And In This Corner...
The big news today was the evening news announcing that a large financial company that recently partook of the big bailout section of the Stimulus Package was spending somewhere in the neighborhood of eleven million dollars in a redecoration program of senior executive offices. The news halted for a moment allowing public outrage to bubble up. After a short pause while viewers were scraped off the ceiling the news continued.
Realizing that there could be no news following that was going to be as earth shattering as finding out that there were people around who enjoyed a more comfortable life style than me I turned off the news and checked to see if additional nourishment had found its way into the liquor cabinet. I pondered over eleven million dollars and measured it against the make believe figure of one to one and a half trillion dollars that the Stimulus Package supposedly represents, the figure depending on which doom and gloom merchant you are listening to at the time. I have no frame of reference to eleven million dollars or a trillion and a half dollars, the figures I commonly deal with have to do with making the thirty six dollars I show in my checking account agree with the figure shown on my bank statement. I only know that compared to a trillion and a half dollars eleven million dollars is pocket change.
I did take a minute trying to visualize a Wall Street executive looking at the worn linoleum on his office floor, his army surplus green metal desk, his computer desk with a telephone book propping up one leg, and thinking he needed a little work on his executive image. I doubt if it was that bad, more likely than not it had been at least a year since his office suite was upgraded and he was bored with looking at it. Regardless of the reason the decision was made to refurbish, redo, upgrade, and do the TV thing of a "makeover". I don't know how many offices were involved in this eleven million dollar expenditure and it really doesn't matter.
I reached the point of considering exactly how something like an eleven million dollar expenditure is mechanically handled. Obviously the first step is to hire a design staff who says things like, "Oh, this just won't do at all, it's all totally wrong! That desk must go and the carpet does not say today. That paneling is gauche and the paintings send entirely the wrong message." You can fill in the rest.
The result is a crew comes in and takes everything out for resale to a lower level executive in Des Moines or Cleveland. Another crew comes in and rips out the carpet, all the while the gauche paneling is removed from public view. Electricians rewire, just for the heck of it, and plumbers re-plumb for the movement of the concealed bar and do whatever it is they do to the private bathroom. Now comes the new paneling with the carpenters, the carpet installers, the bar re-doers (is there such a word?), and they all do this while dancing around the painters. Last are the heavy duty workers heaving the new furniture in and out of freight elevators to get it up to the stratospheric heavens that house the executive personnel.
All this goes on and eleven million dollars is spent and now the executive can think executive thoughts in the proper atmosphere. Where did the eleven million dollars go? Almost every penny went to paychecks. To the designers, to the carpenters, to the electricians, to the plumbers, to the painters, to the carpet installers, to the heavy duty workers, eleven million dollars went into the pockets of the people who actually upgraded the offices. And to the people who built and sold the new furniture and fixtures in the offices.
Then where did the money go? Well, the electrician went home and paid his mortgage, makes a car payment, put some money aside for his son's tuition, bought new tires for his wife's car, bought a new piece of equipment from Home Depot for his business, and took his wife to dinner.
So did the plumbers, carpenters, designers, painters, carpet installers, and the heavy duty workers. They paid bills, bought stuff, went out to dinner, and blew the rest.
According to my twenty pound dictionary STIMILUS is: something that incites to action or exertion or quickens action, feeling, thought, etc.
The question here is what could a mere eleven million dollars do for a company that is billions upside down financially? Not much. What can eleven million dollars do when it is put directly in the hands of people who would immediately spread it around? A heck of a lot.
This all sounds to me like someone has a pretty good idea on how to spend Stimulus Package money. Instead of the money disappearing into the nebulous caverns of financial gobblely-gook it is actually going directly to people who need a paycheck. The reason the money is being spent means very little, justified or not, what is important is that every penny of the millions is going to someone who worked for it. That is indeed an admirable fact.
Maybe the Stimulus Package is going to work after all.

