It is hard for me to access how bad Europe’s economy is but it is quiet often framed in a fairly negative light in the US media. For example 14% unemployment in France which is trending even higher levels of unemployment or I hear of mass demonstrations in Spain from all strata of society protesting austerity measures.

My personal experience is talking to a German businessman in my cab who told me there is already a brain drain in Spain of educated Spaniards showing up in Berlin, and I have met a group of 3 Spanish people in there late 20’s  who were educated and working in the information economy in San Francisco.

This fight is tentatively scheduled for 1-26-2013 in Los Angeles.  It will be for Andre Ward’s WBC and WBA Super middleweight title.

I would have to favor Ward in this who is a top pound for pound fighter, who is at his best weight of 168 pounds, and who has just cleaned out the the 168 pound division,  by beating Arthur Abraham, Mikkel Kessler, Bika, Carl Froch and a weight drained Chad Dawson.

Where as Pavlik’s best wins where about 4 years ago at middleweight 160 pounds, and Pavlik has fought a few club fighters and a fringe contender in his comeback from alcoholism and inactivity. That said I will be pulling for Pavlik in this fight , even if his chances of winning are remote.

      If you owned the US empire who would you rather have working for you? Mitt Romney or Barrack Obama.
    I would rather have Obama. Obama is more palatable to domestic and international populations as Obama carries out the work of empire.
    Obama mollifies the domestic population while he takes resources from them in the form of cutting  Social Security and medical care {see Obama care known as health care reform where you are forced to buy insurance ? go figure}These resources are then give to the Wall Street Bankers , and the Pentagon, while the military wages wars over resources , control of planet, and insuring the dollar as the reserve currency of the world through the pricing of oil in dollars.

 I would say the USA is in the lead of the main global powers right now which are the EU, China, and the USA.

The USA the Virgina Centric flavored empire, whose 4 of first 5 presidents where born in Virgina.  Those being George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe.

The Virgina midwifed Empire churns out dollars through the Federal Reserve Bank which sustain the system and the stock market.

As the working class which is increasingly Hispanic limps along , in it’s Costco*  reality working in the service economy for the corporate aristocracy.

*Costco is a warehouse type store, that is a pleasant and cost effective way to shop in the U.S. but it is without any frills.

When the pain of driving a cab is greater than the pleasure of driving a cab then I will consider changing jobs.

I am at that tipping point. The low pay, hard work, risk, bureaucratic corruption and injustices implemented by the city are out weighing the positive sides of cab driving for me.

to be continued….

Not written in stone but almost positive I will vote for a 3rd party in the upcoming presidential election.

Cab driving worse than Heroin addiction and sticker than fly paper.

The money you earn cab driving is enough to get a little food and pay a couple of bills.

Yet the amount of work is soul numbing. You are so tired after the amount of work you put in during a day of cab driving that it is difficult to think clearly and implement of plan of change.

A career change that is.

So every day you wake up drive the cab , get enough money to buy some  food to eat another year escapes your grasp.

Of course many drivers have an escape plan , go to college , become a musician etc, but few escape the trap of the cab.

After watching about 30 minutes of the US Presidential debates. It seemed to me that Romney was clearly better at arguing on that evening than Obama. Even if Romney was lying, Obama was unable to look like a winner in the debate. President Obama’s body language and energy seemed flat also.

That said just because you can argue better than someone doesn’t mean you should be President, and Obama theoretically represents my working class interests more than Romney although I suspect that both men being representatives of the very wealthy are all for cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to the bulk of the American people.

The whole political process is a bit of mystery to me as it seems the candidates promise everything but rarely do what they promise once in office.

**
On another front Gasoline has jumped to 4.75 a gallon here in Northern California and the price of my favorite pens has gone up .50 cents a piece, which is all indicative of inflation.

Regardless of the inflation thought the economy seems to be improving for the moment and that is a good thing.

I have been reading the book “Blood Meridian” by Cormac McCarthy. It is  a violent tale of the South Western Region of North America taking place in the 1840’s.

McCarthy is a fantastic writer almost more of a poet than a Novelist , creating fantastic violent imagery.

My one criticism is that McCarthy doesn’t use quotation marks and it is sometimes hard to know who is speaking in the dialogue. On the other hand it is a testament to his writing that I can follow most of the time who is speaking in the dialogue with out quotation marks, as I have to use McCarthy’s  queues  of context, logic and narrational rhythm to effortlessly follow along.

This is the first fiction book I have read of my own volition in about 5 years. I usually am reading about 2 non fiction books at a time.

Third world garbage dumps.
Poor people scavenging in the dumps.
Soldiers shooting at the human scavengers  as if the people were feral dogs,
the people are of the same ethnic group as the soldiers ,
really cousins at heart, soldiers work for the governments,
who work for the corporations,
 who create the economy
and consumer products that fill the garbage dump.

:Prose