Labor Reveals it's True Colors, and is Finished...
I've just watched the incredible (and I use that word in the cynical fashion) diatribe delievered by the head of the UAW Union this morning, and was shocked and appalled. The Big Three automakers (and can we stop talking about them this way, please? If they were that Big would they be in this mess right now?) are about to go tits-up. Normally, this might be considered A Very Bad Thing, but with the state of the current economy, it's probably more like a necessary evil, and the union refuses to co-operate (naturally) in an effort which will save their own jobs and allow a reorganization to take place.
Now, about the speech itself, I will say this: it was standard communist boilerplate. All about how the workers will suffer, and how the republican party (the party of Big Business, you know) is once again shovelling cash into the pockets of their capitalist allies at the expense of 'the Little Guy', and about how the UAW has made valiant efforts to do their level-best to help GM/Ford/Chrysler through this difficult time, yada, yada, yada. The speech woudl have made great theatre in 1930, but now it's a bag of bullshit.
The UAW, under the current Plan To Save Detroit, would have to give something back. And naturally, it refuses to do so, claiming ont he one hand that it is impossible to give back what they don't have (sniff, sniff, get me a Kleenex), and on the other (although they never say so openly) that it would be wrong to ask labor to give back benefits that they negotiated in 'good faith' when GM, etc. were ripe for rape (i.e. flush with cash). Human nature being what it is, the Union is reluctant to give anything back and tries to make the case that it is the Auto Companies which hold all the cards in these negotiations. This is the standard position of all unions (nd let's face it, it's all our default position): I don't have anything to give, so you'll have to.
Of course, if the Unions refuse to do that which they should, GM, etc. go into bankruptcy and any contracts they had with the Union become null and void, so perhaps the Union is biting it's nose off to spite it's face. Or perhaps the Union hopes that Washington (particularly the democraic party) will simply nationalize (i.e. Bail out) GM, etc. as a reward for union support over the years. The whole idea that GM, etc. would get a bridge loan to tide them over until Mach of next year begins to smell even more; the government should tide them over until Obama gets into office, when the full communist agenda of nationalization can forge ahead, full steam.
There was a time in this nation's history when labor unions actually did some good things, and improved the lives and working conditions of millions. They no longer do so. They now exist solely to collect worker dues to be used for political purposes and extort business to pay for it. The fact is, that the UAW is no longer an true partner in the labor/management relationship, and is instead interested solely in maintaining a status quo wth regards to wages and benefits, which have financially crippled their employers, while non-union manufacturers make profits and provide jobs in Right-to-work states.
Depending on who's numbers yo believe, the average autoworker, taking into consideration wages and benefits, makes roughly $70 an hour. I did some research (quickly, I'll admit) and found out that the average wage/benefit-per-hour of the autoworker was greater than that of computer programmers, ER nurses, firefighters and police officers, teachers and communications specialists. Consider also that the average autmobile is mostly produced by machine, and that hourly wage becomes even less defensible. No wonder American manufacturers flee for overseas labor markets (a practice I duly detest).
The unions have almost accomplished what business and government could not in a century: they have been busted. And the irony is that they have done it to themselves. They have priced themselves right out of a job, and destroyed their employers in the process.
Now, I'm not going to defend GM, etc., since they were a) stupid enough to enter into these contracts, and b) appallingly mismanaged. But at what point does the UAW beginb to realize that they are about to shoot themselves in the foot, and take a couple of million other 'working men and women' with them (those who work in the industries which supply the auto industry)?
My guess, based on The Speech, is that they never will. Primarily because they have not realized their interst in being flexible, and secondarily because the Union Mentality is simply a reflexive "Gimme!". Then again, they can't be blamed for this mentality; they've been encouraged by their past successes, and cheered on by a political clique which sees everything in terms of class warfare and romantic notions of revolution, and not reasoned discourse or cold, hard facts.
After hearing The Speech, if I were a manager or shareholder of GM, etc., I would be jumping for joy this morning. The Unions have now forced GM, etc. to do The RIght Thing (go bankrupt gracefully) and put the Unions in the position of having to beg for even half of what they had before when the dust settles. They may be depending on Team Obama to save them from having to lose anything, but they are about to be sadly disappointed, because if we have learned anything about The Lightworker to this point, it is that the best way to get kicked in the teeth is to have his back. He's your best buddy in the world until it comes time to toss you to the lions. The current crisis, bleak prospects for the future, and growing public furor over bailouts of Big Business will ensure that Zookeeper Obama will be ready to feed his best buddies to the exhibits faster than you can say "Which way to the Unemployment Line?"
Friday, December 12, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
John Edwards...Again...
I've just read this...and gagged:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/11/john-edwards.html
Now, I have been incredibly harsh on the subject of John Edwards for quite some time now, as all three regular readers of this screed know. But in this case, I think I can find a little forgiveness in my stone-cold heart for John this time around. I mean, the American people just proved their overriding stupidity by electing an unqualified, quasi-socialist, lying sack of feline fecal matter President of the United States last week, so John can be forgiven the sin of drawing the obvious conclusion that the country is indeed full of blithering idiots who will swallow anything if it comes in an attractive package (Granted, their choice was one between bullshit and attractively-packaged bullshit, but I digress).
But, really, must we be so forgiving that the very act of forgiveness itself requires an exercise in mental gymnastics so complex and convoluted that it makes Orwell's Doublethink seem like a simple parlor trick?
Just in case you have forgotten all about John-boy, I'll remind you of the highlights of a spectacular career which began with a bang and ended with a whimper.
This is the man who:
- Made a fortune as a trial attorney by sucking the lifeblood from the medical malpractice system in North Carolina, even going as far as to conduct seances in court (he called it 'Channeling the spirit of a child who could not speak for herself' or somesuch nonsense) and presenting that as 'evidence' to juries. He made a pile of cash running doctors out of business (benefit of the doubt; he probably did get a few bad doctors along the way, but probably not enough to justify the effort), and then decried the horrible state, and blatant unfairness, of the American health care system -- the very system which he helped to destroy.
- Ran a successful Senate election campaign on the symbol of his dead son. A tragic death which, if I recall, involved an automobile accident. He waved his dead boy's picture and a uttered a bunch of high-minded rhetoric in a manner reminiscent of Jesse Jackson vis-a-vis Martin Luther King's bloody shirt. He trotted his distraught wife out to cry before television cameras (I wonder if she was a witting accomplice, or not) over the memory of her dear boy, and got the well-meaning voters of North Carolina to send him to the Senate. Where he began to run for higher office just as soon as he was sworn in, hardly lifting a finger to do the people's business....unless the people's business happened to coincide with building his democratic bonafides.
- Accepted the nomination as John Kerry's running mate in 2004, which shows an incredible lack of both judgement and intelligence. Accepting that job was paramount to accepting the position of Officer-in-charge-of-lifeboats on the Titanic, but he did add a dash of personality to an otherwise moribund campaign which was run by a man who reminded you of Droopy Dog and a the Cigar Store Wooden Indian. The highlight of this run was that Edwards managed to say 'lesbian' to Dick Cheney eight times, on national television, and survive. He later went on, after Kerry's defeat, to yap like an apoplectic poodle about 'fighting on'. A pledge which he quickly reneged on when it became painfully obvious that a) John Kerry wasn't worth fighting for, and b) the sympathy that could be garnered from defeat was the perfect launching platform for another run. As with his Senate campaign, John Edwards would court sympathy as a means to an end. That and his wife's newly-announced cancer, were apparently the right sort of fuel to launch John Edwards to the political moon.
- Left politics (for too short a time) to take a job as a high muck-a-muck at some tony hedge fund, where he made several million dollars per. When Edwards began a second presidential run, and trotted out his infamous Two-Americas routine (the populist creed pitting rich versus poor), and folks with half a brain noted that he made obscene amounts of money at his job, Edwards simply replied that he had taken the job to 'study the economics of poverty'. One could not understand poverty, he intoned, unless one first understood just how the economic system of this country works. It wasn't his fault that the 'study project' came with a seven-figure income.
That's when he wasn't accepting $50K-plus for 'speaking engagements'.
- Castigated Wal-Mart as an un-American organization dedicated to swindling the American consumer and cheating the working man of his just wages and benefits, and swore to defend the 'Other America' from the ravages of corrupt corporate monstrosities who seek nothing beyond profit which would not be shared with the people who helped make it. Every day, practically, Edwards was out there, bashing Wal-Mart, and growing his socialist street cred. Right up until the point when he couldn't get a Playstation for his kids. Then he turned his attention from destroying Wal-Mart to attempting to extort a Playstation from them.
- Began a second Presidential campaign with his usual pap about Two Americas, and trotted his ailing wife out to garner yet more sympathy. He showed poorly in the primaries and caucuses, but continued to "fight on" for all those "forgotten" by America, while he strenuously "fought" to keep the media from exposing his affair with a mistress and a child he apparently "forgot" he had, humiliating himself and his poor wife and family, in the process.
Now John Edwards believes that he can step forward, the public distracted by other things like a failing economy, the historic nature of the last election, and heated arguments in favor of the BCS instead of a national college-football-playoff-system, and revitalize his image. On the Q.T. and hidden from the press and public behind closed doors.
In the Middle Ages, there were a group of men known as Alchemists who sought to find ways of turning base metals, like lead, into gold. They were, ultimately, unsuccessful. I wonder now if John Edwards, in true alchemist spirit, believes he can perform a similar impossibility and revitalize a reputation which consists mostly of bullshit, deceit and selfishness into a viable political career? Apparently, he does, and if one looks back a week in time, it's easy to see why he may hold that belief.
After all, we've just elected someone who in his associations with former terrorists, racists, socialists, criminals and swindlers, might be infinitely worse. I would wish John good luck, but it is obvious that luck will not be required.
I've just read this...and gagged:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/11/john-edwards.html
Now, I have been incredibly harsh on the subject of John Edwards for quite some time now, as all three regular readers of this screed know. But in this case, I think I can find a little forgiveness in my stone-cold heart for John this time around. I mean, the American people just proved their overriding stupidity by electing an unqualified, quasi-socialist, lying sack of feline fecal matter President of the United States last week, so John can be forgiven the sin of drawing the obvious conclusion that the country is indeed full of blithering idiots who will swallow anything if it comes in an attractive package (Granted, their choice was one between bullshit and attractively-packaged bullshit, but I digress).
But, really, must we be so forgiving that the very act of forgiveness itself requires an exercise in mental gymnastics so complex and convoluted that it makes Orwell's Doublethink seem like a simple parlor trick?
Just in case you have forgotten all about John-boy, I'll remind you of the highlights of a spectacular career which began with a bang and ended with a whimper.
This is the man who:
- Made a fortune as a trial attorney by sucking the lifeblood from the medical malpractice system in North Carolina, even going as far as to conduct seances in court (he called it 'Channeling the spirit of a child who could not speak for herself' or somesuch nonsense) and presenting that as 'evidence' to juries. He made a pile of cash running doctors out of business (benefit of the doubt; he probably did get a few bad doctors along the way, but probably not enough to justify the effort), and then decried the horrible state, and blatant unfairness, of the American health care system -- the very system which he helped to destroy.
- Ran a successful Senate election campaign on the symbol of his dead son. A tragic death which, if I recall, involved an automobile accident. He waved his dead boy's picture and a uttered a bunch of high-minded rhetoric in a manner reminiscent of Jesse Jackson vis-a-vis Martin Luther King's bloody shirt. He trotted his distraught wife out to cry before television cameras (I wonder if she was a witting accomplice, or not) over the memory of her dear boy, and got the well-meaning voters of North Carolina to send him to the Senate. Where he began to run for higher office just as soon as he was sworn in, hardly lifting a finger to do the people's business....unless the people's business happened to coincide with building his democratic bonafides.
- Accepted the nomination as John Kerry's running mate in 2004, which shows an incredible lack of both judgement and intelligence. Accepting that job was paramount to accepting the position of Officer-in-charge-of-lifeboats on the Titanic, but he did add a dash of personality to an otherwise moribund campaign which was run by a man who reminded you of Droopy Dog and a the Cigar Store Wooden Indian. The highlight of this run was that Edwards managed to say 'lesbian' to Dick Cheney eight times, on national television, and survive. He later went on, after Kerry's defeat, to yap like an apoplectic poodle about 'fighting on'. A pledge which he quickly reneged on when it became painfully obvious that a) John Kerry wasn't worth fighting for, and b) the sympathy that could be garnered from defeat was the perfect launching platform for another run. As with his Senate campaign, John Edwards would court sympathy as a means to an end. That and his wife's newly-announced cancer, were apparently the right sort of fuel to launch John Edwards to the political moon.
- Left politics (for too short a time) to take a job as a high muck-a-muck at some tony hedge fund, where he made several million dollars per. When Edwards began a second presidential run, and trotted out his infamous Two-Americas routine (the populist creed pitting rich versus poor), and folks with half a brain noted that he made obscene amounts of money at his job, Edwards simply replied that he had taken the job to 'study the economics of poverty'. One could not understand poverty, he intoned, unless one first understood just how the economic system of this country works. It wasn't his fault that the 'study project' came with a seven-figure income.
That's when he wasn't accepting $50K-plus for 'speaking engagements'.
- Castigated Wal-Mart as an un-American organization dedicated to swindling the American consumer and cheating the working man of his just wages and benefits, and swore to defend the 'Other America' from the ravages of corrupt corporate monstrosities who seek nothing beyond profit which would not be shared with the people who helped make it. Every day, practically, Edwards was out there, bashing Wal-Mart, and growing his socialist street cred. Right up until the point when he couldn't get a Playstation for his kids. Then he turned his attention from destroying Wal-Mart to attempting to extort a Playstation from them.
- Began a second Presidential campaign with his usual pap about Two Americas, and trotted his ailing wife out to garner yet more sympathy. He showed poorly in the primaries and caucuses, but continued to "fight on" for all those "forgotten" by America, while he strenuously "fought" to keep the media from exposing his affair with a mistress and a child he apparently "forgot" he had, humiliating himself and his poor wife and family, in the process.
Now John Edwards believes that he can step forward, the public distracted by other things like a failing economy, the historic nature of the last election, and heated arguments in favor of the BCS instead of a national college-football-playoff-system, and revitalize his image. On the Q.T. and hidden from the press and public behind closed doors.
In the Middle Ages, there were a group of men known as Alchemists who sought to find ways of turning base metals, like lead, into gold. They were, ultimately, unsuccessful. I wonder now if John Edwards, in true alchemist spirit, believes he can perform a similar impossibility and revitalize a reputation which consists mostly of bullshit, deceit and selfishness into a viable political career? Apparently, he does, and if one looks back a week in time, it's easy to see why he may hold that belief.
After all, we've just elected someone who in his associations with former terrorists, racists, socialists, criminals and swindlers, might be infinitely worse. I would wish John good luck, but it is obvious that luck will not be required.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
America Can Take Pride In This Historic, Inspirational Disaster...
I will now link to Iowahawk, a blogger I have read for some time and have admired. Here is his latest;
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2008/11/election-analysis-america-can-take-pride-in-this-historic-inspirational-disaster.html
Amen.
