Green Only When There's Green

Here on the Franklin Monologues I've often gloated about how this mild recession has hardly impacted me, and I've got no moral issue with continuing to gloat, either, because I didn't get caught up flipping houses in 2003, didn't cash in on all my hallucinated 20% per annum housal unit wealth in 2004, didn't refinance to fuel debt based consumer consumption in 2005, or quit my day job to broker real-estate transactions in 2006. All I did during the boom years was to find a recession proof job, quietly pay down my mortgage, ride my little bicycle to work like a dolt, and live within my means.

My lifestyle of frugality and personal fiscal responsibility started with one defining event -- contracting type I diabetes on April 8, 1995. At that moment, realizing that my lifespan was immediately reduced by 15-18 years, I realized that paying into social security was going to be a total loss as I would never live long enough to pull a benefit, and that if I had any intention on retiring, I had better think about doing it in my 50s instead of my 60s. This condition forced me to concern myself with living within my means, paying off my housal unit in my 40s, and saving for the future.

That I didn't have the misfortune of buying a housal unit at the peak, that I didn't have the misfortune to have bought BluRay players, drive Mercedes and dine on Surf & Turf Beef & Reef instead of saving and living within my means, well, because of that I have the right to gloat. So I will.

The truth is, that while I might make the claim that I'm not affected by this slowdown, I indirectly am. SMUD raised rates over the past 18 months, partly because interest rates on income bearing accounts have yielded $18,000,000 less than originally projected because rates are artificially held down by the Fed. This is wrapped up indirectly into higher electricity rates. The same goes for my little money market account. The state of California yesterday approved another $200,000,000, another $200,000,000, to throw at tax credits for new home buyers. This is money this state doesn't have. The California Air Resources Board has decided to delay implementation of diesel emissions standards, AB32 isn't gaining any traction, and cap and trade are all suspended, due to the economy. Yep, California is only green when there's green, and brown without.

Clearly, I've got no power over any of this. You might argue that if this is all that I have to endure and to sacrifice in these tough economic times, that I'm a rather pedantic whiner. OK. I can accept that criticism, but I'm still working, still getting pay raises and a fat 2010 bonus, with a housal unit very nearly paid off with no other debts to speak of. The ability to gloat today only comes from a lifetime of reasonable living yesterday.

I will be forced to drive my motorized vehicle to work more often in the coming year, due to cuts to Elk Grove's e-Tran bus service and Sacramento's RT. The air will be marginally browner. Apparently, it's more valuable to society to extend tax credits for consuming new consumables, to artificially inflate housal unit values, rather than fund transit. Clearly, this isn't as valuable to me, but hey, I'm just a lone wolf out here in my monologues. I'd like to think that we are doing the correct things but I can't believe it. All I see are wasted efforts, wasted time, wasted energies, and wasted bailouts. I've a strong feeling that having taken care of my own finances and my own responsibilities will turn around to bite me in the ass, with higher taxes and lowered services for someone in my bracket.

2010 is still young. There is still a lot of year left, a lot of time to develop my forecast for a year of crisis rather than 2009's complacency. I still forecast home values to drop further, for employment to fail to grow, for our states and cities to make draconian cuts to balance themselves.