Vultures And Psychos

We have regressed in this country to the point where we ignore facts. Numbers mean nothing.

Not everything is black and white, in fact most things are not. I am glad for that because it is the color, the cracks in between, that make life interesting, the things that give you hope.

However it is a fact that we have the most lenient gun laws in the civilized world and the largest number of guns owned (1 per person) and we have the highest occurrence of violence.

Other civilized countries in the world with much stricter gun safety regulations experience much less violence.

That's it. Black and white. Direct correlation.

There are subtleties there, there are other contributing factors to the violence in this country, but it is a safe bet that if we tighten up gun safety regulations, violence will decrease.

It sickens me to listen to Wayne LaPierre and the mindless gun owners rage angrily against any change in gun safety regulations. They say that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to give a good guy a gun. A lack of logic which directly contradicts the facts.

Even the multiple deaths of five year old children cannot inspire in these people one shred of logic or compassion. 

They hold their guns more dear than the lives of  trusting, innocent children.

By the way there are responsible gun owners - millions of them. And I'm sure they have no problem with lack of access to automatic weapons, semi-automatic weapons with over sized clips and to assault weapons.

It's the gun owners who sit at home at night caressing their UZI and shouting out SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS in their sleep that turn my stomach.

These people fear the slippery slope - they feel if we increase gun control, eventually gun ownership will be outlawed outright.  It worries me to know unthinking, hysterical people like this are the ones who love these weapons of mass mourning.

There is no slippery slope. We will always have guns. We need them to defend ourselves against The Banks.

Which brings me to my next point.

Just read an article in Rolling Stone written by Matt Taibbi reviewing the results of the bank bailouts - four years later. It sickened me.

It exposed the whole thing for the game it was, enriching banks even further and leaving everyday people even more vulnerable.

The banks were deemed too big to fail. At the time, the five biggest banks held 37% of all deposits in this country. Right now they hold 44%. They are now too bigger to fail.

Included in the bailout were provisions to help people facing foreclosure. Also included were provisions to prevent executives from getting huge bonuses.

The banks managed to skirt the foreclosure provisions to the point that only a tiny fraction of the funds made it to desperate people. They also found a way around the bonus restrictions and gleefully handed out big money to fat cats.

My point is this. Where were the numbers guys? You hand out $700 billion to companies that have already proved themselves to be crooks and then just trust them to do their thing?

We are talking about banks here. The ultimate black and white (supposedly). It would have been simple to employ auditors at every big bank to monitor activities on a daily basis if necessary. It didn't happen and it amazes me.

Last year Citi arbitrarily reduced the credit limit on one of our credit cards. We found out the hard way when we tried to use the card to pay for an automotive emergency and were denied.

There is a clause in the agreement we signed that says they can do anything they want anytime they want for any reason. I am paraphrasing but trust me, that is what it says.

They ultimately explained that they were worried we might default in the future. We had never missed a payment, never even been late with a payment.

Citi (one of the bailout banks) can penalize me for something they think might happen in the future, but the government cannot monitor bank activity after a $700 billion bailout.

In other words they can monitor my tiny little balance and limited financial activity but the government cannot monitor the activity of banks who hold the economic fate of the world in their hands.

There is no accountability. No numbers analysis. No connection with reality.

I feel alone in this country. I feel more than ever that I am on my own. That the only way to dig myself out is to find a thin road to independence.

My own road that can give me some distance from the vultures and the psychos.