I am not a tenured economics professor or a Wall Street executive. I'm a common working stiff, laid off and trying to battle my way back to a decent income through self-employment. I'm in better shape than most other laid-off working people I know because my wife and I both have valuable skills and (barely) enough business acumen that our little start-up is doing rather well. But most of our friends and family are not doing so well. Even those who have replaced the jobs they have lost (and at least half of them have lost jobs in the last year) are earning lots less than they once did. And, last I looked, unemployment and underemployment are going up, not down. Economists and government mouthpieces talk about a "jobless recovery." To me, there is no such thing. A recovery, to people like me, is all about jobs. Nothing else matters. The fact that some high-rollers and speculators are doing better than they were last year has absolutely nothing to do with the American economy in which most of us live, which looks like it is going to stink for many years to come, if not for the rest of our lives.

I'll start with my own situation. My wife and I have watched our income drop by over 80%. For every five dollars we took in last year, we have taken in one dollar this year. Our house -- modest by six-figure income standards -- is gone to foreclosure. We are now living in a tiny mobile home. Don't get me wrong: it's a nice mobile home in a pleasant community, and we like it a lot. But this means we are not spending money on rehab work, as we constantly were on our old place, which means we do not spend much (hardly anything) on home improvement materials or yard care supplies. So our income drop trickles through the economy, same as millions of others' lost incomes. We eat out less (sorry, restaurant people), our plans to replace my ancient Jeep this year obviously went away (sorry, car people), and my plan to get some major dental work done is gone (sorry, dentists). I sold my sailboat and replaced it with a kayak. Our utility bills have dropped by 75%, and our property tax bill is down 90%. Our once-substantial charitable donations and financial help to less-fortunate family members have stopped.

Really, the only substantial purchase we expect to make in the near future is one more video camera for our business, along with a few accessories for it. Beyond that, nothing. And even though our income is creeping up, it is unlikely to exceed 1/3 of my previous salary within the next five years -- if ever -- and we expect to use any surplus to pay down debt and to build a financial cushion, not to buy anything beyond the the absolute minimum we need to get by day-to-day.

So our time as "consumers" is over. No big. We're 57, the kids are grown, and we already own most of the possessions a sane person might want. We're some of the most fortunate layoff victims we know.

Now let's talk about Bill, up in Tampa. He went from home ownership to living in a room in a friend's house. His wife is gone. He's semi-survived on a series of small-money temporary jobs. If I want to see him, I need to drive to Tampa, because his car is so junky he's scared to make the hour-long drive to Bradenton. His clothes have gotten, quite frankly, ragged enough that it's hard for him to put up the middle-class appearance he needs to look credible in the IT field. Basically, Bill is on the skids -- and sliding. He has some wing-ding eBay things going on, but I doubt that they're going to generate much income. Health insurance? Nope. Maybe/hopefully he can get Medicaid -- and then he'll need to find a doctor who will accept Florida's pitiful Medicaid payment rate.

Essentially, we as as society have told Bill he is human surplus. We no longer need or want him.

Then there's my young friend Scott; married, two kids, one on the way. Wife works part-time at Starbucks. Scott dumped a low-pay retail job without notice to start a supposedly much better one, but that job fell through. For the last five months he's been doing sporadic temp work. He's supposed to start a five-month gig next week doing tech support for a tax prep service. By the time that job ends he hopes to have his programming skills (mostly Visual Basic, C# and Java) honed to the point where he can get some sort of entry-level job in that field. Yes, I know. Programming is now an overcrowded field, and IT work is migrating to India and other low-cost countries so Scott will probably never make as much as American programmers once did. But what else is he going to do? Almost *any* work that isn't tied to geography is moving overseas. The Wall Streeters and speculators love this because they can make higher profits, but for the Scotts of the world it means a recession that may never end.

I can go on and on like this... about the relative in Baltimore who lost a half-decent warehouse job when his employers decided to use a "labor contractor" that employs no one but Spanish-speakers for minimum wage, and (wink wink) isn't picky about Social Security or other I.D. checks. And the woman with a bachelors degree and 15 years of useful customer service and law enforcement experience who has applied for over 150 jobs without a single nibble in return, and we're talking jobs in every field from what she's trained to do down to entry-level store security and other retail work.

And when a newly-refurbished Outback Steakhouse in Sarasota needed to hire 67 people, they had 1050 applicants. For no-benefit, mostly part-time work at or near minimum wage. That's scary. It didn't make the manage or Outback execs happy, either. They're not stupid, and they know that if that many people are looking for low-end jobs, it means fewer people who can afford to eat at Outback, even though CEO Joe Smith says the company is trying to keep many menu items below $10 despite higher food costs so that even people with small incomes can come to his restaurants for special occasions. And he's talking about people who once would have eaten at Maison Hoity-Toit. Those who once ate at Outback are probably now reduced to McDonalds.

So the richies have recovered from the recession. I'm glad to hear it. I hope they pop many bottles of domestic champagne to celebrate, and buy lots of American-made cars and yachts and hot tubs and expensive research reports from American economists saying everything is just fine, our country is doing well, don't you worry 'bout a thing -- and what we really need to do to spur economic activity is deregulate all financial scamming and never, never tax investment income or inheritances at rates as high as we currently tax working income.

