Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Don't Mess With Me Tonight - I Watched the News Again

It's all about economizing, squeezing every penny out of everything I do to try and regain something close to profitability again. So I spend 3 hours on the Internet after a full work day comparing the same parts on different sites trying to make up orders that will maximize the money I have this week to spend on re-stock and special order parts.

At some point, trying to place a value on my time based on dollars per hour is lost as I maybe hope for dimes per hour. It doesn't fuckin matter anyway. There is no profit or paycheck until I somehow find my way back into the black.

After 12 years of this shit I would say the honeymoon has been over for a long time.

Mind you, I am not bitching, whining or complaining. Just stating it the way it is and has been now for several years. So if I seem to not be quite so peppy or friendly, well maybe it is because I am not peppy and not feeling all that friendly. Many days I often look at the recently fired, the recently pink slipped and mumble under my breath, "You lucky bastards. At least there is some kind of support structure for you."

Obama's Jobs bill does not do squat for me or my area to any great degree. The offered loan monies for small businesses seem to stop at businesses much larger than mine. Yet everyone cries about how Main street is turning up in Walmart now. Everyone whines about all the empty storefronts on Main street. And in the meantime, we bail out people who could afford the hit and are now issuing themselves huge bonuses again.

I understand no one owes me a living. I chose this self employed lifestyle. But when I see the favoritism shown some to the detriment of others, I get angry. When I see the leaders of this country with their heads so far up the ass of big business they need air pumped in to stay alive, I get angry. When I see people falling lock step in behind liars and crooks because they sound good on TV, I get angry.

I hear all this talk from the leadership about how we shouldn't rush things. Health care, finance reform, etc. What a bunch of crap. All they are doing is making excuses for dragging their heels in hopes we will once again lose interest and Wall Street can have carte blanche to exploit us as they wish with DC's stamp of approval.

All they have to do to change things is to do it. Stop the petty bullshit deflection that is called partisanship. Stop asking the insurance companies what they think. Stop asking Wall Street what it thinks. Make some changes and screw em if they can't handle it. Our population is entirely too large and talented for business to bail on us. Business will adapt. It always does. Up to this point the last 30 years we have allowed business to run our lives for us. The market runs us we don't run the market.

When I said I wasn't bitching and complaining, I guess that was wrong. I am. But I feel like I deserve the pleasure of a good bitch and whine session. I earned it.

Angrier by the minute.......................

11 comments:

Crybbe666 said...

MRM...I hear ya!
I am self-employed, own a small 2nd hand bookstore. Like you, I spend many after hours time searching the net for hard-to-fnd books for customers, ordering them and hoping the rat-bastards come back and get them. Sometimes it just ain't worth it.
Like you also, my business isn't big enough for tax relief nor any govt handouts.
I am also a single parent and any monies that I am entitled to for that is eaten away by the income I don't technically have.
And all this for the thousands of tax dollars...go figure!

BBC said...

I have nothing to say about the news other than being frustrated and just watch the world, fascinated and repulsed.

Little of it has any effect on me anyway, my personal life continues to roll along just fine and the camping is good.

Laura said...

We own our own business too so I know how scary it can be Mike.
Here in Ontario, the government just raised the minimum wage to almost $11 per hour. It makes it impossible for my husband to hire any help.
I guess the government doesn't think about the little guy that has to pay those kind of wages.

I hope (really hope) that things turn around for you soon! And, you're not bitching.. just venting. :)

((BigHugs))
Laura

Anonymous said...

More I hear Washington 'n Wall Street, more I understand the guillotine.

PipeTobacco said...

MrMaCrum:

Bravo! It is astonishing how obnoxious politics is at every level. I was duped and fooled into thinking that Obama's reign would result in change for the better. But it is just the same old idiotic garbage as usual.

I truly am to the point where I do not purposefully watch the news or read papers. I hear enough of the damn nonsense to get by just from casual interactions. It is all just a load of nothing anyhow.

I know you are frustrated in part about your business in this thread... but keep in mind that the nuts and bolts aspect of your work is REAL and actually PRODUCES something. It is not just a big bag of hot air, like I am firmly of the belief politics is.

PipeTobacco
http://frumpyprofessor.blogspot.com

Demeur said...

Mike.. Don't feel like you're the Lone Ranger in all this. A lot of us out here have been sitting on the bench for quite a while. I hear it may not be until fall before things start to pick up.
Pipe is dead on about the politics. Where else can you make a nice living flapping your gums and producing nothing? And if you get thrown out of office you get the bonus prize of a lobbyists' job.
I've spent the last 6 months calling companies looking for work and spoken to several owners who can't keep their regular people working so I know where you're coming from here.
Maybe you could just rename the business Crum Cycle International and get a bail out. Just a thought.

Randal Graves said...

Have you ever thought about being rich? Then you could fuck up and get that help. Try it out and let us know how it goes.

Commander Zaius said...

Travel to DC, put on a nice suit and walk into the Federal Reserve and say you are a bank. I hear that have a quick serve line for them to give out money.

David Barber said...

Mike, as Paul (Crybbe666) said, I'm self-emploted as well and trying to get help with anything is like trying to get blood out of a stone. In Britain the best job is as an MP. Expenses can boost your income ten fold. You can claim for hoses that you haven't even got. Second best job, is not having one and claiming for everything under the sun. Those lazy bastards are in the boozers day in day out and then they go home, pissed up, to there cosy little houses that's paid for by us mugs through our taxes.

At least you're happy though. (Hopefully)

Keep going mate, David.

MRMacrum said...

Crybbe666 - Yeah, the special order thing. I make them pay up front now. Too many never came back and I had to eat the parts.

BBC - One day I hope to be just a spectator like you. But I fear my personality will not allow it.

sunshine - Yeah, venting. That's what it was. I think governments everywhere cannot think past the circle of high rollers that hang out in their waiting rooms.

PresterJohn - The cycle has been repeated often enough, you'd think these idiots would take a lesson from what has happened to them in the past when they forgot where their power really came from.

Pipe Tobacco - It has been a struggle for me also to not turn on Obama. I vowed I would give him two years before I began badmouthing him. Seems he is doing his all time best to force me to begin earlier than I was going to.

Demeur - Yes, the decline in employment choices began long before the recent financial meltdown. And thanks for jerking me back to the notion that even those who work for others are having trouble also.

Randal Graves - Good idea I guess. But I don't think I have worn out my interest in this poverty gig yet. But I swear when the poor schtick gets old, being rich will be on the list of options for what comes next.

Beach Bum - First of all, I don't own even a bad suit. Gave up wearing ties the day I graduated from Military School. I do have one of those tee shirts with a tie silk screened on it. Think that would work?

David Barber - At least I'm happy? Yeah, most days I am I guess. But then we need to be unhappy on occasion just to give the happiness some relativity.

To All - Thanks for the perspective and the gentle slap in the face that I am not alone. Too many others are enjoying similar tough times as I am. I will try to refrain from whining on my blog for at least another month.

susan said...

You're right, of course and things are even worse than that but it's good to keep talking. It's the only way we're going to keep the larger culture alive.