unculturedswine

Just a quick note on this AIG thing that is making me literally sick.

“The House is scheduled to vote today on a bill that would levy a 90 percent tax on bonuses paid to employees with family incomes above $250,000 at companies that have received at least $5 billion in government bailout money.”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Within days of this bonus “scandal” the house is now making a NINETY PERCENT tax rate on those bonuses. This is absolutely disgusting. Do you see where these leads? This leads to Congress making up laws on a whim and a wish when they play the angry populist. They act quickly before the real facts are learned and the public doesn’t cry foul. In essence, they do anything they want, unchecked. Right now they attack big companies freedoms, tomorrow they attack yours.

I am so so so so so sick of Congress right now. They are despicable and so anti-American right now it’s making me sick.

| SLEIGHT | The use of dexterity or cunning, esp. so as to decieve

| DISTRACTION | A thing that prevents someone from giving full attention to something else

Okay okay, I’m gonna get political again. I’ve been watching a lot of Glenn Beck lately and I can’t recommend him enough to you. He does a fantastic job of telling you what everyone else is talking about, and then tells you what you should be talking about. Let me explain.

In my younger years, well, okay, not that long ago, I did magic tricks. Card tricks and close-up was my specialty. I did a lot of it on my mission; it was great fun in the apartment and for members and friends. I really enjoyed it.

Close up magic is tricky because, well, it’s close up. It’s in your face. I’m not on a big stage with lights and smoke and mirrors, I’m a few feet from you fully exposed. Most card tricks require a lot of practice so you can perfect motions under the guise of sleight of hand. What you see is not what I’m doing. Most moves are performed this way. But sometimes, you need to be a little sneakier. Enter the distraction. The dialogue during magic tricks (called patter) is usually woven into a fun story to tell, to keep watchers’ minds not fully focused on what your hands are doing. The real interesting parts of the story is where you’re supposed to stop watching my hands altogether – to distract you from what’s really going on. To make the magic happen, to prevent you from seeing what I’m actually doing.

Friends, that’s all Washington and Politicians are doing anymore. Right now the hot topic is the AIG $165M bonus pay out. Politicians and citizens alike are outraged! To fill you in, AIG was a recipient of BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars in the first bailout. And now, several months later after continuing to hemorrhage money and fail AIG employees and executives are still going to receive millions in bonuses. This should make you sick, right? Taxpayer dollars – your money and my money – is now going into the pockets of failing businessmen as a bonus. I don’t know about you, but when I worked at Nu Skin, we didn’t get a bonus when we failed. Where, after all the recent news and terrible economic conditions we’re in, where does AIG get the audacity to do this? What kind of la-la land do they live in?

They live in 100% capitalist legal land. Those bonuses were guaranteed in a contract written last year, early last year, months before the bailout and a failing economy became the hot topic. AIG is under 100% legal contractual obligations to pay those bonuses. Also, please note they’re NOT performance bonuses. Rather, they’re retention bonuses. AIG was floundering at the time and had a dismal future, so they offered nice bonuses to certain employees if they’d stay on and ride thru the tough times. A reward for sticking around. A perfectly legal, contractually obligated, reward.

Why are we, as citizens of the United States and fervent believers in the Constitution not screaming at the Politicians to let this contract stay legal and binding, and pay out the money? Since when did Congress have the authority to make legal contracts illegal? I’m pretty sure they can’t. But this is beside the point. This bonus issue is the distraction from the real problem. What’s the real problem?

The bonus money that is being given out ($187M) is only 0.1% of the total money that AIG has received from the the taxpayers ($182B+). ZERO POINT 1 PERCENT. Meaning, if I gave you $1000 to spend on a new computer for your company, and you spend $1.00 on a candy bar you’ve spent the equivalent of the AIG bonus. Let’s take a look at where AIG has spent the money we’ve given them.

