Showing posts with label gov't monkey business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gov't monkey business. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
The numbing down of the dumbing down
https://www.nbc4i.com/news/u-s-world/teacher-fired-for-refusing-to-give-students-credit-for-homework-not-turned-in/1473439237
So, some teacher in Florida was shit-canned because she refused to give students who hadn't turned in their assignment a 50 per cent grade. Suppressing the 5th-grader in me from screaming battleaxe!, Bokolis is not going to discuss the merits of grading or not grading homework, as this is not the issue here.
Over-devotion to (lying) statistics is ruining many other aspects of society; this is just another instance of what happens when anyone has incentive and ability to goose the numbers to show 'effectiveness' in the hopes of procuring funding. On the heels of the Great Orange Sultan bragging about 'record' military funding and that the U.S. military is the most powerful that it's ever been to a- on the face of it- peacekeeping organization, we might consider that so much money that could go to education is going towards weapons of war- that is, when the money manages to make it that far without going into someone's pocket- so we can remain 'free'- free to lurch further towards feudalism as we are exploited by the political donor class.
But, the idea of spending money so that we are not a nation of dipshits and capable of critical thought is branded 'socialist.' Bokolis is sure I have explained that the inefficient/improper taxation and budgeting puts increased pressure on states and municipalities to scramble to find revenue. I may have explained that, while we have been duped to perceive 'high' federal income taxes as 'socialism' run amok, the awful truth is that, when you add in FICA, state, local, property, sales and all the other use taxes, we are taxed like a socialist nation without social benefits.
Real estate property taxes are the biggest sham of all. For this example, Bokolis assumes that this house was purchased to live in (at least) until the kids are grown and out of the house. I am not talking house flippers here. The family house is assessed (and re-assessed) as if it has been made available for sale, even though most have no intention of selling it- while a corporation can park assets on its books at historical/carrying/holding value until it is good and ready to dispose of them- and taxed accordingly.
That the value of the property has increased through no action of the owner- in other words, he didn't tear down and rebuild a McMansion; he (maybe) gutted a few rooms and redecorated, but nothing noticeable from the outside or without a listing- but he is being made to pay taxes on that increased value. He will then be made to pay capital gains (on gains beyond a certain threshold) when he sells that property.
This is double taxation at its ugliest, as the 'book' value of the house is essentially the same when he sold as when he moved in, and the increase is largely due to the combination of the increased desirability of the location and inflation.
Of course, this issue is involved, and fixing all these things is even more involved. Your opposition, in shouting you down, will portray you as someone who is looking to 'overcomplicate things,' which falls right into the wheelhouse of the dipshits, gulling them to side against their own interest.
Teaching kids finance and critical thought would not only make them hip to the chicanery, but equipped to battle back. The jowl-set say, now, we can't have that, can we?
Thursday, November 10, 2016
You're in Trumple now
Bokolis has spent the morning after Donald Trump's electoral college victory gauging the reactions. About the time Hillary Clinton was in trouble in North Carolina, I saw the sharks trying to short sell the equity markets- Asian and our overnight indices- slamming the US indices 5% to the downside. This inevitably reversed itself as those shorts, knowing the jig was up, covered. Trump playing the grace card in his victory speech heartened markets and has them dreaming of a tempered Trump.
The markets had recovered by the open and closed over 1% above the previous day. After puckering up through the night, the snickering and the hubris returned to all those fuckers on television, with one of them saying, after the fact, something to the effect of which one of you assholes sold the lows?
It wasn't limited to the hosts. They ran on waves of creeps who were jerking off all over themselves at the prospect of a corporate bordello. Hooray for deregulation! was the unwavering message. Let's get back to raping the worker and the consumer and make that stock price go! go! go! While Bokolis agrees thatraping the worker and the consumer is too often an easy trick an unfortunate consequence of these cocksuckers nearly scuttling the economy was too much regulation, these fuckers are all set to- happy medium be damned- wind the clock back 10 years, when the last set of cowboys let them do whatthefuck they wanted. All that is missing is the countdown clock to the next bubble bursting.
As for the commoners, we have the butthurt on one side and those trolling the butthurt on the other...and, about six feet behind Hillary, Bill Clinton snickering to himself. Bokolis hesitates to use liberals and conservatives because I don't wish to help perpetuate such perceptions as these people may have of themselves and each other. For the most part, they are not liberals and conservatives. They are babies, people who cannot think for themselves, who have formed and reinforced ideologies primarily through indirect information from biased sources. In any event, their reactions are like going to a Mets-Yankees game, seeing something good or bad happen to your team and, rather than rejoicing or despairing at your team's fortune, your first action is to look over to fans of the opposition to see if they are rubbing it in or to make sure they are wallowing in despair.
