I am the 99% — are you?

I am the 99%.

I have a job. That makes me lucky. I had to take a pay cut this year, but I am still lucky. Others who earn more than I do had no pay cut this year, and no pay cut last year, but I am still lucky. At least my pay cut was smaller than it could have been, and smaller than it was for others who work elsewhere. At least I was hired after all the pay cuts started 2 years ago, so I’ve never known the difference.

I work hard at what I do, and I am good at it. My hard work is rewarded — I get to keep my job. But there is no other reward. There is no benefit to working hard and growing professionally outside of my own personal satisfaction and eventual (maybe) long-term success. But I am still lucky, because at least I have a job.

I have savings, and that also makes me lucky. I have savings because my husband has no income. I have savings because we will eventually have to move, probably at our own expense, for the sake of both of our careers. I have savings because even though I am lucky enough to have a job, I can never be sure I will stay lucky enough to keep it. I have no money for retirement right now. I have no money for buying a house. I have no money for furthering my education. But I am lucky, because at least I also have no debt.

I have health insurance, which makes me lucky. It just got more expensive, and more invasive, because my employer insists it cannot afford to insure us all without those changes. But I am lucky, because it is still less expensive than most other health insurance plans. Even though I am paying more to get less, I am lucky.

In the whole thread of my life, there is one thing I can’t ignore: I am lucky. I am fortunate. I am amazingly blessed. I also work hard and try to be intelligent and frugal and mature about the choices I make. But others do the same, and they aren’t so lucky. They aren’t so fortunate. They aren’t so blessed. Hard work only matters when you’re lucky enough to have somewhere to work hard. And nobody should have to be dependent upon luck to have the basic necessities of life.

I am lucky. And I stand with the 99%.

Rick Perry on Loving America

Rick Perry is officially running for president. I’m not surprised, as he’s been making noises about it for several weeks now. The brilliance of his timing in announcing it makes me understand perhaps a little better how he keeps winning the gubernatorial races in Texas even with 4-way splits and barely more than a quarter of the vote.

But, now that Rick Perry has officially tossed his hat in the ring, he said in Iowa that what we need is a president who is passionate about America, a president who really loves America. And Rick Perry knows exactly how to do that, is the subtext.

He’s got a point, you know. We do need a president who is passionate about and loves this country. And Rick Perry, man, he just loves this country. Thinks it’s awesome. In fact, he loves it so much, he said he wanted to secede. He loves the American people so much he’s willing to default on our debts and pawn off social services to states that often can’t pay for them (did you know that over 20% of Texan children have no health insurance, Mr. States-Can-Totally-Handle-This-Sort-of-Thing? Of course you do, and you’re probably totally fine with that reality, since kids can’t vote or anything).

Forgive me if I maybe am not buying the idea that Rick Perry is going to be good for anyone or anything. I also have to say that, while I’m sure Perry’s run for the presidency is going to be highly entertaining on some levels, I’m mostly kind of dreading it. Because people don’t have a skewed enough view of Texas and its governors already. We need some guy who Republicans call dumb as a sack of rocks to represent the state with extremist views that most Texans don’t actually agree with.

Extraordinary Times

I don’t normally pay much attention to politics in Wisconsin (or for that matter, any state I don’t actually live in), but today the whole country has an interest and a stake there.

It looks like, despite the truly massive effort and turnout, Democrats failed to pick up enough seats to control the state senate in Wisconsin. They beat 2 Republicans — they needed to beat 3. It’s very disappointing news, because the whole rest of the country is looking at this election as a sort of bellwether for the rights of people who work for a living everywhere. For Democrats, and for anyone who supports union rights and labor laws, this is bound to be a discouraging sign. And it’s at a time when giving up or giving in could, quite easily, strip the progress of decades with regard to workers’ rights.

Probably everybody thinks they live in extraordinary times. There are probably always navel-gazers like yours truly who feel the impact of what is, truly, history in the making. There is always a first time for this, or an end to that, but I can’t help thinking that the past few years have been extraordinary even when compared to other extraordinary times. The economic and political realities of this country right now are shaping a whole generation (maybe even more than one). The effects of what happens now could persist for years or even decades.

