Ohhh Romney-sama!

During the last election cycle, presidential at least, there were two fellows running on the conservative side of things. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. I’ve made a few comments about the Romney-Ryan ticket back when that was a thing. Aaand that’s about as political as this post’s going to get.

What I brought it up for is because during the election there was a funny picture that the wife found. Being anime fans we found this picture very amusing:

The wife is into Yaoi, very…very into Yaoi, so she found it in a porn-search. She didn’t like it sexually, it actually made her feel weird that she enjoyed the picture. But a while ago Paul Ryan was in the news again, being a replacement for John Boehner and speaking at the Republican Convention.

So we were reminded of that picture and decided to look at it, but we couldn’t remember which computer we had saved it on (was it the desktop, the laptop, maybe my flash drive or hers, or possibly even the external hard drive?).

So we jumped on the ever-faithful…Google. She felt we probably wouldn’t be able to find the picture, I said, “Why not? How many possible pictures like that could be out there?”

So, I searched for “Romney-sama” on Google images. And I was very surprised by the results…here are some of the better ones (all pictures link to their original locations).

Oh my…so firm.

I have learned in my studies of Japan that Daisuki is the common way of saying “I love you.”  From what I understand it literally translates to “I kinda  like you.”, because Japanese people are apparently adorable.

Adorable…and weird. O_0

They don’t stop at Obama and Romney or Romney and Ryan, either…

That one’s just disturbing.

After that last one, how about a nice calm, soothing Obama weeabo meme?

Okay, now that everyone feels littler safer in the world…

I love the look on Obama’s face in that picture.

And finally, a reminder that the wife’s hunt for Yaoi is what got us on this topic.

~RCS

Bonus!:

Obamacare: What Does It Do For The Poor?

I’m sure you’ve all heard about this thing called the Affordable Care Act, and if you’re one of the 37% of Americans who don’t know it’s also known as Obamacare.  Now if you’ve been here for a while you know that I’m pretty critical of Republicans, and also of Democrats, and of Independents, and Gr—okay, y’know what I’m just pretty critical of anyone in office, running for office, or voting.

Now during the presidential election I wasn’t too keen on Mitt Romney, because I think there are few things worse than a Republican president.

Unfortunately one of those few things worse than a Rep. president, is a Democrat president.  Here’s my philosophy:

I am in the poorer multitudes of the nation.  I was born poor, I was raised poor, I am still somewhat poor, I support minority and female equality, and I’m not particularly religious.  Republicans come right out and tell you that they hate the poor and non-religious, and especially minorities and women.  Everything they say and do suggests that.

Democrats come out and say that they love the poor, non-religious, women, and minorities…and they jump right in line with the republicans to favor giant, fanatical-Christian, corporations and organizations.  When a Democratic president appoints a Spiritual Adviser, you know you voted for the wrong person.

Anyway before I start a riot let me to get to my point: Obamacare.

Obamacare sucks.  I don’t have health insurance and in the past 5 years I have only been to the doctor once, and it was Emergency Care.

So let’s look at and compare getting insurance versus not getting insurance.

When I wound up in the emergency room, the prices were ridiculous: $230 just to talk to the doctor and another $430 just to be taken to a back room and have a nurse check my pulse.  So that’s $660, total.

So I’ll admit, in 5 years’ time, I’m $660 in the hole to start.

So now let’s look at what an Obamacare plan would get me…

If I get a Bronze plan which pays for about 60% it would cost me roughly $119.19 a month, that equates to $1430.28 a year.

So in 5 years’ time that would equal…$7151.40 that I would have paid for insurance coverage.  And before you talk about the premium subsidy, my state doesn’t cover my income level for the subsidy, so I have to pay 100% of the premium (trust me, I’ve checked).

But, on the positive side, my $660 hospital bill would have only been about $264.

So in 5 years’ time I would have only spent $7415.40 in medical costs.

Whereas in real life I only spent $660 in 5 years’ time.

However, the Obamacare law makes it required to have insurance.  If you don’t, you have to pay a penalty, based on your income.  My particular penalty would be, as of 2016…$650 a year.  That winds up being $3250 in 5 years’ time, but I’d have to pay 100% of my medical expenditures.

