I never wanted to Blog about politics, I want to write about things like personal finance, consumption, talk about not feeding from the trough just because you could, about taking back some of the direction of our lives and taking some responsibility for our actions.

But when the BS detector goes off, and it has since Iowa I guess, I get a little ranty.

I’m a Obama supporter. My reasons are my own, but mainly I support Obama because I believe what he says and he doesn’t scare me.

Just because I’m pro Obama, does not mean that I’m anti Clinton. She’s a great Senator and she’s a good candidate, she just isn’t the best. She couldn’t manage her money, she couldn’t keep her word, and she kept trying to make 2+2=5. After tonight, tomorrow at the latest, Obama will be the nominee. Period.

SHE LOST, DEAL WITH IT. I’m sick of hearing this “If you are not with us you are against us” nonsense that is being spouted by Hillary supporters. It’s time for all the house fraus with the stickers on their foreheads to suck it up and get in line. This “If I can’t vote for Hillary I’m voting for McCain” tantrum is petty and childish and has just got to stop. Stop living vicariously through Hillary and go back to living vicariously through your kids or your co workers or your soap operas or romance novels or what have you. Or better yet, find your own dreams, and start trying to live those. Stop being afraid of black men. They aren’t all bad, in fact, very few of them are actually bad if you actually stop and get to know some. So just stop. It’s not the Hillary party, it’s not the Clinton party, it’s the Democratic party, and saying that you are going to vote for another party out of spite just goes to show that you don’t give a shit about our country, your children, our soldiers, our economy, our health care system, our environment, it goes to show that all you care about is winning and if you can’t win, you are just going to take your toys and go home.

I hope you don’t teach your children to play that way.

The rules are simple, the other guy just got more votes, Period. Now I know, I know, if you count the state where he wasn’t on the ballot, if you count the island that doesn’t get to vote in the general election, and if you don’t count the caucus states that don’t keep popular vote totals, and you count the votes that she got when she ran for the 8th grade class treasurer, then fine, she got more votes, but come on. Seriously? Seriously! Listen to yourself.

There was no theft, no sexism, no conservative media bias, no liberal media bias, no secret alien mind control, she just didn’t get the votes to win.

Wow, feels good to get that out.

I’m not trying to hate here, but enough is enough. I know how it is, believe me. It’s like following a team all season, rooting them on, going to the games, buying the gear, learning the stats only to have them blow it in the first quarter of the championship. You start blaming the refs, the field, the weather, you accuse the other team of cheating. You hold on hope to the bitter end praying for a miracle, but at the end of the game, the score is the score. You scream, you cry, you rant and rave, that’s fine, it’s natural. However at the end of the day what you do not do is start cheering for the rivals.

That’s just childish.

Slow day at work. It dawned on me that it was June already. Where does the time go? We are already on the down hill side of the year. The beginning of the end for 2008.

When I commented on it, a guy I work with who is probably in his 50’s remarked that “When you get older, the time just goes faster and faster.”

It being a slow day at work that of course got me thinking, I am getting older, though my co worker has a good 20 years on me. It struck me as odd that he laments the passage of time. Don’t get me wrong, I like the guy, but he’s the type who says that he would never retire, because he knows that he would be bored. What would he do if he didn’t go to work every day? He seems to be one of those types who looks back on his life unfulfilled. My dad does the same. He never talks about college, or when he was younger, and when I bring it up, he gets that 1000 yard stare and if he was still a drinkin’ man, he would ask me to pour him another. I can tell that he feels like he somehow missed something.

So of course, it being a slow day (have I mentioned that?) I started thinking about what I have seen, the good, the bad, and the indifferent, in my short time on this crazy planet we call earth.

The evil empire was replaced by the axis of evil.

Statesmen like Kennedy, Nixon, Regan, replaced by cowboys with fetal alcohol syndrome and daddy issues.

The cold war ended, the Berlin wall came down, the challenger blew up, America was attacked by man and weather.

Video games went from things that would ruin your eyes and rot your brain to things that will make kids into perverts and mass murders.

