. Spinning .

Let’s say I agree that the money and wealth at the top 1 or 2% needs to be equally redistributed to the remainder of the populace. No matter if that money was ill-gotten or earned by hard work. Sounds good no?

Since I’m not in that top percentile, I’d make out well. And, that extra bonus money (since I certainly didn’t earn it) would be quite welcome and appreciated. Now, let’s look down the road, a generation beyond the great equalization of wealth.

I’d bet my entire windfall that in less than a decade, the shift in wealth would have already become evident. There would already be new billionaires, and there would be a large portion of society that had long lost every penny they’d been given. You see, when you win the lottery, you win money–not brains.

We are not really all born equal, nor are all able to overcome their obstacles and gain their desires, become educated, earn a good to great living, invent the latest new gizmo that benefits mankind. Nor will all born with the silver spoon manage to get much beyond toddling without losing the spoon.  This is the nature of man. Some folks have ambition, some have genetic predisposition to fuck up.

Soon the whole balance would once again reassert itself as a society. The haves would do better and better, while the have-nots would grumble and complain and blame everyone else but themselves. You can’t say that some have an unequal chance in life when you see the self made millionaires like a Bill Gates or an Oprah Winfrey or a Barack Obama who have found their own ways of using their talents to get ahead in a world where they weren’t marked for greatness.

I’m not rich because I’m not super intelligent, or super creative, or super silver-tongued and self-confident nor have the ambition to overcome my shortcomings. It’s my fault and my fault alone.

I often post the same thing on twitter and Facebook and did so with this:

Ever wonder what life would be like if it were the men’s movement of the sixties instead of the women’s? If men decided that the glory of raising children shouldn’t be for women only, quit their jobs and stayed home?

What’s interesting is what came out of it. On twitter, it went in the direction of certain college campus behavior and men hating women. On Facebook, it took off in the theme of women hating men. Oh the wonders of diversity of opinion!

I personally don’t think that men hate women or women hate men. It really has nothing to do with it, though there may be some resentment involved. Basically, I think it has more to do with self-image and projected image and perception.

But getting back to the original question. While one’s first thought would be, “You can’t do that because someone has to earn a living to support the family.” But look at the women’s movement away from the constraints of home and family to grant time for full time meaningful employment, and meaningful employment often means success-oriented with goals that might challenge any normal schedule and a job into much more than a 40-hour week. Didn’t anyone say, “You can’t do that because who’s going to raise the kids?” Or even watch the kids for that matter. Well that problem was solved with daycare that took care of infancy through age six when kindergarten is normally started. Solutions do manage to come up when someone wants something bad enough to make it work.

It’s an interesting question as a “what if?” and it no doubt would have had as large an impact on society as has the feminist movement of nearly fifty years ago.

Thought I’d outgrown naivete. Thought wisdom and patience had been acquired. Didn’t believe I could still be surprised.

While attempting to convert from COBRA coverage to an individual health insurance policy, I called to get a quote. $6000 a month, the girl said. I was outraged, even found it amusing before I figured yeah, she’s made a mistake. So I called back the next morning and spoke with someone else who quoted me, yes, $6000 a month.

I laughed. No, really. I asked her, “Weren’t you afraid to get back on the phone and tell me this?” She said it did seem a bit high. Plus, the coverage wasn’t as good as what we had and had a higher deductible. “That’s $72,000 a year,” I said. “Do you make $72,000 a year? And would you pay that for insurance?” which to me, is like “protection” money, not even a guaranteed service (in that it may not be used, as The Company truly hopes and prays).

All set to armor up and swing a magic sword of self-righteousness, I wondered why my husband didn’t seem surprised. Nor, aside from a few, many others. Then it dawned on me: While CIGNA is required by contract and law to not discriminate against me and my spouse by refusing coverage, it’s well within their methods to simply quote some exorbitant price tag. This, folks, is what I didn’t think they were capable of doing, even as I raged against the fee. Though of course, the laws being the laws, loopholes for worms are always included. They can pass a thousand-page bill that besides guidelines and earmarks and all kinds of goodies thrown in, don’t actually solve the problems at all.

There are other options, but I really should have started digging into this six months ago, not realizing quite how complicated it all gets. Group insurance to group insurance is one thing, but if you go to an individual policy, then try to get into a group, the HIPAA doesn’t cover you and you can be discriminated against legally for existing conditions.

Somehow, I’m not thrilled with paying taxes that will pay insurance for others, while I myself may need to do without.

And now, with a new perception of myself as less than Joan d’Arc taking on injustice, I find I must do further battle with the powers of government. Our property tax bill on a 33 year-old car went up 350% because of a new valuation.

You know, we’re all hurting, but somehow, I just wouldn’t think of screwing somebody else so they can hurt too and believe it would make me feel better.

Okay, so the new official garbage can was delivered within an hour of the pickup of the old by our regular drivers for twenty years (Hi guys!). Here it is:

It’s the Big Green Monster in the middle. On the right is Old Faithful, our dedicated garbage container for all these many years. Though garbage pickup is every Tuesday, there are times when I let it go for two weeks because it’s not full. It’s practically never more than half full on a weekly basis. (I don’t waste food or anything else.) Upon occasion I have a black plastic trash bag from the shop, maybe once a month. The small pails to the left? They’re our recycling buckets. I fill one up once a month; they pickup every other week. This will be replaced by a receptacle the same size as the new trash container, only it’ll be blue.

It’s true I’m resistive to change until I’m convinced it’s for the best. This move was touted as being the best, and I’m sure in many ways, for many residents it is. I don’t see how my elderly-with-bad-knees neighbor is going to get this thing down to the curb. I also don’t believe that one of the reasons was to enhance the beauty of the town but suspect that like much else, it was to level the field, to make us all the same, which is too close to those futuristic movies and TV shows I watched as a child.

And what about jobs? These will be picked up via a mechanical arm. That’s why they have to all be consistent. Meaning one guy per truck loses his job.

Enough about me; I’m waiting to see what my husband says when he can’t get the car into the garage.