Waste Not, Want Not & the Royal Parade

I mean who doesn’t like a good parade?  Especially one that costs ~ 45 million dollars.  I know that phrase, The King’s Parade has become popular.  And as much as he’s been pining for a personal parade, it was just a coincidence that the President’s birthday was on the same day as the US Army’s 250 year anniversary.  The Navy’s 250 year anniversary is this October 13th.  If it turns out that the President had his communion on that date and battleships and nuclear submarines are lined up on the Potomac, well then at that point, I think we have an issue.

I think one of the major issues the public at large, all 99% of us, has, is that in a time of cutting services and handing out tax breaks to the wealthy, is this an appropriate time to have a no expense will be spared $45M parade?

The weather was miserable, not saying the big guy upstairs did not have a something to do with that but the scheduled Fighter Jet fly over was scrapped due to the weather. And not for nothing, but the last time I checked the Air Force was not part of the Army.  But we did have over 6,000 troops a marching.  There were also helicopters, various military vehicles and anywhere between 50 to 150 of our most sophisticated hulking tanks.  The nice ones with automatic transmission and the undercoating each weighing 70 tons.  

To give you an idea how much 70 tons is, the Space Shuttle weighs about 70 tons.  Think about what that would do to your driveway.  Ten full grown elephants weigh about 70 tons.  In any case, the cleanup is going to be extensive and expensive.  This year’s pot hole repair season will be coming early to DC.

One question, wasn’t Elon Musk and DOGE, and the big bombastic bill supposed to address waste, fraud and abuse.  I think a reasonable person would have to agree that this over the top parade checked two of the three boxes, right?  Waste & Abuse.  I mean outside of the guys under the umbrellas selling Sabrett hotdogs or the street purveyors of Trump paraphernalia, where is the payback on this event?  Maybe this is why Elon hit the road.  He probably recommended nixing the parade and got himself nixed.

In an era of belt tightening and deficit reduction, could the 45 million dollars not have been spent more appropriately?  We have 750 Billionaires in this country.  $45 mil divided by 750 is $60,000.  Think of all the good that could have been done by writing the billionaires a $60K check.  Each could buy a nicely equipped BMW 4 series.  Come on, who doesn’t need an extra BMW lying around?  Or a modestly appointed he or she-shed…when you just need to get away and don’t want the hassle of dealing with your private jet.  I’m not up on the going rate for diamonds or gold, but I have to believe a stylish pink ring can be had with $60K.

Don’t you love a good distraction?  But here are some other things that the $45 million dollars could have been spent on:  Feeding or taking care of Veterans.  Restoring SNAP/Food Stamps for children and seniors at risk.  (We have the technology to determine those who are most in need.) Restoring support for cancer or Alzheimer’s research.  How about re-funding the centers that combat cyber-crimes which are exploding out of control?

In the end, we the people, are forced to confront and judge the activities of our leadership, and remember: Are they doing the right thing?  We can put the needy and greedy ultra wealthy aside.  It’s been made abundantly clear by more than 50% in our government that the dues paying billionaires just have to have more.  And lucky for them, we have a sensitive president who understands their critical needs.  But if we’re going to have a parade for the military, maybe ask the majority of the military what they feel would be the best use of funds for such an event.  A big bombastic parade that God rained on?  Or celebrate and help the men and women who sacrificed for our country and now need housing and or medical care that was recently taken away.

The Joys of Flying Blind or Why Keep Your Life Insurance

Today’s post is a cautionary set of space age tales, loosely tied together, that drive home the need to ensure your life insurance is up to snuff. I was recently on a plane flight from Newark to SoCal - well I eventually got on the plane.  I partially blame myself because I wasn’t thinking when I chose an early afternoon flight.  The mega computer system that tracks flights says that mid-day flights have the least number of on-time departures and I became proof positive of that statistic.  Lots of stuff can go sideways throughout the day.  Ensuring that you have a working plane and someone to fly said plane for hours is a big part of that stuff.  So it’s now late afternoon and the captain of our proposed flight is waiting amongst the unwashed.  (We the passengers being the unwashed.)  I notice our captain is leaning against a wall and he’s yawning, a lot.  He looks to be about my age, which is kind of scary as I belong to the Legion of AARP.  I’m hoping that the coffee they’ll be serving him shortly will be of the jolt variety.  I know if it were me, I’d be bobbing for flies ten minutes after takeoff so I have to give him a lot of credit.  As you can imagine, I do not get a lot of asks for driving folks anywhere – Not everything about being a card-carrying senior is bad.

