Tag: Business

Hu-mil-i-a-tion, Noun, 2. To Produce Resignation or Shame to the Dignity of Another

~ Harlan Didrickson

Humiliation comes in many flavors: decline, disgrace, resignation, ridicule, shame, stigma, and upset.

HUMILIATION BY RESIGNATION AND SHAME

A bike to a 11-year old is like a compass to an explorer; it ensures progress, freedom, and discovery.

I was eleven or so and riding my Columbia 3-speed (I really wanted the cocoa brown 10-speed Schwinn but when my father asked without acolumbiabikelooking at me – (a seldom used, but spot-on tactic {for parents reading this, it’s found in appendix C entitled “How To Use Their Own Ignorance” page MCDL of the “Parental Handbook} letting the child see for him/her self that they don’t know why they need the thing they’re asking for) “What difference can seven more gears make?  How is ten gears easier to ride than three gears?  I, of course, didn’t know about torque and gear ratios so I settled for the defensive approach, which really set myself up by saying a parent’s favorite answer, “Because everyone’s riding them!  Who rides a lime green, lame 3-speed, Columbia bike?” And then, in true triumphant spirit (knowing he played this round perfectly) my father delivered the estocada with deft precision, “You do, my boy!  You do!”

ahillAnd so I did, and so I was the only kid puttering around our neighborhood with a 3-speed which was okay until I reached the piedmont of the Great Lapham Hill.  Three speeds were clearly insufficient to maintain both balance and momentum required to propel me to the Hill’s summit.  Any bicyclist knows you need at least five or better ten gears!  And so I tried pedaling my 3-speed Columbia up the 47 degree slope and then it began, the gear torque problem; the gears on a 3-speed couldn’t withstand the amount of torque my slow pedaling and they began to slip, which in turn caused my pedals to slip, which in turn interrupted my concentrated, all-out pumping.  When my pedaling failed to produce any forward movement, which caused a stall, followed by imbalance, and eventual failure expressed by my bike and I crashing onto the street and sliding downhill several feet.  Laying in the street against the curb I was utterly ashamed of my feeble attempt and was, at last, resigned to the truth that my father’s tyrannical reign was impossible to denounce.  I felt absolutely deflated and a prisoner of my father’s own mania expressed by indifference and cruelty.  I was forced to wiggle from beneath the damned 3-speed and push not adograceride my 3-speed bike up Great Lapham Hill cursing at my father, which intensified with each step, while dragging my boyhood pride behind me.  Suddenly, from behind like a leash of Greyhounds, my classmates rode Schwinn Varsity Double-Shifter 10-Speeds flew past me and quickly disappeared behind the crest of the summit.  And then he approached quietly in the 1965 Rambler Wagon, pulled up next to me, lowered the passenger window and began his litany of taunts using his professorial tone.  At which time I sensed a kind of heartburn, but deeper and with greater volume. I began to perspire, brow first, then neck and shoulders.  This isn’t going to end on a positive note, I told myself.  And when I couldn’t restrain it any longer, out it flew like a bird set free.  But it wasn’t lunch that exploded from my mouth but a raw, quick, and cheeky bombardment of varied and loud expletives and vocabulary usually reserved for drunken sailors on furlough.  I was still screaming when he slowly closed the passenger window, put the Rambler in gear, and floored the V-8 engine which bellowed the blue smoke of burning oil.

Why did I challenge Great Lapham Hill when I possessed three crippling debilities: Obesity, three speeds, and an overwhelming hatred for my perpetually condescending father who refused to buy me a 10-speed as an example of his dominion.  Not because he was a tightwad, not avarsitybecause he couldn’t afford it, but simply to crush whatever degree of animosity I may harbor against him.  Looking back, he baited me at the very start by taking me to the bike store; then he fed me frenzied hopefulness when he stood before the twin-shifting, steel-forged and welded frame, drop handlebars, and racing seat, all painted a beautiful metallic cocoa brown, and asked, “How about this one?”  That was the exact bike I dreamt of every night.  But as I moved closer to where he stood, his eye caught the glint of a lime green bike obscured by Varsity’s and Paramount’s.  Yelling across the store at the sales clerk he said, “We’ll take this one.”  “But what about this one?  The Varsity?  This is the one I want. . .”

The sales clerk stood next to my father, paperwork in hand, when my father asked without looking at me – (a seldom used, but spot-on tactic {for parents reading this, it’s found in appendix C entitled “How To Use Their Own Ignorance” page MCDL of the “Parental Handbook} letting the child see for him/her self that they don’t know why they need the thing they’re asking for) “What difference can seven more gears make? Besides, if you can’t ride up Lapham Street on your very own 3-speed, why bother buying a bike?  Let’s get a baby carriage that you can push up the hill and have a tea party like a good little nancy.”

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“Defend The Rich: Attack The Poor!” That’s America?

~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 4 Comments
middleclassadvantage
ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS: (noun), 1) A government program guaranteeing certain benefits to a segment of the population; 2) The right to benefits offered by a government.

QUESTION:  Why does the Republican leadership denounce raising taxes on the wealthy unless the Democratic leadership reduces its spending on ENTITLEMENT programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid?

