Time is running out in California. The budget impasse cannot be broken; Democrats want to raise taxes but the Republicans will have none of that. The state is bleeding money. On or around March 1, the state will begin "paying" its vendors with IOUs. Taxpayers getting refunds will get IOUs instead of money. Everyone seems to have drawn lines in the sand; everyone is daring everyone else to cross; nobody's moving.
Except...Gov. Arnold, who is on vacation in Idaho. At least he's having fun. How nice that he takes his executive responsibilities so seriously. Instead of meeting with legislative Republicans to try to keep the state from going belly up, he's off in Sun Valley. After all, he won't get screwed in March when ordinary Californians by the tens of thousands are. So why should he worry? Celebrity politicians don't want to get their hands dirty doing hard work; that's what menials and assistants are for.
Such is life in the dreamland of California at the close of 2008. What will life be like in 2009 when the dream becomes a nightmare?
Read it here
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
Lying for Jesus
Rick Warren, the fat slob who "pastors" (read: CEO) a WalMart-like mega-church in Orange County, California, has denied that he ever equated gay marriage to incest and paedophilia. Too bad for him that we live in the modern age in which televised interviews are captured on tape. Rachel Maddow presents Mr. Warren's denial followed by an interview in which Mr. Warren states what he claims he never said. In other words, Rick Warren lies. To disguise his lie and to divert attention from being caught lying, Mr. Warren is now using that tried-and-true technique of every sordid, crooked politician: accuse your opponents of hate speech and present yourself as an innocent victim. Again, too bad for him that we live in the modern age in which sharp-eyed journalists like Rachel Maddow don't take his BS at face value. Rick Warren is no victim, no martyr; he's not even an honest man. He's a scurvy bigot. The rock he lives under has been overturned, and the world sees the creepy things living beneath it.
Mr. Warren should shut up, make his momentary appearance at the inauguration, then slither back under his rock in Orange County. Instead, this man with an ego vaster than his enormous waist and butt won't shut up but continues to demand attention by telling more preposterous lies, thus egging the press and bloggers into searching out all his wacko ideas. The blog La Figa has discovered that Mr. Warren is a dimwit creationist who genuinely believes that humans and dinosaurs lived together in a world that was created a mere 6000 years ago. (Yes, that's right; Rick Warren thinks that the cartoon world of the Flintstones really happened.) This lunacy ought to amuse the Internet for a good long while.
As a consequence, Mr. Obama is in a pickle. Mr. O got himself into this mess because, as the self-appointed new Moses, he wants to embrace all America and lead us hand-in-hand to the Promised Land. The inauguration was supposed to be a kind of winter love-in on the Potomac. Instead, he's embracing the growing embarrassment that is Rick Warren. His inauguration is being diminished by the antics of a fat, attention-seeking clown. Cut your losses and save yourself needless trouble, Mr. O; rescind the invitation and get somebody else, somebody bland and boring, to call down blessings upon your holy self from the gods.
View Rachel Maddow here
Mr. Warren should shut up, make his momentary appearance at the inauguration, then slither back under his rock in Orange County. Instead, this man with an ego vaster than his enormous waist and butt won't shut up but continues to demand attention by telling more preposterous lies, thus egging the press and bloggers into searching out all his wacko ideas. The blog La Figa has discovered that Mr. Warren is a dimwit creationist who genuinely believes that humans and dinosaurs lived together in a world that was created a mere 6000 years ago. (Yes, that's right; Rick Warren thinks that the cartoon world of the Flintstones really happened.) This lunacy ought to amuse the Internet for a good long while.
As a consequence, Mr. Obama is in a pickle. Mr. O got himself into this mess because, as the self-appointed new Moses, he wants to embrace all America and lead us hand-in-hand to the Promised Land. The inauguration was supposed to be a kind of winter love-in on the Potomac. Instead, he's embracing the growing embarrassment that is Rick Warren. His inauguration is being diminished by the antics of a fat, attention-seeking clown. Cut your losses and save yourself needless trouble, Mr. O; rescind the invitation and get somebody else, somebody bland and boring, to call down blessings upon your holy self from the gods.
View Rachel Maddow here
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Two separate realities
Remember that episode of the original Star Trek in which Kirk and crewmen find themselves in an alternate universe when something goes haywire while they are beaming up to the Enterprise? They deduce that they are in a parallel universe that exists in the same space as their home universe. The alternate looks pretty much like their universe, but it's not; the people in the alternate universe act differently, think differently. Reason and common sense don't apply; nothing makes sense.
Below is an article about such a place: Columbia, South Carolina. The economy there is crashing fast and furious; everybody is getting hit. People are trying to survive on $100 a week unemployment checks. Life is getting worse with no reason to hope for anything better.
The alternate reality: the city's mayor has cooked up a list of projects totaling $140,000,000. It's a plan for "stimulus," "job creation," and "economic development." Terrific! Who's going to cough up the cash? That Santa Claus on the Potomac, Mr. Obama, that's who. So Mr. O has $140,000,000 to spend in Columbia, SC, does he? Well, no, not really. But he will just as soon as he borrows that amount and about a trillion other dollars from the Chinese or the Japanese or the Martians or generous folks somewhere in an alternate universe. And why will foreigners lend $1 trillion (and more) to a country to which they have already lent trillions? Tradition. Or bailout (we're just too big to fail). Maybe charity. Pity?
The whole world is falling into depression, but we Americans think that we can save ourselves by raiding the savings accounts of foreigners who will most certainly want and need to use their own money for themselves. This absurd situation is the only hope Mr. Obama offers us for the future of our country: beg and borrow from foreigners. We've beamed into a bizarre alternate reality where reason and common sense have been replaced by playing make-believe and wishful thinking. Nothing makes sense; soon nothing will work. Our mission: To boldly go where no man has gone before--right over the cliff!
Read it here
Below is an article about such a place: Columbia, South Carolina. The economy there is crashing fast and furious; everybody is getting hit. People are trying to survive on $100 a week unemployment checks. Life is getting worse with no reason to hope for anything better.
The alternate reality: the city's mayor has cooked up a list of projects totaling $140,000,000. It's a plan for "stimulus," "job creation," and "economic development." Terrific! Who's going to cough up the cash? That Santa Claus on the Potomac, Mr. Obama, that's who. So Mr. O has $140,000,000 to spend in Columbia, SC, does he? Well, no, not really. But he will just as soon as he borrows that amount and about a trillion other dollars from the Chinese or the Japanese or the Martians or generous folks somewhere in an alternate universe. And why will foreigners lend $1 trillion (and more) to a country to which they have already lent trillions? Tradition. Or bailout (we're just too big to fail). Maybe charity. Pity?
The whole world is falling into depression, but we Americans think that we can save ourselves by raiding the savings accounts of foreigners who will most certainly want and need to use their own money for themselves. This absurd situation is the only hope Mr. Obama offers us for the future of our country: beg and borrow from foreigners. We've beamed into a bizarre alternate reality where reason and common sense have been replaced by playing make-believe and wishful thinking. Nothing makes sense; soon nothing will work. Our mission: To boldly go where no man has gone before--right over the cliff!
Read it here
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Love thy neighbor--not!
Below is a piece by one of Bernie Madoff's victims, a woman whose life savings have been wiped out. Her story is compelling, but the real story is the comments readers have made. Unbelievable!