Ditto for cartoons.

Operating system were delivered on a stack of floppies with a manual thicker than an phone book to pre installed with maybe a pamphlet saying that if you have trouble go to the website.

Noisy slow dial up modems and text only bulletin board systems to always on, high speed news, stocks, and porno on demand.

4 channels and an antenna on the roof who’s reception got knocked out when the weather got bad to satellite 300+ channels of digital picture that gets knocked out when the weather gets bad.

Issues that were solved by a fist fight in the school yard are resolved by drive by shootings

From “Only Dopes use Dope” to everybody Smokes.

Russia, Japan, and America all sworn enemies to all living together, IN SPACE!

School systems designed to prepare you to work in a factory and maybe get a good score on the SAT to schools teaching you to work in a factory and pass the “No child left behind” test.

It kind of goes along with a conversation that I had earlier today with a very good friend. The meat of the conversation came down to that your job is nothing but a means to an end. The real fun in life is just hanging out with the people you love, doing things that you enjoy. It’s an old cliché but no one goes to their death bed wishing that they spent more time at work.

This also reminded me of a list that I made for the same good friend. She asked that for her birthday her friends not buy her anything, but instead make a list of things that they had learned.

Here’s a few of my favorites from my list.

Never take financial advice from a man in an expensive suit.

Figure out what is important, what is really important, and hold it sacred.

Let that which does not matter, truly not matter.

It’s just stuff.

You ain’t shit. But that’s ok, because neither is anyone else.

My penis is my best friend and my worst enemy. Without it I could have been a great man, but only because of it, do I want to become a great man.

Fight if you must. Win if you can. But always, always, cheat.

Anything worth doing is worth doing well.

It’s not the sand, it’s the journey.

Never underestimate the power of the stonecutter.

To win without fighting is best.

Do or do not. There is no try.

You can do anything for 30 seconds.

Bones heal, chicks dig scars.

Never trust a man who talks too much about how much he makes, how much he wins, or how much he fucks.

Did I mention it was a very slow day at work?

An odd byproduct of the recent sub prime crisis/credit crisis/oil crisis/fill in the blank crisis is that people are finally beginning to look at their spending habits. Driving less, Daycations, Staycations, one tank getaways, are all the rage this summer holiday season. Less credit is being issued; people are focusing on paying off their debt instead of amassing more. People are coming to grips with what a bad idea it is to use a house as savings account, and challenging the logic of buying a new full sized SUV once every 3 years.

We got a lot of bad habits to break, and a lot of learned behavior to unlearn.

Previous generations seemed to embrace all too well the ideas of buying things you couldn’t afford on time, spending more than you had, and keeping up with the “Joneses“. A lifestyle that also seemed to place a whole lot of faith in the idea that “technology will fix it” or the “I’ll be dead long before it’s a problem so why worry?” mentality.

Just the other day I saw some doughy, clueless talking head proudly and very casually declare “I believe in the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit of America. Technology will solve this oil crisis.” The problem is, that has been the battle cry since the 70’s, the first time this country had an “Oil Crisis”. All technology has done since then is find faster ways to pull oil out of the ground, and more ways to consume it once it’s out.

These same talking heads think all of our problems would be solved if only we could drill more. “The liberals in the government are pandering to the crazy Environmentalists. If only we could drill in the Gulf, and Anwar, and Colorado, then we would have more than enough oil.” Sure, just drill more, that will solve the problems. East coast, west coast, arctic, Rockies, drill in mama’s back yard. Get more oil and the day is saved. The solution is always to get more, never to use less.

It’s junkie thinking. Trust me, I know. When a junkie is hurting, whether it’s smoking, drinking, weed, smack, crack, burgers, whatever the drug of choice is, the thought process is very rarely “Wow, if I kicked this habit, I wouldn’t have to go through this feeling ever again.” More often than not it’s “How do I get MORE. How do I get more, and cheaper, and faster.”

Describing this country as “Addicted to cheap oil” isn’t to far from the truth.