(Funny note we never hear: if we taxed all investment and inheritance income over $100K/year at the same rate we tax a $100K/year worker's salary, and took out the same amount of FICA/SS tax, Social Security and Medicare would be on a sound financial footing, with plenty left over for universal health coverage...)

The tire industry is now moving en masse to China. More manufacturing jobs lost here, to go with the millions that already seem to be gone forever. I mentioned that I plan to buy a video camera. It will be a Japanese product. There are no (as in -0-) American-made, commercial-quality video cameras on the market in my price range. And if I am forced to buy a new computer, even if I choose an "American" Dell or HP, hardly anycomponents in it will be made here.

Tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs. Something like half a million of us still lose our jobs every month. Some find jobs, too, but the new jobs almost always seem to pay less than the old ones -- and have crappier benefits, assuming they have any at all.

This is not a recession. It's an acceleration of a general economic shift that has been going on for several decades, in which the top few per cent of our society does better and the rest of us do worse. Baseballer Derek Jeter builds a 30,000 square foot mansion in Tampa while the local unemployment rate and the number of homeless people rise toward the sky. Union jobs go away. Wal~Mart and McDonalds keep hiring. American politicians talk about renewable energy sources and "green jobs," but China is starting to pump out solar cells like crazy.

We bailed out the bankers and the investment crowd, but we have no WPA-style program or CCC to employ any of the millions of Americans who desperately need work.

In other words, traditional Republicans (richies) have been bailed, and the rest of us haven't. For us, I'm afraid, the recession is just starting, and isn't likely to end for a long time -- assuming it ever does.

I know, we thought we could vote for change, and many of us did. But in the end, most of what we got was the same old same old with slightly different people talking from the podiums, and a new crop of Yowlers calling the current crop of corporate-bought politicians "socialists" instead of figuring out what's really going on.

What should we do next? I have no idea. Do you?

See more of my writing and videos at roblimo.com

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Right now, most terrorists worldwide are Muslims. Not that long ago, the biggest terrorist scourge was the Irish Republican Army. Japan and Chine have had terrorist incidents unrelated to either of these, and the U.S. has had its share of home-grown Christian and right-wing political terrorists in the past few decades, and once suffered a spate of terrorist activities by left-wingers.

The problem with talking about Islamic terrorists as if every Muslim in the world wants to kill all Americans is that this simply isn't true. One nut-case Muslim U.S. Army officer killing fellow soldiers is no indication that all Muslim soldiers are disloyal or murderous any more than Timothy McVeigh's actions meant that all disgruntled white Christian veterans were potential federal building bombers or that every bearded environmentalist was a potential Unabomber.

We have seen people convicted of statutory rape who claim they were not criminals because they were following Mormon doctrine, but most Mormons, including all the Mormons I've ever known personally, are law-abiding citizens.

War is, by definition, something you fight against an entire group or class of people, usually one that calls itself a "country" or "nation." Law enforcement is the art of finding the bad people within a country or group and targeting them -- and them only -- for punishment.

I have met plenty of peaceful, hospitable Muslims both here and abroad. I have met plenty of peaceful, non-murderous anti-abortion activists, plenty of peaceful, albeit disgruntled, veterans, and plenty of peaceful Christians. I've met Jews who didn't want to kill or oppress every Palestinian, and I've known Palestinians who didn't want to kill Jews.

Whether in the U.S. or Afghanistan, most people pretty much want to get through the day without trouble. Very few of us, no matter what our religious or political beliefs, have any desire to massacre our coworkers, neighbors or even the people down the street who play their music too loud when we're trying to sleep.

  I'd like to point out that the military strategy proposed by most of our smarter generals for Afghanistan is essentially law enforcement, not war in the traditional sense. They advocated rooting out and killing or arresting the nasty people there, while turning the rest of the population into law-abiding citizens -- once they have well-enforced laws by which to abide.

This was the strategy behind the famous "surge" in Iraq, and it seemed to work better than any previous strategies we tried there. Yelling, "All Muslims are evil! Kill them!" may be good for talk-radio ratings, but it's no way to get Muslims to stop being terrorists. If anything, it has the opposite effect.

Muslim terrorists on trial? In public? In New York? Excellent! This may be crappy military strategy, but it's great law enforcement strategy and great PR, because it shows the rest of the world how we decide who is a criminal and who isn't, thereby giving the lie to every statement by a radical Islamist that "America is at war with all Muslims."

Our system of law enforcement is flawed in many ways, but it is far better, fairer, and more effective than its counterparts in most dictatorships. We need to let the rest of the world see it in action.

Of course, after the wheels of justice have turned, we ought to execute the lawbreakers who have attacked our country and our fellow citizens. This, too, is fair. I am not advocating appeasement or surrender here. Rather, I am advocating liberty and justice for all, a traditional American set of ideals we sometimes forget to practice in the heat of the moment.

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So here I am, reading newspapers online and preparing for another day of boring video editing, and a noise out front captures my ears. It is the sound of socialism in action -- in the form of a county-owned street cleaning truck coming up our street.

Socializing health care would obviously be an evil move. Just ask any recipient of Social(ist) Security or Medicare around here, and they'll tell you in detail why only the "Greatest Generation" deserves government help with living expenses and medical care. But age-discriminating welfare and medical treatment are not the only bits of government socialism against which we must fight if we want to return America to the way it was when Our Founders walked the land.

