Another example of how wealth redistributes itself

Yes, indeed: we pay higher and higher prices at the gas pump, and oil companies rake in billions.  I guess that's what they mean when they say wealth redistributes itself.

Sigh...

Where is civility?  Or even a little courtesy?  I wouldn't care much if there wasn't any respect for anyone/anything if we could just have a little of the C's every day.

Stolen from a friend:

"Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in TARP money, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?
Yeah, me neither."

Winners and Losers

It seems like what I hear from politicians more often than not sounds like something I'd hear on a children's playground:  "We won!"  "Did not!"  "Did too!"  "Did not!"  "Did too!"  Ad nauseum.

Today the Washington politicians are all arguing about who won in the budget battle last week.  I think I could argue that we all won...and we all lost.  Sure we got a budget agreement, but thousands of people were in turmoil while the playground argument went back and forth.  In addition, it remains to be seen if there will be ultimate losers in the cuts that were agreed to.

Whew...

I was just getting ready to move from disheartened to incensed - having just been reminded by the news anchor that our representatives in Washington would continue to get paid regardless of a shutdown - when the news of the government budget deal came through.  Good thing, too...my blood pressure was about to break the monitor.  How incredibly annoying that we have to go through this game-playing process to get things accomplished.  I grow increasingly cynical about the motives behind Washington political moves: anyone else think this only happened because of fear for the results of the next election?  When are Washington politicians going to start thinking about the good of the country instead of the security of their jobs?  Was it Thomas Jefferson who said something to the effect that we should never elect the people who want the job?  Good advice, whoever said it.

Must...process...this...

I've always thought of myself as a fairly optimistic person but gosh...how much can one optimist endure?  America is in a state of whirling confusion, it seems to me, and we can't see the forest for the trees as the saying goes.  Most of the world is in far more dire straits than America, but we can't seem to quit bickering about things that seem pretty petty in the grand scheme of things.  Today's big concern for me:  the impending government shutdown.  How can our representatives in Washington think that it's OK to allow the government to shut down, thereby cutting off funding to a wide variety of personnel - including many in the military - because they don't want to "give in."  What?  When did it become more important to worry about how we appear to others than it is to worry about the health and well-being of thousands of Americans...and in a time of extreme economic fragility.  Really, Washington...could someone there please kick some common sense around the table for a change?