It's up it's down

A Thursday two fer
Our economy has turned psychotic. Read any daily financial rag to experience that bit of news. One day everything is rosy and everybody lives happily ever after and the next you'd think Armageddon was upon us. I can only report from a very narrow vantage point being just one of the millions here on the sidelines. I generally go by the parking lot index. What's that you might ask? That's the number of cars in parking lots and on the streets during the day in a given residential neighborhood. It seems to work. Must factor in business trips and that rarest of event a vacation. But with 4 people seeking just 1 probable opening most are skipping the latter benefit. After all who wants to be the one replaced by a temp after a sun tanned cruise. Haven't we seen that scenario before. And surely the expense accounts for business trips have been slashed to the bone. Have to make the quarterly profit statements look good you know.

Strangely enough while europeans have been foisting austerity on their unwilling populace and we may be doing the same here shortly, Russia has set about to turn the economic corner. I don't know if this was a mere ploy to garner votes but Putin raised taxes on the very wealthy. Okay I know what the right will say about that even before the talking heads explode on Fox. But the point is he actually did it with not so much as a whimper from the opposition party. The taxes imposed will not bulge the countries coffers but the gesture at least placated the unwashed masses at least for the time being. If only we could get things done here in such short order then the picture might be rosy. But no we're stuck with a government who's content with obstruction and collecting a paycheck for what they're not accomplishing. Wouldn't we all love to have that job. What's your job senator? We didn't send you there to sit on your butt and block ever piece of legislation that came down the pike. What do you mean you can't even agree on national ice cream month? Hasn't the dairy lobby lined your pockets yet?

So here we sit wondering and waiting. Much like waiting for Godot or Wotan. And how many of us are here? There are 12.7 million of us according to the latest figures. But I'm no real fan of statistics when it comes to reporting as I'd bet there are far more who've fallen through the cracks of the bean counter's keyboard. It is after all impossible to count water drops in a flowing river.