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I'm very pressed for time today, so bear with me.

You have probably already seen this story from a week or two ago about David Jungerman, the brilliant Missouri farmer who put up a billboard on his property stating "Are you a Producer or Parasite? Democrats – Party of the Parasites." Thirty seconds of public records searching later, it was revealed that Mr. Jungerman has received well over $1,000,000 in farm subsidy checks since 1995. Cue the sad trombone.

Crop subsidies are different, he said. When crop prices dip below a certain point, the federal government makes up the difference with a subsidy payment.

“That’s just my money coming back to me,” Jungerman, 72, said Monday. “I pay a lot in taxes. I’m not a parasite."

Ah. Well now it is clear that you are not a hypocrite.

Assuming you've heard this story already, your assignment for today is to read the comments from the KC Star (the nearest major media outlet, and thus the one giving this story the most time).

It's obvious that this story has snark value on its face – Ha ha, here's another totally hypocritical old teabagger – but just look at the number of people defending him and the intense intellectual contortions in which they must engage to do so (unsuccessfully). Yes, the number of people criticizing him outnumbers those defending him. But the idea that anyone would fail to understand why this person is an idiot is troubling, let alone 30 to 40 percent of the comments.

This, to use an overused phrase, is what is wrong with America. The country, not to mention Congress, is just riddled with people like this. Anything the government does that benefits me is necessary and right. Anything the government does that does not benefit me is pork, waste, unconstitutional, and/or cause to hoard firearms and threaten armed revolution. The logic really is that simple, which is to say it really is that stupid. That, in 25 words or one picture of an idiot from Missouri, is what ails us. There is no way for our politics to make sense if any non-negligible portion of the voting public holds beliefs this contradictory and flat-out stupid.

(BONUS: "He’s a staunch believer in personal responsibility. In 1990, he and his daughter confronted four teens they caught fishing in a pond on their Raytown land. The boys called them names and threatened them, Jungerman said, and one spit on Jungerman’s daughter. Jungerman pulled a snub-nosed .38-caliber and held them until police arrived." Awesome!)

I don't relish being That Guy who throws a wet blanket over delightful holiday traditions, but as I sat through the fireworks at the local park on Sunday night I could not help but wonder why in the hell any town or city in America was having fireworks this year. Aren't we all broke? Like, laying people off and closing schools broke?

My current city of about 100,000 is as broke as any other similarly sized urban area in the country, if not moreso. The average fireworks show for a place of this size costs anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000 depending on the level of extravagance. For governments preaching fiscal austerity, belt tightening, and "tough decisions" this seems like a frivolous expense. Chicago raised a lot of ire by canceling its massive Grant Park fireworks show in 2010. While I've attended that event many times and gotten quite a bit of enjoyment out of it, it is the right thing to do in one of the most fiscally strapped cities in the country. How can $1.5 million be justified for fireworks when they can barely keep the schools open?

The political rhetoric of "tough choices" is very different from the reality. Cutting pensions, benefits, and salaries of government employees or slashing budgets for education is easy. Most people don't notice the effects of those cuts in their daily lives. The real tough choices are the ones people will notice – tax hikes and canceled services. And even though fireworks shows are hardly on the same level as things like policing, street repair, or garbage collection, they all have one thing in common: people will notice that they are gone. So it appears that here in Georgia, as in most of America, the elected officials would rather blow money on something totally unnecessary than risk canceling the circuses and having to explain to the half-conscious herd what "We are completely broke" means. Better to just make up the difference by cutting something Cletus the Teabagger won't notice. You know, something like the public library.

I could not devise a way to combine these two items so today will be a rare post in Standard Blog Style, i.e. a buffet of unrelated links.

1. From Mike, tangential to Tuesday's gun post: Legislation ("Supported by the National Rifle Association!!") has been introduced in the House to exempt guns from bankruptcy proceedings. I have to give them credit for putting some thought into the still-ludicrous rationale; allowing banks to repossess our guns would deprive us of our (newly extant) God-given right to protect ourselves. I support this legislation. Sure, they can take your home, your car, your life savings, and everything you've ever worked for in your life, but JP Morgan will be legally required to leave you a fair chance to blow your brains out, start a criminal career, or murder a family member under the stress of your disintegrating lifestyle. Congress is always looking out for the little guy.

2. Confederate Yankee has long been one of the dumbest sources of misspelled, grammatically tortured right wing spittle on the interwebs, but the guy managed to top himself with his musings on the Senate proposal to extend unemployment benefits:

(prominent liberal bloggers) moan and wail because it appears a Republican filibuster may finally end the unending unemployment gravy train…The filibuster has support because Republicans and Nelson understand that you can't keep plunging the country further into debt and expect to climb out of a recession. By stopping unemployment benefits, the Senate will force those lazy Americans enjoying "funemployment" to get off their backsides and get back to work.

