Like hundreds of millions of folks in the country, I watched with hope and awe the inauguration a few weeks ago. It was one of those times when I really truly thought an era was ending, we had collectively pulled our heads out of…wherever…and were finally going to change course and fix what is so clearly broken in our economy.

This, after the ‘great bailout’ which (no surprises) turned out to be the great big Christmas bonus from us taxpayers to fatcat bankers and Wall Street bigwigs via their Republican buddies. You know, the guys who then took those ‘critically needed to save us’ trillions of dollars, then managed both to layoff thousands AND still give themselves ‘great job’ bonuses and continue fueling their private jets and ‘team building’ exercises in the Bahamas using our tax dollars.

I figured (hoped) that those payoffs/paybacks/lovely party gifts were the last gasp of a 30 year failed economic theory that if you cut taxes at the top, it spurs investment and that if you regulate less, the market takes care of everything. We can all see how that one turned out, right? (Lots of investment dollars channeled into suspect mortgage schemes and more and more Ponzis that then begat more and more suspect mortgage schemes and more and more Ponzis meanwhile real jobs eroding and pop! goes the economy).

Then we’ve had a succession of black Mondays, as they’re being called, as more and more employers ’shed’ jobs (like a dog sheds old fur? These are PEOPLE, not things to be ’shed’) and more and more people sink into unemployment and debt and despair and desperation.

Then comes Mr. Obama and his idea to take those dollars previously directed to fund private jet fuel and Bahamas massages and $30 Million bonuses for running us into the ground and use it to, well, fix our aging creaking water systems, our bridges that are falling down (remember Minn 35W?), and our schools that house our future and are becoming dangerously outdated. Sounds good to me. At least I get a better water system, safe bridges and good school facilities out of it. Maybe even some more energy independence. Under the previous plan, I got to read about how great it was to steal us all blind AND still maintain my standard of living AND get great bonuses for doing so.

So, OK. Obama makes a critical mistake though: He thinks that good ideas should be acknowledged, especially when so many of you have royally blown it (and don’t even pretend to be surprised that this happened since we all know you very well saw it a looong time ago and ignored it because it was making you rich as Rome was burning).

Imagine my surprise to read though that some are either more delusional than I thought OR they really don’t give a crap about the rest of us and are just looking for any way to derail their ‘opposition’ just for spite or because they want a return to the days when they’re lining their pockets with our tax dollars while we drown.

Because Republicans are now looking to ‘trim’ the rescue package, take tax dollars out of infrastructure spending (stuff we really need) in favor of tax cuts designed to ’stimulate spending’ – give us our tax dollars back to spend any way we like. Um, if we don’t have jobs, and don’t even have the prospect of getting jobs, we don’t pay income tax and we don’t get any tax dollars to spend, geniuses. What dollars we do get we’re saving like newly evangelized recovering grasshoppers who’ve just realized the storm is coming and we’re not ready.

Companies who make stuff for us to buy with our newly-freed-non-existent tax dollars aren’t investing either because, well, nobody’s buying their stuff (because we either don’t have income, are getting our income cut, or are terrified we’ll lose our income and are now socking away every extra dime). So, not much room for investment when you don’t have customers.

See, before any tax cuts ’stimulate’ anything there have to be tax dollars generated, and without jobs, people don’t pay so much in taxes. So what you’re really doing here is ‘rescuing’ all those who would still pay taxes even without jobs -those with trust funds, massive investments, large pots of money. You know, the ones who don’t actually work and are having to downsize from their Bentley to their Benz but will never lose their house or their family or worry about feeding their kids. Yeah, they’re the ones who really need help. Truly.

So, my advice for Mr. Obama? Quit looking to make peace in the sandbox. Don’t look to create ‘bipartisanship’ with those who clearly are not interested at all in the ‘common good’ unless the ‘common good’ is only the top 5% of earners. These are the folks who think (truly) that another Great Depression would be ‘good’ for us as it would allow the market to ‘fix’ itself and rid ourselves of all this unnecessary spending and teach us all a ‘lesson’ in how to be self-reliant and strong. End the welfare state! Let them all starve and let only the strong (rich) survive. That’s the right stuff! It’s time for us all to say no more, folks. It just doesn’t work and what you’re proposing is not going to fly.

Enough, already.

Sad that an independent gourp has to come out with this, but hey, it’s out!

