Shirley, This'll Piss Someone Off

Do The Math!

2011-04-06T16:33:00.011-05:00

The Federal Deficit is $1.3 tril, going to $1.4 tril

The Frank-Dodd Resolution allowed The Fed to give away $3.3 tril to 2,100 banks (not budgeted).

The cost of Medicare and Social Security is under $2tril (budgeted).

So, if you add back the $3.3 tril from bankers given away to the $1.3 tril deficit, you end up with $2 Tril which is the amount of Medicare and Social security.

It would only require payment of less than 4% of the money "loaned" to banks to keep the Federal Government running.

So Why....
is Congress trying to pay for an unbudgeted deficit with budgeted money, by cutting those services? Why not go to the banks and say. Hey guys, we over-extended and need to collect on the loans we gave you. They were loans, right?

The obvious is that we have a Republican Congress and traditionally, they have opposed social programs. Also, Medicare and Social Security become easy targets; especially given the scare tactic of socializing too much.

But a big part of it is that Obama is either too chickenshit to go after the bankers the way FDR in this same scenario, or he is part of the clan.

Banker-boy Obama
Where does Obama fit in this. For starters he's enmeshed in the government and as Charles Ferguson stated in a lecture to MIT: "The nation “has evolved a political duopoly where two political parties agree on things related to finance and money.” Without a political structure immune to such influence, Ferguson sees little likelihood of challenging the interests of the financial giants."

How enmeshed is Obama?. Lets take a look at his Financial Advisers:
-- Two ex-CEOs of Fannie Mae - Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines
-- Larry Summers - ex Chief Economist for the World Bank who wrote a memo encouraging financing of "dirty industries" (not exactly pro-Main St. thinking)

Obama also rewarded Goldman Sachs exectutive Phillip Murphy for his role in destroying the economy, but making him Ambassador to Germany. Of the top ten contributors to Obama's campaign included are: Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase; Citigroup and UBS; a bank who was caught breaking sanctions to fund Iran's uranium enrichment program. Obama is a died in the wool Free Market Banking Lobbiest

And now we stand at the cusp of a government shutdown with the focus on taking away services from the Main St. taxpayers instead of collecting the banking welfare from those who created this problem. If H.R. 1 which was introduced and passed by the House is any indication, $51bn is what would be required to keep the Federal Government running; at least that what they claimed needed to be cut from social programs to keep the government running. That's only 3.9% of the $3.3tril bankster give away.

The Fallacy of Blaming Pensions

2011-02-15T17:42:00.003-06:00

One of the variables in the complications of operating both in the private and the public sector is pensions and a lot of blame is being put on pensions for why entitites such as the State of Illinois are failing. Too many payouts in the pension. That makes pensions a convenient problem for the extremely wealthy to point at.

However, there is a fallacy to this and there are other places to cut costs.

Ironically, the concept of pensions came out of a period of history when greed and wealth brought the nations economy to it's knees: The Great Depression.

Here's the way it should (and could) work.

The idea of pensions was based on a valid notion that population would continue to expand in this country (and it has) which means that the workforce would expand. Since the productivity of the workforce had a direct relationship with input into the pension funds, there would always be funds for pension, as long as there was a workforce. Well the population has continued to increase, but the workforce has 1) diminished in size and 2) diminished compensation.

What changed was that we shifted to a paradigm of an economy that favors the rich and big business in terms of return on capital by moving to a credit/loan/debt econonmy where money could be made (by a few) simply by the movement of money. No need to keep thrivant workforce. Having more jobs offshored didn't help. Consequently, what happened is that the paradigm shifted from the importance of people in the workforce to the importance of making money from money.

So, now the pensions which are being drawn upon by those retiring is a burden. One that is pointed to and blamed a lot for fiscal insolvency. What those who point the finger don't want you to see is that the other side of this, is that the money which once went to "Main St." got redistributed from supporting workers to private equity. So, the other solution to dissolving and/or renigning on pension funds, is to restribute some of that money (not all) back from the exceedingly well of people who make money from the movement of money (private equity), back to financing a work force.

Understanding how this happened is to understand how to fix the problem. The problem is a cause of deregulated Freidmanesque total free market supply side economics. Now, I am not against free market competition, but we no longer have a competitive market. And the answer is simple.

Regulation.

Greed begats greed. Allow for competition in the market, but regulate it so it doesn't take advantage of the populous that is the foundation.

The Perfect Storm...

2009-05-27T09:52:00.008-05:00

...for the influentually wealthy

What we have is a perfect storm for big business and banks to get a stranglehold on our economy and wealth. Except that as a former corporate banker (1st Chicago-Bank1-Chase) we could see this storm brewing for at least the past decade.

It's real simple.

Unemployment will drive down wages. Big business and banks have little risk with the government pumping bailout money into the banks. With everyone unemployed only big business will be able to use that money for loans. Also, with The Federal Reserve creating currency at the whim of the extremely influental wealthy so the government can pump more into the banks, they are creating inflation, so even though there is unemployment, prices will not go down. What with most everyithing we purchase distributed by big business, there will be no reason to drop prices.

NPR reports current college grads are looking ath $28.000/year jobs. I remember a discussion with several of my banker friends (from when I worked in a corporate bank) wondering how people could live on wages less than $38.000/year. That was over eight years ago and the CPI (Consumer Price Index) has been increasing by and averate of 3.5% per year. However, wages have been on a steady decline

If you don't think as I do, that this is orchestrated by a small perecentage of like-minded and very influential people and that this has happened completely due to circumstances, then you have a Perfect Storm of Circumstances

Yah, right

Time to get aware and then contact your Legislator and tell them to vote yes on H.R. 833 (Abolish the Board of Directors for The Fed) and H.R. 1207 to Audit and End The Fed.

I am not the only one to see this

This is not just the ramblings of a pissed-off pudgy middle aged guy Alternetjust posted a similar story today

Why Do We Take This Crap!

2009-05-15T10:51:00.008-05:00

Last night I heard the CEO of GM, Fritz Henderson say that they “need to balance the balance sheets”, so 3,000 people are going to loose their jobs.

What did we give GM money for?

In this economy loosing one's job means, loosing one’s home, cars, perhaps the splitting up of families as they are dispersed to whomever can care for them; or for some it will be homelessness, or even death. And we sit here and say, “Oh, okay. That’s the way it is.” and go on Twiittering and Facebooking about buying pastries or deciding whether to go out or Tivo tonight.”

“Balancing the sheets” is corpo-speak for paying off the investors.

We have come to the point where money counts for more than the quality of human life, or even life itself. We accept that because the investor gave money that they are more deserving than those who have given commitment and time.

Bunk! Your job is not a risk venture.

