IN LESS THAN SIX MONTHS, YOU'LL THANK ME FOR TELLING YOU THIS

A lot of sick shit going on in this country nowadays.

People who try to maintain an honest living are now relying on charity food closets because their paycheck isn’t keeping up with the rising food prices (not to mention the rising cost of fuel to get them TO and FROM their jobs.) Of course, that’s if they have jobs. Those are drying up faster than the price inflated fruit and vegetables on the supermarket counter.

And in the meantime, the stock market continues to bounce on back. (Oh, joy! That must be great news for those who are cashing out their 401K early to keep up with the house payments!) And meanwhile, Uncle Ben and the Fed are supposedly planning to lower their main interest rate again (and for those of you keeping score, that will be the seventh time Bernanke's Fed has cut the rate since September of 2007.) Because of this narrow gain in the marketplace, the pundits of CNBC, Motley Fool, et al, are pooh-poohing the supposedly silly naysayers who are, in the opinion of these Wall Street apologists’ (horse blinder-aided) view of the real world, making a big deal out of nothing! The economy is fine, in their high and mighty anointed estimation! Just stick it out and everything will be just tits!

Oh, Wall Street, just fuck off and die already! This could end up being even worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s because there is actually more bailout opportunities for Big Business thanks to the whore-on-call rescue tactics of the U.S. Gummint. The Bush Administration really doesn’t need to listen to the concerns of actual working people (not that that’s ever really happened anyway.) Dubya Incorporated’s method of addressing the proletariat’s economic woes is to dole out chump change checks to everybody who filed income tax returns last year and tell ‘em “Hey, here’s a few bucks, go to Wal-Mart and get the fuck out of my face.” A $600 and up chicken in every pot.

Yeah, at this point, most of us are fucked. And most folks on the lower end of the system are probably stupid and apathetic enough at this point to let things continue to worsen without much reaction.

I may not be the Universal Master of All Answers, but I do know that those of us who do all the actual work in the world need to get together and do something SOON. Otherwise, although it may not happen in our lifetimes, there’s an excellent chance that, if you are part of the mainstream labor force now, in the near future your children and their children and so on will be owned. And I don’t mean, “owned” in any hip, slang, figurative sense.

COMIC BOOK REVISIONISM AT ITS UGLIEST

Y'know, I could waste WAY too much time on this Speech Bubbler site thingy...







(Credit where credit is due... big thanks to Beancounters for the referral.)

HOW TO ERECT A NEW LOGO FOR THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT

Bureaucracy could only produce a fucked up concept like this.

Here is a recently proposed "rebranding" of the logo for the UK's Office of Government Commerce...



The government contracted design firm, FHD, was really stoked about their accomplishment, that is, until somebody decided to turn the logo at a 90 degree clockwise angle...



Now, although I appreciate the honesty that they are displaying in finally admitting that the government is loaded with a bunch of wankers, this is going just a wee bit too far.

Here is the story about how FHD almost, erm, pulled it off. Click Here, Pilgrim

BUT HEY, AT LEAST THE RECIPE'S EASY

If you would like to see a glimpse of what the perfect storm of out-of-control fuel prices, rising unemployment and neo-feudalist living standards will look like in 2013 America (if the government continues to bail out corporate fuckups and the people stupidly play along and/or look the other way,) look no further than today's Haiti, courtesy of NBC News/MSNBC. Dirt cookies, indeed.

THE CEA PORK BARREL: UPDATE

YAY! Schwarzenegger reads my blog!

Or, somebody working for him, perhaps. Let's follow the timeline:

THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 2008 - Michael Psycho comments on the seemingly ambiguous job title of "Career Executive Assignment" (CEA) when pertaining to state job positions. He also wonders why state agencies need so many friggin' CEAs.

THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 2008 - The Sacramento Bee reports, AND (risking copyright infringement,) I quote,

"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has restricted salary increases for 1,330 supervisors throughout state agencies and authorized an audit to find out why some are making more than allowed under the current pay scale.

In a March 24 memo obtained by The Bee, Personnel Administration Department Director David Gilb ordered state directors and agency secretaries to immediately halt salary increases for a certain class of civil servants working in management positions but not covered by unions. Others will be eligible for a smaller raise than previously allowed.

"Any CEA salary currently above the maximum salary of their respective level is frozen; no additional salary increases within the CEA bands may be authorized," Gilb wrote."

The story goes on to say that - no surprise here - there are CEAs being paid OVER the maximum salary for the job. Audits are planned and the wheels of bureaucracy are in full spin to make it look like something will be done.

So, hey, Arnie, you're welcome. I had no problem with making you aware of that information. Feel free to drop by anytime.

Here is the original blog entry: Click here, Pilgrim

And here is the article in the Bee. You'll probably have to register. Click Here, Pilgrim