December 19, 2008
Editorial
Survival Guide for Veterans

Far too often, military veterans find themselves desperately short of the information they need as they make the torturous quest for benefits within one of this country’s most daunting bureaucracies, the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Officials say help is on the way, but administrators are forever promising to streamline procedures for an era of conquered paperwork that never seems to come. That is why it is heartening to see that one promising form of help has indeed arrived: a 599-page guide to veterans’ issues, from educational help to vocational rehabilitation, from housing to citizenship.

It’s called “The American Veterans’ and Servicemembers’ Survival Guide,” and it comes, unsurprisingly, from outside the system. It is a publication of the nonprofit advocacy group Veterans for America, available as a free download at veteransforamerica.org.

This electronic book is a descendant of “The Viet Vet Survival Guide,” which was published a decade after the end of that conflict — when veterans were still being routinely and shamefully denied their rights. The new book was written by veterans and lawyers for a new generation of soldiers with old problems, like post-traumatic stress, and new ones like traumatic brain injury, the brutal legacy of Iraq’s and Afghanistan’s roadside bombs.

The authors caution that while the guide will help a veteran understand what’s going on, it is not a substitute for a good lawyer or other advocate. And it isn’t the only source of information: The government, too, has vast Web sites explaining things — for example, how officers help veterans through the disability evaluation system. (In military acronyms, it’s how the Physical Evaluation Board Liaison Officer, or Peblo, helps with the D.E.S.)

The “Survival Guide” does this, too, but with a difference: It also warns veterans to “pay careful attention to what you say to your Peblo,” because the Peblo is not required to act in their best interests the way an attorney is, and things told to a Peblo are not necessarily confidential.

No book will ever defeat a bureaucracy this large, but a book can help people to subdue it. Veterans and their families often praise the dedication of health-care providers, but at the same time express utter frustration over incomprehensible thickets of rules and the glacial pace at which benefits and appeals are decided.

Unless and until the government significantly improves its treatment of veterans — and our hopes are high for progress under Gen. Eric Shinseki, President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee to run Veterans Affairs — they will have to keep looking to one another for help, as they always have. This veterans’ guide looks like a powerful updating of that old tradition.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Dear Wounded Vet,

Thank you for fighting for us in our ‘war on terror’. Thank you for sacrificing your time, your family, your health and your freedom so that we may enjoy ours.

Now we’re not going to give you a job, we’re going to fire your spouse for being with you while you’re wounded, we’re going to reposess your house and we’re not going to pay you anything for a really long time (if ever) for the injuries – physical and mental – you sustained for us.

When you complain, we’ll remind you that you ‘volunteered’ and that this was what you signed up for and besides, you’re probably faking your injury/illness so you can ‘live off the Government”.

By the way, those of us who made like $400 Million a year to run the economy into the ground, making things worse for you, get to keep all their money and don’t go to jail.

Love,

A Grateful Nation (not really).

Honestly, we should be ashamed….

November 18, 2008

New Veterans Hit Hard by Economic Crisis

By LIZETTE ALVAREZ

After a mortar sent Andrew Spurlock hurtling off a roof in Iraq, ending his Army career in 2006, the seasoned infantryman set aside bitterness over his back injury and began to chart his life in storybook fashion: a new house, a job as a police officer and more children.

“We had a budget and a plan,” said Mr. Spurlock, 29, a father of three, who with his wife, Michelle, hoped to avoid the pitfalls of his transition from Ramadi, Iraq, to Apopka, Fla.

But the move proved treacherous, as it often does for veterans. The job with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office fell through after officials there told Mr. Spurlock that he needed to “decompress” after two combat tours, a judgment that took him by surprise. Scrambling, he settled for a job delivering pizzas.

Mr. Spurlock’s disability claim for his back injury took 18 months to process, a year longer than expected. With little choice, the couple began putting mortgage payments on credit cards. The family debt climbed to $60,000, a chunk of it for medical bills, including for his wife and child. Foreclosure seemed certain.

While few Americans are sheltered from the jolt of the recent economic crisis, the nation’s newest veterans, particularly the wounded, are being hit especially hard. The triple-whammy of injury, unemployment and waiting for disability claims to be processed has forced many veterans into foreclosure, or sent them teetering on its edge, according to veterans’ organizations.

The problem is hard to quantify because there are no foreclosure statistics singling out veterans and service members. Congress recently asked the Veterans Affairs Department to find out how badly veterans were being affected, particularly by foreclosures. The Army, too, began tracking requests for help on foreclosure issues for the first time. Service organizations report that requests for help from military personnel and new veterans, especially those who were wounded, mentally or physically, and are struggling to keep their houses and pay their bills, has jumped sharply.