Our parents and their parents ignored the warning signs. Ignored the fact that OPEC had our number, ignored the fact that more and more of the things that we depend on every day were coming from farther and farther away, ignored the fact that we were slowly losing our ability to sustain ourselves.

Our parents and grand parents consumed and wasted finite resources and now history expects us to clean up the mess. I’m made to feel guilty if I don’t rinse, flatten, and recycle every soup can. The plastics and processing that were worshiped as marvels in the 50’s are being linked to the autism, cancer, and lower sperm counts of today. We are expected to foot the bill for all the toxic sludge, nuclear waste and plastic bags buried generations before we were born.

A whole lot of though went in to figuring out what we could do instead of thinking about what we should do. And that is the kind of thinking that has to change.

We have been over consuming and under saving, counting on some future generation to solve the problems that the previous generations spent so much time and energy creating.

The upside of the mess that we are in currently is this “Borrowing from the future” kind of mentality that has existed in this country for way too long is being highlighted, and even though it’s almost by force, people are beginning to cut back and once again live within their means.

The down side is our unfortunate short attention span. Microwave dinners, 300 channels and the 24 hour news cycle have taken it’s toll. If we woke up tomorrow and gas was $2.00 a gallon again, all of the progress that has been made, and I do think that there has been progress, will be lost.

The first step in getting clean is admitting that you have a problem. The second step is changing your habits to do something about it.

Save More, Consume Less.
Take it Back.

Thrifty vs. Cheap, it’s an on going debate. The words have become interchangeable these days and even with the current financial state the we are in, “Cheap” is even being used as a marketing tool.

Cheap is not a good thing. I don’t know anyone who wants to be known as being Cheap (well maybe one), but being Thrifty is very different. As someone who has been accused of the “Cheap” who has worked hard live with the “Thrift”, I know first hand how people can mistake one for the other.

There are huge differences between the two and many confuse being “Cheap” with being “Thrifty”. Here is a little guide for someone who may be considering the lifestyle.

From Dictionary.com

cheap
4. of little account; of small value; mean; shoddy: cheap conduct; cheap workmanship
8. stingy; miserly: He’s too cheap to buy his own brother a cup of coffee.

thrifty
1. practicing thrift or economical management; frugal: a thrifty shopper.
2. thriving, prosperous, or successful.
3. thriving physically; growing vigorously

Some Examples:

Cheap is going to Wal Mart to buy an $8 dollar frying pan, knowing that it’s going to rust and flake and not perform well and you are going to have to throw it away in 6 months and buy a new one.

Thrifty is spending $50 on a Calphalon fry pan, or at least $20 on a good cast iron pan, knowing that it’s the last fry pan you will ever need to buy.

Cheap is going to the bar and drinking the lowest priced beer all night and not tipping.

Thrifty is going to the corner store, spending 8 bucks on a 12 pack and inviting friends over to watch the game.

Cheap is going out to dinner with friends, buying a $17.95 entrée and kicking $18.00 in when the check comes and hoping that no one notices.

Thrifty is going out to dinner with friends, buying the $17.95 entrée and saying “lets split the check X ways” (X of course being the number of people at the table) or even saying “I got this one” and picking up the check, knowing that at some future dinner, someone else will do the same.

Cheap is driving 30 miles round trip out of your way to save .10 on a gallon of gas.

Thrifty is knowing that the time you would spend in traffic and waiting in line is worth more than the 2 bucks you may save on the fill up.

Cheap is buying crappy goods in bulk at a big box store, once again knowing that they are going to wear out in time but thinking that “It’s ok, they are so cheap, and I can just buy more later.”

Thrifty is buying less for the same money but of better quality knowing that it’s going to last.

Cheap is buying something you really don’t need with credit, justifying it by figuring that it will cost so little each month. Not thinking that buy the time it’s actually paid off, you will probably have forgotten about it or gotten rid of it anyway.