I will now link to Iowahawk, a blogger I have read for some time and have admired. Here is his latest;
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2008/11/election-analysis-america-can-take-pride-in-this-historic-inspirational-disaster.html
Amen.
Just in Case You Thought Otherwise...
Fascinating take on what the author calls Elite Blacks; that is, African-Americans who have attended Ivy League Schools, have attained positions of power and responsibility, and live in tony suburbs. You know, the people who decide who is 'authentically black' -- while looking down their noses -- but who would be called 'Uncle Tom' (and worse...) is they ever entered a real ghetto?
Anyways, here it is:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/columnists.nsf/zdwightbillingsly/story/0F65A2211E2B470A862574EA007A0D75?OpenDocument
I say this: both your President-Elect, and his loudmouth wife, fall into this category.
As an interesting aside, yesterday at President-Elect Obama's Press conference he was surrounded by his flock of economic/financial advisers who will, supposedly, give him excellent advice on how to correct the nation's troubled economy. I noticed that not one of them was African-American, and when I read this article, I could see why.
Fascinating take on what the author calls Elite Blacks; that is, African-Americans who have attended Ivy League Schools, have attained positions of power and responsibility, and live in tony suburbs. You know, the people who decide who is 'authentically black' -- while looking down their noses -- but who would be called 'Uncle Tom' (and worse...) is they ever entered a real ghetto?
Anyways, here it is:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/columnists.nsf/zdwightbillingsly/story/0F65A2211E2B470A862574EA007A0D75?OpenDocument
I say this: both your President-Elect, and his loudmouth wife, fall into this category.
As an interesting aside, yesterday at President-Elect Obama's Press conference he was surrounded by his flock of economic/financial advisers who will, supposedly, give him excellent advice on how to correct the nation's troubled economy. I noticed that not one of them was African-American, and when I read this article, I could see why.
Expect More of This...
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/194806.php
Really, some people just are that stupid. This woman now believes she has the right to assault police officers, free of punishment, because there is now a black man about to be sworn in as President of the United States? As if Obambi is handing out pardons (at least not yet!) for stupidity if the perpetrator happens to be black?
Or is it something deeper? I mean, American Blacks have been told (mostly by white liberals) that they have been victims of a cruel and unjust white power structure (regardless of a Civil War, Constitutional Amendments, Civil Rights and Voting Acts, Affirmative Action, the Welfare State, watered-down standardized scholastic tests, and a host of other programs, conventions and laws, all propagated by the same white power structure, btw) , why shouldn't they start to believe that once that structure has been penetrated by one of their own, that they are entitled to do as they damn well please. And if it happens to be done to a white person, and even better, a white police officer, so much the better. They believe they are owed.
What gall.
Expect to see more of this kind of shit in the coming days.
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/194806.php
Really, some people just are that stupid. This woman now believes she has the right to assault police officers, free of punishment, because there is now a black man about to be sworn in as President of the United States? As if Obambi is handing out pardons (at least not yet!) for stupidity if the perpetrator happens to be black?
Or is it something deeper? I mean, American Blacks have been told (mostly by white liberals) that they have been victims of a cruel and unjust white power structure (regardless of a Civil War, Constitutional Amendments, Civil Rights and Voting Acts, Affirmative Action, the Welfare State, watered-down standardized scholastic tests, and a host of other programs, conventions and laws, all propagated by the same white power structure, btw) , why shouldn't they start to believe that once that structure has been penetrated by one of their own, that they are entitled to do as they damn well please. And if it happens to be done to a white person, and even better, a white police officer, so much the better. They believe they are owed.
What gall.
Expect to see more of this kind of shit in the coming days.
Friday, November 07, 2008
Night of the Long Knives II...
Republican insiders (supposedly from the McCain campaign) have been piling on Sarah Palin in the press. Thus, we get this:
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Politics/Story?id=6196407&page=1
Of course, I consider the source. Even though they quote FoxNews extensively (I suppose so that disappointed republicans would believe the otherwise-unbelievable ABC), and I would also take into consideration that the criticism is both very petty, and lacking in context --- and always anonymous.
If I had to guess (with no evidence to support such a hypothesis), Sarah Alaska got under the skin of the Washington pros because she showed their man up. She has to be destroyed, and not only by a liberal media who hates everything she stands for and is, but by a consortium of political advisers and media consultants, et. al. whose playbook she has just torn to shreds. They're (the meida pros and political advisory class) used to plastic people -- politicians who understand that a campaign is all about image and marketing -- and when confronted by real people (we peasants) believe that we can do nothing right, that we know nothing, and that we have to be saved from ourselves. When we don't do what our betters tell us, we have to be vilified and condescended to, and on occasion, smeared, too.
The same process that is at work within republican party circles (i.e. assigning blame to everyone other than those who deserve it) is occurring here. Sarah Palin is about to be blamed for something she had no control over, and if the reports of discord within the McCain camp for months are accurate, was probably never included in to begin with. It was all inside baseball.
So far, the only thing these criticisms of Palin seem to zero in on are her wardrobe and shopping habits. I'm certain Hillary Clinton's people are criticizing her for her shopping habits, too. I wonder if Obama had lost, would anyone be taking Michelle Obama to task for her clothing?
If that's all they can point to when they try to substantiate the claim that Palin lost McCain the election, they are deadly wrong and extraordinarily nitpicky. Not to mention petty and craven. If we keep people like that around to run the next campaign, we'll certainly lose again, and deserve to.
Republican insiders (supposedly from the McCain campaign) have been piling on Sarah Palin in the press. Thus, we get this:
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Politics/Story?id=6196407&page=1
Of course, I consider the source. Even though they quote FoxNews extensively (I suppose so that disappointed republicans would believe the otherwise-unbelievable ABC), and I would also take into consideration that the criticism is both very petty, and lacking in context --- and always anonymous.
If I had to guess (with no evidence to support such a hypothesis), Sarah Alaska got under the skin of the Washington pros because she showed their man up. She has to be destroyed, and not only by a liberal media who hates everything she stands for and is, but by a consortium of political advisers and media consultants, et. al. whose playbook she has just torn to shreds. They're (the meida pros and political advisory class) used to plastic people -- politicians who understand that a campaign is all about image and marketing -- and when confronted by real people (we peasants) believe that we can do nothing right, that we know nothing, and that we have to be saved from ourselves. When we don't do what our betters tell us, we have to be vilified and condescended to, and on occasion, smeared, too.
The same process that is at work within republican party circles (i.e. assigning blame to everyone other than those who deserve it) is occurring here. Sarah Palin is about to be blamed for something she had no control over, and if the reports of discord within the McCain camp for months are accurate, was probably never included in to begin with. It was all inside baseball.
So far, the only thing these criticisms of Palin seem to zero in on are her wardrobe and shopping habits. I'm certain Hillary Clinton's people are criticizing her for her shopping habits, too. I wonder if Obama had lost, would anyone be taking Michelle Obama to task for her clothing?
If that's all they can point to when they try to substantiate the claim that Palin lost McCain the election, they are deadly wrong and extraordinarily nitpicky. Not to mention petty and craven. If we keep people like that around to run the next campaign, we'll certainly lose again, and deserve to.
Night of the Long Knives...
The backstabbing has already started amongst the Republican rank-and-file. If you follow any of the "Conservative" echo-chambers online, the defeat of John McCain is due to RINO's, Libertarians, Fag-lovers, Rockefeller-Republicans and Godless Nanny-staters disguised as 'moderate' Republicans (This, despite the fact that many of the same McCain Defenders could be quoted as saying ""I will vote for McCain over my dead body!"). In other words, the same people who are always blamed by the Bible-thumping-kill-the-abortionists-see-a-commie-under-every-rock-one-percenter-Buchannanites. So far as they are concerned, if the party had run a 'real' conservative (definition: Evangelical-pro-life-flamethrowers-for-everyone-gay-bashers), 'we' would have won. Despite an economic crisis, a terrible reputation amongst congressional republicans and a President who's less popular than Ebola. Yeah, I can see how that might happen.
If only we'd been even more conservative, they always wail, we could have won. This, incidentally, has been the battle cry of every losing zealot in history: The Turks would not have been defeated at Lepanto if only their fleet had been more pious Muslims. As if vast armies infused with religious zealotry could compensate for bad tactics and antiquated weapons. Japan would have won the Second World War if only the Japanese people had made even more strenuous efforts on behalf of their divine Emperor, as if Kamakaze attacks weren't strenuous enough. In fact, I can recall a quote from a Japanese general in Burma to his troops in the field before they were slaughtered "Lack of weapons is no excuse for defeat on the battlefield", or words to that effect. John McCain was, in this analogy, part Sultan-part Hirohito, let down by faithless backstabbers and incompetents.
Always, the root cause of failure is one of devotion. One of a lack of proper effort or mindframe. Environmental factors, cultural factors and so forth, are never even considered. To consider them would cause people to question the dogma attendant to whatever principle it is you were supposed to be fighting for. In order to correct the mistakes and fundamental errors made by the McCain-Palin ticket (and the Republican party as a whole over last decade), one has to ask questions, even when the questions are unpleasant or unexpected, even blasphemous. If you don't ask the questions, all you get is conspiracy theory and pointless blame.
Of course, there are those in the republican establishment who know this, but who will never admit it. They are wedded to the One-percenters, and so, when they do a thorough post-mortem on this latest fiasco, they will not tell the One-percenters the whole truth -- the reason we were defeated wasn't because people weren't fervent enough or unprincipled; it occurred because the ground had been prepared by disastrous policies enacted by both the Bush Administration and the previously-Republican-controlled, Congress. Those people were only in a position to cause this train wreck because all of us, and that includes the One-percenters, abrogated our responsibilities as both citizens and republicans, and let them get away with it.
The reasons why we abandoned our responsibilities are numerous, and I've written about them for years here.
But, we did not lose because McCain-Palin wasn't 'conservative' enough, nor because of an evil conspiracy between East Coast 'establishment' media/Libertarians/and the so-called RINOs. That lose was a self-inflicted wound. And an even more strident brand of conservatism is the wrong band-aid for it. The proper medicine for this wound is a prescription of responsibility, objectivity and honesty.
The backstabbing has already started amongst the Republican rank-and-file. If you follow any of the "Conservative" echo-chambers online, the defeat of John McCain is due to RINO's, Libertarians, Fag-lovers, Rockefeller-Republicans and Godless Nanny-staters disguised as 'moderate' Republicans (This, despite the fact that many of the same McCain Defenders could be quoted as saying ""I will vote for McCain over my dead body!"). In other words, the same people who are always blamed by the Bible-thumping-kill-the-abortionists-see-a-commie-under-every-rock-one-percenter-Buchannanites. So far as they are concerned, if the party had run a 'real' conservative (definition: Evangelical-pro-life-flamethrowers-for-everyone-gay-bashers), 'we' would have won. Despite an economic crisis, a terrible reputation amongst congressional republicans and a President who's less popular than Ebola. Yeah, I can see how that might happen.
If only we'd been even more conservative, they always wail, we could have won. This, incidentally, has been the battle cry of every losing zealot in history: The Turks would not have been defeated at Lepanto if only their fleet had been more pious Muslims. As if vast armies infused with religious zealotry could compensate for bad tactics and antiquated weapons. Japan would have won the Second World War if only the Japanese people had made even more strenuous efforts on behalf of their divine Emperor, as if Kamakaze attacks weren't strenuous enough. In fact, I can recall a quote from a Japanese general in Burma to his troops in the field before they were slaughtered "Lack of weapons is no excuse for defeat on the battlefield", or words to that effect. John McCain was, in this analogy, part Sultan-part Hirohito, let down by faithless backstabbers and incompetents.
Always, the root cause of failure is one of devotion. One of a lack of proper effort or mindframe. Environmental factors, cultural factors and so forth, are never even considered. To consider them would cause people to question the dogma attendant to whatever principle it is you were supposed to be fighting for. In order to correct the mistakes and fundamental errors made by the McCain-Palin ticket (and the Republican party as a whole over last decade), one has to ask questions, even when the questions are unpleasant or unexpected, even blasphemous. If you don't ask the questions, all you get is conspiracy theory and pointless blame.
Of course, there are those in the republican establishment who know this, but who will never admit it. They are wedded to the One-percenters, and so, when they do a thorough post-mortem on this latest fiasco, they will not tell the One-percenters the whole truth -- the reason we were defeated wasn't because people weren't fervent enough or unprincipled; it occurred because the ground had been prepared by disastrous policies enacted by both the Bush Administration and the previously-Republican-controlled, Congress. Those people were only in a position to cause this train wreck because all of us, and that includes the One-percenters, abrogated our responsibilities as both citizens and republicans, and let them get away with it.
The reasons why we abandoned our responsibilities are numerous, and I've written about them for years here.
But, we did not lose because McCain-Palin wasn't 'conservative' enough, nor because of an evil conspiracy between East Coast 'establishment' media/Libertarians/and the so-called RINOs. That lose was a self-inflicted wound. And an even more strident brand of conservatism is the wrong band-aid for it. The proper medicine for this wound is a prescription of responsibility, objectivity and honesty.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
How to Fix the Republican Party...
Nasty defeat. Well-deserved, too. Here's some ideas on how to fix things:
This movement is in dire need of reform. It is stale and the personalities on point are mostly ticket-punchers. We don't need cosmetic changes posing at reform, but a fundamental rebuild, from the bottom, up (not the top down, which is what the party leadership would like). These changes will not occur unless we first demand them, and then hold the party to account on their implementation.
As for the changes needed:
- It is not enough to demand accountability from the other side, particularly when we try to hide our own dirty laundry. No more defending the indefensible. No more Foleys, no more Craigs, no more DeLays. For those who of you who cry about moral equivalency from democrats, don't forget how some of our leadership went to bat for these guys. This primary principle must not only be obeyed now, in defeat, it must be obeyed if and when the republicans get back into a position of responsibility, or else it's just hot air.
- The message needs changing. The old mantra of "smaller government, moral values, national security...and a tax cut, to boot!", should now also include this: "we say what we mean, and we mean what we say". Not only does that need to be hammered home in words, it needs to be demonstrated by actions. This means no more Katrinas, no more busted budgets, no more Bridges to Nowhere. As McCain said, make the folks who backslide 'famous'.
