(There is some language in this post of an "adult" nature. Typically, I refrain from using potty-talk. But when you've had it up to here in stupid, mebbe it's time to start calling things by their real names.)
If you don't watch the financial news, chances are you haven't heard the attacks taking place over the leadership of Kenneth Lewis. In fact, chances are you don't even care about the leadership of Kenneth Lewis and you're reading
his name here for the first time.
If you don't have deposits at BofA you're thinking that you're insulated from risk if BofA makes bad decisions. Well, this is where a newspaper--like the Oregonian from the early 1980's--comes in.
Some decisions are so clearly and plainly egregious that on their face the are horrid.
And, perhaps, it's time that a CEO do the responsible thing upon his failure of leadership and resign. Mr. Lewis' record in the past quarter should have stock holders furious. I won't be surprised if there is a lawsuit in the next few weeks...if not days.
So, what to do about our state's governor?
If you don't follow the day-to-day horrors that emanate from that man, you have no reason to ask yourself, "WTF is he thinking?"
And there is no newspaper published in the state capable of writing a serious criticism of our state's chief executive. When I do have the occasional opportunity to read what is being written in the Oregonian, it is simply apparent that something has replaced reason and common sense at that periodical. When I glance at the daily paper published in neighboring Astoria, it is apparent that it is nothing more than a scandal rag. With little more than the local police log serving as a spine in the war against truth.
When actions contradict each other, one is given cause to believe that either one action or the other is wrong. But you seem to never read about these apparent failures in logic from our state's newspapers.
In the face of rising unemployment and declining private investment your governor has chosen to increase the cost of government and increase the expenditures of government. What would this mean to someone of average education?
Since unemployment is increasing, there's a pretty good chance that revenues to the state are going to be lower in the future than in the past. Why? Because the state income tax is based upon a percentage of the income you make. If fewer people are working, they are making less money.
Did you get that?
If fewer people are working, then the people who aren't working are earning less money. Can you figure out how much money they are earning? Your governor can't.
In fact your governor has decided that since people are earning less and working less, the way to spend more is to raise the amount of money that the state takes from you. Revenues from the state's income tax declining? How do you get more money?
You raise taxes. You raise tax rates. You add taxes. You add "fees" (which are, after all, just taxes.)
So while the people of the state are making less money--and investing less of their money in this state--the governor seeks to increase the cost of existence.
He has
a plan. (pdf)
(Stolen from RogueRiverPundit. Who he stole it from should be apparent. Click on the graphic to go to his post.)
While the governor has a plan, he doesn't have any common sense. He proposes mounting a campaign against Man Made Global Warming by the citizens of our nation's 27th largest state--by population. That is, 1.23 percent of the nation's population is going to change the fate of the world.
Even though Oregon is the tenth largest state by it's sheer
geographic size, at more than 98-thousand square miles, and that only two percent of that huge land mass has actually been developed.
So, here we have specks of population distributed around the state. Specks. Our rural counties have been devastated by reckless environmental abandon and what does our governor propose to do?
Not address the needs of farmers. Not the ranchers or the timbermen.
This retard wants to further limit growth and at the same time raise your taxes to pay for it.
Earlier, last fall, I went to a meeting that was a part of what organizers called the
Big Look. The "promise" of the Big Look was to reduce the amount of control the state exercises over local governments (cities and counties).
But control locally over our own affairs is not a priority for our state's chief executive. Weird shit like green energy and "green jobs" is, however. Currently the governor is in a pissing match with the State of Washington over a proposed, new bridge over the Columbia River. "Oregon"--that's you and me--want to build a "green" bridge. Washington wants to build a bridge that maximizes auto traffic at the lowest possible cost.
Oregon? Green enviro-nuts. Washington? Common sense.
So what comes down the pike from our chief executive today? "Today’s mid-quarter revenue report from the state economist is sobering news, though not unexpected."
“While the facts of the economy continue to shift, we cannot shift our focus from doing all that we can to protect investments in the foundation on which our economy rests – children, education, health care, renewable energy, green technology, and transportation." (Governor's Press Release, January 16, 2009.)
See, according to the Governor, the foundation of the state rests with children, education, health care, renewable energy, green technology and transportation.
For the rest of us humps trying to make a buck, we're screwed. But we're screwed Green. I guess that's some consolation.
