Happy Thanksgiving! Brought To You By...

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! 

[This Thanksgiving greeting is brought to you by Firestone; tires that can kill you, but at least we're sort of made in America.]

It's a day designed for enjoying time with your family, and consuming mass quantities of overweight poultry until you too are an overweight bird. 

[This Thanksgiving quip is brought to you by the makers of Zoloft; You're not really depressed until you're Zoloft depressed.]

Of course, this day has suffered serious incursions by what Alfred in "Miracle on 34th Street" decried by saying "there's a lot of bad isms in the woild, but the woist of them is commoicialism."

[This Thanksgiving movie reference is brought to you by GM; The only thing worse than the handling of our cars is our handling of money.]

One of the worst is the usurpation of the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Parade.

[This Thanksgiving event is brought to you by the Sony film "Arthur Christmas"; another insipid holiday cartoon your kids will insist you buy no matter how bad it sucks.]

Instead of a joyful and kid-thrilling trot around New York with marching bands and Underdog floats, it has become just another platform to advertise, with special emphasis on shilling for the dozens of tiresome Broadway shows by allowing unknown performers from those musicals to interrupt the parade's flow by stopping to dance and lip-sync a number from some soon-to-be-closing Tony runner-up.  The hard part is figuring out which is worse, the dancing and singing about themes that have nothing to do with the holidays, or the gushing phony praise heaped on the tepid performances by the parade's 59 different D-list celebrity hosts.

[This Thanksgiving whine is brought to you by Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey; an annoying sissy concoction developed because not everyone is man enough to drink straight Jack Daniels, and we need more moonshine money.]

Then you have the annual NFL football games, which honor the proud tradition of watching the Detroit Lions getting their brains bashed in by whoever happens to be on the other side of the scrimmage line each year, including the Kansas City Chiefs cheerleaders (who, according to Yahoo, are the only thing on the field uglier than the Lions' play).  Even though the Lions started strong this year, they've returned to their losing ways, and a matchup against the undefeated Packers is sure to bring more of the same this go-round.

[This Thanksgiving football preview is brought to you by Chrysler; the company that has taken government bailouts twice, and still manages to overcharge for every vehicle we make, showing we have learned our lessons well from a government that frequently features $600 hammers.]

More commercialism will sneak into the NFL games, as they stop the action about every three plays to bring you...more commercials.  And that doesn't include the subliminal little ads they bombard us with, like the "Aflac Third Down" and the "Prudential Halftime Show."

[This Thanksgiving product placement is brought to you by AIG; we're the financial giant that ripped people off before the crash, ripped people off after the crash, and still convinced the government to give us more money. Don't you want somebody that smart working for you?]

The latest sad chapter in the commercialization of Thanksgiving is the incursion of the "Black Friday" shopping bacchanal into Thursday.  Impatient stores can't wait to stick their hands in your pockets, so they're forcing their slaves - er, employees - to work on a family holiday while selling goods for the prices they actually SHOULD be sold at all year long (and would be, if they weren't spending billions on advertising each quarter), just to lure you out of your recliner. 

[This Thanksgiving shopping moment is brought to you by Walmart; selling low quality Chinese goods and running mom and pop stores out of business since just after Sam died, long before China purchased the U.S., and the only company capable of making people want to actually punch a smiley face right in the mouth.]

Fortunately, a few people are fighting back by ignoring the slick televised parades in favor of putting on real parades in their hometowns, and boycotting concentration camp stores that insist their labor must work on the holiday or be shot.  ("Shot," "fired," it's about the same thing in this economy).

[This Thanksgiving protest is brought to you by Budweiser; The king of American beers, using proud American imagery to enrich a company that isn't even owned by Americans anymore, you stupid Americans.]

In spite of all this Scrooge-like anti-commercialism curmudgeonry regarding the overselling saturation of a uniquely American holiday (a diatribe which the Wall Street crowd will decry as a dangerous and subversive threat to capitalism), the spirit of the day remains in homes across the country, where friends and relatives will sit down together at a bountiful meal and take a moment to count their many blessings. 

[This Thanksgiving shout-out to Wall Street is brought to you by Fox Labs; "Keeping public parks empty since 2011."  The official pepper spray of the University of California - Davis campus police department.]

So enjoy your day, watch the 18 minutes of commercials per hour as allowed by the FCC, and count yourself as blessed that you live in a country where you have the freedom to worship as you please, speak your mind, and love your family.

