Playing Hookey

I've stayed home from work, the last two days. There have been -30 windchills, temps as low as -7. It snows each night, hard, dry snow that when compacted becomes glare ice you'ld be safer to skate on. Local roads become rutted, worse than gravel roads studded by constant heavy traffic, bone jarring (in my old van). The freeways become spin-out zones. Who wants to get stuck, stall out? Yeah we have cell phones (not everybody) and yeah people will arrive to help (for a fee). But... I have the luxury of staying home, as the company I work for has no immediate need for me - though I am on call. I don't get paid except for the hours I work. I haven't done much these two days, but move about the Internet, reading this and commenting that, thinking, eating, writing. Being lazy.

What sort of economy have we built, that people have to work today? Tonight it's supposed to snow an inch or two, with temps as low as -14. What do you suppose the roads will be like tomorrow? Wouldn't it be safest if everybody just stayed home?

What heresy! Seriously though, what have we built? The agents of the Federal Reserve are playing with fire, this very cold winter, as Kunstler so clearly called out (harsh, clever and direct even by Tyler Durden standards.)  So what, we have to light a fire to feed this debt burdened economy, to make it grow, more mining, more nuclear, more fracking, more consuming, that it might serve what – bankers? You might as well tell me I am serving mammon, for how much I want to be serving the fiat Dollar right now, today. Granted, some have to work today, like many of my co-workers, caretaking those who can't take care of themselves. But otherwise, there isn't that much that NEEDS to be done right now, for the majority, and those who are working should get paid more, eh? How's that for sensible? But bankers have no sympathies, nor do corporations, nor government. This economy cannot stop. It will not stop!

Exclamation point. I was commenting on Huffpost today, called “sigh - another economic illiterate” by one cMontalvo. His cornucopian vision for the maintenance and restoration of the status quo economic-growth paradigm, is mining under the sea for fresh water, and industrial nuclear fusion. I replied, among other things, based on his avatar, "a rose is just a rose, unless it has teeth, in which case it lives on blood and not soil fertility" (of course as you can see, it is really a urinal shaped like a female mouth shaped like a rose) (and Huffpost thinks a third of my comments are beyond the pale.) Shortly after that I learned that HuffPost is requiring all commenters to sign in to Facebook to verify you are who you say you are (and perhaps cut down on some of the trolling.) I haven't signed into Facebook in perhaps a year. That was fun. More and more I wonder about this all-seeing-eye, this economic juggernaut that knows everything digital about me.

A letter came from work, today. I missed the dead-line, for signing up for benefits for 2014. Oops. They put a letter in my in-box a few weeks ago, though I notice they didn't seek me out at the last minute. No doubt they feel backstopped by the Affordable Care Act, and are fine, to not have to pay their share of my coverage. Which is fine. I am ambivalent, insofar as I already pay a considerable amount of social security (which is paying for this business to exist), and I am curious about how the government will respond to me not carrying insurance. Curious, that hardly anyone assumes social security will provide for my retirement or care, but that everyone assumes Institutional Health Care including Insurance will be here, 30 years from now. I live as if comparatively little of it will, and take care of myself more or less as if I will never have access to institutional health care. (Acting as if the SUNstead will be all of that for me.)

No one commented last time (except UB and Surly1 on the Diner), which is partly why I wonder; would you think I was crazy if I said future generations were telling us to exploit uranium, drain and pollute aquifers and surface waters, mine in sulfide beds and shale and under the sea, and buy plastic crap to throw into landfills and burn and plasticize the ocean with, as fast as we can, to serve corporations and governments and bankers, that future generations might drive in flying cars and robots will clean up our mess and no one will work and everyone will have a clean shelter, healthy food and water and platinum health care? I could probably start getting paid for this. I hope everyone otherwise sent a comment. (Who are the Waterbearers, again?)

UPS guy and gal just showed up. Dropping off something for work, that didn't NEED to get dropped off today.

I should work tomorrow. But I don't NEED to work tomorrow. Granted, I have to pay the same amount of debt, no matter how much I work, how much I make this month. Though most of my Internet activity could be classified as work, except the owners of money would not say so, the drivers of THIS economy.

But then, I'd be fine if all debt were wiped out tomorrow, and usury be declared punishable by death. LOL

Which I know I'm in the tiny minority about. But I'm pretty sure the vast majority are going to come around to that way of thinking ;) (amnesty for all the current practitioners, of course.)

Quick Addendum: Budget Deal this quick means QE taper