Tea Parties My Ess

So, today is "Tax Day," the IRS income tax filing deadline, and people are gathering to mark the occasion with "Tea Parties" across the nation. These "Tea Parties" are modeled after the famous Boston Tea Party of yore, and are supposed to highlight the plight of the hard-working people who are being oppressed by burdensome taxes levied by an insensitive and bloated government, out to preserve its privilege at the expense of the populace.

What a total crock. I'm not going to mince words here - why should I? What we've seen today is a large number of stupid people who have been led into political rallies staged by the Republican Party, in order to protest the fact that the extremely well-off are finally being made to once again contribute to paying for the benefits they receive from our country, in more-or-less just proportion to those benefits. The people doing the protesting, let me note, are, for the most part, not among those being asked for a more just contribution, and, furthermore, many of the protesters will likely end up with a reduced burden, finally, after almost three decades of shouldering a disproportionate share of the economic load. Perhaps I offend some people, but, there you go. They are just plain stupid; there's no other word that does justice to the idiotic display these people are making of themselves. Why not just find the richest guy in your town and pay his kids' college bills for him? I mean, maybe he finds them too expensive, and you can
help him out. While you're at it, why not let him know that you think you make too much money for the work you do, and that he deserves to have some of yours? Or, you can suggest that he'll get better value if he fires you and gets someone in China to do your job.

Honestly, just how stupid are these people? For around thirty years now, American workers have been told that they're too expensive - lazy and unproductive, we cannot possibly compete against people in East Asia, Europe, or pretty much anyplace that's not here. Our benefits are too costly. Of course, in many countries where labor is "cheaper," the government also supplies health benefits (as in most of Europe, Japan, and Korea. Even China is developing a universal health care insurance system). We can't do that here, though. That would be "socialism." So, the price companies pay for labor here includes health benefits, which are govenment-supplied in those countries our workers compete against. The solution here, of course, is to simply not provide such insurance, or to offshore industrial production, thereby fobbing the health insurance costs off to those foreign governments. Oh, by the way, how, do you think, do those governments pay for those benefits? Why, through taxes, of course. Citzens in those countries, incuding the rich ones, have a generally higher tax burden than we do here. In all the industrialized world, we have among the lightest tax loads. But, hey, why let facts get in the way of a good bitch session? And then these working people attend rallies to show their support for the very people who have done this to them. How stupid are they, anyway?

Oh, well, we hear, pensions are too rich, and too expensive. Excuse me, but, if companies (and governments) would simply stop raiding their pension funds to hide operating losses, most of them wouldn't find pensions so expensive. As I mentioned, governments do this, too. Here's an example:

In New Jersey, we're being told that the state workers' pension expenses are outstripping the value of the pension fund. Workers enjoy pensions that are far too large, goes the argument. How could we have let ourselves in for such a predicament? Let's go back a few years, to the administration of one Christie Whitman (who, incidentally, did such an execrable job as Governor that her own party, the Republican Party, doesn't like to talk about her). During her adminstration, she and her advisers came to the conclusion that the state pension fund was "overfunded." This was during a boom in the markets. Her party ran on the premise that taxes were too high, but they didn't want to cut off programs that were either necessary or just popular (like the "Homestead Rebate," which is nothing more than a bribe to taxpayers. "Rebate?" Just adjust the tax rates, cowards). So, what did Ms. Whitman and her cohorts do? They stole the money from the pension fund. Stole it. That's the only word that accurately describes what they did. They stole the money from the pension fund so that they wouldn't have to tax people to pay for what they get from the state. Now that the markets aren't so high anymore, those funds are no longer "overfunded." In fact, they are seriously underfunded, and they've become a drain on the state budget. Does anyone point the finger (justly) at Ms. Whitman? No, indeed, the blame falls on those very workers whose money was stolen by the aforementioned Whitman and her cronies. And who is it that's making all this noise? The very same Republican Party that perpetrated the theft of funds from the workers' pensions. Now, there's justice for you.

So, now, that party is staging these "Tea Parties." The party that steals from public workers, and whose loathing of legal constraints on business has led to the greatest theft of people's savings and investments in our recent history, the party who has engineered the raising of expenses of working people, while cutting the incomes of those same people, the "Robin Hood-in-reverse" Party, who have taken from the poor and given to the rich - these people are organizing "Tea Parties" to complain about the awful burden they carry.

For shame.

For utter shame.

The Republican Party has forsaken any sense of civic duty. They pander to the basest instincts of the electorate. They encourage petty greed, anti-social behavior, and outright criminality. They preach anarchy. They have no shame.

As for working people who support these shameless thieves that have ravaged our country and its people:

They are unutterably stupid.