Are kindness and sympathy just not part of contemporary daily life? There's a kind comment here and there, and a number of inane there's-always-a-silver-lining notes. But look at the number and meanness of people who leave basically "tough luck, you greedy bitch!" comments. Astounding! A talented woman who has worked all her life, succeeded, and saved money for her old age is robbed through no fault of her own, and people feel free to give her the finger.
That ought to be a good object lesson for us as we fall deeper into the Great Depression of the 21st century. We aren't a nation of good neighbors who join hands and help each other. We're a nation resembling the passengers on the Titanic: the rich in first class got access to the life boats while women and children in third class were locked below decks and left to drown. Walter Lord's A Night To Remember was one of my favorite books of my youth. He gives the passenger list in an appendix and indicates who survived and who didn't. I've always been amazed at the number of women and children who drowned--mostly steerage passengers--and the number of first and second class male passengers who lived. How did these men live with themselves knowing that their place in the lifeboat was purchased by the death of a child or a mother? Did they care? Or was it "Tough luck, scum, it's everybody for himself."
Read the comments on this unfortunate woman's article, and you'll find plenty of the spiritual descendants of those callous men of April, 1912.
Read here
Are kindness and sympathy just not part of contemporary daily life? There's a kind comment here and there, and a number of inane there's-always-a-silver-lining notes. But look at the number and meanness of people who leave basically "tough luck, you greedy bitch!" comments. Astounding! A talented woman who has worked all her life, succeeded, and saved money for her old age is robbed through no fault of her own, and people feel free to give her the finger.
That ought to be a good object lesson for us as we fall deeper into the Great Depression of the 21st century. We aren't a nation of good neighbors who join hands and help each other. We're a nation resembling the passengers on the Titanic: the rich in first class got access to the life boats while women and children in third class were locked below decks and left to drown. Walter Lord's A Night To Remember was one of my favorite books of my youth. He gives the passenger list in an appendix and indicates who survived and who didn't. I've always been amazed at the number of women and children who drowned--mostly steerage passengers--and the number of first and second class male passengers who lived. How did these men live with themselves knowing that their place in the lifeboat was purchased by the death of a child or a mother? Did they care? Or was it "Tough luck, scum, it's everybody for himself."
Read the comments on this unfortunate woman's article, and you'll find plenty of the spiritual descendants of those callous men of April, 1912.
Read here
Friday, December 19, 2008
Life underwater
Here's more on the new American domestic phenomenon: I'm trapped in my house and I can't get out!
I feel for these folk, but they had better get it through their heads that the inflated house prices of the Great Bubble of the 21st century are NEVER coming back. There is no "let's re-finance" escape from their misery of slowly bleeding to death. If they're thinking of walking away, they'd better do it quick if they legally can; because when lots of people who can still pay their bills default and screw the banks, the banks will pay the politicians to change the law to start prosecuting those defaults as fraud with long prison terms and hefty fines. Homeowners will be held to this simple rule: You bought, so you pay for it. Why shouldn't they? Who else should?
Read it here
I feel for these folk, but they had better get it through their heads that the inflated house prices of the Great Bubble of the 21st century are NEVER coming back. There is no "let's re-finance" escape from their misery of slowly bleeding to death. If they're thinking of walking away, they'd better do it quick if they legally can; because when lots of people who can still pay their bills default and screw the banks, the banks will pay the politicians to change the law to start prosecuting those defaults as fraud with long prison terms and hefty fines. Homeowners will be held to this simple rule: You bought, so you pay for it. Why shouldn't they? Who else should?
Read it here
Financial death in Venice, California
Here's another story about California home prices falling into the abyss, both in southern California and the Bay area. I used to live in the San Francisco Bay area just a couple of years ago and saw for myself the lunatic frenzy of the housing boom. Builders were cramming crappy particle board boxes with cake icing-like decorations onto every square foot of land and selling these "houses" for $500,000 or $600,000 or $700,000 or more to numbskulls who were falling over each other to buy them. At the boom's peak the median Bay area house (or even condo, meaning "a one or two bedroom apartment in a lousy apartment house") sold for $665,000; today the median price is $350,000 and falling, a difference of $315,000. As I posted the other day, hundreds of thousands of California homeowners are underwater by amounts essentially equal to the present value of their property, and the situation worsens daily. These people are ruined perhaps for life. How will they ever repay those mortgages? California law limits the options creditors can employ against defaulting mortgage debtors, so more and more people are walking away from their homes. Is this honest? No. But here in the Great Depression of the 21st century, dishonesty may be the only sensible survival strategy. It will be amazing to watch huge areas of the Bay area become abandoned and deteriorate into suburban slums. Once upon a time, the Bay area was full of orchards; maybe it's time to start growing peaches again.
Read it here
Read it here
Thursday, December 18, 2008
A genuinely evil man dies
Here's an early Christmas present: Paul Weyrich is dead. He was one of the masterminds of the political and religious right's war on the human and civil rights of gay people, an aider and abettor of a generation of hate mongers, and a man who grew fat and wealthy pitting Americans against each other. This guy spent the last 30 years poisoning this country; there wasn't any vile bigotry he wouldn't use to further his cause. Despite his efforts, we gays are still here doing fine, but he's not. Mistah Weyrich, he dead. Dump the corpse onto the nearest landfill with the rest of the garbage. Good riddance.
Read the good news here
Read the good news here
The jig is up for the dollar
Peter Schiff (among many others) has been predicting the collapse of the dollar and consequent hyper-inflation. The recent flight into the dollar as a last-ditch hedge against the enormous losses of the great asset sell-off is short-lived, says Schiff. When the sell-off is over, the dollar drops like a rock.
Looks like Schiff has hit another homer. Continuing its uninterrupted string of failures, the desperate Fed has dropped interest rates to essentially zero, and the currency markets have responded by dumping dollars. Everything is going to get much more expensive very soon--like now! Get used to this jaw-breaking phrase: Hyper-inflationary depression. Translation: You're just about broke and the few dollars you do have can't buy jack.
Read it here
Looks like Schiff has hit another homer. Continuing its uninterrupted string of failures, the desperate Fed has dropped interest rates to essentially zero, and the currency markets have responded by dumping dollars. Everything is going to get much more expensive very soon--like now! Get used to this jaw-breaking phrase: Hyper-inflationary depression. Translation: You're just about broke and the few dollars you do have can't buy jack.
Read it here
California bonds keep dropping
From Bloomberg:
"The escalating financial crisis has depressed the state’s bond prices, driving up the yields. A California bond maturing in 2033, which pays 5 percent interest, dropped to 76 cents on the dollar today to yield 7.08 percent. That’s down from as much as 80 cents yesterday, when it yielded 6.66 percent."
Interest will go a lot higher than that soon. But given the frightful condition of the state here at the beginning of the Great Depression of the 21st Century, why would anybody buy a bond that doesn't mature until 2033? There may not be a California (let alone an America) 25 years down the road. And what nitwit would accept a mere 7.08% a quarter of a century from now given the real inflation rate (or even the phony-baloney understated CPI the government produces)? Who's buying these bonds? The only reason to buy a government bond that I can think of is ostensible security. Who thinks California is secure these days?
Read it here
"The escalating financial crisis has depressed the state’s bond prices, driving up the yields. A California bond maturing in 2033, which pays 5 percent interest, dropped to 76 cents on the dollar today to yield 7.08 percent. That’s down from as much as 80 cents yesterday, when it yielded 6.66 percent."