These days, adding to the normal flight situation (ten pounds of airplanes in a five pound airport) we have a national air transportation system that is literally disintegrating beneath us.  So much for air travel being the safest way to go.  Picture yourself simultaneously guiding ten massive jets into Newark Airport. Then out of nowhere, you lose complete contact with them.  You quickly ask your coworker if he has an extra dose of Imodium AD you can borrow.  And then after such incidents, like two in a row, we’re quickly reminded by anyone responsible that this problem of disintegrating equipment and lack of personnel has been an issue since the Lincoln administration.  And like any good politician, Abe kicked the can down the runway whining about a civil war that needed to be funded.  

Similarly, our current politicians complain about the Social Security administration which runs on vintage computer systems that are akin to an abacus. Their solution: Fire a good chunk of staff, buy a lot of duct tape to hold things together and hope for the best. Unfortunately for our country’s air travelers, nobody in multiple administrations wanted to fork over the millions to modernize the technical systems or hire the appropriate number of air traffic controllers.  At this point, the analogy I’d give is that it’s like the brakes on your family car are no longer operational.  Still, you have to get to work every day.  Your solution:  Have your wife and kids drive with you and when you need to stop, everyone sticks their legs out their doors and hope the car slows down enough to avoid an embarrassing accident, one that would look bad in the press.  But not to worry, we may not have the money to properly feed or care for our less affluent children, or rebuild our ancient air control system, but by golly we do have plenty of riches to fund a massive tax break for the ultra-wealthy – All is right in the world.  (P.S. Generally speaking, the cost of maintenance on old computer systems far outweighs the cost of new state of the art technology.  The problem is the cost of new systems, a capital purchase, hits the wrong budget code.) 

But there is hope.  Sean Duffy, our new Transportation Secretary and ex reality TV all-star, (actually one of his shows was, Road Rules: All Stars) was recently interviewed by FOX news and he said the following (I’m paraphrasing here), “There are hundreds of small failures each week that go unnoticed.  It’s frightening for people, but again we have backups for that.  (I believe the primary backup is keeping your fingers crossed.  That and a bulk discount on duct tape.  You see, by hook or by crook, we will solve that budget deficit thing.)  I will tell you throughout the system, every week, we have blips in the system.  There’s an issue with your telecom.”  

(He’s not holding any punches, I think his words of wisdom go into the category of, Tough Love.) 

To inject some sanity, he further stated, the pentagon also temporarily suspended military helicopter flights operating near Ronald Regan Washington airport after near-misses.  (In January, 67 people were killed when a Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines Jet collided in the same air space.)  He continued, Let's figure out how we can make sure travelers are safe in the [Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport] airspace, but also how we can continue to do our work to make sure we keep our nation's capital safe".

Well, I’d like to think that we in the New York City metro area are important too.  With his insightful words of encouragement, I’m starting to get an idea how a rented mule feels.

I want to believe it’s safe to fly and lord knows I’m not the right person to judge.  I’ve been known to get impatient on the runway and wonder, is it really that important for all three braking system on the plane to be operational.  But for now, the solution seems to be: Cut the number of flights, slow down and have some patience.   Good luck with that in the Northeast!

Lately what helps me deal with my impatience is this:  In March we were finally able to return to earth, two astronauts that were stuck in the international space station.  It was NOT air traffic controller related.  They were supposed to be up there for an 8 day mission. (I can hear the theme song to Gilligan’s Island playing, “a three hour tour…”)  Instead, they were up there for 286 days. Putting aside the screaming need for a new pair of underwear as well as pushing the limits of the best if used by dates on food, Uber Eats was a little out of range, those astronauts can now teach a Master Class on patience.  So now when I’m sitting in the airport devouring what’s left of my finger nails, or in my car waiting for pot hole repairs to end, I just think about how close to home I actually am, the freshness of the clothes I’m wearing and how much my corndog on a stick is going to louse up the rest of my day.  Hope I didn’t offend the corn or dog lobby.

Why Do The Ultra Wealthy Need Another Tax Break?

I’m befuddled. Why do we need an additional seismic tax break for the ultra wealthy?  Didn’t we do that for these needy folks back in Trump’s first reign?  And didn’t said monumental tax break contribute mightily to increasing our nation’s world-ending national debt?   I mean outside of being fiscally responsible, which isn’t a bad thing, isn’t the whole reason for the DOGE chainsaw cuts, to reduce our national debt and make it the shiny plum it used to be?  We want to be great again, right?  And we were told by many that the gothic pillar supporting this effort to be great again was that we needed to eliminate or immensely decrease the national debt. And all kidding aside, yes, decreasing the national debt is an important thing to do.  But if we feed another gigantic tax break to the voraciously ultra wealthy, aren’t we repeating history, increasing the debt and in doing so, not making us great again?  To be fair, I am not a mathematician.  But isn’t this simple arithmetic?  If the national debt is 3T and we cut people, needed services, inefficiencies and fraud in the amount of 2T, but we give the hungry, ultra wealthy a tax break of 2T as well, aren’t we still left with a soul crushing national debt of 3T?  We didn’t fix anything!  Then what happens in year two?  Do we start by recreating The Miracle of the Fishes and Loaves?

In 2025, the United States will have 750 billionaires (I got this from google, they’d never lie). And 30,000 folks with wealth that exceeds $100 million dollars, at least there was a short while ago.  We’ll have an overall population of 345 million…give or take a few billionaires.  Can someone please explain why a person or family with a bank account that shows at least $100M needs another tax break, remember, they just got a whopping one about 7 years ago.  It could be that I’m just out of touch with the needs of the wealthy.  I’m thinking of Ralph Kramden, the bus driver character from the TV show, the Honeymooners.  He’s found a million dollars on his bus and now just has to have a boat with three propellers.  I mean, how many private islands can you use at one time?  Will these well to do folks with their new tax refund be eating out more at our local establishments adding to the local economy?  I don’t think so.  And why, because most of these ultra wealthy, in New Jersey at least, are Farmers.  They take advantage of the loophole in the Farmers Act of 1964 and pay 2% of their property’s real estate tax bill.  So no, we the large middle class pay their taxes and we support the local economy.  And not for nothing, would it be too much for these Farmers to come by our houses, knock on the door and personally thank us for paying their taxes?  And if the spirit moves them, they can mow our lawns.  For the fanatically wealthy, like Woody Johnson who owns the Jets, I think it would be appropriate for him to have us all over to the stadium for a classy tailgate party and an afternoon in the box to watch a game.  For Donald Trump, I think it would be passable for him to have us over for a round of golf and a good old fashion barbecue at the clubhouse.  But I digress.  

A better question, why is it acceptable to indiscriminately take people’s jobs, when an intelligent analysis was not done?  And why is it okay to take away needed services from folks truly experiencing desperate times?  Starting in 2011, 10,000 people a day started turning 65 in the U.S.  (Go Baby Boomers!) DOGE cutbacks to Social Security are closing offices, eliminating jobs and cutting back phone support.  In February the Social Security phone call busy rate was 1.5% (frustrating dropped calls).  In March it shot up to an agonizing 28.4%.  Image being on the phone waiting for two hours to let Social Security know you’ve changed bank accounts - then the call is dropped and you have to start all over again, and again.  Social Security keeps 16 million people out of poverty and provides at least 50% of income for more than half of the 65+ households.  It’s not enough to say we won’t steal from the Social Security Fund to give a tax break to the ultra wealthy. (Oh, and by the way, it’s our money, we had it taken out of our paychecks for decades, we earned it – It’s not an entitlement or gift!) If people can’t get at their funds because the government has made it too difficult to reach them, then we’ve gone too far and committed a grievous disservice to our senior citizens.  Imagine being in your 80s or 90s, wanting to support yourself, fighting for your dignity, but you have too many complex roadblocks thrown in your face. It’s dehumanizing.  All for what, to provide a tax cut to those who overwhelmingly do NOT need it?  Why is that okay to do, why do we let that happen?

DOGE looking to dodge bullets

I realize, everyone realizes that there is some waste in the Federal government and some cutbacks make sense.  Naturally this is easy to say unless it’s your Aunt Mable or Uncle Fred who just got whacked.  Like any large organization, there are some departments that are more bloated than others.  Taking the time to do a reduction in force (RIF) where appropriate just makes sense.  And if the year one tally of head chopping isn’t large enough to support the promised tax cut for the ultra rich – no big deal.  You have three more years.  And let’s face it, no matter what, each year there will be cries of agony from the .01 percenters about needing more tax cuts.  The beast will always need to be fed.  President Trump should not try to eat the whole whale in one bite… And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

