You Know They Really Are Insane

I went looking through der Google for the origin of the aphorism

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing in the same way and expecting to get different results.

Well, I found it attributed to Benjamin Franklin, Alfred Einstein and even one attribution to Rita Mae Brown.

Regardless of who first said it, we are witnessing it in operation in Washington, DC right now. We are seeing it in the current dance around another extension of Unemployment benefits (after having it killed last week). We are seeing it in the calls for fiscal integrity and "balance the budget" and the President's Deficit Commission (aka Cat Food Commission).

In May 2010, the economy created 431K jobs but the vast majority of those jobs were temporary Census positions. Today there are reports that the private sector has added 13K jobs for June after adding only 41K of the 431K jobs added in May. Yet, the Senate (and House) just seem to want to dance their little dances. They have to be operating under the belief that to do nothing is to do something because it all works out some way or another in the end.

I really don't know what they see when they go back to their homes and districts. Are they all in chauffer driven town cars? Or are the millions of un and underemployed just so much invisible waste? (don't answer that, it is rhetorical). For the record, I am not eligible and have not been eligible for any of the various Unemployment Benefit extensions. But I have no problems with those who are getting it. I've been fighting this battle for six years now and at my age, anyone collecting benefits right now is more likely to find full time employment before I will. I do hope I'm wrong but doubt if I am.

But here we have an economy with over 15M people unemployed and most likely another 10M or so underemployed. An economy that needs to add 100K new jobs a month just to break even, adding 13K jobs. The fact is, all the un/underemployed and all the new folks entering the work force will keep falling further and further behind and the folks in DeeCee dance around providing an extension of benefits.

I don't know how to penetrate the bubbles of our supposed leaders. Millions of us are out here, wanting to work, available to work, watching as more and more of our fellow workers wonder what they have done wrong (Nothing at all).

It is sometimes difficult to avoid visions of the apocalypse. Yet I always remember the little plaque my uncle kept on the wall of his office:

Illegitimi Non Carborundum

Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down. They're the insane ones.

And because I can: