Having previously worked in the banking industry for 5 years, I find it highly irritating how easy it is for banks to ignore everyone and do what they want, even after taxpayers gave them billions of dollars and at this point in time, anticipate asking for more.

Before, and I can tell you from experience, the banks would do loans for anyone who could breath on a mirror and have their breath show up. Now, even when you do have good income and a good credit history, they will try everything possible to not give you a loan in a timely manner. Just take a look at the news about how hard it is to get a loan, especially a home loan or refinance.

What is even more disconcerting is that the Federal government seems to ignore all of the signs as well, and just “can’t figure out why the economy isn’t recovering so quickly”. Well, I have some questions about that, from a reality point of view.

If inflation is flat, or below government standards so that COLA is not going to be paid again this year, how is it that food, medicine, and gasoline costs are almost 10% or more higher than 2 years ago? I can’t go into Safeway without spending $50 just for 2 bags of groceries. We haven’t seen a steak in 2 years, and we have been cutting everything possible out of the budget. Of course, we have had to since I haven’t been in a steady job since 2007. (Remember the 5 years at a bank? - last full-time job).

Which leads me to the next issue. If there are 15 million people out of work, yet several media “gurus” have indicated “1 out of every 5″ are unemployed, and there are 300 million known residents in this country, it appears there is some “fuzzy math” going on. In my calculations, that means about 60 million. Of course, the middle of those two figures is probably right on the money.

In my mind, you can not just count who you feel like counting, i.e., just those pulling unemployment. In my case, I left the job because it became unbearable. Of course, I was unable to draw unemployment because I left and wasn’t fired. Seems to me I was knocked down twice for sticking to my ethics. So how many were forced out of their jobs, required to quit, and then got stuck without work? Bet I wasn’t the only one. There are a lot more people out there unemployed than anyone will admit to.

It doesn’t take a genius to understand that as long as unemployment is the highest it has been in many years, prices for basic food staples keep going up, those who have the opportunity to work are doing the job of 4 people but their wage is not keeping up with the eceonomy, credit by the banks is unnecessarily tighter than it has ever been, and foreclosures in the millions continue, the ECONOMY is not going to get better.

I don’t care how many Republicans get voted in or how many Democrats get booted out, but what I do care about is:

1. When is there going to be a Congress that works together? I hear nothing anymore but,  ”they said this, they did that, he took my ball, I did not….”

2. When is the Federal government going to listen to the people? I mean the people who get up every day and go to work, look for work, take care of kids. Not the little NBC, ABC, MSNBC polls of a few hundred people, wherever and whoever those people are. The real everyday people.

3. When is the Congress going to get these problems tackled and attempt to resolve them using basic common sense economics and get away from the back-stabbing, pointing fingers, acting like 3-year olds, etc?

Haven’t seen it yet but I hope it happens really soon, or we may get into a quagmire so deep, we can’t dig ourselves out. Then pointing fingers by anyone will be simply a useless gesture.

My wife and I have a standing joke nowadays. It stems from the headlines over the last 9 months or so. MSNBC and the AP seem to have part of their headline stuck in memory or something.

I’m talking about the word, “unexpectedly”. It has been almost funny to see the headlines repeat themselves. Of course, for the most part, most of the headlines talk about dire facts, which we do not find funny.

As an example, we have seen many times the headlines that say, “Unemployment Claims Rise Unexpectedly!”. Okay, with 16 - 20% of the country unemployed, how can it be “unexpected“?

We also see a number of headlines where this company or that company had their stock drop “unexpectedly”, or their earnings were smaller than expected. Usually it has been a company struggling due to the economy. And another little quirk - analysts “expected” a higher earnings.

So, we have been wondering. How many analysts out there are getting it wrong? Apparently a great many because many seem to be always wrong in their predictions. I guess like the Congress, they simply do not read the news, do any research, or fact-find anymore.

In so many wrong predictions, mostly which seem to be on Wall Street, the picture of someone using a lot of darts comes to mind. That would explain the ups and downs of the market, leastways, apparently better than Congress could.

ABC News reports that states, looking for ways to balance their budgets, are coming up with new ways to get money from their citizens.

Cash-strapped states across the country are looking to their cash-strapped residents for even more money — by taxing services they buy, not just goods. Everything from car repairs and dry cleaning to personal training and party clowns are being targeted for new taxes.

