The Universe Can Be Fair, Who Knew!

If you've already seen the "woman chains self to home to avoid foreclosure" bit on the news you may recognise this woman. Sadly I could not locate a picture of her equally retarded cockroach of a spouse or I'd be making custom dartboards out of the pair right now.

What do we learn from this story? Hopefully we learn that when we hit rough financial times ("rough" being relative here since I've never known anyone going through "rough" times who could afford a french manicure much less a house in Mira Mesa, CA) that we probably should NOT run out and take out an ARM on our nearly-paid-off home of 19 years that 90% of Americans could not have afforded in the first place.

You just couldn't deal with the idea of selling and downscaling to a less expensive home in a "less desireable" location, could you? I'll tell you a little secret Mr & Mrs Dumbass: my home is paid for, been paid for a very long time and one of the reasons we decided not to "move up" was because of people like you. See, we just weren't real keen on spending a lot of money to live in a neighborhood filled with twat-brains like you. That would have been "less desireable" to us.

Mr & Mrs Reyno you'd laugh at my little house I'm sure, my 8 year old compact car would not impress you and my unmanicured fingers would certainly be fodder for a lot of jokes but you know what, I'll still have a home and money in the bank and food in my belly when you and your kind are sitting on a street corner waiting for the next soup line to open. The truth is I've been waiting my entire life to see scavenging pond scum like you in this position and was only afraid I wouldn't live long enough to see it. Your tears are like lemon balm to my heart and probably to the hearts of all the people you "helped" out of their homes over the years.

Sadly you'll probably be okay, more than likely end up still better off than the thousands who lost everything in Katrina or the millions who never had anything to lose in the first place. You should be extremely grateful I'm not running the universe or you'd spend the rest of your waste-of-airspace lives trying to decide between buying Top Ramen or toilet paper.

So what did I learn from this? Not that I'm meaner than a junkyard dog, that I already knew. I learned that it is entirely possible to be mad enough to spit nails and laugh till you pee your pants all at the same time.

While We Were Sleeping

Canada and the EU have begun working on a "free trade" agreement which would include the free movement of workers and reciprocal recognition of professional licenses and India is actively pursuing free trade agreements with both Japan and China.

Just in case anyone was still confused enough to believe that our current financial crisis would be resolved with a return to "business as usual", that is simply not going to happen.

I realize this hasn't gotten much (um, try any) media attention what with oh-so-much-more weighty matters in the headlines like Sarah Palin's clothing budget and what the latest ill thought out remark Joe Biden just made but in real-world terms this is likely to have a whole lot more impact on all of us than either of the above. I'm not going to waste anyone's time writing a thousand word essay on why this is relevant to us, a simple look at who buys our goods and who sells us goods and some basic mathematical calculations ought to make it all crystal clear to everyone except maybe Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich.

The days of the US dominating the world economy are done, we screwed the pooch on that one and frankly there is absolutely nothing we can do to change that. So what's left? Try for a seat at the table. A little humility could go a long way here folks.

There is the big question: are we going to start dealing with reality or are we going to continue pretending we are the lords of the universe in spite of all evidence to the contrary? I hope for all our sakes we choose the first option. Or we could just become a giant tax-haven destination offering fine restaurants and cheap real estate to the rest of the world. You choose.

Just something to think about.

So You Wanted A Crazy Solution?

So the "rescue" bill passed, the market farted and all is still completely screwed up in the world. I'm still neither happy or unhappy about it because truthfully I'm much more interested in the dynamics of who voted which way on both the first and second bills and more importantly...why.

Fascinating that we had to add another $100 billion in fixin's to that crap sandwich to get supposedly "conservative" republicans to eat it, isn't it? Of course we had our own Democratic Congresswoman Shelley Berkley who after being staunchly opposed to the first bill, eagerly gobbled up the second as quickly as my beagle eats his own turds. Nice to see irresponsible and capricious voting while the country is going down the poophole is bipartisan anyway.

Meanwhile I came up with my own "rescue plan" for the economy which took all of, I don't know, maybe 15 minutes.

1. Eagerly endorse and embrace same-sex marriage then launch an international ad campaign openly recruiting qualified gay and lesbian immigrants. We'd attract some of the best and brightest from around the world along with their assets both intellectual and worldly. Think of the lovely shops we'd get.

2. Raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour, phased in over the next 8 quarters, thereafter tied to core inflation and adjusted annually. Bet you wouldn't see much inflation.

3. Revamp the tax code. Close nearly all exemptions with the exception of home mortgage interest and dependent and medical deductions but lock in the 15% capital gains tax rate and lock in a 5% rate for anyone below the 15% tax bracket. Same for dividends. Investments would soar.

