Warning Diatribe

Today's Link
Nick's Bytes

Saying for the Day
If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up. ~J.M. Power

Picture for the Day

Warning! Please tighten your seat belt and hold onto your floppy hat because I am about to get up on my soap box and deliver a diatribe like I haven’t done since I left Chicago.
Yesterday as my wife was applying the moisturizing cream that keeps her beautiful she asked me the same question my son asked as he was trying to give away the pickles that came with his hamburger at the restaurant. Both of them asked “ Why is the economy such a mess? What caused this huge flip-flop in the stock market?”

Well today I’m going to answer that question with one word, GREED.
You thought I was going to say the President or Congress didn’t you? Or perhaps evil corporations or wall street insiders? Of course they are all part of the problem but what drives them is plain old GREED.
Congress fails because it is busy pleasing lobbyists, which they all denounce but whose money, trips, and other stuff they all greedily take. They forget they are supposed to be working for us as we have nothing to give but our vote and the lobbyist will give them enough money to buy that. So their greed kept them from doing anything that might have prevented the economic meltdown.
GREED is the problem for American industry as well.
Why do companies send jobs to other countries? Plain old fashioned GREED. They can get more money for their greedy stockholders and pay their greedy CEOs more millions. It never occurred to them that lost job by lost job there would be fewer and fewer people to buy their products.

GREED lives for the day tomorrow has to take care of itself.

GREED drives oil company executives to wring every cent out of every barrel of oil and if the high price of gasoline causes economic chaos, tough. They have their multi –million dollar salaries.
GREED drives companies to buy up other companies to take their pension funds and leave the little guy out in the cold.
GREED causes executives of failing companies to still take millions of dollars despite their failure and GREED makes them put in golden parachutes so if they are fired the company has to pay millions to get rid of them.

GREED caused people to buy houses they couldn’t afford believing the price of houses would keep going up and that they would make money in the deal.
And the little guy he has his GREED too. Given a choice between a cheap product made in some other country and an American product he buys the cheap and greedily pockets the extra money.

From top to bottom GREED drives the economy. But the problem with GREED is that eventually that tomorrow we ignored finally comes and the whole system collapses.
Sorry folks! Tomorrow is here.

News from Pigeon Falls

The little town in my basement where the trains still run, dragons fly, and life is back to normal.
Poor Nancy is getting complaints from her regular customers about the second cup is $10 rule. They have always had a second cup and it used to be free. One of the regulars suggested that she should copy the museum. She could rope off an area labeled "Ghost Watchers" or something, and have them pay a high price for an all-morning ticket which could include coffee and a saffron roll. Then keep the other tables free for normal customers. That seemed like a good idea to her so she rescinded the second cup is $10 rule and will set up a special half day area. For $30 you can sit as long as you want, up to a half a day, and have a continuous supply of coffee. It will be ready tomorrow and we’ll see how well it works.
Willie has been sober for two days now and has joined the local AA group. But people still remember what happened in 2006 and how he was sober for six months that time.
Herman is all excited because he heard that one of the drinks on the card at the Happy Pigeon will be a Haltvers and he is sure that’s a driblet under another name. The name he is giving to his visions. Despite his fear of his wife his desire for another vision means he will help close the Happy Pigeon on Friday night. It is his destiny. He can hardly wait for Friday.
Petrovich seems to be paying no attention to the new bar and restaurant. As long as they don’t insult his seer he couldn’t care less what they serve. He is busy working on a very, very disturbing driblet. The problem is his microfilm copy is missing a part and he really needs that part. He is sure that he has another copy of the microfilm but he can’t remember where he stored it. He has e-mailed his friends at the monastery in Russia and asked them to e-mail him a copy. But the manuscript has no numbers on the driblets and they have to count and then check the first words to be sure they have the right one. Petrovich is afraid if they don’t hurry or he doesn’t find the other microfilm there will be no Pigeon Falls. The driblet seems to be that bad.

Wrap Up

Today was a good bad day or a bad good day. It was good because my oxygen count was up and I used very little from the bottle despite some stress. It was bad because everything went wrong on the layout. Well not everything. We got the lumber car to dump. We were pushing the unload button and we should have pushed the uncouple button though that makes no sense. We almost had everything transferred to the new control table when all the accessories in the middle of module two suddenly died. The transformers were plastered inside the table so we had to cut them out . Both transformers had ceased to function and needed to be replaced. We have never had that happen before. Worse I don't have a nine volt transformer. I have transformers from 3 volts to eighteen but no nine volt. There might be one in the garage. Now I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

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