Bokolis is disgusted both at the self-pity and the gloating. I didn't want either candidate- I have a distaste for one and no faith in the other- but I never decided which one I would rather see win or lose. To me, the only reason to choose one is for dread of the other. That is no reason to choose, as choosing sides would've implied some measure of happiness/unhappiness with the result, some measure of self-pity or gloating.
While Bokolis doesn't think much of people, as a member of society, I fully embrace that the people have spoken (or, at least, the voting machines say they have). Of course, they don't realize what they have said. They have reminded us of something I've seen saying for years: there is one country east of I-287 and west of the San Bernardino Mountains, and a whole other country in between. Those people in between, particularly white guys, I presume, decided, we've got broads telling me what I can say, how I should spend my money, that I can't drink...so, now I've got this bitch trying to take my guns? Fuck that!
Did y'all think that it was about e-mails and Obamacare premiums?
It probably didn't help that Hillary was running around with Beyonce, Jay-Z, Kim K, etc. Those cow-towners who came to the big city thought they could, at once, make themselves cool by embracing these played-out people while disavowing their own cow-town roots were shot in the ass.
Well, here we are. For the commoners gloating, as if Trump is going to change things for the better in any way benefitting them, Bokolis will offer the same as he offered all the kiddies who thought Obama would bring change. Change isn't happening- about the best you can hope for is more of the same.
The markets had recovered by the open and closed over 1% above the previous day. After puckering up through the night, the snickering and the hubris returned to all those fuckers on television, with one of them saying, after the fact, something to the effect of which one of you assholes sold the lows?
It wasn't limited to the hosts. They ran on waves of creeps who were jerking off all over themselves at the prospect of a corporate bordello. Hooray for deregulation! was the unwavering message. Let's get back to raping the worker and the consumer and make that stock price go! go! go! While Bokolis agrees that
As for the commoners, we have the butthurt on one side and those trolling the butthurt on the other...and, about six feet behind Hillary, Bill Clinton snickering to himself. Bokolis hesitates to use liberals and conservatives because I don't wish to help perpetuate such perceptions as these people may have of themselves and each other. For the most part, they are not liberals and conservatives. They are babies, people who cannot think for themselves, who have formed and reinforced ideologies primarily through indirect information from biased sources. In any event, their reactions are like going to a Mets-Yankees game, seeing something good or bad happen to your team and, rather than rejoicing or despairing at your team's fortune, your first action is to look over to fans of the opposition to see if they are rubbing it in or to make sure they are wallowing in despair.
Bokolis is disgusted both at the self-pity and the gloating. I didn't want either candidate- I have a distaste for one and no faith in the other- but I never decided which one I would rather see win or lose. To me, the only reason to choose one is for dread of the other. That is no reason to choose, as choosing sides would've implied some measure of happiness/unhappiness with the result, some measure of self-pity or gloating.
While Bokolis doesn't think much of people, as a member of society, I fully embrace that the people have spoken (or, at least, the voting machines say they have). Of course, they don't realize what they have said. They have reminded us of something I've seen saying for years: there is one country east of I-287 and west of the San Bernardino Mountains, and a whole other country in between. Those people in between, particularly white guys, I presume, decided, we've got broads telling me what I can say, how I should spend my money, that I can't drink...so, now I've got this bitch trying to take my guns? Fuck that!
Did y'all think that it was about e-mails and Obamacare premiums?
It probably didn't help that Hillary was running around with Beyonce, Jay-Z, Kim K, etc. Those cow-towners who came to the big city thought they could, at once, make themselves cool by embracing these played-out people while disavowing their own cow-town roots were shot in the ass.
Well, here we are. For the commoners gloating, as if Trump is going to change things for the better in any way benefitting them, Bokolis will offer the same as he offered all the kiddies who thought Obama would bring change. Change isn't happening- about the best you can hope for is more of the same.
Monday, October 17, 2016
Two Clintons, two Bushes, one Obama and the wingbats' Trump all
Like showing up to the fruit stand later in the day, in a short time, it will fall upon the American people the painful duty of selecting a leader from two undesirable options. Bokolis is not going to get into a full-on tale of the tape- that's not the point of this. It's not so important to me to determine the better or more preferable choice, or the lesser of two evils- I gather supporting one side always partly been about not liking the other side but, these days, it seems predominately about that, regardless of the merits of your preferred side- so much as it is to reflect on how we've gotten here, including wondering WTF is wrong with the Republican party that they let themselves into a position where the Trump character is the prevailing sentiment of its voter base. I don't care to get into solutions, as there's little chance this fixes itself nicely.