Personal Trainer Kelly Garner is outraged, telling ABC News, “another tax is not what we need right now.” State budget officers disagree.

The new taxes are hitting citizens of states across the country. Hawaii, New Mexico, Washington, South Dakota and Delaware already tax a number of services. Other states are quickly following their lead.

Washington State already taxes some services.  On the GROSS income of the business, not the NET.  Which means many companies are starting to look for other states to relocate to.  But that’s a separate issue.

What states need to start doing is cutting their spending (hint, hint, Gov. Christine Gregoire), not looking for ways to suck even more out of the economy.

But if the states insist on taxing service, as long as they include all services, INCLUDING attorneys and the public service sector — congresscritters, state representatives, mayors, governors, city council members, the President of the United States, etc. — then I guess I’m okay with that.

16,500 isn’t a very big number.

Unless it represents the number of IRS agents who will be added to police compliance with the Health Care bill.  We apparently need those agents (the biggest expansion of the IRS since World War II) in order to make sure families and small businesses, in addition to filing more complicated returns, reveal further tax information to the IRS, provide proof of ‘government approved’ health care and submit detailed sales information to comply with new excise taxes.

And of course they would use the IRS to enforce this. They are the only government agency I know of that does not have to afford people due process.

You know, Obama, may really have unified the country with that one, because hatred of the IRS certainly does cross all party, ethnic, and class lines!

I have been watching news lately and wondering where I went wrong. First the banks get bailed out and get to make millions and billions in subsequent profits.

I have seen where people who jumped at the chance to get first, second and even third-mortgage loans on homes worth half that much, are now being considered for getting their mortgage cut by Bank of America, and now also by the government.

Granted, the housing market collapsed and I know two main reasons why. First, banks got greedy and made loans they knew were going to be bad.  Please don’t even comment on how I know this because I was in a job where I got to watch it happen first-hand.

Then all of those people who got loans on homes because it WAS so easy, to the point where they had mortgages up to 100% of the value of their homes - yes, homes, plural. I saw people get multiple loans at the same time. I wonder where THAT money went. As I said, I saw this first-hand.

I know there are those who tried to stay the course, keep one mortgage and then the housing market caused their home values crash or there was a family crisis happen. I have all of the sympathy for them and hope they do get help.

But to my question: Where is my help?

I had to leave a job in a bank because of what I considered unethical and border-line illegal working conditions. So, almost 3 years ago I left a good paying job and haven’t found work since. Yes, I KNOW it was my choice, but please let me continue.

So, as a result of my choice, no unemployment checks, even though the working conditions warranted my leaving and subsequently, I would have had to leave anyway because the bank folded, actually more like imploded and every reason I left was substantiated.

We bought a house in 1997 and have one mortgage on it, no second mortgage although at times it was very tempting.

So, even though I played by the book - kept one mortgage and kept all payments current, never drew money from any government agency because I left the job and wasn’t fired - I have NO recourse now.

Because I was stupid about sticking to my ethics and principles, no assistance from the government. Instead, I get to pay the taxes.

But the guy who is 2 payments behind and his house mortgage loan total is more than 20% of it’s value, is going to get bailed out by having his mortgage cut just so banks do not have to deal with foreclosures.

Regardless of his income.

So, my question is where is my help? Do I really want help? No. But it would have been nice if someone at least would have said, ”I am sorry I have to force you to divide your money to help others”. Like that is going to happen.

At least I have a choice which charity I can donate to, but I am waiting for the day that choice to be gone.

Now that the budget-busting “health care reform” bill (that neither reforms health insurance nor health care), has passed, we are finally beginning to hear some of the truth of what the bill contains.   While some goodies kick in immediately (waiver of pre-existing conditions for CHILDREN, children can stay on parents’ plan until age 26), most of it won’t kick in until 2014 (waiver of pre-existing conditions for adults), ALL of the bad stuff kicks in immediately.  And while I’m on the subject, when I was 26 I had a 4 year old for crissakes.

But back to some of the immediate effects of the bill:  Dr. Tim Johnson on ABC News says  “We, as consumers, are going to have to change our spending habits. We’ll have to stop demanding the latest of everything because we think it’s the best.”