In this post I will argue that Republican bias against the middle-class and their enrollment in Entitlement Programs is peanuts when compared to the wealthy’s routine use of their own Entitlement Programs.  Let’s get started:

Can you name the congressman or senator that represents the millions of disenfranchised Americans whose voice is never heard in Washington?

When will the top 1% step from behind Republican stonewalling and admit their greed is immoral and burdens the other 99% who can ill afford additional taxation?

Is Social Security Disability Income really an entitlement when over 70% of initial applications are denied; the application and subsequent supporting medical records takes an applicant months to collect; the process is so convoluted that it’s sired a cottage industry of attorneys that charge 30% or more of the applicants back-pay (back-pay is the aggregate monthly benefit beginning on the date of disability to the present day, minus the 6 month waiting period; e.g. number of months of disability benefits = 24, multiplied by the monthly benefit of $1,500 = $36,000 tax-free); so an attorney representing a client who’s approved for benefits would earn $12,000.  What kind of entitlement takes two years to process and costs the disabled 1/3 of their rightful benefit?  Why not streamline the application process and return the 30% to the SSA as a one-time contribution “To Bolster Solvency.”

ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS FOR THE WEALTHY (AND APPROVED BY THE IRS)

The wealthiest Americans most likely have a financial firm like Atlanta Trust that manages a total of $17.6 billion for 2,200 families to develop a customized “capital-preservation” strategy.  In other words Atlanta Trust’s responsibility is to grow wealth or limit lost wealth by appropriating investments to historically safer instruments.  Wealthy American‘s treat their money like a business and receive categorized spending reports to keep their eye on what’s coming in and what’s going out.  Further, many wealthy American’s hire accounting firms or tax attorneys to prepare their income taxes by ferreting out every possible deduction (from more than 200 Federally approved deductions) and to advise of off-shore wealth and its tax liabilities (if any).  A team of financial professionals, tax attorneys, and their own consistent oversight reinforces the adage: The Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get Poorer.

Let’s look at Mitt Romney‘s tax situation in 2011 (as a readily available tax return and as an example of Entitlements reserved for the wealthiest American’s).

1) NET WORTH: $300 million +/-;
2) Money invested in American companies who’ve established their headquarters off-shore to avoid standard taxation;
3) Wealthy enough to hire firms to manage his assets and to uncover as many deductions as possible, which will in turn reduce his gross income tax liability to an adjusted gross income tax liability.  Remember, income tax is based on your annual income and not your net worth.

Mr. Romney didn’t disclose his gross income for 2011.  However, this is what he did disclose:

  1. His 2011 tax return was 379 pages long (a ream of paper is 500 pages);cash
  2. $13,696,951.00 (His adjusted gross income (taxable income minus allowable deductions)
  3. $1,950,000.00 (tax liability)
  4. 13.9% (final tax bracket)

If we look at the graph below, we’ll see that a person in the 13.9% tax bracket earns approximately $25,000 annually.  How on earth can someone whose gross income likely exceeded $20 million annually wind up in the same tax bracket as someone earning $25,000? (Put away your calculators, I’ve already done the math: $25,000 is 0.18252% of Romney’s adjusted gross income).

Tax Year:  2012
Filing Status:   Single
If your taxable income is between… your tax bracket is:
 $0  and  $8,750  10%
$8,700  and  $35,350  15%
 $35,350  and  $85,650  25%
 $85,650  and  $178,650  28%
 $178,650  and  $388,350  33%
 $388,350  and  ABOVE  35%

Yet, they’re in the same tax bracket?  Wondering how Mr. Romney achieves it?

  1. Great Tax Attorney’s;
  2. Preferential taxation (15% tax rate) return on investments in company’s headquartered off-shore as capital gains rather than income (35% tax rate);
  3. Crazy loophole called carried interest allowing financial managers like those working at Bain Capital (equity, hedge funds, venture capitalists) to declare their fees as capital gains (15%) rather than income (35%);
  4. Savvy and sickening at the same time.

So, back to my initial question:  Why does the Republican leadership denounce raising taxes on the wealthy unless the Democratic leadership reduces its spending on ENTITLEMENT programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid?

fiscalcliff

It would appear that this vitriolic soap-box-posturing about middle-class abuse of Entitlement Programs (which every employee contributes by way of a federal mandate requiring employers to withhold a specific percentage from every paycheck) which allegedly will be insolvent within a decade, should also include the Wealthy American’s Entitlement Programs which are routinely used in order to reduce their adjusted gross income and subsequently lower their tax liability by millions, if not billions of dollars every year.  The Federal Government loses an enormous amount of money which might be used to rescue Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid from collapse.  But that would require closing loopholes, limiting deductions, taxing ALL income at their current tax bracket (35%); in other words forcing the wealthiest 1% to pay an income tax based on income, rather than a greatly reduced income tax based on adjusting their income by as many as 200 deductions and loop holes.  Or, simply be an American and pay your fair share.