“The demand curve has gone almost straight up this year,” said Bill Nelson, executive director for USA Cares, a nonprofit group that provides financial help to members of the military and to veterans. Housing, Mr. Nelson said, “is the biggest driver in the last 12 months.”

Congress has recently taken small steps to help, banning lenders from foreclosing on military personnel for nine months after their return from overseas, up from three months, and ensuring that interest rates on their loans remain stable for a year. Another relief bill to prevent certain injured veterans from losing their homes while they wait for their disability money was signed into law in October. The protection is good for one year.

“We owe these men and women more than a pat on the back,” said Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, who introduced one of the bills.

But the short-term measures do little to address the underlying economic difficulties that new veterans face, beginning with the job hunt. Veterans, particularly those in their 20s, have faced higher unemployment rates in recent years than those who never served in the military, though the gap has shrunk as the economy has worsened. (Veterans traditionally have lower unemployment rates than nonveterans.)

Recently discharged veterans, though, fared worst of all. A 2007 survey for the Veterans Affairs Department of 1,941 combat veterans who left the military mostly in 2005 showed nearly 18 percent were unemployed as of last year. The average national jobless rate in October was 6.5 percent.

A quarter of those who found jobs failed to make a living wage, earning less than $21,840 a year.

“You fill out a job application and you can’t write ‘long-range reconnaissance and sniper skills,’ ” said Mr. Spurlock, who searched a year for a better-paying job than delivering pizza, finally finding one as a construction supervisor.

The situation is especially troubling for the injured, whose financial problems begin almost immediately.

“The wife drops everything to be by his bedside,” said Meredith Leyva, founder of Operation Homefront, a nonprofit group that provides emergency money and aid to 33,000 military families a year, including the Spurlocks. “She stays at the nearest hotel to make sure he is alive. They live that way for months. She either has to quit her job or she is fired. This bankrupts people.”

Some injured veterans cannot work at all and must rely on disability checks and other government payouts. The wait for a disability check from the Veterans Affairs Department averaged six months in August, enough to financially crush some families.

Those who can work struggle to find employers willing to accommodate their injuries, including mental health problems. The Labor Department recently started a Web site, America’s Heroes at Work, that prods employers into hiring more wounded veterans and explains that post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury are manageable conditions and not necessarily long-term.

Some believe that the government has to do more.

“There have to be incentives for employers,” said Thomas L. Wilkerson, a retired Marine Corps general who is chief executive of the Naval Institute, an independent nonprofit group.

Active duty troops who switch installations also find themselves struggling. Many of those forced to sell their homes this year are finding a scarcity of buyers, or even renters, particularly in states hit hard by the mortgage crisis. Military spouses must choose between taking a loss on their homes or riding out the housing slowdown and facing another separation from their loved one.

Although the government offers safeguards for some federal employees in similar circumstances, it will not help service members make up the difference if they are forced to sell a home at a loss.

What is worse, foreclosure or excessive debt can damage a service member’s career by leading to discharge, the loss of security clearances or, in extreme cases, jail.

A 2007 California task force reported that in the Navy, the number of security clearances revoked because of debt increased to 1,999 in 2005, from 124 in 2000.

“It’s the crash in the market,” said Joe Gladden, managing partner of Veteran Realty Service America’s Military, who sees families in extremis out of Northern Virginia. “It’s not that they have made stupid decisions.”

Mr. Gladden said e-mail messages and phone calls to his office had become so routine that he encouraged military families to share their stories anonymously on his company Web site, vrsam.com.

“I am about sick over this situation,” one woman wrote. “Our two young boys have to go without seeing Daddy until we can sell our house. Not only that, but we face the possibility of Daddy deploying to Iraq again. Shouldn’t we be able to spend as much time together until that happens?”

For the Hatchers, the financial decline began after Roger, a Navy reservist and father of four, returned from his first tour of duty in Iraq. When he got back to Ventura, Calif., in 2004, his job as a groundskeeper for a school district was gone. He was offered a custodial job for less pay. Mr. Hatcher decided to find another job. He looked for several months, then was redeployed to Iraq. By then, the family had moved to Bakersfield, to a cheaper house near relatives.

