This is one of those ideas I have; if you know what I mean, you know what I mean.

What if everyone went to their pertinent payroll offices and reduced their tax withholding as far as possible? To zero if they allow it. Then, next year, when tax time rolls around, everyone waits until April 15 to send in their tax checks.

Obviously, you would need to keep the cash so you could pay it back next year (and using it to earn interest/dividends for yourself in the meanwhile). So, what would be the point?

Starving the IRS. To the extent possible, we the people keep our money out of government hands as long as we can. Presumably, the government requires a certain amount of regular cash flow to operate. So, we screw that up. Remind them who really pays the bills.

What would happen? This is an honest question; I’m terrible at determining consequences.

I recognize, by the way, that this suggestion, if implemented, is counter to my own self-interest.

For a tea party protest sign.

A) “New Rule: 1)Read 2)Debate 3)Vote”
B) “Stop spending my money! I’ve got none left”

This one’s a lousy sign, but a pithy line I thunk up:
“When parents tell their kids anyone can grow up to be President, I don’t think this is what they have in mind.”

When discussing hyperinflation, the image most commonly invoked is using a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a single loaf of bread.

Where do they get the wheelbarrow full of money?

I can’t show you a picture because I never figured that out, but I made two loaves of bread from base materials. It’s like alchemy, but you can eat it. The crust is hard like rock, and the flavor is bland, but it’s my first time. Maybe raisins or something.

Every now and again I find it necessary to pause and consider the possibility that I’ve gone off the deep end and am thinking and behaving in ways not in accordance with reality. That I have misinterpreted events and am acting with unwarranted exuberance or paranoia. That I’ve gone nutsy fagin.

For instance, it seems to me that the wheels have come off this nation, that we’ve elected a man somewhere between towering dunderhead and enemy of the state, and that the common folk are increasingly agitated, trending toward civil unrest.

I have a theory that everything, all events, can be thought of as a set of trends, or forces, guiding events one way or another, counteracting or amplifying each other. Nothing “Is” so much as it is Becoming whatever comes next.

Further, I think that in any given situation, given a sufficient population, there will be at least one person who reacts in pretty much any way you can imagine. If there’s an explosion, some people will run away, some will call the cops, some will duck and cover, some will run toward the explosion to try to help. If there are only four people, odds are you won’t get one person doing each of those things. But if there are 50 people, every possibility will probably crop up.

So, people reacting to an event originate a trend. As circumstances evolve, they choose either to tend to act similarly or to alter their behavior. Some trends die out while others grow stronger and become more pronounced. Obviously, this affects what happens next, which provides another opportunity to reinforce or counter trends, and so on.

The practical upshot of all this is my belief that it is possible to spot which trends are becoming dominant, and project forward in time to predict what the results of those trends will be.

For instance, take current events. We have a single party in power which has proven itself in word and deed to be willing and able to pass whatever laws it wants and spend unthinkable amounts of money to promote its agenda without regard for the needs of the country they claim to govern. Meanwhile, we have a widely distributed, angry, and effectively disenfranchised segment of the populace which has never liked profligate government spending in the first place, and sees the current combination of excess and failure to perform the mundane tasks of governance as a direct attack on the American way of life. Third, the nosedive the stock market has taken ever since I put money into it is stressing everyone out.

Mitigating factors include the fact that Obama is quickly losing his luster due to his inability to fill any of the top-level positions because everyone he tries turns out to be a tax cheat, his diplomatic blunders, and his reticence to answer an unplanned question.

So, here’s my analysis. The right-wing nutjobs, like myself, will get madder and madder the longer nothing gets done in Washington besides spending money the country doesn’t have. The rulers will dismiss those people as they don’t fit into the agenda. I don’t see any trends pushing those two groups closer together. Therefore, the separation will worsen until violence breaks out. There will be rioting. Everyone will take the chance to dole out some rough justice to the people, races, genders, or furriners they feel done them wrong. The cops, and then the National Guard will be mobilized. The use of troops on US soil against US citizens will break the proverbial camel’s back, and then we’ll have civil war. Utilities might stay on, the closer to the power plants and the centers of government and military power the better. Nationwide food distribution will be over for the duration. The news will be unreliable at best, straight propaganda at worst. Because we’re screwed up, all the nations that rely on us for trade will be screwed up. This will leave our allies open to attack by their enemies, taking advantage of the disarray. Meanwhile, Mexico might decide it’s a good time to migrate north while no one’s watching.