But seriously, the methodology, timetable and people being used to execute these cutbacks, legal or not, needs to be investigated and changed. For lack of a better description, the rushed shotgun approach Musk and Trump are taking is flawed.  They have the time to execute a more precise method of evaluating personnel vs. just firing large swaths of people and risk losing valuable employees.   As an example, the brain trust of the department of government efficiency (DOGE) decided to cut a number of people from our National Nuclear Security Administration.  These folks have very serious jobs.  If that department doesn’t run correctly big chunks of our country can go boom.  But it seems that after abruptly locking these NNSA people out of their email accounts and walking them to the door, someone alerted the doge elites that, “Oh Crap, we need these people back or really bad things will happen.”  And now they’re having problems finding said employees.  

Another example, our National Parks, America’s Best Kept Secret is no longer a secret.  Park activity is bursting at the seams – they are not sun setting.  We actually need more rangers to handle the overflow of people coming into the parks as well as protecting the parks from bad actors, which happens when there are not enough rangers to support good behavior.  The destruction of a million year old edifice can’t be replaced next year when appropriate funding is determined to be needed.  And National Park Rangers and staff are not overpaid individuals.  Many need second jobs in order to make a living.  They’re dedicated to their work because they love our National Parks.

And a fan favorite:  Social Security & Medicare.  This department’s employment is at it’s lowest point since 2010.  They have automated and still you can have wait times on the phone for two hours.  The people are great when you get them, but there aren’t nearly enough of them.  I sometimes believe the government is taking a lesson from the Insurance companies playbook where they’ll deny a claim as a matter of course hoping you’ll give up and go away.  More money for company executive as they hit their income targets and keep Wall Street happy.  And the phrase, “Trickle Down” is still acceptable, but the actual act of trickling down is now derogatory.  

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against successful people living a good life, unless of course they accumulated their wealth by emulating Bernie Madoff or Al Capone.  I just believe they should pay their fair share of taxes.  But with the IRS being cut to protect a certain class, I don’t believe that’s going to happen too often. 

And the people being used to do the hatchet work have obviously have not been appropriately vetted.  For instance, one 19 year old Edward Coristine who works for Elon Musk at DOGE has been in the news regularly.  First, at 17 he was let go from an internship because he stole secure company information.  He also goes by a self-given nickname that describes his perceived view of his genitals.  You’d think that someone doing a simple background check might have seen those two items and raised a red flag.  In my humble opinion, this is a dangerous person and should never be given access to the personal information of any federal employee.  And get this: he was given access to all of our information too!  Who knows what other creative uses he has for that information.  He needs to be permanently removed ASAP.  And any other members of the Musk team need to be vetted first, like any other person being given access to sensitive or classified government information.  This is just common sense.  Do these people have security clearances, NDAs, and financial disclosure agreements?  We’re looking for our representatives to do their jobs and protect us from bad actors.   

I know, a lot of gloom and doom, right?  We should all be thankful though.  It could be a lot worse.  Imagine being the President of the Ukraine.  How on God’s green earth can the President of the United States team up with Vladimir Putin?  It must be his steely, I’ll stab you in the back and I’ll burn your family charm.  To team with Putin would be akin to Franklin Delano Roosevelt deciding in 1941, “I think I’m going to cozy up to Hitler.”  Here’s to hoping my next Social Security check doesn’t come payable in rubles.

Serf and the Lords of the Manor

Regarding Jacob Perry’s article on January 23rd re:  Farmland tax break for millionaires: Over the years it has boggled my mind as to why 99% of the population of New Jersey has had no problem paying the real estate tax bill of the 1 percenters.  If I want to get dark, I imagine the multi-millionaires going to their annual meeting of the “Lords of Jersey.” They’re in a fantastically large hall that wreaks of old money.  They’re sitting in comfy leather chairs drinking ancient cognac.  All of a sudden, someone raises a glass and makes a toast to the Jersey Serfs (that’s us) who have no problem paying them hundreds of millions of dollars annually.  And with that the room erupts into uncontrollable laughter.  One of the Lords cries out, “Next year I’ll be raising Sheeple on my farm.”

What, are we back in the Middle Ages?  Isn’t anyone upset over this ludicrous situation?  Could it be that people are not aware? Or in today’s world, is it just seen as too big and time consuming an issue to fight.   Remember, a good chunk of our days have to be dedicated to viewing Facebook and TikTok – how else can we get out news?  

