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Friday, November 7, 2014

It was bound to happen.







I went fishing a couple of days ago.  Didn't catch squat.  But as I was sitting on that Seawall about five feet above the water a Dolphin, probably six feet long casually swam by, not five feet from me apparently having better luck in that area.  He ( I say he be because that was the vibe I was getting rather than anything noticeable on his anatomy.)   rather ignored me and swam back and forth several times.  I never get tired of watching.  Yeah, that's last years pic above. 

I know Texas needs water.  But two days solid in and out, checking trucks in and out, did I mention in the rain? And the Mud? That never stopped.  For two days...in the rain?  

Cool Website I came across

200 ways to make money online or something like that



On Wednesday Morning being all fired up (Bless my wife for she has allowed me to continue breathing, I drive even myself a little nuts some days.) I sat down and wrote the following:  Angry Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah  Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah.................



Here we go again.  The never ending back and forth political cycle although things have changed,  Some might say for the worst.


Yes I'll admit these past few years I have been an avid liberal, but I am not so naive as to read only what some term the "Liberal Media".  In my many arguments, (arguments that I always won of course with my formerly alive best friend, though likely he would disagree)  Jeff almost always responded to my point that I acquired said information from the aforesaid "Liberal Media"  Therefore the content was untrue or slanted and thus lacked value to back what ever point I was making. A Conservative response I guess to being forced to look at reality.  But to my point, a conservative blogger made some troubling statements recently that try as I might I can't reconcile.  He said that Citizens of (Insert State) were concerned about the real issues of today. These he listed as "Benghazi", efforts to raise the minimum wage and the IRS scandal targeting conservative groups that really aren't supposed to be involved in politics anyway.  But always will be I guess.    With the exception of the minimum wage issue which affects me personally as I watch mine and other young people attempt to escape that trap, the other stuff at the risk of offending, is just the run of the mill every day political porn.It just doesn't ring my buzzer.  So much troubling news happens each day around the world, somebody has to prioritize.


  No my reasons are personal.  It's a world I would rather live in.  See, I wasn't all that political in years past.  It's happenstance that formed my views.  Not just my opinion on various social issues but the quality of my and mine's life.  For instance  my 401 went up twenty percent this past year indexed to the Stock Market which has attained record highs.  I suspect under Republican rule the amount available to me would have been much smaller because of unchecked and hidden fees.  And I pay much less for gasoline than I have in  many years freeing up more discretionary funds there. So I decided to jot down a few more reasons why I am apprehensive about this pendulum swing.


1.  Credit Card reform  For example, I know now that if I am late on a payment now, yeah, they will raise my interest rate but only for 90 days.  And only if I am late on a payment for that card.  Not a competitor.  I know that they are required to provide more transparency in their fees and the statements are required to be much simpler.   They are not allowed to hold my payment in order to deliberately extract a late payment, nor mix up the due dates. I no longer will get charged 50.00 to make a payment over the phone in order avoid the late fee and hit to my credit.  In one instance that occurred in about 2007 while attempting to cancel a credit card a foreign representative  midway in my contentious conversation blew an AIR HORN into the phone.  And then denied that he had done so, demonstrated to me the complete contempt the Banks had of me.  Lawfully stealing whatever they wanted from me with no consequence whatsoever.  


2.  Obamacare.  Yeah I see the stuff pasted all over FB about the raising rates which always accompanies a pic of usually a young man, or a young family.  Head down.  The wording at the bottom of the page that they have lost all hope.  Yeah umm.  It's crap.  I worked and paid for insurance for my entire family my whole life.  When I hit my fifties and retired, my accumulated sick leave went to COBRA.  $500 plus a month for two years for what amounted to catastrophic health insurance.  No co pays, discounted scrips.  Nada.  Yeah some, a small percentage lost their insurance because it didn't rise to the legal standard.  But at my age to purchase any kind of insurance would have cost in excess of a thousand bucks a month before ACA.  If I could have gotten it at all with the few prior pre existing conditions I had.  Had I purchased the insurance and gotten sick, well the insurance company could then hire a private investigator to extensively research my background in order to determine if I had misrepresented a condition on my app.  Then cancel me without paying a dime.  Preferable I'm sure for the insurance companies to go that route than heavens, pay a claim..  The insurance we have now is not great but comes in around two hundred a month.  And has many more bennies than what I had for $500.  I'm not bound, as so many my age are to work for instance retail in order to have some access to health care through an employer until Medicare age.    That is if you make it.


Just to make a point on this.   An associate roughly my age refused to purchase insurance because he was not eligible for any subsidies having made so much the year before.  A little under eighty thousand with no dependants  He balked at paying somewhere in the area of 500.  Funny how the times change.  The bigger crime in this minimum age world are the states (those with the highest population of minimum wage earners) refusing Medicare expansion.  Denying those who didn't make enough to qualify for ACA any insurance whatsoever.


3.  Many know I was a Parole Officer for many years.  Time and time again young men and occasionally women migrated into the system as a result of behavior issues resulting from Combat.  Substance abuse PTSD whatever.  The country pretty much learning nothing from the information that so many of the old homeless were veterans of wars.  These kids, kids who probably would have had productive normal lives now struggled.  Their futures bleak and relying on everchanging "adjustments" to their medications to offset the voices, nightmares whatever it was they brought back.  Wounded warriors of a false war created by people mostly for personal glory and profit.  Though there exists instability in the Middle East created by us, the wars are for the most part over with the Troops being pulled out.  I am confident under a Republican Administration this would not have happened.  Just never ending wars and endless messed up kids.


4.  Though I never have personally, because of the last Republican Administration I know that declaring Bankruptcy is extremely difficult.  I know that credit card companies wrote the law to benefit themselves and that credit card debt enjoys a higher priority than say other debts such as housing.  That many people who previously could discharge medical debt, wind up putting that debt on credit cards and thus can never discharge that debt.  Thats unfair.


5.  The fact under Republicans, private Banks handled and profitted immensely from handling student loans.  Collecting interest on taxpayer money to a vulnerable population indentured forever to pay back that loan that can never be discharged.  Forever screwing kids just trying to get a leg up. Blah blah blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah and Screw it Blahhhh


Midway through it finally dawned on me, well this is kind of stupid. The people have spoken. The count is all but over and this is how it fleshed out.   So, the other side now has a chance to govern.  But today, gas is cheap.  The stock market is at an all time high.  The minimum wage is trending up and a whole lot more folks have health insurance. Prison populations are shrinking and there is some indication the war on drugs is coming to a close.  Is this enough?  Not by a long shot.  So the new/old guys have another shot.  See where it goes.   Me.  Well, work hard play hard I always say.  Oh, and watch Alpha House "and the closest thing to the real thing, "The Walking Dead"


Cool stolen quote of the day

“If your beliefs don’t fit with the facts, then just pound the hell out of the facts until they do.” “ by Michael Palmer


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