Once upon of time, we had Bill Clinton as President. Halfway through his first term, the Republican party gained control of both houses of Congress for the first time since Hoover*. They ran in there like it was a Black Friday sale and, like regime change from one dictatorship to another, undid 60 years of legislation in a hot minute.
* Bokolis knows that the Republicans snuck in a couple of sessions where they were the majority. I said control.
In those days, Clinton profiled very much like Obama did in his first days. Clinton more or less came out of nowhere. Despite numerous derailments, he managed to gain his party's nomination. With Ross Perot involved- think Ron Paul with a sprinkle of the pragmatic side of Trump- in the general election, enough votes were pulled away from George Bush (41) that Clinton carried some southern states and rode to victory with only 43% of the vote.
While they both had shallow ascensions, Obama was more obscure than Bill Clinton. Obama gained the party nomination essentially because Hillary Clinton is unlikeable. He was able to win because the opponent was carrying a flighty hockey mom, never mind that he fooled all the youngins that change was afoot- Bokolis knew better, of course- but, after the mess the Republicans made during the prior eight years, they deserved to go 20 years without a Republican in the White House.
Similarly, Obama didn't, then couldn't get shit done. He had carte blanche, even more so than Dubya after 9/11, to rein in and shatter the banks, which managed to scuttle the economy in less than 10 years after given their own carte blanche. Even with ~59% control of both houses, he tanked, opting for, and, perhaps, being bought off with, Obamacare, which, far from universal health, is a massive giveaway to the HMOs- like when the carting company comes to your business and tells you that you have to use them for garbage disposal...and, if you don't, when they aren't vandalizing your business, they call the health inspector on you.
Then, when he deservedly lost control of the House, its next Speaker spent four years cockblocking any legislation, doubtless at the behest of the political donor class. Boehner, when no longer beholden to the money, lashed out at his erstwhile puppetmasters when he stepped down from Congress, intimating that these tactics are no good for the long-term well-being of the nation...way to get religion there.
Clinton's shallow victory was just as much a repudiation of Bush for going back on his "read my lips..." election promise and raising taxes, as well as for a recession happening on his watch. Ironically, his broken promise, ill-timed to boot, was for the good of the nation in the intermediate term.
The country had changed a lot since the last time there was not a Republican in the White House. Because of the markedly lower tax rates of the highest earners- even after Bush raised them- said highest earners found it expedient to use this money-directly or indirectly- to help influence policy, which is another way of saying tilting the playing field further in their favor. The outgrowth was a new breed of Republicans, who, either beholden to their backers or married to a perverse ideology, sought to implement the wishes of said backers. The 104th Congress was the payoff.
Clinton found it impossible to get much done. Moreover, because the political donor class was still manageable back then, and it had been a good while since we'd poured money into a boondoggle of a war, significant money still found its way into research and development in the '90s. This led to a rolling economy in the middle of the decade and the tech boom-turned-bubble in the late part.
Clinton got with the program. His second term was what Bokolis jokingly likes to say is the best Republican president we've ever had. He signed all sorts of shit the Republicans ran through Congress, including the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which effectively undid part of the Glass-Stegall Act and paved the way for the finance monoliths of Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo...funny how the next bubble was already being inflated before the previous bubble had even burst.
Not content with having a Democrat president who is functioning as a Republican, the Republicans tried to run Clinton out of office under the pretense that he was lying about smashing out one or more broads. Clintons' levels of impropriety depend on your moral code. Not everyone's is the same, so Bokolis would back off trying to rub Clinton's nose in it. This kind of temperance is lost on a bunch of petulant zealots, seemingly having no moral code of their own, yet hell-bent on imposing one on you. The alarm bells on this new-age McCarthyism couldn't be heard over the closing bell- these days, Wall Street money buys whack jobs all the air they'd like.
When it was time to elect Clinton's successor, well, we didn't quite accomplish that. We had this WWF (E) dusty finish, where we eventually installed another George Bush (43). Whereas our first impression of his father was as goofy George because he didn't often come off as a commanding presence, he was downright stately compared to Dubya, who came off as a straight-up fratboy dipshit.
