Ought Six to Ought 'Ait

Blogger has been acting up lately -- a few errors here and there that make posting a real chore. But one error, the broken gadget that used to be at the bottom of my web page, the National Debt Clock, may not be blogger's fault.

Perhaps it's because the number has gotten so damn big that computers can't process it anymore...

Since I've been a protection relay engineer at SMUD, if I were to add up every relay, each calculating voltage and current signals at a 240Hz rate since I've become a protection engineer five years ago, if I were to add them all up they'd still be less than the national debt. 325 microprocessor relays * 4 intervals per cycle * 60 cycles per second * 60 seconds per minute * 60 minutes per hour * 12 hours a day * 365.25 days a year * five years = 12.3 trillion while the national debt is $14.3 trillion.

Indeed, for the foreseeable future the processes of all the relays in all the substations in Sacramento County will stay behind the debt. The debt is growing at a rate of $686 dollars for every Hertz of the North American electrical system. Now that's a Hertz donut.

Is is no wonder why the S&P credit rating agency recently downgraded our treasury debt from stable to negative? Of course, this coming from an institution whose AAA ratings of millions of worthless fucking collateralized debt obligations helped spur the mild slowdown of ought six to ought 'ait really shouldn't mean a damn thing...but for some reason we still like to think they are the experts at rating stuff. Fine.

Personally, I'd rate our nation well below AAA. But that's just me, and I'm just an observer, nothing else. I had the sublime experience to wander about the South Sacramento Super WalMart this afternoon looking for canned whole peeled tomatoes. The New Asian supermarket not 1/8 of a mile away from my in-law's house doesn't carry that, no. Tomatoes in a can? No way. Canned eel? Well, which species among the dozens they carry would you like?

As I exited the parking lot (I could only turn right when I really wanted to go left...ahhh, to wish for my bicycle...) I was then forced to commute all the way down through Little Saigon -- not that this was a problem, mind you, just that I was pretty sure that every supermarket for the next three miles wasn't going to carry canned tomatoes, either, so I found myself at the Super WalMart. As I took note, there wasn't a single Vietnamese person shopping there that I could observe. No, most apparently must shop at the specific Vienamese shopping stores. And as I further took note, a good 65% of WalMart patrons were clinically obese. Hmmmm...didn't seem to see a single obese person at the New Asia Supermarket except for me.

I wondered to myself in the checkout line -- this is AAA? This? I should expect to rate the $14.3 million million dollars in debt held by all these Americans as triple A? Really? Slovenly, unkempt, potentially riotous should WalMart run short of retro Air Jordan shoes, endlessly circling the parking lot in their Expeditions looking for that prime-cut parking slip yet willing to walk the equivalent of three miles through the discount bargain bins?

I am not a fan of what passes for culture these days. I perhaps tend to see the negative, because to blog about the positives would be pretty damn boring, if I could even think of a few. I most certainly see the negative in our national financial outlook. I most certainly see the negative in our utter failure to develop any coherent energy policy in the face of a looming oil crisis that can be seen from four hundred miles down the road. I want to stay one step ahead of rioting Elk Grovians/South Sacramentans should the Chevron station turn up empty one cold winter morning in 2019 or if the retro Jordans disappear.

But for want of canned tomatoes for Easter salsa, I drove 6.5 miles in my truck, hastening the day some real energy crisis arrives, wondering why anyone would rate my own debt as sterling, someone consuming a half gallon of $4 petrol for a $1.29 can of whole, peeled tomatoes. I found myself just as culpable as every other American I decry for wanton energy wastefulness.

My rating: BB-