THE FRONT-PAGE OF THE MARCH 19 WALL STREET JOURNAL featured an above-the-fold photo of a bunch of angry-faced Cyprus citizens showing the palms of their hands with the word “NO” printed on them. These people were very angry because their government had just levied a 6.75-percent tax on all their savings accounts to help pay for a $13.07-billion “euro-zone bailout if the island’s outsize and troubled financial system.”
The message in the photo was pretty obvious: The same thing could happen here in the good old U.S.A. if we don’t somehow get the White House and Congress to mend their spendthrift ways!
That message was further reinforced by a front-page feature story headlined “Workers Saving Too Little To Retire.” This story was full of grim facts reminding older Americans they belong to a very endangered species. Given the increased life expectancy provided by the miracle of modern medicine, many could go broke before they croak. There’s certainly not much hope Social Security will be around much longer and, despite the big jump in stock prices lately, there are no safe or profitable places to invest a retirement nest-egg, thanks to Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke’s crusade to keep interest rates low. Of course, there’s always the possibility Obama’s 15-person panel of Affordable Health Care bureaucrats will tag everybody over 65 for obligatory assisted suicide.
Whatever happens to those soon to retire, it’s certain their grandchildren won’t be able to retire unless Republicans and Libertarians can somehow get to yes with each other, as well as with a majority of Democrats in Congress.
So how do you get to yes?
According to Roger Fisher and William Yury, authors of the widely popular book about negotiating without giving in titled “Getting To Yes,” the first and most important step is to separate the people from the problem: “Our belief is that in disentangling the people from the problem, you can be ‘soft on the people’ while remaining ‘hard on the problem.’”
The Old Testament King David recommends something different: “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the LORD delivers him out of them all.” (Psalm 34:18-19)
Then again, maybe these two sources of wisdom are not that far apart.
Bruce Robinson is an author and former Benicia resident.
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The sky is falling, the sky is falling and it’s all Obama’s fault. Bruce, we are not Greece, Cyprus or according to John Boehner in a debt “crisis.” Spending is at the lowest level in decades, but you ‘pubs just keep telling yourselves that the Socialist in the White House is ruining everything. With the Dow Jones at the highest levels ever, even you have to admit Obama is a pretty terrible socialist. Social security is not going broke and saying that the healthcare bill is going to resort to ‘assisted suicides” to thin the herds of old people is just ridiculously wrong and irresponsible but that’s your style. Hysterics and lies.
Spending is at the lowest level in decades,
Do you have a source to substantiate that?
Mr. and Mrs. Robinson (think Simon & Garfunkel):
Some of us are still working at 40+ hours per week well into our 70’s and late 60’s with no retirement in sight because Corporate Amerika saw fit to dump us overboard well into our 50’s so they could enhance their bottom lines and move their formerly “cost plus’ mindsets out of The City. As to “liberal spending,” ask your pals Cheney and his marionette “W” about their “two illegal oil wars” on a credit card. When Mitch McConnel spends his well-salaried time in Congress doing something besides obstructing Obama for two years, maybe the ‘pubs will have something to show for their time on the planet—Boehner is primarily a doorstop on the road to nowhere…Hucklbeeeeeeeee is rumored to be a contender for 2016…Hardeharhar, maybe Tina Fey should run as a Palin stand-in and put politicl comedy and Alaska back on the map…Welcome to Political Comedy Circus, the online digital pages of the Ben’ Herald…Looks like Leno’s gonna get dumped for what’s his name, that younger, funnier guy. Welcome also to Human Evolution 101A—pb
Petr for the umpteenth time stated: Cheney and his marionette “W” about their “two illegal oil wars” on a credit card.
It’s the same old song, Pedro.
You need new and better material.
DDL: You don’t have to read my stuff if you don’t like it. The truth often annoys those elitists who think they are above the fray caused by their political peers. Good luck with that. Try sitting in Livesay’s audience and clap for his tripe. I hear he’s spectacular if you like that kinda stuff.–pb
Peter, you, as always, seem to be stunningly ill-informed. Here is a little bit of truth for you:
(If image does not appear, click on above link.
