To Be ,Or Not To Be....Ordinary

When we left the country a couple of weeks ago, ordinary Americans were angry at Washington D.C. because it never seemed to get anything done. Upon our return, we find that the same people are even more angry because Washington finally did something.

This is why we take vacations. Just trying to keep score can be exhausting.

Despite all the anger out there on Main St., some in Congress still rise to praise those same ordinary Americans, saying the equivalent of "we know how they feel, because we're ordinary too!" Some people will do anything to get re-elected. And why not? Congress has exempted itself and its employees from healthcare for ordinary folks, whatever it turns out to be.

All over the country ordinary people are getting together to party. Imagine, all of these explosive folks riding into town on their Harleys and Schwinns heading for the nearest saloon to down a quart of Tetley's! It makes your knees shake just to think. Perhaps the backs of their faux-leather jackets read: "Honk if you're Ordinary," or "Live Ordinary or Die."

We are learning a few things about these people: they only want to pay for average schools; they like to buy and sell normal things like auto insurance, homeowners' insurance, life insurance, travel insurance; mention health insurance and they go postal.

Their knowledge of geography is limited; when you say "China" to them, they go to the cupboard and get Granny's tea set.

And who are their heroes? A certain former VP candidate for one. Mobs of teetotalers would make her Ordinary Prom Queen tomorrow if it weren't for that biggest of inconveniences, elections.
And they love their Foxy Boys too, who can still impersonate middle class Americans, despite making millions each year from all the anger and frustration without having to provide a single interesting idea.

Where is it written: "We, the ordinary people....?" Or, "In order to pursue a more ordinary Union....?"

As we've said here before, no matter what your political stripe, the whole point of America is to be extraordinary. Nobody sails across oceans in cramped hulls to get here with one set of clothing so that they can sit in lawn chairs yelling at their TV sets. Nobody crawls across a desert with fifty bucks in their pocket to make sure they find average schools for their average kids. Nobody ducks enemy fire on a beach, in a jungle, or in a 150 degree tank to make sure everyone back home has an opportunity to become ordinary.

We returned to a country where the only extraordinary thing that seems to be going on is that so many people are obsessed with being normal, average, and ordinary. They just want to be left alone, except when you ignore them. They believe in survival of the fittest, but don't want schools to teach evolution.

We can do a whole lot better than this.

Meanwhileville USA

Caution. You are approaching Meanwhileville USA.

The Times reports today that millions of retirement-age Americans are starting their own businesses. Some of them got bored with retirement, but many more had been forced to retire, could not find a job or even get seriously interviewed, and finally decided to hire themselves instead.

The WSJ reports today that corporations are sitting on nearly $1Trillion of cash and that they will soon be using that cash to go on a mergers and acquisitions "shopping" spree.

Employees of those corporations being merged and/or acquired might want to begin to cut back on their own shopping. Also, they would do well to begin thinking of starting their own businesses soon. One of the reasons that Wall Street loves M&A, besides the hefty no-risk fees it "earns," is the cost savings achieved by reducing "headcount" after a deal has been closed.  The people who invest 401k and pension dough love these job-busting deals as well. Go figure.

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C. (it is always Meanwhile there) politicians are seriously thinking that incentives will create jobs. Their idea of incentives to counter the lost heads: relaxing the 6.2% Social Security tax for employers who hire for the rest of this year, and, now here is a real incentive, paying them $1,000 if they keep the hired person for a year. That, my friends, is not a typo: $1,000.


The country's corporations have $1trillion of private money to invest, and they are very likely to have huge incentives to invest it where the result will be more jobs lost. Yet, in Meanwhileville USA the best that they can do to encourage job growth, while they are busy reforming healthcare (wink, wink), is this dinky joke of an incentive plan.

Will someone please explain to me once more exactly why Afghanistan and Iraq should adopt our system of government and capitalist economics? Will someone please remind me why a Dictatorship by even a half-wit titan would be worse than having Meanwhileville in charge here? Will someone please tell me why banks cannot focus more attention on lending to entrepreneurs who can actually build new businesses and hire thousands of people?

Everyone is busy dumping on the ethically-blind New York Governor, David Paterson. May I suggest a scary thought: that he is probably more capable than many of our representatives in Meanwhileville or some of the occupants of corporate corner offices, based on the evidence?

It may be a while before we come to a stop and begin thinking and acting like an intelligent, vibrant culture. Meanwhile....