Interest will go a lot higher than that soon. But given the frightful condition of the state here at the beginning of the Great Depression of the 21st Century, why would anybody buy a bond that doesn't mature until 2033? There may not be a California (let alone an America) 25 years down the road. And what nitwit would accept a mere 7.08% a quarter of a century from now given the real inflation rate (or even the phony-baloney understated CPI the government produces)? Who's buying these bonds? The only reason to buy a government bond that I can think of is ostensible security. Who thinks California is secure these days?
Read it here
Screw job
Mr. Obama has selected the fat impresario of a California mega-church called "Saddleback" to give the invocation at Mr. Obama's inaugural-cum-coronation in January. Rick Warren, pastor (read, CEO) of this Wal-Martesque church, was last seen trashing gay people in California by opposing gay marriage as the moral equivalent of allowing brothers and sisters to marry. We gays are livid; Mr. Obama does not care. He claims that he is well known as "a fierce advocate of equality," but in fact both Mr. Warren and Mr. Obama are on the public record as opposing gay marriage. Like those egalitarian pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm, Mr. Obama believes in equality as long as some are more equal than others. Further, Mr. Obama has no record of actually achieving anything for gay people during his all-too brief career as a legislator in the Illinois senate and the US senate.
Just in case you don't buy the Mr. Equality line of BS, Mr. Obama also claims that now is the time to bring people together. I can hear him now: "Can't we all just get along? I'm going to be president of all Americans, homophobes included. I can embrace everybody in my big, loving arms. " Obviously, Mr. Obama thinks gays are now his niggers and ought to shut-up and shuffle off. Happily, I did not support this schmuck because I can spot a fraud like him a mile off. Politicians like him emit happy-talk the way excrement emits stink. Unfortunately, most gays fooled themselves about Mr. Obama's pro-gay happy-talk before the election and now they know better after the election. Too late.
Just in case you don't buy the Mr. Equality line of BS, Mr. Obama also claims that now is the time to bring people together. I can hear him now: "Can't we all just get along? I'm going to be president of all Americans, homophobes included. I can embrace everybody in my big, loving arms. " Obviously, Mr. Obama thinks gays are now his niggers and ought to shut-up and shuffle off. Happily, I did not support this schmuck because I can spot a fraud like him a mile off. Politicians like him emit happy-talk the way excrement emits stink. Unfortunately, most gays fooled themselves about Mr. Obama's pro-gay happy-talk before the election and now they know better after the election. Too late.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
The military occupation of the US: first stage
Not that I oppose nabbing drunk drivers, but what in the name of the Constitution are US Marines doing manning DUI roadblocks in San Bernardino County, California? Are people just nuts these days or what? This is a categorical violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which Congress passed to prevent Americans from ever being occupied by a home-grown military dictatorship such as the corrupt, brutal dictatorship citizens of the South suffered during Reconstruction. That sorry episode of American history was so repugnant that even Northern politicians were willing to forbid the use of US military forces anywhere in the sovereign states of the Union. But now, with our Constitution in tatters, the military is infiltrating domestic law enforcement that once was answerable solely to local civilian authority. How long before the country is divided into military districts administered by a regional commander answerable solely to the Pentagon?
You say it can't happen here? Well, what do you think this is, chopped liver? It's happening in front of your eyes. Wake up! The rule of law and the subordination of the military to civilian authority are going, going, nearly gone in this country. Does anyone care? We Americans are sleepwalking into tyranny.
Read it here
You say it can't happen here? Well, what do you think this is, chopped liver? It's happening in front of your eyes. Wake up! The rule of law and the subordination of the military to civilian authority are going, going, nearly gone in this country. Does anyone care? We Americans are sleepwalking into tyranny.
Read it here
Lookin' for love (and reasons) in all the wrong places
To survive, newspapers across the country are cutting staffs, the size and content of their editions, and regular delivery to customers. This is akin to a struggling restaurant trying to survive by serving increasingly lousy food to the dwindling number of fools who patronize it. Hardly a formula for success!
Journalists offer various preposterous excuses for their troubles such as the following:
(1) Readers are moving on-line and abandoning the printed page. Well of course they are since the newspapers themselves are reducing their print editions in favor of on-line editions in order to cut costs. Like duh!
(2) Syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer fingers public ownership and the greedy free market. Back in the good old days when rich families owned newspapers, she writes, journalism prospered. Nowadays papers are public corporations that shareholders and investors expect to be profitable, a state of business affairs Ms. Geyer thinks incompatible with the high calling of news gathering. Ms. Geyer doesn't consider the reason that rich families sold their newspapers might be that they were money-losing turkeys run by spendthrift editors and journalists who didn't give a damn where the money came from as long as they got a regular paycheck.
You and I know better because we've read the National Adult Literacy Survey. We savants know that the reason fewer and fewer Americans read newspapers is that more and more Americans lack the reading skills necessary to read them. If you can't read a newspaper, why buy it unless you need to line a bird cage or you have a puppy not yet house-trained? Newspapers are going bust because American literacy has gone bust.
Read it here
Journalists offer various preposterous excuses for their troubles such as the following:
(1) Readers are moving on-line and abandoning the printed page. Well of course they are since the newspapers themselves are reducing their print editions in favor of on-line editions in order to cut costs. Like duh!
(2) Syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer fingers public ownership and the greedy free market. Back in the good old days when rich families owned newspapers, she writes, journalism prospered. Nowadays papers are public corporations that shareholders and investors expect to be profitable, a state of business affairs Ms. Geyer thinks incompatible with the high calling of news gathering. Ms. Geyer doesn't consider the reason that rich families sold their newspapers might be that they were money-losing turkeys run by spendthrift editors and journalists who didn't give a damn where the money came from as long as they got a regular paycheck.
You and I know better because we've read the National Adult Literacy Survey. We savants know that the reason fewer and fewer Americans read newspapers is that more and more Americans lack the reading skills necessary to read them. If you can't read a newspaper, why buy it unless you need to line a bird cage or you have a puppy not yet house-trained? Newspapers are going bust because American literacy has gone bust.
Read it here
Underwater and drowning
According to recent data, the median home price in Southern California is now $285,000, down from the all-time high of $505,000. That's a difference of $220,000; and as prices continue to fall, this difference approaches the new median price. This unhappy fact means that any poor soul who bought a home at or near the all-time high (and hundreds of thousands did) is enslaved to a mortgage on a house which for all intents and purposes has been chopped in half. What a deal! An analyst predicts that home values will continue to fall to at least 55% below the high, and as the depression worsens there may be no real bottom. Debt slavery and continuing impoverishment are the future of California.
All this in a state whose governor and legislature are trying to raise taxes to cover vast budget deficits rather than cut spending. How many turnips will they try to bleed before the fact that California's economy is crashing penetrates those lead-lined skulls in Sacramento?
Read it here
All this in a state whose governor and legislature are trying to raise taxes to cover vast budget deficits rather than cut spending. How many turnips will they try to bleed before the fact that California's economy is crashing penetrates those lead-lined skulls in Sacramento?
Read it here
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Not so bright president-elect
Mr. Obama continues to deplete the newly elected (and yet to be seated) Democratic majority in the Senate. To date, these are the states that will have vacancies to fill: Illinois, New York, Delaware, Colorado. Granted that the Democratic governors of these states will appoint Democratic successors (except possibly Illinois--how a successor will be chosen is anybody's guess). However, these appointments are temporary and valid only until the next general election in 2010. History tells us (but apparently not Mr. Obama) that when the same party owns both the White House and one or both houses of Congress, mid-term elections tend to reduce (or eliminate) that party's majorities in Congress. All four states now appear to be in play for Republicans in 2010; with their current incumbents they were safe seats for the Democrats. I'm confident predicting that Mr. Obama's selection of senate colleagues for his cabinet will not serve him well; his cabinet and vice-presidential picks will be duds and Democrats will lose several, maybe all, of these seats in 2010. Mr. Obama had plenty of good alternatives to choose his cabinet from, but he passed them up for political cronies and pals. The Old Chicago Political Machine has moved to the Potomac.
