A1A South

Al Fin put the question more provocatively: What are the best jobs in an Obama Depression?

What troubles me is how few people have actual survival skills of any type. I have friends that brag because they don’t cook. They don’t clean their houses. They don’t garden. They have never had a pet, let alone livestock. They hate guns, want them banned, and refuse to let their children play with toy guns because that engenders violence. They have no idea how to do basic maintenance on a vehicle because that is what service departments are for. They chauffer the kids to various play dates and lessons and sporting events, some quite expensive, every day after school and work. The weekend is filled with one activity after another, usually sports based, and then they begin anew Monday morning to their jobs which are things like customer service managers and marketing representatives and data analysts.

Now their husbands are losing or have lost their high-paying jobs as their companies are downsizing or closing down completely. Suddenly the wife’s job that paid for the “extras” is buying the groceries and paying the mortgage, the vehicle payments and insurance, and utilities. They can’t make the payments on one salary and are very afraid that their jobs will be gone next.

They don’t know how to do things to save money like fix an engine or do plumbing or electrical repairs around the house. After all, repairs such as carpentry, plumbing, and electrical work is done by people willing to get their hands dirty, not by people that have college degrees and MBAs. Repair a transmission? More of that icky hands on stuff by people that didn’t graduate from a good college.

Many of these people are happy about Obama saying that he’s going to give them all money and take money away from “the rich” to pay for it. I wonder if those “rich” that are supposed to be providing this largesse would be Obama’s cabinet, many of whom were cheating on their taxes before the rates are raised. How about those rich members of Congress and the Senate that are also not paying their taxes? That’s just not going to happen. Taking all the money away from all the wealthy folks, much like has been done in Cuba, Zimbabwe, and Venezuela, to give to “the poor” simply doesn’t work. The rich simply don’t have enough money to fund all those social programs envisioned by the Democrats.

Of course, “the rich” that he’s talking about also includes electrical contractors, dry cleaners, grocery stores, and paint and auto body shops. Who is going to be paying those increased taxes? The people that frequent those businesses.

Obama is going to tax those eeevil power companies for greenhouse gases to raise hundreds of billions (or trillions) of dollars to put into a health care slush fund. Unh hunh. I hope those people with no survival skills will be able to sell off their plasma television sets because the power companies will simply pass the rates on to the consumers. What are the consumers going to do? They have to have electricity, but may not be able to afford to pay the bill. But at least they’ll have free government health care, right?

As a veteran, I also have access to that free government health care. As a last resort I suppose I might use it, but only if my other option were death. It amuses me that people that would turn up their nose at the county health clinic or VA Clinic somehow think that medical care will be better if run by the government. You can’t sue the government for malpractice, and they CAN decide whether you deserve to be treated.

So what is going to happen to those folks whose skills no one wants to buy that have no practical skills that can help them during a down turn? Who live in the city, are unarmed, and defenseless against roving thugs? I hope they don’t have to find out, but I think this new budget is going to be a disaster.

Odie, at @ 17, is a very ancient dog. He’s been my best helper, friend, and constant companion for the past 14 years, since the day I coaxed a frightened stray dog out of the woods and into our world. He’d been taking our newspaper out of the box and carrying it around with him, sometimes leaving it close to the house, so he had our scent. He never took the neighbors’ newspapers.

SwampMan said emphatically that he was NOT staying because we didn’t need another damned dog.

“Nah, he’s not staying. I’ll take him off to the animal shelter when I have time. And when I have his inverted eyelashes corrected.” SwampMan shook his head, grumbling, knowing that Odie wasn’t going anywhere for awhile, maybe never. He asked daily for several weeks “is that damned Other Dog gone yet?” so when the vet asked the name of my dog, I told her O.D. (for Other Dog).

Odie became My Dog and personal protector. Nobody else in the world matters to Odie. If SwampMan raised his voice to me, Odie would jump in front of me, teeth bared at SwampMan. Now, since Odie is deaf and can’t hear SwampMan raise his voice, he hasn’t snarled at SwampMan in quite some time. I have to do it myself.

Odie has raised and trained two replacements for when he dies, but he outlived them. He’s completely blind in one eye and has a cataract on his “good” eye, and has gone deaf. He trembles when he stands for too long, but insists on accompanying me on my rounds and if I keep the gate shut to limit his exertion, he’ll bark and howl in utter misery until I relent and let him out to take his place by my side. Now he’s training Odie replacement dog number three, Sam, (SwampMan’s dog) as though anybody could ever take Odie’s place in my heart.

When Sam the boisterous German Shepherd puppy arrived full of piss and vinegar, old Odie showed him who the top dog was when he got too rough. Odie does not chase chickens or ducks so Sam has not learned to chase chickens or ducks. (Having a mad momma duck and angry bantam hen defending their young who whooped up on him certainly helped.) Now, with the arrival of the lambs, I have been quite alarmed to find that Sam has somehow made his way into the ewe and lamb pasture but not to worry, Odie was with him. When an angry ewe chases Odie, he runs off instead of confronting or attacking her and her lamb, so he’s teaching Sam to do the same.

Sam still pees on the porch at night and apparently Odie is tired of it. When I fed them this evening, Odie pulled Sam’s bowl of food across the porch over into a puddle of puppy piddle and dumped the food in it. Now, I suppose I could simply refill Sam’s bowl, but I’m curious to see whether Odie’s training is going to work. Besides, who am I to interfere with a professional trainer like Odie?

The local tax professional took out an ad in the local paper saying that he was advising buying ammo and land in the form of farm and timber holdings as well as gold, silver, and firearms.

I don’t think he has much faith in the Porkulus Plan.

From the Miami Herald:

This week’s news that the Irene Marie Models agency was shutting its doors in South Beach only served to reaffirm that the nation’s economic ugliness had tainted the world of glamour.

Slumps in advertising have slashed revenue for newspapers and magazines, resulting in less work for agencies that book the models. Now, Irene Marie Models, which just two years ago had 850 full-time models, is considering filing for bankruptcy.

Oh, snap. Beautiful scrawny people are looking for jobs, too. On the other hand, there is room for hope:

The economic effect can be seen at casting calls — much fewer now — where the models said they expected up to four times as many people trying out. Even more distressing, the department stores will likely take plus-size models, who charge less, to wear their clothing.

I’d go for one of those plus-sized model jobs, but “plus sized” probably means a 4.

”If people are still coming to Miami, they are also cutting their rates,” said Eloisa Carvalho, five feet nine, 115 pounds, radiant black hair tied in a bun, in a flowery bikini. “Now, you just have to really take care of your money, and save it, because sometimes you don’t know what is going to happen.”

Well, at 5’9″ and 115 lbs., she doesn’t have to worry much about where the next meal will come from. Smelling the odors emanating from a BBQ place should fill her up.