But that is what GM has done! Turned jobs into a risk venture by making workers suffer a higher risk than the investors. Let the investors take the hit, not the workers. They knew and even considered the risks when they gave up money in hopes of making a more money without effort. A promise of return based on a façade of credit derived from an economy of aggregate (non-existent) currency and fractional loaning. Have you ever considered taking a job to be a risk venture? No! You trade your time and skills in return for money. The investors are the ones who took knowing took on a venture involving risk, managed on a shaky paradigm of greed pandering to a false consumer ideology. And they did it smugly knowing that people they would never meet or face might have to pay the price of abject hardship because they took too much risk.

And why should we just sit back and say this is the way it is.

In case you have been living in a cave for the last nine months, we have bailed out those investors; not only with our current tax dollars, but with our future economy.

So, it’s in our right to stand up and say

, “No don’t let GM off the hook. Let the risk-venture capitalists suffer the risk they paid lip service to. It’s our money and it’s our future. Let those who put in an honest day’s work off the hook. Let those who take risks, bear the costs of their risks.” Contact your representative and the President and tell him you are informed and will not stand this.

Are we a nation of cash flow or people?

What is more important to you?

Money or the quality of life for 3,000 people.? Think about it and answer as if you had to sit with one of those 3,000 people and their families and tell them this is the way it is. Don’t answer lightly just because you are spared that confrontation, as, apparently Fritz Henderson is spared.

You can go back to Twittering now.

Where will it end?

2009-04-24T16:16:00.003-05:00

The Fed Strong Armed Bank of America

From the NYT: "Now, Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York has revealed that Mr. Lewis said the Treasury secretary at the time, Henry M. Paulson Jr., and the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, put pressure on him to complete the Merrill merger while keeping quiet about the losses until an additional government bailout." This is what happens when our currency is controlled by a private investment bank. (See for yourself -- Click on the link):

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/was-bank-of-america-entrapped/

Another quote from the Times: "There is something unsavory about the government creating a crime that otherwise would not have occurred."

How far will this go? We're talking about The Fed strong-arming the 3rd largest domestic commercial investment bank at the time(Bank of America). Pres. Andrew Jackson had it right when he wanted to divest the responsibility of our currency to state bank. So did Harding, Lincoln & JFK.

Oddly ironic that they were all assassinated

Who the F*ck Do We Think We Are?

2009-04-06T09:46:00.006-05:00

Yesterday when I heard President Obama's response to Korea launching a nuclear missile, I couldn't help by think, "we are picking this up in the middle." Obama spoke about holding Korea accountable for not following the rules. What are these rules? Rules that say we, the United States, are the only country who has the right to exact military aggression throughout the world?
((continued below)

Earth Day is April 22nd. Perhaps you should give this some thought.

Available at Quimbies, 1850 W. North Ave, Chicago or http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewwork.asp?AuthorID=75609
Or I will send you a free copy if you can show me you donated time or money to any pro-Earth advocacy/activist grouop.

Rhetoric

The rhetoric is that countries like Korea and Iran are run by megalomaniac tyrants who want nuclear weapons because they are bent on world domination. Excuse me? We are speaking about two countries who have had skirmishes with their direct neighbors while it is the United States that has extended the force of our military throughout the world, under false pretenses. In Iraq we chased after WMDs that didn't exist. In Afghanistan, we chased after Bin Laden, who was a direct threat to us. Bin Laden seems to be out of the picture and now our military aggression has expanded to Pakistan, all in the name of "regime change", to spread our benevolent (puhleese) democracy.

If you were Iran or Korea, or any other country in the Middle East, could you really look at our military aggression and not see it as imperialistic in nature? If you were Iran or Korea with militaries tenth the size of our military, wouldn't you want a nuclear weapon to leverage in the saber rattling that global affairs have become? Watching America is web site that samples news agencies from around the world. http://watchingamerica.com/News/). Take a look at it and you will see that we are not the benevolent giant that our leaders would want us to believe.

I'm not saying that the acquisition of any nuclear weapons by any country is a good thing and that we should sit back and let it happen, but perhaps if we were to pull back on our military aggression in the world and eliminate all of our nuclear stockpile, we might be in a better position to leverage influence against countries like Korea from getting them. After all, since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of Nuclear Detente why do we need nuclear weapons. It's a zero sum game. If a country like Korea or Iran launched an nuclear attack, what would we do? Launch a retaliatory
strike that would wreak devastation on the surrounding countries, which in the case of Korea would be China. Imagine what kind of situation that would throw us in.

I am glad that after his initial knee-jerk reaction, Obama indicated a need for a test ban treaty. However, how effectual can that be if we aren't willing to lay down our arms. It's like the U.S. is the biggest bully in the neighborhood and we have Korea's shirt bunched in our hand and our other fist cocked and we demand that they unclench their fists. Until, we are willing to unclench our own fist and release our grip, can we expect anyone on this planet to take this serious?

I work with gang-bangers and our behavior in the world reminds me of their
twisted sense of respect, which is ill gotten by threat. What further bothers me is that though Obama has proselytized d being the President of change, he surrounds himself with people who's agenda in the global arena is the same as the past. Many of
those close to Obama and have his ear, have long ties with the Bilderberg Group and the Tri-lateral Commission. (see http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/15/politics/politico/main4866504.shtml)The Bush driven Neo-Con New World Order is still alive and kicking in this administration.

We have a president who professes to be a President of the people. I encourage everyone to log on to http://Whitehouse.gov and in the upper right corner of the screen click on Contact and tell the President it's time for a less agressive America in the world.Or I will send you one free if you show me you have donated (time or money) to any Earth advocacy/activism group.

The Problem With Americans is....

2009-03-06T09:06:00.008-06:00

Americans!

We are Consumers....

....and our need as consumers has left us easy prey to those we blame for the plight of our economy. Were it not for our insatiable hunger for things, mortgage bankers would never have been able to sell us homes we can't afford; and there wouldn't have such a thing as sub-prime loan rates, or mortgaged back securites. Were it not for our sense of entitlement to every item flashed before us on TVs, web sites or the pabulum we ingest from slick lifestyle rags or those boxes of free news on street corners, we never would have run up the credit card debts most of us now suffer.

....And We Have Now Consumed Ourselves
More below....

New Release available soon on Amazon.com.

Availble here now!

Yes, the financial institutions are predatory with their ever ready fees to charge us when we make the slightest slip (and don't they help us to slip as much as possible). Equally predatory are the real-estate institutions willing and waiting to give us mortgages with high default risks and then take that pool of high risk mortgages and auction its value off on the stock market in the form of Mortgage Backed securities until we were trying to extract twenty gallons of water from a five gallon jug. However, for every predator, there needs to be a prey and we made ourselves the prey through our needs -- Needs? Perhaps there came a point where we allowed us to believe our desires were actually needs.