So without insurance, under Obamacare, I pay $3910 in the same 5 years’ time.

Before Law: $660

With Insurance: $7,415.40

Without Insurance: $3,910.00

Cost Difference: $3,505.40 more with insurance

Now the argument I always hear is, “What if you get hurt really bad or really sick?”

What’s it matter?  If I get hurt at work, workman’s compensation covers it.  If I get hurt in a business, their liability insurance covers it.  If I get hurt in the car, my car insurance will cover it.  If I fall off a ladder replacing a light bulb, I have medical liability coverage on my homeowner’s insurance.

Basically as long as I don’t get hit by a meteorite while jaywalking in another borough, there’s something out there that covers my injured ass in case of an accident.

Now illness is a real issue, that’s what took me to the ER a few years ago.  I had a throat infection (Strep Throat) and it caused my esophagus to swell shut, I began to asphyxiate and had to get antibiotics and steroids to keep from blacking out (and eventually dying).

There’s cancer, strep, hep, food poisoning, malaria, bronchitis, all kinds of things that can go wrong.  So let’s go for gold…I get cancer and it costs me $50,000 in treatment.

Well guess what?  My Bronze plan only covers 60% of that, so I still have to pay $20,000 out of pocket, not to mention the $7,415.40 for the premiums.

That’s a total of $27,415.40 for 5 years of cancer treatments.

After taxes, that equates to 186% of my yearly income.  So that means, if I saved 1% of my post-tax income every year…it would take me 138 years to pay that off, and that’s assuming they aren’t going to charge me interest or up my premiums for having cancer.  Remember, Obamacare says that an insurance company can’t refuse me for having a pre-existing condition, but it doesn’t say they can’t charge me higher premiums for having cancer.

So if I don’t have insurance, there’s a chance I’ll wind up broke and penniless.  But if I get the insurance, I’m guaranteed to wind up broke and penniless.  And now Obama’s stupid law has weighed things down to make sure I wind up broke and penniless a little sooner.

All the Affordable Care Act does is help insurance companies.  If the government is going to require a free citizen to own or have something, then it should be paid for by the government.

You can reason the legal requirement for car insurance because owning a car is not necessary to life.  If you don’t want to pay car insurance, don’t drive a car.  If you don’t want to pay homeowner’s insurance, then rent.  If you don’t want to pay health insurance…uhh, then die, I guess?

If health insurance is required, then it should be free; regardless of income.  I don’t care if you make ten grand a year or ten million a year, you should be able to walk into a hospital and receive free medical care in a timely and efficient manner.  I’d rather just pay an extra 2.5% of my yearly income in taxes and be able to see any doctor, any time, for any reason.

Republicans call Obamacare the worst thing to happen to America since the birth of the Democratic party; Democrats call it a stepping stone to a better system.  But in truth it’s somewhere in the middle: It’s certainly not what we need and it’s actually moving in the wrong direction.

~RCS

Barack Obama Wins 2nd Term

I’m not exactly sure if I’d call it a win for him, but Obama is our president for another 4 years.  Or at least until a psychotic Republican can murder him; I’m betting on it being Karl Rove, right now.

Now I’m not a big fan of Obama, by any means, but I am very happy that Mitt Romney didn’t win.  And I’m incredibly elated that a bunch of Tea Party psychoes are gone from Congress, too.  Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock, Roger Rivard, Tom Smith (especially since he’s here in PA), John Koster, and especially that ass-hat Joe Walsh whom I couldn’t stand in the least.

But of course there are some butthurt Romney fans/Republicans out there.  I’ve heard folks talk about how much they hate Obamacare, so they’re moving to Canada.  Head’s up folks, Canada laughs at how conservative Obamacare is; they actually have tax-funded universal health care, and have had it for a long time.

Of course there was Karl Rove freaking out about Ohio going Democrat on Fox News, there was Donald Trump’s massive tantrum wherein he called for Republicans to unite and lead an armed revolution on Washington D.C. (if not for the faulty reason, I’d actually be able to get behind that idea; head for the House of Representatives, though, not the White House), and here’s a few more examples…

This tumblr page called White People Mourning Romney is rather amusing.

I liked this woman’s point about comparing your candidate’s defeat to a tragedy, by reminding everyone what a real tragedy is.

