with or without the Krispy Kreme hat on that my children direct me to wear, so I wear it. Got a problem with that?
  • I can’t believe I am saying this, but there were times when  I wish I were in my parent’s ’69 Chevrolet station wagon as a kid on vacation than where I was.

There is a saying “I need a vacation from my vacation.”

Amen.

-I.M. Windee

Posted in Ruminations | No Comments »

Observations from a Family Vacation

Tuesday, April 10th, 2012

Family vacations conjure, for those who have endured such and had their sanity live to talk about it, comical scenes of self-inflicted psychological torture like those depicted in National Lampoon’s movie Vacation. In the midst of mine, I cannot say that I saw Christie Brinkley smile and whiz by me in a Ferrari while driving down the Shenandoah Valley, but there were some notable moments on a par (in comedy or insanity) with the movie:

  • Why was it easier to move tens of thousands of allied troops across the English Channel on D-Day than get my family in the car and on the road?
  • No matter what, I’m happier to be here than in my parent’s ’69 Chevrolet station wagon as a kid on vacation.
  • Can we get new suppliers for the restaurants on the Turnpike who seemingly charge multiple times what they charge other restaurants? I don’t enjoy paying $6 for a cheeseburger, no matter how much I like them.
  • Eating a cheeseburger, feigning to listen to the wife, speaking to the kids and driving, all at the same time, is a feat that defies the scientific truism that the human mind can only handle one act at a time.
  • Eating a cheeseburger, feigning to listen to the wife, speaking to the kids and driving, all at the same time, should be illegal and have a minimum jail sentence, regardless of whether or not it has a happy ending.
  • At any given moment, anything, from a billboard to a sneeze to a comment about a seemingly benign subject like the cars on the road or the weather, can trigger a firefight about conflicts past, present or even future.
  • There was a brush-fire on the highway we drove on in the Shenandoah Valley while trekking down. As North-easterners, we saw what was unimaginable: a merge into one lane which people respected a mile before they had to. It was something you would never see in the New York City metropolitan area. Finally, 2 cars came barreling down the empty lane to merge right before they had to at the fire-trucks…..they had New York license plates.
  • No matter what, I’m happier to be here than in my parent’s ’69 Chevrolet station wagon as a kid on vacation (this is not a typo redundant to above; I’m just showing my gratitude).
  • While I realize the church has its hands full with issues like clerical marriage, birth control and the like, altar boys who look like girls (who I saw at Easter Mass today) should be a top church concern. Altar boys should look like boys, period.
  • UPDATE: the parking lot of a church is still one of the most dangerous places in the world immediately after mass is over.
  • Once a year, my family goes all out at an Easter brunch at the Hotel Roanoke in Virginia. It is a celebration of food…..and in my case, gluttony.  This is what I envision heaven to be along with a large-screen TV. playing endless football games and a beer keg that never runs out.
  • I noticed the Easter Bunny at brunch had bourbon on its breath and was going to call him out on it until I realized that it was I who had the bourbon-breath.
  • Watching Bubba Watson hit a great recovery shot during sudden death at the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, Georgia and being cheered by the crowds as a triumphant warrior like Eisenhower, Sherman or Caesar, I realized I had a long way to go in understanding and appreciating golf, and I probably didn’t want to ever get there.

Only half way through this family odyssey, there’s plenty more to see, I’m sure.

-I.M. Windee

Posted in Ruminations | No Comments »

Replacing the “Tyranny of Capitalism” with the Tyranny of Chaos

Wednesday, April 4th, 2012

****************************************

The OWS kids and their ilk want to replace freedom that capitalism offers with their imposed anarchy

****************************************

A few days ago, several hundred people were arrested and many injured in clashes between riot police and anti-capitalism protesters in Germany.

The clashes broke out after the protesters marched on the European Central Bank headquarters to demand an end to capitalism and the dominance of banks. The protesters also denounced the “neo-liberal” crisis management of their country and the wider European Union. They blamed Europe’s capitalist system for the debt crisis in the continent. The protests can be likened to, if not inspired by, New York’s Occupy Wall Street movement, which also has a similar cryptic grasp on reality.

And over on the OWS website, they describe themselves as “a leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions.” They go on to say they “don’t need Wall Street and…don’t need politicians to build a better society.”

