So glad this is over. Everyone worked up over the choice between Coke and Pepsi. Whoever wins, we lose.
Maybe, but we lost a lot bigger this way. I am deeply, deeply saddened. This was not a Coke/Pepsi year. BHO is without question the worst President of my lifetime; that the people could re-elect such an abject failure means that, to me, the social compact is ruptured: The assumption behind a democratic society is that, eventually, the electorate will make the right--or at least a rational--choice. Even with so many economically and politically ignorant people. Wisdom of the crowds kind of thing. You can expect an electorate to take a flyer now and then on something new and different; to re-elect such when it has not only failed so completely but has been actively inimical to a system that has benefited so many is appalling.
I can only give you the perspective of someone who started and is building a high tech manufacturing business (you, know the kind that provides jobs that are good not only because they pay well, but also provide the satisfaction of actually producing something useful): I will be managing for the least possible number of employees. I will not, for the first time in twenty years across three companies, be offering health insurance starting in 2014. I'll be making decisions whose primary focus won't be on building the business or growing profits but on avoiding taxes. I'm currently in the PRV and was going to move anyway--I just can't take the ignorance and insanity anymore--and was seriously considering NH, but now I'm so pissed with NH I don't know.
I know a lot of very smart, highly productive people--you know, job creators. None of them aspire (this was true even before this disaster) to a bigger house, more expensive car, etc. We all aspire to just one thing: To make enough money to run and hide. I once saw a sign on the desk of an engineer at Lawrence Livermore that read: "Evidence is not the plural of anecdote," (one of my favorites. I'd like to see it tattooed onto every legislator), so take it for what it's worth, but the rest of you should think about that.
We are likely facing some very tough times. This bozo and his enablers (and thank you MA for adding another, especially ignorant one to the mix. a$$holes) blew through $6 trillion we don't have, with no discernable benefit, and with no end in sight. This was not financed by the Chinese, like so many ignorant twits think, two thirds of the debt issued by the Treasury last year was bought by the Fed. They do that by making up the money. Believe it or not, that is not sustainable, nor can it be made up by taxing 'the rich': We could have seized every penny the top 1% made last year and it would not have covered the deficit for that year--and good luck finding that 1% to fleece the next year. The chickens will come home to roost, and these birds are going to be black with flaming red eyes and razors for talons. Likely most people won't understand the worst result--those things that might have been and aren't, the medical technology that won't be commercialized, the businesses that won't be pursued--because we don't require people to learn economics and they don't get that concept of 'opportunity cost', which is a far more real and important cost than, say, the 'hidden' cost of carbon emissions.
It will become obvious except to the most obtuse, although I suppose that covers the bulk of those who voted for BHO, why I will expect an apology from those who did. Whether I will accept it depends upon how bad things get.