Now this a fuckin’ tragedy! We let that reproduce; why?

That being said I can’t wait until 2016 when we’ll have the Democrat ticket of Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden (they need him for entertainment value) vs. the Republican ticket of Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio (sorry Chris Christie, you fucked up by accepting aid for your beleaguered and destroyed state from Obama; shame on your for doing your job as governor!).

~RCS

No, I’m just kidding…I surely can wait.  Hell why is that three days after the election I’m still seeing Super Pac ads for the Republicans?  Did they not realise what day the election was?  Emphasis on was.

October Dick of the Month: Paul Ryan

I try to keep politics out of the Dick of the Month.  I’ve talked about Rush Limbaugh before, but that was because he’s personally a dick, I don’t care about his dickish politics.  But alas, sometimes you do something so outrightly dickish in the name of politics, that we have to feature you anyway.  Such as Jeremy Faison’s idiotic rant in favor of bullying on the Tennessee state congressional floor.

And that is where our future Vice-President Paul Ryan (please let me be wrong!!) comes into the story.  You see he and his crony Mitt Romney are trying to get elected by, well…by us, actually.

Unfortunately for Paul Ryan he had a habit in his younger days of talking about hero, Ayn Rand.  Now the Ayn Randian philosophy, called Objectivism, is that charity is a bad thing and that the only way to further society is to promote self-interest, selfishness, and unmitigated free enterprise.

In case you want an idea of how that might work, play the game Bioshock, because the hellish underwater dystopia of Rapture is based on the ideology of Ayn Rand’s Objectivism.

I’ve seen on the news an expert on Objectivism talk about how Ayn Rand would not have liked Mitt Romney, because of how much he donates to charity and to the Mormon Church, especially, since the Mormon Church uses that money to fund its own charitable activities.

But Paul Ryan certainly would have made Ayn Rand proud this time.  You see, he was trying to distance himself from his Objectivist roots to make himself look better for the camera to the poor populace who he needs to vote for him and Romney.

Ryan got some pictures taken inside a Soup Kitchen, washing some dishes in a suit and tie…and an apron.  The problem is…this was apparently after the lunch-time meal was served around noon, when the Soup Kitchen wasn’t even open.  The dishes were already clean and he just sprayed water on them.

He also lied to the person in charge and claimed that they had permission to film in there.  They didn’t.  Paul Ryan got his pictures, washing the clean dishes, and left.  The pictures went viral, as was intended, and the owner of the Soup Kitchen was pissed about it.

You see, the St. Vincent De Paul Society Soup Kitchen runs on donations from private institutions such as wealthy donors and organizations.  As the society president states:

“We’re a faith-based organization; we are apolitical because the majority of our funding is from private donations.  It’s strictly in our bylaws not to do it. They showed up there, and they did not have permission.”

First off, we have Ryan’s own comments that would make Ayn Rand very sad, “This is what makes society go. It makes it work.  Helping people.”

Secondly, we have the damage he’s done to the institution that would probably even make Ayn Rand blush.

You see, because of letting the Republican VP nominee into the soup kitchen, the St. Vincent De Paul Society lost a number of their Democrat donors.  Then, for coming out and saying that Paul Ryan used his position and influence to lie his way through the doors and that he wasn’t allowed in there after all, the St. Vincent De Paul Society lost a number of their Republican donors.

So, for cleaning a few spotless pans so hard that you managed to put a Soup Kitchen, feeding the poor and homeless, out of business…you, Congressman Paul Ryan are the October Dick of the Month.

~RCS

Fun Politics?

I’ve been relatively negative with my politic talks lately, so I think we’ll start Monday off on a good note.  And since I didn’t give you guys a Photopost last week, we’ll really go for a lighter note.  As you know, especially if you read this blog, politics can be a rough and blood-thirsty experience.  But for one night a year, there’s some legitimate humor, much if it self-depricating; the way it should be.

That night is the White House Correspondant’s Dinner, which was this past weekend.  Yahoo! has the full story and I’m linking you to their video of some of the best stuff.  I have to say, Barack Obama is a pretty good comedian.  When Romney buys the Presidency out from underneath him, I think he’s definately got a career ahead of him.

So here’s the Yahoo! story, I hope you enjoy some good political humor.

