Zentropy

My father sent me a forwarded email this afternoon about the current credit crisis. For some reason, Baby Boomers tend to think of forwarded emails as bullet-proof factual goldmines (not a shot at you, Pop, just a trend I’ve noticed over the past ten years). This one happened to be an unintentional irony goldmine.

How about this??
A Modest Plan: Not to mention $700 Billion to bail out Wall Street, while mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren!

Hi Pals,

I’m against the $85 BILLION bailout of AIG. Instead, I’m in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a “We Deserve It” dividend. To make the math simple, let’s assume there are 200,000,000 bona fide U.S. citizens, aged 18+.

Our population is about 301 million counting every man, woman and child. So, 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up. Now, divide 200 million, 18+ adults into $85 billion - that equals $425,000.00 each! Yes, my plan is to give that $425,000 to every adult as a “We Deserve It” dividend.

Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So, let’s assume a tax rate of 30%. Every person would pay $127,500.00 in ta xes. That sends $25.5 billion right back to Uncle Sam! It also means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket. A husband and wife would have $595,000.00!

What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00?

• Pay off your mortgage? – housing crisis solved

• Repay college loans? – what a great boost to new grads

• Put away money for college? – it’ll really be there

• Save in a bank? – create money to loan to entrepreneurs

• Buy a new car? – create jobs

• Invest in the market? – capital drives growth

• Pay for your parent’s medical insurance? – health care improves

• Enable D eadbea t Dads to come clean? – or else.

Remember this is for every adult U.S. citizen, 18 and older (including the folks who lost their jobs at Lehmann Brothers and every other company that is cutting back) and of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.

If we’re going to re-distribute wealth let’s really do it! Instead of trickling out a puny $1,000.00 economic incentive.

If we’re going to do an $85 billion bailout, let’s bail out every adult U.S. citizen!!

As for AIG – liquidate it! Sell off its parts. Let American General go back to being American General! Sell off the real estate! Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.

We deserve the money and AIG doesn’t. Sure it’s a crazy idea, but can you imagine the coast-to-coast block party?!

How do you spell Economic Boom? W-e D-e-s-e-r-v-e I-t d-i-v-i-d-e-n-d! I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion “We Deserve It” dividend more than I do the geniuses at AIG or in Washington, D.C..

And remember, The Birk plan only really costs $59.5 billion because $25.5 billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.

Ahhh…I feel so much better getting that off my chest.
Kindest personal regards,
Birk (T. J. Birkenmeier, A Creative Guy & Citizen of the Republic)

Um, $85,000,000,000 / 200,000,000 = $425 per person, not $425,000. This jackass must be working for one of the firms we’re bailing out!

Well where to begin….

The past couple months have been incredibly busy for us. We had Carson’s first birthday party, which was a bittersweet week-long affair of putting together Little Tyke wagons, writing checks, and cleaning. There was a party in there somewhere, and we’ve got the video to prove it:

Right now, Carson has just a few words, Hello, Ball, Doggie, Momma, Dadda, Green, and Yellow. Green just started a couple days ago and sounds more like “grin”. Yellow sounds a lot like “Yao”. Yellow is the weird one. I think he likes the Ys and Ls, because the kid goes into yodeling fits at the most random times, and it cracks me up. He’s walking like a champ, and is surprisingly quick when he wants to get somewhere in a hurry. He also caught his first pass last night when Daddy tossed a stuffed football to him. Sadly, he could not repeat the feat. Kind of like Kenton Keith!

His personality is definitely coming out, and I think we have a fairly easy kid on our hands. We were able to drop the bottle at 12 months without any problems, and he’s quickly learning what stern “no” means. He still likes to test us occasionally, though. I expect the testing to increase over the next two years. But yeah, so far, easy kid…he wakes up happy, falls asleep quickly, and is in a good mood pretty much all day.

Unless he’s hungry. When he’s hungry he gets REALLY moody (like father like son), and his only focus is on getting fed, even if that means pulling the chairs out from under the dining room table to get our attention.

So that’s my Carson story, and I’m sticking to it.

We went to our final wedding of the summer a few weeks ago in Schererville, IN. Congratulations to Kevin and Erika! You two threw one helluva party, and your priest cracked me up. It was the first time I’d heard a Catholic priest use the phrase “well, we won’t get into that right now….it’s all Jesus-ey”. That sound you heard immediately thereafter was me choking back pure laughter. I’m surprised he didn’t yell out the score of the Notre Dame - SDSU game, and kind of saddened. Is it just me, or do women purposely schedule their weddings on days of hugely anticipated football and baseball games?

Mike and Emily brought their girls home last week, which is awesome news. The girls had been in the NICU for a month and a half, and it was absolutely driving Mike & Em crazy with worry and anticipation. Everyone seems to be doing well, but I don’t expect to hear from Mike for at least another three months. Having just survived the first few months of Carson’s life, I can only imagine the difficulties and stress that TWO newborns bring. *Shudders* That said, Mike & Em are strong willed and very hard workers, so they’ll be just fine. Good luck keeping that blog updated, Mike!

I downloaded the new Metallica album from iTunes a few days ago after reading lots of positive reviews. I was a huge, huge fan in the ’80s and early ’90s, but something about the Black album turned me off (maybe it was the nonstop radio play), so I tuned them out. Their releases between ‘91 and this year were embarrassingly bad, and sounded nothing like the metal shredders I grew up mimicking on guitar. Metallica was dead to me, until now.

They’re back, and I mean BACK.

I’ve listened to the new album about ten times over, and I can say that without a doubt, this is their best album since “And Justice For All”. They’re back to playing crushing thrash metal with intricate song structures. They SOUND like Metallica again, despite the terrible mixing that plagues this album (my only beef), and James Hetfield’s nearly 50 year old smoker’s voice. Most of the songs are fantastic, and there’s even a ten minute instrumental that hearkens to the days of Orion and Call of Kthulu. This is a must own for old-school Metallica fans who hated the direction the band has taken in the last 15 years.

Well, that’s it. I promise I’ll update more frequently from now on. Peace.