His second tour was tougher. Iraq had grown more violent, and in late 2006, Mr. Hatcher was blown out of a Humvee after it hit a roadside bomb. The blast injured his shoulder, arm and neck. Back home, Mr. Hatcher, 49, fell prey to nightmares and rages. He drank heavily, said Tami, his wife of two decades. The pain in his shoulder never let up.

It took Mr. Hatcher eight months to find a job, and the family fell behind on their house payments. A disability claim filed in 2007 was still pending in August, Mrs. Hatcher said.

Mr. Hatcher wound up hospitalized for post-traumatic stress disorder three times. “We noticed there was a change after the first tour, but not as drastic as this time,” Mrs. Hatcher said. “The person comes back a different person, and then you have financial issues on top of it.”

His new employer, a construction company, welcomed him back after each medical absence. Still, weeks off the job meant weeks without pay.

Meanwhile, the mortgage company ratcheted up the pressure. Feeling cornered, the Hatchers signed a forbearance agreement, which significantly increased their monthly payment. “They knew about my husband’s situation,” Mrs. Hatcher said of the mortgage company. “They wouldn’t work with us.”

The Hatchers borrowed from friends and relatives but still came up short. Then two nonprofit groups stepped in to help. One of them, Operation Homefront, negotiated with the lender to keep them in their house.

Mrs. Hatcher, a purchasing agent, tried her best to shield her husband from their financial troubles. “It’s putting a big strain on me,” she admitted. “But only one of us can lose it at a time right now, and it’s his turn.”

The Spurlocks, back in Florida, were not so lucky. Operation Homefront managed to stop foreclosure proceedings, but the couple had to agree to a deed in lieu, turning over their house to the bank. Their debt was forgiven.

The family moved into a rental house and whittled down its credit card debt to $26,000.

“It feels impossible right now to pay off our bills,” said Michelle Spurlock, 28, her voice breaking. “I had to get my mom to bring diapers over. We couldn’t go grocery shopping. As soon as we turn a corner, it’s something else.”

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

That’s what Philadelphia Inquirer columnist and blogger Dick Polman wrote this week, himself channeling sportswriter Red Smith (writing about an improbable baseball climax).  Yep, that about sums it up.   In a way, every presidential election is historic.  This one, though, is special not just for the ethnicity and personal histories of the candidates (first former POW, first bi-racial American).  It is special because it shows we’ve finally woken up from our daydreamed collective fears of imagined boogeymen destroying ‘the American way of life’ and realized that while we were sleeping, that’s exactly what the tale-spinners who enchanted us with these stories were doing all along.  While they were scaring us with stories of terrorists and gays and the Godless and the immoral they themselves were robbing us blind, proof once again that greed is the worst sin of all.

So now we’ve got hope, and boy does that feel good.

Some reality:

We will not be able to exit Iraq and Afghanistan for some time.  Why?  Because a significant portion of our nation’s income is made in defense.  Like it or not, we are a Warrior Nation.  Don’t believe me?  Watch the movie Why We Fight.

Deficits are going to get bigger.  And, really, given the state of the mess we’re in, they are the least of our worries.   Balanced budgets are for future administrations, ones who have a more stable economy not so highly dependent on consumer spending without supporting industry to pay those consumers living wages.

See, that’s the thing we deluded ourselves into thinking we could get away with – more spending without more income.  Spending without industry. We exported our earning power while keeping our spending power, creating basically a large house of cards (no pun intended).  Now, once again, we know that’s not sustainable nor is it desirable.

Lastly, we won’t see wholesale changes in our healthcare system for some time.  Again, this is a significant source of employment for our country.  What I hope we’ll see is improvement in the insurance rating systems to improve the insurability of many – something modeled on community rating where all employers in an area can secure insurance at the same rates regardless of their individual group experience.  This allows better access with fewer cost barriers for those who are the sickest.

Oh yeah, and those Bush Tax cuts due to end in 2010?  I’d be surprised if they’re not repealed in 2009.

Hope.

What I hope is that we’ll use this time to develop a more progressive tax system that ensures that those who benefit the most pay in the most, fueling this democratic society properly.

I hope that we’ll turn our attention back to creating and sustaining real industry, rather than exporting industry and importing debt.  Perhaps built on sustainable, domestic energy rather than petroleum?  That alone guarantees our freedom and creates employment infrastructure more than any oil drilling can.

Lastly I hope the boogeymen are finally vanquished to their closets for a while. These are serious times and they demand serious people with serious solutions.   Let’s hope that the purveyors of these scary fairy tales of gay terrorist atheists who hate NASCAR’s 15 minutes are up.