~RCS

Vote Barefoot and Pregnant

As you may well now, I’m not a big fan of Mitt Romney.  Mainly because I’m tired of wealthy people claiming they want the best for poor-ish folks like me and then getting into office and making the country such a nicer place for their wealthy friends.  I’m lookin’ at you, too, Mr. Obama.  But Romney’s biggest problem is that other Republicans can’t get behind him, because he’s too moderate, which is a fancy way to say that he compromises in arguments instead of the natural Republican defense of, “I’m right an’ yer wrong, so I’s shoot yo ass or pray fer bad things t’happen to ya!”  Of course I’ll give Romney this much…Obama lied to us and said he was all about the ‘little guy’.  At least Romney admits he’s all about the wealthy folks.

Well...at least Romney's honest in what he wants. Our Money.

But there’s someone in the world who really could get to vote for Mitt Romney.  And no I’m not talking about Corporate Assassins who are out to protect the oligarchs and aristocrats of America.  It’s Rick Santorum…

That’s right, Rick Santorum, the new crusader (and I do not use the term figuratively) of the religious ‘right’.  He basically supports putting women back in the kitchen, preferably barefoot and pregnant, and following a biblical ideology of how the country should be run.  He’s gone so far as to say that the Constitution is just an ‘owner’s manual’ to tell us how to run the country using the Roman Catholic Bible as a guide for what should and should not be law.

This is the same man who bilked Pennsylvania out of $60,000 to educate his children in charter schools, even though his primary residence was in Vriginia, then refused to pay the money back (even though he’s worth upwards of 3 million dollars) and forced the charter school to sue the state itself to get back some of the money it was owed.  But remember folks…it isn’t like lying, cheating, and stealing are forbidden by some ancient holy text that Rick Santorum follows or anything, is it?

Oh, right...that book.

 

Well, I have news for Mr. Santorum.  Women fought hard to get the rights that he thinks they don’t seem to deserve.  And they’ll fight him pretty hard, too, to keep them.  And to get even more, until there is no job a woman can’t do or can’t have, just because it requires a penis.  Well…except gay porn model, I suppose…but that makes up for the limited roles men had on the show Baywatch, I think.

I saw this picture last night on my Facebook account and decided that it was certainly worth a few shares.  Just to warn Santorum and his nutjob supporters what’s in store for themselves if they think they’ll win anything, at all.  It’s from a Tumblr account called The Riot.

~RCS

We CAN Erase The Debt, Easily

You all know that I hate quoting myself, right?  Well I touched on a subject in my last post, but didn’t go really into depth with it.  Now I’m going into a deeper hole to mine some more information.  Follow along with me as I configure these numbers and come to the conclusion that…the nation is bought and owned by the wealthiest members of the nation.  And that there aren’t many ways to change it.

Here’s where the thought started in the last post to recap:

“And look at Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney, who makes about $20,000 every 8 hours.  That’s equivalent to making $2,500 an hour if he worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year; that’s a grand total of $21.9 million a year in income.  He pays a little less than $3.3 million a year in taxes.  If he paid the same 22% that I do on my hard-earned money, that’d be a little more than $4.8 million.

And both Romney and my million-dollar CD only pay 15% taxes, whereas I pay closer 22% tax on the money I bust my ass for.  In other words, he pays a little less than $3.3 million a year in taxes.  If he paid the same 22% that I do on my hard-earned money, that’d be a little more than $4.8 million.  Whereas I pay a little more than $4,600 in taxes, but if I only paid 15% in taxes, I’d pay a little more than $3,100.”

Now if we follow along with those numbers…

And if we assume that all the .1% top income earners earn Romney’s amount and pay his level of taxes and that the lower 50% of the nation that make less than $26,000 a year all make the cut-off of 26k and pay my effective tax rate of 22% than we can look at the following results.

