Ya' Heard Me? Ya' Feel Me? and I Feel To Believe.

You can tell I'm a city boy.  Come on and say it, "I heard that."  Yeah, you right, that's what I'm talkin' about.  I'm here to tell you that there's more juice in some things than others, even though they may seem the same.

The first two street expressions in the title to this little note essentially perform the same role as the ubiquitous "right" and "you know" speech fillers and rhetorical punctuations used by, shall we say, more mainstream speakers, almost every time they open their mouths.  The third loosely translates into "here's what I think," which usually comes repeatedly within and at the conclusion of remarks from those same speakers.

But there is a world of difference to the listener.  I personally appreciate the street version, it has more life, more step and pep.  It tells me more, and that is what speech is all about.  Bland speech is just blah, blah, blah, more of the same, wake me up when it's over stuff.

Which gets us to the salient question of the day: When is a stimulus not a stimulus?  Well, when it fails to draw a reaction, let alone create a sensation.

Reports are that zerObama is coming out with a 300 billion dollar second shot "stimulus" proposal.  Yawn.  And that at least 170 billion will be in the form of extending the payroll tax break and unemployment benefits.  Snore.  Don't get me wrong, both are absolutely essential, but not the least bit sensational or stimulative.  Neither of these represent a jolt of juice, they are mere maintenance of the status quo.  Worse, they will likely be coupled with down-right counter-productive, out and out stupid calls for cut backs in other spending.  The zerO giveth and the zerO taketh away, in the end it comes to zero.

The first 800 billion dollar stimulus was watered down by the same load of back filling material, as opposed to elevating measures.  As a result, it only replaced 1.5% of the 6% whack to GDP, which had been occasioned by the housing bust and evaporating consumer demand. 

 So, when all is said and done, and zerO slides into, "Ya' heard me?"  The answer will be, "yawn."  And when he asks, "Ya' Feel Me?"  I will have rolled over, "snore."  All because I feel to believe, or you might say, here's what I think:  We are in serious trouble, and this is almost no help at all.