Do you think Samuel Adams advocated socialist, government-paid street cleaning? No way! He lived in cities full of horse poop and liked it. George Washington never spoke out in favor of public sewer systems. Thomas Jefferson didn't talk about taxpayer-supported ambulance service.

Fellow Americans, government takes away far too many of our rights. Back in the good old days we had the right to buy tainted meat, take drugs that had opium as their main ingredient, and to live on garbage-strewn, poop-littered dirt roads that didn't have sidewalks.

Sidewalks are another bit of socialism. Believe me, Our Founders didn't write the need for them into the Constitution for good reason.

And let's not forget traffic signals. They are yet another way the government tries to take away our rights and regulate our everyday behavior.

It is time for all right-thinking Americans to band together to reclaim our country. We must protest socialist streetcleaning and waste removal. We must lay down in front of socialized ambulances and fire trucks. We must fight against socialist public-option health care, socialist police, socialist schools, socialist roads and sidewalks, socialist food and drug regulations, and all the other ways government intrudes in our lives.

We must take back America. To arms, fellow citizens! To arms!!!

read more of my mutterings @ roblimo.com

I am sick and tired of Socialist Firefighters and how they have taken away my liberty.

You think I'm kidding? I'm serious as a heart attack. I just got a $137.44 tax bill for firefighting services. This is unconstitutional and unfair. It's unconstitutional because nowhere in the constitution does it say government should provide firefighting services. It's unfair because I don't smoke in bed or use unventilated kerosene heaters or overload electrical circuits or do anything else that's likely to set my little place on fire. I'm so fire-safe that I light my charcoal grill with paper in a chimney, not with dangerous lighter fluid. So why, in the name of God and Ron Paul, am I forced to pay for my neighbors' carelessness?

Mind you, if a neighbor's house catches on fire, I'll run over with my fire extinguishers (I have two of them, ready to use) and my garden hose and try to put it out. We Americans are like that: neighborly and helpful. But we do not want firefighting service shoved down our throats, especially if it's controlled by government bureaucrats instead of honest, profit-making American businesses.

Not just socialism. Tyranny, too

Imagine a government bureaucrat coming onto your property whenever he or she wants and telling you how many people you can have over at any given time. Fire inspectors do this all over America, day in and day out. Worse, they can force honest business owners to spend thousands of dollars on sprinkler systems, smoke detectors, and emergency exits. They can do this to churches, too. Imagine that! A uniformed government official has the power to shut down a church because it is so popular that it attracts standing-room-only crowds. This is anti-Christian. It is against the First Amendment. It is Tyranny.

We must stop the evil of socialist firefighting and go back to the days when a fire victim would negotiate with private fire companies to put out fires on his or her property. Yes, once upon a time, America had private firefighting companies that competed with one another for business. The father of our country himself, George Washington, belonged to a private volunteer fire company. I say, if competing, privately-run fire companies were good enough for George Washington, they should be good enough for us.

We must hold town hall meetings. We must confront our local, state, and federal officials about the horror of socialist firefighting and tell them why it is evil and must be stopped, even though the firefighters' unions and the profiteers who make firefighting equipment will spend millions to lobby in favor of gouging taxpayers -- and increasing their tyrannical hold on us -- a little more every year.

To the barricades, brothers and sisters! And don't forget your teabags!

See more of my commentaries (along with videos and other natterings) at Roblimo.com

Officially, as of July, 2009, 9.4% of the U.S. working population -- about 15 million people -- didn't have jobs. One in three of those unemployed people -- about 5 million of them -- had been out of work for 27 weeks or more, which is a long time to go without a paycheck. Another 8.8 million are "involuntary" part- time workers, and 2.3 million were considered "marginally attached to the labor force," which basically means they have given up looking for on-the-books jobs.

These figures come from a Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary issued on August 9. 2009.

What these figures don't tell you is that a lot of unemployed and underemployed people have maxed their credit cards, lost their homes to foreclosure, run up medical bills they can't pay because they lost their health insurance along with their jobs or are otherwise in deep financial shit.

None of us ("us" because I'm one of these people) are going to buy a new car this year or next year. Or, probably, the year after next or the year after that. Even if we all find work tomorrow, our credit is shot. No legitimate bank or other financial institution is going to loan us money to buy a car or to make any other major purchase. Sure, there will be "credit" available to us in the form of "rent to own" schemes and other high-interest ripoffs, but I don't think a lot of us are going to go that route. We are going to be very careful with our money for many years to come.

Lots of 'Good Jobs' Will Never Come Back

A whole lot of us aren't ever going to make as much money in the future as we did before the current economic situation began. Government bailouts and 'cash for clunkers' programs aside, American employment in the car-building industry is way down, and the laid-off car factory workers who are finding jobs at all are working for a lot less money than they were five or six years ago. Ditto laid-off journalists and people in lots of other businesses that are shrinking and probably won't grow again in our lifetimes.

Think about furniture builders and furniture salespeople. If those of us with shrunken incomes don't buy furniture (and I assure you, new furniture is not a priority for someone struggling to pay bills and find affordable health insurance), then furniture factories and retailers lay off even more people than they already have. That means even fewer people who can afford a restaurant meal and a movie ticket, which means more layoffs, which means a bunch of peope will hold onto old computers instead of getting new ones. And so on.