The only way I see of avoiding this future is for the government to change its ways. The spending has to stop. The day-to-day business of running the country has to start getting done, which means putting people in all those sub-cabinet jobs who aren’t crooks. The President has to do his job, his whole job, not just the fun parts. Or, he has to get out of the way. If he can’t hack it, he needs to move aside for someone who can. If he keeps going the way he is, I honestly fear for his life. I fully expect someone to take a shot at him before Thanksgiving. (Please note, I’m not promoting this idea, nor do I intend to do anything of the sort myself. All I’m saying is that I think someone out there will make the attempt, and is probably already planning.)

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m overestimating the werewithal of the right-wing extremist or his ability to get his message to the middle. The thing is, I can’t tell. I think these things, but I am unable to judge whether I’m thinking rationally or based on fear. Maybe I’m severely misjudging where “the middle” actually is and worrying over nothing. So I have to stop and wonder if I’m being sensible.

If the stimulus bill currently passing through Congress like grass through a bull is such a great thing, then why did the stock market tank today?

If Obama is really the savior of our economy, then why did the collapse of the US economy start the week of the Democratic convention?

In fact, why has every moment of success for President Barack in the past nine months occurred within a day or two of a major market downturn?

It’s almost like the people whose money we’re watching on the stock ticker don’t have faith that he’s going to save us all.

I just discovered that my bank (Regions) has been charging me a fee to access my own goddamn money in my savings account.  They claim to have been doing it since 1988.  So fuck them.  I need a new bank.

I’m trying to name a female character.  I’ve always been bad with names, and this is harder because this character was named by a mad, evil king with a penchant for puns.  It’s a medieval/fairy tale world.  What I’m looking for is one to three relatively common female names that can be slurred, blended, or otherwise combined into a word for some unpleasant notion like evil, hate, chaos, or something similar.

I’m looking for the sort of thing an oppressed peasantry would call their oppressor in a minor rebellion.  I’ve already rejected Evelyn as being too obvious, and a He-Man character.

Any suggestions?

Ninja Ropes!

There.  I said it.

I’ve been trying for a couple of weeks now to put together a post on the subject of  the Presidency, Obama, and why I respect one and not the other.  The upshot was supposed to be that I would afford him the respect due his office on purely government-related matters, while holding the man himself in contempt in all other areas.  In so doing, I could hold myself above the level of the last eight years of Democrat history regarding President Bush.

But I can’t do it.  I don’t like his politics.  I don’t like his friends.  I don’t like the callous way in which he discards his longtime friends, companions, and mentors the moment they become embarrassing.  I don’t like the number of those people that have become embarrassing.  I don’t like the way he ran his campaign.  I don’t like how his followers react to him.  I don’t like his deification.  I don’t like the tone nor cadence of his speech.  I don’t like the way the press has given him a pass on every little potentially embarrassing event or association, in the name of getting a black man and a Democrat elected.  I don’t like the way he behaves as if he’s been elected king, as if he’s entitled to all the adoration The People are jizzing all over him.  I don’t like the way he keeps putting his face on things.  I don’t like the way Congress is acting like the floodgates are open and every little program they’ve been salivating to enact since Woodstock is now a fait accompli.  I don’t like knowing they’re probably right.  I don’t like the feeling that there’s no hand on the tiller, that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, so he’s waving his hands trying to look busy.  I don’t like his motto.  He stands behind nothing.  He stands for nothing.

Frankly, the fact that he managed to become President of the United States of America makes me respect the office less for his achieving it.

Now, if by some wild circumstance I got a phone call from the White House Wednesday afternoon, I’d take the call.  I wouldn’t call him any names.  I’d find out what he wanted.  I’d come here afterward all, “Omigod I just got a phone call from the White House!”  Because that’s the sort of thing one must remark upon.  But I don’t think there’s anything he could say to make me like or respect him.