Top .1% Population: 300,000 people

Top .1% Income Gross: $6,570,000,000,000 (that is 6.57 trillion dollars)

Top .1% Tax Payment (at 15%): $985,500,000,000 (that is 985.5 billion dollars)

Bottom 50% Population: 150,000,000 people (that is 150 million)

Bottom 50% Income Gross: $3,900,000,000,000 (that is only 3.9 trillion dollars)

Bottom 50% Tax Payment (at 22%): $858,000,000,000 (yup, 858 billion dollars)

 

Now if we switch those tax rates around we find these numbers…

Top .1% Tax Payment (at 22%): $1,445,400,000,000 (a mighty 1.4 trillion dollars)

Bottom 50% Tax Payment (at 15%): $585,000,000,000 (still a comely 585 billion dollars)

So if we just switch the tax rates, we wind up with the top .1% paying 459.9 billion dollars a year more in taxes and the bottom 50% pays 127.5 billion dollars a year less.

In total that is an increase in $332.4 billion in taxes for the government.  In a period of 4 years we would increase tax revenue by more than $1.3 trillion dollars.

So if we can cut spending by 1.5 trillion dollars a year, that’d cut the budget deficit by 100 Billion dollars (i.e. .1 trillion dollars) a year, so after 4 years we would lower the national debt by 1.7 trillion dollars in 4 years just by making respectable cuts to the wasteful government spending and forcing 300 thousand people to pay the same tax rate as 150 million people who, combined, make less than the aforementioned 300 thousand people.

 

Now before you rant and rave at those numbers…keep in mind that we’re only looking at .1% against 50%.  If we look at Mitt Romney’s cronies among the top full 1% and realize that they must make around similar amounts as him.  So if we assume that the remainder of the top 1%, the other .9%, make marginally less than him we can create an even fancier number.

We’ll calculate it like this: We’ll assume that the top 1% makes, as a combined average, 20% less than Romney’s income per person.  That gives us the following numbers…

Top 1% Population: 3,000,000 (million) people

Top 1% Income Gross: $52,560,000,000,000 (that would be 52.6 trillion dollars a year)

Top 1% Tax Payment (at 22%): 7,884,000,000,000 (7.9 trillion dollars a year in taxes)

Top 1% Tax Payment (at 22%): $11,563,200,000,000 (yes…11.6 trillion dollars a year in tax income)

So if we raise effective taxes from 15% to 22% on the top 10%, using our numbers, we raise tax income (after accounting for lowering taxes on the bottom 50% from 22% to 15% tax) by $3,551,700,000,000.  In other words: 3.6 trillion dollars a year.

After 4 years, we’d have 14.4 trillion dollars a year, even without the spending cuts.  If we manage to cut spending by $1.5 trillion a year, we’d end up with $14.8 trillion dollars more than we get every year, now, in four years’ time.

So in the term of one single president, we could pay down over 97% of the national debt.  In the same president’s second term, we would erase the national debt in the first few months of his (or her) second term and by the end of the second term we would have a national surplus of 14.3 trillion dollars.

So in 8 years’ time we would not only erase the debt, but acquire a surplus almost equivalent to the debt as of writing this post ($15.2 trillion).

Now explain to me why we can’t have universal free health care and have this huge deficit, again?

~RCS

Living Off a Million Dollars

I talk off and on about the capability to live off a million dollars, which a lot of people tell me I am wrong about.  I like to respond that…I am not.  Without delving too deeply into my income I make between 20-25 thousand dollars a year, myself; depending on how much overtime I work.

Now if I switched to only working two days a week at my current job and rate, I would make about $8,000 a year.

So let’s look at what would happen if I went from working 40+ hours a week to working 16 hours a week, but had a million dollars in the bank.

I could place my million dollars into a 5-year CD (Certificate of Deposit) with my credit union which would bring an interest rate of 1.88% interest per year (the last time I bought a CD it had 3.30% interest; damn economy).  I could live off the dividends, which would equal out to $18,963.  So a million dollars only pays a thousand dollars or so less than I make working 5 days a week, every week, with no time off: Working 2,080 hours a year.

Keep in mind that million dollars’ interest would be $18,963 for 0 hours of work a year.  If I work 2 days a week and take no additional time off, that’s only 832 hours a year of work and I’d make a grand total of $26,963.

Amazing what a million dollars can do for you in a 5-year rolling CD.

Elin Nordegren, whom I recently spoke of buying a $12 million mansion and razing it, got $100 million from her divorce settlement.  So let’s take a look at what kind of money you could make, doing 0 hours of income-bearing work, and putting the entire $100 million in the same 5-year rolling CD I was just speaking of.