Well, Mr. Slanted Truth/DDL: The illegal oil wars Mr. Worthless Bush sent into motion are still going on today, and the tax cuts for his rich 1%ers did little to stimulate anything but their own bottomlines and the mediocre mindsets he set into motion for 8 years are still paying great dividends to the war mongers of today…Mr. Obama is still continuing to correct the mediocrity Bush and Cheney set into motion compounded by the inadequacies of Boehner and useless Mitch McConnell…if Obama is your biggest villain, enjoy the fantasy. I have my own.
ahh Peter, your levity is a breath of stale air.
Why do you give Obama a pass on his expenditures, which far exceed those of your hated Bush?
DuhDuhEl:
If you don’t like my song, change channels. Nobody’s paying for this as an Entertainment Coupon. All you guys that rag chronically on Obama, where were you from 2000 to 2008? Home counting your petroleum dividends? Was Tricky Dick Nixon your Angel of Delivery? Who you gonna run for 2016, that clown from Louisiana? Maybe Jebb Bush? Marco Polo? Huckabee? He even plays guitar…that should appeal to old sour white men that dominate the repubs…Maybe Palin will return to reprise her role as Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live? And John McCain thought Palin was hot stuff!…just before he lost the election and found out she didn’t read any newspapers but could see Russia from her front porch? How soon do you think the Repub party will go extinct? 6 weeks, a year? You gonna appeal to blacks, latinos, gays, crawdad salad makers along the BP coast of Louisiana? Good luck…I may tune out, lotta static from Roswell around my monitor these days, you’re breaking up, fading to black…or nondescript shades of gray—pb
stop beating a dead horse Pedro……………….
Why do you give Obama a pass?
DDEL:
This horse is far from dead, he’s alive and well and repetitive…most politicians are not creative people, they are mediocre fanny-sitters, who aspire to prestige, power, and the honors of office…until they are overwhelmed by indifference, mediocrity of their peers, and the enormous costs of holding office…Obama is brighter and more patient than most of the lame twits that have preceded him in office for eons..I am jubilant that a bright, half-black male pisses off so many mediocre white-bread male minds…it’s like Whitey finally gets to feel the reverse impact of slavery…how does it feel to be a minority and your malignant stallion is out of the barn and out of office? I hope Hilary runs in 2016 and whips the nearest stale republican opponents…then the white bread, patriarchal males can recede to the woodshed and feel what’s it like to be secondary citizens…and whooped by the opposite sex…who still make less than males for the same work–It has to do with equality–like a Woman Pope and a majority of females in the Supreme Court …stay tuned, it’s gonna be a Hoot for ages to come…Mitch McConnel and Boehner may return to flipping burgers for real work…pb
Pedro stated:. .I am jubilant that a bright, half-black male pisses off so many mediocre white-bread male minds…it’s like Whitey finally gets to feel the reverse impact of slavery…
Out of ammo, can’t answer the question posed and predictably plays the race card.
Sure sign of a lost argument.
BTW, I am thinking of meeting President Obama, and am wiling to chip in to do so. Right now I am
$499,980 bucks short.
Do you want to chip in?
Sorry Peter that you have to continue to work today. I think blaming someone else is not the answer to your failre to take advantage of your education. What did you say a two year AA, four year undergrad and a two year graduate degree both from Cal. Just what went wrong Peter. It appear your issues started many years go. So I do not know how you or anyone else for that matter can blame corporate America. If you made bad choices would that not be your fault. Did any of these company’s that appently have destroyed your life offer transfers to other locations? Maybe not. I also would understand that personal issue could have made it impossible to move out of the area. If so that could be difficult. But at the same time the bay area does offer lots of opportunities. With your skill sets I could see you have more than a handyman business as you have now. Maybe even a free lace professional in your field. But someone with your skill set should not have been on the blame game team. You Peter appear to be better than that. I worked into my seventies as a recruiter in the Hospitality and Healthcare fields. Never did it before. Guess what I did very well and worked from home in my PJ’s very short and productive hours. I could still do it if I needed to. Nothing should hold down hard working folks. Peter something went wrong along the way and it was not the Republicans or Corporate America. I would consider you a succes story for other Americans and not a failure. But you sure do not make it sound that way. Good Luck.