In the end, I don’t really know how people live in a world like the one we’re in. I don’t know how people who pay close attention survive with such extraordinary news happening every day. I understand even less how anyone could ignore it. I will admit, sometimes I try. Sometimes I figuratively toss my hands up in the air and stick my head in the sand because I just can’t take it anymore. I might be able to keep it up for a few months at a time, but in the end, whatever comfort or happiness I gain by ignoring the outside world is false, and it’s fleeting. For me, at least, there is no comfort without information. There is no bliss in ignorance.

It’s just so hard not to be angry, to rail against the ignorance or the stupidity of people who either don’t pay enough attention, or lack the ability to connect all the dots. It’s easier to think of the people who oppose me politically as ignorant of the bigger picture, or too stupid to grasp it, because the alternative is that they want these things to happen. I can’t think of any other reasons why people would continue to vote for the Republican Party, and to continue to support their policies and ideologies with the state of the nation the way it is.

I know there are people who think that Republican politicians will fix the economy if the Democrats will just get out of the way. I just don’t understand how they can still believe that when they look at the reality of the world we live in. Maybe Democrats aren’t any better, but there’s no getting around the fact that while there are some Democrats who are corporate shills uninterested in the plight of the average American, there are no Republicans right now who aren’t. It doesn’t matter what any of them say — when you vote in lock-step with a party that is so blatantly pursuing policies to benefit corporations/the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, you deserve to be tarred with the same brush no matter what you say outside of Washington.

There is a time and a place to debate about which theories of politics and economics are the best, and to bicker about what specific course this country ought to take. Now is not that time. Now is the time when you are either for Americans, all of them, or you are against them. If you do not actively seek to help average Americans, you will hurt them. If you do not actively seek to fix the economy, you will destroy it. Now is the time when everybody needs to be a damn adult, and put aside the things they want for the things this country needs. I see Democrats doing that, repeatedly, over and over, to the point of absurdity and even sometimes harm. I see Republicans capitalizing on a nation in crisis to advance their own agenda, without consideration or regard for anyone who actually needs to work for a living. I might be disappointed in the Democrats in Washington, but furious does not even begin to describe how I feel about Republicans.

Memo to Advertisers

TO: Companies Who Advertise on the Internet
FROM: A Concerned Viewer
DATE: August 5, 2011
cc: Television Networks

To Whom it May Concern:

Since producing the average television show is an expensive undertaking, it is understandable that television networks wish to sell time on their airwaves in the form of advertisements to defray those costs.  Nothing in life is free, so it is also understandable that when those television networks make their shows available over the internet, they still wish to defray costs through advertising.

When a television network offers to sell you a slot that will have your 60 second ad play between each 6+ minute chunk of a 45 minute television show, this probably sounds like a great idea.  Everyone will see your advertisement for the New! WhizBang! UberCool! Gadget! (or whatever you are selling), and they won’t see advertisements from anyone else.

However, I urge you to resist this offer.  The purpose of advertising is to make me, the consumer, feel favorably towards you and/or your product, so that when I am in the market for a new Gadget, I want to spend my money on the New!WhizBang!UberCool! one.  Unfortunately, if I have to watch the exact same 60 second ad more than once, it begins to inspire feelings of negativity.  More than twice, and it frequently gives me the active desire to spend my money with any company except yours, because your ad is so bleepity-bleep annoying.

Thus, even when television networks are willing to sell you a deal where you can play the same ad over and over again, it’s not a good idea.  You should instead spend your money on hiring clever people to create a clever ad, and allow some advertising competition.  When I only see your clever ad once every third or fourth segment, it makes me compare it to all of those other ads that are decidedly not clever.  That makes me look forward to your ad, and actually want to watch it.  When I see your ad multiple times in a row, whether it is clever or not, I do not want to watch it.  I instead mute it and do something else until the show I actually want to watch is back on.

Television Networks, you should also take note.  When you set up annoying and repetitive advertising on purpose, it makes me not really want to expend the effort to watch your shows, which means your poorly-designed advertising gets one less captive audience member.

Sincerely,

Tired of All the Damn Ads

“I got 98% of what I wanted.”

Speaker John Boehner, from an interview with Scott Pelley on CBS Evening News:

Pelley: Can you image Republicans backing increased taxes?

