Even from Kansas City, it's impossible to ignore the world changing.
People have stopped waiting for "the economy to turn around" and now seem to be coming to terms with a new economic reality.
The American Dream of home ownership has now been destroyed thanks to so much speculation and now even rich people would rather rent.
While Americans experience a Jobless Recovery, China and India enjoy a "Super-Cycle" of economic growth. Only small minded thinkers believe that Kansas City's competition comes just from Kansas incentives. The current economic drought is merely a glimpse at Kansas City struggling to compete in a GLOBAL ECONOMY. Emerging markets, continued outsourcing and so much economic activity online should put petty regional bickering in perspective.
The fact that Harley-Davidson bikes are now made in India while Kansas City workers are smacked around to take concessions and pay cuts should dispel all illusions about loyalty to or from American companies.
Oh and your Ipad is not only built in China but also killing the planet.
To wit . . . All of these depressing facts are coming home to roost in Kansas City.
OH YEAH, AND THE E-TAX DRAMA IS JUST ANOTHER SIGN THAT THE STANDARD OF LIVING IN THE UNITED STATES AND KANSAS CITY IS IN DECLINE!!!
On the bright side, I still get to keep this domain despite a recent government crackdown and the fact that TKC is a torrent of Kansas Cit hot mess BUT NOT file sharing.
Grand Conclusion: Just like so many MILFS kind enough to date TKC . . . It's time for the locals to lower expectations and this fact seems to be reflected in every aspect of local life.
And all of this has inspired tonight's playlist . . .
As always, thank you for reading this week and have a safe and fun weekend!!!
lighten up dude
ReplyDeleteOnly one tiny flaw in your logic Tony. While its true most people would rather rent right now, there must be a property owner in order to have a property renter.
ReplyDeleteagree. Things ain't so bad.
ReplyDeleteWell, its interesting Tee finally got his nose out of city hall and realized that most of the world is NOT on 12th street.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the reality and maybe now you'll understand why the price of gold is at an all time high. And why most people hold their noses but shop at Walmart rather than all the nice stores. And why for sale signs stay up for a long time.
And the stockmarket isn't really the place to be because it's very fragile, even at 11,000. A big strike by Alquida could tip it. Panic it. Lots of people will lose the whole recovery of the past months.
We're all in the same boat. Keep a little cash, a little extra food and have a plan to consolidate family living if you need to.
Otherwise, don't run up your credit cards just now. Buy what you can afford. Fewer presents this year for the greedy small ones. Cheaper ones at least.
Things are not as bad as they seem. They're much worse, and for much longer ahead.
Tony wont' be leaving mom's basement for some time. But Alonzo might be moving in.
And radio man will still be remembering his glory days.
ReplyDeleteHere's my playlist
ReplyDeleteLiar - Three Dog Night
Liar, Liar - The Castaways
All Men Are Liars - Nick Lowe
Little Liar - Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
The Liar - Ozzy Osbourne
Professional Liars - Total Chaos
That Devil Is a Liar - C-Da-Artist
oh, and
Stop Lying Now - Global Hypnosis
Good songs. But no links and you got schooled today with the Star proving TKC correct.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, Radioman nails it. Ole w. left The Republic in one "HOT MESS". Seems like Bruce Springsteen had a line in one of his songs about these jobs are gone and they ain't comin back.
ReplyDeleteIt's not that bad. There are many similarities between now and 1931, but there are also many differences. For starters the local service industry is so localized that small business growth actually makes up a larger % of re-employment than big corps. In the 30's a few pillars of the economy made up the foundation of employment, when they fell, so fell the labor class, keep in mind also the cultural norm was a male only dominated workforce, so when one lost a job, the family lost the job. Not so anymore. We need to have an adjustment. Here are my suggestions to fix the problem:
ReplyDelete1. It is not sustaiable for companies to grow 4% a quarter, stop speculating that they will and using fail languauge when they don't. Encourage average Americans to save money by investing in infrastructure bonds and savings accounts. Persnal debt should be considered unpatriotic bordering on a national hazard.
