Scary!

So what’s wrong with getting rid of the tax favors for the very rich? Those cuts were put through by President Bush’s sympathetic Congress. President Obama doesn’t have a sympathetic Congress to answer his call to end them. In 2010, we elected a Congress that now talks about shutting down the government rather than end the tax cuts for the rich. Scary.

Congress okayed the tax cuts at the same time we were jumping into two expensive wars waged on borrowed money. (Personally, I thought that was pretty scary at the time.) Keeping those tax cuts (subsidies for corporate jets and the oil industry, for example) doesn’t make sense to me. But, then, I don’t have a corporate jet and I’m not raking in Exxon’s record-setting oil profits. Bet that goes for you, too.

The Republicans say they want more tax cuts. From what I hear, they lean toward financing those cuts at the expense of Social Security and Medicare. Scary. I’d like to know more details on what other expenses they want to chop in order to finance tax cuts and to pay off our national debt. They seem to favor cutting wages, pensions, and contracts, all measures that would hurt the average guy.

If they fire the air traffic controllers, I’m keeping my feet on the ground from now on. It’s scary enough down here just to observe Congress.

Solving the Greek crisis

The Greeks, too, have been spending beyond their means. The Greek government is talking of selling off its state-owned railroad system and electrical system. I think it would be smarter to lease out the Parthenon. They could call it the Acropolis Mall. It would have lots of shops and fast-food places and provide a tidy income for the government. The building is about 2,500 years old. They should think like capitalists and put it to use.

Makes sense, #1

A friend’s husband works as a service technician for a large exterminating company.  One of the rules of the company is to confirm each appointment by phoning the household the night before his service call.

“Hi, this is Gary from A to Z Pest Control Company. Your wife phoned us,” he said one evening when a man answered.

There was a long silence, and then my friend’s husband heard the man on the other end say, “Honey, it’s for you. Someone wants to talk to you about your relatives.”

Makes sense, #2

A teacher was giving a lesson on the circulation of the blood. Trying to make the matter clear, he said, “Students, if I stood on my head, the blood, as you know, would run into it and I’d turn red in the face. So why, when I’m standing upright in the ordinary position, the blood doesn’t run into my feet?”

Muttered a bored student, audibly: “It’s because your feet aren’t empty.”

Makes sense, #3

It takes brains to run a bank. That’s why bankers leave both doors to the vault open and tchain the pens to the counters.