Inconspicuous Consumption vs Great Depression 2.0

They used to rave on and on about unchecked consumerism. Vance Packard with The Wastemakers.  My mother used to grumble about how commercial Christmas had become. Keeping up with the Joneses.  Buying a new Detroit car every three years.  Well, that unchecked consumerism used to provide 70% of the American  Gross National Product.
    Fast forward to the 2010's.  That new Detroit car will last to 150,000 miles and is still looking pretty nice and new after 6 years on the road.  My father used to trade every 3 years just before the rust came thru the rocker panels.  I can remember all of those family cars after all these years.  Me, I still bought new, but kept them for 6 years.  Modern galvanized rocker panels don't rust out.  Yearly auto sales peaked at 17 million back in '05 and have dropped off to 10 million today.   Not even teenagers buy new clothes anymore.  Take a look at your high school students.  Urban grunge is the style today.  The baggy layered look helps conceal the muffin tops.  Two of my three children don't even own cars. 
    In short, Americans are consuming less, durable goods are more durable,  the hot new electronic toys are fairly cheap and as consumer demand drops off,  so does employment. 

Winter's Bone

After seeing  Hunger Games, I  netflixed this one 'cause it had Jennifer Lawrence starring in it.  I watched the first half hour or so and then I couldn't take anymore.  The poverty and misery in which Ree is living is just too deep for me to suffer thru it.  I couldn't watch another hour or so of this kind of misery.  I turned it off and went to bed.
   I'm sure Jennifer did a fine job of acting but I watch movies for entertainment and relaxation, not to have all the misery of the world played out in my living room.  That is neither entertaining nor relaxing.
 

Chucklehead

They are discussing the few congressional democrats who are going to vote Holder in contempt of Congress. Bob Beckel (on Fox Five) opines that these democrats are deserting their party only because their districts are full of Republicans and NRA members.  True blue democrats would never yield to threats from their voters.  Caving to the will of the district is despicable.
    I got news for you Bob baby.  Those districts elected those guys and the districts have every right to to expect their reps to vote their way.  That's what reps are supposed to do, represent their districts.  That's democracy.  Party loyalty is never supposed to over ride the duty to your own voters.

Game of Thrones

Well, I got to the end of Season I, including the last episode where the 'net buzz has it that they used a George W. Bush head on a spike in place of Lord Eddart Stark (Sean Bean).  I watched closely but I didn't think the head on the spike looked much like anybody, not Bush, not Sean Bean.  I enjoyed it.  Lots of cool costumes and neat sets.  Lots of scantily clad women.  Good thing we got cable now.  The FCC would have had a conniption over several juicy scenes. 
   It's dark.  There are a lot of really rotten bad guys, and none of them have gotten their just deserts yet.  Good guys have taken some hits.  Young Bran Stark pushed out a 5th floor window by Jaime Lannister.  Sansa Stark  has her pet dire wolf killed and winds up a captive at the mercy of boy king Joffrey "Baratheon" (actually Joffrey is a Lannister bastard.  Eddart Stark beheaded for treason in the public square. Grim stuff. 
   Guess I have to wait a while before Season 2 makes it to Netflix.  My cable doesn't carry HBO.

Strange...

Going to the national convention always used to be a big deal.  Everyone wants to go.  Hell, even my mother got to go to the national Republican convention one year. 
Now we are hearing that a number of heavy duty democrats are NOT going to the convention in Charlotte.  Claire McCaskell from Missouri is the latest "I'm not going" announcement.
Hmm.  Not a good sign for Obama when politicians avoid his convention.

The Diane Whines Show

Listened to Diane Rahm on NPR  on the way back from Concord yesterday.  The guests were bewailing the terrible trials of parents, the difficulty of finding daycare, the difficulties of after school care, the unfairness of spending time to care for their children instead of advancing their careers, the difficulties of covering children during spring vacations, and on and on.  All guests agreed that more government assistance was needed to protect the family.  And wasn't it terrible how those Republicans refused to provide for all these deserving  parents.
   Well, speaking as a veteran parent, we experienced all those difficulties, and we coped, one way or another. Improvise, adapt, overcome, it works for parenting as well as for the Marines. We didn't expect government assistance, we expected child rearing to call for some sacrifices on our part.  The emotional rewards of raising a family more than compensated for those sacrifices.
   More government subsidies not required.
  

Gunwalking for Fun and Profit

The Congressional drive to get the documents on Fast and Furious is perfectly legitimate.  We, the voters, thru our Congressmen want to know a few simple things.  Like who set up Fast & Furious, who ran it, and who approved it. 
   After we have the names, we want these idiots fired, black listed and prosecuted.  So far this has not happened.  Then we put their names in US history books, right next to Benedict Arnold.
   That's the best we can do to make sure it never happens again.  
   Giving guns to Mexican drug gangs is :
1. Stupid.
2. Illegal
3. Dangerous.