Thrifty is having the discipline to save for something that you really want so when you actually plunk down your cold hard cash for the item, you are pretty certain that is something that you not only want on impulse, but something that you was actually worth working for.

Cheap is putting price over quality, whether quality of goods or quality of life.

Thrifty is spending time and money wisely, knowing that if you have to pay a little more now, it will save you in the long run.

Cheap people look at cost, Thrifty people look at value.

Imagine it. One day, you get a call from Congress. You are summoned to appear before a panel and justify how much money you make, and to be chastised for it. Personally, my first thought would be that there are some Congress People that really need a hobby. My second thought would be “What the hell business is it of theirs?”

Today there was another round of “Hearings” today, this time called by the Senate Judiciary Committee to try to get the heads of Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips Co., Shell Oil Co., Chevron and BP to justify how they in good conscious they could be making money at a time like this.

Now I know when you see a headline that states “Record oil prices netted Exxon Mobil $10.89 billion in the first quarter, sharply higher than a year earlier” it’s easy to think that they have money to burn. It’s easy to picture Snidley Whiplash laughing and twisting his mustache while he ties all of us to the railroad tracks and waits for the train to come crashing in. But that’s not the case. What we have to realize that their revenue was 116.85 Billion. That means of course that the Exxon Mobil corp. spent 106 billion on things like wages, benefits, maintenance, up keep, supplies, equipment, exploration, etc, etc, etc, including 29 billion in taxes, and 21 billion on capital and exploration projects. Plus, even though their revenue was up 34% from a year ago, their net income was only up 17%. That means that costs went up and they did not pass those costs on to the consumer.

Look at this
National average cost per gallon
April 30th 2007, $2.97
April 28th 2008, $3.60

increase $.63 or 21%

Cost of a barrel or oil

April 27 2007 63.25
April 25 2008 111.03
increase of $47.78 or 75%
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/wrgp/mogas_history.html

Now this is a bit of a simplistic example, oil companies more than buy crude and refine it into gas, but wouldn’t you think that if the cost of supplies went up 75% and the gas companies were taking advantage, gouging, exploiting, or ripping you off, the price of the final product would go up much more than 21%?

Here is another thing to consider.

The US is the 3rd largest producer of oil in the world, producing 8,330,000 barrels a day.
The US is the 1st largest consumer of oil in the world, consuming 20,687,000 barrels a day.

Do the math. We are a net importer of oil. We buy 12,357,000 barrels a day because we consume far more than our share and far more than we produce. As long as that remains the case, the price of gas will go up.

Bottom line, Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, and the rest make products. The way they make money is by selling their products to us. If you don’t like the amount of money they are making, don’t buy the product or a least, find ways to buy less of them.

Save More. Consume Less.

I work with a guy who is self described as the cheapest man on the planet. He freaks when you buy a candy bar for 75 cents out of the vending machine when you could go to costco and get them for 50 cents. He takes dates to the employee dining room where he can eat for free and he is sure to bring his Tupperware along to take home extra. The big joke when ever he takes vacation time is that he’s going to be spending a week on Futon Island and if he wants to see the world he will just jump on Google Earth and go anywhere.

Now I’m all for saving more and consuming less, in fact I fully believe that it’s the key to our survival as a society, but the Google Earth vacation is a little extreme.

However, staying at home this summer travel season is not a half bad idea. With gas and oil hitting new records for the nth day in a row, we are all feeling the pinch. Memorial day is just around the corner and planning a backyard barbecue/pot luck with the neighbors, some yard games and a kiddy pool will send a message to the gas companies more than any windfall tax. A trip to the local park or pool will save a huge amount of money compared to a long road trip to the beach. Spending a day at a community garden or pick your own or fixing up the back yard to grow your own veggies could be a fun way to teach the kids about local living and being responsible. Lets be honest, it’s hard to say no when all the kids want to do is go to disney world or the local water park, but the sacrifices you make today, may help to assure that those kids have some sort of future tomorrow.

With the stimulus checks just days away for most, retailers are announcing sales, promotions, and incentives to get you through their door with the check in your hand to spend it with them before the ink is even dry.

