Getting on toward a full month of eating, drinking and relaxing. There has been some work in there, dealing with inflation on my grant request and attempting to get a book donation, but alot of visiting, long holiday dinners and watching movies (also some reading, but not enough). Letter writing and running through snow. Consistent negative temperatures have helped to keep snow on the ground for almost a month now, but running through the drifts does nothing good for my achilles. Christmas started on the eve, Jan. 6th, continued for three days after that, and now there is old new years, and then next Sunday there is some other holiday. Everyone else has gone back to school, but my town traded spring break for one more week of holiday now. Of course the first week I won't have a teaching schedule, and then the second week I have Ukrainian language camp, so I really won't start teaching till Feb. 2nd, which will make the long stretch till Easter more managable. Well
I hope America can make some new jobs by the time I come back. It's pretty frustrating to watch how many people are loosing their jobs thanks to decisions that were made for short term gain rather than longterm sustainability. There are some things to be said for a King, who must keep things going well for more than 8 years in order to keep his head. Not that I support the death penalty for politicians, but maybe some sort of financial penalty? Also interesting to see manufacturing wages being blamed for lack of american car manufacturer profits where as we just bailed out wall street banks without cutting any executive salaries. Because having more rich people creates jobs and economy growth four times more effectively than government spending, oh how I love the trickle down theory, right... Do we have to go all the way down this road before we look back and see that the New Deal was not less regulation and unconditional support for white collar workers, but in fact the opposite which pulled the economy back from hungry belly homeless status. Anyway, got to read more history to really make any arguments about this, but after seeing Germany, I must say there is something to be said for social spending and high taxes. Go see for yourself if you still think deregulation and small government is the solution...
