Thursday, December 16, 2010

Today's Lesson is a Double Issue

The last 24 hours has presented me with ample opportunity for blogging ammo. I have been the victim of three people with no sense of etiquette or personal space.

Bumzo #1. On my plane ride from Dallas to Bham, I had the aisle while Bumzo 1 had the window. Bumzo was late getting on the plane and put his jacket in the overhead bin. After the flight attendants had made their obligatory announcements and had prepared for takeoff. At this moment Bumzo decided that he needed something out of said jacket. Against my better judgement I agreed. Shortly after we stood up, the head flight attendent made the announcement on the PA, "Gentlement, if you will be seated, we can take off." Fool me once....

Bumzo #2 (actually 2a and 2b). Ashleigh and I went to see a classic Christmas movie in an old the old Alabama Theatre. Shortly after we are seated, a couple comes in with drinks in hand. Before the movie started, they were giggling and commenting on everything on the screen. Once the movie started, it became painfully clear that they had never been to a movie before. Ashleigh and I went to stage 3 of movie adgitation (1. Ahemming and turning your head, 2. Head turn and eye roll, 3. Flat out "shooshing".) These folks repeated every funny line (no inside voice, mind you) and carried on their own conversation. Fool me twice....

Bumzo #3. This morning Ashleigh and I went to Rick and Bubba in the Golden Ticket Seats. Bumzo 3 sat next to me on the end of a row. Right away, he proved that he, like Bumzos 2a and 2B, lacked an inside voice. In fact, he also repeated everything he thought was funny. Like Bumzo 1, he had no concept of sharing armrests. Apparently, Diet Coke makes him gassy, because he burped on me repeatedly. His lack of personal space recognition culminated in his leg molesting mine. He sat spread out with his left leg all on my side of my chair. I am practically hugging Ashleigh and his leg is nearly halfway into my chairspace just bouncing away. Fool me three times...I'm out.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Airing of the Grievances

So I haven't posted to my blog in over a year. There are many reasons for this, but they mostly boil down to laziness. If necessity is the mother of invention, then "vehement disagreement" is the mother of blogs. In the past couple of weeks, I have seen many, many things posted as the statuses of friends on facebook that I adamantly disagree with. In leiu of starting a back-and-forth that would have possibly led to who knows what, I am going to air it here.

Today, a friend (with whom I have polar opposite politcal views) posted, "Preserving a tax cut is fiscally the same as paying for an entitlement". While this may be technically true, it doesn't necessarily make it "fiscally responsible". Let's look at the ramifications of both actions.

Scenario: $100M spent on entitlements: Recipients of entitlements take the money that they are given and use it for whatever purpose they chose. In the end, the money will eventually be spent and the revenue from that spending for the government is sales tax. There will be movement of product, but no inherent economical growth.

Scenario: $100M in tax cuts: If recipients are middle income families, we have the same ecnomic growth as money spent on entitlements. If the recipients of the cuts are higher income families, they are likely to be small business owners. In this case a tax cut is the same as a lowered business expense and that lowered business expense allows that money to be used to grow their business. Growth is realized in a couple of ways (lower operating expenses leads to lower prices, which increases demand, which increases workforce needed). --- The end result: tax revenue from product movement, income taxes from new employment, product demand, real economic growth, ad infinitum.

Whew, glad that is off my chest.

I guess this means I'm back on the blogging wagon. Or is it "off" the blogging bandwagon....