[This Thanksgiving pathos is brought to you by Exxon; Producers of fine oils and lubricants to ease the pain of the screwing we're giving Americans and the world.]

Despite being inundated and blasted with commercialism from every corner, it's still a wonderful country, and a spiritually uplifting holiday.  Enjoy it, and remember to offer up a special "thank you" to the Man Upstairs, since prayer is one of the few remaining forms of communication that isn't overrun with ads and sponsorships.  Well, if you don't count Joel Osteen's Lakewood Baptist Church, the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the United Methodist Church, the Lutheran Church, the Satmar Synagogue, the Islamic Center of America, the Crystal Cathedral, the 700 Club...

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Occupy Wall Street Stockpiling Weapons Of Mass Destruction

Uh oh.

The Occupy Wall Street crowd is in big doodoo now.

The Big Chief in the New York mayor's office has rolled in the big guns.

After citing questionable claims, like the presence of the OWS crowd in Zuccotti Park meant people couldn't use the public space (I'm not exactly sure what Mayor Boob-berg thinks the protesters are, but obviously they aren't people in his estimation) and his curious charges that the removal of the protesters was a matter of public health and security (apparently the mayor hasn't walked around the rest of his city without armed bodyguards lately), the Master Billionaire has levied the Big Charge.

It's the one that got Saddam Hussein whacked and is likely to cause Iran to become a well-lit parking lot in time for Hanukkah (lit for longer than eight days by a radioactive glow after the Israelis finish dropping bombs on Iran's suspected nuclear weapons building facilities).

Boob-berg says the protesters are stockpiling weapons, which is why he ordered the evil campers and campfire cookers out of the park.

Based on the mayor's claims, war is going to break out anytime now.

In fact, considering Boob-berg's roots, you better prepare yourself for the even bigger announcement:

The Occupy Wall Street protesters are developing weapons of mass destruction.

You heard it here first.

Whenever one of these power mongers wants to bust somebody's balls, that's the claim they trot out as justification for...well, for just about whatever they want to do.

Snatch a "suspected terrorist" and "rendition" them to Latvia?  Practice carpet bombing techniques on abandoned camel ranches?  Eavesdrop and wiretap the phones of U.S. residents?  Just issue the blanket "stockpiling weapons" allegation.  It's the greatest thing since Milton Bradley invented the "Get Out of Jail Free" card.

Of course, as our last president demonstrated, you don't have to have any facts to support such allegations, or something law enforcement agencies refer to as evidence.  You can just say the words, and more magically than Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious, you can do anything you want to anyone you want.

That's not to say Mayor Boob-berg is lying.  He would never play games with the truth.

Well, there was that time he helped cover up the fact that one of his deputy mayors was arrested for domestic abuse, but you can bet the Boober has a good excuse.  It's true that, when the mayor's office announced that individual's resignation, the public was told that Stephen Goldsmith was "leaving to pursue private-sector opportunities in infrastructure finance.”  That might be the coolest way ever of announcing that a guy was about to have his personal bank account emptied in the inevitable upcoming divorce.

Oh, one more piece of irony - the guy Boob-berg covered for, the 61-year-old who spent 36 hours in police custody in Washington after allegedly roughing up his wife, was the deputy mayor in charge of overseeing New York's police department.

But in this instance, because the truth can be a nebulous, fluid thing in the hands of a skilled politician like Boobie, claims of weapons stockpiling are probably true.  You can bet somebody had a butter knife in their backpack, or was using a large and dangerous stick to hold up their tent.

The thing that was likely to get Zuccotti Park rightfully nuked in a tactical strike by Boob-berg's air force (his fleet of police helicopters) is because the occupiers had chemical weapons in their possession.  I say this with a tremendous amount of certainty, because anyone who has actually been to New York City knows that only the mentally unstable would ever attempt to walk those streets at night without a can of Mace and two containers of pepper spray in their pockets.  Hence the confident leap to claims of the enemy -er, occupiers - possessing weapons of mass destruction.

Face it, those "peaceful protesters" were up to something, and it was up to the noble knight known across the land as the Boob-berg to ensure that guys in Armani suits and power ties on their way to rape some little old lady's 401-k were kept safe against the Zuccotti Park Taliban (the name wealthy politicians like to hang on anybody that thinks $65 is too much to pay for a steak sandwich).  Otherwise, the financial television network he founded (and which made him a billionaire) wouldn't have anything to drone on about during the next 24-hour news cycle.

