Any resident of the United States will agree: times are rough and somewhat scary. Today, Warren Buffet’s 8 year old warning saying that the stock market was overvalued by as much as twice as what it should be worth proved true, because today after seeing peaks near $14,000 one year ago, the Dow Jones Industrials Average stock index dipped below $7500. My bank, er, credit union, had $11 million in losses last month, when last year it had less than $1 million in losses all year. With only 10 months of undistributed earnings (aka, equity) left to feed on, I worry for my money and my mom’s job. My generation’s civil rights movement is breaking out, as gay and lesbian activists march on courts, capitols, and Mormon churches demanding an end to the injustice after devastating losses this year at the ballot box after years of quiet and less visibile protest. Our current President, on his way to being remembered with as much unfavorability as Herbert Hoover or James Buchannan, is lost in the whirlwind of activity as he watches his ideals fly out the window in a desperate move to undo his and his peers in the markets’ mistakes. President-Elect Obama is hopeful, strong-willed, and resolute, but he is taking on a job that he didn’t sign up for two years ago when he commenced his campaign, and bless him for keeping his chin up (in fact, that is a major reason why I voted for him, because he lives, breathes, and glows Hope and calmness, something we need from a leader right now). Though my job is safe, my home isn’t, and my businesses are hurting. School is chaotic, as teachers try to teach me stuff out of books that are being rewritten by the current events every day. And around me, my friends are suffering too. This was not how it was supposed to be when I entered my twenties, but this is where I am.
I am exstatic Obama won. I shed a few tears of joy when it became offical. Election day was better than Christmas, and the hangover was random smiling for days afterward. Obama proves to me everyday why he is worthy of being my President. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out his transition team office web site, http://www.change.gov/. Just the domain name sounds awesome, doesn’t it? Explore that site and you’ll see why my expectations for his White House’s transparency, ethics, and committment to campaign promises has gone up, not down, after he won. Especially check out the page on his ethics rules! It is nice to see a President with realistically high ideals replace one with unrealistically high idealism.
In-n-Out forces me to contribute 3% to the 401k. It has lost 40% of every $1 I’ve put in. That is $500 I’ve lost I could used elsewhere. Oh well. I just hope my bank remains solvent and nobody rushes it, because its financial statements scare me (credit unions must show that data publicly, since it is a not-for-profit institution).
I am so sad for the gays and lesbians of Arizona and California. Each group was dealt a deafening blow by the voters when the two states constitutionally outlawed same-sex marriage. I think such terms and “redefining marriage” and “sanctity of marriage” are jokes, since people like Britney Spears go out and get married, have sex, and annul it the next day. One man, one woman, on fucking stupid marriage. But two gay people who love each and have committed to each other are forbidden from getting married? Britney can make a joke of a man-woman marriage but allowing two people of the same sex who love each other will ruin marriage? Please. The Mormon Church funded about 30% of the Prop 8 Yes campaign in California and an unknown amount of the Yes 102 campaign in AZ, and then untold amounts of funding came from personal funding by church members. Apparently, the separation of church and state only works one-way. Isn’t it illegal for ministers, er, Bishops, to talk politics from the pulpit? I applaud the gay groups for marching on Mormon Temples, do it, disrupt them, they deserve it for getting in yours, and my, business. My beliefs on this topic as a whole were said almost verbatim the other day by Kieth Olbermann. Though I disagree with Olbermann because I see him as liberal version of Limbaugh, and thus a cancerous disease tearing down American civil discourse, his words on this topic were right, so I offer a link to a video of it: video of Kieth Olbermann on Prop 8’s passage.
So there are some of my thoughts and observations.