the mellow tigger's musings

I believe that the world (the whole universe, actually) lacks all the resources that are desired.  Meaning... every desire cannot be fulfilled.  Some want has to go unfulfilled.

Minnesota is facing severe budget shortfalls.  Our ideologue governor, however, promises not to sign for a single tax increase.  Instead, he's in the habit of pushing costs downward to more local governments which then have to raise their taxes to compensate.  The ideologue wins on a technicality.  *disgruntled sigh*

He's now announced his most recent budget proposal.  There are lots of cutbacks.  Frankly, all of them seem disturbing.  A followup article focuses specifically on the health care cuts.


That last sentence?  That would be me.

The sad thing is that even all the harsh cutbacks still depend on receiving future federal money.  They still depend on pushing true costs out into future state budgets.  Both obvious signs of accounting hack jobs.  (But don't you dare raise taxes, no, because that would destroy the republic.)

I go in next week for my EMG tests.  I go see the neurologist two weeks after that.

It's a race to see if I can leech taxpayer money for my medical diagnosis before the money disappears.

The Telegraph is a conservative newspaper in England.  Go see what they are saying now about the American economy.  They move from one discouraging observation to another to yet another.
"America slides deeper into depression as Wall Street revels"

Oh, and don't miss reading the comments.  They're a hoot.

Sort of related, here is an interest image that shows what resources our expanding industry is exhausting.  (Peak Oil is so yesterday.  We're at Peak Everything already.)  Now you can see why China is securing its mineral access all over the planet.

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For those interested in an amusing detour...

( Read more if you have the time... )

Of course, I'm of the opinion that feeding the exponential economy is always bad, no matter how you do it.  Still... I wanted to pass along this website to everyone, as I think it can still be useful.

http://moveyourmoney.info/

It opened a few days ago.  It's a way to look up your current zip code and find local, small, community-minded, highly-rated banks where you can move your accounts.  As far as I know, every single American bank is FDIC insured, so your accounts are equally protected no matter where your money goes.  This website makes the point, however, that your money can be used by banks in very different ways.

Remember these scenes from "It's A Wonderful Life"?


I'm considering it.  I don't do savings accounts or IRAs or other "money hiding" shell games where profit magically shows up without my having to work for it, but I am considering moving my checking account (/debit card).  Wells Fargo recently jacked up the interest rate on my credit card (just as I paid it to zero), so I might as well move that elsewhere too.

The founders of this movement (which started on the liberal left Huffington Post but seems to appeal to pretty much everyone) are also collecting stories from people about their banking experiences with large banks, small banks, and credit unions.  Some of them have been interesting too.

It's a great reminder that you, "the people", do have powerful authority to dictate the nature of the market.  You're not left solely to the whims of business executives and Washington politicians.  That's always a good reminder, so I'm passing the information along to people who can learn from it.  :)