Happy New Year!
The confetti has fallen, the champagne (and those who had too much of it) are being mopped off the sidewalk and Dick Clark can rest up for the next 12 months… Time for a year in review? Nah. Everyone does that. Besides, we haven’t been around long enough to really bother. Perhaps next year…
How about a sneak peek at the year to come? I like that better. No, I am NOT using a crystal ball, and if you want to find out what’s going to happen to Brangelina go get a tabloid rag. We here at H&B couldn’t care less…as long as we can still watch Tomb Raider with no sound.
This year will bring an end to the “white gentleman’s club” that is the presidency of the United States. As a US citizen, I wish P.E.B.O. (President Elect Barack Obama) a healthy and safe presidency. I sincerely hope that his recent exposure to reality in the form of Presidential-Level Security briefings has cleared his mind on how to best address the threats that our country faces. God willing, the inauguration will go off without a hitch and the mantle of power will be passed again from party to party without violence or bloodshed. This country is greater than our enemies for that reason, even if you think there aren’t any others. Even those who must try to make some moral equivalency between the US and our enemies MUST agree on that point.
There is a school of thought that PEBO will take a centrist tack in his Presidency… I don’t necessarily agree with that, although I don’t think he’ll get on The Pelosi Express straight to socialist hell. Barack is (without a doubt) a socialist. He wants to redistribute wealth, he thinks that the rich should pay more (they already pay a HUGE majority of the taxes). I think we can look forward to major steps toward socialized medicine, a thought that makes me shudder. Some of you may not understand this because you are fairly healthy individuals that go to the doctor when you feel like you’re about to die… well, let me clear this up for you with a current example of the government’s ability to manage health-related issues. My daughter presently receives medicaid due to a genetic disability. She also suffers from moderate gastric reflux, and is therefore on a regimen of daily antacids. Unfortunately, the medicine that she takes is a compound that must be mixed in the pharmacy. Not a problem for Dean and the crew at our local Publix, but NOW they have to fill out an extra pile of paperwork to get government approval (every time) for something that my daughter has been taking every day for almost three years. Ah, government. Right now I am at the beach (without the aforementioned medication) because they couldn’t get approval in time for us to leave. We called it in almost a week before we left. Consequently, we are trying something OTC while we wait. That’s right, we had to wing it because the government didn’t come through on a BASIC approval. This is antacid folks. Think heart surgery…
I think we can also look forward to a concerted effort to seize our retirement savings in the form of 401K’s. It will undoubtedly be cloaked in some kind of “Robin Hood – it’s for the poor” rhetoric, and the press will duly report that the evil rich have been depriving the poor of their ‘fair share’ of the savings and the socialist revolution will go on…
I think we can look forward to the longest continuous barrage of racism accusations in the history of politics. Please note that there will not actually be anything said in opposition to the incoming administration by the republican opposition that actually IS based in a belief that black people are somehow genetically or socially inferior. Every politician knows that saying something like that would be political suicide. Because of that, you can actually (and unfortunately) expect a very conciliatory and sheepish opposition in the next four years.
We will NOT be leaving Iraq or Afghanistan anytime soon, no matter what Code Pink says or does. This will be the biggest episode of “not dancing with the one that brung you” that politics has seen in a while. The wackos that bought all the anti war rhetoric will be sorely disappointed. I expect that Barack will hear about it, but he won’t suffer too much for it because people will be too focused on the economy.
The economy will not be back anytime soon, much to my chagrin… and Barack won’t be doing much to help that. Sure, there will be a whole new round of infrastructure projects to make jobs, but making jobs won’t lift the economy. Not only that, but I can imagine that whatever he wants to do in this arena will sail by without the first glance at the budget, lest anyone should suffer the aforementioned racially-tinged lambasting. Anyone want to bet on how many of these jobs go to union workshops?
So the future is not quite as bright as it could have been, but we still live in the United States. If you don’t like the idea of a recession, in the words of a very wise man, “don’t participate”. Make your own way. Take another job, find a new and innovative way to support yourself and your family. Make this year as bright and prosperous as you can. If you and I both do our level best to better ourselves, the economy will be better for it.
All the best for you and yours in 2009!
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