AIG has filtered out $44B to United States banks to help fix the economy (at least that’s what it’s supposed to do). That’s not toooo bad, is it? Well, it is considering they’ve filtered out $58B to foreign banks in Germany, France, Switzerland etc.

Do you see the distraction? Do you see the sleight of hand? The EXACT SAME politicians that are screaming and demanding oversight into this ‘bonus scandal’ are the EXACT SAME senators that saw this coming, they know where the money has gone and that more than half has left this country, they knew upon the drafting of the bailout that these bonus contracts existed. But they also knew they needed a scapegoat – that they needed a distraction.

Don’t buy into it. Don’t give the major media and politicians a second of your attention. All they’re doing is distracting you from what’s really going on.

Glenn Beck Commentary

Last November I was pulled over on I-15 around Bangerter Hwy Northbound going 81 in a 65. It was a motorcycle cop hanging out under an overpass and when I saw him he was ‘holstering’ his speed gun and I knew I had been had. What was my first thought? “SHIT!” Then, find an exit and try to disappear. Yep, that’s what I thought. He was not moving and facing southbound so I thought maybe I had a chance.

Yeah, right. I still maintained my 80mph pace though in hopes I’d get it, but I saw him back not too far and coming in on me. When finally pulled over he actually got a little upset at me for continuing my 80mph pace, and asked me if I had seen him or not. I just gave him a dumb stare. I was already busted, why did it matter?

So, yeah, I got a ticket. He wrote me up for going 9 over. This is my first speeding ticket in honestly I have no idea how long; I know it was my first time being pulled over in this car and I’ve had it almost 3 years. The nice thing about a Camry is they’re pretty invisible to cops. But not entirely.

I was given the usual spiel to call no sooner than 5 days no later than 10. Okay fine. I called on the 10th day and listened to a long voice recording about what to do. Finally it reached speeding tickets and it just said send us the money, deduce your amount from the following scale. I don’t recall if it gave a deadline or not, but they did mention that they don’t offer a driving school in Draper. Punks.

Well, money was tight and I like to be forgetful, so the ticket went unpaid for a bit. I knew I had to send it in, I just never got around to it. Then I got a letter, and a warning. I had 10 days to pay or I’d have a warrant issued, and the fine now had a late penalty making the total $206.00. JERKS! I seriously don’t remember if the telephone message actually had a due date mentioned on it, so I kinda thought I should fight it. Then I remembered you never win. Guilty until proven innocent ya know. So, I wrote out the check. And then I added a little memo.

For those of you visually impaired, it says ‘taking it up the ASS’. There, I felt better. Seal the envelope and addressed it to the Draper City Court of Injustice (yep, threw that in there too) and send it on it’s way. Check cleared. Happy day.

Then, in February, I got another letter from Draper. Curious, I opened it. Ahhh, since I couldn’t contain myself on the check I was now asked to appear before the judge and tell them why I shouldn’t be found in contempt of court. Holy crap. This is lame! I was never even IN court! What do I do?

Well, today was court day. Early morning court is much better than usual traffic court, cause you get to see all the repeat offenders (7 speeding tickets in 18 months!) and societies up-and-comers (I’m ready to graduate from drug-court). Oh, and me. When it was my turn the judge read off what was happening, and even quoted what I wrote on the check. I then explained myself.

“It was an emotional reaction, your honor. I was frustrated at myself for not paying the ticket on time and had to pay extra in late fees. I wasn’t thinking straight”

“Do you admit or deny this then”

“Admit”

“Then you are found in contempt of court. Now, if I were you, here’s what I’d say. Dear Judge Bertch. I’m sorry. I acted foolishly and am now embarrassed over what I did, and have also embarrassed my family. Yada yada. That’s what I would say if I were you.”

“Judge Bertch, i’m sorry….”

And that’s it. He accepted the apology, purged the contempt of court and closed the case. All done. No fine, no fee, no jail time. So, next time you have to pay a fine, don’t write anything rude in the Memo field, just leave it blank. You might not get as kind a judge as I got.