But the good news is we have the protection of our politicians that represent us.  (Did anyone else just shoot milk through their nose?)  

The New Jersey Bills we should all be watching:  In the Senate: S-3446 and in the Assembly A-4875.  These Bills look to establish a Farmland Review Commission to meet annually with a mission to right the ship.  Unfortunately, to date, no action has been taken to stop the raping and pillaging of the Serfs.   

The second to the last paragraph of Jacob Perry’s article is telling.  In it, he cites a conversation that Jack Curtiss of Mendham Township had with a legislator regarding the flaw in the farmland assessment tax system. During the conversation, the legislator said something to the effect of, the millionaire beneficiaries are all big political donors, so nobody wants to…gulp, lose their donations.  To that concern I offer my very realistic view:  The Lords of Jersey are all multi-millionaires.  They’re probably making more than a million dollars a year.  For them to pay their fair share of real estate taxes would be a minor rounding error for them.  And besides, I doubt that Bruce Springsteen is doing his taxes every year and sees the amount he’s paying.  He, like the other multi-millionaires in New Jersey have tax accountants filling out their returns and paying their bills.  The only thing those accountants are looking for is a piece of paper with a number on it that says, this is the amount you can claim on your Federal and State tax returns.   They’ll Never Know a Change Has Been Made!  So let’s just quietly fix the situation and nobody will be the wiser.

Joy of the Holiday Season

So four nights before Christmas I had a three hour “experience” driving to Newark Airport to pick up Prince Charming, aka my son.  Since they opened the enhanced Terminal A, the few times I’ve still flown out of old terminal C, it’s been nothing but a cakewalk.  Nobody is there.  It’s as if you now have a personal terminal with concierge service allowing you to come and go as you please – how civilized.  Alas, when they moved all of the workers from C to A and its Christmas time and there is an ungodly overload of humanity flying in, they don’t have the workers to man Terminal C.  When you drive into the airport complex you enter a lit up wonderland, but not the good kind.  You quickly start wishing you had taken that third blood pressure pill.  The roadway approaching terminal C is like the wild wild west.  The closest analogy I can think of is that it’s like being in a slow-mo version of a demolition derby with no rules.  It was every man, woman and child for themselves. What makes this endeavor a multifaceted challenge is that trying to get your luggage is like being in medieval times where the workers have lost the gift of speech and nothing requiring electricity is operational.  After an hour of sitting in this chaos I started thinking, “Ya know, junior might have really enjoyed a cross country bus trip - definitely next year.”  

What made the nightmare trip to the airport excruciatingly more enjoyable was that the week before, I blew up every nerve ending in my back when I thought I was 22 years old, again.  We had ordered a new bed, as the existing torture device we owned for over ten years had imploded.  The trench I was trying to sleep in had a crevasse as deep as the Grand Canyon.  We ordered this new bed online (actually my wife did) and it came in multiple shipments, each weighing three tons.  So we hired a burly Taskrabbit person to put it together and assist with the heavy lifting.  My wife asked me, “Do you think we need two rabbits?”  I, being a painfully cheap moron said, “Nah, I can help the guy.”  Remember, in my delusional state I’m “22” and it only gets better.  Because they charge you extra to move the furniture up and down steps, I decided I could move the new stuff up the stairs by myself...saving pennies in comparison to the expensive back brace I now need to buy.  (A really sad part of this story is that I almost got a hernia getting the boxes off my driveway into the house.  I’m not sure what part of my brain blocked that memory out and allowed me to think that dragging said boxes upstairs was a viable option.) 

As I spiraled into full on dementia, I also thought I could move the old king size mattress downstairs by myself.  My thinking was, I’ll be going down stairs, how hard would it be?  Somewhere deep in my gray matter I was picturing this mattress walking itself down the stairs, opening the front door and parking itself on the curb.  Then I woke up and found out it weighs 9 tons.  It was as if it was soaking wet, which might have been the case.  But that’s another issue I’ll be following up on at the urologist’s office next week - I’m hoping he does hernias too.  Needless to say I could barely stand up the old bed mattress let alone move it.  Then Mr. Rabbit and I proceeded to bringing it down the stairs. I was like a rag doll being dragged behind.  I also found out the hard way that our beautiful wood head and footboards...well they may have looked like wood, but they had to be made out of lead.  I figure once I get this body cast off, I’ll be ready to try driving again, once I re-learn how to walk.   Hoping for a kinder, gentler New Year.