If we hadn't had such an obsession to acquire and to limit our possessions to what we could afford, the whole credit industry would have remained a tamed pet it was in the seventies. Remember when you only purchased those truly big items, such as a home on credit. Even big-ticket items were thing we saved for. If it hadn't been for our need to have things now, the whole predatory lending industry never would have been fed enough to grow into the the beast that now mauls our economy.

We now have an economy based on credit. We've willing let manufacturing franchise our economy to other countries because we were so dazzled by the parade of things we could purchase, consume, that we didn't care how that parade was formed. We turned a blind eye to the fact that manufacturing hasn't paid taxes for over a decade, taking those tax breaks meant to keep jobs here, but off-shored them. As long as we were hypnotized by bright shiny objects and only had to consider our personal cost once a month when we glossed over our credit card statements, we didn't care that our economy left our country

We have a chance for change:

Well things have decayed and now we have the opportunity to undo our trend to consume until we have consumed ourselves. We can live within our means, quit feeding the dragon of credit fees and debt, spend only on the things we need. We can demand, through our purchases, that the bulk of money we spend to purchase any given items be backed by jobs, not to line the pockets of stock holders It's time to quick blindly consuming like a herd that will graze away it's own source of food simply because it in front of us and we can have it now, while paying for it tomorrow.

Well, tomorrow is here. Time to pay for the fact that we may have eaten our own young.

Erich Fromm had it right. We have escaped the burden of freedom and let others lead us by our desires for things as if it were rings in our noses, to line the pockets of the very rich. Remember when we had a viable middle class in this country? Wasn't that long ago, just over a decade. But, the cost of maintaining freedom is having to make choices, including the choice to delay gratification.

Slap in the Face to Joe Main Street

2009-01-14T09:51:00.009-06:00

The Morgan Stanley - Citi Merger

If ever there was a merger that proves that we have become a country "of the investor, by the investor, and for the investor," it's the Citi/Morgan Stanley merger. I suspect that Abe Lincoln would feel as I do that this is a perversion of what he meant during his famous Gettysburg address**

New Release available soon on Amazon.com.

Availble here now!
Keep in mind that Citi has been claiming injury by the mortgage crisis to which it was a huge contributor in creating. This merger will create the largest brokerage on the planet with $1.7 trillion in "client" assets.

Say that aloud: "one point seven trillion dollars in client assets" That means that while on Main Street U.S.A unemployment is climbing and most of us are making decisions to pay the utilities or buy groceries at times, investors still have, and must be hoarding $1.7 trillion dollars. This probably a pretty good indication as to where the $350 billion of the $700 billion Bailout Funds have gone.

Now if you read the news blurbs, they indicate that this merger will service 1.6 million households "globally" That word globally is important because thought 6.8 million sounds impressive, it means that this merger will only be beneficial to .024 percent of the world population it is serving. That's two percent of one percent. That means that less than one percent of the world population.

It also means that these few investors hold assets that are nearly four times our national debt of $455 billion. The paradigm of the current administration has place our country in debt to line the pockets of a very few investors. It also means that these few investors and we are only talking about the clients of the Citi/Morgan Stanley merger, hold assets that are 42 times the trade deficit the country currently faces. That means if we were to ask Citi/Morgan Stanley's clients to pay off the deficit, they would still have $1.66 trillion. Say that aloud. one point six trillion dollars

The reason this last factoid is important is because this trade deficit was created in large part by large manufacturing off shoring it's workforce in order to reduce overhead and line the pockets of investors. Although, if you were to listen to them, it was to survive. Of course, survival really was dependent on huge profit returns to investors, despite the impact on Joe Main Street jobs. The irony of this being missed by large manufacturing in their greed is that as you move your workforce offshore, jobs drop off and when jobs drop off, so does your consumer base, which is exactly what we are seeing in this new recession: A middle class no longer able to forward the economy by keeping cash flow moving. In other words, a middle class no longer able to function as a middle class

When are we going to finally realize that whatever we do to improve the economy, we need to move away from the supply side paradigm of pandering to the investors. We need to bring back jobs and build an economy based on products and Joe Main Street.

** "Of the people, by the people and for the people"

Collapse or Bush's Dying Swan Song...

2008-11-24T10:42:00.005-06:00

...to big finance?

Conrad Lawrence

Anybody notice how these bailout payouts seem to happen on Sunday. Is collapse really imminent or is this part of the Bush Administration’s dying Swan Song to big finance?

This morning we woke to hear the now familiar cry that the government is going to give $25 bln to Citibank who just last week reported to it's employees that it financially health in order to keep it from failing. They don't give us any money figures so we can see or understand this cry of "bank failure," to understand who, besides investors, are at risks.

Given that it seems as if we have had a government that kowtows to big business I wonder what's going on. What does this matter of collapse mean. I am left with the feeling that Citi will put 53,000 people on the street and take money from you and me as taxpayers rather than tell shareholders that they will have to take a loss.

These clandestine weekend actions do nothing to alleviate these fears So what is the economic disposition of Citi? Can it service it's depositors? Can it meet it's debt obligations? I don't know and I looked. I went to Citi's web site, clicked on the link set to show their 2nd quarterly earnings and was met with an "error 404 page not found" message. If all is as they say, why would they hide this information
Available online in the Whimsical Surreality Gallery -- Click here.

We know that Citi can't keep it's shareholders happy. That's all we hear about in the news. Other than that whether or not it can cover it's depositors (main street) and debts. As a past corporate banker, I know that big banks use us (main street) for our deposits to generate capital for their loan and investment banks.

So, why can't us depositors be afforded the right of seeing the numbers ourselves?

A big picture showing of numbers would be pretty simple. What is a bank's assets vs it's liabilities, less those liabilities that are dividend payouts. As long as it can cover the accounts of depositors and loan debt, I feel it's fair to tell the shareholders to bite the bullet. After all they are the only ones entering this financial relationship realizing they were taking a risk.

When Chase took over Wamu, Washington Mutual still showed a positive asset balance of $309 billion dollars. They only problem was that their stock share value was plunging. Seems as if Chase leveraged the fear of financial crisis to implement a merger that the Treasury and Justice Departments had denied in the past as diminishing banking competitiveness.

So? What are the numbers? Why can't I find them and why as a taxpayer who will suffer the impact of this bailout, can't I be afforded the information to understand what is happening?