He's obviously a hero.  Never mind that minor, outdated memo called the U.S. Constitution and it's sticky note, the First Amendment.  In New York, there are much more important laws on the books that must be upheld, like city codes against taking a nap in a public place at 3 a.m. when nobody except legitimate muggers would be using the park anyway.

It's odd, but after going over and over our Constitution, I can't find a single thing about freedom of speech being applicable only during daylight hours.  However, I'm sure it was just a careless oversight by our know-nothing founding fathers in an era that pre-dated flashing neon.  If they had known that people might actually take that right serious enough to endure cold, snow, and Boob-berg's badged beefeaters for 60 days in a row, they would have added an asterisk or a footnote.

The good news is that since there has been no outcry from real citizens (those who can afford Brooks Brothers suits), the displacement of those noisy hooligans from the hallowed grounds of public places in Oakland, Portland, Denver, Salt Lake City, and New York should ensure that nobody will be tempted to speak up about such petty grievances as fascism, injustice, or corruption in the future.

So, as the networks might say after a brief interruption, "we now return to our regularly scheduled greed.  In living color - green."

Tax On Christmas Trees Abominable

When Santa makes his rounds on Dec. 25, I hope he has a large supply of coal.  He'll need it for all the names of those in the U.S. Department of Agriculture on his "naughty" list who deserve nothing more in their stockings this year.

The Agriculture Department has officially imposed a 15 cent tax on all live Christmas trees.

If they're going to do something so heinous, why don't they just go ahead and levy taxes on Christmas presents, mistletoe, and a singing fee on every Christmas carol sung or played during the holidays?  (Okay, I'll admit that the music industry has already figured out how to do the last one).

Who exactly is the head of the Agriculture Department these days, Ebenezer Scrooge?

Like most bad government ideas, this one started as an okay idea.

The Christmas tree growers in the U.S. have seen a dramatic downturn in the number of trees they sell each year.

It's not a diabolical scheme devised by Jack Frost or Heat Miser or the Abominable Snowman.  It's just another sad reality of a nation that is addicted to Chinese goods as severely as it joneses for imported oil.  The truth is that Americans today buy artificial trees.

In an effort to improve their live tree sales and expand their marketing efforts, the tree growers have asked for help from the government (always a bad idea...just ask the Katrina victims). 

The government decided to do what the government ALWAYS does, which is establish another committee.  But in these austere times, they had to find a way to pay for the committee and their multitudinous assistants, vice-assistants, deputy associate assistants, and all the reams of paper any self-respecting bureaucracy requires.  So to fund the new committee, the Agriculture Department is charging 15 cents per tree to all of the tree growers, who of course will pass that 30 cent tax down to tree buyers.  (If you don't understand that last sentence, then you obviously flunked business math at Wharton.)

There are so many despicable facets to this scenario that I hardly know where to begin.

First, once again our government is sticking its nose into a business problem, and offering their equivalent of more corporate welfare.  At a time when so many people want to scream "socialism" at the drop of a hat, it continues to be hilarious when business owners see no problem whatsoever in receiving government assistance.  If the tree growers really needed another committee so badly, why didn't they form it themselves?

Second, this is an abject lesson in governance that should enrage and terrify every American.

When you go down the LONG list of directors, secretaries, managers, and other high-level toadies in the Agriculture Department, you'll find something interesting: not a single one of them was elected to their position.  The American people didn't vote for them or approve their appointment.

However, despite the fact that they aren't elected, the Agriculture Department somehow has the power and authority to levy taxes.

Most of us operate daily under the erroneous assumption that only Congress can impose new taxes.  In fact, if I remember correctly, that's exactly how we ended up with a Congress, after colonists decided they'd had enough of taxes being levied by appointed flunkies like King George (who, if you believe the monarchy, was appointed by God). 

The truth is that just about any old department or committee in the federal government can tack on some fees, tariffs, or taxes any time they want, without Congressional approval or action.

It only took a little over 200 years, but we've succeeded in bringing the concept of "taxation without representation" full circle.  It is now a normal and accepted practice in the United States.

Worst of all, I'm not sure there's anything we can do about it, short of dressing up in war paint and heading down to your nearest Kiwanis tree stand to throw large collections of Douglas firs overboard.