2. 9.6 unemployment is not that bad for a free market system, the 4.3 in 1997 was a mirage. The 25% in 1933 was bad unemployment, consumer confidence of discretionary spending is so fragile that the framing of expectations need to be carefully considered.
3. The US congress needs to end the war in Afghanistan, put a moratorium on earmarks for 5 years, reduce all spending including a 50% reduction in military spending and foreign aid. Let the Bush tax cuts expire for anyone who makes over a million dollars a year. Pass a balanced budget amendment to the constitution and pay down our debt.
4. Invest revenue in order; infrastructure, social security, education, universal children's healthcare, and management of the interior.
Follow this plan and within a decade our domestic tranquility and international dominance will be restored.
While we are playing make-believe, lets get radical.
ReplyDelete1. Put a salary cap on all wage earners at 500 million dollars per year.
2. Give every child born in the US a starting nest egg of 100,000.
3. Make election day a national holiday and a $500 tax credit to vote.
4. Create a birth license where every to-be mother must pass an IQ test accompanied with parenting classes.
5. Tie a woman's tubes after the second abortion or third child on public assistance. Give the male a vesectomy after failure to provide child support.
6. Legalize marijuana and allow law enforcement to use lethal force on crystal meth users.
Think these proposals are crazy? Keep in mind China's one child law with mandatory public sponsored abortions...
The unemployment rate is actually closer to the Depression Era rate. Remember, President Clinton, changed the formula so that people who would have been included in this figure are no longer included. For instance, those who want to work full-time but can only find part-time work are not included. Those who simply cannot find work, and have been looking for over 15 weeks are considered to have "given up" and are also not included. There are other categories as well. The actual unemployment rate is thought to be 18 percent.
ReplyDeleteWhen oil prices spike again, the party's over, buddy-boy.
ReplyDeleteI have some additional items to add to Radioman's excellent list:
ReplyDeleteGet rid of your cell phone. You only need a much cheaper land line.
Get the lowest cable. You don't need 500 channels for what, for most people, is a DVD monitor.
Sell you car. Unless you absolutely need it to get to work, you don't need it.
Stop eating out: What you cook at home is much cheaper & healthier.
Buy your books & movies from the thrift shops or get them for free from the library.
Use public transportation & WALK.
Cut back on your social outings: Drinking is an expensive hobby.
Don't get carried away for Christmas: What everyone really wants is love.
Remember, that if its not a thousand years old, you probably don't need it: Learn the difference between want & need.
Amen Byron..How about we give up internet access...Are you using a landline?? want and need ??? Pussy Motherfucker... I will show you the difference...
ReplyDeleteYou can't show me anything. We live a thousand miles apart. Besides, you're an anonymous coward. Why would I be afraid of you? I'm using a very old, used computer, that can only run Windows 2000.
ReplyDelete"Give me what I want & I will go away." But, until then, Fuck You!
By the way, when Mark was working for Salem College & fucking his students; I was working at Glenville State College & not fucking mine. I wasn't smart enough to teach social work, like Mark; so I taught computer operations, instead. In those days, you didn't have to be a college graduate to teach a college class, only competent.
ReplyDeleteI only say this because I assume that you're a Funky supporter & I always hit back.
Anon 7:44pm has a good plan, but it has one major flaw, in that it requires the politicians and the American public to stay focused on just thing for ten whole years!
ReplyDeleteWe have the attention span of gnats, and the political people are worse than that.
That's why the e-tax is such a BIG DRAMA!
There are some really good points here. Byron may be able to save more by using Magicjack instead of a land line. Unemployment is probably closer to 20% if we include those who have exhausted unemployment compensation, who have given up, or who have "elected" to retire early at reduced benefits. If the Great Depression had not been so awful, making the d-word politically unacceptable, what we have now would be called a depression.
ReplyDelete8:01 has some good ideas. I've often thought there should be a spay and neuter program for people, and for some abortion should not be a choice--it should be mandatory and possibly retroactive.
