Be careful who you vote for in November

[JIMV]

The Ant & the Grasshopper in 2008

Two Different Versions! Two Different Morals!

OLD VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his
house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays
the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

-------------------------------------------

MODERN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his
house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays
the summer away.

Come winter , the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and
demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed
while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering
grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a
table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper
is allowed to suffer so ?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody
cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.'

Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where
the news stations film the group singing, 'We shall overcome .' Jesse
then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.

Nancy Pelosi & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Larry King that
the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call
for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act
retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green
bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is
confiscated by the government.

Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a
defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of
federal judges that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of single-parent
welfare recipients.

The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of
the ant's food while the government house he is in, (which just happens
to be the ant's old house), crumbles around him because he doesn't
maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house,
now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once
peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2008 !!!!!!

[GUS]

My partner and I worked hard all year and saved some money as we watched many of our stocks and bonds sinking this winter. We took a couple of nice summer vacations but canceled our European fall trip due to the failing dollar.

Now we need to know why because of working hard and earning more money has our Medicare Premiums gone up $30.90a month....and why we got hit up with a large AMT last year and this year, after being so frugal? How do middle class citizens become ANTS? With cost of living the average hard working citizen is doing no better in these past 20 years, WHY?

Yes we live in a mortgage free lovely home but the tax man is being brutal and upping our tax even though house values have dropped 20% and some of our economically strapped neighbors have taken their unsold homes off the market. Our problem is being middle class and not up there with the wealthy, the politicians and the top earning oil corporations who get lavishly rewarded by our government. Contrary to Republican dogma we give to the needy and give specifically to the indigent who need clothing, food and shelter. Certainly you hear the GOP and Bush assisting Bear Stearns. OBVIOUSLY AN ANT James Cayne former chief executive and big shareholder will walk away with a bit more than $13.4 million, the value of his stock according to corporate filings..poor man has taken home more than $232 million in salary, bonus and othe pay between1993 and 2006. YEP THAT ANT has lost his gravy train with Bear's past weeks bankruptcy.


Middleclass people who work hard continue to work hard but end up as grasshoppers.

[JIMV]

My partner and I worked hard all year and saved some money as we watched many of our stocks and bonds sinking this winter. We took a couple of nice summer vacations but canceled our European fall trip due to the failing dollar.

Now we need to know why because of working hard and earning more money has our Medicare Premiums gone up $30.90a month....and why we got hit up with a large AMT last year and this year, after being so frugal? How do middle class citizens become ANTS? With cost of living the average hard working citizen is doing no better in these past 20 years, WHY?

Yes we live in a mortgage free lovely home but the tax man is being brutal and upping our tax even though house values have dropped 20% and some of our economically strapped neighbors have taken their unsold homes off the market. Our problem is being middle class and not up there with the wealthy, the politicians and the top earning oil corporations who get lavishly rewarded by our government. Contrary to Republican dogma we give to the needy and give specifically to the indigent who need clothing, food and shelter. Certainly you hear the GOP and Bush assisting Bear Stearns. OBVIOUSLY AN ANT James Cayne former chief executive and big shareholder will walk away with a bit more than $13.4 million, the value of his stock according to corporate filings..poor man has taken home more than $232 million in salary, bonus and othe pay between1993 and 2006. YEP THAT ANT has lost his gravy train with Bear's past weeks bankruptcy.


Middleclass people who work hard continue to work hard but end up as grasshoppers.

Could be overtaxation...when government steals over 40%, you have to work all the harder to make ends meet.