Sounds pretty crazy I'm sure but it's about as sensible as anything that's been proposed and far less looney than anything the McCain camp will do given a chance.

Bailout, Shmailout

Okay, I admit it, I'm just really not all that upset about the financial meltdown. I've been telling anyone bored enough to listen to me for two years that this was coming, I battened down my hatches so to speak and quite honestly losing money seems to be the only thing that gets many peoples attention. Once we have their attention maybe half of them will be capable of learning something.

Oh no, she did not just say that...what about all the poor innocent people who are about to lose their life savings? You know what, most of the people who are truly innocent in this mess already had no "life savings". They already had nothing and now they'll have lots of company. So how the hell does it feel anyway?

Sorry people, I don't blame "Wall Street" or the politicians because it was you, middle class voters, who put those people in the position to do this. It was all good with you as long as you thought you were part of the club but damned if it doesn't suck to find out you are just as disposable as all the people you thought were disposable.

Talk to me when you figure out that you are your brother's keeper and you do have a responsibility to the least among us, I might be willing to listen then.

It's ALWAYS Been the Economy Stupid, and We Still Don't Get It

I'm going to confess that as someone who regularly plays the market I have been largely uninvolved and ignoring the nosedive. See the thing is, a blind pig should have seen this one coming, oh, about 2 years ago. Aside from this being what I call a golden stock shopping opportunity I'm not really all that interested. Not sure what part of "you can't keep spending money you do not have" or continue expanding the number of people living in absolute poverty without eventually destroying your economy most people still aren't getting but there it is in a nutshell.

As usual our fearless leaders are getting the solution all wrong too. Color me not surprised. Tax bennies for corporations and rebates for everyone who already has money and goddamn well ought to learn to budget...gee that's gonna help. NOT.

For anyone still in doubt let me 'splain it for you in really, really simple terms. You aren't going to like it but this is what has to happen: real income has to rise at the bottom end. That's right Joe Monkey autoworker, it ain't about you....it's about the gazillion or so people cleaning motel rooms, serving you at the drive through window and picking your goddamn lettuce. It's basic math: we have too many people with no discretionary income and when that happens who in the hell do you imagine we are going to sell all our goods and services too? Even Donald Trump can only eat so many Whoppers.

Now we could just blame "corporate greed" and rant and rail at big business, it might feel good but it's only a piece of the story. The real story is the other few million of us in the great middle class who want it all, want it now, and want it on the cheap. "We" were ok with ignoring the fact that a whole lot of people had to be working a lot of hours for less money than it cost to live decently in order to provide the rest of us with all these goodies and as usual we are continuing to ignore this fact.

That right there had a lot to do with my bottom line when I went with Obama because he is the only candidate who gets this. Clinton and Edwards may get it but they are not going to act on it, no way Jose, they will continue to pander to the middle income folks who got us into this mess in the first place. Sadly those are the people who are more likely to vote....just look at our last 8 years if you have any more questions about that. Oh, and by the way Michigan voters: Mitt Romney is going to bring back our auto industry about the same time I learn to pull live rabbits out of my ass. You can't bring back an industry that has no market and poor people don't buy new cars every other year.

In the meantime all is right in my world, I did not lose my ass in the market because back when we had halfway decent schools I learned basic math, the Daily Show is back on the air and there is this young guy called Woozie who gives me hope that the kids coming up now may not turn out to be the same waste of airspace my generation has turned out to be.

Most of all I am still floating on the thing we aren't supposed to talk about but I'm gonna anyway: Senator Obama's young daughters standing up on that podium after the win in Iowa changed the world for an entire generation of young people in this country. Most of us older geezers don't really get that, neither black nor white but the kids get it and that's all that matters.

Pictures Worth a Thousand Words

While I was pushing buttons and listening to the ever-retarded Fox business-for-the-gullible folks deny there was any problem whatsoever with our economy, that it is in fact "the best it has ever been", I thought I'd take a few screenshots for you. Straight off of the currency exchange.

Any more questions?

Voodoo Economics Part Deux

Greenspan on The Daily Show:

"I've been dealing with these big mathematical models of forecasting the economy, and I'm looking at what's going on in the last few weeks. … If I could figure out a way to determine whether or not people are more fearful or changing to more euphoric, and have a third way of figuring out which of the two things are working, I don't need any of this other stuff... Forecasting 50 years ago was as good or as bad as it is today. And the reason is that human nature hasn't changed. "

I nearly choked to death laughing. No truer words just surprising to hear him speak them on national television. S'okay Alan, probably no one except a handful of geeky traders really noticed much less understood what you were saying.

Sometimes life is fun. I'm off to rattle some chicken bones.