Month: July 2011

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I was thinking about what I’d do to stimulate the economy…

Here are some ideas. They may not be good ideas, but they’re ideas nonetheless.

Make offshoring illegal! 

Ohhhh I know that sounds bad doesn’t it? But think about it. If companies have to use laid off American workers uhhh it creates jobs.

Cancel all New H1B1 Visas, Don’t renew old ones. 

This sounds horrible! Again, if there’s an American worker to take the job you’ve just put an AMERICAN back to work in their own country. 

One of the dirty secrets in High Technology over the past decade or so is that you can hire an H1B1 worker for pennies on the dollar compared to an American doing the same job. It’s created what I think of as a labor force akin to slave labor. 

The corporation has the ever present threat of canceling the workers visa and sending these folks back to their own country. With that threat hanging over their heads… H1B1s work like slaves. 

I’ve seen these people carried out of work by EMTs because they refused to take a sick day. Of course they expose everyone to whatever they’ve got but they keep working until they drop.  

Nobody considers the additional cost of the EMT call, or the lost work because everyone else in the department was sick too.

Lighten EPA restrictions

I’m not talking about to the point of creating Love canals all over the country but how about we give corporations more choices than closing shop or moving to a third world cesspool?

California has lost tons of companies large and small due to onerous regulations regarding so called “toxic” materials in their business.  By “toxic” I mean chemicals that you’d find under your sink. Ammonia, Acetic acid (main component of vinegar), Acetone, I could go on but you get the picture. 

The United States is following California’s lead and making it harder for companies to do business AND be profitable. 

I’ve wondered how much the BP spill in the Gulf was the result of cutting corners to make numbers and how much was just negligence or bad design? I wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover that really expensive “mandated safety systems” were installed at the cost of overall safety.

Reduce Immigration Quotas

Another hot button. If we have 12% Reported unemployment in this country we probably in reality have closer to 24%. This disparity in unemployment figures is because of the unrealistic way the government keeps count. 

Why not automatically reduce immigration quotas by double the unemployment figures? If we can’t find jobs for the people that are already here what makes us think that immigrants will fare any better?

As for the illegal immigrants (of whatever ethnic origin)… they should be returned to sender. The third time the same person is caught here illegally… they should be clapped in irons and put to work as part of a prison work gang. They’ll be fed, clothed, and they will work, just they’re not going to be sending money home.

Institute a flat rate tax

One tax rate. No state income taxes, JUST ONE flat percentage and that’s it.

No more IRS filing, no more gamesmanship on April 15th. 

Everyone pays the same amount. Corporations, Poor people, Small businesses, Rich people, the Middle class, EVERYONE.

I personally believe that we’ve incorrectly villainized  the wealthy. 

Not everyone was born wealthy. And many of the wealthy became so, by hard work and astute business dealings. I believe that making the wealthy “villains” because they capitalized on opportunity does us all a dis-service. 

We should point to those folks and say “See, anyone can make it with hard work.”

But I think they should pay the same percentage of tax as all the rest of us. 

Make the governments (US and State) spend within their means

With a flat rate tax in place, the government can predict how much they’ve got to spend on an annual basis.

That should mean that  the budget is predictable too. No borrowing, no raiding of social security, no raiding of road taxes. The politicians will know beyond a doubt how much they have to spend, and they’ll have to allocate funds to essential services first. 

If the economy is doing well and the citizens are making more money, then there’s more money to allocate to non-essential services. If the economy is bad then the converse is true.

I think that this would act as a very effective check / balance for the size of our government and would force our legislators to focus on what’s really important. Like the PEOPLE they’re supposed to represent. And…You know, minor stuff like maintaining a growing economy….

Remove immediately any politician that is late on or obstructs budget decisions 

Yes up to and including the President!

The American people deserve better than to be used as bargaining chips in a personal battle of wills between politicians.

When the President threatened to withhold Veterans and Social Security recipients checks. It demonstrated just how far removed he is the common person. It also demonstrated the contempt he has for the American people in general.

So I think it’s time to make sure that politicians KNOW THEIR PLACE! They need to be reminded that they ARE OUR EMPLOYEES. They are paid and employed at the sufferance of the American People. A few instant firings of these arrogant parasites might bring all the others to heel. If not… well then I guess elections come early this year.

Start Charging for Military Intervention

I think we should bill any country where we’re expending military resources. 

I think we should bill the UN for Peace Keeping missions.

I even entertain the idea of us renting our military forces to other countries. 

I’m not talking about currency as payment either. I’m talking natural resources, Oil, gas, gold, silver, rare earths, in short any commodity that our nation could use. 

Why the hell should the United States taxpayers keep footing the bill?