- A new formulation of Gingrich's Contract with America shoud be put forward as the guiding principles for the republican party for the next decade. It should include;
a. a plan to prevent American corporations from offshoring/outsourcing (euphamistically - 'encouragement' to stop this practice) and generally screwing the American worker. This nation's industrial complex must be rebuilt both to provide jobs and future economic activity. This may be a no-no for free-marketeers, but we have to put people in this country back to work. Give them incentives (or punishments) to bring the jobs back home. Sometimes you need to break eggs to make omlettes. We shoujld no longer give a rat's ass about whether the Chinese can afford to buy American products when it's becoming clear that Americans can no longer afford to buy them.
b. Present a challenge to American industry and science to produce a viable, sustainable alternative fuel -- and just as important, the machinery which can utilize it. If it worked for NASA, it'll work for Exxon-Mobil and GM. It's about time American industry (what's left of it) started doing what it used to do; making actual products, that people want, at a price they can afford.
c. Get the party off the Christain Right teat, and put the Godbots back in the pews where they belong. Morality will never be legislated; it has to be nutured -- outside of the political system -- on an individual level -- which (ironically) is where the churches of this country historically do their best work. Simply packing the Supreme Court will not get rid of abortion-on-demand. Create the culture first outside of politics, and then the newly-created culture will reshape the politics. Not the other way around.
d. Change the immigration debate not by stigmatizing immigrants (after all, we are all the descendants of immigrants), but rather by advocating policies which steer new immigrants towards assimilation. Punish those who break the law, espcially employers (instead of milking them for campaign contributions and votes). No more welfare applications in Spanish, no more voting forms in Swahili, no more money for bi-lingual education. The only time a foreign language should be used/transmitted by the US government is if it is matter of public health or safety. Assimilation is the most important solution to the immigration problem, enforcement of existing law is the second. Armed marines with orders to shoot lawbreakers would be the third.
e. Fight like hell to revoke the monstrosity called Campaign Finance Reform (three lies for the price of one). John McCain hung himself with his own rope, which is appropos. The stupidity of this particular legislation was obvious from the very start. It's appropriate that McCain's system, which was really nothing more than a way for elected politicians to achieve tenure, should be at the very foundation of his failure to achieve higher office.
f. Demand accountability. Every member of Congress should be required to keep a website in which their day-to-day activities, in minute detail, are updated every day. That includes every meeting, every vote, every bill they sponsor, every dollar they spend in their offices, every contribution and endorsement they receive. Each member should be required to explain their votes on it, too, in excruciating detail.
- Find a way to not only communicate 'the message' but find a better way of actually describing how your message will translate into action, also. We get it, we just don't know how you intend to do it. Details, details, details...and then explain why the details are consistent with both republican and conservative principles.
- New blood, new blood, new blood. Stop with the litmus tests which prevent that new blood from entering the party debate. If this is truly a Big Tent Party, then the price of admission to that Big Tent must not be anti-gay, pro-gun, anti-regulation-only; if we have a fiscal conservative or constitutional literalist who's weak on a social issue, we must stop labeling him/her RINO and then showing them the exit. Orthodoxy should never trump effectiveness, or utility.
Nasty defeat. Well-deserved, too. Here's some ideas on how to fix things:
This movement is in dire need of reform. It is stale and the personalities on point are mostly ticket-punchers. We don't need cosmetic changes posing at reform, but a fundamental rebuild, from the bottom, up (not the top down, which is what the party leadership would like). These changes will not occur unless we first demand them, and then hold the party to account on their implementation.
As for the changes needed:
- It is not enough to demand accountability from the other side, particularly when we try to hide our own dirty laundry. No more defending the indefensible. No more Foleys, no more Craigs, no more DeLays. For those who of you who cry about moral equivalency from democrats, don't forget how some of our leadership went to bat for these guys. This primary principle must not only be obeyed now, in defeat, it must be obeyed if and when the republicans get back into a position of responsibility, or else it's just hot air.
- The message needs changing. The old mantra of "smaller government, moral values, national security...and a tax cut, to boot!", should now also include this: "we say what we mean, and we mean what we say". Not only does that need to be hammered home in words, it needs to be demonstrated by actions. This means no more Katrinas, no more busted budgets, no more Bridges to Nowhere. As McCain said, make the folks who backslide 'famous'.
- A new formulation of Gingrich's Contract with America shoud be put forward as the guiding principles for the republican party for the next decade. It should include;
a. a plan to prevent American corporations from offshoring/outsourcing (euphamistically - 'encouragement' to stop this practice) and generally screwing the American worker. This nation's industrial complex must be rebuilt both to provide jobs and future economic activity. This may be a no-no for free-marketeers, but we have to put people in this country back to work. Give them incentives (or punishments) to bring the jobs back home. Sometimes you need to break eggs to make omlettes. We shoujld no longer give a rat's ass about whether the Chinese can afford to buy American products when it's becoming clear that Americans can no longer afford to buy them.
b. Present a challenge to American industry and science to produce a viable, sustainable alternative fuel -- and just as important, the machinery which can utilize it. If it worked for NASA, it'll work for Exxon-Mobil and GM. It's about time American industry (what's left of it) started doing what it used to do; making actual products, that people want, at a price they can afford.
c. Get the party off the Christain Right teat, and put the Godbots back in the pews where they belong. Morality will never be legislated; it has to be nutured -- outside of the political system -- on an individual level -- which (ironically) is where the churches of this country historically do their best work. Simply packing the Supreme Court will not get rid of abortion-on-demand. Create the culture first outside of politics, and then the newly-created culture will reshape the politics. Not the other way around.
d. Change the immigration debate not by stigmatizing immigrants (after all, we are all the descendants of immigrants), but rather by advocating policies which steer new immigrants towards assimilation. Punish those who break the law, espcially employers (instead of milking them for campaign contributions and votes). No more welfare applications in Spanish, no more voting forms in Swahili, no more money for bi-lingual education. The only time a foreign language should be used/transmitted by the US government is if it is matter of public health or safety. Assimilation is the most important solution to the immigration problem, enforcement of existing law is the second. Armed marines with orders to shoot lawbreakers would be the third.
e. Fight like hell to revoke the monstrosity called Campaign Finance Reform (three lies for the price of one). John McCain hung himself with his own rope, which is appropos. The stupidity of this particular legislation was obvious from the very start. It's appropriate that McCain's system, which was really nothing more than a way for elected politicians to achieve tenure, should be at the very foundation of his failure to achieve higher office.
f. Demand accountability. Every member of Congress should be required to keep a website in which their day-to-day activities, in minute detail, are updated every day. That includes every meeting, every vote, every bill they sponsor, every dollar they spend in their offices, every contribution and endorsement they receive. Each member should be required to explain their votes on it, too, in excruciating detail.
- Find a way to not only communicate 'the message' but find a better way of actually describing how your message will translate into action, also. We get it, we just don't know how you intend to do it. Details, details, details...and then explain why the details are consistent with both republican and conservative principles.
- New blood, new blood, new blood. Stop with the litmus tests which prevent that new blood from entering the party debate. If this is truly a Big Tent Party, then the price of admission to that Big Tent must not be anti-gay, pro-gun, anti-regulation-only; if we have a fiscal conservative or constitutional literalist who's weak on a social issue, we must stop labeling him/her RINO and then showing them the exit. Orthodoxy should never trump effectiveness, or utility.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Friday, October 31, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
So Healthy You Can Smell It...
A little levity. We need some. And a little science. We can always use that. Read this, and have a chuckle. Who would have thought that pushcart burrito could actually be good for you?
http://www.livescience.com/health/081023-farts-blood-pressure.html#comments
A little levity. We need some. And a little science. We can always use that. Read this, and have a chuckle. Who would have thought that pushcart burrito could actually be good for you?
http://www.livescience.com/health/081023-farts-blood-pressure.html#comments
Friday, October 24, 2008
People Who Can't Count, Shouldn't Be Allowed (to Sign Other People Up) to Vote...
ACORN, an adjunct to the democratic party (despite what both have to say on the subject), last week claimed to have 'registered 1.3 million new voters' for the 2008 election. Seems they were a little off base...
http://http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/us/politics/24acorn.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
Apparently, 2/3 of those 'new voters' are either outright inventions, ineligible voters, or just folks updating their information. Of course, when ACORN announced it's numbers last week, every flapping rectum on the cable networks was assuring us that this many 'new voters' most assuredly will break for Barack Obama.
Except that all these 'new voters' don't exist. And of the 1/3 that did manage to pass muster (about 450,000), how many will actually get to the polls on Election Day? WHo knows? But, the buzz is all about the 'new, young voters' that have signed up 'in herds.' Best guess, based on my knowledge of human nature: if the majority of those 'new voters' are under the age of 25, probably not many will actually show on Election Day (perhaps 10%. Young folk don't get out of bed for classes, dental appointments...and Election Day. Hey, there's, like, no school that day!), and fully 2/3 s of them will change from democrat to republican within 15 years. In fact, if I had to depend on the average under-25 for anything, I would depend on them not having enough ambition (or responsibility) to get up and go stand in line for anything that didn't have Beyonce in it, or come with a 99-cent burrito.
But of course, we've been told that young people have been signing up in record numbers -- as they seem to do every four years ( btw, is that real numbers or ACORN numbers?), and every four years we hear a variation on the same routine campaign-conventional-wisdom-nugget-of-the-day (that is, every four years when a hip democrat is running...we didn't hear it for either Al Gore or John Kerry, only Bill Clinton and JFK): "young people may be the key to this election..."
News flash: young people have hardly, ever, been the key to an American election. Especially those who only exist because someone fraudulently filled in a registration form for them, and then counted it three times to inflate their numbers (for political and economic reasons...allegedly).
Never, ever believe the media who tell you these stories, and certainly never trust any information given to the press by ACORN. One tells the lie, and the other has the means to disseminate it.
ACORN, an adjunct to the democratic party (despite what both have to say on the subject), last week claimed to have 'registered 1.3 million new voters' for the 2008 election. Seems they were a little off base...
http://http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/us/politics/24acorn.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
Apparently, 2/3 of those 'new voters' are either outright inventions, ineligible voters, or just folks updating their information. Of course, when ACORN announced it's numbers last week, every flapping rectum on the cable networks was assuring us that this many 'new voters' most assuredly will break for Barack Obama.
Except that all these 'new voters' don't exist. And of the 1/3 that did manage to pass muster (about 450,000), how many will actually get to the polls on Election Day? WHo knows? But, the buzz is all about the 'new, young voters' that have signed up 'in herds.' Best guess, based on my knowledge of human nature: if the majority of those 'new voters' are under the age of 25, probably not many will actually show on Election Day (perhaps 10%. Young folk don't get out of bed for classes, dental appointments...and Election Day. Hey, there's, like, no school that day!), and fully 2/3 s of them will change from democrat to republican within 15 years. In fact, if I had to depend on the average under-25 for anything, I would depend on them not having enough ambition (or responsibility) to get up and go stand in line for anything that didn't have Beyonce in it, or come with a 99-cent burrito.
But of course, we've been told that young people have been signing up in record numbers -- as they seem to do every four years ( btw, is that real numbers or ACORN numbers?), and every four years we hear a variation on the same routine campaign-conventional-wisdom-nugget-of-the-day (that is, every four years when a hip democrat is running...we didn't hear it for either Al Gore or John Kerry, only Bill Clinton and JFK): "young people may be the key to this election..."
News flash: young people have hardly, ever, been the key to an American election. Especially those who only exist because someone fraudulently filled in a registration form for them, and then counted it three times to inflate their numbers (for political and economic reasons...allegedly).
Never, ever believe the media who tell you these stories, and certainly never trust any information given to the press by ACORN. One tells the lie, and the other has the means to disseminate it.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Joe the Plumber, Meet Joe the Dumber...
Courtesy of JustOne Minute:
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2008/10/a-rocky-road-fo.html
So, Obama is going to fail his first 3AM phone call test before the call is even made?
I swear, Joe Biden, John Edwards, Al Gore, Walter Mondale...The democrats have quite a penchant for selecting people to put on their ticket who couldn't find their own behinds with both hands and a road map. And Biden is supposed to be the one who lends experience and gravitas to Obama?
What Biden is saying, if I can untangle the Senatorial Crapspeak, is this:
"The guy is gonna get hammered. And no matter what he does, some of you are gonna be like "Hey, this asshole is in the White House? What the fuck did we just do?". I just want you to know, that we're anticipating the probably-dead-on-criticism that will come his way, and while it may appear that we'll be fiddling as Washington (or New York, or Los Angeles, or Chicago) burns, rest assured, we'll be finding ways to pre-emptively defend ourselves against all the political dirty tricks of our opponents, and the biased media -- I mean, after all, an Islamic suitcase nuke exploding in Dallas is just the Republican/FoxNews smear machine out to make us look bad --which will be heaped upon a totally-unprepared-head-up-his-ass-near -Communist. really, give the guy a break. He's just President, not Jesus (That's Hay-Soos, for all you illegally registered voters). We'll be ready for it though. And you'd better be prepared to accept the fact that we won't care. Not a whit. Not a tinker's cuss. Not a pimple on that Republican/FoxNews plant Joe the Plumber's ass. We will still do what we have promised to do (steal from the productive and give it to the unproductive, at least in non-biological terms, and grovel before the tinpot dictators and terrorists of this world, while destorying capitalism in the quest for Rationed-Eyedrops-and-Bandaids-for-All-At-Government-Expense, and spreading the wealth to those who will surely waste it on Air Jordans and diamond-encrusted gold teeth) regardless of how unpopular, how short-sighted and how inherently dangerous it is!"
This is what one of the 'elder statesmen' of the democratic party, and their candidate for VP is really saying.
Hillary Clinton, in retrospect, begins to look as if she migth have been an attractive alternative, after all.
Courtesy of JustOne Minute:
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2008/10/a-rocky-road-fo.html
So, Obama is going to fail his first 3AM phone call test before the call is even made?
I swear, Joe Biden, John Edwards, Al Gore, Walter Mondale...The democrats have quite a penchant for selecting people to put on their ticket who couldn't find their own behinds with both hands and a road map. And Biden is supposed to be the one who lends experience and gravitas to Obama?
What Biden is saying, if I can untangle the Senatorial Crapspeak, is this:
"The guy is gonna get hammered. And no matter what he does, some of you are gonna be like "Hey, this asshole is in the White House? What the fuck did we just do?". I just want you to know, that we're anticipating the probably-dead-on-criticism that will come his way, and while it may appear that we'll be fiddling as Washington (or New York, or Los Angeles, or Chicago) burns, rest assured, we'll be finding ways to pre-emptively defend ourselves against all the political dirty tricks of our opponents, and the biased media -- I mean, after all, an Islamic suitcase nuke exploding in Dallas is just the Republican/FoxNews smear machine out to make us look bad --which will be heaped upon a totally-unprepared-head-up-his-ass-near -Communist. really, give the guy a break. He's just President, not Jesus (That's Hay-Soos, for all you illegally registered voters). We'll be ready for it though. And you'd better be prepared to accept the fact that we won't care. Not a whit. Not a tinker's cuss. Not a pimple on that Republican/FoxNews plant Joe the Plumber's ass. We will still do what we have promised to do (steal from the productive and give it to the unproductive, at least in non-biological terms, and grovel before the tinpot dictators and terrorists of this world, while destorying capitalism in the quest for Rationed-Eyedrops-and-Bandaids-for-All-At-Government-Expense, and spreading the wealth to those who will surely waste it on Air Jordans and diamond-encrusted gold teeth) regardless of how unpopular, how short-sighted and how inherently dangerous it is!"
This is what one of the 'elder statesmen' of the democratic party, and their candidate for VP is really saying.
Hillary Clinton, in retrospect, begins to look as if she migth have been an attractive alternative, after all.
The Upside of Financial Calamity...
