Current Events Ramblings, July 28

Today is actually my last day at work.  I've got tomorrow and Saturday to get some things mailed and packed, and then do some cleaning.  Sunday morning an aiport shuttle will pick me up here at EV and hopefully, I'll be in China by early afternoon.  There are some good people here at English Village, and as I said before, it's been a worthwhile year.  But it's time to move on.  I probably won't have a chance to post again until I get to China, but I'll do so as quickly as I can after I arrive.

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I had absolutely no doubts that the NFL owners and players would come to an agreement.  They weren't about to lose billions by missing the season, or any part of it.  From what I read, the owners might have gotten a little better of the deal, but the players aren't going to starve.  It's a good time to be in pro sports.

I also have absolutely no doubt that Congress will come up with some plan to avoid defaulting on August 2.  They'll solve it, but it won't be worth anything.  It's all form over substance.  Obama hasn't come up with a plan at all.  He doesn't want to come up with one, he wants the Republicans to do it so that he can talk about how it only helps the rich and how it's all George Bush's fault.  The last I read about Speaker John Boehner's plan, it was horrible.  They would raise the debt ceiling another $1 trillion dollars almost immediately, but any supposed "cuts" would be put off into the future--which means never.  I don't know if that's the plan that will pass or not, but it hardly matters.  Congress won't do what it ought to do until a disaster happens; and then it probably won't know what to do.  There are plenty of areas where they could make substantial cuts; they could start by abolishing the Department of Education, which, given the disaster American education has become, has obviously failed miserably at whatever job it was supposed to do.  And I'm sure there are plenty of other Cabinet departments that could (should) be dismantled and the American people would be much better off and would probably never notice (I wonder how many Americans could name 10 Cabinet offices; there are over 20, I'm not even sure the exact number now.  George Washington had a Secretary of State, a Secretary of Treasury, and a part-time attorney general.  There may have been a Department of War, too, memory fails me here).  In a way, I hope Congress doesn't come up with a deal.  I suspect the world--or the country--wouldn't come to an end if that happened and if it shuts down the government (except for "essential services") because Congress can't borrow the money to pay otherwise...would that be a bad thing?  Come to think of it, what is the government doing funding non-essential services?  I know what they are doing--they are buying votes.  It's democracy, it's mediocrity, and it's what the people deserve because it's what they elected.  And it's what you get when you give mediocrity the vote.

I don't know what would happen if August 2 came without a settlement.  But I'm not worried about it, because they'll come up with something.  And it won't be any good.  And I'll be in China anyway.  Good luck, suckers.