If someone needs our forces to settle a dispute… well they can damn well pay for it.  I also think that our troops should be very well paid for their services and that could easily happen if we were billing countries that asked for our help.

It might also make folks think twice before going to war if they knew their opponent could afford to field our military against them. 

The world has cast America in a peacekeeping role. Lets make it profitable! 

Empty the Prisons

Every convicted prison inmate has two choices:

  1. Military service outside the United States. 
  2. Prison Work gang.

The goal is to make use of the standing labor force that’s just sitting around costing money but returning very little to the society.

I’m sure the ACLU would have a heart attack if any of these ideas ever were implemented.

I don’t know if any of these ideas would work…

I do know that continuing on the way we have been will lead to our becoming a third world cesspool, and I’d hate for that to happen.

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Another day MORE negative Cash Flow

Apparently, the California Employment Development Department is much too busy and far too important to actually make good on their promise of sending me a packet in the mail within the time they specified.

Not that I’m terribly surprised…

The Unemployment people are just as screwed up as the DMV. I do find myself asking why I’ve been working so hard to pay my taxes when frankly I get none of the benefits.

Bad roads, terrible commutes, people whining about the “poor” (many of whom do not deserve benefits because they’re not citizens), no police coverage…

Yeah you read that right. No police coverage, at minimum they’ll get to town oh… sometime… maybe…

Oh course that’s if you can actually speak to someone at 911. Most of the time you get a recording to hold and I’ve personally been on hold for 10 minutes trying to report an accident.

Yes all of this is about Californias budget.

What I can’t understand is the philosophy in Sacramento.

When I don’t have money… I DON’T SPEND MONEY!

I start by cutting ALL un-necessary spending.

I focus only on paying the bills and I terminate all services that I can no longer afford.

So applying that logic, why the hell doesn’t the state stop pissing away money on social services that we KNOW are prone to abuse and fraud and concentrate on the core services that they’re supposed to provide?

You know, Roads, Schools, Government services… oh like answering the Damn phone!

I don’t care who’s responsible… Grey Davis, Arnold, Brown, they’re all the same…  They’re all figure heads who were or are being castrated by a house and senate that has not adjusted to the new realities of the RECESSION!

Yes I fucking said it! A RECESSION is what we’re in and you know what?

The sooner these morons in Sacramento AND Washington admit it, the sooner realistic actions can be taken to get us back on track.

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So I got some information from EDD

Yet another reason to get the fuck out of California!

I get info from the Employment Development Department. All they send me is a notice that I’m supposed to sign up for their Job Search site. This site 99% of the time is advertising for cleaning personnel or migrant farm workers.

The last time I was unemployed, I applied for jobs from their site and kept getting told that I was over-qualified…

There was absolutely NOTHING about IF I’m Eligible.

Nothing about what I’m supposed to do when/if  the Furlough ends.

No instructions other than that I have to prove my citizenship and eligibility to work.

THAT, I FIND FUNNY!

They let you sign up online BUT then they want to see proof of your eligibility to work I’m assuming IN PERSON. If that’s the case then I should have just driven my happy ass to the Employment office and filled out all the paperwork there with everything in hand and just started the process there and made it a simple one step process.

Meanwhile I haven’t been paid for a month and honestly it’s starting to be a bit of a worry.

You know if I wanted to be fucked I’d sell my ass on Santa Monica Boulevard. Or sign up to spread my cheeks in a porn.

It may come to that anyway at this rate.

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Yet more of the Car Saga…

I dropped the car off at the dealership on Monday.

The guy tried to suggest that perhaps the problem was in the computerized vent controls, or that something else had gone wrong… anything but their A/C service having screwed up the system. (Mind you the A/C was working when I dropped it off BEFORE they serviced it. The A/C just hadn’t been serviced in 3 years and wasn’t blowing as cold as it should have been.)

I was pretty pissed off at being left in Palm Springs with no A/C and temps hovering around 111F.

I described the car as my “Pussy” car. The service writer looked at me quizzically and I explained that every time I wanted to take the car out for a spin… It had a headache. I also described the car as a busted motherfucking waste of money. Needless to say they handed me the keys to a rental and hustled me out of the lobby with great alacrity.

I heard nothing on Monday, and still nothing on Tuesday.

This morning I get an email saying the problem is the Schrader valve on the high pressure side of the system. They don’t have any in stock but will have one tomorrow.

What they’re expecting me to believe is this;

In their initial service 2 weeks ago,
The system was vacuum tested for more than an hour.
Then the system was purged.
Dye was added and then the system was recharged.
It supposedly tested fine in their shop.

A week or two go by with me literally driving the car twice and I have an A/C failure.