You’d make…$1.9 million a year in interest.  That’s right.  And you’d pay a lower tax rate on it than you did if you actually earned that money.

Let’s say that Nordegren builds an $18 million mansion where the $12 million one stood.  That will leave her with $70 million to put in the bank.  She would make…$1.3 million a year in interest.

And look at Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney, who makes about $20,000 every 8 hours.  That’s equivalent to making $2,500 an hour if he worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year; that’s a grand total of $21.9 million a year in income.

And both Romney and my million-dollar CD only pay 15% taxes, whereas I pay closer 22% tax on the money I bust my ass for.  In other words, he pays a little less than $3.3 million a year in taxes.  If he paid the same 22% that I do on my hard-earned money, that’d be a little more than $4.8 million.  Whereas I pay a little more than $4,600 in taxes, but if I only paid 15% in taxes, I’d pay a little more than $3,100.

I’d love to have a million dollars or so, I’d never have to work again in my life if I didn’t want to.  Warren Buffett might be issuing challenges about donating money to the government in taxes; but I’ll challenge any wealthy person to disprove me by giving me a million dollars to try my theory out with.

If I can’t live as comfortably as I am now with just the interest from the million dollars they pony up, I’ll give the million dollars back.  If an independent source can vouch that my quality of life is on-par, or better, with me living just off the interest dividends then I get to keep the million.

I guarantee not a single millionaire/billionaire will take up my offer.

~RCS

Good News From Iowa

In case you aren’t aware, the Iowa Caucus had brought the country a lot of good news.  Michelle Bachman has dropped out of the race.  I don’t like Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, or Rick Perry…well, let me rephrase that.  I don’t like Rick Perry’s political views or his religious views, but I have to admit that he seems like a nice guy to hang out with.  In other words…Rick Perry is the new George Dubya Bush: Bad politics and beliefs, but good guy, personally.  Mitt Romney would be a nice guy to hang out, like at the billionaire country club or private ski resort or something.  And I legitimately don’t like Newt Gingrich, as a person; he’s a scoundrel who should have been knifed by his first wife.

Anyway, politically I don’t agree with Romney, Gingrich, or Perry.  Honestly I don’t agree 100% with Ron Paul, either.  But Michelle Bachman was legitimately dangerous to the nation.  I know that she, and others, called Ron Paul dangerous…but all he may have done was bring us into a war with Iran.

I said a couple weeks ago that I like Ron Paul because he walks out, looks you in the eye, and admits he’s bat-shit crazy.  I don’t care that he’s bat-shit crazy enough to get rid of income taxes, or ignore Iran’s nuclear program, or pull troops out of South Korea.  He knows it sounds bat-shit crazy and that’s the angle he’s going for.

But Michelle Bachman was one-hundred times more dangerous because she was twice as bat-shit crazy as Ron Paul and what’s worse…she didn’t know it!  She thought she made sense and her own little universe, she did.

Incriminating conversations that never happened were real, in her head.  She told CNN newscasters, on numerous occasions, that polls didn’t matter; especially not the latest most-accurate poll.  Then in the next sentence she’d say that she was destined to win, because a poll from 4 months earlier had her in first place; even though it was the last time she was in first place.

She was deranged and a raving lunatic, quite frankly, and I am glad that she got out of the race.  My only fear now is that Mitt Romney will win the nomination and bring Bachman in as V.P. to get the votes of the Women, Evangelicals, and Tea Partiers.  It’s a sensible strategy…if you ignore the fact that Michelle Bachman is nuclear-strength bat-shit fanatically deranged.

At least Sarah Palin was harmlessly ignorant.  Bachman is dangerously ignorant.  I’m a little afraid that she’s actually on the Congressional National Defense Committee; to be honest.

But the good news is that she’s out of the race, at least for now.  So we can rest for a moment and prepare for Romney to make a bad decision when he, unfortunately and inevitably, wins the nomination.

Now one quick thing about the Iowa runner-up Rick Santorum: As a fellow Pennsylvanian I know first-hand how terrible he’d do as the President.  Here’s hoping that he’ll fall flat within the next few months.  I’d rather see his archnemesis, Dan Savage, win the Presidency.

~RCS