Meanwhile, those of us who mange to get our hands on any money at all are saving frantically. Whoopee-doo. We Americans got castigated for being spendthrifts instead of savers only a few years ago, and now that we're saving money we're delaying "the recovery."

The thing is, most of us do not want to go back to our old spending habits. We have learned, the hard way, that a seemingly secure job can evaporate and leave us worrying about paying bills that only a week before our layoffs didn't seem very large. So we are being very conservative with our money. We're not financially scarred as badly as our depression-survivor parents or grandparents, but we are learning that we really don't have to replace our 42" HDTVs with 52" HDTVs to feel good about ourselves.

Fabulous Furry Freak Brother Freewheelin' Franklin may have said, "dope will get you through times of money better than money will get you through times of no dope," but money will get you through rough times a lot better than furniture, clothes, HDTVs, computers (especially if they run Vista) and even memories of live concerts you went to before they all cost $50+ per seat, not counting Ticketron "service charges" and other crazy add-on fees.

This new financial conservatism is not infecting only the laid-off legions whose incomes may be permanently downsized, but their families and friends. You never know where the Layoff Lightning will strike next. Indeed, just before I started typing this paragraph, I learned that an IT news operation where several friends work is being sold.

Resumes are being dusted off -- and considering the lack of jobs in journalism right now, so are aluminum can collection bags and "will work for food" signs.

Get Ready for Downsizing

If you haven't already downsized (or haven't been forcibly downsized yet) you may want to consider it.

American homes have gotten much larger in the last few decades, especially here in Florida. Many newer suburban homes are literally twice as large as the ones commonly built around here in the 1960s and 1970s. If you own one of these oversized dwellings, you may want to consider renting out part of it. A lot of single people and childless couples can't afford apartments now, and will be happy to live in one or two of your rooms and even share a bathroom. Sure, your kids may have to double up instead of each having his or her own space, but kids managed to share rooms (heck, whole families have managed to share single rooms) for thousands of years.

You have a fuel hog car. Can't afford something newer and more efficient? Drive less. Every mile you don't drive is money you don't spend on gas and maintenance. And if you have two cars, use the more fuel-efficient of the two for longer trips. You may even want to consider selling one of your two cars and making do with one. Believe it or not, 100 years ago most Americans didn't have cars at all, and managed to survive.

Used clothes, appliances, and furniture: I've found that church-run thrift shops almost always offer better deals than the better-known Salvation Army and Goodwill stores. And used appliances cost between 1/4 and 1/2 of new ones. My wife and I have a "stacked" washer and dryer unit we bought for about 25% of what a similar new one runs.

Mobile homes: We live in one. We beefed up the insulation to the point where our monthly electric bill -- and we use electricity for heat, A/C, cooking, and everything else -- stays under $90 per month. We also have monster tie-downs and a roofover, along with new "140 mph" windows and other anti-hurricane safeguards. What we don't have is much square footage, as in about 640 total as opposed to 1400+ in the house we gave up when I lost my job. No problem. We live in Florida, and our outdoor patio space is at least as large as our indoor space, so we don't feel cramped.

Making Do With Half as Much. Or One-fourth as Much

We accept the fact that our income for the rest of our lives will be somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 as much as it was during my peak earning years. Instead of a trailerable 15' sailboat, a car-top kayak will have to do. Restaurant meals are now once-in-a-while luxuries, not something to be enjoyed two or three time a week. And so on.

Our current income is much closer to the federally-set poverty level (for two people) of $14,570 than to the six-figure level. But we aren't poor. We are just frugal.

I suspect that this is going to be the new American way. Some will strive and struggle to get ahead and will stress themselves out, while a whole lot of people are going to accept having less "stuff" than they used to.

Adjusting to this new reality is not going to be easy for everyone, but it's the way things are going to be for a long, long time. So we might as well get used to it.

See more of my commentaries (along with videos and other natterings) at Roblimo.com

I swear, these modern "family values" people are too silly for words. Take that Mark Sanford guy, for example. He claims to be some sort of conservative, but when it comes to marriage he obviously has some new-fangled, heretical beliefs. I mean, what's the traditional, 100% God-sanctioned method of dealing with lust? You marry her, right? If you already have a wife, no problem. The new honey becomes your Junior Wife and the one you already had is now Senior Wife.

This worked for countless Jews -- and pagans, too -- for thousands of years. Nobody whined about it, nobody tried to pass laws defining marriage as this or that because everyone knew what marriage was: a guy grabbing off all the women he could afford.

Liberals (I think most of them call themselves 'Rebublicons') who complain about a powerful man wanting more than one wife are just plain stupid. They don't realize that when they do things God's way, life goes better. There are, like rules to follow. Don't eat pork; don't light candles between sunset Friday and sunset Saturday; don't lust after your neighbor's goat, wife or other possessions; be good to your slaves... it's all written down for you sillies to read. You can even find it on the Internet.

So marry Maria already, Mark. She has two kids, you have four. You buy some bunk beds, the women take turns sleeping with you and sleeping in a guest room, you pick up a little extra food each week at the grocery store. No big deal. Your lust is fulfilled, everybody's happy.

