Random Observations from a Grump

Just some random, semi-political observations:

• There's something wrong when your country doesn't create its own Stuff. Cars, dishwashers, TVs, refrigerators; we don't make our own stuff, and that strikes me as a Bad Idea. I don't have a solution; when you can manufacture Stuff for a fraction of the price in Taiwan or China or Indonesia or wherever, you can't continue to pay workers in the U.S. a living wage to manufacture the same Stuff. But still, something's out of whack.
• I don't think Hillary has a prayer of winning the general election, and it drives me nuts how many people try to rationalize their way around it. I don't give a rip what the polls say in "head to head matchups;" there are just too many people who hate her and won't vote for her. It's really that simple. All else is pundit-and-campaign blather.
• Speaking of Hillary, I used to really like Bill Clinton. I think he did a good job as president, and has done pretty well since then. Now, though, he simply won't shut up. He's fomenting civil war in the Democratic party just so his wife can be elected President, and it stands a good chance of putting another Republican bonehead back in the White House. Bill: shut up!
• And frankly, I'm am so ready for the Clintons to go away. Very very ready. What next; they run Chelsea for office? Go away!
  
• We have got to have energy independence. We used to, but now we're stuck. It's absurd. Why haven't we brought the hammer down on Saudi Arabia, when the majority of the 9/11 hijackers came from there? Why are we playing footsie with Iranian speedboats in the Straight of Hormuz? Why do we give a shit about Iran at all? Why did we just "sell" $20 billion of military hardware to these extremist whack jobs? Because they have the oil, and have us by the balls, is why. Why U.S. companies don't invest in alternative energies and try to corner the market now, I have no idea. It baffles me. Isn't that what Capitalist Robber Barons are supposed to do?
• We've tried Trickle-down economics now for 23 years; it doesn't work. Tax cuts don't pay for themselves, budget deficits are bad, and Reaganomics only creates huge budget deficits. Which will destroy this country in the end. The Reaganauts out there can bellow all they want about how "If there had been government cuts, it would have worked!" Well, maybe, but I think that a quarter of a century proves that Government doesn't have the ability to do that matching, so Reaganomics doesn't work. Sorry, kids.
• And due to Reaganomics Bush-style, we now have larger deficits, and a larger debt, than Reagan could have possibly imagined. And what does this do? It means that with countries like China, we have basically zero diplomatic leverage because they hold our markers on so many loans. (How much of our debt does Saudi Arabia finance, I wonder?) Ditch the Reaganomics and get back to some fiscal discipline, you boneheads.
  

That's enough bitching for one day, don't you think?