Boehner: I think that would be a stretch. It doesn’t seem likely to me that that would be recommended, much less supported, but I’ve been surprised before.

Pelley: You were unable to get your own caucus behind your bill a few days ago. Do you intend to remain Speaker of the House?

Boehner: I do. When you look at this final agreement that we came to with the white House, I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I’m pretty happy.

So I guess Speaker Boehner wanted the United States to lose jobs:

If Congress fails to renew these existing programs or enact improved versions, we can expect slower growth, fewer jobs, and higher unemployment. Specifically, there could be 1.8 million fewer jobs and a 0.6 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate in 2012 as a result of abandoning current budget policies.

– Economic Policy Institute

And to continue to put our credit rating at risk:

Moody’s Investor Services said Tuesday that the signing of the debt ceiling deal assures that the U.S. will keep its triple-A credit rating for now, but said the longer-term outlook is negative because of slower economic growth and questions about future spending cuts.

– LA Times

And is totally fine with the stock market freaking the heck out in response to all of this (or maybe that was the 2% he didn’t get?):

The broader United States stock market dropped 2.6 percent, erasing all of its gains for the year. That capped a string of declines over seven consecutive days, its longest losing streak since October 2008.

– NY Times

Just to note, though I’m sure everyone remembers this, October 2008 was when the economy originally hopped in a handbasket  on its way to the fiery depths of hell, necessitating a bailout and government stimulus.  We appear to be back at square one, as far as the stock market is concerned.

This was not part of the debt deal, but I imagine Speaker Boehner would say he’s pretty happy about this one, too:

The FAA shutdown doesn’t seem to be getting much coverage – probably because the media attention span has all been sucked into the vortex that is – or was – the debt ceiling crisis.  But as of this moment, the shutdown continues and it’s possible that it will go on into September since Congress is on the verge of recess.

– The Baltimore Sun

This is relevant for pretty much two reasons.  One, Congress apparently did decide to go into recess without extending authorization for the FAA even by a little bit (which is what was necessary to end the shutdown).  So until they reconvene in September, the FAA basically can’t function.  That might not be all Speaker Boehner’s fault (it likely isn’t), but he’s the Speaker of the damn House, so he certainly had something to do with that decision.

Two, you know how Republicans are all about jobs and the economy if you believe their 2010 campaign speeches?  Well, to go along with Speaker Boehner’s debt ceiling deal (which is so helpful to the economy /sarcasm), not extending authorization to the FAA means that 4,000 people are out of work, many of those that are working have to do it for free, construction projects are halted (delaying needed upgrades and putting construction workers out of a job), and the FAA is unable to collect taxes.  To the tune of $30 million dollars per day.  Do Republicans in Congress not think that the $1.2 billion dollars they are refusing to allow the FAA to collect somehow has no effect on the deficit?

Republicans say they refuse to extend authorization because they want to cut subsidies for small regional airports.  Democrats say Republicans refuse to extend authorization because they want to make it harder for airline workers to unionize.  Given the number of state governments controlled by Republicans who have done basically the same thing, and the fact that Delta Airlines (who has fought off attempts of their workers to unionize) is lobbying for continued FAA shutdown…I am not terribly inclined to believe Republicans are being honest.

So, in short, the Republican Party apparently would really like to have the economy crash and burn, to risk going into a “double-dip” recession, to risk having our credit rating downgraded because we can’t be trusted to pay our debts, and they are willing to forgo real, actual money for the sake of sticking it to the unions.

This is not a party that cares about “working class” Americans.  Anyone who tells you that they do is lying, or possibly does not care to use facts in their analysis of the world around them.

Republicans: 1, Democracy: 0

And don’t forget Economy: about -$2.1 trillion. That’s with a T. Because when unemployment is at the highest it’s been in who knows how long, what we need is less money circulating in the economy.

I know there are a lot of opinions out in the world about deficits and the economy and how to fix both of those things. There are about as many as there are people. But it makes me absolutely see red when certain politicians are totally cool with raising the debt ceiling under one president (*cough*Bush*cough*) because of record-breaking deficits, but suddenly when someone they don’t like is in the White House, deficits and the debt ceiling are harbingers of the anti-Christ. Or something.

It’s the hypocrisy that is so very galling.

On top of that, this particular brand of hypocrisy is making a mockery of our system of government. Apparently, this new debt deal that allows us to not cause a global financial meltdown is going to give a “Super Congress” the ability to determine what is actually cut from spending. It’s a bi-partisan group (of course, equal parts Democrat and Republican), and they can more or less do whatever they want because of the way this is structured.

How is that democracy? For the people who love the Constitution so damn much when they’re talking to their constituents, it sure does undercut the power of that other, less popular Congress. You know, the one that us peons get to vote for that gives them all a damn job.

And it makes me absolutely crazy that on the one hand, Republicans are apparently willing to gamble a global financial meltdown in order to get their way (after gambling the US government, as well as unemployed people), and somehow this administration is surprised that they aren’t acting like adults. They stopped acting like responsible adults as soon as the 2008 presidential campaign kicked off, if not before.

There is nothing responsible about bringing your country to the brink of economic disaster, refusing to address an economic catastrophe that you largely caused, and then talking about how it’s all because regular people have to balance their budgets, too.

I wish to goodness there was a catchy, pithy response to that last one (“If I have to balance my budget, so does the government!”), but alas, there’s generally nothing catchy or pithy about macro economics most of the time.

I also know there are going to be people who blame this on the Democrats, too, but seriously — I call foul. There is just no way in hell that this is remotely their fault, except in the sense that they are grownups and don’t want the whole world’s financial system to go into freakout mode because of some stupid vote they (under other presidents, anyway) passed without news or incident on an average of twice per year. So yeah, they gave in, and a part of me wishes they hadn’t. But the rest of me is a grownup and figures that at least this buys us all some time.

It’s official.

News is depressing.

It’s hot here. I know most people don’t think 85 degrees as a high and 56 as a low is hot, but I have no a/c and it’s hard to keep my apartment cool.

I’m tired (see: heat) and cranky. My husband slept on the couch last night rather than deal with my tossing and turning (and I only got dibs on the bed because he can sleep in later than I can).

I’m low on coffee.

Today is one of those Mondays where it is a struggle to do anything at all. At least we were both forward-thinking enough to make sure laundry was done, and I have a lunch already packed.

New Haircut

Fun fact about my brand new haircut: I can, more or less, go to work with bed-head and it looks like this:

...and this was after a whole day at work with me messing with it.

It’s second-day hair (because I don’t wash my hair every day). The first day I washed it in the morning and put mousse in it so it would be curly (and boy howdy, was it!). When I woke up the next day, I finger-combed it a little and…that’s it. Thus, bed-head as appropriate work hairstyle.

Maybe it’s just me (and perhaps I am boring), but I love the combination of that shirt and that necklace so much that I almost always wear them together.

I also am amused by the fact that short hair makes me look older. There will come a time when it will make me look decidedly younger, but I’m obviously still too young for that. It could also be that short hair looks styled after the minimal effort I’m willing to put into it, and long hair doesn’t. So it’s the “styled hair” thing that makes me look like a real live adult more than the length.

Either way, that’s Professional-Mary right there. Since I have exactly 7 tops appropriate for work, this iteration of Professional-Mary shows up basically once a week.

Jobs vs. the Deficit

If you look at what Congress and the White House are talking about in Washington, you’d think that everyone in the country is frozen with fear and foreboding over the (admittedly) unsustainable deficit. I mean, that is basically all they talk about, and there’s a lot of discussion about what “the American People” will and won’t stand for. It’s a discussion driven primarily by Republicans, but a number of Democrats (including President Obama) are going along with it.

But seriously, if you had to pick whether Congress focused on the deficit or on creating jobs, what would you pick? Most Americans (as in more than 3/4 of them) prefer jobs. Because, as anyone who has even skimmed headlines in recent memory knows, unemployment is really high. A 5 second Google search tells me it’s at 9.1%. Nearly 1 in 10 Americans who wish to be employed are not, and that doesn’t even include all the people who have given up on finding a job.