At least we're not seeing advertisements for investment planners anymore. You know the ones (by now, the formula for the typical 'invest with US, we'll make you rich!" meme has become trite) in which the aging Baby-Boomers (who, thanks to plastic surgery, Pilates and the miracle of pharmacology!) are ridiculously young-looking and realizing their dream of retiring to that vineyard, preferably in the south of France. Somehow, one gets the impression watching this that a) there are literally millions who have this dream, and b) you're being sold a bill of goods which seems to indicate that this is both possible for all, and desirable.
I wonder what the French would have said had the expected Invasion of Supra-wealthy-exceedingly-tanned-and-toned-Retiree/Vineyard owners ever materialized? I can guess...
At least we don't see Dennis Hopper extolling the supposed virtues of the 60's Potato-salad generation as if they were an Army of World-Bestriding Gullivers amongst an ocean of Lilliputians. If I ever achieve any sort of power, Dennis Hopper is getting shot first. But, I digress.
It seems the first casualty of economic collapse is advertising. Which, to me, seems backwards. While the media-blitz expounding on wealth and playing upon the (mostly unrealistic) dreams of millions will not be missed by me, it shouldn't be the first casualty in this war. The people who ran American business into the ground should be. And they should run the executions on Pay-per-View.
While millions of Americans have had their futures destroyed or compromised by the bestest and brightest (so bestest and brightest that they forgot that the primary rule of business is: make money, stupid, not piss it away!), we hear that the Chairman of Lehman brothers walked away with $500 million compensation during his tenure. I'll repeat that; a half-a-billion-fucking-dollars.
The Chairman of Merrill-Lynch, another casualty, walked away with over $100 million. Former Chairmen of Freddie and Fannie, the agencies at the bottom of this collapse, made between $90 and $100 mil, apiece. AIG, fresh off it's taxpayer rescue, was still planning lavish 'Executive Weekends' for it's Overpriced Stuffed Shirts, until bad publicity put an end to that nonsense.
Since we're All-About-Socialism these days, what with the government owning the controlling stakes in some of America's biggest corporations, and Barack Obama promising to recreate Christ's miracle of the Loaves and Fishes on a reduced tax base, how about we take a page from a REAL Socialist? George Orwell (amazing how I keep coming back to him, isn't it?) once postulated that one of the ways to make Socialism more attractive was to recognize that some endeavors naturally require higher pay (medicine, science, management and such) than what your typical factory worker might require, and that therefore, the Capitalist ideal of higher pay for higher-degree-of-difficulty was still a valid one. He proposed that instead of tossing the 'Capitalist pay-scale' that it merely be restrained at it's uppermost levels. There should be, Orwell thought, no reason not reward a Doctor or Engineer with a great big paycheck, but that the difference between that Doc's pay and the pay of the Coal Miner should not exceed a 10:1 ratio.
What do you think would happen if your $100 million CEO suddenly had to make do with only ten times, max, what his $30,000 a year secretary would make? I mean, after his head exploded? Sorry, I have wandered a bit. back to my point (did I ever have one?).
While the lack of bombastic and repetitive advertising is a good thing (it has also extended into pharmaceuticals: I haven't seem Sally Field in a week complaining about having to take 15 seconds a day out of her hectic schedule to take a pill that's necessary to keep her healthy, and perhaps, alive), at the end of the day it's punishing someone. Some place, a copy writer, a photographer, a director, an editor, is being laid off. John Fuld may be dragged before Congress he may be out of work for the moment, but he still has $500 million in the bank...at least until the angry villagers, pitchforks and torches in hand, come to take it from him with lawyers barking and straining at the leash.
So, in effect, the withdrawal of advertising is hurting people further in terms of employment, even if it is an awesome thing to be able to watch television without having CitiGroup tell you how they Never Sleep, or that Charles Schwab is America's-Number-One-Discount-Broker (as proclaimed by the All-Powerful J.D. Power and Associates, who curiously never have to advertise themselves), or watching a complete dweeb like Roger Riney show off his helicopter-piloting skills for....well, no reason that I can think of. Why, it doesn't even make sense.
But then again, that's symptomatic of the whole mentality of this type of Celebrity CEO: I'm so stupid-rich that I'll fly a helicopter in my company's commercials, despite the fact that it's extremely out-of-context and unnecessary. And so expensive as t be the first casualty of economic decline.
In the meantime, I feel for the people, even the people who produce these stupid commercials for helicopter-flying-nonentities, as they suffer. I'm happy there's less advertising, just saddened when I realize there's people who make a living that way.
At least we're not seeing advertisements for investment planners anymore. You know the ones (by now, the formula for the typical 'invest with US, we'll make you rich!" meme has become trite) in which the aging Baby-Boomers (who, thanks to plastic surgery, Pilates and the miracle of pharmacology!) are ridiculously young-looking and realizing their dream of retiring to that vineyard, preferably in the south of France. Somehow, one gets the impression watching this that a) there are literally millions who have this dream, and b) you're being sold a bill of goods which seems to indicate that this is both possible for all, and desirable.
I wonder what the French would have said had the expected Invasion of Supra-wealthy-exceedingly-tanned-and-toned-Retiree/Vineyard owners ever materialized? I can guess...
At least we don't see Dennis Hopper extolling the supposed virtues of the 60's Potato-salad generation as if they were an Army of World-Bestriding Gullivers amongst an ocean of Lilliputians. If I ever achieve any sort of power, Dennis Hopper is getting shot first. But, I digress.
It seems the first casualty of economic collapse is advertising. Which, to me, seems backwards. While the media-blitz expounding on wealth and playing upon the (mostly unrealistic) dreams of millions will not be missed by me, it shouldn't be the first casualty in this war. The people who ran American business into the ground should be. And they should run the executions on Pay-per-View.
While millions of Americans have had their futures destroyed or compromised by the bestest and brightest (so bestest and brightest that they forgot that the primary rule of business is: make money, stupid, not piss it away!), we hear that the Chairman of Lehman brothers walked away with $500 million compensation during his tenure. I'll repeat that; a half-a-billion-fucking-dollars.
The Chairman of Merrill-Lynch, another casualty, walked away with over $100 million. Former Chairmen of Freddie and Fannie, the agencies at the bottom of this collapse, made between $90 and $100 mil, apiece. AIG, fresh off it's taxpayer rescue, was still planning lavish 'Executive Weekends' for it's Overpriced Stuffed Shirts, until bad publicity put an end to that nonsense.
Since we're All-About-Socialism these days, what with the government owning the controlling stakes in some of America's biggest corporations, and Barack Obama promising to recreate Christ's miracle of the Loaves and Fishes on a reduced tax base, how about we take a page from a REAL Socialist? George Orwell (amazing how I keep coming back to him, isn't it?) once postulated that one of the ways to make Socialism more attractive was to recognize that some endeavors naturally require higher pay (medicine, science, management and such) than what your typical factory worker might require, and that therefore, the Capitalist ideal of higher pay for higher-degree-of-difficulty was still a valid one. He proposed that instead of tossing the 'Capitalist pay-scale' that it merely be restrained at it's uppermost levels. There should be, Orwell thought, no reason not reward a Doctor or Engineer with a great big paycheck, but that the difference between that Doc's pay and the pay of the Coal Miner should not exceed a 10:1 ratio.
What do you think would happen if your $100 million CEO suddenly had to make do with only ten times, max, what his $30,000 a year secretary would make? I mean, after his head exploded? Sorry, I have wandered a bit. back to my point (did I ever have one?).
While the lack of bombastic and repetitive advertising is a good thing (it has also extended into pharmaceuticals: I haven't seem Sally Field in a week complaining about having to take 15 seconds a day out of her hectic schedule to take a pill that's necessary to keep her healthy, and perhaps, alive), at the end of the day it's punishing someone. Some place, a copy writer, a photographer, a director, an editor, is being laid off. John Fuld may be dragged before Congress he may be out of work for the moment, but he still has $500 million in the bank...at least until the angry villagers, pitchforks and torches in hand, come to take it from him with lawyers barking and straining at the leash.
So, in effect, the withdrawal of advertising is hurting people further in terms of employment, even if it is an awesome thing to be able to watch television without having CitiGroup tell you how they Never Sleep, or that Charles Schwab is America's-Number-One-Discount-Broker (as proclaimed by the All-Powerful J.D. Power and Associates, who curiously never have to advertise themselves), or watching a complete dweeb like Roger Riney show off his helicopter-piloting skills for....well, no reason that I can think of. Why, it doesn't even make sense.
But then again, that's symptomatic of the whole mentality of this type of Celebrity CEO: I'm so stupid-rich that I'll fly a helicopter in my company's commercials, despite the fact that it's extremely out-of-context and unnecessary. And so expensive as t be the first casualty of economic decline.
In the meantime, I feel for the people, even the people who produce these stupid commercials for helicopter-flying-nonentities, as they suffer. I'm happy there's less advertising, just saddened when I realize there's people who make a living that way.
Friday, October 17, 2008
This Country is Sooooo Screwed, Part II...
There is a running argument between my mother and I, and it has to do with which jerk manages to scam his way into the White House this fall. My mother enthusiastically supports Barack Obama, and I, reluctantly, John McCain. There is an interesting dialectic at work here between the words 'enthusiastically' and 'reluctantly'.
My mother is enthused because Barack Obama claims to have the answers to her immediate needs; she is near retirement-age, has had her pension and retirement funds ravaged by the recent market turmoil, lives on disability insurance payments and requires expensive medication. Obama, basically, promises her the following;
a) More Social Security money than you can shake a stick at. The system will continue to pay out, even if we have to short-dick every cannibal on the Congo, and the longer you live (medical science is keeping us all alive longer than we perhaps have a right to), the more you will get. Don't worry about who has to pay for it so long as you don't have to, nor I, Barack Obama. Free money is yours for the taking.
b) You have a right to government-funded Claritin and Preparation H, and if you decide you want that abortion or breast enlargement for your 65th birthday, be our guest. Whatever your tiny ache or pain, whatever your fake Baby-Boomer malady (like Restless Leg Syndrome), or how many expensive prescription drugs you take to mask the side-effects of all the other expensive prescription drugs you're taking for your bunions and the other pitfalls of what used to be called Old Age, I will give you insurance for it. Even if I have to brazenly steal from the productive to give it to you.
c) Even though you pay next to nothing in taxes (since your disability payments are tax free), I'm still going to give you a tax cut (i.e. bribe paid for by someone else), even though you don't work!
Given that set of promises, I might be enthusiastic, too.
However, it is more than likely my generation of taxpayers (and my children's, if I ever have any) who will have to pay for it. We already are, in more than one way. I'll explain;
At the moment, this country is being run by the folks of my mother's generation. These are the folks who went to Woodstock. It is the generation that dodged the Draft. It is the generation who said 'if it feels good, do it' and who thought taking acid to 'expand your mind' was a good idea. It is the generation that believed (suckers!) that John F. Kennedy was the next best thing to God. It is the generation that invented Disco, the Pet Rock, and who thought bell-bottoms were cool. It is the generation that once boasted that it 'spoke truth to power' and 'challenged the status quo', until, of course, it became the status quo, and then truth took a backseat to power. It will be, even with the recent disasters on Wall Street, one of the two richest generations of retirees in the history of the world (their parents, the 'Greatest Generation', is the first).
In other words, the country is being run by self-indulgent, instant-gratification-is-our-motto, greedy, mollycoddled, infantile, selfish, retards who can't get over themselves. The Congress is full of them. The last two occupants of the White House have been counted amongst their members. They are the generation of managers who run the corporations, the media, academia, state and local government. They are incredibly narrow-minded, despite the pretense of education many of them display; every problem to a Baby Boomer, in my experience, is always examined in light of the two greatest experiences in their lives: The Vietnam War (remember how Iraq was another Vietnam, not only in 2003-8, but way back in 1991?) and the Sexual Revolution (all that hullabaloo about Hillary being 'cheated' because of her gender, and all the crap about Sarah Palin not truly representing the feminazi ideal because she's a pro-life republican?) . No matter what the topic, they keep coming back to these two events. They can't help themselves, as these were the defining moments of their existence, probably just as 9/11 will be the defining experience of mine. These are the people who elevated the art of hypocrisy to a fine art, the 'do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do' generation who has lived their life by a frightening creed; all ethics are situational, no truth is definitive and depends on your point-of-view-at-the-moment, the future will consist of an endless existence of living in the immediate present, tinged by nostalgia for the Summer of Love.
This is who runs America, folks, and they're about to retire. By the tens of millions. And they have a vested interest in keeping themselves comfortable, and in keeping themselves, and their worldview, relevant (by which we mean, the center of attention, particularly political attention). In the next decade, 'Senior Citizen' will be the new 'African-American' of government entitlement. Barack Obama promises to scratch these particular itches for them, come hell or high water, thus all the fainting and fawning over him. Thus, the enthusiastic support.
Now, for my reluctance.
John McCain is not my first choice for anything. I think I have made that abundantly clear in this screed. Given a choice between an enema and McCain, the enema looks like an interesting experience. However, Barack Obama is even less attractive, and potentially more destructive. Therefore, McCain is clearly the lesser of two evils (the two evils being that the American political landscape is so completely fucked up that these two are the best we could come up with; one guy who spent 30 years in a system that encourages and rewards either mediocrity or mendacity, and another who wouldn't have a thick enough resume to run your local PizzaHut).
Both men, despite what either says about themselves, represents anything new in American politics; McCain's 'maverick' reputation is little more than posturing and self-promotion, and Obama's 'transcendence' is little more than a slick marketing campaign designed to appeal to those who can't think and chew gum at the same time. McCain, if he stands for anything, at least stands as the Anti-Obama, and by extension, the Anti-Baby-Boomer. That is why I will support him, but unfortunately, he hasn't offered enough after that (although I do have high hopes for Sarah Palin...someone of both my generation and my political leanings. Obama might be of my generation, but his political leanings have their roots in the 1960's, and some harken back to Karl Marx). Therefore, my support is grudging, at best, reluctant at worst.
Well anyway, the greatest threat to American society in the foreseeable future is the Baby-Boomers, who are in charge at the moment -- and their numbers are legion. They will vote themselves a permanent place at the government teat if they aren't stopped. John McCain, even if he is one of them, at least represents some of the forces that will resist their further advance towards bankrupting their children and grandchildren for their own personal wants and needs. It has to be done now. It has to be done by my generation, as well, since I have absolutely no faith at all in the generation of slackers behind me; they are uniformly misinformed, typically just as short-sighted as their grandparents, and apparently happy to be both. But they care, you know. Ask them what they care about, and they can't explain it, but their earnestness is still touching (and hilarious).
If this country is to be saved (and by that I mean returned to constitutional government and common sense), it will have to be done by clear-thinking people who are not romantically-attached to a mythical past (for all their claims of achievement, the Flower children did very little -- they didn't stop a war, and they only accelerated the decay of moral and civil society), or who take it as an article of faith that they are entitled to everything by virtue of being alive. It will be done by people who know that you have only yourself to rely on...not your parents, not the government, not slick-talking politicians who couldn't lead a three year old to the crapper without cajolling a campaign contribution from him first. The greatest lesson ever taught to me by my mother's generation was that personal responsibility was something for other people to worry about. But then I grew up. They never did.