Flight of the Back-Clinging Monkeys

2008-11-06T13:35:00.004-06:00

Roger Ruef

Campaign Watchdog

On the evening of January 25, 1998, at a little after 9:00pm Central Standard Time, I stood in my living room in Naperville, Illinois, a bottle of beer in one hand, a dish towel in the other, and my eyes glued to the television set. The scent of chicken-and-sausage gumbo wafted in from the kitchen, and the place was strewn with the remnants of good, hearty gathering of friends and well-wishers some of whom cared nothing about professional football but all of whom watched the television with me. Decimated mounds of snacks and cheeses filled the dining room table. Crumpled napkins, emptied soup bowls, plastic cups, and paper plates littered every horizontal surface‹all of them emblazoned with the official logo for Superbowl XXXII. (More below)
Click on image for more info
The Denver Broncos, whom I had rooted for almost since their inception in 1960‹the days of Lou Saban, Steve Tensi, and Cookie Gilchrest‹had scored a rushing touchdown with 1:45 left in the fourth quarter and had taken a seven-point lead. The Green Bay Packers had run the ensuing kickoff back to their own 30-yard line, then marched down the field with consecutive passes of 22, 14, and 4 yards from Brett Favre to running back Dorsey Levens. After two incomplete passes, the Packers faced a do-or-die fourth-down-and-six situation at the Broncos 31 with the game on the line.

I gripped the towel like grim death. I had watched the Broncos lose Superbowls before in 1978, the miracle year with Craig Morton at quarterback, when they were embarrassed by the Dallas Cowboys and in 1987, 1988, and 1990, when they were embarrassed by the New York Giants, the Washington Redskins, and the San Francisco 49ers, each point differential greater than the last. I¹d hung on to hope as they entered the 1997 playoffs as a wildcard team and beat the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the Pittsburgh Steelers to even make it to Superbowl XXXIIŠ where they entered the game as 12-point underdogs.

It had been a back-and-forth game, and now it came down to one play. Even now, I can picture the camera angle lengthwise down the field from behind the Packers backfield. Favre took the snap and dropped back to pass the Green Bay offensive line gave him time to survey the field he spotted his target and threw the ball across the middle to tight end Mark Chmura.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere came Broncos linebacker John Mobley from the right running full tilt toward the ball. He stretched out his hand as far as he could and tipped the pass away from Chmura, where it fell incomplete to the turf.

The Broncos bench erupted with cheers. They were one kneel-down play away from winning the game.

And I envisioned the skies above the city of Denver, where I¹d grown up, filled with monkeys flying off the backs of die-hard Broncos fans. The drought was over it had finally rained in Broncoland. The Broncos won their first Superbowl.

Which brings us to last night.

There¹s no comparison in import between the events. In the end, it doesn¹t matter who wins the Superbowl life goes on. Wars don¹t start, laws don¹t get changed, judges of questionable character don¹t get nominated and placed on the federal bench and Supreme Court, religious ideologies don¹t start dominating public discourse and policy, the U.S. Justice Department doesn¹t become subverted to political aims, science doesn¹t take a backseat to ideology and cronyism in the creation and enforcement of laws

So many things don¹t depend on who wins the Superbowl and are inextricably tied to who wins the race for the White House.

Yesterday, important majorities of my fellow American citizens rejected the politics of fear and otherness and embraced the first significant tectonic shift in the geology of American politics in many decades. They banded together to elect Barack Obama as the 44th president of the U.S.

I watched the early election returns on CNN at a pizza restaurant in Aspen. When they called Ohio for Obama, I allowed myself to hope. When they called Pennsylvania, I became filled with a sense of excitement and relief. By the time the polls closed in California, my fellow political junkie and traveling companion and I were back in our room. CNN called the election for Obama we popped the cork on a bottle of champagne we had chilled just in case and toasted the new era in American politics.

I am especially proud of a few of those in my political group BCC list who supported Obama with their feet and wallets. Mark, who was one of the first to contribute to the campaign. Bonnie and Alice (who don¹t know each other), who knocked on doors, made phone calls, and generally worked their asses off in Michigan and Wisconsin, respectively. Catherine, who worked for the Obama ground game in Chicago.

There are others, I¹m sure, whose efforts I don¹t know about. I¹m grateful to them all and that gratitude won¹t dieŠ ever.

I wrote to a friend in Italy this morning that if the McCain-Palin ticket had won the day, the 232-year-old American Experiment would have been over. I truly felt that way.

What a joy it is to proclaim this morning that the Experiment lives on.

Nobel Winning Economist is Terrified....

2008-10-22T13:56:00.011-05:00

...of "The mentality that what's good for Goldman Sachs is good for all Americans.

Conrad Lawrence

As an economist Nobel winning economist, Paul Krugman is s amazed. As a citizen he's terrified.
"The problems are bigger than we grasped," Krugman explained to Renee Montagne of NPR's Morning Edition. "No one understood how vulnerable this 21st Century structure really is." He was, of course, referring to the credit based economy that this country has adopted and described the meltdown as being created by greed followed by fear. Greedmanifested by rushing into a housing bubble to make money, despite nearly a decade of warnings. Panic when it fell apart. (More Below)
Click on image for more info
And like Guy Cecala, who publishes an industry newsletter called Inside Mortgage Finance, Krugman is worried that the current bailout will not fix the crisis. He claims that things will get substantially worse; things will spiral down. A lot of people who are middle class will no longer be middle class. Not sure where Krugman's been the last year. Both Cecala and Krugman indicate that the problem with the bail out is that it does nothing to keep homeowners in their homes. Cecala describes two plans meant to infuse money at the level of the homeowner to keep the current loan cycle pumping, much like the Alternative Bailout Plan described to the side. He asks if you take homes off line, how will that help the housing market, a component everyone agrees is needed for sustained growth out of this crisis. Krugman see issues with the top down approach of the bail out by giving money to banks and further leaving them go unregulated.

Gutted by Bush

.
Big problem with the current bail out according to Krugman is that in terms of regulating the financial industries natural tendency toward unsensible greed, the Treasury Department has been gutted by the Bush Administration. The Treasury Department, "doesn't have the deep understanding that comes from employing burearocrats who know what they are doing." The Bush Administration has systematically removed those people and Greenspan helped create a dangerous illusion of security when in fact there wasn't
enough.

Krugman feels that there is a need for regulating the banks and the financial industry and comments on where the two candidates fall in that paradigm. According to Krugman, McCain is still trying toshoe horn this bailout into his perception that
government is too big. He starts talking about earmarks which baffles Krugman since earmarks has nothing to the credit based financial crisis. Krugman feels that Obama is a regulation guy, despite not always voting for regulation, but sees him intellectually more flexible and willing to admit that it is FDR time

In a way that indicates an answer to Cecala's big question concerning a homeowner's bail out: Do we let the banks still hold the mortgages or give them over to some government entitity?

What's Missing From The Bailout

2008-10-16T14:48:00.012-05:00

Sustainability and....

...not enough accountability.