Pfrustrating Pfreakin' Pfaucets...

So, I have this kitchen faucet, by Price-Pfister. It began to drip, so I figured I'd run out to my local big-box "Home Improvement Center" and get the parts to fix it.
Not so fast.
These days, with every little thing being replaced by "NEW!! IMPROVED!!" versions, parts for items a couple of years old aren't always that easy to find. So, on to the second big-box "Home Improvement Center." I actually found a part, but by a maker of replacement parts, not Price-Pfister (now owned by Black and Decker, by the way). Took the handle off the faucet (pfaucet?). OK, now to remove the cartridge. Usually, this is done by unscrewing a cap that either holds the cartridge in, or is part of the cartridge. Well, off comes the cap. Top of valve stem is still in the fixture, so I pull it out (yes, I turned the water off first). The top of it comes out, leaving the bottom of the valve cartridge still in the fixture. It seems the way this particular valve is made involves several parts, and they are held together by the top of the stem, which is a snap-fit onto the bottom part. Trouble is, the friction holding the bottom into the fixture is more than enough to prevent it from being removed by pulling on the top. Pulling the top of the stem disassembles the valve, leaving the bottom part in the fixture. There are about three other tiny little bits floating around between them, one of which, at least, could have been made as part of the top piece, but wait, there's more! There's no way to remove the bottom piece without destroying it. Nice work. Well, I remove the bit from the fixture, destroying it as I do, and put in the new valve. unfortunately, the handle now doesn't come back to the correct position when the valve is shut off. It's just a bit shy. Or, moving it over a bit, it's a bit far. I think, maybe the valve is not in quite right. Lotsa luck, in order to change it, I have to destroy the bottom bit... remember that? Well, I do just that, and I replace both the hot and cold stems. Three valves bought to replace two. Guess what? Neither valve handle lines up correctly, and now the damn faucet drips way worse than before. Now, I've fixed a few faucets in my time, and never, I mean never have I had problems like this.
What's the deal, does no U.S.-based manufacturer see fit to make a decent product anymore? This is not the only product I've seen that's been a disappointment, but it's the straw that's making this camel's chiroprator bills go a little over the limit today. Remember when there were these companies in Detroit, Michingan, who used to make cars? It seems they got so carried away with making money that they forgot how to make cars, and manufacturers from Japan, Korea, Germany and Sweden started to take away their market share. The first thing they tried was to buy some of the competition, or make deals with them. So now, Detroit bought the Swedish car makers. Buying the Japanese didn't work out, though, because at least one of them got to be as big as any of the Detroit companies. Eventually, as we know, Detroit and it car makers fell on very hard times. They may or may not be around this time next year, but they should still serve as a warning to other companies in this country.
People don't care how much money you make when they're buying your products. What they care about is whether they're getting a product that's worth all the effort they put out to get the money they're turning over. Lately, the crap that U.S. manufacturers have been turning out hasn't been worth the effort. In fact, it seems that every new thing put out by a manufacturer here these days has been no more than a better effort to express contempt for the poor dope who's expected to buy the thing. Of course, while we're talking about contempt, we may as well mention the treatment these same companies dish out to people unfortunate enough to work for them. It seems these employees (who are also, incidentally, buyers of those products) cost too much to maintain. Not enough money going to stockholders after the managers skim off their "share." Of course, decreasing the payouts also increases the managers' "share," so there still isn't enough going to the stockholders. But, hey, if we can't pay the price for that kind of talent, we'd have to hire people who might, I don't know, try to run the business for the benefit of the stockholders (who, in many cases are those same employees and customers, because their pension funds or 401(k) accounts hold company stock), rather than treating the companies as their personal piggy banks (and I do mean "piggy").
Anyway, back to the trigger of this particular rant:
Hey, Price-Pfister! Your pfaucets are cheap pfieces of pfucking junk! Kiss my ass, Black and Decker! Your stuff has been just plain bad for years, now.
And let this be a warning to any other U.S. manufacturers:
If this is what I can expect from you, inferior products at inflated prices, bad service and support, and bad replacement parts you can't even bother to make yourselves, then I hope every one of you goes out of business. Will people be hurt? Probably, but they're the people who have gotten used to it - the people who have always paid for your mistakes. If you're gone, they will eventually get other jobs, because, stuff will still need doing, and there will be a place for people who can do it. There will, I hope, be no place for you, the people who run these scams we call industries in this country.
I hope you starve.
I hope your children and grandchildren starve.
I hope others learn from this and never dare to try what you have tried, to make a fortune doing as little as possible, and charging top dollar for it.
You are all reprehensible frauds, and we are better off without you and your progeny. The only thing useful you can leave behind is the memory of how business should not be done.