Our current situation It’s disgraceful, embarrassing for all American’s on the world stage, and further separates the bourgeoise from the proletariat (which, historically speaking, has never been a sustainable advantage for the ruling party).  The direction we’re headed, best illustrated by the stalemate in Washington, historically ends when a few have most of the wealth and the most have the fewest.  It’s not a divide, it’s a gorge, or maybe a cliff which stubbornness or back-room politics causes a financial implosion which could have been avoided if the good of the American people was paramount, not some school yard tough-guy bullying and double-dares.

I’m embarrassed to admit I’m an American.

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You Can Remove A Gall Bladder Faster

~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 1 Comment

I think my mother coined this adage:
However long you think it’ll take, or, however much you think it’ll cost, double it!

Is it age? Competency? Vim and Vigor?

How come we never see Martha Stewart experience the notorious exploding bag of flour, or Ty Pennington experience driving a wood chisel through his hand?

Oh no, both Martha and Ty have everything they need in tidy little bowls at the ready.  (Those tidy bowls are tidied by twenty-something “producers” whose job it is to produce tidy bowls.  But doesn’t “producer” sound impressive?  (We used to call them “gophers” or “grunts.”))

Here’s a litany of tasks I disgracefully muddled through (thank God it was in the basement) in order to complete a “quick and easy do-it-your-self-er” project:

1.  Pry speaker box from cabinet;
2.  Continue to pry (with pry bar), indifferent to salvaging speaker box wood;
3.  Prying now escalates to demolition – just get the damn speaker free of the damn box!
4.  Wipe sweat with t-shirt, clean speaker of dirt and dust, ignore collateral damage at corner of room (friendly fire if you please);
5.  Scout in-house scrap stock for suitable material for speaker front;
6.  Select 3/4″ furniture-grade plywood
7.  Measure width between interior faces of ceiling joists; transfer measurement to plywood;
8.  Make cut on Makita 10 in. dual bevel compound miter saw (it’s like a day at the spa. . .);
9.  Measure circumference of speaker grill; place speaker gill on plywood and trace its circumference;
10.  Locate much loathed power jigsaw; locate much loved cordless drill and place 3/8″ fractional brad point bit into chuck;
11.  Drill pilot hole (to start cut with loathed power jigsaw);
12.  (WORD OF CAUTION: Remove dentures, lose fillings, eye glasses, and any item which might fall out/off during 7.5 magnitude earthquake);
13.  Place loathed jigsaw blade in starter hole, aim at the traced line, hit the safety and the trigger;
14.  Attempt to steer teeth-chattering, grip-jarring jigsaw along your traced line;
15.  STOP!  Back the jigsaw out, aim at your trace line, and hit the trigger;
16.  PAY ATTENTION!  Your cut looks as though you were blind-folded!
17.  At long last your cut ends where it started, but the hole is hardly round, resembling the road up to Pike’s Peak;
18.  Wipe sweat with t-shirt, locate dovetail saw, “trim” plywood to reshape cut to circular shape;
19.  Locate the four-in-one hand rasp and file; use curved rasp end to reshape details of cut; then use curved file end to smooth cut and edge surfaces;
20.  Locate sanding block and affix 80-grit sandpaper to begin smoothing and shaping; next affix 140-grit sandpaper and sand all surfaces;
21.  Locate mineral spirits and clean wiping rag; pour generous amount of mineral spirits onto rag; wipe all surfaces of wood with mineral spirits soaked rag; let wood dry;
22.  Locate speaker and check for fit in cut-out;
23.  Locate appropriately sized “L” brackets; choose between wood screws or bolt and t-nut to fasten wood to “L” brackets and “L” brackets to ceiling joists;
24.  Chose bolt and t-nut fasteners; root around in bolt drawer like a boar looking for grubs trying to locate correct length and diameter bolt to fit t-nut;
25.  Grab (what is now) the warm bottle of Sprecher’s Root Beer, pop off top, and almost drain bottle; emit improper and gauche oral yet non-vocal expression;
26.  Frustration beginning to simmer, forced to settle for two differing pairs of bolts for t-nuts; chose smaller wood screws as other fasteners;
27.  Place “L” brackets on “ceiling facing” side of wood; mark drill holes; remove “L” brackets;
28.  Locate screw and bolt gauge to determine correct drill bit size (different drill bit sizes: larger for bolt and t-nut; smaller for wood screw);
29.  Secure workpiece to table and drill holes at marked locations;
30.  Locate the four-in-one hand rasp and file; use the flat file end to smooth surface area around drill holes; turn workpiece over and check for tear-out; smooth areas;
31.  Locate t-nuts; place in larger holes on face side; locate hammer and pound t-nut into hole until flush with face surface;
32.  Place “L” brackets on workpiece and fasten to workpiece with bolts and wood screws;
33.  Check watch for time of. . .Jeez, that late all ready?
34.  Climb short ladder, place wood at eventual location, drill pilot holes for fasteners in ceiling joists;
35.  Locate ratchet screwdriver and wood screw fasteners; drive fasteners through “L” bracket holes and into ceiling joists;

36.  VOILA!  What a beaut, eh?  Ty Pennington’s got nothing to worry about.  Next time I think I’ll opt for the Cholecystectomy (gall bladder removal).

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