So off I go to say "How do I feel about not being plugged-in with the Ticker so much?"
Yes, there will be some articles. I might even approve comments every now and then. Don't be surprised if yours stays queued for a while -- hours or even a day or two. Its not that I don't know its there -- well, actually, I might intentionally not know, having shut off the notifications, which I have done.
Will I return to what I was doing before in that regard?
I don't know.
That depends on how I feel.
Feelings before facts, right? That's how everyone else is. Why shouldn't I go fishing -- for real? Or go hike the AT -- for real.
Or just sit and smoke a big fat stogie while sipping whiskey?
After all nobody seems to want to actually do anything to make anything better. The only questions I get are requests for how to escape this on one's own (by pushing a button on a computer to buy, sell, go long or short this or that), not get off one's ass. Never mind that such a request is in fact a request for a way to screw everyone else, even if only by pennies, so "you get yours."
It is a fact that if you know five neighbors one of them screwed you, on average, over the last three years and that you still consider him or her "neighbor" is also fact. That roughly two million illegals have streamed over our border and nobody has done a thing to stop it is also fact. That all this, plus the screaming about this politician or that, while inflation was caused by all on both sides of the aisle and rather than drag them all out of office by their hair for refusing to put a stop to it what you want to know is how you get your next $600/wk check to so you can drink more beer.
Never mind the fiscal condition of the nation. One side screams "entitlements!" while the other screams "nobody is illegal and everyone deserves whatever they want."
There is not one Senator or Representative who will stand and state, on the floor and repeat it at every opportunity to take their two minutes: "All exponential expansions end either due to a decision or collapse. We cannot spend more than we take in via taxes in perpetuity, yet we are. The issue isn't entitlements it is scams, price-fixing, fraud, knowingly-false promises and even selling positions, goods and services designed only to addict or even directly screw the other party. The latter is and has been a felony for over 100 years, yet nobody on either side of the aisle will prosecute. This all must end right here, right now and until it does I will not vote to advance anything - not on the floor and not in committee."
Social Security is not the problem and in fact last fiscal ran a small cash surplus. Medicare and Medicaid are the problem and they, along with all the other "gimmes" that inevitably wind up being scammed off and made 10x as expensive as they should be, must have the scamming terminated with whatever level of prejudice is required.
No Representative or Senator gives this speech because you not only won't insist at every opportunity and even go after in every lawful and peaceful way those who are deliberately engineering and acting on policies that will destroy both you and the economy you demand the opposite.
Tell me, how many of you have demanded your Representative and two Senators place the military on the border and treat the influx of illegal crossers as an invasion, shutting down all passage of bills and other Congressional activity until the Executive does exactly that and implements 100% E-Verify, ejecting all illegal aliens already here? Oh yes, the so-called "Conservatives" have, several times, placed 100% E-Verify in a bill but every single time they've pulled it rather than insist it pass to get anything else, yet that IS within their power to do. How many of you have demanded all the scams and frauds in the medical system, including that ruled illegal under 15 USC Chapter 1 forty years ago, be met with immediate indictment, prosecution and imprisonment? I have, publicly and repeatedly for over a decade and been raising hell about it for more than two decades. Have you? Or is it only a problem when the invading mass of people show up in your city and start taking whatever they want? Is that not what an invading army does? Do you only complain when you get hurt and need a physician -- and get personally screwed with a bill ten or even one hundred times that someone else pays, or when you're prescribed a drug that is one hundred times as expensive as the same drug, made in the same factory, sold in Europe.
WELL?
I get it, people go along to get along.
But every now and then I have to look at the record, along with the over 15,500 articles I've written (not counting replies and discussions) since 2007 and ask: What has come of all the put-in effort, other than a bunch of worn-out keyboards?
After all there's only 24 hours in a day, and now matter what I do, and how much money I have (or not) I can't get a single one of the hours I spend doing this -- and its a fairly significant investment in time and effort, for which I expect and earn basically nothing in terms of money -- back.
I'm going to spend some of them doing something else since, at a certain point, you have to wonder if you really are tilting at windmills.