Hope.  What a wonderful feeling.

It’s amazing how quickly a good idea spreads, isn’t it?  Take the We Deserve it Dividend.  What started as a simple post somewhere has spread quite far.  Far enough of course that some have decided to nit-pick the concept – for instance revealing the mathematical error in the OP’s calculations that mean there would be a lot less going to each individual.  OK, but that’s not the point.

See, the problem with the whole bailouts and loans scheme cooked up by the Treasury is that pretty much no one has any idea how the deals proposed would address the problems at hand: namely the fact that the economy’s in the crapper, people are losing their jobs left and right, and now, just for special fun, they’re also losing their houses and even people who didn’t jump on the Happy Free Money Bandwagon are screwed (yes, Virginia, we really are a community and we are all affected at times by the actions of a few).

Unfortunately, they’re not, and of course we’ve been lied to yet again about not only that but how the loans we’re making are actually being used.  For instance, the NY Times did an article on what AIG has done with the $123 Billion they were loaned:

A.I.G. has declined to provide a detailed account of how it has used the Fed’s money. The company said it could not provide more information ahead of its quarterly report, expected next week, the first under new management. The Fed releases a weekly figure, most recently showing that $90 billion of the $123 billion available has been drawn down.

…

Of the two big Fed loans, the smaller one, the $38 billion supplementary lending facility, was extended solely to prevent further losses in the securities-lending business. So far, $18 billion has been drawn down for that purpose.

…

An estimated $13 billion of the money was needed to make good on investment accounts that A.I.G. typically offered to municipalities, called guaranteed investment contracts, or G.I.C.’s.

…

For $59 billion of the $72 billion A.I.G. has used, the company has provided no breakdown. A block of it has been used for day-to-day operations, a broad category that raises eyebrows since the company has been tarnished by reports of expensive trips and bonuses for executives.

Why should we care?  Because it’s our money that’s being loaned.  It’s not only ours, it’s the money of our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren.  We have the right, in fact the obligation, to ensure that the debt we’re incurring is used as we intended it – not so that banks can buy other banks and make more money for themselves (without loaning a dime to anyone or re-negotiating even one mortgage) or so that Executives receive their good-job performance Bonuses that they don’t deserve.

Goldman Sachs, which is getting $10 billion US from Washington’s stunning $850-billion rescue plan to help prop up the battered financial system, is to pay out $6.85 billion in bonuses, according to media reports.

That’s $210,000 per employee. And that’s despite a 47% drop in its profit and 53% drop in its share price.

Goldman Sachs, by the way, also prospers from Washington’s $85 billion rescue of AIG, the world’s largest insurer — since it would lose up to $20 billion if AIG failed.

…

Morgan Stanley, which is also getting $10 billion from government, is doling out $6.44 billion in bonuses or $138,700 per employee, even though its profits tumbled 41% and its shares are off by 69%. And Merrill Lynch, which the Federal Reserve forced to merge with Bank of America, is paying out $6.7 billion.

Even employees at bankrupt Lehman Brothers are getting bonuses. And employees at Bear Stearns, which was bought by JP Morgan Chase after the Federal Reserve loaned it $29 billion, employees already got bonuses, according to reports.

How is it that the guys who created this mess get to use our tax dollars to give themselves bonuses for good performance?  Is it just me or is that insane?  That the White House is defending all this is just disgusting.  Clearly, they’re missing the real point:  We’d like for that huge debt to mean that things get better for us, not the White Collar Gangsters on Welfare.

Here IS the point:  How about putting that money where it really will make a difference?   Give it to every Citizen Taxpayer directly.   I think we’d all do better than these guys.  We could not do much worse.

Overall, I’m a Daily Show fan more than SNL but this one had me laughing so hard I cried. Enjoy.

One of the things I’ve been doing over the past couple of weeks was talking with others about this whole bailout. Talking with the young man driving the hotel shuttle in Charlottesville VA. Talking with my seat mate on a train. Talking with waiters and campaign workers and colleagues and telephone customer service folks and friends and my doctor and the grocery store clerk. My principal question: What the heck are they going to use our $700 billion for and how will that fix the mess we’re in?

