A rage post dedicated to Brian Pallister

You know, I have been trying to write these nicely balanced articles full of good points that are blunt without hearing about the language I use, but I am pretty much over that today.

This is a rage piece, so if you aren’t here for that, I won’t take it personally. If you are a pearl clutcher, know that I will continue to use grown up words in a grown up place and you can either put on your big girl panties or complain about it to someone who isn’t me.

Manitoba is fucking bullshit right now.

I am so sick and tired of a government that is so clearly gaslighting people and vote pandering with their “keeping our promises” posts and throwing out some seemingly really terrific bones that seem to always come with conditions that end up bending you over and assaulting your back door.

It wouldn’t feel half as insulting or half as terrible if Brian Pallister would just seriously shut the FUCK up. Every time that guy opens his smug, arrogant mouth, teachers and health care workers everywhere both alive and dead collectively vomit into their own mouths or roll over twice in their graves asking Jesus to just rain down Armageddon already.

Look Brian. I get it. It’s been a real shit time to be in charge of anything. Someone is always going to be pissed off at you. But right now, TODAY, even the people who fucking like you think you are an absolute piece of shit.

Exhibit A: Today a reporter asked you “Does it bother you that teachers have to pay out of their own pockets for supplies?”

To which you replied “It doesn’t bother me at all…..I’ve watched teachers invest their own money out of their own pocket for decades now and I just think this is a good fair incentive to encourage other teachers to do the same.”

Once I picked my jaw up off of the floor, I wondered if you had ANY idea how enraged people- not just teachers- were going to be about those words?

And really, the answer is zero. You are so fully out of touch with the people of this province and such an arrogant fool that you couldn’t even muster up the foresight to imagine how ignorant this statement was.

Your government claims it will be investing record funding into education with this budget, and yet not two months ago a 1.6% cut was announced, which is forcing school divisions to slash their budgets. This will not only leave them chronically understaffed, but programs that provide the little bit of equity that is attainable like milk programs are on the chopping block. Teachers have been in contract negotiations since 2018, and I would bet my ass that Bill 64 will undermine the collective bargaining abilities from divisions once they cease to exist. Education support staff are heroes that are having their wages frozen while you and your gang will enjoy an increase that is retroactive to April 2020.

NO. Teachers should not be paying for classroom supplies out of their own pockets. If they do, I think the rebate you meant to offer is 100% reimbursement, not 15% of up to 1000$. It is a public system. They are not private contractors. Offering a tax refund so you have yet another reason to underfund the system is a dick move and you know that. And just because it has been happening for decades doesn’t make it right. It continues to create more inequity in the system.

There is so much contradiction in everything you do and say. You continually fuck things up and then act like a dick about it in press conferences to deflect from your deficiencies as a leader. You love to call people by their first names while we must address you by your title, MR. PREMIER, in order to try and diminish their status or credibility and don’t think for one second it doesn’t go unnoticed.

The last time a Conservative government treated healthcare workers and teachers like absolute shit it was the beginning of their own demise. 17 years of NDP governance followed-because that’s how long it took to people to forget.

We have two years until the next election cycle, Brian, and trust me, we won’t forget. Your legacy will ultimately be the downfall of you own party and you will be nothing but a series of bitchy memes people use to make fun of terrible leaders.

PS: take a warm bath and have a fucking drink or something. You always look like you just got electrocuted.

For The Love Of Money

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Let’s talk money today.  I love money.  I don’t actually have a lot of it, I don’t know that much about it, and I’m too lazy too figure out all the complicated crap.  That’s why I have an accountant.  I keep my rules simple, and they seem to work pretty well.

Living paycheck to paycheck is commonplace these days, I think.  Instead of having a cash reserve for emergencies, we tend to have credit cards for emergencies.  I guess it depends what kind of emergency we’re talking about.  There are so many bills to pay…..mortgage, car loan, students loan, line of credit, utilities, groceries, kids activities, vet bills.  The list is endless.  Every penny is spoken for.  It’s hard to budget.  Right?

I don’t know.  I mean, your salary is what is is, right?  You have X amount of money to spend in any given period and its your problem to allocate it as necessary.

That’s no different than a generation or two ago.  When most families were single income, and had more children.  So what’s different?  Why does it feel like everyone is struggling to make ends meet these days?

I think there are a couple of things different.  One, things cost more.  Duh.  But we also make more, and have two incomes now.  So whatever.

Two.  Everything costs more when you add interest to it.  We have become a credit relying society.  Nobody knows how to save up for shit anymore.  We see it, we want it, we whip out a credit card without a second thought.  Guess what?  Now that item just cost 12.9 % more.  Or 18 % percent more, or whatever your interest rate is.  When you have to pay cash for something, it hurts more to part with your money.  For reals.

Three.  We have blurred the line between want and need.  I think if we looked really hard at our expenses, we would find a way to trim the fat.  I look at our bill for phone/internet/cable and think to myself holy shit.   We could seriously pay for another new car with what we spend on mindless entertainment every month.  For reals.

I guess what spurred my post this morning was this article on http://www.msn.ca; a slideshow on 10 ways to get out of debt.  The advice is nothing new.  Consolidate, only use credit for emergencies etc.  But maybe they missed out the most obvious thing. Maybe they need to spell it out a little clearer.  Don’t spend what you don’t have.

And by not spending what you don’t have, I mean including in your monthly expenses a donation to your savings account, or sock under the bed, or coffee tins under the counter.  Or all of the above.  Predict your future.  Because in your future, your roof will leak, your furnace will go, your car will die.  One of you might lose your job.  Could you get by?

We have a couple of unwritten rules in our house.  The first is one major purchase at a time.  This excludes mortgage and car payment.  These will both plague us for the next ten years or so.  So if you just spent 5,000$ on a new living room, you aren’t allowed to do the bathroom until you pay off the living room.  What if your bathroom sucks?  I guess you should have prioritized better.  What if your bathroom start spraying water everywhere?  See emergency fund. 

The other rule is to ask ourselves if we would be able to pay our bills if one of us was working a minimum wage type job.  Would you survive if one got fired and had to take a job at McDicks until you found something better?  If the answer is no, I think you are stretching yourself too thin.

Anyway.  I’m no expert, but I think we can all make changes to our spending habits.  I mean everyone points to the banks and the rich people and blames their greed on the current state of the economics in the world.  But I think the truth is we are all guilty of the same thing.  We get used to a certain lifestyle and the thought of having to do with less is terrifying.  And while the rich people and banks and politicians are dirty and greedy and all of that, we are partly responsible because we decided our desire for more things outweighed our common sense.

And don’t get me wrong.  There are people out there who budget every cent and still struggle.  There are single parents who can hardly feed their kids.  There are families who work harder than you or I will ever know how to, and still come up short.  I am talking about the middle class.

So appreciate what you have, and don’t always have your sights set on something new.  Because sometimes something old will do.

Thoughts?