See how easy life is when you do things God's way? :)

Friedman's idea, basically, is to help finance new and innovative business instead of propping up dinosaurs like the existing car companies. He says:

You want to spend $20 billion of taxpayer money creating jobs? Fine. Call up the top 20 venture capital firms in America, which are short of cash today because their partners -- university endowments and pension funds -- are tapped out, and make them this offer: The U.S. Treasury will give you each up to $1 billion to fund the best venture capital ideas that have come your way. If they go bust, we all lose. If any of them turns out to be the next Microsoft or Intel, taxpayers will give you 20 percent of the investors' upside and keep 80 percent for themselves.

Unions, richies with money invested in failing companies, and lots of other pressure groups will scream and cry and mobilize hordes of lobbyists to prevent anything like this from happening on a large enough scale to matter. But it makes far more sense to invest in America's future than to hold on to our past. I don't see this as a "left vs. right" argument, but as a "well, duh" piece that almost everyone who believes in American ingenuity and inventiveness ought to support.

Please read the whole article and let me know what you think.

(This piece can also be read and commented on at roblimo.com.)

We're going to have a huge economic stimulus bill, full of wasteful items that may stimulate the economy and may not. Some of the funding baked into it -- for infrastructure, research and education -- will have long-term benefits for all of us. There's a bunch of pander-level tax cuts tossed in, too, presumably as a sop to Republicans who didn't vote for it, anyway, and couldn't be bothered coming up with a detailed counterproposal. I was hoping for some principled Republican opposition, not yammer about yet more tax cuts for the richies and a stupid attempt (that backfired) to make public employees' unions look nasty. But nooooo. Instead of acting sensible, Congressional Republicans decided to paint themselves even further into the right-wing corner than they already were.

I personally prefer not to have the same political party occupying the White House and dominating Congress. When you have opposition between the two, any action that gets taken is likely to have broad public support. When one party dominates both the legislative and executive branches, it can do whatever it wants, even write two decades' worth of dreamed-about social legislation into a financial stimulus bill.

Then again, the Republican Party has drifted so far into "Rush and farther right" territory that I half-expect it to start doctor-shopping so it can get a whole bunch of prescriptions for the institutional version of Oxycontin. We can call this "being true to Republican principles" or we can call it "falling into the hands of nuts." Either way, the Republican Party has drifted so far away from what most Americans want from their government that it might as well disband at the national level and concentrate on state and local politics.

The funny thing is, here in Florida, Obama and the Congressional Democrats are busy saving Republicans. The main purpose of the state Republican Party here is to protect our richest and greediest citizens' wallets, even if that means shutting down all programs that help poor people and ordinary workers, which is extra-nasty when so many workers are getting laid off and the poor are becoming poorer than ever. But Florida Republicans can get away with their despicable behavior because (TA! DA!) those evil Washington Democrats are going to pump billions worth of stimulus funds into the state.

Isn't that wonderful? Because of Obama and his crowd, our Republicans won't need to cut as much as they planned, and won't need to raise taxes on the Palm Beach bunch to keep Medicaid (marginally) solvent.

The only high-profile Florida Republican who isn't angry at Obama for saving Florida Republicans' butts is governor Charlie Crist, who has publically and literally embraced Obama. Crist apparently enjoys being in office, unlike the rest of the them. Who knows? He may even decide to give up the Governor schtick, with its two-term limit, and run for Senate, where you can stay in office for life.

Naturally, many of the wrong-wing... excuse me, I meant to type "right-wing" crowd here are howling mad at Crist, just as they are howling mad at anyone who doesn't agree with them about everything from (un)intelligent design to forbidding abortions for gun-carrying pregnant teenagers.

Nationally, Republican office-holders seem to be only slightly less crazy than the ones we have in Florida. This is too bad. I rather enjoy a two-party system where we have rational debates about different ways of running our government and end up with workable compromises that keep things cranking one way or another.

Maybe one day rational people will recapture the Republican Party. And maybe a new party will come along. I would be happy with either alternative, since I truly believe the U.S. is best served by having competitive politics instead of letting a bunch of one-notes run everything.

Also published at roblimo.com

Dear Senator Martinez:

I'm not 100% happy with the Democrat-backed stimulus bill, either, but just saying "no, no, no" to it is not going to help solve our country's problems. Neither will more tax cuts and "fewer regulations" that benefit your greediest constituents, who have already gotten plenty of tax cuts and have been deregulated to the point where they can commit all kinds of white collar crimes (and even sell tainted peanuts) without fear of prosecution.

It's time for you to be a patriot and work for the majority of American citizens, not just the richest ones.

My personal concerns:

1) COBRA subsidies - Since we seem unable to do national health insurance, I must respectfully ask you to support (or at least not oppose) help for those of us who have been laid off and have no choice but COBRA to continue our health insurance without exclusions for pre-existing conditions. My unemployment payments in Florida, after taxes, are barely over $1000 per month, and my COBRA cost is $848 per month. I expect to eventually scare up enough freelance writing and video work to support my (sick) wife and myself, but a 65% federal COBRA subsidy would be a great help. Even 50% would be a big deal.

