Turdwashing

America took its biggest wrong turn when people were encouraged to start taking pride in their paychecks instead of their work.

I've just spent an hour or more of my life trying to get the shifting to work on a display-model Wal-Mart Schwein that was left out in the rain and then scraped off on a sucker for "a great sale price." This is after I had to scrap the adjustable stem because someone at some point graunched down on the stem pivot bolts hard enough to weld them in place and strip out the bolt heads.

As I ran the bike through the gears, the water trapped inside the rear rim spritzed me in a way that would have been pleasant on this rather warm day, except I can't vouch for the purity of the water after its sojourn inside the wheel.

This pride in money takes its most malignant form when the financial sector eclipses the manufacturing sector. Investment income does not depend on bringing better products and services to market, only on tricks with math that spin off a few percentage points of graft to split up among the freebooters looting American business. They've got a few years to pillage before they have to face the fact that they actually need a fair number of the "the little people" to do well in order for their world to survive. I'll be deep in the shit well before then. Meanwhile I will be here, bailing the frigging Titanic with a teacup until the ocean claims me.