That’s not really much of an exaggeration either.  Since the beginning of the year I have a personal rate of return of -40%, effectively wiping out every contribution that has been made to it in the last 2.5 years.

Thank God the economy is strong, my friends.

I think handing Wall Street (or anybody for that matter) $700 billion is just plain stupid.  Taking the risk out of financial markets removes the only downside to making stupid loans at historically low rates.  And it doesn’t do a single thing to stop the foreclosures that are wreaking havoc on our country.

That having been said, I am now in the market for a house.  The more foreclosures, the better for me and my family, as it increases the supply and lowers the price of the available houses.  A giddy and cash-flush financial market will mean low rates on new mortgages.  Win-win for me and mine.

For perhaps the first time in my life, what is good for America and middle-class Americans, at least in the short term, isn’t in my best interest.

So, to all the Congress critters out there, if you are gonna do something stupid, do something stupid for me.

I show this because I think that many people fall in love (or hate) with a word while forgetting what it actually means.  Republicans have fallen in love with the word “deregulate” without understanding what happens when you actually deregulate something.  By regulating commerce, you take out some of the volatility of a market.  Sure, you limit the number of outrageous gains that can be made in an unregulated environment, but you also get rid of the downswings that end in market crashes (and massive taxpayer bailouts).  Regulation is not a bad thing, per se.  Inept or incompetent regulation is bad, of course, but that’s why you should elect smart people to positions of oversight.  Regulation of industries and markets are not the problem. It’s the people who are too lazy, too stupid or too greedy to engage in the oversight properly that are the problem.

It would take a fool or a madman to argue that the regulations that require infant formula to be of a certain quality are bad.  Or that the regulations that removed lead from paint and gas are not needed.  Those are situations that volatility is unacceptable, it can’t be good one day and bad the next, because the bad makes people die. 

Taking the volatility out of the financial markets is comparable in my opinion.  Lives and livelihoods depend on stability in these markets.  If that means Joe Billionaire can’t get a 400 million dollar bonus, I can live with that.

Regulation is not a bad thing.  Stupid regulators are a bad thing.  Elect smart people and your problem is solved.

Sigh.

I walk into the cafeteria and the first thing I see are these scrumptious looking brownies. They look exactly like the brownies that Marilyn cooks and, man,�are those some delicious brownies. I pick one up and head to the cashier.

Just so happens that the cashier is eating one as I get up there.

“There aren’t any nuts in these, are there?”

She shakes her head no. I pay my little dollar, get my change and sit down to enjoy this delightful looking brownie.

I take a bite and think, hmm, this has an odd texture. I swallow the morsel just as I realize that the brownie didn’t have an odd texture. It was my tongue. It was already starting to swell from the layer of peanut butter in the middle of the brownie.

Ahhh, nuts.

I’m not just a little allergic to peanuts. I’m violently allergic to them. Always have been.

I spit out what I can, head immediately to the bathroom to wash my mouth out and spit out anything remaining. I then go straight to my crew leader to tell him that I was in trouble and needed medical attention.

I head down to medical and talk the security guard into giving me some Benadryl to suppress the histamine reaction. He looked at me a little askance because I think he believed that it was just for sinus problems. Doesn’t matter, though, he gave it to me.

We discussed sending me to the ER and I was thinking that I could tough it out. Five or ten minutes later, my tongue had gone back down and I felt bad, but not imperiled. The security guard and my crew leader talked me into chilling out a bit longer just to see. About 10 minutes after that, I started wheezing and coughing and my nose started running. I changed my mind at that point and told them that I should probably go to the ER.

Ben, a crew leader from Curing, drove me to the ER and I was admitted promptly.

They put an IV into my arm without an actual IV. It was just the thing the IV attaches to.

Then they forgot all about me. I sat there, thinking that someone was gonna be right there. For an hour. At that point my breathing had gotten to a whistling wheeze and I felt a little light-headed. I got up and walked to the nurses station and informed one of them that I was having a hard time breathing.

Things happened quick after that. A doctor saw me about a minute later, and another minute after that the nurse comes into the room with several syringe things that fit into the IV hookup they had implanted in me.

She told me what each one was before she shot them into my IV, but really all I heard was the first and part of the second. Benadryl was the first one (HA, I knew I was right about that) and the second was a steriod. “Steroid” was the only word I heard because my head was already spinning. My breathing became easier instantly.

Have you ever gotten so drunk that when you laid down on the bed and closed your eyes the world seemed like it was spinning? Try that sober. With your eyes open.

The nurse sat me up all the way and I immediately clutched my stomach.

“Are you feeling sick?”

All I could do was nod. If I had unclenched my jaw, it would’ve been all over.

She rushed out of the room and came back quickly with one of those little pink plastic trays they use for everything in hospitals. I unclenched my jaw.

I threw up everything. Repeatedly. I threw up my knees.

Since work had begun that night, I had eaten 2 pickled sausages that I had bought from the gas station, 2 hot dogs, some potato chips, a peach, plenty of Diet Mountain Dew, a small bite of brownie and a half dozen cinnamon breath mints. Most of it was still there. Man, what a smell.

The nurse kept repeating, “I’m sorry”, over and over again. I guess for being a party to my regurgitation. All I could think was “Thank you”, over and over again. I could breathe. Between heaves, of course, but breathing nonetheless. And puke breath is better than no breath at all, I say.

The next couple of hours were very boring in comparison to that. I passed in and out of consciousness as the chemical combo they shot in me had my head wrong but, again, my breathing right.

Ben came and picked me back up and got me back to the plant at about 6 a.m. My shift doesn’t end until 7:15 a.m., so I went back to my machine for the last hour. Heck with it, why not? I needed some more time for the shakes to go away before I got on the road.

I call my lovely wife and tell her the story on the way home and get to the house grateful that the night is finally over.

As I’m getting ready for bed I take all the little bits of paper and releases and whatnot that I got from the hospital and look over them. I find the one that has the post-discharge instructions on it, guess what it says.

“Stay away from peanuts”.

Thanks, Doc. Wish I had thought of that.

Ick.

I think I can, I think I can.

The Republicans in Congress loaded down the minimum wage hike so much that it got “derailed”, as they put it here.

Then to top it off, 28 Republican Senators, including both of the doofuses (doofi?) that represent the great state of South Carolina, sponsored a bill to completely abolish the federal minimum wage. Because, you know, the working poor just aren’t poor enough.

The War on Workers is in full swing and the Republicans are staging yet another surge. The only difference between this war and all their others is that this is the only one that they are winning.

These people sicken me.