The Madoff scandal
According to the New York Post:
Madoff remains free on a $10 million bond, but by 2 p.m. today, he must come up with a total of four "fiscally responsible" people to co-sign his bond to stay out of jail. As of late yesterday, his wife and brother had already signed for him. He also must provide his duplex apartment as collateral.
This suggests several points:
(1) If Bernie Madoff hadn't ruined so many people, there would be a larger number of "fiscally responsible" people he might ask for help.
(2) Since Bernie Madoff is a thief, whose $10 million did he put up for bond? Certainly not his $10 million.
(3) How can Bernie Madoff's wife be a "fiscally responsible" person? What money does she have to be "fiscally responsible" with? Certainly not hers or her husband's since whatever is theirs was somebody else's before Bernie stole it.
(4) How can Bernie Madoff's duplex apartment, presumably purchased with stolen money, be used as collateral for bond? Can the goods a thief steals be used to bail the thief out of jail? Is this really legal? In any case, surely even now lawyers for the victims are preparing suits to take it if the government doesn't seize it first. How can any of Bernie Madoff's assets (I use that term loosely) be collateral for anything since obviously his assets are not legitimately his?
(5) If Bernie Madoff's wife and brother are "fiscally responsible" people, does that fact mean that he did not cheat them?
(6) Will his two sons, who ratted him out to the government, volunteer to help keep their father out of jail? Was ratting him out a clever way to deflect attention from them once the jig was up? Who believes that only Bernie was running this scam? Are we soon to discover a Madoff family crime syndicate?
(7) Why does anybody want Bernie Madoff to stay out of jail? To what end? He has stolen the life savings of old people and left them destitute. Why isn't jail the proper place for this man? One can allow for his wife's feelings, but even she can't possibly imagine that a man who robs elderly people of all their possessions (a lousy mugger steals only a wallet or a purse) ought to live free in his duplex luxury apartment while his victims lose their homes and eat in soup kitchens. Given the certainty that Bernie's victims will eventually seize all his possessions and leave him and his wife just as destitute as his victims, one might think that Mrs. Madoff would let Bernie stew in his own juices. The vow "for better or for worse" ought to stop short of suicide. Is Mrs. Madoff more than an innocent wife standing by her man?
Madoff remains free on a $10 million bond, but by 2 p.m. today, he must come up with a total of four "fiscally responsible" people to co-sign his bond to stay out of jail. As of late yesterday, his wife and brother had already signed for him. He also must provide his duplex apartment as collateral.
This suggests several points:
(1) If Bernie Madoff hadn't ruined so many people, there would be a larger number of "fiscally responsible" people he might ask for help.
(2) Since Bernie Madoff is a thief, whose $10 million did he put up for bond? Certainly not his $10 million.
(3) How can Bernie Madoff's wife be a "fiscally responsible" person? What money does she have to be "fiscally responsible" with? Certainly not hers or her husband's since whatever is theirs was somebody else's before Bernie stole it.
(4) How can Bernie Madoff's duplex apartment, presumably purchased with stolen money, be used as collateral for bond? Can the goods a thief steals be used to bail the thief out of jail? Is this really legal? In any case, surely even now lawyers for the victims are preparing suits to take it if the government doesn't seize it first. How can any of Bernie Madoff's assets (I use that term loosely) be collateral for anything since obviously his assets are not legitimately his?
(5) If Bernie Madoff's wife and brother are "fiscally responsible" people, does that fact mean that he did not cheat them?
(6) Will his two sons, who ratted him out to the government, volunteer to help keep their father out of jail? Was ratting him out a clever way to deflect attention from them once the jig was up? Who believes that only Bernie was running this scam? Are we soon to discover a Madoff family crime syndicate?
(7) Why does anybody want Bernie Madoff to stay out of jail? To what end? He has stolen the life savings of old people and left them destitute. Why isn't jail the proper place for this man? One can allow for his wife's feelings, but even she can't possibly imagine that a man who robs elderly people of all their possessions (a lousy mugger steals only a wallet or a purse) ought to live free in his duplex luxury apartment while his victims lose their homes and eat in soup kitchens. Given the certainty that Bernie's victims will eventually seize all his possessions and leave him and his wife just as destitute as his victims, one might think that Mrs. Madoff would let Bernie stew in his own juices. The vow "for better or for worse" ought to stop short of suicide. Is Mrs. Madoff more than an innocent wife standing by her man?
Monday, December 15, 2008
More bad news
The Great Depression of the 21st century has just begun. In store for the future: more years of home mortgage defaults at unimaginable rates and a commercial mortgage debacle without historical precedent. One analyst says that we are maybe only a third of the way through the defaults and the consequent destruction of wealth with many years to go. In other words, we are years away from recovery being even a possibility. And after so much destruction of wealth, what could we recover with? The accumulated wealth of the post-WWII era is being wiped out in front of our eyes.
Watch the 60 Minutes report here
Watch the 60 Minutes report here
Sunday, December 14, 2008
You'd better listen to this guy while you still can
Think me a zany doomsayer for posting about the Great Depression of 2009, California's in-progress bankruptcy, the coming riots in the US a la Greece? Then take it from the widely respected trend forecaster Gerald Celente, CEO of The Trends Research Institute, who's predicting the Christmas Crash of 2008, mass and permanent unemployment, hunger throughout America, hyper inflation, political upheaval, and concentration camps for Americans. "...a meltdown, a catastrophe, the likes of which no one has ever seen before," he says.
Nothing in our lifetime will ever be more serious than the catastrophe unfolding before our eyes, and nothing in our lifetime has prepared us to cope with it.
Listen here
Nothing in our lifetime will ever be more serious than the catastrophe unfolding before our eyes, and nothing in our lifetime has prepared us to cope with it.
Listen here
Trendy fundie (part 2)
My doubt about Mr. Richard Cizik (formerly a vice-president of the National Evangelical Association, an organization of fundamentalist churches) has been borne out by the facts: Mr. Cizik is both a fake and a double-talker. Earlier this month, Mr. Cizik made happy-talk on National Public Radio expressing his supposedly evolving ideas on gay civil unions and gay marriage. He sounded open to gays in some sense (nobody wants to sound close-minded on NPR, for gosh sake's), but this putative openness caused his fellow fundamentalists (who were already out to get him because of his happy-talk on environmentalism) to drive him from office.
Well, Christianity Today reports that Mr. Cizik tried to save his job in that tried-and-true manner of all mealy-mouthed deceivers, by claiming that he was misunderstood by us dummies who could not understand the wise words of the great man. In truth, Mr. Cizik repudiated everything that he previously said and reiterated the standard fundamentalist anti-gay line. Thus reports Christianity Today:
NAE executive director W. T. Bassett also sent an e-mail reply to concerned constituencies that quoted remarks from Cizik following the Fresh Air interview. "I categorically oppose 'gay marriage' and see now that my thoughts about 'civil unions' were misunderstood and misplaced," Cizik said, according to the message. "I am now and always have been committed to work to pass laws that protect and foster family life, and to work against government attempts to interfere with the integrity of the family, including same-sex 'marriage' and civil unions."