Editor: Mr. Livesay’s pompous tripe no longer appears on my computer screen. I suspect it’s due to his being from another planet. No problem. All’s fine here. Don’t bother to tell him, it only fuels his shallow self-aggrandizement at the boring expense of others. Good riddance. pb
Pete, just ignore Livesay’s self-satisfied ignorance of anyone else’s real-life circumstance and the problem of being seen as “over-aged” and “over-qualified” for suitable jobs in one’s field. You’re to be congratulated for entrepreneurial efforts in striking out on your own, as a handy-man, yard-man, repair-person. That’s the sort of guts Livesay lacks and can scarcely imagine. Screw the careless corporations! I congratulate Livesay on his finding something to do part-time at home in pajamas besides writing half-assed letters to the editor.
Livesay, as usual, is barely half right, that there may have been some other way to adapt to job loss.
He’s more than half wrong about systemic fault, stemming from Conservative outlook and the real behavior of corporations that abandon human society in quest only of bottom line and quarterly report. As they became “legal persons,” real persons quit existing for them save those at the top of their organizations.
Matt Talbot’s forum article today spotlighted a large dimension of society’s trouble with big business.
Did not take long for the the other half of the twin poets to chime in.
There’s a hum on my monitor that says “Roswell’s Leftovers”…must be from the Left-Handed Moon again…pb
Bob Shelby: Not to worry, your comments are appreciated. I figured out why Livesay’s text no longer appears on my monitor: they are garbled glyphics at best and are prefaced by a Computer Disclaimer: “Roswell’s Leftovers”–Apparently when the last space invaders crash-landed at Roswell, they left behind remainders should their breed survive, they might try to come back to “Hibacus,” their planetary origin just behind the Left-Handed Moon. Apparently Livesay’s computer carries a Decoder Ring which garbles anything but Hibacus-bound transmissions. Such are the joys of life. Fiction, facts and fruit flies triumph over right-wing tripe always. Carry on, troops, gnats are not wasps or hornets. Suffer not the gnats on the path.—pb
Not only can we ignore most of Livesay’s input, we can salt down and pass over Bruce Robinson’s gnashing and bashing.
I am very glad my comments were getting to you Peter and Shelby. If they were not, there would be no return comments about my comments. Strange how all of a sudden your computer whent blank Peter. Peter you will continue to see them and you will continue to read them. You may not comment but at the same time you may also have someone else comment for you. But then again how will you know what I wrote and at the same time approve what they comment back. I suggest Peter you stand up for yourself and do one or the other. God health comments back and forth do not hurt anyone. I must have gotten to you, that was not my intension. My intension was just to say that you Peter have the skills and like others in your position seem to moved ahead very productively without a blame game. Or is it that you do not like my politics? Hard for me to understand Peter. Nothing wrong with working beyond seventy years of age. Supreme Court Justices do it all the time. Maybe your working beyond seventy will inspire me to go back to work and make a lot of money. Thanks for the incentive Peter. Believe me I will not complain about it.
Bob Shelby: There’s a cloud of static around my monitor again, glyphics dancing in space, sounds like Egyptian Mortuary music, I think they’re broadcasting again from Roswell, New Mexico. How many left-handed Moon Walkers went down in that first crash landing? Do we have any decals for Noah’s First Boatload that didn’t make it to the dock for the first trip? Maybe they want to rethink and become Enviro-Greenies? Maybe Socialist/Liberals? Do they know the secret handshake? Have decoder rings? So many qualifications for the unwary–I’m running low on MoonStamps—Pedro
Peter come clean you read everything I write and also use my comments. Stop it Peter. Just come clean and tell everyone what you really believe.. Peter can you do that? Sorry Peter you are an over educated failed Liberal that is blaming veryone else for your personal failures. I do not believe you see DDL or Bob Livesay as your equal. If I was you I would rethink that one. Peter what you have done is make this whole thing personal. Just go back and look at your comments.
I think Peter Bray is not a happy man.