Conrad Lawrence

There is some accountability in Obama's bailout plan, which is very similar to most European bailout plans. However, there is no sustainability built into either plan. Both plans bail out the banks, but since it does nothing for those who are floundering and only hopes and prays that the banks will find others not considered risks to make loans to, there is no sustainability. (More below)

The Original Design

Sustainability means making sure that the money flows in the way it was originally designed in order to make for a working economy: from the bottom up! That’s why banks make loans. The way cash flow was originally meant flow is from the depositors and loan payers up into the banks coffers. Inject money at the top, right into the bank’s coffers, and there is no assurance that money given to the banks will flow in any direction. After all, who will be left for the banks to loan to?

Currently over 100 million households in the U.S. are overextended. That's “households”, not people, which means generally two or more people per household. That accounts for approximately 200 million people. Considering that there are only 260 million people in the U.S., including children too young to take out loans, elderly past the loan securing age, and those too risky to loan to, who would be left over to take out loans promised by the current bailout; loans that are the base premise of the bailout.

What is needed for sustainability is for a plan that will insure that those currently holding debt can continue to pay their debt. Considering that the banks made those loans based on the premise that as long as debtors could pay, the banks would remain solvent, then insuring that debtors can pay would have the same effect of bailing out the banks as the current plan The difference is that instead of trickle down (injecting money at the top and let it trickle down through new loans) you would have a bottom up flow of cash. If the whole point of injecting money is to get people move cash via loans, why not just inject in at that level?

This can be done.

For a detailed explanation how, see the sidebar article Alternative Bailout. Not only can it be done, but it would re-employ some of the 103,000 people from the financial sector who lost their jobs. What could be better, cash flow at the level of eventual goal and more jobs! (See Alternative Bailout --->)

Do the banks truly need immediate rescue?

Chase reported an 84% loss in profits for 3rd Qtr 2008. Scary? They would like you to think that means they are operating in the red, but they aren't. It's true, they only made $14.7 billion in profits last quarter. Boo hoo! To put that into perspective, that more than 4 thousand times the total assets of the State of Illinois. Banks like Chase possess assets so immense that they can withstand an 84% decrease and still make money. Shareholders of Chase are gasping at this, but they are not floundering. Makes one wonder if banks like WaMu and Wachovia were really going under. Or, if their assets simply dipped enough that they became ripe for absorption. In other words, the banks have found that this crisis has given them the opportunity for the mergers that the Treasury Department and SEC denied throughout the nineties and the new millennium for fear of reducing competition. Considering that WaMu still had over $300 billion in assets when Chase took over, what criteria determined that it was in fact collapsing? It just wasn't showing the returns investors wanted?

Sustainability requires not only a change from the top down, trickle down paradigm, but a shift in realizing that as long as we try to maintain a credit based economy, we will always be at risk. According to World Banks Pacific region Vice President, Jim Adams, this is why China's economy is not as adversely effected by the Global Financial Crisis. China's banks and business are less dependent upon credit and more dependent on goods and manufacturing.

Gone in a Poof

Many people who are not rich are fearful to face the fact that we need to move away from our economy being solely based on investments and back to a product/service based economy is because their retirements are tied up in investments. Have no fear. Relax and let the market settle. It will come back, if people don't panic. I am one of those people. Four weeks ago, I was in a position to make more money in retirement than I do now by my salary. Since then, that's gone. Pfft! But, I am not going to panic, not going to liquidate my stocks and take a massive loss. No. I plan on sitting on it and pray that someone finally comes up with a bottom up cash flow sensibility to rebuild the value of my investments.

Case in Point.

I love my dad dearly though he is the epitome of the trickle down economic benefactor. Actually he’s a hybrid of Richard Nixon and Bob Dole. He is wealthy by virtue of investments, ten times more wealthy than his salary and pension could make him. I asked him how all this effected him. His answer was that it didn't really. His dividends still come, he still pays the bills, lives very comfortably and as long as he doesn't try to sell his stock, he won't take a loss. The only impact is that if his stocks never regain their value, his heirs (including me) will take a hit. Being skeptical of the credit economy, I sort have been expecting this for over a decade.

So why not give the money to those floundering in their loan payments. After all, many of them are victims of predatory lending designed to put money in the loan pool by sharks who stood to make more lucrative gains from mortgage based securities. These are lenders who actively sought to make loans they should have to puff up the pool. And these are the people that will get the money from the bailout.

We need a plan that not only helps those who need the help most, and injects cash flow where cash should flow, but assures sustainability

The Tangled Web of Trooper Gate

2008-10-13T14:40:00.008-05:00

Roger Rueff

Contributor & Official Campaign Watchdog for Shirley
After eight years of watching the mainstream media sit up, beg, roll over,and lick the hands of the Bush administration, it¹s refreshing to watch themhold someone¹s feet to the fireŠ in this case Sarah Palin, whose statementson Saturday regarding the conclusions of the Troopergate report‹a bipartisaninvestigation (10 Republicans, 4 Democrats) into whether she fired PublicSafety Commissioner Walt Monegan because he wouldn¹t fire her formerbrother-in-law, a State Trooper named Mike Wooten, who was in a bittercustody battle with her sister were clearly false. (More below)

Falsehoods

On Saturday, Sarah uttered falsehoods to reporters about the Troopergatereport on several occasions. According to ABC, in a phone call with reporters: "Well, I¹m very very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing," Palinsaid, "any hint of any kind of unethical activity there. Very pleased to becleared of any of that." At a gas station in Pennsylvania, when asked to elaborate: "I'm thankful that the report has shown that, that there was no illegal orunethical activity there in my choice to replace our commissioner, so, nowwe look forward to working with the personnel board that the entity that ischarged with looking into any activity of a governor, the lieutenantgovernor, or an attorney general," Palin said. UmŠ not so much. What the report actually says is: "I find that Governor Sarah Palin Abused her power by violating AlaskaStatute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act ...Compliance with the code of ethics is not optional... "The evidence supports the conclusion that Governor Palin, at the least,engaged in 'official action' by her inaction if not her active participationor assistance to her husband in attempting to get Trooper Wooten fired [andthere is evidence of her active participation.] She knowingly, as that termis defined in the above cited statutes, permitted Todd Palin to use theGovernor¹s office and the resources of the Governor¹s office, includingaccess to state employees, to continue to contact subordinate stateemployees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired. Herconduct violated AS 39.52.110(a) of the Ethics Act... "Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue whereimpermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order toadvance a personal agenda." And about that State Personnel Board investigation... It was a gambit by theMcCain campaign‹and it sounds suspicious from the outset because Sarah hasthe power to fire anyone on the State Personnel Board that¹s investigatingher. (She had to file an ethics complaint against herself to make it happen.) [More below]

