Cliff Clarity

Yes we have a winner. And of course other winners. But like lemmings will old beliefs persist and all of us be lead off a cliff?

I am a more seasoned person I admit, but in my time I have never seen a fiscal cliff. Actually I stay away from cliffs of the real type when near them. You would never catch me at the edge of the Grand Canyon. You see I fear that even though I do not want to fall or jump, just proximity to the edge would cause me to lose my balance and I tumbling I would go. So I avoid cliffs.

My fear is the government is lot like me. They get close, but despite their best intentions, they fall - and they pull us with them. Hey they already are - have you looked at the stock market lately. The fiscal cliff looms larger as we step closer. I cannot get a good visual of it at the moment, but for some reason I am seeing related imagery in my brain - all quite unpleasant. More like something I once saw in Kenneth Anger film. 

I also do not cope well with lack of clarity. These days even after the election there is a severe lack of clarity. Cliffs and lack of clarity ahead. Golden parachutes a thing of the past (and no use when falling from the fiscal cliff by the way). Not the optimism I often felt after an election in the past. Are there are still too many tea drinking extremists out there who do not care about us? I fear so as they continue to all just try to baffle us with bullish** so we will follow.  Lest I raise the concern that it is us to blame as well? 

Place Your Bets - Its Election Time

Voting time this week. 

Do you choose who you are going to vote for the same way you pick race horses - by color or by what the jockey is wearing or if the horse gives you a knowing look while walking around in the swing states - oh I mean paddock? Or even better by name. Perhaps you do have a seemingly more sophisticated system and have one of those one dollar cards with a quick slogan telling you about the horse - candidate - "good mud runner".  

And like a horse race, if your horse comes in you win. Lower taxes or health care, or even a good war to boost the economy and some more jobs - all depending on which horse you vote for. Just a fact here - like at the horse races, most of lose, and we forget it is the horse that wins, gets the spoils, the flowers and the really big money. We are just gamblers trying to get a bit ahead and once the race is over - we do see little or no change even if we did pick the winner.

The more clever of us may see a pattern emerge over the years. I think I have in politics. Not about candidates - but about voters. They forget. We are talking brains of fish here, not elephants. We get the same old sxxx delivered to us every four years and we lap it up thinking change will come. It does about as often as you do get a longshot winner at the races. No, probably not that often.

We live in hope that this person we vote for will actually help our country and help us, and they may at first - but soon they will be tending to their winnings (and all the perks that go with them) and nurturing their own self preservation of the good life that a winning politician enjoys.

Sorry to say my race card shows very little difference among any of the candidates and a whole lot of similarities. A sad state for a reputed democracy where supposedly alternative voices can be heard. The media (those little card producers for political races) with their sound bites help assure this election after election.

So who do you vote for (assuming you have all the ID required :) ? I am going for Stewball.