Until we return to those virtues of self-reliance, personal responsibility and constitutional government, and we begin to rebuild a culture where informed discourse -- not bribery, not the ability to survive within a crooked system, not You-Tube, DailyKos or FreeRepublic -- rules our political life, where American Idol and Sex With Mom and Dad are not the height of intellectual stimulation, we're fucked. We're fucked because our future is being dictated by an entire generation of wrong-thinking, self-absorbed, double-talking people who will do nothing but consume the fruits of other people's labor, are convinced they are entitled to it, and who will use the ballot box to secure it.
There is a running argument between my mother and I, and it has to do with which jerk manages to scam his way into the White House this fall. My mother enthusiastically supports Barack Obama, and I, reluctantly, John McCain. There is an interesting dialectic at work here between the words 'enthusiastically' and 'reluctantly'.
My mother is enthused because Barack Obama claims to have the answers to her immediate needs; she is near retirement-age, has had her pension and retirement funds ravaged by the recent market turmoil, lives on disability insurance payments and requires expensive medication. Obama, basically, promises her the following;
a) More Social Security money than you can shake a stick at. The system will continue to pay out, even if we have to short-dick every cannibal on the Congo, and the longer you live (medical science is keeping us all alive longer than we perhaps have a right to), the more you will get. Don't worry about who has to pay for it so long as you don't have to, nor I, Barack Obama. Free money is yours for the taking.
b) You have a right to government-funded Claritin and Preparation H, and if you decide you want that abortion or breast enlargement for your 65th birthday, be our guest. Whatever your tiny ache or pain, whatever your fake Baby-Boomer malady (like Restless Leg Syndrome), or how many expensive prescription drugs you take to mask the side-effects of all the other expensive prescription drugs you're taking for your bunions and the other pitfalls of what used to be called Old Age, I will give you insurance for it. Even if I have to brazenly steal from the productive to give it to you.
c) Even though you pay next to nothing in taxes (since your disability payments are tax free), I'm still going to give you a tax cut (i.e. bribe paid for by someone else), even though you don't work!
Given that set of promises, I might be enthusiastic, too.
However, it is more than likely my generation of taxpayers (and my children's, if I ever have any) who will have to pay for it. We already are, in more than one way. I'll explain;
At the moment, this country is being run by the folks of my mother's generation. These are the folks who went to Woodstock. It is the generation that dodged the Draft. It is the generation who said 'if it feels good, do it' and who thought taking acid to 'expand your mind' was a good idea. It is the generation that believed (suckers!) that John F. Kennedy was the next best thing to God. It is the generation that invented Disco, the Pet Rock, and who thought bell-bottoms were cool. It is the generation that once boasted that it 'spoke truth to power' and 'challenged the status quo', until, of course, it became the status quo, and then truth took a backseat to power. It will be, even with the recent disasters on Wall Street, one of the two richest generations of retirees in the history of the world (their parents, the 'Greatest Generation', is the first).
In other words, the country is being run by self-indulgent, instant-gratification-is-our-motto, greedy, mollycoddled, infantile, selfish, retards who can't get over themselves. The Congress is full of them. The last two occupants of the White House have been counted amongst their members. They are the generation of managers who run the corporations, the media, academia, state and local government. They are incredibly narrow-minded, despite the pretense of education many of them display; every problem to a Baby Boomer, in my experience, is always examined in light of the two greatest experiences in their lives: The Vietnam War (remember how Iraq was another Vietnam, not only in 2003-8, but way back in 1991?) and the Sexual Revolution (all that hullabaloo about Hillary being 'cheated' because of her gender, and all the crap about Sarah Palin not truly representing the feminazi ideal because she's a pro-life republican?) . No matter what the topic, they keep coming back to these two events. They can't help themselves, as these were the defining moments of their existence, probably just as 9/11 will be the defining experience of mine. These are the people who elevated the art of hypocrisy to a fine art, the 'do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do' generation who has lived their life by a frightening creed; all ethics are situational, no truth is definitive and depends on your point-of-view-at-the-moment, the future will consist of an endless existence of living in the immediate present, tinged by nostalgia for the Summer of Love.
This is who runs America, folks, and they're about to retire. By the tens of millions. And they have a vested interest in keeping themselves comfortable, and in keeping themselves, and their worldview, relevant (by which we mean, the center of attention, particularly political attention). In the next decade, 'Senior Citizen' will be the new 'African-American' of government entitlement. Barack Obama promises to scratch these particular itches for them, come hell or high water, thus all the fainting and fawning over him. Thus, the enthusiastic support.
Now, for my reluctance.
John McCain is not my first choice for anything. I think I have made that abundantly clear in this screed. Given a choice between an enema and McCain, the enema looks like an interesting experience. However, Barack Obama is even less attractive, and potentially more destructive. Therefore, McCain is clearly the lesser of two evils (the two evils being that the American political landscape is so completely fucked up that these two are the best we could come up with; one guy who spent 30 years in a system that encourages and rewards either mediocrity or mendacity, and another who wouldn't have a thick enough resume to run your local PizzaHut).
Both men, despite what either says about themselves, represents anything new in American politics; McCain's 'maverick' reputation is little more than posturing and self-promotion, and Obama's 'transcendence' is little more than a slick marketing campaign designed to appeal to those who can't think and chew gum at the same time. McCain, if he stands for anything, at least stands as the Anti-Obama, and by extension, the Anti-Baby-Boomer. That is why I will support him, but unfortunately, he hasn't offered enough after that (although I do have high hopes for Sarah Palin...someone of both my generation and my political leanings. Obama might be of my generation, but his political leanings have their roots in the 1960's, and some harken back to Karl Marx). Therefore, my support is grudging, at best, reluctant at worst.
Well anyway, the greatest threat to American society in the foreseeable future is the Baby-Boomers, who are in charge at the moment -- and their numbers are legion. They will vote themselves a permanent place at the government teat if they aren't stopped. John McCain, even if he is one of them, at least represents some of the forces that will resist their further advance towards bankrupting their children and grandchildren for their own personal wants and needs. It has to be done now. It has to be done by my generation, as well, since I have absolutely no faith at all in the generation of slackers behind me; they are uniformly misinformed, typically just as short-sighted as their grandparents, and apparently happy to be both. But they care, you know. Ask them what they care about, and they can't explain it, but their earnestness is still touching (and hilarious).
If this country is to be saved (and by that I mean returned to constitutional government and common sense), it will have to be done by clear-thinking people who are not romantically-attached to a mythical past (for all their claims of achievement, the Flower children did very little -- they didn't stop a war, and they only accelerated the decay of moral and civil society), or who take it as an article of faith that they are entitled to everything by virtue of being alive. It will be done by people who know that you have only yourself to rely on...not your parents, not the government, not slick-talking politicians who couldn't lead a three year old to the crapper without cajolling a campaign contribution from him first. The greatest lesson ever taught to me by my mother's generation was that personal responsibility was something for other people to worry about. But then I grew up. They never did.
Until we return to those virtues of self-reliance, personal responsibility and constitutional government, and we begin to rebuild a culture where informed discourse -- not bribery, not the ability to survive within a crooked system, not You-Tube, DailyKos or FreeRepublic -- rules our political life, where American Idol and Sex With Mom and Dad are not the height of intellectual stimulation, we're fucked. We're fucked because our future is being dictated by an entire generation of wrong-thinking, self-absorbed, double-talking people who will do nothing but consume the fruits of other people's labor, are convinced they are entitled to it, and who will use the ballot box to secure it.
This Country is Sooooo Screwed, Part I...
I really didn't want to write about the economic crisis because I would simply be repeating many of the things I've already written here; the crisis was caused by the same triad of bugbears that is always at the bottom of any tragedy: greed, stupidity and appalling lack of oversight. Anyone who's followed this rant for any appreciable amount of time knows how I feel about Wall Street -- it's legalized gambling -- and how I feel about 'financial professionals' -- they're (mostly) self-inflated, egotistical crooks with inferiority complexes that can only be satiated by Pavlovian- reflexive acts of mere acquisition and accumulation, and the only differences between them and your neighborhood bookie are a federal license, and a better suit. Anything I would have to say on the subject would be tainted by this view, and would only present me with little more than an "I-told-you-so" opportunity which doesn't put me in the mood to do the Snoopy-happy-dance.
But, unfortunately, I can't ignore it any longer. Particularly not when the American government resorts to nationalization in order to (they think) correct a problem with supposedly-free markets (itself a misnomer to begin with), and decides the right tonic is the transfer of $700 billion from public coffers (you know, money that would have otherwise been wasted on something like, oh, national defense...) to the private sector to, in effect, save the financial whiz-kid's collective ass from their own stupidity. Why? Because without it there would economic turmoil, in which the earth might spin off it's axis and hurtle into the sun.
Of course, even though Wall Street got what it wanted (someone else to pay for their mistakes), the markets are still tanking because the same jerks who caused the meltdown are still at work. The markets are dominated by speculators and short-sellers, and fueled by easy-to-obtain credit. The government just handed them $700 billion to keep the credit markets afloat, and the Federal Reserve bank just lowered rates again to make borrowing almost free (I think the Fed rate now is 1.5% or something), and the markets still fluctuate wildly. Why? Because the lesson that has been learned is not 'make-a-serious-mistake-and-lose-your-job', it's 'make-a-boo-boo-of-galactic-proportions-and-some-idiot-with-the-title-Congressman-or-Senator-will-cover-your-losses'. Short selling is still going on, speculation is still rampant -- and it's still other people's money.
This is the mechanism which is at the root of the current financial crisis; money was too easy to come by when times were good, and it's still too easy to come by when you screw the pooch. If we had a truly free market, which was run by people who were truly held accountable (like being taken out and hung in the public square, instead of being just fired with Golden Parachutes totalling millions in cash and perks), this could not have happened. Not in a million years. If the rules which prevailed in American markets before the 1990's were still in place, this could not have happened. The American government has catered to business for far too long. Government gave business what it said it wanted; it removed regulations, it made credit easy to come by with Fed policies, it has allowed business to ship jobs and capital safely out of the country without any stigma or penalty, it has bribed and bought politicians (allegedly) to run interference for them with the media and the regulatory bodies. In short, it has gotten every advantage (other people's) money could buy, and what did it do with those advantages?
A few at the top enriched themselves, got arrogant, and then engaged in risky behavior that defied logic and the immutable laws of basic economics. And look where it got us. The next time I hear a CEO complain on the idiot box that American corporations 'can't compete in the global marketplace' because of some law or regulation or somesuch, I'm going to personally shove his gold-plated Blackberry down his throat. Instead of worrying about whether the Chinese or Ethiopians can afford American goods and products, perhaps they should start worrying about whether Americans can afford them now. There's no point in being able to 'compete globally' if the price is poverty at home, and particularly when that poverty is caused by business policies that eliminate jobs, encourage crippling debt, allow stupid and unscrupulous people to rise to the top, and then destroy the wealth of the people who aren't fortunate enough to have the option of resigning (therefore dodging the consequences attendant with responsibility) with a 'two-comma' severance package which some other sucker has to pay for.
Another lesson Americans will learn, painfully, in the next few years is this: the American government, despite what it says or the mystical powers granted to it by a mostly-ignorant populace, does *not* run 'the Economy'. The President of the United States does not run it, the Congress does not run it. The Fed doesn't either. True, they have the ability to affect it with regulations, tax and monetary policy, but they don't have a handle on it. When people demand that government 'do something about the economy' there is very little that any individual, or even a collective group like Congress, can do. The primary reason is because economic activity often takes place in a realm outside the political. True, political factors may condition the practice of capitalism, but capitalism takes place no matter who is in charge or what policies they espouse. One need only need to note that drug dealing, prostitution, illicit gambling, and other criminal behaviors still continue, despite legal sanction -- because there's money to be made in them for the individual who is willing to take the risks associated with making his/her money in those endeavors. Despite the dictates and policies of government, these trades still flourish, proving that government is often irrelevant when it comes to economic activity. That such activity takes place 'under the radar' and with the general acceptance of many in government, only futher bolsters the case; they can't stop it, regulate it or tax it, for a variety or reasons (mostly sloth), so they pretty much leave it alone. Much of the 'legitimate' market operates on the same prinicples, whether anyone likes to admit so openly or not.
And for those who might argue the analogy; pimps, whores, pushers, and organized crime are all words that can be used to adequately, and accurately, describe any aspect of what has just transpired in the markets, the people who caused it, and the people who purportedly 'addressed' this issue by obligating the taxpayer to pay for someone else's bad bets. The comparison, I think, is appropos. But I digress.
The second reason is that collective, effective (key word), action is mostly impossible because of a dazzling array of personal and political factors in play (like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd trying to avoid jail time, and the Congressional Republicans trying to score points with the so-called Freemarketeers). These often-petty turf, perquisite and ideological battles conspire to ensure that no one side of the poltical-ecenomic debate is dominated by any one view which might further prejudice the system. It also ensures that when Congress does take up collective action, it's eventual scope is, hopefully, constrained.
Americans are about to learn that the government couldn't organize a gang-bang in a whorehouse, let alone run the American economy. And run the economy it shall attempt to do: it now owns (or will soon assume responsibility for) major stakes in banks, mortgage markets, insurance and brokerage firms, and it's tentacles will sink deeper into the economic soil as that $700 billion begins to get disbursed. We're about to find out that we were probably better off, in the long run, letting AIG and Morgan-Stanley, and the rest fail on their own (de-)merits than have the Federal Government throw good money after bad and then take control of many institutions in the process.
Whichever idiot takes the White House next January has to consider this, and has to make it a centerpiece of his administration: that bailout package has to be reworked, and it has to be done in such a way as to:
a) Ensure that $700 billion gets paid back, with interest
b) Ensure that $700 billion gets paid back as quickly as possible so that the institutions rescued can get the government out of it's offices ASAP.
c) Scrutiny of corporate activities must be intensified. Particularly executive compensation and the practice of tying compensation to stock prices -- this not only invites fraud, it actively encourages it, not to mention having a corporation use common-sense accounting and reporting tools, and the demand for transparency to the public and shareholders.
d) True and effective reform of Social Security and Medicare, because $1 trillion dollars of retirement wealth just got wiped out. This means taking a peek at every item int he Fed'ral budget, top to bottom, and taking both the hatchet and the scalpel to it.
I really didn't want to write about the economic crisis because I would simply be repeating many of the things I've already written here; the crisis was caused by the same triad of bugbears that is always at the bottom of any tragedy: greed, stupidity and appalling lack of oversight. Anyone who's followed this rant for any appreciable amount of time knows how I feel about Wall Street -- it's legalized gambling -- and how I feel about 'financial professionals' -- they're (mostly) self-inflated, egotistical crooks with inferiority complexes that can only be satiated by Pavlovian- reflexive acts of mere acquisition and accumulation, and the only differences between them and your neighborhood bookie are a federal license, and a better suit. Anything I would have to say on the subject would be tainted by this view, and would only present me with little more than an "I-told-you-so" opportunity which doesn't put me in the mood to do the Snoopy-happy-dance.