It turns out, however, that the gambit might well backfire (seeNEWSWEEK, below). TIME (http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1849399,00.html): It was within her power to fire Monegan, even without cause, but it lookslike their might have been causeŠ just not the kind that¹s justifiable toanyone outside her immediate family. According to TIME: ³Did Governor Sarah Palin abuse the power of her office in trying to get herformer brother-in-law, State Trooper Mike Wooten, fired? Yes. Was the refusal to fire Mike Wooten the reason Palin fired Commissioner ofPublic Safety Walt Monegan? Not exclusively, and it was within her rights asthe states' chief executive to fire him for just about any reason, evenwithout cause. Those answers were expected, given that most of the best pieces of evidencehave been part of the public record for months. The result is not a mortalwound to Palin, nor does it put her at much risk of being forced to leavethe ticket her presence succeeded in energizing. But the Branchflower report still makes for good reading, if only because itconvincingly answers a question nobody had even thought to ask: Is the Palinadministration shockingly amateurish? Yes, it is. Disturbingly so.² NEWSWEEK (http://www.newsweek.com/id/163465): About that State Personnel Board investigationŠ The McCain campaign tried todo an end-run around the Troopergate investigation, thenŠ ³uh-oh.² ³Some weeks ago, the McCain team devised a plan to have Palin file an ethicscomplaint against herself with the State Personnel Board, arguing that italone was capable of conducting a fair, nonpartisan inquiry into whether shefired Monegan because he refused to fire Wooten, who had been involved in amessy custody battle with her sister. Some Democrats ridiculed the move,noting that the personnel board answered to Palin. But the board ended uphiring an aggressive Anchorage trial lawyer, Timothy Petumenos, as anindependent counsel. McCain aides were chagrined to discover that Petumenoswas a Democrat who had contributed to Palin's 2006 opponent for governor,Tony Knowles. Palin is now scheduled to be questioned next week, and thecounsel's report could be released soon after. "We took a gamble when wewent to the personnel board," said a McCain aide who asked not to beidentified discussing strategy.²

Duped!

2008-10-06T15:25:00.004-05:00

By Those We Trust

Conrad Lawrence

But, we should have long since stopped trusting those we elect

This past Monday, September, 29th, I momentarily felt a sense of hope. Finally, someone was going to stop this madness; break from the trickle-down paradigm and help, economically, stimulate those who really need it, but we were duped! Twice!

It didn’t happen and it is clear that Congress never had any real intention of doing anything other than give money to those responsible and who can’t be trusted to self regulate themselves with large sums of money. To add insult on top of injury we are being duped a second time by the large financial institutes leveraging the crisis to implement mergers that would never be approved by the Treasury Department for reasons of diminishing competition.

Independent Presidential Candidate Bob Barr puts it succinctly, “We are doing precisely more of what got us into this problem by giving nearly a trillion dollars to those who got us into this problem to purchase bad debt.”

Hasn’t the last 8 years, the loss of the middle class, constant decline in jobs and untenable national debt proven the folly of giving a break, stimulus and a bailout to those at the top of the economic heap, those who are most influential

If you are not familiar with the term duped, please see the definition for the word in the side bar and the unflattering implications it has on both those we trust and ourselves.

Instead of moving us away from more of the same failing strategy, Congress only put off the bill long enough to add their own earmarks. “Earmarks” is the new politically correct term for what was once referred to as pork: a $2 million tax benefit for makers of wooden arrows for children; a $100 million tax break to benefit auto racetrack owners; $192 million in rebates on excise taxes for the Puerto Rican and Virgin Islands rum industry

Oink,

This Wall St. piggy went to market,
This creditor piggy went to mortgage backed securities
This banker piggy went to congress
This taxpayer piggy had none

Sorry if the rhyme and the onomatopoeia doesn’t ring true, but then nothing about this situation rings true; especially the Administration and it’s cronies call-out to our fears claiming we are doomed to economic melt-down. In their April 2007 issue, Vanity Fair labeled the Bush Administration as more destructive to the economy than the Hoover administration, yet Congress bought it when Bush initiated the bailout with the same apparent naivete as buying into his cry of WMDs. Like that, Bush made an urgent appealed to our fears, met by a House and Senate apparently blind to the needs of the people of this country.

Except for the dire global consequences, the BBC found the situation laughable. One of their producers even put together a medley of quotes from Bush, McCain, Paulson, and Bernanke and put it to the theme song for the children’s show, Only In America. Unlike most U.S. news outlets, the BBC is able to find a plethora of U.S. based analysts who don’t understand why the bailout isn’t a demand-side bail out. This doesn’t seem hard to do considering that on September 24th, over 200 economists signed a letter to the Speaker of the House and the Senate President pro tempore speaking against the bailout. These are not blog slouches, but economists based in highly respected institutions on the economy, such as Carnegie Mellon, Columbia University, Stanford University, MIT, UCLA.

That letter can be seen at this University of Chicago link: http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/john.cochrane/research/Papers/mortgage_protest.htm

I can’t help but point out the irony that this letter was drafted and kept at the University of Chicago, the home of Milt Friedman, considered the Father of Supply Side Economics.

Everyone the BBC interviewed both domestically and abroad found it unfathomable that our government would take nearly a trillion dollars from the victims of the financial crisis mess and give it to those very people who created the problem. One valid question raised a number of times is what is going to keep large financial institutions from using this money for other financial enterprises and insure that they will actually put it back into the housing economy?

Seasoned and highly respected News Analyst Daniel Shorr has much more jaded view of the situation. He indicates that Congress never had the intention of stopping the bill, but put on a media dog and pony show to give the impression that they are actually concerned for the tax payer.

The Fallacy

Once they get the bail out, who will financial institutions lend money to? The one sentence explanation of the mission, purpose, raison d’etre for the $700 billion bailout indicates that this is so that financial institutions can once again start lending, the basis of our economy being the credit and cash flow of consumers.

Who, after this fiasco, is left to make viable application for loans? After the sub-prime crisis, all that is left is those who defaulted and those who already have property. How many of those will not be too frightened to accrue debt for several years. Think about it. With job losses (over 159,00 in September), declining wages, and those who have defaulted in mortgages, who will be left over that will not be considered a credit risk? What percentage of people who can afford to take a loan and not be considered a risk, do not currently own property? Of those who don’t have property will be willing to enter this very chaotic environment of debt? What will be the driving impetus for the loans needed to move the economy forward and the reason (think WMDs) for this bailout? Will it be the need for other big ticket items? Big screen TVs? Household appliances? Cars; in a declining economy with increasing fuel prices? How is this bailout going to be injected into the economy if there is no place to inject it?

