Random Thoughts...

...after a bowl of ice cream with the kids.

So the Ilitch family is getting a deal with Detroit for land for a new arena and other developments.  It's quite a deal, too, from what I gather.  A likely $84 million tax bill has been bargained down to $6.  But, of course, the city and businessmen tout the economic benefits of such, frankly, corporate welfare.  If the arena and surrounding development is such a good idea, that is, will bring a lot of money to the Ilitches, why don't the Ilitches finance it?  Lord knows that they have enough money.  But study after study, report after report, show that the net gain for such deals is minimal, if any net gain at all!  If the deals for Joe Louis, Tiger Stadium, and where the Lions play (I forget the name) are so good for the city, where are the financial gains?  That is, why is the city of Detroit still in such a hole?  I guess it's another example of "Yell first and yell loudest!"  I hope I'm wrong......

In eleven months we'll elect a governor, returning the incumbent or installing a new one.  Talk about a Hobson's Choice!  It's a choice, yet again, of a Republican I don't think should be governor and a Democrat who I don't think should be governor.  The current governor, it will be claimed, has turned around the state of Michigan, with numbers outpacing those nationally.  I think that's wrong and that the Republicans will misstate the results of the Snyder efforts.  Michigan is better, marginally, than it was three years ago, but only marginally.  And much of that economic success isn't due to the governor's programs, but to the auto makers rebates and low interest loans for buying and leasing.  Of course, there is also the underhanded way much of the governor's agenda was passed by the Republicans in the state legislature.  If any of the state Republicans were critical of the way, say, ObamaCare was passed by the Democrats in DC, then they'd better be equally critical of what happened in Lansing.  But, perhaps hypocrisy in politics is the norm, hardly a characteristic of which to be ashamed, as if there's any sense of shame anywhere anyway.  And the Democrat, Schauer, seems like a typical Democrat.  He thinks the government is the answer to everything, that is, as the Temptations once sang, "More taxes will solve everything."  I don't think I can vote for either one......

A columnist in the newspaper this AM announced that ObamaCare "is doomed."  Now, this guy is a big, big supporter of Obama and ObamaCare.  And he begins to take it apart, often correctly identifying the flaws inherent in the law.  And, without being critical, he also notes how the President is breaking the law by allowing some people to disobey it--but, that's OK, it's Obama. Then the guy ends by blaming the whole disaster, not on the law, so hastily and blindly passed, so clumsily and ineptly authored, not on Obama and the Congressional Democrats who had no idea what was in it (At least I hope they had no idea because, if they did, they are far more stupid than I think they are.).  No, he blames the failure on those who tried to subvert it from the go, although they had no real power to do so--the Republicans were outnumbered.  Yep, it's the opponents of the law and their lack of effort to enact it which doomed the law.  Nowhere does the guy mention that, always, a majority of Americans were opposed to it.  Now that number is in excess of 70% against it.  Nope, the problem wasn't the Democrats who passed it despite the unpopularity of the bill.  And that they passed it under nefarious methods.  Nope, it wasn't that it is logically unsustainable, dependent on forcing people who don't want or need the more expensive health care to buy it.  If the young, healthy people don't pay the big premiums, ObamaCare falls flat on its face.  The insurers can't afford to pay the bills of the chronically ill, of those who opt not to take care of themselves, to lead healthy lifestyles if the healthy people don't pay for the others.  Nope, it wasn't that people are, unconstitutionally (regardless of the idiotic opinion of Justice Roberts and his colleagues), forced to buy a product they may or may not want.  Nope it wasn't any of that.  It was the opponents of all this stuff.  Now, there's some great logic!  It makes one wonder who picks these column writers.

And what's the deal with this Duck Dynasty guy?  A lot of people are up in arms over his firing.  At least I guess he was dismissed.  Oh, what about this guy's freedom of speech, his freedom of religion?  Hey, nobody stopped him from speaking--he spoke.  And his speech had consequences.  His network (and I don't know what it is because I've never seen the show and don't plan to see it) then exercised its freedom by firing the guy.  Why does the Duck guy have freedoms, but the station/network doesn't?  He can believe, he can say what he wants.  Then he has to pay the consequences if there are any.  I don't have to agree with what the guy says and believes and I don't.  I, too, can exercise my freedoms by not watching, by boycotting the networks' sponsors, etc.  That's how freedoms work.