But, unfortunately, I can't ignore it any longer. Particularly not when the American government resorts to nationalization in order to (they think) correct a problem with supposedly-free markets (itself a misnomer to begin with), and decides the right tonic is the transfer of $700 billion from public coffers (you know, money that would have otherwise been wasted on something like, oh, national defense...) to the private sector to, in effect, save the financial whiz-kid's collective ass from their own stupidity. Why? Because without it there would economic turmoil, in which the earth might spin off it's axis and hurtle into the sun.
Of course, even though Wall Street got what it wanted (someone else to pay for their mistakes), the markets are still tanking because the same jerks who caused the meltdown are still at work. The markets are dominated by speculators and short-sellers, and fueled by easy-to-obtain credit. The government just handed them $700 billion to keep the credit markets afloat, and the Federal Reserve bank just lowered rates again to make borrowing almost free (I think the Fed rate now is 1.5% or something), and the markets still fluctuate wildly. Why? Because the lesson that has been learned is not 'make-a-serious-mistake-and-lose-your-job', it's 'make-a-boo-boo-of-galactic-proportions-and-some-idiot-with-the-title-Congressman-or-Senator-will-cover-your-losses'. Short selling is still going on, speculation is still rampant -- and it's still other people's money.
This is the mechanism which is at the root of the current financial crisis; money was too easy to come by when times were good, and it's still too easy to come by when you screw the pooch. If we had a truly free market, which was run by people who were truly held accountable (like being taken out and hung in the public square, instead of being just fired with Golden Parachutes totalling millions in cash and perks), this could not have happened. Not in a million years. If the rules which prevailed in American markets before the 1990's were still in place, this could not have happened. The American government has catered to business for far too long. Government gave business what it said it wanted; it removed regulations, it made credit easy to come by with Fed policies, it has allowed business to ship jobs and capital safely out of the country without any stigma or penalty, it has bribed and bought politicians (allegedly) to run interference for them with the media and the regulatory bodies. In short, it has gotten every advantage (other people's) money could buy, and what did it do with those advantages?
A few at the top enriched themselves, got arrogant, and then engaged in risky behavior that defied logic and the immutable laws of basic economics. And look where it got us. The next time I hear a CEO complain on the idiot box that American corporations 'can't compete in the global marketplace' because of some law or regulation or somesuch, I'm going to personally shove his gold-plated Blackberry down his throat. Instead of worrying about whether the Chinese or Ethiopians can afford American goods and products, perhaps they should start worrying about whether Americans can afford them now. There's no point in being able to 'compete globally' if the price is poverty at home, and particularly when that poverty is caused by business policies that eliminate jobs, encourage crippling debt, allow stupid and unscrupulous people to rise to the top, and then destroy the wealth of the people who aren't fortunate enough to have the option of resigning (therefore dodging the consequences attendant with responsibility) with a 'two-comma' severance package which some other sucker has to pay for.
Another lesson Americans will learn, painfully, in the next few years is this: the American government, despite what it says or the mystical powers granted to it by a mostly-ignorant populace, does *not* run 'the Economy'. The President of the United States does not run it, the Congress does not run it. The Fed doesn't either. True, they have the ability to affect it with regulations, tax and monetary policy, but they don't have a handle on it. When people demand that government 'do something about the economy' there is very little that any individual, or even a collective group like Congress, can do. The primary reason is because economic activity often takes place in a realm outside the political. True, political factors may condition the practice of capitalism, but capitalism takes place no matter who is in charge or what policies they espouse. One need only need to note that drug dealing, prostitution, illicit gambling, and other criminal behaviors still continue, despite legal sanction -- because there's money to be made in them for the individual who is willing to take the risks associated with making his/her money in those endeavors. Despite the dictates and policies of government, these trades still flourish, proving that government is often irrelevant when it comes to economic activity. That such activity takes place 'under the radar' and with the general acceptance of many in government, only futher bolsters the case; they can't stop it, regulate it or tax it, for a variety or reasons (mostly sloth), so they pretty much leave it alone. Much of the 'legitimate' market operates on the same prinicples, whether anyone likes to admit so openly or not.
And for those who might argue the analogy; pimps, whores, pushers, and organized crime are all words that can be used to adequately, and accurately, describe any aspect of what has just transpired in the markets, the people who caused it, and the people who purportedly 'addressed' this issue by obligating the taxpayer to pay for someone else's bad bets. The comparison, I think, is appropos. But I digress.
The second reason is that collective, effective (key word), action is mostly impossible because of a dazzling array of personal and political factors in play (like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd trying to avoid jail time, and the Congressional Republicans trying to score points with the so-called Freemarketeers). These often-petty turf, perquisite and ideological battles conspire to ensure that no one side of the poltical-ecenomic debate is dominated by any one view which might further prejudice the system. It also ensures that when Congress does take up collective action, it's eventual scope is, hopefully, constrained.
Americans are about to learn that the government couldn't organize a gang-bang in a whorehouse, let alone run the American economy. And run the economy it shall attempt to do: it now owns (or will soon assume responsibility for) major stakes in banks, mortgage markets, insurance and brokerage firms, and it's tentacles will sink deeper into the economic soil as that $700 billion begins to get disbursed. We're about to find out that we were probably better off, in the long run, letting AIG and Morgan-Stanley, and the rest fail on their own (de-)merits than have the Federal Government throw good money after bad and then take control of many institutions in the process.
Whichever idiot takes the White House next January has to consider this, and has to make it a centerpiece of his administration: that bailout package has to be reworked, and it has to be done in such a way as to:
a) Ensure that $700 billion gets paid back, with interest
b) Ensure that $700 billion gets paid back as quickly as possible so that the institutions rescued can get the government out of it's offices ASAP.
c) Scrutiny of corporate activities must be intensified. Particularly executive compensation and the practice of tying compensation to stock prices -- this not only invites fraud, it actively encourages it, not to mention having a corporation use common-sense accounting and reporting tools, and the demand for transparency to the public and shareholders.
d) True and effective reform of Social Security and Medicare, because $1 trillion dollars of retirement wealth just got wiped out. This means taking a peek at every item int he Fed'ral budget, top to bottom, and taking both the hatchet and the scalpel to it.
Democracy, indeed...
Just came in on FoxNews: the Supreme Court has ruled today that the Ohio Secretary of State does *not* have to a) turn over a list of 200,000 suspected fraudulent voter registrations, and b) comply with Federal Election law and tie her voter registration database to both the Ohio DMV and the Social Security Administration in order to verify the eligibility of Ohio's voters.
In effect, The Supreme Court has just ruled that Federal Election law, passed by duly-elected representatives, which has passed Constitutional muster, somehow does not matter.
This is significant because of recent (apparently true!) complaints about fraudulent voter registrations submitted by ACORN, a left-oriented organization dedicated to sucking at the government teat and providing a permanent jobs program for those who wouldn't get one otherwise, in the state of Ohio. The Secretary of State in Ohio, Jennifer Brunner (a democrat, it goes without saying) refused to abide by Fed'ral law and use the Social Security and DMV databases in order to verify residence in the State of Ohio, or other requirements for eligibility for voting, on approximately 200,000 applications. Note: in the last two elections, GW Bush carried Ohio by a margin of less than 100,000 votes. Two-hundred thousand fraudulent votes, left unchecked by the officials and system charged with protecting the electoral system against them, might very well decide the contest. That Brunner reportedly has willfully ignored election law by ordering the disconnect between the DMV/SS systems and her own voter registration database, apparently does not matter.
This smells to the heavens.
For those of you who cried that the Supreme Court stole an election for George W. Bush, it just might have allowed the supporters of Barack Obama to steal another one.
Just came in on FoxNews: the Supreme Court has ruled today that the Ohio Secretary of State does *not* have to a) turn over a list of 200,000 suspected fraudulent voter registrations, and b) comply with Federal Election law and tie her voter registration database to both the Ohio DMV and the Social Security Administration in order to verify the eligibility of Ohio's voters.
In effect, The Supreme Court has just ruled that Federal Election law, passed by duly-elected representatives, which has passed Constitutional muster, somehow does not matter.
This is significant because of recent (apparently true!) complaints about fraudulent voter registrations submitted by ACORN, a left-oriented organization dedicated to sucking at the government teat and providing a permanent jobs program for those who wouldn't get one otherwise, in the state of Ohio. The Secretary of State in Ohio, Jennifer Brunner (a democrat, it goes without saying) refused to abide by Fed'ral law and use the Social Security and DMV databases in order to verify residence in the State of Ohio, or other requirements for eligibility for voting, on approximately 200,000 applications. Note: in the last two elections, GW Bush carried Ohio by a margin of less than 100,000 votes. Two-hundred thousand fraudulent votes, left unchecked by the officials and system charged with protecting the electoral system against them, might very well decide the contest. That Brunner reportedly has willfully ignored election law by ordering the disconnect between the DMV/SS systems and her own voter registration database, apparently does not matter.
This smells to the heavens.
For those of you who cried that the Supreme Court stole an election for George W. Bush, it just might have allowed the supporters of Barack Obama to steal another one.
John Murtha is a Big, Fat Idiot...
Congresscritter John Murtha (Gasbag - Penn.) called the inhabitants of the western portion of his state racists the other day. The implication being that Barack Obama may lose in Western Penn, and the reason will be all them hillbillies a-clingin' to their guns and religion, just as St. Barack said they would all them months ago. Murtha went on to say that while the problem (i.e. racism) wasn't as pronounced now as it had been in the past, it still existed, and then mumbled some pablum about old folks being resistant to change, etc, etc, and then he gave every indication of being personally disgusted and appropriately affronted.
Of course, once the resulting uproar began (people don't exactly like being called racists, and they tend to disagree with sweeping generalizations that imply that they may be the worst thing since Ebola, and that tend to call their intelligence and character into question), Murtha ran to take back his comments. Well, not exactly. He did what all politicians do these days, and issued a non-apology which included the words "if anyone was offended..." (I think), and then added some fuel to the fire by 're-framing' his original argument with less-inflammatory language that reiterated the original point -- only with softer, more obscure words.
This is the second time I've heard this sort of thing from a democrat in recent weeks (see Gov. Sebelius' -- "Barak will lose because we're a racist country..." meme). That it comes with less than three weeks left to go before the election is disgusting. That it comes from Murtha is appalling. This is the man who wanted the Marines charged with war crimes at Haditha (all of whom, incidentally, were found innocent of the charges made against them by Iraqi provacateurs) all but drawn-and-quartered. John Murtha is not a good man; John Murtha is a self-serving parasite, and political sycophant, who will say anything, do anything which he believes is required by the dictates of party loyalty, or made necessary by political opportunism.
We'll hear much more of the "America is a racist country, and therefore, Barack Obama lost the election" nonsense in the coming weeks. And it won't matter if he does manage to win, either; any opposition to Obama's disasterous policies will be framed in racist terms; there can be no doubt about this, since democrats seem ready to play the race card whenever the man is questioned or challenged, usually fairly. The politician who is supposed to have transcended race will, in fact, widen the racial divisions in this country. This will be because democrats can't think except in terms of grievance groups and identity politics, and because Obama has done nothing but tap into the racial sympathy and guilt of his liberal supporters from the day he announced his candidacy.
As for John Murtha, the sooner Alzheimers or clogged arteries takes this aging Baby-Boomer, crap-speaking loudmouth, the better off this country will be.
Congresscritter John Murtha (Gasbag - Penn.) called the inhabitants of the western portion of his state racists the other day. The implication being that Barack Obama may lose in Western Penn, and the reason will be all them hillbillies a-clingin' to their guns and religion, just as St. Barack said they would all them months ago. Murtha went on to say that while the problem (i.e. racism) wasn't as pronounced now as it had been in the past, it still existed, and then mumbled some pablum about old folks being resistant to change, etc, etc, and then he gave every indication of being personally disgusted and appropriately affronted.
Of course, once the resulting uproar began (people don't exactly like being called racists, and they tend to disagree with sweeping generalizations that imply that they may be the worst thing since Ebola, and that tend to call their intelligence and character into question), Murtha ran to take back his comments. Well, not exactly. He did what all politicians do these days, and issued a non-apology which included the words "if anyone was offended..." (I think), and then added some fuel to the fire by 're-framing' his original argument with less-inflammatory language that reiterated the original point -- only with softer, more obscure words.
This is the second time I've heard this sort of thing from a democrat in recent weeks (see Gov. Sebelius' -- "Barak will lose because we're a racist country..." meme). That it comes with less than three weeks left to go before the election is disgusting. That it comes from Murtha is appalling. This is the man who wanted the Marines charged with war crimes at Haditha (all of whom, incidentally, were found innocent of the charges made against them by Iraqi provacateurs) all but drawn-and-quartered. John Murtha is not a good man; John Murtha is a self-serving parasite, and political sycophant, who will say anything, do anything which he believes is required by the dictates of party loyalty, or made necessary by political opportunism.
We'll hear much more of the "America is a racist country, and therefore, Barack Obama lost the election" nonsense in the coming weeks. And it won't matter if he does manage to win, either; any opposition to Obama's disasterous policies will be framed in racist terms; there can be no doubt about this, since democrats seem ready to play the race card whenever the man is questioned or challenged, usually fairly. The politician who is supposed to have transcended race will, in fact, widen the racial divisions in this country. This will be because democrats can't think except in terms of grievance groups and identity politics, and because Obama has done nothing but tap into the racial sympathy and guilt of his liberal supporters from the day he announced his candidacy.
As for John Murtha, the sooner Alzheimers or clogged arteries takes this aging Baby-Boomer, crap-speaking loudmouth, the better off this country will be.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Just What the #$&% Do they Want Then?
This should infuriate you:
www.futurepundit.com/archives/005596.html
Look, even when you do something the Greenie Meanies want, they still find something wrong with it. Which is why, in my opinion, we shouldn't be placating them at all. This whole nonsese about Global Warming/Cooling is nothing more than a boondoggle, designed to destroy capitalism and redistribute Western resources amongst the dregs of the Third World. Oh, but it does make Western enviorn-MENTAL-ists feel good about themselves. So, perhaps it does have a point, after all. Without PETA, World Wildlife Fund and the rest, these folks would be sitting home on Saturday nights, watching Titanic and masturbating. Thank GOD they have something else to do....
From where I sit; it's already apparent that Enviornmentalists consider both Man and Capitalism to be Public Enemy Number One. And just in case you can't decide which is the greater evil, they've developed a caricature at which you might direct your hatred. They call him Republican, and he's an amalgam of the worse offenses of both. Now, Enviornmentalists are usually tofu-eating pussies who can't take on either Man or Capitalism (or Republican) in a test of strength -- people who eat grass have no strength to begin with -- but, they do have major tools which allow for the slow sapping of strength from, and weakening the will, resolve and foundation of their opponents: the democratic (small 'd' intentional) party.
