The New Misery Factor

“We’re in a depression, with millions and millions out of work…” states V.P. Joe Biden.   Joe, for once, I agree with you.  I’ve been intending to detail the decline in the collective’s general attitude for a while now, having increasingly seen it  in the lives of friends and acquaintances.   I didn’t want to be first, or to draw attention to it.  Depression is contagious and as such counter-productive.  As an occasional depression sufferer who takes medicine for it, I often can tell when it’s coming on; I fight it, deny it, and pretend for a while everything’s okay; then, that word will come up; it’s like a trigger, firing it, setting it off, and sending me solidly into the city limits of “Depressionville”.  At that point, the condition can move about at will, and infect others with whom the sufferer comes into contact.  It can be fought, but it is a formidable opponent and often wins.

So I held off approaching the subject, waiting for someone else to pull the trigger, and let the cat out of the bag.  Reliable Joe Biden did so this week.  So here I sit, broken hearted for the misery bestowed on the people, not by Biden  (a simple messenger) but by his and our boss, President Barack Obama, and the henchmen and women of the Progressive Democrats who currently occupy the White House, and other Progressives from both parties who dominate Congress, the Senate, the Courts, and the Press.  How have they done this?  Let me count the ways:  excessive spending, excessive borrowing,  excessive regulation, policies that divide the people, attacks on freedom of religion, attacks on the Second Amendment and other liberties, the programmed transformation of a once free republic into a banana republic dictatorship, making their own laws, refusing to follow other laws that do not fit their agenda, just to name a few.

And now, the Supreme Court of the land has just thrown us to the wolves of the federal government.  Thank you, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonia Sotomeyer, Elena Kegan, Stephen Breyer, and, especially, Chief Justice John Roberts, who just made us slaves of an all-powerful federal government.  I hope you sleep well tonight and into the future.  For my part, I will not sleep until this obamanation is repealed.  I thank Chief Justice Roberts in particular.  I expected no different  from the liberals on the Court, I just didn’t expect it from you, Justice Roberts.  And Elena Kagan, pray tell, how can you pass judgement on an act that you helped to write?  Ms. Kagan, you not only have an appearance of a conflict of interest, you are judging yourself by having voted on this case.  And by doing so, you have judged us all as unworthy of liberty.

By this ruling, the Court has not only approved, but helped to re-write,the precedent that any tax, any action, any policy, on the part of the Federal government is okay with the highest court in the land.  We do not have a say in anything an abhorrent administration or congress decides to implement.  We  have no redress.  We have no recourse.  In a word, we are screwed.  The US Constitution is meaningless.  Wait until the young people of this country find out they will owe a penalty for failing to obtain health insurance.  Wait until they find out they can go to jail for not obtaining it.  Wait until they realize that their healthcare, from cradle to grave, is dependent on the whim of the U. S. government.  Wait until the healthcare administrators realize they cannot possibly provide health services to everyone in the populace who demands it, or when they demand it, and that medical professionals will not continue to practice here because of the regulations and limits on their incomes, or restrictions on where they will be allowed to practice their profession.  Enter the government death panels.  Enter the rationers who will dole out available services to the chosen few.  Let me re-state the current situation in the United States of America: we are screwed.

Even if we repeal this law, the precedent has been set.  Thank you, Justice Roberts.  If you wanted a legacy, you have it.  You are the new Social Justice, our Chief who sealed the fate of the American people.  Congratulations.  Really proud of your achievement.

We now have a new misery index.  Back in the Carter administration, some people started to keep track of the “Misery Index.”  A current definition of the misery index, according to http://www.miseryindex.us, is: the combined unemployment rate and the inflation rate.  In June, 1980, unemployment was 19.8%;  the inflation rate was  2.18%, making the misery index 21.98%.  In addition, there were other matters back then:  Interest rates approached or exceeded 20%.  Gas prices were high, (adjusted for the $ value); the US Embassy in Iran was overrun by militants; all the personnel were taken prisoner, and held captive for 444 days.  Carter arranged a military rescue that was totally bungled, ending up crashing helicopters in the Iranian desert.  The newspapers reluctantly  started keeping track of the “Misery Index.”

They should start again, reluctantly or not.  Under Obama, this Country and its citizen inhabitants are miserable.  Make no mistake about that.  By whatever measure you wish to use: unemployment (8%+),  under employment (8.5%+), (gas prices (down recently to a “new normal” that is twice as high as under Bush, when the liberals complained to no end about how he and Cheney for personal gain were jacking up the price.  Now, with Obama, $4 gas is the “new normal”, according to our apologist press, and they now maintain the President has absolutely no say in the world-wide price of oil.  Convenient.

The inflation rate in 2011, according to http://www.miseryindex.us, was 3.16%.  If we include both the unemployment rate and the under employment rate (many of whom in the second group are surely miserable), you get a misery index of 19.66%.  This is within 2.32% of the all-time high of 21.98% in June, 1980.  Throw in the misery being experienced by at least half the country over an administration that writes its own laws, follows socialist policies, attacks entire industries that it despises for one climatically-related reason or another, ignores orders of federal court justices, ignores constitutional limitations on its authority, ignores freedom of religion, is instrumental in selling arms to criminals along our borders, tries to cover up its involvement in such illegal activities, sues member states for passing laws for their own protection, (after being denied the stated purpose of the Federal government: our defense) and sues member states for trying to clean up voter rolls and reduce voter fraud.

There we have it.  The new Obama Misery Factor: 19.66% and rising.  As Bette Davis said in one of her movies: “Fasten your seat belts; it’s going to be a wild ride!”  But this is one ride we will not very much like to take.

James A. Skeldon

Watertown, NY