As Madeleine Albright might say,Who has the biggest cojones? That is what it is all about.

Five fifteen in the morning.   My neighbor's door opens and shuts on her way to the hospital dietary where she works. Her car cranks up the motor. She pulls away. She is lucky.   Unlike the people portrayed by Linh Dinh in his blogspot, or in his Postards from the End of America, (or even many of the people in this very neighborhood, this very block, or in anywhere USA) she has a job. She is lucky. Even when   her work hours have been reduced; and,   a number of her co-workers have been laid-off, and she has to add to her work some of the labor of the job vacated by those who were let go. Even when she works less hours, for less pay, for more work, she is lucky. Even when her husband not so long ago relocated to one of the Northwestern States to keep a job and income coming in   to support the family, she is lucky; she tells me the economy is improving.     

I am speechless. I don't know where she sees the improvement. Whole rows of storefront on her way to work and back are empty. I know because I pass by them every day on my way to the park, or the intracoastal.

Any new construction or new business opening up along the way of those empty store fronts is without fail a new bank popping up like wild mushrooms. You know, the kind that has you saying, What? When? How?

A bank?

Two?

Now, Three new banks along the way?

  Who has money to open up a new account in a new bank? How come banks are popping up all over the place when there are so many people who are jobless and unemployed? I don't get it and I don't understand it. Who is financing these banks?

I am retired now, so at this point I don't have to worry about a job for myself.

  Or, perhaps, I do.

The way health insurance premiums keep going    up (This month I got a notice from my insurance company that starting January 2014 my prescription drug coverage is going up $50. Every month; that in this new coverage my co-pay for certain medications will also go up, and certain other medications will not at all be covered by my prescription drug plan")

  And, hey, I thought my coverage for a prescription drug plan was expensive but not all that bad. Now I don't think so anymore.

  Anyhow, should I need to get a job to add to my retirement income, what hope would I, a retiree, have of getting a job when half the world out there is also looking for a job--when there are no jobs to be had, by them, or me, or anyone else, when work hours are being cut, and workers are being laid off.

I also know that my insurance plan to cover the 20% not covered by Medicare is going to go up, although, I don't know yet how much it is going to go up by.

As Obama and Boehner continue with their power struggle, I wonder, what will happen to all of us. Whatever patch up they agree upon is surely one that is going to benefit the wealthy, the corporations, does who are not on a fixed income, in need of Medicare, or social security or any other government assistance program.

Obama talks about "sacrifices" for the good of the country. Fidel Castro did too. Obama is no leftist. He is a rightist. He is sacrificing the country for the good of the rich.

In a comment I posted on Michael payne's article, Standing on the Deck of the USS Titanic, Fearing The Worst is About to Happen,   I posted the following comment:

"["], I've been thinking about this shutdown; about the fact that some of us may not receive our social security checks, about what will happen to Medicare.

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