The scarcity of things

It is Monday, and I have a case of blahs, with a chaser of nothings. I’m feeling better, but not quite my spry self. Tomorrow I’ll be just fine.

So today is slow. Tomorrow’s class has been prepared. I’m considering this paper I must finish in the next week. Things are coming along smartly. Or so I’m telling myself. If I turn around counter-clockwise I get the opposite effect. It is that time of the semester.

I have this: President Obama, you might have heard, wants to freeze the salaries of federal employees for two years. This proposal has pleased Republicans, since it is one of their thinner ideas. The following is a list of the people who are upset by the president’s suggestion: People who are serious about budget problems.

The Economic Policy Institute calls it “chump change.”

Ed Morrissey estimates the total is around five billion dollars in savings over two years, or roughly 0.3% of the $1.3 trillion deficit from a single year in Obama’s budget. This symbolic piece of symbolism is the thinnest of tokens.

Of course the plan has also upset the federal workers who have so skillfully listened to their own rhetoric that they think they get paid less than their private sector counterparts.

Now imagine if they’d been asked to make a real sacrifice.

On this day in 1942 rationing of coffee began. (Odd coincidence of absolutely no significance, no?)

Rationing was announced a month early. Panic began. Hoarding took place. Prices soared. A lucrative black market grew around the beloved bean. Sugar and milk were also rationed.

After eight months the agony was over. The coffee ration ended in July of 1943. Sugar was still carefully measured until 1947.

Now imagine if Obama had walked out to say “We’re cutting back federal employee’s coffee intake by 35 percent because of health care costs, manpower hours and because Yes We Can!”

How do you think that would go over?

(Told you I had nothing.)

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