Ask and receive, ridiculous

So as I mentioned yesterday, over the weekend I was screwing around with Cindy’s Keurig which was not drawing any water out of the reservoir.  I got it to pull water but once it did it started leaking water underneath the brewer during each brew cycle.  I had read that if you call Keurig and report a problem like this out of warranty they will give you a price break on getting a new machine, so that is what I did.

I called them up and described the issue.  I did not have exact purchase date info so I told them it was received as a gift in December 2012.  Well evidently when you state the item was a gift they are much more lax with requiring proof of purchase.  The nice woman on the phone said the machine just was inside the 15 month warranty period (I thought it was only a year), she would send me a brand new replacement, for free, wow.

I had no expectations of getting a new machine when I picked up the phone.  It was yet another of my personal countless examples of , “if you don’t ask, you never will know”.  Of course Cindy was quite happy to hear the outcome of the call as well since she was just about ready to pull the trigger on buying a new Keurig.

One of my FB buddies posted a video clip of two guys discussing how Ronald Reagan (whom I voted for) was the grandfather of the “us versus them” mentality where “us” were white Americans and them were the minorities that were using our tax dollars to collect government entitlements undeservedly.  This is the backbone of the anti-government movement which is still very prevalent today, which is charged with two primary tenants, LOWER TAXES and LESS SPENDING (on entitlements).

The point of this video discussion was pointing out that this is actually a brilliant strategy devised by those in the upper echelons of society.  By getting the masses to focus on “us vs them” it has allowed tremendous tax cuts to come online the last 35 years that started with of course, Ronald Reagan.

It is not a coincidence that the income inequality chart started a dramatic upward charge at the same point in history.  Yes everyone likes a tax cut but the reality is the trend that was started by Reagan 30+ ytears ago has been the driving force behind the historic income concentration at the top of our economic scale.

Yes out of control government spending and reckless taxation are indeed problems that always need to be addressed. However the fact that a MASSIVE portion of the population is blind to the danger of the country’s wealth being ultra-concentrated at the top is amazing.  Repeatedly history has shown us what happens when this occurs yet through careful manipulation, the wool is once again being pulled over our eyes.

One of my politically conservative FB friends grabbed the video link and reposted it, describing it as one of the most ridiculous things he had seen.  He seemed to think that the point of the video was that all corporations are evil and the video was little more than an attempt to further that image. He continued by explaining that corporations provide the jobs and pay the taxes that help government function.

Instead of getting into a round and round discussion about it I would simply ask what logical conclusion should be drawn when historic corporate profit margins and stock market records are co-existing at the same time as an overall consensus of a poor economy and lackluster job market?  Something stinks.