According To Mike

Who am I?

I am "Joe Citizen" and I have been drinking the Kool-Aid like everyone else. This blog is meant to be a collection of ideas, not so much rants, that I think would restructure the system to work for us in an efficient and not-as-bonecrushing manner.

I am going to apologize, again, because this winds up being a bit more of a rant than anything else. It also gets a little off topic, and I plan on publishing dedicated pages for each sub-topic that deserves one. When I get time to write in a somewhat logical manner, I will try to attack each one. Now back to the original goal here...

First off, I'm not a deadbeat.

In my day job, my "career path" has me setup to make the appropriate amount of money to be a sole benefactor in a home, if needed. I have spent the past ten years working for this large, successful, hugely profitable corporation. My stock options from being hired ten years ago expired with a net value of zero. In a normally growing economy and stock market, those would have been worth probably $15,000 (before taxes) over the course of that time. I got zero.

Not only do I have the "career" but I have two side businesses. Because of the economy, I've had to adjust my rates to be competitive. For some of my clients, I am their Jack of All Trades, I am their primary technical resource. Without me, they'd have a less-skilled person managing the work, possibly costing them business and their time.

I am not bragging, I am explaining the situation. I am a very skilled and competent worker. Getting work is not difficult for me. Sometimes I interview for contracts or jobs with no intention on actually taking them, or not caring about the outcome. Most of the time, I am offered the position. However, due to the market rates, the influx of college-educated workers without job opportunities, and the obsession with outsourcing, I've had to make those rate concessions, as something is better than nothing.

And it begins...

A couple years ago I had money in the bank, and I was in the right position to move on to the next stage in the "American Dream" - home ownership. After shopping around, I found a place which was in my price range, it appraised higher than I purchased it for instantly, everything seemed great. Fast forward to now, and every day I wake up to the harsh reality.

The home I reside in, which I did not "overextend" myself with originally, is worth approximately 64% of it's value right now (if I was even able to sell it for that.) It would take years of record property gains to be able to even break even. Our Parents provide their opinion and keep telling us that "property values always go up" - which has been the case their entire lives and for the most part, my entire life as well. However, my situation right now is being stuck in a condo that was supposed to be a short-term equity building investment to eventually jump off to a detached home, and I see no end in sight. The same houses that I couldn't afford before are now available at the price I paid for my condo. I don't have an amazing amount of money available to me to sell this one for a loss, or pick up a second property and default on this one. At the moment, I have no options.

Being the little guy, I don't get any sort of amazing "bailout" packages from the government. In fact, the more money I make on my side jobs, the more the IRS takes from me. Are they doing any extra work for me? No. I am the one putting in the effort, they are doing the exact same thing for me, regardless of my extra-cirricular income. No matter how hard I work, they will take 30%+ of whatever I make. This is bullshit in it's purest form. They make enough from me as an individual from my day job, anything extra I am able to make should be able to go towards my own life, not to line the pockets of politicians who spend months wasting time, money and don't act on behalf of my interests.

What's the problem?

Anyone in generation X or Y has lived in an exciting time. Technology and the Internet has advanced and changed how we get information, how we communicate, and is constantly changing and growing. One could say it's a great time to be alive.

However, in the background of all of this has been an era of extreme corruption. The stock market isn't doing anything amazing. The government gave a free pass to multiple industries that were too greedy but "too big to fail." Home foreclosures are through the roof. People are maxing out their credit cards. Nobody at the Joe Citizen level seems to be able to get a break.

We are all subject to the laws, rules, or otherwise unspoken truths of living in the United States of America. While there are people who may disagree or cite some loopholes, for all intents and purposes, we're all part of the same system.

This system demands that:

• We all pay taxes (income, property, and in most states, sales) - I've published my thoughts on taxation here.
• We all are subject to the four "credit bereaus" (now coined "Consumer Reporting Agency") - see my article here.
• We are given the choice to vote
  • Democracy is "majority rule" - right? Wrong. Quick example? The presidential race is won through the Electoral College, not through the majority of the popular vote.
  • Once a politician is elected, there is no obligation to deliver on the promises during the campaign. Add to that the pointless nature of the Two-party system, and you have the recipe for an inefficient, irresponsible and unrepresentative government.
  • Want more of my thoughts about our elected officials?

What can we do?

Past attempts to "lash out" at the government and the system have proven to be ineffective. Remember Joseph Stack, the guy who flew the plane into the IRS building? He was in the headlines for a few days, had a shockingly similar manifesto to the world explaining how he's been a slave to the system and has done everything he can personally to advance and can't seem to catch a break. He was able to get national coverage and strike a literal hit to the IRS - but nothing changed. The only people who remember that event now are his family and friends and people like me, and some employees of the IRS who have no decision-making powers either.

We do have the constitutionally protected right to protest. When's the last time a protest changed anything?

We could stop paying taxes, and give ourselves a bit of a financial break. Until the IRS catches up to us, and we wind up with large fines or jail time. Even celebrities can't escape that.

We could write our congressman or senator. Again, when was the last time that was able to change anything?

We do have some people in government who try to push the envelope and push for accountability and still seem to represent Joe Citizen. For example, this video is amazing - Alan Grayson asks hard questions point blank, gets a bunch of bullshit back, and nothing changes. What happened to Alan Grayson this last election? He was voted out.

What CAN we do?

Well, currently I'm tapped out of ideas. If an actual elected representative who exposes corruption directly to his counterparts, to the public, and is even sitting on Youtube for anyone in the country to see can't make anything stick, I don't have any sensible plans right now. Even illegal, immoral, insane or illogical ideas won't even make a difference, in my opinion.

There is simply no accountability when it gets to that level, all of us are just ants going about our lives - which for the most part, typically just "works" - but when you hit these hard times and your options are limited, that's when we need this power we've elected to represent our interests to enact certain things to help us out. I consider our taxes are a form of insurance, not just funding, for anything current and/or future that we as the people who elect the representatives who decide how the money gets routed and the people providing the funds decide on.

Currently I consider the government, at the macro level, to be in violation of the "taxation without representation" statement. Sure, Obama has passed a lot of acts, laws, etc. Probably more than Bush did in his eight years. When it comes to Joe Citizen, however, how does this affect most of us?

• Have we seen anything cut that would make a significant impact to our tax bottom line?
• Have we seen equivalent bailouts for homeowners who are horribly underwater? Yeah, they tried putting some plans in place, but hardly anyone has benefited from it. You want to make a difference? Instead of giving trillions in bailouts to corrupt banks, how about you force price-fix everyone's mortgage and normalize the market. The banks won't have to face loan defaults, as people would be able to afford, buy and sell property like normal, not on inflated prices.

In my opinion, they threw money at the wrong places. Of course, I am not an economist, there are PhD level scholars and scientific approaches to how to fix these issues, and they may have made what they considered to be the best choice. I believe it was the best choice with their own interests (or corporate/"big boy" interests) in mind and figuring out a way to keep them protected while selling us on why this is a "good thing."