I fear I suspect that people will be acquiring loans to pay for necessities as the economy further tanks.

The Second Dupe

The second, quiet and more pervasive dupe is the way monolithic financial institutions are using the financial crisis to institute wholesale mergers previously not allowed by the Treasury and Justice Departments.

During the eleven years I worked in what was then the third largest corporate bank in the U.S, much discussion and worry centered around mergers impeding needed competition and rampant abuse of depositors (that would be you and me) by financial institutions. Back then, many mergers were not allowed. Even in the banking industry, many felt there were too many mergers. Ironically, or maybe not so ironically, in 1998 Republican Representative Jim Leach worried that mergers might overrun regulators ability to manage large financial institutions. Even the supply-siders worried that large financial institutions without the checks and balances of competition couldn’t be trusted.

So, what’s going to be the outcome of these crisis driven mergers: Chase taking over Bears & Stearns and Wamu, while Citi and Well Fargo battle over Wachovia. Here’s the question I have. If Chase can afford to buy up debt from both Bears & Stearns and Washington Mutual and sit on it until the crisis turns around when deposits and loan payments will cover the debt, why can’t WaMu and Bears & Stearns wait it out also.

I mention this second dupe because it plays into the root paradigm that drives this crisis and prevents a real solution

The Myopeia of Greed....

…prevents legislators from seeing the obvious.
Even the staunchest of supply-siders ostensibly agree that the basis of our economy is the movement of money among what used to be our middle class. They agree that the eventual point of the bailout is to lend money to people to use, why not inject the money right at the level where you eventually want it?

Why are we injecting money at the top level to let it trickle down after years of proof that nothing ever trickles down? Why not cover the debt at the level of the people who are struggling to pay the debt. (See Alternative Bailout in the Sidebar to the right)

The Root Paradigm

Delaying the Inevetible
To say that at the root of the fallacy of the bailout is the supply-side paradigm is over simplified. It is the root, but it is pervasive. This bailout takes the stance that the status quo, our credit and investment based economy, charitably referred to as service oriented. The bailout ignores that what is really needed is a different economic paradigm which will require less short term and more long term views. Other than the movement of money, the U.S, has little of anything else backing up our economy. We have no products or materials, save housing, on which to base our economy,

The problem is and will continue to be that we have no way of digging out of our debt and our debt paradigm, we will face this in the future. Debt cannot continue to expand. According to the President we are facing the possibility of the economy shutting down because the ability to keep debt moving will quit. We have nothing bet debt to fall back on to keep our economy going.

The paradigm that debt is good has gone too far. Even if we sold off all of our GDP we couldn’t pay off even 40% of our national debt. One of the facts about debt that most financial people involved in the debt industry won’t tell you is that debt and investment is only really dependable and safe if everyone involved knows what a risk everyone else poses. That in fact is not true. If accurate risk assessment had been done, the sale of mortgage backed securities would have never happened.

In order to get out of what is becoming a vicious and spiraling cycle in a direction of recession we need to realign our economy to be backed by product, manufacturing. To do that we need to get jobs and profit revenue back into this country. Tax incentives have proven ineffectual over the last eight years, simply because big business does not hold up it’s end of the bargain and offshores…everything. How come we never hear about tax penalties to business who have sent jobs and profit outside the U.S. economy.

No one, neither of our Candidates of Change addresses this. The current paradigm of propping up debt seems to be accepted without question, ignoring the risk that seems obscure but has walloped our economy in the face.

We do hear of tax cuts and whether it should be given to business as incentive or consumers as incentive. At this point I need to ask, wouldn’t a bailout at the debtor level be the same as a tax incentive, only more effective? Still, the point is that beyond tax cuts, no one speaks of any other options.

How about opening the discussion of things like tariffs to make it more expensive to manufacture outside of the U.S. than inside. The argument tariffs only goes one step and the three or four it needs to go, which is that tariffs increase prices and people won’t purchase. Fine, let that happen. People won’t purchase an in a competitive capitalistic market, someone is going to say, I’m going to manufacture in the U.S, in order to keep prices down and tap into that market. Manufacturing in the U.S. means jobs, means more cash flow, more loans.

How does this relate to the bailout? It’s like this. The bailout is solely oriented around the credit industry as the singular influence on our economy. Because of that, and being mired in the supply side, no other alternatives are considered. In fact the whole loss of jobs, lower wages and increasing Consumer Price Index (inflation) are all related in that they drove the need for more credit, a change in our economy that really took off starting in the 1970s. At that time the investment markets got dimes in their eyes, thinking money could be made from the movement of money. This is fine if the movement of money continues to grow. However, the supply-siders shot themselves in the foot by wanting to keep too much of the cash for themselves and stalled its movement. They begin relying on credit, again which is fine as long as you can keep loaning out more, but even in the most rudimentary understanding of economics, it’s easy to understand that without cash flow, credit cannot keep expanding. No cash to move, no way to invest in credit.

The need for a different paradigm is imminent

Yes, this does mean biting the bullet for everyone, but even in the bailout plan, there is still talk of people have to bite the credit bullet and massive job losses that could be in the millions. At least with a debtor side bailout and a plan to move away from a credit based to a good or product based economy, there is the possibility of work.

The bailout only says we need this money now, to start loaning again. There is no talk of long term impact or recovery. I would rather face a solution that looks beyond now and at least indicates jobs with checks people can live off of, even if it means a more austere life. A solution that only looks at right now and insists on continuing a process that has proven to be very risky scares me. I know from my own experience the long term damage of living off of credit, buying necessities on credit card. To those about to join me, I say welcome to my world.

GOPs Always Win Because Dems are Big Crybabies!

2008-06-26T10:06:00.001-05:00

I am deeply disturbed that Hillary Clinton not getting the Democratic Nomination. I think it is indicative of our country's obsession with beauty, selecting the younger, more attractive candidate over the wizened, experienced one. (There’s a special place in hell for you Roger Ailes[See sidebar]) And, I am deeply concerned about Barak Obama’s ability to lead the country, because of his lack of experience. To me this all harkens back to JFK, young, vibrant, attractive, inexperienced Senator, Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis….. And, coming from Wisconsin with anti-gun political leanings, I found it incredibly racist on his part to characterize all rural whites as angry and clinging to their guns. Oh, that’s right, it’s not politically correct to indicate that a black person might be racist, intentionally or not. Still this indicates a prejudice against 2/3rds of the American constituency.

HOWEVER….

Pitching a Hissy-Fit

For Democrats to vote for McCain simply because their candidate is nothing more than tossing a quasi-idealistic tantrum, in effect saying, “I didn’t get my way, so I am going to vote for the candidate who will keep things the same as what I hate now, just to show you all!”