0816 is spot on regarding the spay & neuter. There are too many STUPID, irresponsible people breeding. They don't take care of their children and set in motion an endless cycle of POVERTY. And that's if the off-spring don't end up gangsters. And it doesn't matter which ethnic group you pick, this is an equal opportunity problem.
ReplyDeleteI don't fully agree with you Populi but your employment numbers are interesting.
ReplyDeleteIn 1931, America was definatly NOT centered on a few large companies.... or even small businesses. We were still very much agrarian and remained so until the outset of WWII. It was then men went to war. Had it not been for WPA, a lot of people would have starved.
The Republicans have it exactly wrong. I think the big difference is that now, we're not a pioneering country... and in the 30s, there was a lot of population growth, a lot of land to settle still. Now we're a mature economy and in fact our spendthrifty ways have come to an end.
We'll have to share productivity with the rest of the world and many countries, like China and India, are where we were still growing their economies.
We've let big business and certain industries get far too big and they're bleeding us. They include health care and defense.
We've lost the ability to make things because we've priced ourselves out of the world marketplace and lets face it, technology has reduced the number of hands needed to make things.
All in all, that means we're in deep trouble. We just don't need the labor supply we have any longer, it's poorly trained and is getting MORE poorly trained all the time.
Capitalism has worked very well for us but now it's become too big for its britches and now just feeds on the people... and we see this with wealth ending up, NOT in the hands of a working class, but a wealthy class that simply holds its wealth.
The entire stock market system is just one big casino and raises virtually no building capital. Why? Because we really don't NEED working capital. A mature economy! The plants are being built where the cheap labor is.
And it isn't here. We'll be belt tightening for a full generation or two, maybe longer. Fewer TV's, smaller houses, smaller cars, less pleasure travel. Fewer clothes in the closets.
We just don't need all this. And we can't afford it anymore. We'll be going back to one worker families, if families as we know them even survive. And they should because they're more efficient than single supported workers.
But some thngs have to change. Feminism needs to die off. It was great during WWII when the men were gone. But now we just don't need them working... we need them raising better children. Tough luck if they wish they had penises in their pants. It's not going to work for them... and certainly not for human offspring.
Perhaps the logical result of feminism is a lower population. Well a lower WHITE, educated population, anyway. Who knows what population will lead later... depends on education. And that of course, is perview of government.
So if the capitalists continue to get their way... well not so much. We can just watch China and India take over the reins of leadership and economics.
One of your best comments ever, Radioman!
ReplyDeleteThe E-Tax is toast.
ReplyDeleteEveryone is being so nice!
ReplyDeleteFuck that.
Over the last 15 years, an astonishing transfer of wealth to the upper 1% of Americans has taken place.
"These data suggest that wealth is concentrated in the hands of a small number of families. The wealthiest 1 percent of families owns roughly 34.3% of the nation's net worth, the top 10% of families owns over 71%, and the bottom 40% of the population owns way less than 1%."
Google this shit-it is ubiquitous.
Bush's 2 Trillion Dollar War (Thanks Haliburton), Wall street thugs like Lloyd Blankfein from Goldman Sachs, with a legion of greedy scumbag fucks at Morgan Stanley etc etc has crippled this country and left middle class Americans for dead.
And dead we are. Dead behind the fuckin eyes mostly. Again and again we sit lke fuckin morons in front of Fox News Fucks telling us what to think and how to think it, and, we do it.
The very idea, that we all sit here on this forum and discuss so fuckin politely the economy and how we are going to cut back and try harder makes me punch fuckin holes in my sheetrock.
In China, those fuckin pukes on Wall Street would have been lined up against a wall and shot fuckin dead. Fuckin dead!
Mortgage backed securities, Bank of American, US Bank---FUCK BANKS AND FUCK the goddamn horses they rode in on.
We need a ton of inflation and TARRIFFS!!!! All over America people are going broke while the elite, pecuniarily insouciant by way of birth and blood, as opposed to sweat and effort, push us into what is fast becoming a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY.