So all that NPR happy-talk goes into the trash and instead gays get smeared as dangers to the integrity of the family. What a broad-minded fellow that Mr. Cizik is, no? I am happy to report that all this duplicity (and just plain lying) availed Mr. Cizik nothing; he is now an ex-employee of NAE. Incredibly, news reports are portraying him sympathetically as some sort of moderate who got axed by hardliners. Only Christianity Today has the real skinny about Mr. Cizik's dishonesty. No wonder his former fundamentalist allies said that he had lost all credibility.
All this goes to show you that you can smell phony fundies a mile off because, to put it simply, they stink.
Read it here
Well, Christianity Today reports that Mr. Cizik tried to save his job in that tried-and-true manner of all mealy-mouthed deceivers, by claiming that he was misunderstood by us dummies who could not understand the wise words of the great man. In truth, Mr. Cizik repudiated everything that he previously said and reiterated the standard fundamentalist anti-gay line. Thus reports Christianity Today:
NAE executive director W. T. Bassett also sent an e-mail reply to concerned constituencies that quoted remarks from Cizik following the Fresh Air interview. "I categorically oppose 'gay marriage' and see now that my thoughts about 'civil unions' were misunderstood and misplaced," Cizik said, according to the message. "I am now and always have been committed to work to pass laws that protect and foster family life, and to work against government attempts to interfere with the integrity of the family, including same-sex 'marriage' and civil unions."
So all that NPR happy-talk goes into the trash and instead gays get smeared as dangers to the integrity of the family. What a broad-minded fellow that Mr. Cizik is, no? I am happy to report that all this duplicity (and just plain lying) availed Mr. Cizik nothing; he is now an ex-employee of NAE. Incredibly, news reports are portraying him sympathetically as some sort of moderate who got axed by hardliners. Only Christianity Today has the real skinny about Mr. Cizik's dishonesty. No wonder his former fundamentalist allies said that he had lost all credibility.
All this goes to show you that you can smell phony fundies a mile off because, to put it simply, they stink.
Read it here
Friday, December 12, 2008
Slap in the face
Sometimes reality just whacks you the way a Zen master whacks his pupil in an attempt to force him awake, and you're left in wide-eyed astonishment. I was reading the National Adult Literacy Survey and came across this fact. Only 4% of American adults measured in the survey were able to answer this question correctly: If you borrow $10,000 at 14.25% APR for 10 years with a monthly payment of $156.77, how much total interest do you pay?
Only 4% of adult Americans could compute the total amount of the payments ($156.77 x 120 months), subtract the principal ($10,000), and arrive at the answer: $8812.40 in interest. In fact, respondents didn't really have to compute anything; they only needed to explain how to arrive at the answer.
Is it really possible that things are this bad in America?
Only 4% of adult Americans could compute the total amount of the payments ($156.77 x 120 months), subtract the principal ($10,000), and arrive at the answer: $8812.40 in interest. In fact, respondents didn't really have to compute anything; they only needed to explain how to arrive at the answer.
Is it really possible that things are this bad in America?
The peril of being a trendy fundie
Q: What's the difference between a Christian fundamentalist and a Christian evangelical?
A: Evangelicals try not to belch at the dinner table.
It seems one Richard Cizik, a long-time staff member of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), has been forced to resign his position as the organization's vice-president after giving a radio interview in which he stated support for gay civil unions and vague, squishy thoughts which a gullible person might, with enormous effort, construe as just a tiny bit of openness to the almost infinitely remote possibility of gay marriage. In reaction to the stink the interview stirred up, Mr. Cizik (news accounts call him "Reverend" without mentioning of what church he is a reverend) desperately but unsuccessfully tried to recant and to apologize to all fundies/evangelicals offended by his remarks. Despite this grovelling, Mr. Cizik was shown the door and invited to walk through it on his way to the unemployment office. There's nothing more inspiring than Christian charity, now is there?
You may recall that Mr. Cizik made fundies/evangelicals apoplectic when in 2002 he suggested that people of their ilk should concern themselves with environmental issues like global warming since they, too, live on planet earth. The fundies/evangelicals would have none of it (possibly because, not wanting to live on planet earth, they expect the Rapture to occur any moment, at which time they will float up to the stratosphere where Jesus, gathering all his little sunbeams, will whisk them off to heaven while the rest of us die hideous deaths during the Tribulation here on earth). Ever since, these angry people have been out to get Mr. Cizik, and now they've got him.
It's not that I have any sympathy for Mr. Cizik. So he supports gay civil unions? Oh yeah, I ask, since when? He publicly supported Proposition 8, which makes him an abettor of that criminal act which stole the civil rights of gays and lesbians. Mr. Cizik might have recalled that stealing violates one of the Ten Commandments. It seems he needs a Bible refresher course and a bit of remedial training in morality. Now jobless, he'll have plenty of free time for study. Let's hope he makes the most of it. And, perhaps, I do him an injustice. Maybe he really is trying to think for himself late in life; maybe his slight openness to gay people is sincere; maybe he wants more from his faith than the dogma and right-wing politics he has been peddling for the last 20 years at NAE. Maybe. Then again, maybe pigs can fly.
Read it here
A: Evangelicals try not to belch at the dinner table.
It seems one Richard Cizik, a long-time staff member of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), has been forced to resign his position as the organization's vice-president after giving a radio interview in which he stated support for gay civil unions and vague, squishy thoughts which a gullible person might, with enormous effort, construe as just a tiny bit of openness to the almost infinitely remote possibility of gay marriage. In reaction to the stink the interview stirred up, Mr. Cizik (news accounts call him "Reverend" without mentioning of what church he is a reverend) desperately but unsuccessfully tried to recant and to apologize to all fundies/evangelicals offended by his remarks. Despite this grovelling, Mr. Cizik was shown the door and invited to walk through it on his way to the unemployment office. There's nothing more inspiring than Christian charity, now is there?
You may recall that Mr. Cizik made fundies/evangelicals apoplectic when in 2002 he suggested that people of their ilk should concern themselves with environmental issues like global warming since they, too, live on planet earth. The fundies/evangelicals would have none of it (possibly because, not wanting to live on planet earth, they expect the Rapture to occur any moment, at which time they will float up to the stratosphere where Jesus, gathering all his little sunbeams, will whisk them off to heaven while the rest of us die hideous deaths during the Tribulation here on earth). Ever since, these angry people have been out to get Mr. Cizik, and now they've got him.
It's not that I have any sympathy for Mr. Cizik. So he supports gay civil unions? Oh yeah, I ask, since when? He publicly supported Proposition 8, which makes him an abettor of that criminal act which stole the civil rights of gays and lesbians. Mr. Cizik might have recalled that stealing violates one of the Ten Commandments. It seems he needs a Bible refresher course and a bit of remedial training in morality. Now jobless, he'll have plenty of free time for study. Let's hope he makes the most of it. And, perhaps, I do him an injustice. Maybe he really is trying to think for himself late in life; maybe his slight openness to gay people is sincere; maybe he wants more from his faith than the dogma and right-wing politics he has been peddling for the last 20 years at NAE. Maybe. Then again, maybe pigs can fly.