All week long “Morning Edition” has been running an expose that included a poll about those who are going to jump ship and vote Republican. The percentages from the poll haven’t been revealed, but the content is frightening. People are considering voting for exactly what they don’t want in order to show their dislike of the outcome or the primary, not what will advance their needs the most in the next administration. I didn’t get may way --- waaaaahhhhh!

So let’s do what people tossing a tantrum rarely do and that is to look at the impact of our tantrums. Let’s look at what voting for McCain will really mean, starting with the thing that will impact us most, the economy. I’m in the camp that believes that a vote for McCain is a vote for continuing what we have presently seen which has driven us into this culture of business deceit (i.e. foreclosures spawned from the greed driven voodoo of mortgaged backed securities). Particularly revealing of McCain’s mindset is his contention that protecting the economy means bailing out Bears Stearns, who, at the very least, is in trouble for making bad business decisions and at the worst acting in a criminally irresponsible way.. However, he is against helping homeowners, who we are finding were often victims of the kinds of corporate entities of the Countrywide, Bears Stearns ilk. Does this sound like a guy who has your best intentions in mind; a better choice than Obama? At one point this year McGain indicated that he in fact needed more education on economics, but why? He has big biz cronies to tell him what to do.

Obama, on the other hand, wants more accountability on the part of big business for their actions, such as subprime loan practices, even if it means government regulation (See Sidebar). Hey, it worked for Roosevelt. In short Obama understands that this past eight years has created a culture where big business has carte blanch approval from the government to victimize the consumer for the purposes of profit.

When it comes to Iraq, Obama acknowledges that $2.7 billion per week (unaccounted cash to big biz cronies of the Neo-Cons) cannot be sustained has in fact hampered our countries security to protect ourselves from terrorism coming out of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He has a plan for redeployment.

McCain on the other hand makes broad, unsubstantiated, statements that drive at our fears about how it would be much more costly for us to pull out of Iraq. That’s what they said about Vietnam and it didn’t happen, communism did not conquer the world as argued. In fact, in less than a decade after leaving Vietnam, KFC opened stores in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and just last year opened stores in Hanoi. Vietnam is clambering for western style capitalism via tourism. We should have sent in The Colonel instead of the 1st Infantry. Might have saved us 58,000 American lives. Same with Iraq, we pull out, and the Iraqi’s will have less motivation to settle their own form of government employing violence. They won’t have an invading army to fight. McCain has also claimed that the U.S. problem is that we “have no plan to deal with success.” Yah. Just look at how successful Iraq has been so far.

I shortened this a bit. My first draft of this blog entry, summarily compared McCain to Obama, but it got long and begin to move away from my original message about the danger of Hillaryites switching to voting McCain because their candidates lost. Suffice it to say that danger in a vote for McCain lies in that it will be a vote for the status quo. To see this compare Obama to McCain for yourself, but don’t rely on the media, or even me, filtered by their particular slant. Go to places like On The Issues. Org where you can see simple factoids about each candidates stance. It will be a sobering exercise in why pulling your vote from the Democrats to the Republicans will be an extension of Bush’s Administration in a lot of ways.

You may not get exact what you hoped for by voting for Hillary, but you will get a lot more than if you vote for McCain. Besides, if nothing else, Obama has proved to open a ear to his constituency. In the beginning of his campaign, I found his rhetoric to be feckless oration, “word fog”: as I heard one disgruntled Hillaryite called it. But, he listened and changed. And I believe that he will continue to listen and act, and hopefully have the right people around him to guide him toward getting results

Time to Unify

Time for us Dems to unify and stop being self-righteous cry babies. Get behind our candidate, monitor and pass him information about who he should appoint to guide and help him. Stop focusing on single issue items and look at the whole picture realizing that if Obama gets elected, you have a better chance of influencing government to your needs than if McCain gets elected who is embedded in the Neo-Con paradigm

Democrats have lost the last two elections on narrow margins. Convince everyone you know not to cave into emotional principles of apparent idealism, such as voting for McCain out of Primary Election disappointment, or voting for Nader, simply because you think that will give your opinion a voice. As if a newscaster is going to announce, “Patti Jones of Omaha voted for Nader to register her political ideals and unhappiness at the primary. We are so chagrined at your disappointment, Patti”

Get on top of who Obama wants to surround himself with and get the message to him to do what you want. Tell him flat out, that you wanted Hillary, but will back him if you feel he will represent enough of your needs. Then if he’s elected, continue to send him messages. He’s inspirational, and even if he isn’t the best candidate, he’s better than the alternative: fragmenting the vote so that McCain wins!

Despite my really, really thinking that Hillary was the better choice and my misgivings about over self-ambitious, partially racist, feckless orator, Obama, I am willing to look at the overall picture and realize that punishing Obama because i didn't get my way in the Primary isn't really going to get me what I want. Still it was so, so wrong...Waaaaahhhhh!

No Nader Is A Good Nader

2008-06-09T10:09:00.000-05:00

Given that the Democratic side of the race has collapsed into a single candidate (Obama) and how the last two Presidential elections went, I think that addressing the issue of Ralph Nader’s running for Presidency is important. Don't get me wrong. I am truly in line with his politics, but I don't believe he can pull off what he preaches. He has not "Executive Office" (Mayor, Governor, President) experience and has a tendency to piss people off. Not a good way to get things done.

Take poll at bottom of page

If you feel as I do that since he has no viability as a candidate, that this renders his candidacy to being self-gratuitous and self serving, which is fine if it didn’t damage Democratic candidates chances of winning; then please contact him and ask him not to run at info@nader.org. (For those of you who were counting, that last sentence had six dependent clauses in it) Below is a boiler plate message you can send him, if I happened to catch you on a less than inspired day. If you want the Republicans to win, then I suggest you send Nader a donation.

Nader Letter Boiler Plate

(Feel free to copy and paste at will)

Dear Mr. Nader:

Despite the admirable social conscious aspects of your politics, I have to ask you to consider not running for the President of the United State. My request is not a reflection on your politics or what you stand for, but a simple pragmatic desire to avoid the lesser of evils. Truly there is no chance you can win, and a vote for you will steal away needed votes from the party that can come the closest making desperately needed changes. A vote for you will tantamount to a vote for status quo, a vote for the Republican Party and for why? Public discussion? It’s that's already happening!

I know running for President fills your own personal ambitions and brings people to your organization, which in turn helps you sell books. However, given the veracity of your candidacy, it appears that this is a bit solipsistic and I know you don’t want to appear solipsistic. If you truly care to move the country in the direction of change as you say you wish, you will stay out of the race and let those who can (albeit not as fast as you want) make those changes.

Please, Mr. Nader, show the country you care viable change and consider staying out of the 2008 Presidential race.

Sincerely and hopefully,

{Your Name}