Of course, comprehensive national health coverage that isn't tied to employment would be best, but I understand that you would incur the Wrath of Rush and the other right-wing loonies if you supported this, so I don't expect you to. At least, I beg you, please try to open your heart to help with COBRA.

2) Income taxes on unemployment - I don't know who came up with this "kick them when they're down" idea, but it is evil. I am -- not kidding -- paying a higher tax rate on my unemployment pittance than famous Republican whore Paris Hilton pays on her inheritance millions. I didn't mind paying substantial income taxes when I was earning $100K+ per year, but hitting me now? Pure sadism. Please stop it.

3) Credit card usery, mortgage foreclosure, and bankruptcy - Since I'm now out of work and will soon lose my house to foreclosure, I expect the credit card thieves to raise the interest rate on my (average for my previous income) credit card debt to the point where I will not be able to pay it off without resorting to some sort of credit plan or, possibly, bankruptcy.

Since either Wachovia or the private mortgage insurance company can (hard to believe, but it is so) come after me for a default judgment after selling the house we are losing to foreclosure if -- as is virtually certain -- they can't auction it for enough to cover the outstanding loan balance, this is another possible reason for bankruptcy.

I basically see bankruptcy as inevitable for us. And bankruptcy laws were changed by Republicans (including you, I believe) to be very, very hard on those of us who are down and out, and much more favorable to your richest corporate constituents.

That was a huge evil, and one I hope you help reverse, along with the deregulation (AKA "crime facilitation) you helped engineer, and legalizing sudden "gotcha" usery by credit card lenders.

Bottom line: You have been a very bad man. Many of your legislative actions, from the standpoint of a working (and now laid-off) American, could easily be viewed as either treason or economic terrorism.

But I am basically a nice person, and I prefer to see goodness in all people, so instead of excoriating you as a devil-spawned rat bastard, I am respectfully asking you to let your better nature take over, and for you to right some of the wrongs you have helped promulgate over the years.

Repectfully yours,

Robin Miller
Bradenton, FL

Sent via email to Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Florida Rich People) on Feb. 9, 2009; also posted at roblimo.com

To: Rep. Vern Buchanan - 1 page; none to follow -
via fax: (202) ___ ____

From: Robin Miller
Bradenton FL 34207

Subject: Economic stimulus

Dear Congressman Buchanan:

I didn't like the pork-laden economic stimulus bill you voted against much more than you did. But I also dislike the idea of more tax cuts - or extending current ones - for our greediest citizens as the basis of an alternative stimulus bill.

I got laid off on Dec. 31, 2008. I get $275 per week in unemployment, and even this little bit is taxed at a higher rate than Paris Hilton's inheritance income. When I was earning over $100,000 a year, I didn't mind paying a stiff income tax rate, although it was sickening that you and the other getovers typically paid a lower percentage on your much larger (unearned) incomes. Now I feel I am being double-punished for the crime of sudden poverty. Isn't losing my house enough?

It's time for you and your fellow richies to give a little back to those of us who have paid for the stable government and capitalist system that helped you accumulate your wealth. I'm not advocating socialism, but temporary help to get back on our feet. I'd strongly suggest some serious infrastructure and science/tech/engineering research funding, because in addition to creating jobs, this kind of spending helps improve our country for generations to come. Remember all those parks our parents took us to when we were kids in the 50s and 60s? A lot of them were built by Roosevelt's WPA, and we were happily using them 30 years later. Sure, the WPA's main purpose was to create jobs, but it also did plenty to make America a better place to live. This is the best kind of economic stimulus.

Another note: when we working people have money coming in again, you and your crowd will make money from us that you don't get now, so by helping us you will be helping yourself in the long run.

Call this idea "trickle up economics." I know it's the opposite of the traditional Republican approach, but it just might work. Please give it a try.

Thanks for caring,

Robin 'Roblimo' Miller
Bradenton, FL

(also posted at www.roblimo.com)

Washington Post headline: To Combat Obama, Al-Qaeda Hurls Insults. It seems the hard-core Muslim fundies aren't fooled by the hard-core American nut-cases who portray the man they often call "B. Hussein Obama" as a Muslim sympathizer. Al Qaeda knows better. They see Obama as a sympathetic figure to people of color -- including most Muslims -- who is still a patriotic American. They see the Obama-approved missile strikes on their people and compounds in Pakistan as a continuation of Bush-style toughness. And they're right. There is no evidence, beyond loonie right-wing name-calling, that Barack Obama will be any less tough on terrorists then George W. Bush or even Dick Cheney.

One thing we can expect, though, is that Obama will remain true to American Values, including due process of law and avoiding illegal torture. This is as scary to Al Qaeda as it is to the American kooks. It means they will no longer be able to use threats of "American atrocities" as a recruiting tool. In fact, it's starting to look like the only new allies Al Qaeda will have in its hatred of Obama are America's own racists and nuttiest conservatives. These are the same people who once talked about how we should all stand behind our president, but apparently meant what they said only when the president was a right-wing Republican.

So, Rush Limbaugh and fellow travelers, how does it feel to be allied with Al Queda? How are you and your new friends getting along? And where you do plan to hold your first international We Hate Obama festival? Inquiring minds want to know...