Read it here
California crack-up
Mother of pearl! First, California was $15 billion in the hole. Then it was $28 billion. Now it's $41 billion and counting. Sure, some of this is mere hype which Governor Arnold is using to prod the legislature into action. But most of this latter number must be true; and the more Governor Arnold talks about it, the more the fact that California is dead broke embeds itself in the minds of citizens of the state and, more importantly, in the minds of the financiers from whom the state wants to borrow billions. The governor may want to tone down the hype before he scares away any potential buyer of California's bonds. In any case, California is a mess, maybe an incorrigible mess, and we're only in the first act of the melodrama called "The Great Depression of the 21st Century" with many acts yet to follow. Remember when Okies fled 1930s dust bowl Oklahoma and went to California (immortalized by the Joad family in "The Grapes of Wrath")? Well, perhaps their descendants currently living there should consider fleeing back to Oklahoma while they still have the chance.
Read it here
Read it here
Thursday, December 11, 2008
How long...
The growing economic depression in Greece has led to days of rioting throughout the country. How long before riots break out in, say, California? Or another state? People are getting desperate here, too. We aren't the same stoic country that endured the depression of the 1930s. Contemporary America is full of angry, frustrated people. The decades of wedge politics practiced by Republicans and pandering by Democrats have dissolved the civility and spirit of community that kept America going in the darkest days of the Great Depression. In short, we simply do not have the moral and spiritual resources that Americans had three generations ago. We will not all grimly soldier on doing our duty. Some of us are will reach for guns and bricks; some of us will try to punish the society that so utterly failed us; some of us will go down fighting anybody and everybody. 2009 is going to be a remarkably interesting year.
Read it here
Read it here
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
California living (but not for long)
If I were still living in California, I might be open to the possibility of fleeing the state before it goes belly up. The news article below does not give any reason to hope that reason will prevail in the California state legislature. Money is running out. The wolf is at the door. Nobody wants to buy California's bonds, at least at the interest rate the state is willing to pay. Of course, California can always borrow money providing it pays a high interest rate--say the rate you're paying to Visa or MasterCard--although a promise to pay from a dead-broke organization doesn't inspire investor confidence. The budget gap is in the billions of dollars and growing. Buddy, can you spare a dime (or a billion $$)?
The rump Republican party has no ideas but, as usual, is happy to play the role of obstructionist. The Democrats won't consider genuine cuts and permanent reductions in state government. Governor Arnold has no ideas, either, but what's new about that? The situation is really getting serious. We are at just the beginning of the great depression of the 21st century; California (and the whole country) has a very long way to go in very greatly reduced circumstances before we recover anything resembling normality. If California government goes belly up now before times get really bad, what are Californians going to do for a government in a year or two or three when millions are out of work and the state is fighting for its life?
Read it here
The rump Republican party has no ideas but, as usual, is happy to play the role of obstructionist. The Democrats won't consider genuine cuts and permanent reductions in state government. Governor Arnold has no ideas, either, but what's new about that? The situation is really getting serious. We are at just the beginning of the great depression of the 21st century; California (and the whole country) has a very long way to go in very greatly reduced circumstances before we recover anything resembling normality. If California government goes belly up now before times get really bad, what are Californians going to do for a government in a year or two or three when millions are out of work and the state is fighting for its life?
Read it here
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
More thoughts on American literacy
I've been thinking a bit more about the plight of literacy in America. The National Adult Literacy Survey tells an appalling tale. Given that the highest literacy level it examines (level 5) is equivalent to the reading skills one needs to read and comprehend an edition of USA Today; given that at most only 21 out of 100 American adults have such skills today; given that such skills are really those required for an average, competent high school student of a mere generation ago; must we not conclude that 79 out of 100 American adults have the reading skills of middle-school students or even grade schoolers? Or, in other words, that 79% of American adults are in effect children in terms of their ability to read about and to comprehend the world? What else can we conclude?
Consider the meaning of this conclusion. The vast majority of adult Americans have no access to essential information concerning government, finance, politics, economics, science, etc. One has to be genuinely literate to read about these topics, but only 21% of Americans could even begin to cope with such written material. Where do the majority of our people get their information? Somebody tells them. Some talking head on TV or some disembodied voice on talk radio tells them about the world--or at least tells them things that seem to be about the world. Or maybe they get their information from favorite actors in sitcoms and nightly dramas or from movies. Passive, uncritical minds open up and get a load of whatever blather comes their way. They have no way to judge or evaluate what they hear; that would require using knowledge acquired by serious reading, which they can't do. They must simply accept whatever they hear, whatever suits their mood or momentary disposition. No wonder American political life is absurd. How long can a democracy survive when the great majority of the people (the demos) do not know and have no way of finding out how it functions?
Consider the meaning of this conclusion. The vast majority of adult Americans have no access to essential information concerning government, finance, politics, economics, science, etc. One has to be genuinely literate to read about these topics, but only 21% of Americans could even begin to cope with such written material. Where do the majority of our people get their information? Somebody tells them. Some talking head on TV or some disembodied voice on talk radio tells them about the world--or at least tells them things that seem to be about the world. Or maybe they get their information from favorite actors in sitcoms and nightly dramas or from movies. Passive, uncritical minds open up and get a load of whatever blather comes their way. They have no way to judge or evaluate what they hear; that would require using knowledge acquired by serious reading, which they can't do. They must simply accept whatever they hear, whatever suits their mood or momentary disposition. No wonder American political life is absurd. How long can a democracy survive when the great majority of the people (the demos) do not know and have no way of finding out how it functions?
Monday, December 8, 2008
It's official: Obama's a bust!
Mr. Obama has yet to take the oath of office, yet his administration is stillborn. How so, you ask? Sheer size. The failed government of George W. Bush is the largest, most bloated, most expensive, and least competent in the history of this nation. Mr. Obama is taking this colossal mess as his starting point and is preparing a government that will be larger, more bloated, and more expensive yet. And what will that get him? A government even less competent than that of Mr. Bush, if such can even be imagined.
Any sensible person with management experience knows exactly what's wrong with the executive branch--it's too damn big! It's supposed to be an executive, not an imperial court, for gosh sake's. Just as you can't have an effective army led by a gazillion generals, brigadiers, colonels, and captains, all with their attendant assistants, subordinates, and subalterns; you can't have an effective executive staffed by thousands of managers each with his own staff, each member of which has his own sub-staff, each member of which has his own sub-sub-staff, etc. The only effective executive possible in this world is small and tightly organized with a minimum of staff. Bigness frustrates effectiveness; bloated bigness destroys effectiveness.
So what is Mr. Obama's choice? Bloat, more bloat, infinite bloat. This silly man is encasing himself in bureaucratic concrete, and he is so inexperienced that he can't even recognize his peril. All he knows is the world of politics where staff size is a matter of prestige and where a politician's worth is measured by the number of bootlickers, parasites, and hangers-on who work for him.
So much for voting for change!
Read it here
Any sensible person with management experience knows exactly what's wrong with the executive branch--it's too damn big! It's supposed to be an executive, not an imperial court, for gosh sake's. Just as you can't have an effective army led by a gazillion generals, brigadiers, colonels, and captains, all with their attendant assistants, subordinates, and subalterns; you can't have an effective executive staffed by thousands of managers each with his own staff, each member of which has his own sub-staff, each member of which has his own sub-sub-staff, etc. The only effective executive possible in this world is small and tightly organized with a minimum of staff. Bigness frustrates effectiveness; bloated bigness destroys effectiveness.
So what is Mr. Obama's choice? Bloat, more bloat, infinite bloat. This silly man is encasing himself in bureaucratic concrete, and he is so inexperienced that he can't even recognize his peril. All he knows is the world of politics where staff size is a matter of prestige and where a politician's worth is measured by the number of bootlickers, parasites, and hangers-on who work for him.
So much for voting for change!