DON”T DO IT.

Americas has a huge money problem, and a big part of the problem is that we don’t save enough. What’s worse, we seem to not be happy just spending what we have, we have gotten hooked on spending money we don’t have as well.

There is a nifty little chart here:

http://www.frbsf.org/education/activities/drecon/2002/0202.html
According to the Federal Reserve of San Francisco the saving as a Percentage of Disposable Personal Income in the United States averaged 7.9% from 1959 to 2001. That percentage got as high as 11% in the mid 80’s, but seemed to take a very sharp nose dive from 1995 to 2001 bottoming out in 2000 at 1.0%. So to put it another way, in 1985 people were saving $11 for every $100 dollars that they took home. In 2000, it was $1 for every hundred. But wait, it gets worse.

In 2005 the rate dropped to -.2 percent.
And in 2006 It was -.6 percent.

That’s right. We spent $100.60 for every $100 dollars that we brought home.

This I believe has led us to the sorry state we are in now.

So how have we been doing it? Fantastic plastic of course, and even worse, pulling money out of our homes to by useless crap that we don’t need.

To quote the St Louis Federal reserve.
“Household‘s consumption share of disposable
income also increased, from 87.5 percent in 1980
to 95.8 percent in 2006, which implies an additional
$802.5 billion of personal income was consumed rather
than saved.
This consumption boom and the associated decline in
the saving rate coincided with a large increase in revolving
credit outstanding, which consists primarily of household
credit card debt.
It is striking to see how closely these numbers match:
the increase in the trade deficit ($762 billion), the increase
in consumption due to a rise in consumption’s share of
personal income ($802 billion), and the increase in revolving
credit outstanding (about $800 billion).”

We have had a Consumption Boom. We have been spending money we don’t have on crap we don’t need, and it has finally come to bite us on the…

So don’t spend it. Take the check to the bank, open a savings account if you don’t have one, deposit it and forget about it. This is found money and a perfect way to start saving and keep saving in preparation for the tough times that could be a head.

This stimulus is just another band aid provided by the government on a bullet hole sized problem. Recession is here and even the experts don’t know how long or how deep this one will be. Increased consumption is a way for the government to convince themselves that they have done something to help out the little guy, but increased consumption is how we got in the mess that we are in.

As a great man once said. “There are a million ways to get the bus into the ditch, but only a few to get it out.” We are in the ditch and the only way out is through reduced demand, increased savings, and reduced consumption.

With food riots around the world and food inflation and restrictions hitting us here at home, people are thinking more about what they are eating. What we don’t spend enough time thinking about where our food comes from and the amount of oil that is consumed in the process.

The petroleum used in supplying food accounts for about one third of average per-capita oil consumption.

The cost of fuel has a direct impact on the cost of food, and the amount of fuel that we consume has a direct impact on it’s price. There has been a lot of talk of ways to increase production to lower the cost of oil, but ultimately that won’t work. Oil is a finite resource and increased production just means that an already dwindling supply with just get depleted sooner.

The only way to get the price of oil down is to consume less.

We tend to think only about fuel consumption when it comes to filling our tank. We don’t think about the tens of thousands of miles that all of the goods that we consume have to travel to get to our friendly neighborhood big box stores or supermarkets.

From a study published by the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture:

“In the past 30 years there has been a significant global increase in fossil fuel use. One reason for the rise in U.S. fossil fuel use is the increased use of trucks to transport goods. In 1965, there were 787,000 combination trucks registered in the United States, and these vehicles consumed 6.658 billion gallons of fuel. In 1997, there were 1,790,000 combination trucks that used 20.294 billion gallons of fuel. Many of these trucks transport food throughout the United States. A recent study indicated that in California alone more than 485,000 truckloads of fresh fruit and vegetables leave the state every year and travel from 100 to 3,100 miles to reach their destinations.”

