Congress is on vacation until after Labor Day. Mind you, it's still July when I write this. It's good thing they voted themselves a pay raise this year. If not, they might not have been able to go to wherever they want to go for their over month long break. Well, they may be able to get some lobbyists to foot the bill--as long as they don't ask too many probing questions about who is actually paying for it.

The Prez and his people are gonna get most of August off, too. But they have to take advantage of Congress being on recess for a few things they couldn't get through because of congressional oversight. Damn the constitution and its separation of powers.

As the Prez has said in the past, it would be much easier if the United States was a dictatorship--or maybe if he was an Emperor or King?

Much of Europe has August off, too. At my job, we have to stop doing a lot of projects in Europe at this time of the year because no one will participate. They are recharging, sunbathing or just not going into work. Whatever their definition of vacation is, that's what they're doing.

The rest of us in the United States get Labor Day off, but we ONLY get Labor Day off. And that's still more than a month from now. And it's only one day.

In Albuquerque, public schools start on August 11th. Summer vacation is almost over for everyone.

I guess it is the LAST day of July. I should be ready for this.

But I haven't had a summer off. I've had a couple of days off (which are, of course, charged to my vacation hours account), but it's been busy. Gotta make money--for someone else. I guess that's a little misleading and unfair. I do get a paycheck for my efforts.

The people spending the money I make get extra vacation. The owner of the company gets as much time off as he wants. He was gone for a week and a half recently. A month or so before that--another week in that vacation home in Canada.

The CFO of my company pointed out that most of us in the company are able to leave the office at five, so we must not be THAT overworked. And then he promptly left for a week and a half.

And Congress, who is paid by all of us with our tax dollars, they get a ton of vacation. Hell, they can skip work and they don't really have to answer to anyone. Although, if they do it too much, they might have a hard time explaining it on the campaign trail. Spending other people's money must be really hard.

Productivity in America is up again. Regular workers are working harder for the same amount of money. The interesting thing is this really doesn't benefit anyone except the people at the top. Except, maybe, that the workers won't lose their jobs.

It's funny that the people who run companies (and the country, for that matter) see the jobs people do as a privilege--not a right. We're lucky to have them. Quit complaining. It'd be worse if you weren't working and not making any money. Don't ask for more money, it'd break the company and then where would you be? Don't try to get the minimum wage increased, it would put many businesses out of business. Don't rock the boat or you might end up in the soup.

I'll turn this argument around.

If everyone stopped working for these people who live off the sweat of other people's labor, then they'd be in the shitter, wouldn't they? If Congress had no tax money to spend, they couldn't spend money on their pork. We wouldn't be able to pay for this war. Hell, if the military stopped working, what would happen? Our government pays spare change to the enlisted men and women fighting to keep the blood inside their bodies. What if they went on strike? They've got the guns, man. They could have the power.

But we're not supposed to think like this. Everyone talks about the trickle down theory, when, in reality, cash flows against gravity. It goes up. We get the money the people at the top can't fit into their pockets and tax shelters.

And here I've gone and gotten myself all worked up again. Talking shit about the people who sign my checks. Sign the checks for all of us.

Because, as we all know, most of us are eminently replaceable, right? We have no use other than to take up space in the machine. And if we don't want to fill that space, there is surely someone just as qualified and more willing to fill it.

Of course, I have to wonder, isn't this the case with every job? Are these people running the country and the companies truly more deserving of the big big money than the rest of us? Or do they just do a better job of having the appearance of indispensability?

Matt Worley will cool his body with mimosas this afternoon and try not to think about having to go into work tomorrow.