I was going to FJM this, but it is some new, advanced kind of rhetorical technology. It is self-mocking. Let's try to think of all of the things that are more fun than being unemployed and, for the rare unemployed people who qualify, reaping poverty-level financial benefits for a couple of months. This won't take long because the correct answer is NOTHING. Nothing is more fun than Funemployment!!

Read the whole thing if you like bad arguments. It is the fucking Comstock Lode of anecdotal evidence.

Grab some stickers. Papa needs a new pair of everything. These are perfect for your laptop, bumper, guitar case, locker, bike helmet, front door (keep the Jehovah's Witnesses away), bong, or forehead. In the absence of clothing, one or more stickers can be placed hastily over your genitals. Coffee mugs coming soon. You people aren't going to leave me with a giant box of unsold coffee mugs, are you? I'm thinking you are.

3" x 5" stickers on heavy white vinyl – $3.50 (shipping included, unless it's outside of the U.S.)

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Real post soon. But not now.

I'm going to dispense with the foreplay today and get directly to the point on account of a Stanley Cup hangover. That is not what it sounds like, being neither a literal hangover (no alcohol was involved) or juvenile slang for some kind of unlikely sex act. It is simply the lack of energy one feels after four hours of emotionally charged playoff hockey.

So the Baby Boomers, the generation that brought us Social Security privatization and phasing out the few pension plans they didn't bankrupt, love them some 401(k)s. Saving for retirement isn't the government's business or employers' responsibility. We'll all save for our own retirements and our golden years will be full of vacations and luxury cars and cruises and the extra-swanky $14.99 buffet at the Golden Nugget. That sounds swell.

Unfortunately most Americans earn dick, hence even at 10-15% of their income 401(k)s or other similar retirement plans accumulate precious little savings. The average middle class couple needs a cool million dollars to retire comfortably, assuming one lives for 20 more years after retiring, although millions of retirees obviously get by on far less and will continue to do so. Is anyone actually saving that much?

According to this very thorough report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, the average 401(k) plan is valued at around $80,000. The median value is less than $60,000. So more than half of Americans who are engaged in these pre-tax withholding savings plans have accumulated barely enough to last a few years in retirement. They'll still be living off Social Security, in essence, unless they are lucky enough to have a pension that isn't bankrupt.

True, mean/median aren't great statistics here because many young people with 401(k)s haven't had the time to accumulate a decent balance. But note (p. 12) the average balance for individuals over 60 who have had a 401(k) for more than thirty years: $179,573. Sure, that's a nice piece of change, but when you start doing the math it doesn't amount to much over the 15-20 years most people expect/hope to live in retirement. Given that the $180,000 figure is an average and thus distorted by individuals with very large accounts, we can safely assume that the majority of plan holders have far less saved. Even if people are contributing the recommended 15% of their earnings into a 401(k) (and it is reasonable to doubt that many are) the problem with this grand design is that 15% of not much is…not much.

In short, people who are retiring in the next ten years can talk all they want about "saving for retirement" but the fact remains that the majority of them would be quite screwed without employee pension plans and/or Social Security. And it's not simply a question of needing more time to let the savings add up – even over 30+ years it's unlikely that most working Americans can save enough in this kind of scheme to continue their working-age lifestyle into a retirement of any appreciable length. Plus, unlike pensions, 401(k)s have that added benefit of forcing people to put off retirement for a few years until the stock market isn't in the tank.

Chalk up another victory for the free market. Down with socialist old age welfare plans! Unburden our businesses of costly pension obligations! Americans' robust personal savings habits combined with the genius of privately-administered investing schemes will guarantee our standard of living in retirement.

Note the new, permanent "Buy Stuff" link at the upper right.

One last reminder to grab some stickers. Papa needs a new pair of everything. These are perfect for your laptop, bumper, guitar case, locker, bike helmet, front door (keep the Jehovah's Witnesses away), bong, or forehead. In the absence of clothing, one or more stickers can be placed hastily over your genitals. Coffee mugs coming soon. You people aren't going to leave me with a giant box of unsold coffee mugs, are you? I'm thinking you are.

3" x 5" stickers on heavy white vinyl – $3.50 (shipping included, unless it's outside of the U.S.)

Gin and Tacos | Promote Your Page Too

An astute commenter pointed out that the Sociable links (Facebook, Digg, etc) that appear at the end of every post had disappeared. Apparently I forgot to reinstall them when I migrated to Dreamhost. They are back, so please share this stuff with, you know, everyone.