Watching the chop

I typically don't talk politics here.  I mean, really, I don't post much at all, but I don't know that I've ever posted about politics explicitly.

The problem is that the current administration is on a path to directly impact my job.  I work in healthcare; any changes to the PPACA, especially the partial-dismantling they've argued for and almost passed once, will totally disrupt my work environment.

Now, granted, I'm hopefully only here for another year and a half.  After that, I'll hopefully be in school full-time (don't know what I'll be doing for part-time work, but we'll see).  But I'm going to school to pursue a career that fundamentally relies on optimism and a stable society: aerospace is a "luxury" science for the most part, though a significant amount is paid for through the military.  If crap goes to hell like it's looking (he's frozen federal hiring with the intent to decrease government through attrition, he's gagged the EPA and the USDA, he's instructed agencies to play havoc with the PPACA financially, and Keystone XL is going through - and it's only day 5), there may not be much of an aerospace industry left when I'm ready to join it.

(And before anyone tells me that other countries may still be interested: the US spends more on Aerospace than the rest of the world combined.  The whole space budget for the planet is less than the state of California spends on public education in a year.  The *planet*.  And that includes military spending on aerospace.  If it dies here, it's dying everywhere.)

I'm not "worried", per se, and none of this changes any of my plans.  I'm doing this because I want to do it, for me, and whatever comes from it will be dealt with.  But these are all factors that have to be taken into account when I'm planning.  Even things like trying to guess how the stock market will do and how that will affect my retirement savings.

Of course, that's all separate from the social chaos that is likely to come.  Yes, I'm a white male, but I'm also gay and neurodivergent.  Being in California may dent the effects some, but if I have to move out of state for school or work, who knows what the result will be (if it comes down to a choice of working for NASA in Alabama, Florida, or Texas, or working for a private company in a friendly area, I'll probably have to pass on NASA - and that would be a really shitty decision to have to make).

The title of this blog invokes a specific concept - that I can't do more than ride the wave function as it collapses, surfing as best I can on whatever the result happens to be.  That's still true.  Let's just hope things don't get blown out.