Gary Stein The Sun Sentinel

November 18, 2012
Gary Stein
The Sun Sentinel

Big Stein,

What’s that? Somebody broke your heart? Somebody broke the previously totally sheltered Little Stein’s heart? I am shocked, shocked to learn of this.

I can say with 100% absolute metaphysical certitude that neither you nor the recently wizened Little Stein is Irish. That I know this is simply a manifestation of a thing known to a millennium of Gaels. What’s the sense of having an Irish heart unless you know it will be broken? Isn’t Ireland known as “the land of happy wars and sad love songs”?

As a Board Certified Life Coach I hereby proclaim a teachable moment. It could be a get knocked off your ass onto your ass while traveling to Damascus moment.

It is modern American Liberalism writ large.

See if you can follow this. The clarity of my Logic can be blinding. Whether it becomes an allegory or a metaphor is a matter about which honorable men may differ.

I always vote against bond issues. No exceptions. None. It makes no difference what good or bad the money will do. I no longer read them. Count me as a NO. The reason is simple: The question is in violation of Federal law.

If you buy a used car from someone wearing suede shoes with a color matching his silk shirt who speaks with forked tongue through teeth that once belonged to someone named Babar he must tell you how much the car will cost if you finance it through his company. The total cost of the loan includes, gulp, interest.

If he doesn’t and you have Jose Werewolf and/or his brother-in-law Dracula Rosencrantz on your side you are probably going to get the car for nothing. If neither was able to get their Starbucks Mega Blood Bank Eye-opener you may wind up with the business.

It’s where the rubber of the Rule of 78 meets the road covering your ass.

Not so with bond issues.

“Do you approve of borrowing $500,000,000 for 30 years?”
Yes or No

What is not on ballot is the cost of servicing a mortgage of $500,000,000 for 30 years. $500,000,000@5% for 30 years is $25,000,000 per year every year. At the end of 30 years the voters who approved the loan will have paid a total of $1,250,000,000 to whoever it was who lent it.

[Most voters forget that the interest on the loan is tax-free to the owner of the bonds. Would not fairness dictate that the owners of these bonds, most of whom are rich White guys, be made to pay their “fair share”?]

Exactly how many “Summers of Recovery” chock-a-block filled with “not so ready Shovel Ready jobs” will we need to pay down this marker? Nowhere is this made clear.

But wait. There’s more.

If you push #4 on the modern American Liberal play list you get – with just a hint of “Fanfare for the Common Man” or “Don’t Stop Talking About Tomorrow” in the background, depending on the demographics - someone telling you that we have to make “investments” in the future. Further, we hear that the children are our future. Thus, if it is for the children, how can any man’s hand be against it?

The Logic of the above demands that, as America just did, Santa Claus be elected.

In addition to a world class, spanking new, look at all the jobs we “created” arts center, we have a world class, spanking new, look at all the jobs we “created” tunnel. The crown jewel would have to be a world class, spanking new, look at all the jobs we “created” baseball stadium.

The crown jewel would have to be a world class, spanking new, look at all the jobs we “created” baseball stadium.

How about we build a dome over Miami/Dade county and air condition with solar power – Hello Solyndra! and – Hello Canute! – tidal power?

That way we could have a world class, spanking new, look at all the jobs we “created” booby hatch.

Was there no one in Miami/Dade County who could ask for the right financials?
The Bank of Nunzio and Vito, a bank known for specializing in unsecured loans, would have known where the deep pockets were. How many underpaid, hardworking public servants were on Loria’s Christmas is the 25th of every month list?

At some point, probably just after we finally reach the horizon, modern American Liberals tell us that we all will be farting through silk and that lambs will be begging to lie down with lions.

Loria, and in a fit of multiculturalism, qualifies as a lower case Madoff or Corzine. The first thing he saw when he got here was the upturned neck waiting for a down plunging ax As Hinnissy, the noted publican, said, “He seen his opportunities and he took’em”. For this we owe him a debt of gratitude. Some people know, genetically, the difference between the buttered side of the toast and the dry. Some people don’t.

Thank you sir. May I have another?

“You’re young. You’ll get over it” is sound advice for a suitor unaccustomed to rejection. The shattering of Little Stein fills me with much sorrow. I will send via the good old, nothing world class or spanking new, look at how many jobs we’ve “created” United States Postal Service something that may assuage his pain.

Terra incognita. Pass it on at your peril.

I can’t wait for the Dolphins to say that, absent a gazillion dollars from the public, the world will end not with a whimper but with a very large bang.



KEVIN SMITH
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET