The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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Just when the unemployment numbers look like they’re heading into Great Depression range, the Republicans are balking on handing out any more stimulus or aid to anyone but the rich. Big Farma just got some money to keep the milk and meat production going, okay by me, but when it comes to, let’s call them the Little People, hell no, they aren’t going to help those who didn’t help themselves. The Big Boyz helped themselves all right, snapping up small business loans like they were rewards for using their TARP money from the first recession to buy their own stocks rather than trickle anything down to their employees.

The latest chutzpah from the GOP is to float the idea that the Little People, the folks who can’t pay the rent, who are behind on their credit cards, who lost their jobs, who probably lost their health insurance too, they can use their retirement money early to help them out of a tough situation. Up to 10,000 bucks would be taken out of their Social Security payments, plus a little interest for Uncle Sam. This is the Republican equivalent of letting them eat cake. Their own cake. But you owe the government some frosting later.

Part of what triggered the Great Recession was refusing to throw money at the problem, just stand back and see how it shakes out. If no one has money to spend, nothing good shakes out, everything grinds to a halt. It’s why we study history, to learn from our mistakes. States are going to bleed money with this Pandemic bringing business to a standstill. Taxes won’t be coming in, rents won’t get paid, landlords will go broke, more homeless, more health care issues, on and on. If deficits were the problem, maybe we wouldn’t have voted in corporate tax breaks a couple years ago under the GOP, but now, oh yeah, deficits are bad once again. Deficits will drag us down. Deficits will cut into profits and CEO salaries. It’s the Deficit, Stupid! Why would we bail out blue states who couldn’t control their budgets? Let them go bankrupt, Mitch McConnell advocated recently, as if any bankruptcy laws cover states going broke.

Compassionate conservatism was a lie back when and it’s a joke now. Compassionate corporatism, you bet. Welfare for the rich, count on it. Trump in 2020? Bring back Marie Antoinette, why don’tcha? Well, actually we got Melania. If it takes a Depression to wake this country up, I say bring back the guillotine too. Heads ought to roll, I don’t care if there’s nothing in em.

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The man who addicted the world to caffeine says he’s thinking about running for President. Why not? If we can survive a few years with an ignorant but opinionated bullyboy, we can elect just about anybody for another few years. Congress is deadlocked and has been for quite awhile and will be for a lot longer. The government is running on auto-pilot now, the perfect metaphor for an automated future.

Trump ran multiple bankruptcies on his way to announcing he was the Dealmaker of dealmakers. Schultz bought a basketball team and managed to lose the entire franchise when he sold it to an Oklahoma City huckster. Seattle sports jocks will never forgive him, doesn’t matter how much they like his coffee. Schultz thought his managerial experience would shine right through in his tenure as Head Basketball Boy, an egotistical rich guy’s folly, something akin to thinking real estate deals are primers for world treaties. Still, there are plenty of folks out there in Java Land who might think a mocha magnate is worth a shot or even a double.

Me, I’m tired of billionaire politicians. Okay, probably just green with envy. Who wouldn’t want to spend his life on cellphones and in meetings strategizing how to get a hotel built in Moscow or a Starbucks on every corner in Shanghai? If the bizness of America is selling, these guyz ought to be able to run the country like a used car lot in Hoboken, no problem. The trouble is, a lot of government isn’t about capitalism. I know, this sounds like heresy in this new Gilded Age. As executive chairman at STARBUCKS CORP, Howard Schultz made $17,980,890 in total compensation. Of this total $807,693 was received as a salary, $843,750 was received as a bonus, $8,096,499 was received in stock options, $7,893,379 was awarded as stock and $339,569 came from other types of compensation. This information is according to proxy statements filed for the 2017 fiscal year. But take a look at this and then what he paid his employees, then tell me these are the CEO’s we want being President or filling cabinet posts. And the last thing I need is a double shot expresso of that right now.

And yeah, I know, money talks and bullshit walks in corporate America. Although lately it seems like both are doing a lot of talking. Personally I think a politician ought to learn some governing skills, you know, little things like managing a city or maybe even a state, at least do some time in a legislature and learn the ropes. If all you can show on your resume is your big fat bank account, c’mon, you wouldn’t hire yourself as a barista. And you certainly wouldn’t make yourself manager of the joint. Even if you are the damn owner.

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Did you know the world’s richest 8 people had more wealth than the poorest 50%? You think maybe this is an April Fool joke? Faux facts? No, eight people had amassed as much riches as 3.7 billion people at the bottom of the heap. Stop and think about that for more than a nano second. Stop in your tracks. Let your jaw drop down to your knees. 8 people – 8! — with more money than 3.7 billion people combined!! 3.7 billion people in poverty, some starving of famine, some refugees from wars, some just us South Enders who maybe didn’t want to work very hard and never started up a Tech Company.

I guess I knew we had some income inequality, growing wider every year, but c’mon, this seems slightly skewed. I don’t begrudge Gates and Bezos and Buffet and Zuck a few billion, but show me the trickle down. Better yet, show the 3.7 billion people at the bottom whose only trickle is maybe a golden shower. Oh, I know I got a lot of neighbors who think whatever we do, don’t tax the rich! Because they think they might be rich one day…. You know, get an inheritance from Uncle Bezos or finally get around to that start-up tech company or reap the gains from those bitcoin investments or … more likely, win the Powerball Lottery. That, or just bottle lightning and sell it to the poor.

God forbid that we redistribute wealth!! Wouldn’t want to be accused of communism or social engineering or even basic Christian values. Those eight fellows made their money the old fashioned way, with lobbyists and sweetheart deals, with ruthless monopolies and cut-throat capitalism. Why on earth would we tax them exorbitantly when we can take the money from regressive taxation, user fees, sales taxes and other old fashioned usury? Sure, we could use those trillions to feed the poor, cure diseases, fund scientific advances, stuff like that, but you know and I do too we’d probably just build a bigger military. Kill the poor, let them die of disease and starvation, pay them as little as possible. After all, they’ll get to inherit the earth, right? Not that I’m blaming those 8 fat cat rich guys, no sir, they’re probably nice fellows, the way we’ll be when we win the Sweepstakes. I’m just saying there’s billions of folks who maybe deserve a slightly bigger piece of the pie. And I don’t mean Humble Pie.

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