Can't beat Capitalism? Then make it too expensive to practice by artificially restricting it's energy supply. No drilling in this country. Import all the Arab oil we can and enrich them (after all, those people may have no political rights, might still be piss-poor despite $700 billion a year in transferred wealth to OPEC -- but at least they get Universal Health Care! Aspirin is Free in the UAE!), while bankrupting Americans who do nothing but consume, anyway. Better we should be unable to afford to continue to consume. Thank you democrats and Greens! And with this nonsense the dems have just pulled with sub-prime mortgages and forcing banks to make bad loans, we'll be sure to be unable to afford any more energy, and the whole solar-panels-in-the-Mojave argument will be moot.
Which is just what the Greens want anyway!
I'm telling you, this is one of those times when it should be legal to hunt a certain class of people. I'd put dems and Greens at the top of the list.
This should infuriate you:
www.futurepundit.com/archives/005596.html
Look, even when you do something the Greenie Meanies want, they still find something wrong with it. Which is why, in my opinion, we shouldn't be placating them at all. This whole nonsese about Global Warming/Cooling is nothing more than a boondoggle, designed to destroy capitalism and redistribute Western resources amongst the dregs of the Third World. Oh, but it does make Western enviorn-MENTAL-ists feel good about themselves. So, perhaps it does have a point, after all. Without PETA, World Wildlife Fund and the rest, these folks would be sitting home on Saturday nights, watching Titanic and masturbating. Thank GOD they have something else to do....
From where I sit; it's already apparent that Enviornmentalists consider both Man and Capitalism to be Public Enemy Number One. And just in case you can't decide which is the greater evil, they've developed a caricature at which you might direct your hatred. They call him Republican, and he's an amalgam of the worse offenses of both. Now, Enviornmentalists are usually tofu-eating pussies who can't take on either Man or Capitalism (or Republican) in a test of strength -- people who eat grass have no strength to begin with -- but, they do have major tools which allow for the slow sapping of strength from, and weakening the will, resolve and foundation of their opponents: the democratic (small 'd' intentional) party.
Can't beat Capitalism? Then make it too expensive to practice by artificially restricting it's energy supply. No drilling in this country. Import all the Arab oil we can and enrich them (after all, those people may have no political rights, might still be piss-poor despite $700 billion a year in transferred wealth to OPEC -- but at least they get Universal Health Care! Aspirin is Free in the UAE!), while bankrupting Americans who do nothing but consume, anyway. Better we should be unable to afford to continue to consume. Thank you democrats and Greens! And with this nonsense the dems have just pulled with sub-prime mortgages and forcing banks to make bad loans, we'll be sure to be unable to afford any more energy, and the whole solar-panels-in-the-Mojave argument will be moot.
Which is just what the Greens want anyway!
I'm telling you, this is one of those times when it should be legal to hunt a certain class of people. I'd put dems and Greens at the top of the list.
Not Allowed to Reproduce, Part I...
Announcing the beginning of a new series, The 'Not Allowed To Reproduce Chronicles', where I shall be pointing out some seriously disturbing things from around the Web, and the distrubing people who are responsible for them, and identifying those people too obviously stupid to be allowed to reproduce. When you, loyal reader, see this sort of person, you are required to hit them with a shovel, or reach for the nearest firearm. We must save the human race.
Today's Enemy of the Species tag goes to overindulgent pet owners. You know the ones I mean. The ones who treat their dogs like their children (or often, better than their children) and who can be reliably counted upon to open their wallets for the most ridiculous reasons when it comes to animals. Such people are a dire threat to the human gene pool; they are sickening, they are mentally retarded, and worse, they have the ability to make a Golden Retriever look gayer than Sigfried and Roy. This sort of person must be stopped -- the Survival of the Human Race may depend on it, because one day all Golden Retrievers in electric pink cashmere sweaters may simultaneously rise in open revolt, mightily pissed that they've been dressed so gaily that even poodles laugh at them.
But, you say, you can't just take my word for it? You mean, well, actually whacking people on little more than my say-so strikes you as, well, rather....severe. You say you require more proof as to the danger to the human gene pool posed by such a person? Well, here you go;
http://www.wagreflex.com/2008/10/pet-costumes-go.html (Via Instapundit)
There. All the proof you could ever need. Now, if you know someone like this, you know what you must do. The future of humanity depends upon it.
Announcing the beginning of a new series, The 'Not Allowed To Reproduce Chronicles', where I shall be pointing out some seriously disturbing things from around the Web, and the distrubing people who are responsible for them, and identifying those people too obviously stupid to be allowed to reproduce. When you, loyal reader, see this sort of person, you are required to hit them with a shovel, or reach for the nearest firearm. We must save the human race.
Today's Enemy of the Species tag goes to overindulgent pet owners. You know the ones I mean. The ones who treat their dogs like their children (or often, better than their children) and who can be reliably counted upon to open their wallets for the most ridiculous reasons when it comes to animals. Such people are a dire threat to the human gene pool; they are sickening, they are mentally retarded, and worse, they have the ability to make a Golden Retriever look gayer than Sigfried and Roy. This sort of person must be stopped -- the Survival of the Human Race may depend on it, because one day all Golden Retrievers in electric pink cashmere sweaters may simultaneously rise in open revolt, mightily pissed that they've been dressed so gaily that even poodles laugh at them.
But, you say, you can't just take my word for it? You mean, well, actually whacking people on little more than my say-so strikes you as, well, rather....severe. You say you require more proof as to the danger to the human gene pool posed by such a person? Well, here you go;
http://www.wagreflex.com/2008/10/pet-costumes-go.html (Via Instapundit)
There. All the proof you could ever need. Now, if you know someone like this, you know what you must do. The future of humanity depends upon it.
Someone Explain the Logic, Please?
Read this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3Q3AFLBNEGKMH
And then see if you can follow this line of reasoning: Northeastern energy companies have either a) paid for a license to pollute -- up to a certain point , or, b) paid $40 million for something which does not exist, but which the government mandates that they buy (i.e. a carbon credit).
On the one hand, that $40 milion probably bought them the means by which to avoid actually paying for technology and such which would actually reduce CO2 emissions (which, despite what the Greenie Meanies tell you is *not* the reason behind Global Warming/Cooling), in which case, that $40 probably saved them $80 million in clean-up costs.
On the other hand, this sounds more like government as neighborhood mugger, sticking a gun in the energy companies' faces, and then terrorizing them, adding insult to injury. I wonder what will happen if these companies exceed their cap-levels; Do they get closed down? If they close down and deprive New York or Boston of electricity, resulting in rolling blackouts and lost productivity, does the government let them exceed the caps they've just extorted money for? I mean, if it came down to it, which does a politician really care more about: votes from people who need electricty thet they could provide by fixing a law, or sparing the atmosphere a few tons of CO2?
When this nonsense comes back to haunt us (in the form of energy shortages), I wonder how quickly this sort of crap stops?
Forty million for persmission to stay in business is what this sounds like to me. The fact that you can attempt to make an excuse for it by saying you're defending Mother Earth doesn't make it stink any less.
Read this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3Q3AFLBNEGKMH
And then see if you can follow this line of reasoning: Northeastern energy companies have either a) paid for a license to pollute -- up to a certain point , or, b) paid $40 million for something which does not exist, but which the government mandates that they buy (i.e. a carbon credit).
On the one hand, that $40 milion probably bought them the means by which to avoid actually paying for technology and such which would actually reduce CO2 emissions (which, despite what the Greenie Meanies tell you is *not* the reason behind Global Warming/Cooling), in which case, that $40 probably saved them $80 million in clean-up costs.
On the other hand, this sounds more like government as neighborhood mugger, sticking a gun in the energy companies' faces, and then terrorizing them, adding insult to injury. I wonder what will happen if these companies exceed their cap-levels; Do they get closed down? If they close down and deprive New York or Boston of electricity, resulting in rolling blackouts and lost productivity, does the government let them exceed the caps they've just extorted money for? I mean, if it came down to it, which does a politician really care more about: votes from people who need electricty thet they could provide by fixing a law, or sparing the atmosphere a few tons of CO2?
When this nonsense comes back to haunt us (in the form of energy shortages), I wonder how quickly this sort of crap stops?
Forty million for persmission to stay in business is what this sounds like to me. The fact that you can attempt to make an excuse for it by saying you're defending Mother Earth doesn't make it stink any less.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Der Fuhrer...
Yesterday, Michael Bloomberg (Stuffed Shirt-NY) of Noo Yawk City announced that he desires a third term as Mayor of Sodom-on-the-Hudson, because his sage financial advice and guidance is required in this time of bankrupt Wall Street dinosaurs, despite the fact that such a scenario is a) illegal thanks to term limit laws, and b) conveniently forgetting that Bloomberg himself had once thrown a near-menstrual hissy fit when Rudy Guiliani tried a similar thing (trying to make the argument that only his leadership could hold the city together in the face of tragedy) during another dire crisis (September 11th).
Bloomberg should go away. Bloomberg should not be allowed back onto the public stage after he exits. Bloomberg should be taken out and flogged for even thinking this way.
Michael Bloomberg may, indeed, be a financial genius, but this does not give him carte blanche to take this opportunity to aggrandize himself. Perhaps all that yacking by the political class earlier in the Presidential primaries (when Bloomberg was practically gushed over as a potential third-party candidate) has gone to his head.
Michael Bloomberg is no Rudy Guiliani. Micheal Bloombergs isn't even Hillary Clinton on her best day (when she forgets that she's a communist and accidentally says something that makes sense). All Michael Bloomberg has done is preside over what Rudy Guiliani has wrought...and raised the price of a pack of cigarettes to $8.95.
Never mind having to try and revise New York City laws and charters and so forth to allow this naked grab at power to continue -- someone should try and figure out how we can get self-important rich nonentities out of American politics altogether.
Let Wall Street choke. It deserves it. It's served the American public a steady diet of shit sandwiches -- let it take a great big bite of this one. It's not as if Bloomberg is actually in a position, as Mayor of New York, to actually fix the systemic corruption and remedy the underlying greedy-scum culture that permeates the financial industry. When Bloomberg says, paraphrasing, that "his financial knowledge and experience are necessary to help guide New York and Wall Street through these tough, economic times", what he's really saying is "Hey, you fat cats, you'd better help find some way of keeping me, a pro-business dude like you, in power, because my potentially-democratic successor will tax the bejesus out of you while you try to recover from your self-inflicted gunshot wound."
Yesterday, Michael Bloomberg (Stuffed Shirt-NY) of Noo Yawk City announced that he desires a third term as Mayor of Sodom-on-the-Hudson, because his sage financial advice and guidance is required in this time of bankrupt Wall Street dinosaurs, despite the fact that such a scenario is a) illegal thanks to term limit laws, and b) conveniently forgetting that Bloomberg himself had once thrown a near-menstrual hissy fit when Rudy Guiliani tried a similar thing (trying to make the argument that only his leadership could hold the city together in the face of tragedy) during another dire crisis (September 11th).
Bloomberg should go away. Bloomberg should not be allowed back onto the public stage after he exits. Bloomberg should be taken out and flogged for even thinking this way.
Michael Bloomberg may, indeed, be a financial genius, but this does not give him carte blanche to take this opportunity to aggrandize himself. Perhaps all that yacking by the political class earlier in the Presidential primaries (when Bloomberg was practically gushed over as a potential third-party candidate) has gone to his head.
Michael Bloomberg is no Rudy Guiliani. Micheal Bloombergs isn't even Hillary Clinton on her best day (when she forgets that she's a communist and accidentally says something that makes sense). All Michael Bloomberg has done is preside over what Rudy Guiliani has wrought...and raised the price of a pack of cigarettes to $8.95.
Never mind having to try and revise New York City laws and charters and so forth to allow this naked grab at power to continue -- someone should try and figure out how we can get self-important rich nonentities out of American politics altogether.
Let Wall Street choke. It deserves it. It's served the American public a steady diet of shit sandwiches -- let it take a great big bite of this one. It's not as if Bloomberg is actually in a position, as Mayor of New York, to actually fix the systemic corruption and remedy the underlying greedy-scum culture that permeates the financial industry. When Bloomberg says, paraphrasing, that "his financial knowledge and experience are necessary to help guide New York and Wall Street through these tough, economic times", what he's really saying is "Hey, you fat cats, you'd better help find some way of keeping me, a pro-business dude like you, in power, because my potentially-democratic successor will tax the bejesus out of you while you try to recover from your self-inflicted gunshot wound."
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Starting Already...
Echoing a recently-ubiquitous theme, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (Moron - Kansas), has already begun throwing out the ready-made excuse for barack Obama's eventual defeat in November. Apparently, Obama will loose because his foes "speak in code". Having once been on the receiving end of an accusation of code talking, I'll translate what that means for you.
It means that: (White) People are saying things which can be construed as being 'racist' (so long as you have the time and mental deficiency required to spend hours torturing racism from the context and subtext of their words), but which cannot be called racist at first glance, because there is no evidence to back that accusation up. However, since all white people speak a secret language (English is now a secret language?), anything they say can be construed as 'talking in code', and is therefore proof positive of their overt racism. After all, if they were talking to real people, they'd be using Ebonics or Spanglish (/sarcasm tag on).
This is the same thrust of most Diversity Training programs (Re-education classes), by the way -- you (White Person) are racist and don't even know it. We (minorities, gays, feminazis, transgendered tree frogs) hear it every time you open your mouth to speak. But that's okay: you can't help it -- it's cultural. Or embeddied in your DNA. We're not sure..Just believe it's true and we'll all get along better.
Here's the report, from AP (take it with a grain of salt), via Yahoo:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080916/ap_on_el_pr/republicans_race_2
Uh-huh. The last refuge of a scoundrel is an accusation of racism, particularly an unfounded one. This is such a racist country that Barack Obama managed to garner a gazillion votes and be nominated for the highest office in the land. Facts are stubborn things, but never discount the abilitgy of a democrat to miss the obvious; they'll still make wildly innacurrate accusations, anyway. Especially if they're losing. Of course, if Obama came out and said something like this (actually, I'm certain Michelle Obama already has), he would be accused of whining, so they send a surrogate out to say it. And a white one at that, because, you know, she knows the 'code' (it's not strictly limited to use by white men). A wonderful little ploy: the candidate gets to accuse the American public of racism, and he can always say "Gov. Sebelius is entitled to her own opinion, and to express it. I've never asked her to say anything. But I abhor this injection of race into the campaign...the American people are better than that." Or words to that effect.
They call it 'plausible deniability'.
Expect riots in the streets on November 4th, when the aspirations of 90% of the black electorate, who show every sign of backing Obama even if it were suddenly discovered that he ate babies and kicked puppies for sport, have their demi-god go down in ignominious defeat. The stage is being set for a reprise of "Burn, Baby, Burn".
Couretesy of Kathleen Sebelius and the democratic party.
Echoing a recently-ubiquitous theme, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (Moron - Kansas), has already begun throwing out the ready-made excuse for barack Obama's eventual defeat in November. Apparently, Obama will loose because his foes "speak in code". Having once been on the receiving end of an accusation of code talking, I'll translate what that means for you.