This article is also available at Roblimo.com

Obviously, cleaning up the Bush mess is going to be one heck of a job. But let's forget the work side of the presidency for a moment and talk about Barack Obama as husband, father, and regular guy, because no matter how hard the Republicans try to portray Obama as an out-of-touch elitist, he is more in touch with ordinary Americans than any Bush has been for generations. Let's start with the mother in law thing.

You may or may not have heard that Barack Obama's mother in law has moved into the White House. To me, this is more momentous than having the first black president. I mean, president or no president, I expect Marian Robinson to keep him from getting too swell-headed. She was a secretary for many years, and her late husband, Fraser, had a blue-collar job with the city of Chicago. They lived non-prosperously on the city's south side and raised not only Michelle but also her brother Craig Robinson, who Marian can repeatedly remind Barack is a better basketball player and coach than he'll ever be.

I have a vision of "First Granny" Marian charging into a meeting room at 9 p.m. and telling Barack, "I don't care if you're in the middle of negotiations that will bring peace to the Middle East. It's time for you to read your daughters a bedtime story and tuck them in."

And Michelle may be First Lady and a high-powered lawyer with ivy league degrees, but I have never met an adult who wasn't viewed, at least some of the time, as a baby by his or her mother. If we were flies on the wall in the White House family quarters, I'll bet we'd hear, more than once, "Baby, there is no way you're going to wear that dress in public. You look like you're going to bounce out of it any second."

Plus, every time Barack complains about the rigors of the job, First Granny will be there to remind him not only that she had to show up at work at a crappy job even when it was snowing, without any servants to help, but that her ancestors were slaves, and that Barack has relatives in Kenya who live in dirt-floored huts, so he should be grateful for what he has, even on days when the presidency seems overwhelming.

Cut off from the people

Barack Obama was apparently well-known and well-liked in Chicago. He hung out at the local barber shop, trading gossip and jokes while he waited for his turn in the chair. He and Michelle ate out often, not necessarily at the fanciest places in town but at family-priced, mid-scale restaurants where they were well-known (and good-tipping) regulars. Then there's the Blackberry. Yes, Barack is going to keep it. Good. He's always had a lot of friends and, president or no, is determined to stay in touch with them.

The Ben's Chili Bowl excursion Barack made with D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty soon after he arrived in the city was perfect. Yeah, Ben's is a necessary stop for black celebs in D.C. ever since Bill Cosby (not a celeb at the time) courted his future wife there. But Ben's is not fancy, and far more ordinary people than celebrities sit at the tables and counter, and customers are not necessarily black. As a limo driver, I sat and ate at Ben's more than once while waiting on charter parties who were at the nearby 9:30 Club and other U Street night spots. I met all kinds of people there, from cops to Howard University professors. Ben's is the kind of place that encourages conversation and discussion. And this video shows that, aside from secret service all over the place and lots of cameras and hand-shaking, Barack is right at home in a Ben's-type place, right down to the inevitable sports banter. And that he picked up the check. And posed for a snapshot with some of the cops guarding the front of the place, and gave Mayor Fenty a nice little hug before he left.

It's going to be hard for Barack and Michelle to slip out for the evening on a whim, even if they have First Granny and lots of staff to watch he kids. Secret service... lots of attention.... not exactly conducive to going out dancing or for a romantic dinner or meeting a few friends for a drink somewhere. And taking the kids to the park or the zoo is going to be a motorcade event that will tie up traffic, not a simple family thing, no matter how hard the Obamas try to stay normal and do normal things.

Bush and Clinton not only lived in the bubble of White House security, but seemed to like it because it set them apart from the peasants. Barack and Michelle seem totally comfortable with ordinary working people, as well they should since they have so many of them as friends and family.

This gives me more hope for the Obama presidency than political leanings or almost anything else. Barack's Blackberry dealings may now be limited, but I bet First Granny Marian will be on the phone plenty with relatives and old friends in Chicago, who will give her a streets-eye view of the country's economy that may be more accurate than all the economists' predictions Barack will be forced to wade through as part of his job.

I just hope Obama can stay comparatively normal in the White House, not only for our sake but for his -- and his wife's and daughters'. And I feel sorry for him, because the demands of the job won't let him be a regular, hang-out-at-the-barber-shop kind of guy ever again, no matter how much he wants to be.

This article is also available at Roblimo.com

I totally love both mountains and snow. On postcards, where they belong.

I believe God intended me to live somewhere I can pick oranges from my own tree and eat them immediately, while they're still fresh; where I can go sailing on a "wet" boat (like a kayak, canoe or Sunfish), wearing nothing but swim trunks, at least eight months out of the year.

And Article 149, section 2146, of the U.S. Constitution guarantees our right to free parking at all beaches unless they have special camping facilities and conveniences, a la Ft. DeSoto. If our Founding Dads didn't think going to the beach was important, free beach parking wouldn't be in the Constitution, would it?

Where and when I grew up (Orange, California, 50s and 60s), it was a child's *right* to go to the beach a minimum of once every week during the school year, and up to five times a week during summer vacation. As an adult, I believe I still have that right, even if sometimes I just sit on the sand and watch the sunset instead of going in the water.

If I want cold I eat a sno-cone.