And In This Corner...
Recently I did a rant about the American automobile business which gives me the right to take a look at the other side. I get very tired of hearing someone get all carried away about automobile manufacturers and saying, "I've had it with the car manufacturers in Detroit, why can't they get their act together and build a car that will get fifty miles to the gallon? I mean if we can put a man on the moon why can't those stupid engineers build a fifty mile to a gallon car?"
My immediate reaction is to say, "They don't do it just to piss you off." Not a great answer but it makes me feel good.
What I really want to say is, "If you're so convinced that NASA can get you fifty miles to a gallon I will talk to some of my friends at the Cape and arrange for you and your car to be launched into space strapped to the outside of the next shuttle, I guarantee that you will get more than fifty miles to a gallon before you ever achieve orbit. The answer to your question is capitalism! It may come as a shock to you to find out that the purpose of automobile manufacturers is to make money by selling automobiles. If any of the manufacturers had the secret to a fifty mile per gallon automobile it would have been rolling off the production lines years ago. They would have put the competition out of business in a heartbeat. The mandate of the American consumer is for manufacturers to produce an automobile that delivers four hundred horsepower, goes two hundred miles an hour, holds two adults, four kids, two weeks worth of groceries, gets fifty miles to the gallon, and cost less than five thousand dollars. That's no hill for a climber, is it?"
The current answer from Washington is for our esteemed representatives to call the auto manufacturers up to the Hill and give them hell for flying in on personal jets and then pass a bill mandating that they immediately produce the "Wondercar". After our esteemed representatives finish standing around congratulating themselves on another successful sound bite they all step into their chauffeur driven limousines and start their re-election campaigns. But then we did elect them, didn't we?
The end result of the idiotic questions asking why and the posturing of our politicians while they pass laws mandating results is that we still don't have the fifty mile to a gallon automobile. Oh, there's an outfit that is building a little two seater that has a fabulous 0 to 60 figure, and will go a couple of hundred miles before recharging but it sells for somewhere around $150,000. And there are two or three little electric boxes running around that will top out at around forty miles an hour and cover a hundred miles before recharging. I see no long lines of potential buyers lurking around their garages waving hundred dollar bills in the air.
Why are there no fifty mile to the gallon cars? I can think of a couple of reasons, the laws of physics have something to do with it, something about mass and energy. Very complicated. And then there's stuff like hanging safety equipment all over the car, impact bumpers and stuff. Of course, there is always the possibility of hydrogen powered cars. We just have to find a way to produce hydrogen cheaper than gasoline. Yes, I know that H20 is water and the H is hydrogen and all we have to do is separate the hydrogen from oxygen and we scoop up the hydrogen and dump it in the tank. So simple, why didn't I think of that? Of course there is always the big spring in the backseat and all we have to do is wind it up and release it. Great idea and you're capable of achieving Mach Two in twenty five yards, but that's just a small mechanical problem.
But the fifty mile per gallon car is possible; after all we did put a man on the moon.

And In This Corner....
There seems to be a generally held opinion that being a Federal Congressman or Senator is a very difficult job. The truth of the matter is that the most difficult part of the job is learning all of the perks that go with the position. Fortunately there is an unofficial mentoring process that takes place that makes sure the new arrival becomes aware of all of the hidden benefits of the job and does not run around yelling "Hot puppies!" every time they finds out about a new one, it upsets the constituents and bothers the people who are thinking up new ones.
The job is very simple; all the new Congressman or Senator really has to do to get started is three things:

1. Find their parking space. Now that sounds easy but is actually very important. The new office holder has to go to their office but first has to find someplace to park their car so they can carry in all the necessary office artifacts, the "I love me" gallery of pictures with them in the company of important people, movie stars, other politicians, sports figures, etc., and their desk plate with their name and position on it in case they forget. So, they get parked and then...


2. They have to find their office. We can't have this newly arrived very important person wandering around the hallways, arms loaded down with important stuff, knocking on doors and disturbing senior Congressmen and Senators who are trying to take a nap by asking if this is their office. So, they are parked and they have a desk and a chair and now it is time for the third and most important thing...


3. They have to start their re-election campaign.