It means that: (White) People are saying things which can be construed as being 'racist' (so long as you have the time and mental deficiency required to spend hours torturing racism from the context and subtext of their words), but which cannot be called racist at first glance, because there is no evidence to back that accusation up. However, since all white people speak a secret language (English is now a secret language?), anything they say can be construed as 'talking in code', and is therefore proof positive of their overt racism. After all, if they were talking to real people, they'd be using Ebonics or Spanglish (/sarcasm tag on).
This is the same thrust of most Diversity Training programs (Re-education classes), by the way -- you (White Person) are racist and don't even know it. We (minorities, gays, feminazis, transgendered tree frogs) hear it every time you open your mouth to speak. But that's okay: you can't help it -- it's cultural. Or embeddied in your DNA. We're not sure..Just believe it's true and we'll all get along better.
Here's the report, from AP (take it with a grain of salt), via Yahoo:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080916/ap_on_el_pr/republicans_race_2
Uh-huh. The last refuge of a scoundrel is an accusation of racism, particularly an unfounded one. This is such a racist country that Barack Obama managed to garner a gazillion votes and be nominated for the highest office in the land. Facts are stubborn things, but never discount the abilitgy of a democrat to miss the obvious; they'll still make wildly innacurrate accusations, anyway. Especially if they're losing. Of course, if Obama came out and said something like this (actually, I'm certain Michelle Obama already has), he would be accused of whining, so they send a surrogate out to say it. And a white one at that, because, you know, she knows the 'code' (it's not strictly limited to use by white men). A wonderful little ploy: the candidate gets to accuse the American public of racism, and he can always say "Gov. Sebelius is entitled to her own opinion, and to express it. I've never asked her to say anything. But I abhor this injection of race into the campaign...the American people are better than that." Or words to that effect.
They call it 'plausible deniability'.
Expect riots in the streets on November 4th, when the aspirations of 90% of the black electorate, who show every sign of backing Obama even if it were suddenly discovered that he ate babies and kicked puppies for sport, have their demi-god go down in ignominious defeat. The stage is being set for a reprise of "Burn, Baby, Burn".
Couretesy of Kathleen Sebelius and the democratic party.
Bring The Boys Back Home...After I Win, Of Course...
Amir Taheri recently wrote this column in the NYPost (http://www.nypost.com/);
http://www.nypost.com/seven/09152008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/obama_tried_to_stall_gis_iraq_withdrawal_129150.htm
The gist of the article is that while Barack Obama was publicaly telling Americans he wanted the troops home, post-haste, he was begging the Iraqi government, on the Q.T., to not negotiate a timetable for American withdrawl with the Bush Administration. He asked them to do this, apparently on the assumption that he would win the election, and therefore, take credit for the Troops Coming Home. God forbid, if you're Obama, that Geroge W. Bush succeed in bringing (any) troops home before Nov. 4, 2008; you've already pencilled that into the To Do List in your Day Planner for Jan 21, 2009.
The Obama campaign issued this denial, which will later be corrected and reissued as a statement, which will again be further refined and reissued as a clarification of Sentaor Obama's Position, which will later be further amended until Obama takes McCain's position on Iraq by officially saying "Yeah, what McCain said. me too!". That's how things work in Obamaland:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hi9TDNHvuBZpFsO8ZbiFYsnbIl3A
This is pretty thin as far as a defense for the indefensible goes. Once again, the stark contrasts between McCain and Obama; McCain is a leader, Obama is a Constitutional Lawyer (contradiction in terms), and this becomes ever-more evident with each passing day as his campaign must continually issue statements like this one, coded in carefully-crafted, lawyer-quality Crapspeak.
McCain would never go, hat-in-hand, to the Iraqi government (two lies for the price of one) and beg them not to kick us out -- and then parade around in front of the American People saying we should leave Iraq, and oh, by the way, the Iraqis themselves want us to leave. Obama has beaten that drum far too many times, so when something like this is suggested he has a very difficult time squaring the stated policy with the known facts.
That's a bad thing if you want to be President of the United States.
Amir Taheri recently wrote this column in the NYPost (http://www.nypost.com/);
http://www.nypost.com/seven/09152008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/obama_tried_to_stall_gis_iraq_withdrawal_129150.htm
The gist of the article is that while Barack Obama was publicaly telling Americans he wanted the troops home, post-haste, he was begging the Iraqi government, on the Q.T., to not negotiate a timetable for American withdrawl with the Bush Administration. He asked them to do this, apparently on the assumption that he would win the election, and therefore, take credit for the Troops Coming Home. God forbid, if you're Obama, that Geroge W. Bush succeed in bringing (any) troops home before Nov. 4, 2008; you've already pencilled that into the To Do List in your Day Planner for Jan 21, 2009.
The Obama campaign issued this denial, which will later be corrected and reissued as a statement, which will again be further refined and reissued as a clarification of Sentaor Obama's Position, which will later be further amended until Obama takes McCain's position on Iraq by officially saying "Yeah, what McCain said. me too!". That's how things work in Obamaland:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hi9TDNHvuBZpFsO8ZbiFYsnbIl3A
This is pretty thin as far as a defense for the indefensible goes. Once again, the stark contrasts between McCain and Obama; McCain is a leader, Obama is a Constitutional Lawyer (contradiction in terms), and this becomes ever-more evident with each passing day as his campaign must continually issue statements like this one, coded in carefully-crafted, lawyer-quality Crapspeak.
McCain would never go, hat-in-hand, to the Iraqi government (two lies for the price of one) and beg them not to kick us out -- and then parade around in front of the American People saying we should leave Iraq, and oh, by the way, the Iraqis themselves want us to leave. Obama has beaten that drum far too many times, so when something like this is suggested he has a very difficult time squaring the stated policy with the known facts.
That's a bad thing if you want to be President of the United States.
Two Americas and We Feel Your Pain...
Link from Drudge Report about a $28,500 a plate fundraiser being held for Barack Obama tonight:
http://drudgereport.com/flashbh.htm
Two things spring immediately to mind.
First, it's democrats (small 'd' intentional) who typically claim to be the champion of the Little Guy, you know, the guy who can't afford 28K to watch Barabara Streisand while eating gold-plated rubber chicken from diamond-studded platinum plates (the chicken and plates had better be gilded for 28k)? How one can make the argument that you serve the proletariat while your supporters obviously have so much money they don't-know-what-to do-with-it-all-except- watch-Babs-and-donate-scads-of-spare-cash-to-'the-(almost-lost)-cause'? After all, don't we all have a spare 28k to lend? And if not, shouldn't there be a government program to ensure that everyone does have a spare 28k? There's a contradiction here; republicans are supposed to be the party of The Rich. Somehow, it seems the democrats have become The Rich. How does that happen, and how does a committed democrat keep /hisher head from exploding trying to figure out how to justify it to all them poor folk /he/she's s'posed to be fightin' fer?
Secondly, it illustrates incredibly bad taste and a sort of shamelessness that is so utterly stupid, that you really start to question whether these people are thinking human beings. If you would lay out $28.5k to help 'Bama stay afloat for another few weeks (before he loses), then you're the sort who would attend a "Chateaubriand for Ethiopia" party, with no sense of shame. Or perhaps you'd arrive at an Earth Day celebration in your stretch SUV -- which will whisk you to your five-minute appearance to make an innocuous speech, and then whisk you back to your private jet -- so you can get back to your 32-room mansion that leaks electricity like a sieve, in imperial comfort, without a second thought about propriety.
When democrats lose the election this fall (it's almost assured, at this point, I think) they will invariably point to all the same bugaboos they have in the past to explain their defeats: Evangelical Christians came out in force, Republicans 'Swiftboated' their candidate and they didn't fight back, Republicans outspent them, the 'Merican people are too dumb to see that Obama was superior, etc, etc. One reason for defeat they will never recognize, however, is that it's damned hypocritical to complain that repebulicans are only concerned about The Rich and Big Business, and don't care about The Poor, and don't care about Mother Earth, while you shuttle to highly-publicized events like this one, spending on one night of entertainment and political rabble-rousing what some people don't even earn in an entire year.
For the last two weeks Obama/Biden have been out repeating the same mantra; John McCain is out of touch, John McCain has no idea what the average American's life is like, John McCain does not inhabit the same reality as everyone else.
Apparently there are no mirrors at Obama Central. If there were, they'd be forced to look at themselves.
Link from Drudge Report about a $28,500 a plate fundraiser being held for Barack Obama tonight:
http://drudgereport.com/flashbh.htm
Two things spring immediately to mind.
First, it's democrats (small 'd' intentional) who typically claim to be the champion of the Little Guy, you know, the guy who can't afford 28K to watch Barabara Streisand while eating gold-plated rubber chicken from diamond-studded platinum plates (the chicken and plates had better be gilded for 28k)? How one can make the argument that you serve the proletariat while your supporters obviously have so much money they don't-know-what-to do-with-it-all-except- watch-Babs-and-donate-scads-of-spare-cash-to-'the-(almost-lost)-cause'? After all, don't we all have a spare 28k to lend? And if not, shouldn't there be a government program to ensure that everyone does have a spare 28k? There's a contradiction here; republicans are supposed to be the party of The Rich. Somehow, it seems the democrats have become The Rich. How does that happen, and how does a committed democrat keep /hisher head from exploding trying to figure out how to justify it to all them poor folk /he/she's s'posed to be fightin' fer?
Secondly, it illustrates incredibly bad taste and a sort of shamelessness that is so utterly stupid, that you really start to question whether these people are thinking human beings. If you would lay out $28.5k to help 'Bama stay afloat for another few weeks (before he loses), then you're the sort who would attend a "Chateaubriand for Ethiopia" party, with no sense of shame. Or perhaps you'd arrive at an Earth Day celebration in your stretch SUV -- which will whisk you to your five-minute appearance to make an innocuous speech, and then whisk you back to your private jet -- so you can get back to your 32-room mansion that leaks electricity like a sieve, in imperial comfort, without a second thought about propriety.
When democrats lose the election this fall (it's almost assured, at this point, I think) they will invariably point to all the same bugaboos they have in the past to explain their defeats: Evangelical Christians came out in force, Republicans 'Swiftboated' their candidate and they didn't fight back, Republicans outspent them, the 'Merican people are too dumb to see that Obama was superior, etc, etc. One reason for defeat they will never recognize, however, is that it's damned hypocritical to complain that repebulicans are only concerned about The Rich and Big Business, and don't care about The Poor, and don't care about Mother Earth, while you shuttle to highly-publicized events like this one, spending on one night of entertainment and political rabble-rousing what some people don't even earn in an entire year.
For the last two weeks Obama/Biden have been out repeating the same mantra; John McCain is out of touch, John McCain has no idea what the average American's life is like, John McCain does not inhabit the same reality as everyone else.
Apparently there are no mirrors at Obama Central. If there were, they'd be forced to look at themselves.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
It Gets Worse...
The Left's criticism of Sarah Palin gets weirder and more vicious as the days pass. I wish I had the time to link to every bad thing that's been said, but there isn't enough bandwidth, and there's maybe an FCC rule against that sort of foul language.
The funniest part (if there is one) of this criticism, is that it's being delivered by people who would normally tsk-tsk the very notion of flinging invective, considering it beneath their station, and intelligence, to engage in common verbal mudslinging. Unless, of course, there's a presidential election to be won, and their side seems to be losing it.
Then, not only are they out in force slinging mud, they're out in legions flinging their psychoses around, too. It's as if the great mental constipation of the True Left was suddenly relieved by a dose of Ex-Lax in granny glasses, and all the foulness and dishonesty in the soul of a committed Leftists flows through the flapping rectum that is the collective mouthpiece of their cause: the media.
The problem seems to have affected the staff at Salon (http://www.salon.com/) the worst. Here are two posts from Salon in which Sarah Palin is compared to Usama Bin Hidin', and another that purports to explain how she's really not a woman. A third post from Politico (http://www.politico.com/) has a democratic state chairwoman saying Palin was only selected because she 'hadn't had an abortion." Really. I can't make this shit up, no matter how drunk I get.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/09/09/palin_fundamentalist/
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/09/10/palin_feminism/index.html
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0908/SC_Dem_chair_Palin_primary_qualification_is_she_hasnt_had_an_abortion_.html?showall
Now, for sheer stupidity, here's one from someone who is supposed to be a professor -- a responsible position, no doubt, one where one can have enormous influence over young, malleable minds -- who writes for Newsweek, a supposedly responsible publication with a responsibility to inform the public of that which it should, reasonably, know. If my kids were in her class, I'd sue the University for child abuse, and then burn down every newsstand that sold Newsweek.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/wendy_doniger/2008/09/all_beliefs_welcome_unless_the.html
Dennis Miller summed it up nicely last night on the O'Reilly Factor (paraphrasing): "This chick is in their melons..." The panic is fun to watch, but the vitriol is frightening. As a society, we'd better start reigning these folks in, and then somehow find a way to bring intelligence and reasonableness back into our public discourse.
A good start might be beating the people who write slop like this into a coma...
The Left's criticism of Sarah Palin gets weirder and more vicious as the days pass. I wish I had the time to link to every bad thing that's been said, but there isn't enough bandwidth, and there's maybe an FCC rule against that sort of foul language.
The funniest part (if there is one) of this criticism, is that it's being delivered by people who would normally tsk-tsk the very notion of flinging invective, considering it beneath their station, and intelligence, to engage in common verbal mudslinging. Unless, of course, there's a presidential election to be won, and their side seems to be losing it.
Then, not only are they out in force slinging mud, they're out in legions flinging their psychoses around, too. It's as if the great mental constipation of the True Left was suddenly relieved by a dose of Ex-Lax in granny glasses, and all the foulness and dishonesty in the soul of a committed Leftists flows through the flapping rectum that is the collective mouthpiece of their cause: the media.
The problem seems to have affected the staff at Salon (http://www.salon.com/) the worst. Here are two posts from Salon in which Sarah Palin is compared to Usama Bin Hidin', and another that purports to explain how she's really not a woman. A third post from Politico (http://www.politico.com/) has a democratic state chairwoman saying Palin was only selected because she 'hadn't had an abortion." Really. I can't make this shit up, no matter how drunk I get.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/09/09/palin_fundamentalist/
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/09/10/palin_feminism/index.html
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0908/SC_Dem_chair_Palin_primary_qualification_is_she_hasnt_had_an_abortion_.html?showall
Now, for sheer stupidity, here's one from someone who is supposed to be a professor -- a responsible position, no doubt, one where one can have enormous influence over young, malleable minds -- who writes for Newsweek, a supposedly responsible publication with a responsibility to inform the public of that which it should, reasonably, know. If my kids were in her class, I'd sue the University for child abuse, and then burn down every newsstand that sold Newsweek.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/wendy_doniger/2008/09/all_beliefs_welcome_unless_the.html
Dennis Miller summed it up nicely last night on the O'Reilly Factor (paraphrasing): "This chick is in their melons..." The panic is fun to watch, but the vitriol is frightening. As a society, we'd better start reigning these folks in, and then somehow find a way to bring intelligence and reasonableness back into our public discourse.
A good start might be beating the people who write slop like this into a coma...
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