Me, I aint gonna be polite. I fuckin hate those greedy pukes who have many of us and all of our friends (Even Tony) living in their parents basements with their whole fucking family becasue there is no work!
This country is BROKEN AND BROKEN BAD!
That concentration of money, in the hands of a few patricians will leave us plebes starving and begging for govt cheese.
We are now, INDENTURED SERVANTS to the moneyed and powered elite.
Its disgusting, and I am disgusted.
Goddamn it pissess me off.
Everyone is being so nice!
ReplyDeleteFuck that.
Over the last 15 years, an astonishing transfer of wealth to the upper 1% of Americans has taken place.
"These data suggest that wealth is concentrated in the hands of a small number of families. The wealthiest 1 percent of families owns roughly 34.3% of the nation's net worth, the top 10% of families owns over 71%, and the bottom 40% of the population owns way less than 1%."
Google this shit-it is ubiquitous.
Bush's 2 Trillion Dollar War (Thanks Haliburton), Wall street thugs like Lloyd Blankfein from Goldman Sachs, with a legion of greedy scumbag fucks at Morgan Stanley etc etc has crippled this country and left middle class Americans for dead.
And dead we are. Dead behind the fuckin eyes mostly. Again and again we sit lke fuckin morons in front of Fox News Fucks telling us what to think and how to think it, and, we do it.
The very idea, that we all sit here on this forum and discuss so fuckin politely the economy and how we are going to cut back and try harder makes me punch fuckin holes in my sheetrock.
In China, those fuckin pukes on Wall Street would have been lined up against a wall and shot fuckin dead. Fuckin dead!
Mortgage backed securities, Bank of American, US Bank---FUCK BANKS AND FUCK the goddamn horses they rode in on.
We need a ton of inflation and TARRIFFS!!!! All over America people are going broke while the elite, pecuniarily insouciant by way of birth and blood, as opposed to sweat and effort, push us into what is fast becoming a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY.
Me, I aint gonna be polite. I fuckin hate those greedy pukes who have many of us and all of our friends (Even Tony) living in their parents basements with their whole fucking family becasue there is no work!
This country is BROKEN AND BROKEN BAD!
That concentration of money, in the hands of a few patricians will leave us plebes starving and begging for govt cheese.
We are now, INDENTURED SERVANTS to the moneyed and powered elite.
Its disgusting, and I am disgusted.
Goddamn it pissess me off.
sorry it posted twice and sorry i am so pissed
ReplyDeleteWell said Chuck. You and Radioman have pretty much summed up the state of things. You all do a good job of putting into words what I've been thinking and wondering If I'm the only one that see's the "Hot Mess" The Republic is in. The w. administration was the perfect storm of incompetence and GREED. Unlike, Radioman, I'm NOT sure The USA can recover this time. If it does it will be in a much different form.
ReplyDeleteSo do what you can to tell the republicans who are feeling very big for their britches they can FORGET about tax cuts for the wealthy.
ReplyDeleteThat's the very MINIMUM giveback to the middle class for their greed. If they don't give it back, if people can't eat... well Leawood's gonna have to hire a lot more cops to protect that Johnson County wealth. They'll put a fence around it and call it the GREEN ZONE. Green for MONEY. Yup, the whole south side will be a gated community!
It would seem the republicans have learned NOTHING from the debacle that was w.. With those JOKERS it's all about GREED and POWER. They made this "Hot Mess".
ReplyDeleteDemocrat Men did most of the damage in this world. Just give conservative, ethical women like Teresa Garza Ruiz and Crystal Williams time to get to work. Things will get better soon!
ReplyDeleteBeing mad won't solve the problem. How many doors did you knock, checks did you write, calls that you made in order to get like minded citizens to vote for candidates that you held accountable?