The answers I got:

Somehow pay off people’s mortgages so they can keep their houses (no one was really clear on how this would work or who would benefit)

Buy the mortgage loans and keep collecting them

Buy the foreclosed houses from the market

Let people refinance their bad loans through the Government

Give banks money they can lend out to people and businesses

Not one person could describe how any of that above would fix the economy, and nobody was really sure of any of what they said above. Almost universally, the answers started with “I don’t really know, but I think…” We’re talking about $700 Billion (or, in other terms, 75% of the gross national product of Mexico) of our tax dollars, and we couldn’t say how this would work to help us get out of this Second Great Depression. Do you smell a rat too?

Guess what? None of us were right. We’re now starting to see how this great Bailout (which our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren) will save us:

Banks will use the money to buy other banks whom the Treasury believes are ‘weaker’, using Bailout dollars and getting special tax breaks (meaning paying less in taxes) on top of that. Stronger banks will get stronger, and weaker banks will get absorbed, and all at our Federal Government’s behest and direction.

Who says Republicans can’t be Socialists? (Not to mention hypocrites – progressive tax plans are Socialist but direct ownership and control of our banking system is not. Amazing.)

Now, notice, there’s not a word in there that talks about loans – in fact, what’s coming out that despite telling Congress that they’re insisting that banks use the money to make loans, they’re essentially asking really really nicely with sugar on top and hoping that this is what banks will do. These same banks who lied about so much, who cheated and stole, are being asked rather than told what to do with our taxpayer dollars that they insisted they needed to fix things, and then turning around and enriching themselves even further at our now very direct and very equally distributed expense. In other words, they’re still lying, cheating, greedy bastards. Heck, there’s even more of them begging for our money so they can remain, well, rich. White Collar Gangsters on Welfare.

I say we repeal that law that gives Treasury the $700 Billion, recoup the money given out already, and have Really Smart People who don’t have an interest in their post-election private sector big money jobs develop a bailout that really works

Something like the We Deserve it Dividend. Now, when I outlined that fabulous We Deserve it Dividend program (which can be accomplished for a fraction of the Fatcat Bailout), there was also not one person who could not describe exactly how they would use their dividend, and relate how that would help solve the economic conditions for which the ‘bailout’ was designed. People would pay off their mortgages, pay off their cars, buy a new car, invest, put the money in the bank, save for kids’ college, do home improvements, buy a condo or house (if they didn’t own one) and near the very bottom of the list they would take a small vacation. All of these things would fix problems – of debt, infusing capital, distributing wealth, helping businesses survive. What a great idea! Much better than the “We-have-no-idea-how-this-works-bailout”, don’t you think?

Or, and maybe alongside the Dividend, something like Paul Krugman’s idea of taking those dollars (he didn’t say these specifically) and getting people to work fixing our crumbling bridges and roads, infusing dollars into our National Parks and schools and public transportation and developing new industries so we don’t make money only lending to each other so we can buy big screen TVs. Something not totally unlike FDR’s WPA and Civilian Conservation Corps. Both programs worked – giving people jobs, building infrastructure we still use today (many of our National Park buildings were CCC projects). Many regard the programs as lifesavers and sources of great hopes during our First Great Depression.

What is it they say? Those who don’t remember history are condemned to repeat it? Yep. I’d rather say “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

Today is Blog Action Day, and the topic this year is Poverty.  Good timing, eh?  I was originally going to blog about our Military and how so many of our soldiers & sailors resort to food stamps to feed their families.  How a disproportionate number of our ‘volunteer’ service members come from the very poorest families, and how so many of our injured disabled live in poverty despite their service and so many veterans end up homeless.

Then the house of cards fell down.

Then I thought about writing on how even when our 401(K) is now a 101(K) that we’re still way better off than a gizillion people out there and how we should be happy we have running water (a take on my mother’s “Eat your food.  There are starving children in Africa” approach).   That didn’t impact me much though and frankly, after weeks of doom and gloom I’m really just worn out.

Then I thought of this:  When life gives you lemons, break out the tequila and lime juice and call me over.  We may not be able to control much the basket we’re in or where it’s going, but we can control our outlook on life.

Thanks to inspiration from  Gretchen Rubin, here are some of my ideas on ways to make yourself happier.

1. Clean up something. Your yard, your house, your car. If you’re one of those people who are compulsively clean in your personal life, go walk along the beach, in the park, someplace beautiful with a trash bag and pick up garbage.  There’s something catharitic about cleaning up when you find yourself in a mess.

