Gas, Post Office, Clinton

Gas: The default argument when the price of gas goes up is “it’s cheaper than a gallon of milk,” and “”look how expensive it is in Europe.” To which I reply, “I don’t purchase 120 gallons of milk a week” (I have a plethora of teenage-driven cars) and “European gas isn’t more expensive, their taxes are.” And boy they are; 70% of a British gallon is tax as compared to 11% of one in the U.S..

No government should have the balls to browbeat the oil companies or accuse Americans of wasteful use of gas when they are making twice as much from a gallon as the oil company. Worse, the citizens of the country let them - their government - impose these taxes. No wonder they have draconian gun control laws. It’s not as if the tax is there to encourage economic investment in pollution control or conservation. The taxes are mainstay revenue that pours into the general coffers to pay for such essentials - one would guess - as cluster-bombs and ministerial clothing allowances. European governments are bankrupting their industries in an aggressive socialist collection and redistribution, not of wealth, but of basic economic means.

Post Office: I arrived at my local post office last week at 5PM; there were two tellers serving two customers. No-one else in the store except the manager who trotted out of the back room to tell me they were closed. “But I’m right here” I pleaded. To no avail. He told me to come back the next day. So the question is raised (at least it was in my mind) of who needs the post office any more?

The USPS is the third largest employer in the U.S.. And is, I believe, in the most immediate danger of imploding under its own bureaucratic weight and catastrophic economic overhead. The essentials of post office operations, the selling of stamps and the delivery of mail has been incrementally pressured, eroded, replaced from all sides.

Email and cheap phones have replaced the letter as a means of worldwide personal and business communication. Bills, checks and bill paying can all be done online – I rarely receive anything of that matter by mail including my bank statements, credit card bill, power, coupons, water, cable. Financial matters are handled by my business through credit cards, wires, Paypal, direct deposit. I even get my direct mail on line; fancy that. So what comes through my mail box? Junk. Absolutely nothing that I need.

There was an episode on Seinfeld where Kramer decided he was no longer going to accept mail. The post office's “secret police” paid him a visit and persuaded him to rethink his actions. “What if others do this?” was their, now very real, argument. The biggest proponent of junk mail is the USPS as it is the last vestige of a raison d’etre that the organization has. The Federal institutional ego over the years ignored the opportunities that Express delivery offered and allowed a new market to form dominated now by FedEx and UPS. Electronic fund transfer – a unique opportunity that the organization could have captured was ignored and they have been relegated to selling those checks of last resort, money orders. Paypal, Western Union soaked up the lucrative electronic fund transfer market, without so much as a whimper from the post office. Email absorbed the written word, the fax, the certified mail, the bills, the checks - everything. What is left is increasing in price exponentially in an effort to pay the fixed overhead of a dying behemoth and could well soon disappear without a trace. And one more thing, I can attest that after living in a snow-bound New York winters, the mail man does not always deliver despite their boast of delivering "wind, hail, snow," etc.

And finally: Don’t ever write off the Clintons. Bill is out there whining that HC is being unfairly treated. HR is telling the world that she is more electable. Both drag their unfortunate daughter where-ever they go in the hope that she will attract the “young people’s” vote. Ahhhh, the young people. Don’t be fooled; these are not the words or actions of losers. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, HR will do whatever it takes to win. Despite criticism, her RFK remark gave her a weekend of publicity you couldn’t buy.

Watch while she digs something – anything – else out of the closet to get the edge for the nomination. I believe that she probably is the best presidential candidate except that she comes laden with baggage. She has age and experience on her side. And on the other side she has a alleged alcoholic husband who can't keep it in his pants. I fear that another 4 years in the white house will be akin to letting the fox loose among the (intern) chickens. I cannot really comprehend what another Clinton “era” would be like.

Anyho, don’t discount her – she’s going to get those Florida votes counted come hell or high water. And get into the white house she will; through the front door as president or the side door as VP. And she will be the VP; that’s why she, her hubby and her seemingly increasingly baffled daughter are making all the fuss about – the democrats will give her the slot just to get her to shut up.