Funny, I never heard the MSM say “stop demanding … the best” before the bill was passed.

Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years after diagnosis:
U.S.   65%
England 46%
Canada 42%

Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received treatment within six months:
U.S.  93%
England 15%
Canada 43%

Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it within six months:
U.S.  90%
England 15%
Canada 43%

Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within one month:
U.S. 77%
England  40%
Canada  43%

Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people:
U.S.  71%
England 14%
Canada  18%

Percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in “excellent health”:
U.S. 12%
England  2%
Canada  6%

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want “Universal Healthcare” comparable to  England or Canada .

Moreover, it was Sen. Harry Reid who said, “Elderly Americans must learn to accept the inconveniences of old age.”

SHIP HIS ASS TO CANADA OR ENGLAND !

Part of Congress/Obama’s great healthcare plan is to put 15 to 20 million of uninsured Americans onto the Medicaid rolls.  Obama also wants to cut $500 billion from the program and doctors are already worried about if they can continue to accept these patients. ObamaCare hasn’t even passed and things are starting to look bad for those already in the system.

From the Seattle Times: “Walgreens will no longer accept new Medicaid patients in Washington state as of April 16. The pharmacy company, which operates 121 stores in the state, will continue filling Medicaid prescriptions for current patients.”

Bartell Drugs (with 57 stores in Washington) stopped taking new Medicaid patients last month.  Another pharmacy chain stopped last November.  Why?  Medicaid in Washington State has been reimbursing pharmacies at 86% — and now 84% — of the drugs’ average wholesale price, so of course pharmacies are going to have to stop accepting Medicaid.  If government “reimbursement” is less than  the break-even point for doctors, drugstores and hospitals, either they will go out of business or they will stop providing the services.

But it’s all okay — the Washington State Medicaid director said patients should be able to find other drugstores to fill their medications.  For now, anyway.

Seems to me that if the federal government can’t compensate providers in a plan as relatively small-scale as Medicaid, how can they claim with a straight face that they can manage to compensate all providers (and fairly at that) and provide all health care services for all Americans?

They can’t.   Which is why the majority of Americans don’t support it.

I gave a talk last night to a group of Catholic high schoolers about Pope John Paul II’s encyclical, The Gospel of Life.   It was a pro-life talk, but I focused on all life issues, not just abortion, but euthanasia, assisted suicide, cloning, embryonic stem cell research, capital punishment, a discussion on what ‘rights’ are, and to top it off, a tangent into just war theory, terrorism and torture.  Obviously, this was a just broad intro, and I didn’t get into any topic with much detail - there simply wasn’t time.   They were a great bunch of kids, with a lot of questions.

The one however, that always comes up, and always irritates me (on a personal level), is what about the Pill?  So I gave them a few facts. The Public Health Department of Seattle and King County devotes large portions of its website to information on various types of birth control, most of which do nothing to prevent the spread of STDs (and might actually encourage the spread).

In promoting the use of emergency contraception (Plan B), the county website touts: “no prescription needed for people over age 18…and men can get Plan B for their wives, girlfriends, sisters and friends!”  (Ladies: If your man keeps a steady supply of Plan B to feed you after sex…that might be a “red flag”.)  Babies, it seems are a public health crisis in the eyes of King County, where 1 in 4 pregnancies end in abortion according to the Washington State Department of Health.

As women, why do we accept the status quo, considering it good and healthy to habitually alter the natural functioning of our hormones and our bodies?  Why do we allow others to medicate our fertility as if it were a disease and an affliction?

My heart and prayers go out to this woman’s family.

A veteran animal trainer whose dream was to work at SeaWorld’s Shamu Stadium was killed Wednesday when one of the show’s killer whales dragged her underwater and she drowned.

SeaWorld said that 12,000-pound Tilikum pulled Dawn Brancheau, 40, into the orca’s tank about 2p.m.

Witnesses told the Orlando Sentinel that the animal suddenly grabbed Brancheau by the upper arm, tossed her around in his mouth and pulled her beneath the water as dozens of tourists looked on in horror.

However, you’d think that the word “killer” in its name would be a giveaway that maybe, you know, it kills things?  If you want to keep it caged, don’t get into the cage with it.  And though some are advocating destroying the animal, killing it would be even more senseless than using it as a toy for tourists.