Read it here
Sunday, December 7, 2008
The least read book in the world
Ever wonder why people don't read the Bible much? Many people read about the Bible--more or less. Christian bookstores are full of books purporting to be Bible-based. A fair number of Christians buy these books; some Christians may read a few of these books. The shrinking number of American Christians have some idea what the Bible contains and vague impressions about biblical characters, places, and events. But, in truth, people just don't read the Bible. I've read it twice--in my youth and in the Authorized Version no less (that's "King James" to most people). But I dare say that I could select a random 10,000 people in church on any Sunday and find not a one who has read the entire Bible, few who have read the entire New Testament, fewer still who have read most of the Old Testament. Considering that the Protestant ideal was to place the Bible in the hands of the believer so that he could be his own priest with direct access to scripture and to God, the present state of affairs is deplorable at a minimum. What's the answer?
It's simple. Go on the web and find the National Adult Literacy Survey that the federal government conducts every 10 years or so. The survey divides reading skills by five levels of difficulty, the first being the simplest, the fifth requiring the greatest literacy. The survey describes levels 4 and 5 as requiring considerable ability to handle long passages of text and to perform complex calculations based on those passages. Lest you think that the survey tests your ability to comprehend Hegel or quantum mechanics, the government publishes sample questions from prior surveys to indicate the reading abilities it is examining. Inspect these samples and you'll discover that the highest levels of literacy require the comprehension and calculation abilities of an average high-school student of a mere generation ago. Basically, all you need is a vocabulary sufficient to read USA Today and elementary arithmetic. There's nothing tough about this survey. Or so a literate person would think.
If you examine the results of the survey, you'll discover these amazing facts:
(1) More than 20% of the country is functionally illiterate; that is, one-fifth or more of American adults cannot read a brief passage in simple English (this is level 1 complexity) and comprehend its meaning. Put differently, more than one-fifth of Americans cannot read and understand the message that you are reading right now.
(2) Not more than 21% and as little as 18% of American adults have sufficient reading skills to qualify as level 4 or 5 readers. That fact should terrify you.
To read the Bible, you need reading skills of at least level 4, preferably level 5. To have any hope of truly understanding the Bible, we modern readers need to read the Bible with a special study edition (like the Oxford Study Edition I use) that has lots of notes and explanations of the text; and we need a good commentary (like the Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary that I also use). Effective use of these tools gives the modern reader a good, general knowledge of the Bible and its proper historical context. Now, these are basic tools; serious study requires far more complex and specialized apparatus. To use even the basic tools effectively requires reading skills considerably in excess of the Literacy Survey's level 5. Don't take my word for it; just compare passages from these books to the survey's sample questions to see how truly minimal are the reading skills that the survey examines. Yet not more than 21% of American adults possess sufficient reading skills to use these tools; in reality, substantially fewer have the requisite skills.
So why do so few Americans read the Bible? Answer: Because relatively few Americans are sufficiently literate to read the Bible. Most Americans don't read the Bible because they can't.
It's simple. Go on the web and find the National Adult Literacy Survey that the federal government conducts every 10 years or so. The survey divides reading skills by five levels of difficulty, the first being the simplest, the fifth requiring the greatest literacy. The survey describes levels 4 and 5 as requiring considerable ability to handle long passages of text and to perform complex calculations based on those passages. Lest you think that the survey tests your ability to comprehend Hegel or quantum mechanics, the government publishes sample questions from prior surveys to indicate the reading abilities it is examining. Inspect these samples and you'll discover that the highest levels of literacy require the comprehension and calculation abilities of an average high-school student of a mere generation ago. Basically, all you need is a vocabulary sufficient to read USA Today and elementary arithmetic. There's nothing tough about this survey. Or so a literate person would think.
If you examine the results of the survey, you'll discover these amazing facts:
(1) More than 20% of the country is functionally illiterate; that is, one-fifth or more of American adults cannot read a brief passage in simple English (this is level 1 complexity) and comprehend its meaning. Put differently, more than one-fifth of Americans cannot read and understand the message that you are reading right now.
(2) Not more than 21% and as little as 18% of American adults have sufficient reading skills to qualify as level 4 or 5 readers. That fact should terrify you.
To read the Bible, you need reading skills of at least level 4, preferably level 5. To have any hope of truly understanding the Bible, we modern readers need to read the Bible with a special study edition (like the Oxford Study Edition I use) that has lots of notes and explanations of the text; and we need a good commentary (like the Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary that I also use). Effective use of these tools gives the modern reader a good, general knowledge of the Bible and its proper historical context. Now, these are basic tools; serious study requires far more complex and specialized apparatus. To use even the basic tools effectively requires reading skills considerably in excess of the Literacy Survey's level 5. Don't take my word for it; just compare passages from these books to the survey's sample questions to see how truly minimal are the reading skills that the survey examines. Yet not more than 21% of American adults possess sufficient reading skills to use these tools; in reality, substantially fewer have the requisite skills.
So why do so few Americans read the Bible? Answer: Because relatively few Americans are sufficiently literate to read the Bible. Most Americans don't read the Bible because they can't.
In the dumps--literally!
Have you thought that when things get really bad, you might need to become a dumpster diver and gather cans and paper to sell at the recycling center just to keep body and soul together? Well, you'd better have a Plan B handy because the recycling industry is now on the cutting edge of depression. The bottom has dropped out in the recycled materials market. Fewer firms are buying the paper and the bottles and the cans; those that are still buying are doing so at greatly reduced prices. Which, of course, means that the incomes of sellers are dropping precipitously. Which, of course, means hunger and homelessness for many. Only a year ago, how many would have thought that, of all things, earning income by ad hoc garbage collecting (what the euphemistically named "recycling" in truth is) would be in jeopardy in the allegedly richest country on earth?
I've thought for many years that the appearance of prosperity in America was pure vapor, pure facade. In my gut I knew differently. I used to shudder whenever I saw somebody rummaging through a dumpster because I knew that with just a short run of bad luck I could be there too. Today, that vapor is dissipating so fast that even earning a meagre income is a crap shoot. What happens now to the people who have depended on recycling to earn money for their families? What happens to the millions of American families who soon will have no income and no way to get any? What happens if the abyss we have fallen into has no bottom? What if the economic wreckage piling up around us is the new permanent way of life in this country? What if all the talk of recovery we are hearing from our leaders-to-be is just as much vapor as all that talk of prosperity we heard from our leaders-of-the-past? How will we keep body and soul together next year, and the year after, and the year after that? Why are we letting this catastrophe happen?
Read about it here
I've thought for many years that the appearance of prosperity in America was pure vapor, pure facade. In my gut I knew differently. I used to shudder whenever I saw somebody rummaging through a dumpster because I knew that with just a short run of bad luck I could be there too. Today, that vapor is dissipating so fast that even earning a meagre income is a crap shoot. What happens now to the people who have depended on recycling to earn money for their families? What happens to the millions of American families who soon will have no income and no way to get any? What happens if the abyss we have fallen into has no bottom? What if the economic wreckage piling up around us is the new permanent way of life in this country? What if all the talk of recovery we are hearing from our leaders-to-be is just as much vapor as all that talk of prosperity we heard from our leaders-of-the-past? How will we keep body and soul together next year, and the year after, and the year after that? Why are we letting this catastrophe happen?
Read about it here
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Workfare nation
Mr. Obama wants to put America back to work again--patching roads and replacing light bulbs. Yup, he is proposing a colossal public works program as the solution to the crashing job market. Are you a laid-off electrical engineer? Start screwing in energy-efficient light bulbs, pal. Are you an out-of-work cost accountant? Mister, grab a shovel and start filling in the pot holes.