Your average tractor trailer gets about 6 miles per gallon. A load of romaine grown in northern California for consumption in New York City burns 516 gallons of fuel on the one way trip. With the national average cost of diesel at $4.14 per gallon that’s $2138 if fuel cost alone. Cost that is passed along to you.

That’s just transport, modern farms depend on petrochemical based fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, and diesel powered machines to plant, tend and harvest as well.

Thanks to creative trade deals, a huge portion of our foods are grown and processed in other countries and transported here via container ships. Container ships are powered by a particularly carcinogenic fuel known as Bunker Fuel, which is actually the residue that’s left over from crude oil refining process.

So what do we do? One thing is to buy locally produced food. With the Green trend that the kids seem so into these days, there is a renaissance of farmers markets, pick your owns, community gardens, and green grocers all over this country. Locally produced, organic foods are fresher, taste better, are better for you, and usually have a much lower percentage of strange chemicals in the form of ripening agents, poisons, preservatives, hormones etc.

It takes a little effort, and this means that if a certain item is not in season in your area, you may have to do without. The bulk of my produce, my dairy, and my meat traveled no more than 500 miles to get to my plate. And I live in the desert. If I can do it, so can you.

Find your local farmers market. http://www.localharvest.org/
Find a community garden. http://www.communitygarden.org/index.php

I received am e mail from the Clinton campaign titled “Every vote should count” and asking me to send a message to the DNC that I support the seating of the Florida and Michigan delegates as they stand.

It is a bedrock American principle: we are all equal in the voting booth. No matter where you were born or how much money you were born into, no matter the color of your skin or where you worship, your vote deserves to count.

It struck me of funny. Based on statements made by Bill, Hil, Mark Penn, and other surrogates and supporters of Clinton, the only votes that count come from big, non caucus, historically democrat voting states that were cast by white, non college educated, working class, but not shift working, over 50, but not elderly, Catholic, non independent and not too liberal people should count. Votes that were cast before Iowa but after Ohio, but not in-between.

Maybe she meant “All votes should count, but some should count more than others.”

Thankfully the Keith Olbermann and the good folks at Countdown compiled a much more complete list.

Check it.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/24473981#24473981

In an effort to get the word from Senator Clinton, I went to her website last night to try to find out more about her Gas Tax Holiday plan.

From the statement on her site:

Details of Hillary’s Plan
Enact a Windfall Profits Tax on Oil Companies to Pay for Temporarily Suspending the Gas Tax – Hillary will impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies and use the money to temporarily suspend the 18.4 cent per gallon federal gas tax and the 24.4 cent per gallon diesel tax during the upcoming peak summer driving months. Hillary will ensure that this relief is passed along to consumers by charging the Federal Trade Commission with conducting aggressive oversight. Unlike Senator McCain’s plan, Hillary’s plan will be fully paid for by taking away oil company profits through a windfall profits tax. This will ensure that the Highway Trust Fund is not affected at all by the gas tax suspension, and can continue to support critical repairs and maintenance for our infrastructure and highways. Suspending the gas tax will provide real, immediate assistance to American families and for our economy. Recent testimony before the House of Representatives by the American Trucking Association indicates that even small changes in price can have big impacts. Just a one-penny decrease in the price of diesel annualized over an entire year would save the trucking industry $391 million a year.

So I have a question. Does this mean that Senator Clinton currently has the support in the Congress to pass a Windfall Tax bill by Memorial Day, May 26th 2008? Or does this mean that she’s not going to have the Gas Tax Holiday until she can get that bill has passed? Or does this mean that she wants to suspend the tax, but find some way to pay for it somewhere down the road?

I emailed this question to the campaign and got this response.

Dear Friend,

Thank you for your message. I have received thousands of emails from people all over the country. Your comments are very important to me and I am excited that so many people are joining our conversation about how to change the direction of the country. Unfortunately, due to the high volume of comments, I am unable to respond to each email individually.

Please visit www.hillaryclinton.com to learn more about my views on the issues and to read the latest information about my campaign.

So i’ll just put it out here. Maybe some of her supporters can answer this for me.