Thursday, March 05, 2009

A Visible Sign Of Our Economic Collapse



I have seen more cops pulling over more people and giving more tickets in the past few weeks than I have in the past few years!

Every single night I see at least one, sometimes 3 or 4, on the short 15 minute drive down Hwy 24 east of I-435.

Has there been a sudden increase in traffic scofflaws, lead-footing the vertical pedal?

Huh uh.

Here is what's going on.

People are losing their jobs because the unregulated, privatized, "free market" of the last 8 years has collapsed like the house of cards it was.

They are abandoning their houses because they can't afford their mortgages.

Their cars are being repossessed.

They can no longer afford to pay their personal property taxes.

They can't buy anything because they have no income, so sales tax revenue is down.

City, county and state governments are feeling the sting.

Their solution? Lean on the cops to write more tickets! Tickets generate revenue!

So, because people are out of work and government revenues are down, lets send out cops to catch the few people who still have jobs and are trying to get to work on time so they won't lose their jobs.

Pull them over, make them late for work so they are at greater risk for losing their jobs and contributing to the core problem, give them a ticket for some minor traffic infraction which puts even more pressure on their already shaky finances.

Fucking. Brilliant.

But to end on a positive note, here is a great pic and link for The Broderick Crawford 1955 Buick Special

7 comments:

Faith said...

So wait...you're anti-law, but you're pro-government take over of everything?

I'm confused...

KC Sponge said...

I have noticed the same thing . . . and we had someone come by the office a couple weeks ago from the city looking for our business license - I hope everyone is paying their earnings taxes this year! I see heavy fines in the future . . .

kcmeesha said...

They are just cutting out the middleman. Is this Andy Griffith's car?

Xavier Onassis said...

Faith - I'm not for a government take over of everything. I'm for regulation. If the government regulators had been looking for corruption on Wall Street as enthusiastically as the Independence police are looking for traffic violations, we wouldn't be in this fucking mess.

m.v. - No. Andy Griffith's car was a 1963 Galaxy 500 with a single HUGE light on top.

I Travel for JOOLS said...

I don't know quite what to say. My title for my adult working life was Director of Regulatory Affairs. I took it very seriously. I know how these things work from the halls of Congress to the common man.

We need to be very careful here. Without regulations we have systems out of control. With too much regulation we destroy that which we are trying to regulate.

Anonymous said...

The only people who will make money off this are hack municipal court and bankruptcy lawyers.

There is a whole coven of them in eastern Jac!

Anonymous said...

The only people who will make money off this are hack municipal court and bankruptcy lawyers.

There is a whole coven of them in eastern Jac!