All of this, of course, is "investment" in America, not make-work jobs imagined by a president-to-be who can't think of anything except reviving antique 1930s New Deal programs with him playing the featured role of a faux FDR. Word has not yet reached Mr. Obama that the New Deal was a failure, that intractable American unemployment was relieved only by drafting 10 million men to fight World War II, that idle factories were revived only by conversion to war materiel manufacturing, and that a pre-1929 standard of living was not recovered until after 1945.
But these are mere details. It's the bold, sweeping, new-yet-old, fresh-though-stale thought of our glorious leader-elect that counts. Who will pay for all these grand plans, you ask? Now you spoil the mood. Does Santa Claus pay for the presents he bestows? Does the Easter Bunny pay for the chocolate eggs he leaves in baskets? Why should Mr. Obama pay for the goodies he's about to scatter upon us? Perhaps because this is the real world, you say, and somebody has to pay. Varlet, say I, clam up and get with the program. You cynics in the reality-based community are always trying to pee on our parade. Yes, we can! That's all you need--a positive attitude. The power of positive thinking trumps facts any day of the week and twice on Sundays--especially in Mr. Obama's Washington. If you don't think about financial ruin, then it won't happen. Just look at Wall Street...or Detroit...or California...or some place where people still have money they call their own. We'll get them to pay. Quick, alert the IRS and the Treasury! Help is on the way!
Read the nonsense here
All of this, of course, is "investment" in America, not make-work jobs imagined by a president-to-be who can't think of anything except reviving antique 1930s New Deal programs with him playing the featured role of a faux FDR. Word has not yet reached Mr. Obama that the New Deal was a failure, that intractable American unemployment was relieved only by drafting 10 million men to fight World War II, that idle factories were revived only by conversion to war materiel manufacturing, and that a pre-1929 standard of living was not recovered until after 1945.
But these are mere details. It's the bold, sweeping, new-yet-old, fresh-though-stale thought of our glorious leader-elect that counts. Who will pay for all these grand plans, you ask? Now you spoil the mood. Does Santa Claus pay for the presents he bestows? Does the Easter Bunny pay for the chocolate eggs he leaves in baskets? Why should Mr. Obama pay for the goodies he's about to scatter upon us? Perhaps because this is the real world, you say, and somebody has to pay. Varlet, say I, clam up and get with the program. You cynics in the reality-based community are always trying to pee on our parade. Yes, we can! That's all you need--a positive attitude. The power of positive thinking trumps facts any day of the week and twice on Sundays--especially in Mr. Obama's Washington. If you don't think about financial ruin, then it won't happen. Just look at Wall Street...or Detroit...or California...or some place where people still have money they call their own. We'll get them to pay. Quick, alert the IRS and the Treasury! Help is on the way!
Read the nonsense here
Friday, December 5, 2008
The Pruitts again
Does the state of California owe you any money? If so, get it quick! If you wait too long, you may get a "registered warrant" instead of a check. That mysterious financial instrument will be issued to the state's vendors sometime in early spring after California runs out of money. It is in effect an I.O.U., a promise to pay should California ever get enough money to pay its debts. Here in reality, this is called fraud. Will vendors pay their creditors with "registered warrants?" Or their employees? Do you think Safeway will take "registered warrants?" Or Bank America? Or the utility company? If you or I wrote a "registered warrant," we would go to jail as check kiters. But law is for little people, not governments. The all-powerful government of California will kite as many checks as citizen-dopes will allow until, fed up with the on-going swindle, they storm Sacramento armed with pitchforks, torches, and shotguns and finally run the crook-politicians out of town and out of state. As the country falls deeper into the abyss of depression, you can expect more of the growing number of dead-broke states to follow California's example of kiting checks. Are you ready?
Read about it here
Read about it here
Monday, December 1, 2008
The Pruitts of Southampton redux
I inaugurated this blog with a post comparing California's fiscal mess to that old Phyllis Diller sit-com, "The Pruitts of Southampton," about an ex-rich socialite, dead broke, still trying to keep up the appearance of her once-lavish lifestyle.
Governor Schwarzenegger and the California legislature continue living the Pruitt lifestyle despite an $11.2 billion budget deficit that must be closed. The Democrats have proposed equal tax increases and spending cuts--$8.2 billion each. Gov. Schwarzenegger's plan is similar. The Republicans are adamant against tax increases but don't propose spending cuts sufficient to balance the budget--a typical ploy for Republicans, who pretend to be anti-tax heroes while letting somebody else do the dirty work of figuring out what to do with spending.
Projections of the growing fiscal crisis put the spending vs. revenue gap at $28 billion within 19 months. Of course, here in the real world there could be no such gap. The state would simply run out of money and stop spending. Period. It would stiff its vendors by not paying them; they in turn would stop providing goods and services until the state paid its outstanding bills. State employees would be laid-off; the lights would go out; the doors would shut. Somebody would put up a big "Out of business" sign on government buildings in Sacramento. Thus the fiscal crisis would end. This happens daily in the private economy. Why can't a state go belly up? Life would go on. Life might be better. Californians would get a chance to start over from square one. You don't get many opportunities in life to start over fresh, so citizens might jump at the chance. Why prop up a bloated, tyrannical, bankrupt government? Why settle for so little? Try something new. Give it a shot and see what happens. Is that the scent of a constitutional convention I smell in the air?
America is now officially in recession. Yes, the National Bureau of Economic Research has just discovered that we have been in recession since December, 2007! Good of them to keep up with current events. America faces a federal budget deficit approaching $2 trillion for this fiscal year alone. The current federal debt is $10 trillion. America is broke; California is broke. Perhaps the only really exciting question is this: In the great race to insolvency, who goes belly up first, California or America?
Read about the fun here
Governor Schwarzenegger and the California legislature continue living the Pruitt lifestyle despite an $11.2 billion budget deficit that must be closed. The Democrats have proposed equal tax increases and spending cuts--$8.2 billion each. Gov. Schwarzenegger's plan is similar. The Republicans are adamant against tax increases but don't propose spending cuts sufficient to balance the budget--a typical ploy for Republicans, who pretend to be anti-tax heroes while letting somebody else do the dirty work of figuring out what to do with spending.
Projections of the growing fiscal crisis put the spending vs. revenue gap at $28 billion within 19 months. Of course, here in the real world there could be no such gap. The state would simply run out of money and stop spending. Period. It would stiff its vendors by not paying them; they in turn would stop providing goods and services until the state paid its outstanding bills. State employees would be laid-off; the lights would go out; the doors would shut. Somebody would put up a big "Out of business" sign on government buildings in Sacramento. Thus the fiscal crisis would end. This happens daily in the private economy. Why can't a state go belly up? Life would go on. Life might be better. Californians would get a chance to start over from square one. You don't get many opportunities in life to start over fresh, so citizens might jump at the chance. Why prop up a bloated, tyrannical, bankrupt government? Why settle for so little? Try something new. Give it a shot and see what happens. Is that the scent of a constitutional convention I smell in the air?
America is now officially in recession. Yes, the National Bureau of Economic Research has just discovered that we have been in recession since December, 2007! Good of them to keep up with current events. America faces a federal budget deficit approaching $2 trillion for this fiscal year alone. The current federal debt is $10 trillion. America is broke; California is broke. Perhaps the only really exciting question is this: In the great race to insolvency, who goes belly up first, California or America?
Read about the fun here
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