So, now that we're just about as powerless as the colonists in 1775, all we can do is hope that the Big Guy in Red will exact some collective vengeance against the bureaucratic evildoers by leaving mounds of coal in their stockings for finally finding a way to tax Christmas.

Never mind that every piece of coal placed in those stockings includes taxes imposed by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency.  As we so often say on Christmas morning when opening the oversized, badly-knitted mittens from Aunt Esther (even though you're now 35 years old)...it's the thought that counts.

Corporations Thrive While Middle Class Dives

Wall Street Skyrockets While Protesters Freeze

Still don't understand why people are angry enough to take to the streets in protest over the runaway greed in this country?

Recent news stories have inadvertently underscored just how broken and out of whack the scales have become when weighing the growing wealth of the richest individuals and corporations against a backdrop of staggering unemployment and crippling losses in value for average American homeowners.

First, a report came out last week on Exxon's third quarter profits.  The numbers were jaw-dropping. 

(See story at http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-27/exxon-mobil-profit-tops-10-billion-on-crude-oil-price-surge.html)

At a time when people are getting absolutely gouged at the gas pumps, making hard decisions between paying for food or paying nearly $4 a gallon for gasoline in some places to get them to and from work, Exxon posted a third-quarter profit of $10.3 billion.  It was the third quarter in a row the oil giant earned more than $10 billion in profit, and a 41% jump in profit over last year's third quarter.

Exxon has made a profit of more than $30 billion this year alone, sheltering those profits from the tax man by using their offshore corporations, while nearly 10% of the population is unemployed because other corporations have sent their jobs overseas.

The kicker is that Exxon's actual oil production was down 3.8%.  Ordinarily, when a company produces less of their product, their revenues and profits go down.

Not in oil-addicted America.  And the oil companies know it. 

Oh, and just as a reminder...In 2009, Exxon paid NO income taxes.

(See story at http://www.citybeat.com/cincinnati/blog-1262-ge_exxon_paid_no_taxes_in_09.html)

One more irony in this scenario is that for years, Exxon and other members of big oil have lied that high gasoline prices aren't their fault, that it's a function of the speculation markets.  Yet in a CNN story, they admitted that the higher profits are a direct result of higher gasoline prices. 

Sorry, Exxon, you can't have it both ways.

Soon after the Exxon story broke, Chevron announced that at $7.8 billion, their profits for the third quarter of 2011 are double their 2010 profits for the same quarter.

(See story at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203687504577003563181503478.html)

Royal Dutch Shell announced that they also doubled their profits in the third quarter.

Again, all of this is happening while Americans are struggling under the Atlas-like weight of extremely expensive gas that has jacked up the cost of delivering food and goods.  And you know how that "trickle down" works - higher prices for what we eat and wear.

On Friday, Oct. 28, Wall Street chimed in with a little salt to pour into the wounds of Americans who are losing their jobs, homes, and way of life.

According to reports, October was the best month for Wall Street's Dow since 2002.  The Dow traded on Thursday at 12,186, compared to its March 2009 low of 6,547.

(See story at http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/wall-street-edges-down-after-strong-rally/101554/)

This is great news for those who hate the Occupy Wall Street protesters.  It means that, in the face of this historic protest against greed, the stock market continues to skyrocket and go higher and higher in value and profits while America's working class continues to get pummeled by the economy.  Wall Street continues to prosper while the protesters freeze out in the snow at Zucotti Park.

And a new report on housing indicates that economic news is going to get worse and worse for the average homeowner.

It states that home values will fall another 3.6% between now and June, and could fall as much as 15% more in the battered Las Vegas market.  This means home values nationwide will have plummeted more than 35% since the peak in 2006.

(See story at http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/113725/home-prices-heading-triple-dip-cnnmoney?mod=realestate-sell)

Remember, for most average Americans, their home is their biggest investment and usually represents more than half their personal net worth.

To put it in perspective, the wealthy stock market investors and big oil corporations are making money like crazy, while hard working middle class homeowners are losing money on their most valuable asset through no fault of their own.

It's insane, and upside down.

The middle class has done nothing wrong.  They didn't cause the real estate implosion or the banking scandal, yet they are paying the price across the board with lost jobs and lost value in their homes.

So to see protesters screaming about the inequalities and runaway greed on Wall Street should not be a surprise.  The only surprise is that more of us are not carrying signs among them.