united states of vallejo

UNITED STATES OF VALLEJO

A guest article was posted earlier.  Scroll down.
*
Vallejo, California, a Bay Area burg ( that‘s San Francisco for you northeastern Yankee pukes ), is the city every other mayor in the states likes to use as an excuse to feel better about themselves. Well, at least we don’t have it as bad as Vallejo! Long before Pennsylvania or Georgia cities made the news, this was one of the first municipalities to declare bankruptcy after the housing bubble collapsed. Which of course only makes sense because the Bay Area was home to the absolute worse lending practices out there and one of the first areas to have the loan roll over from interest only or from an introductory rate to the regular interest rate when suddenly your mortgage payments tripled. And that only makes sense when you acknowledge that to live in California you have to pretty much abandon all thoughts of pessimism and only embrace Looking Glass wide eyed optimism that abso-posi-lutely nothing can ever go wrong like a big earthquake or race riots ( exception- if you have your house paid off and taxes are bearable, it is most likely better for the average Dingus to stay put than flee as you must be able to weather the economic implosion before you have to worry about a die-off ), but if you are both a Californian AND a Bay Area resident you most likely are just a sad little crazy rat bastard as that has got to be the most congested kicked over ant hill in the country outside of inner New York City. If you are crazy enough to live in San Francisco you are crazy enough to think that in three years when your million dollar house payment goes from $400 to $4,000 somehow you can afford that on a mid level civil servant salary. Which might have a wee bit to do with the ever increasing demands of both the fire fighters and police for ever higher wage concessions from the city.

*

Unlike Rush, I don’t blame Unions for all the problems of this country. Unions aren’t bleeding poor rich bitches to insolvency. Unions are unrealistically following the same growth based paradigm that rich bitches are, so their faults lie in dealing with reality, not in being greedy. While you might wonder why a fire fighter needs $100,000 a year in retirement, if you look at the cost of living in the city he is protecting it isn’t completely unrealistic. And it is almost impossible to think a fire fighter IS greedy, as their job is more a calling than a paycheck, at least for the majority. They are just trying to live a comfortable middle class lifestyle. No greed, just an expectation for a life that is already dead in reality but which will not die in the hearts of men until the economy is a total glassed over radioactive crater. And really, should we be expecting someone that doesn’t mind taking the risk of his face melting off to take the time to understand finances? They don’t stop and think about what their demands, which are not much more than an expectation of a regular life with a bit of insurance against being screwed by evil politicians, actually mean to a town undergoing an almost 75% property devaluation ( I give fire fighters an almost total pass on the evil test, although I’m far more cynical towards the motivation of cops. They probably are almost all out for the Benjamin’s. Peace officers are noble, law enforcement officers are just there to screw you over on behalf of the government ).

*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon graphics above and to the right of each article. Or, visit
http://bisonpress.com/affiliatebooks.html
You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase. Thank you.
*

Well, here is the end result of a decrease in the tax revenues of a town with increasing costs for its retirees ( the blame there can be equally laid on the natural tendency of politicians to lie and ignore the consequences of their actions and the workers from living in the fantasy of perpetual growth forever and ever and for all time ). The city declares bankruptcy and lays off all staff, and I mean ALL staff not a first responder, and both the firefighters and the police are reduced to 50%. In addition to that, the retirees are at the mercy of the judge who decides if they are going to take any cuts in their bennies. In a government bankruptcy, everyone gets screwed, some more than others. And the sad part is, few realize how much everyone is going to get screwed because most of us are still under the delusion of a free market system, of freedom, the Constitution and small government. The reality is that we are living under a system that is almost all bloated inefficient government. But as bad as that government is, without it there is almost no economic activity at all. If you think that after a certain time we will turn to a huge big daddy government of central planning to save the economy, like Germany did in the 20’s where ALL employment was by the state, you haven’t been paying much attention. We are already mostly there. The numbers of civil servants isn’t the true answer. It is in all the hidden stimulus by the government that channels all the money to the private sector. Without government spending, which is at least half quantitative easing rather than taxation ( if we borrowed forty percent of our operating budget at the federal level, and that is just what was admitted to, throw in drug money flowing in from the Afghan occupation [ remember, a dollar deposited morphs into between eight and forty dollars under fractional reserve banking ] and then factor in all the manipulation of the stock market [ and we aren‘t even factoring in derivative manipulation such as with the gold market where there are more claims on the metal than there is the physical ore ], you are looking at a huge percentage of made up money constituting an economy ), there would be almost nothing left but a Black Market for a private economy.

*

So, here you are stuck in Vallejo, which I am guessing is something bad now, like crackhead burglary capitol of the state since there is no functioning economy left, and if you are lucky and get good juju after throwing those dried chicken bones just right you might actually get a cop to show up before the dead body of your family member is done cooling down. If you are still stuck in the soon to be rotten, falling corpse of a city, and if Lady Luck isn’t as foul and sick as the syphilitic whore Mother Nature, there will be enough fire fighters left to put out an insurance payout induced arson fire from spreading to your structure. I don’t care where you live, you have got to take into consideration the future where there aren’t enough public services to put out fires from spreading to your house/retreat. If you can’t survive a fire without intervention from oil burning trucks pumping water from a grid powered system, by men paid by the government to risk their lives, you are going to be screwed. We can all defend ourselves against evil dudes, especially if we are smart enough to decorate our walls with semi-auto talisman, but if you aren’t protected against fire you are one municipal bankruptcy away from homelessness.

*

There is plenty of blame to go around, from evil politicians to greedy Unions to tight fisted taxpayers, who all think THEY are in fact the ones getting screwed, but really this is just the end result of an expectation of perpetual growth. Ultimately, no one is to be blamed for anything other than living that fantasy. I would hope you are a little smarter than that and look at Vallejo as a cautionary tale of how easy it is to slip into a lake of crap quicksand when your head is in the clouds.

END
The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/
*
My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
*
Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
*
By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there.