I Can't Believe Those Jerks Made Money

So, I just paid $45 to fill up my tank on my 2003 Hyundai Elantra (regular, in New Jersey, which means cheapest gas within my reach). The point of that sentence is to let you, my reader(s), know that I'm affected by the gas prices, so it's not like I'm talking out of my proverbial butt here.

Anyway, Congress is considering penalizing oil executives for... brace yourself... making money. There are so many things wrong with that, I'm not sure where to start.

(1) I'm pretty sure it's unfair to tax five companies more than similarly situated companies (i.e. it's fair to tax all companies who make $1 million more than all companies who make $500 thousand, but it's not fair to tax all oil companies who make $1 million more than all other companies who make $1 million). I could be wrong about this, but anyway.

(2) I heard on a radio show earlier this week, that the Democrat who is sponsoring this bill stated something to the effect that he would like to penalize ALL companies who make "windfall profits," at the expense of the American people. I'm really scared that people will start supporting this because they want to pay less for gas, bread, milk, iPods, personal computers, cars, etc., etc. "But Nick, what's wrong with that? I want to pay less for those things." Yeah, so do I, but I don't want the government "helping" me with that. I can do that by shopping at cheaper places, buying gas in New Jersey (or not driving as much), buying bread and milk at Superfresh instead of Wegman's, not buying iPods, buying cheap personal computers and cars, et. al. Capitalism tends to take care of things like that.

(3) That last sentence leads me to my next point. I'm all for cheaper ways to get around. I just want people to invent things themselves. Electric cars will catch on if gas prices keep rising. It's just natural capitalism.

(4) If this gas company penalty somehow gets passed, I'm going to ask my Congressman to propose a bill that penalizes members of Congress. Those guys get paid WAY too much money and I'm footing the bill! (By the way, that's irony... I'm trying to be ironic... nevermind).

I couldn't resist

After reading the below, I could not resist adding another post today.

http://mobile.adage.com/site?sid=adage&pid=JuicerHub&targetUrl=http://adage.com//campaigntrail/post?article_id=127973

So, MTV is going to "finally" put up some campaign ads? I have two reactions to this: (1) MTV shows are one long campaign ad for whomever the Democratic nominee happens to be... just watch the channel. They have no interest in being fair and impartial. Some may argue they shouldn't have to be, I would say different, especially when they couch their political views as "news." Ah well. Additionally, please note the P. Diddy "vote or die" campaign that just happened to coincide with the election preceding the second term of President Bush. What a coincidence... which leads me to my next point, (2) You think MTV's "finally" delving into campaign ads has something to do with Barack Obama running for president? Of course it does, he's a popular guy with the young people in this country, very charismatic and intelligent guy. He'll do well with the MTV viewers... although, I don't know if those people vote.

I'm BACK!!!

Yes, for my one reader, I am back. Here's what prompted me to come back:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080625/D91H2TT80.html

So, evidently, Congress is seriously considering passing a bill that would give money to people so they could afford to buy homes. Ostensibly, this came up because of the foreclosure "crisis." In reality, this is more like a "let's get some more votes" ploy. It's not going to work for me.

I rented an apartment for about a year once I graduated from law school. When I could afford it, I purchased a house with a mortgage. I made sure that the house I purchased was within my means to afford. I made sure that I could afford the mortgage payments based on my salary at the time I purchased the house. I did not purchase a house beyond my means.

So, evidently, a number of people purchased homes which they could not afford to make mortgage payments on. "But Nick, they had adjustible rates!" Yes, this is true, but if you know you can't afford House X unless you had an adjustible rate mortgage, wouldn't you purchase House Y instead? So that you knew you could afford the house?

Anyway, so, now the federal government is going to take my tax dollars to bail out people who bought houses they couldn't afford. That's the long and short of it. I think it's despicable. What happened to personal responsibility in this country? Seriously. People now know that they can buy stuff they can't afford and the government will take care of them. Isn't that socialism?

Tomorrow... Nick addresses the rising cost of gas and what to do to fix it.