So, I made a little deal with myself: If I couldn’t manage to come up with a personal budget—something official, using an Excel spreadsheet and shit—by the end of the day today, I would subject myself to a draconian across-the-board 2.4% reduction in personal expenditures. That’s right: “across-the-board,” meaning no negotiation and no room to maneuver, meaning I’ll have to start chewing…let’s see…24.4 pieces of nicotine gum a day instead of the usual 25, and drinking a mere 42.944 ounces of chocolatey protein shakes, and eating only 1.952 avocados…
I could go on, but you get the picture: a harsh and diminished life unworthy of the very appellation: Life! And to think, just a week ago I was fantasizing about what I could do with $750,000 in stolen campaign cash! This sure does hurt!
Some might suggest I could use my Friday evening to get the budget done, but that sounds difficult.
Hard to split avocados that way. Some folks just won’t get any.
BTW – Where, and how is Gunny?
Expat,
Exactly. Takes more time and money to make the cut than it does to just keep consuming the same amount.
Don’t know about Gunny. Assuming he’s very busy. (Would imagine others have some idea.)
Yeah, Bim, except of course it doesn’t really work like that. It’s not 2.4% across the board, because a lot of the budget is off limits. So in fact it’s 12 or 13% of certain defense budgets, and around 9% of other discretionary budgets, and it’s not spread over 12 months any more it’s spread over 7. So in other words it really is serious cuts. Which means layoffs. And because it’s across the board that means laying off people the country can’t spare as well as some maybe they could. People who, if they don’t show up to work, will stop other, non government employees from working, and stop private businesses from making money, so private employees will get laid off, too. And research won’t get done, and oversight, and pollution monitoring, and research gets called off when it’s half paid for, etc etc
It’s fucking stupid. And fucking expensive.
Time to agree on a compromise and pass a budget.
Agreed, Bluthner: not the same and it is stupid and expensive. Kind of an exercise in game theory, I suppose.