Hummmmm I think something else is going on.

The valve in question for those who may not know, looks like the valve that you use when you put air in your tires. It’s a common part, and they are prone to fail depending on a number of factors and they are also pretty dang easy to replace.

It’s taken them 2 days to figure out a Schrader valve has a problem? Especially that one? No… something else is going on.

Either their initial service was so flawed, it screwed up a lot more than just a valve OR the guys working on the car now are completely incompetent.

Going into Mr Science Mode for a moment

This is a simplistic explanation…
A/C works by compressing a gas into a liquid, then feeding that liquid through what looks like a small radiator in the cabin of the vehicle. As the liquid moves through the radiator, the cabin air is circulated through the radiator which warms the liquid enough that it changes back into a gas. (There’s a bunch of physics that explains what happens next) As the liquid undergoes the change from liquid to gas it cools the radiator and the air circulating through the radiator gets cold too. (Think about how aerosol spray cans get cold when you use them, it’s the same principal.) Then the gas is pumped to a larger radiator (heat exchanger) in the front of the engine where the outside air flowing through the engine compartment cools it down before its fed back to the compressor where the process repeats. This basic description also covers your home A/C unit

The side of the compressor referred to as the High Pressure side is where the liquid freon is sent to the passenger compartment. The low pressure side in the side where the gas comes into the compressor.

If you have a leak on the “High” side, it’s pretty obvious and if there’s a dye agent in the freon then it’s unbelievably obvious since at the site of the leak you’ll have everything around coated with dye.

So why then has it taken these guys 2 days to figure out what the problem was?

I did home and commercial heating and air conditioning when I was younger. THE FIRST place you look at it the maintenance valves. The rest of the system is sealed, so unless you know some physical problem occurred you ALWAYS start at the mechanical stuff.

It works like this.

If the compressor kicks over, then you’ve probably lost some if not all of your coolant. If there is still some freon in the system, you recharge. If it works, while connected to your coolant source and you see nominal operating pressures on the high and low side of the system, it’s probably a bad Schrader valve. You can prove that when you disconnect your test gear because you can hear it or see it leaking.

If in fact it’s a bad Schrader, depressurize the system, replace BOTH valves (if one failed the other is likely to), vacuum purge the system, put new coolant (usually freon) in, cap it off, and test.  While you’re letting the system run you walk the lines to make sure there’s nothing else that needs attention. If you see a problem you let the owner know and what it’s likely to cost.

If there’s no other issue, you hand the customer the bill and schedule a preventative maintenance next year.

I used to do up to 8 of these services a day on homes in Florida. This is not magic, it’s just logic and good customer service.

The point is, I don’t believe for a minute that it took 2 days to find a bad Schrader valve. It’s a normal maintenance port and usually is sitting either right next to the compressor with the low pressure valve or they’re both mounted next to the heat exchanger in the front of the engine compartment.

Regardless of where it was, one glance from even an incompetent moron of an A/C mechanic and the problem should have been blindingly obvious. This is especially true since they’d already put the dye in the system when they initially serviced it.

Which means… I’ve been lied to. What little trust I had is gone & I’m looking for a new dealer to service my car until the end of it’s warranty.

After that… I’m going to find myself a good independent who knows how to work on cars without relying totally on computers and sensors.

I want a mechanic that knows and loves cars.

Someone named Deiter, Hans, Heinrick, or Klaus

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Yet Another Reason I HATE California

I got a registration notice yesterday.

This is typical of the way that California FUCKS it’s citizens.

The notice arrives yesterday, It’s dated as Due in 3 days…

SO the BASTARDS start clocking LATE fees BEFORE you have a chance to get the damn payment to them. Yeah there are other ways to pay ’em. You can use the internet or you can use AAA. But suppose you need to have a smog check?

I guess you’re supposed to fuck over whatever schedule you had, whether that is going to work, or taking a trip, or suppose you’re out of town for a week?

Depending on the amount of your WAY overpriced registration, the late fees can really add up.

For the period 10 days after the due date you incur an approximately 23.5% increase.
For the next 20 day period the increase is about 36%. For the period beyond it’s a 74% increase.

Last year I paid more for my registration than my normal car payment.

I wouldn’t have minded except that the California roads are falling apart. 
Potholes have cost me 4 wheels in the past 2 years if your rims cost 800.00 a piece you really don’t appreciate the shitty freeways, or crumbling surface streets.

You know MY MORTGAGE, and my Credit Cards give me 30 days. At least they provide me with some kind of services.

California is acting like a sleazy loan shark. I don’t like it, I think it’s wrong and I wonder if there’s any place better than this fucked up, third world shit hole.

Time to go….