2. Take your clothes that no longer fit or you will never wear, the toys that are no longer played with, the gadgets that may never have been used.  Gather them up.  Donate them. Freecycle them. Have a Really Cheap Garage Sale.   It’s really refreshing to see someone happy to have those things that you dread looking at when you open your closet door.

3. Donate blood. Sign up to be a Bone Marrow Donor.  Be an Organ Donor.  Those really small things you do that take almost  no time may mean the world to someone else you don’t even know.

4. Instead of dining out with friends, have a comfort food themed potluck.  There’s nothing like comfort food, and there’s nothing like friends.   I’ve eaten the very best mac n cheese ever courtesy of a friend.

5. Go visit your grandparents. If you don’t have them any more, go visit somebody else’s. Spend 1/2 hour visiting someone who would love nothing more than time with you.   The gratitude and joy you’ll experience and return are amazing.

Yeah, I realize, most of this involves giving.  And y’all might be thinking “How can I be asked to give when I’ve lost so much?”  Yanno, it’s a funny thing. Hallmark got it right: It really does feel better to give than to receive.   And that in every big ole black cloud, there really are threads of silver.  Go find them!

1. Both ask for our (blind) faith and complete trust in them.

2. Both ask us to sacrifice and look at things over the long-haul.

3. Both have promised us salvation and future riches.

4. Both will rise again some day. Whether we’re around when that happens is another story.

LOL.

Probably one of the most interesting side-show phenomenon of this whole Economic Meltdown Mess is the intense scrambling by many to pin the blame on somebody else (particularly someone who is on the ‘other side’). Depending on whom you hear from it’s the fault of:

1. President George W. Bush

2. Former President Bill Clinton

3. Wall Street Brokers

4. Alan Greenspan/Henry Brennacke/Henry Paulson

5. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

6. Congress

7. Banks

8. Countrywide

9. People who borrowed more than they can afford

10. Real Estate Marketers

11. Liberals

12. Conservatives

and so on…

What’s interesting is that there is no one smoking gun – no Ken Lay for Enron as the Bad Guy, no Michael Milikin for Junk Bonds, no Osama Bin Laden for 9/11 or Saddam Hussein for WMDs. No one whom everyone can drag out into the Village Square and throw tomatoes at because ITS THEIR FAULT WE’RE IN THIS MESS.

This would be especially convenient for those who are running for office, as having a scapegoat would conveniently absolve them of any responsibility.

The truth here is that we are all responsible -

from the person who borrowed way more than they knew somewhere in their heart they could not afford but did so because the bank said it was OK to the bank who lent that person money even though they knew in their heart that this loan would not be paid out because hey the computer models said it was OK and besides prices are going up up up

to the reseller who bundled loans and labeled them improperly even though they knew in their hearts that this was not good because hey, history says that most of these loans won’t go bad to the rating entity who labeled these loans without thoroughly checking them to the purchaser who knew in their hearts these were too complex to verify but did so because they didn’t want to be ‘left behind’

to the Wall street Broker who sold these bundles knowing in their heart they were not as good as they were purported to be to the investor who knew in their hearts that the market was way, way, overheated and based on no real wage growth but bought these securities anyway because they couldn’t resist the profits and hey Moodys said it was OK

to Congress and the President who knew in their hearts that this market buildup was not based on real sustainable growth but allowed it anyway, even to the point that they pressured lenders and purchasers of mortgages (that would be the Banks and Fannie/Freddie) to make those loans and buy them to sustain this ‘growth’ because they and their rich constituents were making money and they desperately did not want the house of cards to fall ‘on their watch’ and because ideologically they believed that more regulation was bad and the market corrects itself always.

The truth is we are all to blame, even those who did not gorge themselves on the feast, because we are all part of the system that created this. Failure to act does not absolve oneself of responsibility to act.

You see, we really can’t say we didn’t know what was going on. At least five years ago we knew, in our hearts, that something was wrong with our economy. When banks offered us loans without reason or rationality. When housing prices when insane. When our paychecks stopped getting bigger but we could still ‘afford’ so much thanks to mortgages and equity loans and credit cards.

The truth is that the “average” American trusted our leadership, the Really Smart People Whom We Elected, to take care of us, to protect us, and to help us live better lives. After all, they saved us in the Great Depression, right? They know best so we should let them Do Their Jobs.

Those Really Smart People Whom We Elected took that trust in their large, comforting hands, wrapped it in the American Flag and the rhetoric of good times, God, the American Dream and Patriotism, and then they promptly screwed us all.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.