So yeah, the deficit is important. It’s not sustainable the way it is. But the fact is, creating more jobs and actually recovering from this recession will have the fringe benefit of reducing the deficit (because there will be more revenue from taxes, and less spending on things like unemployment and welfare). Reducing the deficit in our current economic situation, however, will have the opposite effect. There is a very real possibility that removing any spending from the economy at all will send us right back into a recession (a real one, not just a sluggish recovery).

If anyone wants an example of what would happen if government spending is cut, there are plenty of them out there. Most state governments can’t run a deficit, and so have been making often draconian cuts in spending to balance their budgets. And what that serves to do, particularly in those states with the biggest budget problems, is make the entire situation worse. When people have no money to spend, when public employees face pay cuts or furloughs or job loss, nobody’s buying anything. Which means there’s no demand for goods or services. Which means the private sector has no incentive to produce goods or provide services. Which means private sector employees face pay cuts or job loss. Which means there is less revenue in the form of taxes. Which means states have to cut even more out of the budget. Repeat ad nauseum.

Americans aren’t stupid. It continues to amaze me that so many politicians in Washington seem to be convinced that we’re either stupid enough to not catch on to what they are doing, or that we don’t really mean it when we say we want them to focus on job creation.

Immigration and Me

Despite the fact that I am apparently not very good at keeping up a blog over the long term, nothing gets me itching to post faster than election season. And, though I may hate to acknowledge it, presidential election seasons (if not others) last for two years. Fortunately, I like politics, and the politics gets a lot more interesting during campaigns, so I don’t truly mind.

But that does make it an interesting time for Jose Antonia Vargas to have chosen to out himself as an illegal immigrant. I shared a video link from The Rachel Maddow Show on my Facebook page the other day, and said her interview with him (and the issue at large) hit a little close to home. Since both Vargas and my husband are Filipino, one could logically assume that was the reason, but it’s not. It might have sounded like it hit close to home because my husband is in a similar situation, but he isn’t (and he made sure to comment on that wall post, too, in a way that was really only half joking).

It’s only because my husband is an immigrant. Or, rather, we’d like him to be. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) received his petition to adjust his status (to permanent resident), and my agreement to sponsor him, back in April. That means that for the past couple of months and for the foreseeable future, we are both officially in limbo. Even knowing that his petition will almost certainly be approved, and quickly at that, it’s still not a comfortable place to be.

In order to get my husband the legal right to live and work in the United States, I personally had to provide USCIS with my paycheck stubs, my tax filing information, my passport or birth certificate, my parents’ names and location of birth, all the places I have worked for the past 5 years, and every address where I had lived for the past 5 years. Even though there are good reasons, it’s still a lot of personal information to furnish. It is probably more personal information than I, as a natural-born citizen, have ever been required to provide to the federal government.

And I’m not done yet, either. We haven’t had our interview. Sometime soon, with about 3 weeks notice and no real ability to reschedule, we will be informed of our appointment in Portland. Our lawyer will attend this interview with us, and has advised us to bring a variety of documents to demonstrate that we have mingled our lives and intend to keep them that way. Again, it’s understandable, even logical, but very intrusive. Nobody else I know has to sit in front of a government official and convince him or her that they truly love their spouse as a condition of being allowed to live together.

And this is the easy route to permanent residency. It doesn’t get any easier or more straightforward than what we are doing — I am a citizen easily capable of proving it, my husband has never been in the country illegally and is demonstrably skilled and of good moral character, I am more than capable of proving that I have the financial capacity to support us both, and he is my spouse. There is no easier route to legal status in this country, and it’s still going to take us at least six months and a few thousand dollars to get through the process. Even when it’s done, it’s not truly over — permanent residency carries with it certain obligations that do not go away unless the resident leaves the country or becomes a citizen.

So how much harder for people like Vargas? And how much more unfair? He has lived in the United States for most of his formative years. My husband moved here as an adult, and still has real emotional, familial, and financial ties to the Philippines. Why is it (relatively) easy for my husband to make this country his home when he has the choice of another, but so incredibly difficult for Vargas who has already made the United States his, and has already contributed in a meaningful way to this society?

I don’t think immigration should be more difficult for the immediate family members of US citizens. But I do think it is almost tragic that the DREAM act has been “in the works,” with supposedly bipartisan support (until Obama said he liked it, anyway), for a decade.