I'm losing my house because I lost my job, but instead of leaving the area my wife and I are rehabbing a tiny mobile home just a few miles down the road. Friday I was at the new place with Tony-the-carpenter, and our new neighbor Ralph came over with fresh-squeezed pink grapefruit juice from his tree, to which we have "picking rights" in exchange for him getting ditto from our orange tree. Great juice. I can still taste it.

Snow people don't have fresh citrus.

Cold and rainy climates produce suicidal musicians like Kurt Cobain. Florida has Jimmy Buffet. Jimmy gets older and richer every year. Kurt doesn't.

Remember where, in the Bible/Torah, God promises Joshua and his people "a land of milk and honey and citrus and year-round fresh produce" and says nothing about Maple syrup? God knew Maple syrup was only grown in cold climates -- but could easily be shipped without losing its flavor. Milk, citrus, and produce are best eaten fresh. (Honey keeps pretty well, but it's nice to get fresh orange blossom honey from local beekepers. God probably mentioned this but His editors cut it because they were paying by the published word and wanted to hold their budget down.)

Also, if God hadn't wanted us to live in Florida, with its basically crappy-tasting tap water, he wouldn't have given us mount-on-the-tap water filters. Or bottled water.

I am a Godly man. I live by His plans. I am so conservative I don't necessarily hold with this modern marriage nonsense but believe the traditional ways, as followed by Abraham, David, and Solomon, should be good enough for anyone. More on that topic here: http://www.roblimo.com/node/571

And for you heretics and pagans who believe in the False Doctrine of Evolution, there is plenty of (no doubt false) evidence that we humans evolved in tropical and sub-tropical climates.

George W. Bush may claim Texan-hood but was born in chilly Connecticut, went to high school -- excuse me, I meant to say "prep school" -- in even colder Massachusetts, went to college in Connecticut, and attended grad school in Massachusetts.

Barack Obama grew up in sunny Hawaii, with some of his childhood time spent in sunny Indonesia. He is an accomplished body surfer. We don't even know if George Bush has ever *tried* surfing.

But if you want to deny God and live in a cold climate, fine. Don't let me stop you.

I believe in the freedom to make all the mistakes you want, which is also part of the U.S. Constitution.

Originally posted @ http://roblimo.com

Today I join the ranks of laid-off over-50 men who will probably never find a job as good as their last one. Let's face it: the demand for journalists has been going down every year for the last decade. Worse, the demand for senior-level editors has never been huge, and is dropping faster than the need for young college graduates who will work for next to nothing. Sure, in addition to being a competent writer and editor with a good grasp of technology and science, I am also skilled in the art of building viable (and profitable) online communities, but does that mean anything in today's horrible economy? Will I be able to find another job? Failing that, will I be able to get enough freelance work to survive? I have no idea.

In any case, I'm preparing to give up my mortgaged house. Without a job I can't afford the payments. Luckily, my wife and I have already bought a small (and very cheap) house trailer we hope to have fixed up and ready for occupancy around the middle of January, so we'll be out of here long before Wachovia forecloses on us.

I always did well as a freelance writer, and since I last freelanced 10 years ago I have become a competent video shooter and editor, too, so I probably can build enough freelance trade to produce a decent living before my small savings account runs dry, especially if I can collect some unemployment (I'm eligible) while I scrounge up enough freelance work to live on.

My biggest problem -- and biggest fear -- is health insurance. My wife and I are both 56, and we have pre-existing conditions that no private health insurance plan will cover for at least two years. My only choice is to continue my current employer-paid health plan through COBRA, and that's going to cost $848 per month. Meanwhile, Florida's maximum employment payment is $275 per week -- which means my wife and I will have a total of about $300 per month to cover all other expenses.

There's no point in complaining. I've voted for more than a few Republicans over the years, and this is my payback for that mistake. I've voted (mostly) for Democrats since 2000, and hopefully the Democrats now in office will realize that people like me need as much help as bank and Wall Street executives.

That's enough for now. I need to get some employment applications and freelance story proposals out. I don't know what you're doing this New Year's Day, but that's what *I'm* doing. :)

We need to legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana. This would make Florida a more attractive place to live for many young, creative people who could help us move the state's economy from its current dependence on 19th century-style "exploit and ruin the land" businesses to a sustainable, technology-based economy. This move would also save billions in law enforcement and prison spending.

Legal marijuana would also make Florida an attractive retirement destination for people who suffer from chronic pain, whether as a result of cancer, diabetes-related neuralgia or any other cause.

And then there's tourism... imagine how many tourists we'd get if, after a day of gambling or hanging out at the beach or at a Mickey park, visitors could go to a little Tiki Hut and light up a relaxing joint before going back to their hotel rooms -- with each one of said joints generating $1 or so in tax revenue.

Not only that, we could run a "Buy American" campaign that would encourage residents and tourists alike to smoke or ingest "Ocala Oh!" or "Manatee Marvel" or "Sarasota Supreme," all evocative brand names that would make it clear that "Florida Cannabis is the BEST Cannabis," no doubt with a state-funded marketing campaign to help get the word out. (Note to self: see if Anita Bryant is available.)

So: lower police/prison costs, a new and lucrative agriculture-based industry, attract both tourists and permanent residents, and an additional source of tax revenue, all in one.

Why aren't we considering this? Sure sounds logical to me...

PS - This was originally a response to a local newspaper article.