For anyone following these kids, it comes as no surprise that they define themselves as what they are not instead of what they are. It reminds of the saying “any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.”

Which brings us to the the inevitable question: what’s your solution? Having followed the OWS movement and spoken with several followers, it would seem that there is none. The movement kind of falls into a line of a 1960s song that says “I’d love to change the world but I don’t know what to do…”

But even more disturbingly than the fact that they do not have any realistic solutions is that they are adamant about moving society away from what they deem as evil: free markets and capitalism. With all due respect to them, they hardly represent 99% of society, as they claim. Yet they are hell-bent about moving what President Nixon called “the silent majority” away from what it wants (free markets) and into some great unknown.

Replacing the alleged tyranny of free markets with the tyranny of chaos is not a noble a cause, as the OWS kids will eventually realize.

-I.M. Windee

Posted in Ruminations | No Comments »

In Search of “Fair Share”

Sunday, April 1st, 2012

************************************

The euphemistic and seemingly divine term “fair share” is not some Bill James nor Albert Einstein calculation; it is the by-product of government spending

************************************

The term “fair share” has become a rallying cry for Liberals when the subject is taxes.

When Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney finally disgorged his 2010 filed tax return and his 2011 estimated return, it showed that he earned $21.7 million in 2010 and an estimated $20.9 million last year. Mr. Romney’s effective tax rates are 13.9% in 2010 and 15.4% in 2011 as a share of adjusted gross income, and 17.6% and 21.2% as a share of taxable income, respectively. By comparison, the average effective middle-class tax rate is 8.2%. Despite having tax rates that are well below the maximum 39.6% rate, Mssr. Romney still pays a lot of taxes—about $3 million in 2010 and a projected $3.2 million in 2011. It’s hard to imagine that he and his family get that much use out of government-provided roads, as they fly 30,000 feet overhead in their jet, along with other benefits provided from the government. In other words, the government is a huge net winner when it comes to the amount of tax receipts it receives from him as compared to what it provides. Perhaps we should be looking at (and attacking) the government’s pricing model as unfair (Attorney General Holder, check in with your Bureau of Consumer Protection).

Still, Mr. Romney, who is often tongue-tied when taken off a script that is predominantly what a great businessman he was and manager he would be in the White House, was unable to adequately defend himself against the predictable rhetorical pistol-whippings he got from the “fair share” mob. In truth, he was trying to argue against a term that has not been defined and is vaporous, at best.

While the term seems like a great idea with the marriage of two words that no one can disagree with, that is on par with other inarguable precepts like the “golden rule,” no fair share proponent has ever explained exactly how one arrives at such number; a Nirvanac tax rate where the entire universe is in balance and justice is served. Is there some IBM super-computer that can calculate “fair share”? Perhaps MIT has a mathematician (IQ of at least 200) who has determined, with metaphysical certitude, the holy grail of taxation equity? Maybe, in a case of life imitating art, there is a government warehouse somewhere that contains the “arc of the tax covenant” which reveals what “fair share” is?

To date, though, I have not heard what the source of this tax wisdom is that those from the MSNBC carnival barkers to Nancy Pelosi to President Obama rely on. So how do they arrive at what “fair share” is for taxing the “rich”?

Quite simply, it is an equation that starts at how much Liberals wish (or are allowed) to have the government spend, less the amount of revenue they can squeeze out of the non-rich (read: middle) class without causing them to suddenly realize the vicissitudes of big government, and the remaining tab that must be picked up is what is consigned to the high-earners as “fair”. Pretty simple, huh?

So why haven’t Liberals (fairly) shared this with us? Because what they espouse as tax-burden equity is anything but fair and doesn’t share in the traditional sense we learned as kids, let alone know as adults (the mature wing, that is).

And recent IRS statistics show that the dreaded “rich” pay the vast bulk of tax revenues into government coffers. According to 2009 data, those in the top 1% of adjusted gross income paid 36.73% of all personal income taxes received by the government; the top 5% paid 58.66%.

So despite Mr. Romney’s seeming unease about his wealth, he would do both the ongoing debate as well the country well by showing that Liberals’ “fair share” is neither: it is merely rhetorical gauze to pay for their big-government spending using the Robin Hood technique.

-I.M. Windee

Posted in Ruminations | No Comments »

Newer Entries »