ReplyDeleteThe one thing the right does better than the left is work. The rich don't get rich by playing xbox or surfing the web. The greedy and warlike on our planet have always had the attribute of industry. Their motivations and messages are simple. The person who has the most of anything wins, they then devise an incumbent system with the help of other avaristic individuals to legalize, legitimize and then propogandize a set of principles which serve two masters, social control and accumulation of wealth. They get spokespersons who can manipulate uneducated masses who 100 years ago couldn't read or write, but now their vote counts the same as the noblemen. They define demagogue in the purest sense. Let me sell you a false narrative that our President is an alien and could you please pass the buy gold brochure to your neighbor. Oh, don't forget that we are patriots and God is on ourside. If I were a suspicious superstitious woman, I might think this all makes the real Jesus very disconcerted.
Hate to disappoint you, but after having worked in many a successful campaign and donated a bunch of money, I wish I had back. All I can say is you're dreaming. Time and time again, I've seen then go to DC to do good and stay to do WELL. It's somewhat better in Jefferson City due to TERM LIMITS. As for me, I can't tell the difference between the two parties, anymore. We've got an OLIGARCHY, where we once had a REPUBLIC.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more 5:38. It is a depressing shame. Lip service is all we get from the fuckers we work for, donate to, and elect. They always blow on about how much they will change/do, then they fall short when it comes time to actually do any work. 99% of our politicians (local and beyond) are extremely self-serving. They suffer from the king-complex and thereby make us all suffer in their wakes. Let's start off with the bank bailout. How many Americans wanted that? No one but the bankers. Calls were made to political offices (600:1) against the bailout. What did they do? Vote for it anyway.Now our children get to pay the price for that, gee thanks. WE ARE SICK OF POLITICIANS NOT DOING WHAT THEY ARE TOLD! HEY ASSHOLES, YOU WORK FOR US!!!!!
ReplyDeleteClay Chastain has announced his write-in candidacy for Mayor of Kansas City MO.
ReplyDeletegood article for this thread
ReplyDeletehttp://www.alternet.org/story/148970/10_things_you_can_do_to_starve_the_wall_st._beast_and_grab_yourself_a_piece_of_the_pie?page=entire
ALTERNET's always a good read. Don't mean to spam you, but you really should all spend a bit of time on my website.
ReplyDeleteNot because I WRITE MOST OF IT. I don't. I just link smart sites on Home, Politics, NewsWars, Learning, and other pages.
THEY are the people to read... and its easy to see the best of their daily stories, thanks to RSS feeds.
I make no money offa the site... I just post every great site I can find on it. For you to peruse.
ALTERNET's one of the best and I show it prominently. But there are so many others.
ITS GREAT THAT TONY IS LOCAL! He covers it well. Even so, my view is that MORE POWERFUL FORCES truly affect us who don't work for local governments. SO I FOCUS ON A LARGER WORLD. OUTSIDE KC. Beyond Jeff City.
Tee ignores Topeka, and frankly most of Jeff City except at election time.
Is there another site that is to KANSAS what Tony is to KCMO city?
I'm Hoping Kansas City.com will meet this need. I can't. they have people. I'm just me.
We on the local internet are still finding our way. Tony's a good start but he isn't the answer. Too preoccupied with gutter tastes. He won't last unless he grows up a whole lot!
You local people, shilling for local politicians, you have no fuckquing clue... nor do your bit titted candidates.
ReplyDeleteThey have no clue whats' up.
Shit. Have you fuckqers not be paying a BIT of attention? Today's local politicians will have no choices but to spread around what little tax money is LEFT.
Sewers, water, et al. Lots of city traffic designers are about to get laid off.
Officials will only be tasked to decide which in-progress projects MUST be done, versus which ones can WAIT for better times, if they ever come back!
I don't think you guys understand what's up!
Its going to be really hard for our children. They are being marketed every day to believe that they NEED, NEED & NEED all of these shiny new toys to be cool, hip winners. They are not prepared for the coming austerity.
ReplyDeleteTony, forget the chubby white women. Marry a Latina. You need someone with their feet on the ground; not someone who thinks shopping is a recreational activity. Flee the cities! You can't raise children in a war zone.
It's great to hear the genius voice of a grown man living in mommy's basement...Global Economy...HaHaHAa
ReplyDeletegoodbye to free trash pickup
ReplyDelete