Ordinary Average Guy on Bailouts, Big Government, and Baseball

October is my favorite month of the year, for a few reasons, one being that it is the month of my birthday, which is a day that I don’t expect others to concern themselves with, but is a big deal for me. I’ve always felt that birthdays are the most personal of holidays and that they should be spent doing something that gives you pleasure and enjoyment. October is also the month for the baseball playoffs and my favorite sporting event, the World Series. Even though I don’t watch a great deal of regular season action anymore, I still follow the sport I love and thoroughly enjoy the real playoffs, which start in another week or so, and the Fall Classic which follows. I also love October for the simple fact that in the desert it means fall will finally arrive, at some point this month the oppressive heat of the summer will finally go away and leave some of the best weather on the planet for the next five months or so.

Add to all of that the freshness that comes with a new month, a clean sheet on the calendar, new hope and plans that have yet to be spoiled or superceded by the rest of life that always seems to get in the way of doing what we really want to do. Just looking at the date on my cell phone slash alarm clock when I awoke this morning put me in good spirits, October 1, a whole wonderful month ahead. One thing I hope to accomplish this month is getting back into a regular writing routine, in large part as my persona of the ordinary average guy, giving my take on life, culture, politics, sports, and whatever else pops into my head throughout the day for whatever it may be worth. So here goes, the first column for a brand new month.

The big issue on many people’s minds this week is the economic crisis, or potential crisis depending upon who you listen to, that we are currently in, and the response of our beloved and trusted federal government to ride to the rescue. The Senate has come in on their white horse and voted overwhelmingly, a 3-1 margin in today’s politics qualifies as overwhelmingly, to spend hordes of our cash on the financial industry, all in the name of saving us from the certain gloom and doom that would befall us if rich people actually lost their $400 shirts. We are told that this will eventually trickle down and cost us all our jobs, our monster trucks, our oversized houses, and so on. If true, it would be the one example of when trickle down actually worked as promised. If the bailout does go through, and it seems that eventually it will, it looks like we will get taken for another ride, scared into submission by the elites who run the show with our tacit consent. I’m not an economist of course, I’m just an ordinary average guy, but from where I sit this reeks of the rich, both individuals as well as corporations and the financial industry that got us into this mess, getting richer while the rest of us foot the bill and fight over the crumbs left behind at the table.

Of course a prerequisite for government bailouts is big government. We used to have two political parties, one being the Democratic party that gave us somewhat sensible domestic policy, generally kept us out of the entangling alliances that our first commander-in-chief warned us about, and in return for this required that we accept bigger government, more interference and often higher taxes. The Republican party on the other hand, offered us mostly backward and knee jerk domestic and social policies, a hawkish foreign policy that promised peace through strength, or at least a boatload of bombing if that didn’t pan out, but that also offered us more personal liberty, less government interference, and more fiscal restraint. Of course if the issues had to do with reproductive rights or who we choose to fall in love with and marry, the whole personal liberty thing sort of fell by the wayside, but hey, at least they would keep our taxes low.

But now, all we have is a Democratic Party that along with the promise of big government gives us a half-hearted social policy full of sell-outs and unkept promises, on top of a hawkish foreign policy that promises to pull our troops out of Iraq, not so we can bring them home where they belong, but so we can send them to Afghanistan to fight another war in a region that has a long and proud history of resisting the infidel warrior, a war without any real aims other than the vague notion of fighting the terrorists, and one that doesn't offer great prospects for victory, let alone a good working definition of what exactly victory would be. On the other side of the coin, which is probably borrowed from China or one of the oil producing countries that are getting more and more of our wealth these days, is the Republican party, that now along with a poorly thought out and mostly ineffective social, domestic, and economic policy available, is just as guilty of government largesse as the other guys. Fiscal discipline has taken an extended sabattical and as usual, it is the peasants who will end up taking the biggest hit.

But not to despair, at least the baseball playoffs are upon us, or nearly upon us. I refuse to get fired up about the first round, not out of any principle but simply because they don’t fire me up, I have never been a fan of the wild card and the extended playoff format, it is the baseball equivalent of the Holiday Bowl, worth watching if your team is playing or you’ve got nothing better to do, but otherwise better off in highlight form. But once the real playoffs, aka the League Championship Series starts the going gets good. My picks since Memorial Day in late May, when I traditionally make them, have been the Angels v. Cubs in the Series, with the Angels winning it all. I’ll stick with that one, but I do have to say that the Dodgers come in as the hottest team, and the Red Sox come in not only as defending champs but also with the best starting rotation, so we shall see how it all plays out.

Regardless of how the bailout, the economic situation, or the playoffs pan out, October figures to be an action packed month. We’ve also got the presidential election kicking into high gear, so there should be plenty to chat about and to keep our minds working for the next 31 days. And isn’t that what it’s all about after all?