This Bush embraced an economic theory that his father called voodoo economics. Without getting too technical, the basic tenet of supply-side economics is that, by reducing taxes, the extra money to the taxpayer will be churned at a fast enough rate so that tax revenue will eventually increase. In theory, there are conditions where this is possible; the most likely would be where the extra money is placed in the hands of those who would spend the money as fast as they get it.
In practice, however, they gave the tax breaks to the highest earners, who have enough money so that they don't spend money as fast as they get it. Such tax breaks didn't come to the lower half of earners. When someone called bullshit! on that, we were told to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain; that, similarly, the richest having more money means that the economy will churn so that everybody will have more money.
In reality, this tilts the field so that the factors of production are concentrated in fewer hands, who then control the spigot. This means that, far from having more money, the best that everybody else gets is a low-paying job working for the guy with all the tax breaks. Mr Taxbreaks doesn't spend his lighter-taxed profits in any way that benefits his workers...well, he might buy pizza on Fridays or some shit. More likely, he will spend his money on tax attorneys and legislators' ears to further tilt the playing field.
Quite ironic, isn't it, that, while the theory claims that the resulting increased velocity of money would overcome the decreased rate of taxation, the effect on velocity is to slow it. Propaganda, obligations and complacency conspire to convince the masses that this is is the best course, that rich guy problems are somehow far worse than their own.
That wasn't true in the days of the robber barons, it wasn't true during Reagan's presidency- Reagan's legacy greatly benefits from the economy having nowhere to go but up; he correctly made obvious moves, but overdid it- and it's not true today.
If following along is too much trouble, simply remember that, if everybody had money, it wouldn't be worth anything. Nonetheless, Bokolis maintains that, if you have nothing better to do with your money than lobby the government, then you have too much of it and are deserving of a punitive tax rate.
Dubya's history is still reasonably fresh, as it still shapes our present. So, beyond the two tax cuts and two wars and two market crashes, Bokolis doesn't feel the need to rehash it. Suffice it to say that he is a lowly-rated president.
However, he didn't ride in that way. Even though Dubya was installed and not elected, even though the air was coming out of the tech bubble, times were good and there wasn't enough conviction in Al Gore for us to bet bent out of shape. If that had happened in today's climate or, if we had some hindsight, shit might've just jumped off.
But, Dubya got a relatively wide berth. In the aftermath of 9/11, despite a recession, after the bread and circuses tax cut, we gave him full support. It took until about when the markets bottomed out for some real grumblings. Even after it became apparent that he was a blithering fool- as opposed to the affable idiot we'd already known- we gave him a second term, likely because we were pot-committed.
The war criminal pieces started soon thereafter. Whether that's the case or not, Dubya surely earned the vitriol. But, with Obama, the worst president ever nonsense started and his ass hadn't yet warmed the seat. In fact, the petulance extends to all things liberal. The upshot was that, unlike the Bush bashers there could be no credence given to the Obama bashers, no matter how ineffective Obama turned out to be.
It used to be, about 15-20 years ago, that you'd run into a few of these yahoos, indoctrinated into thinking keep calm and fuck those evil liberals. These days, the countryside is full of them, lathered up that liberals are plotting to overrun their cow-town with Blacks, Jews and queers...and, oh yes, Arabs now. Bokolis wondered why that is. It could be that
That last point is definitely true. Bokolis would like to link this to the rise to exalted status currently enjoyed by the corporation, which favors such sociopathic behavior. But that is PhD-thesis shit, so I don't want to do it here and deny any of those muthafuckas the opportunity.
If you buy the idea, and you believe shit rolls downhill, you can picture it rolling down to the rank and file and carried over to the public sector, as the utter lack of ability to run a tight ship in government opened the way for the pragmatic to step into the void. Of course, it doesn't happen so that we correct to some happy medium- we get some Newton's laws shit happening, where the opposite undesirable scenario takes hold. In this case, it's the reign of the hyper-pragmatic asshole.
In that regard, Giuliani was the archetype. Those who had suffered him since his days as US Attorney- no, he didn't lock up Bokolis or any associates, but we used to call him Giussolini- knew him to be a dickhead bent on taking over the city. As mayor, he got shit done, being a massive prickbag in the process. Fewer guns (and panhandlers) on the streets cleaned up the city for the chain stores, but also gave room to the fake thugs and frat boys, who, no longer fearing the reign of the tec, found voice to chirp. Nonetheless, for his work in the aftermath of 9/11, when a guy like him comes in handy, the cow-towners adopted and christened him America's mayor, just as we were getting rid of him.
While they didn't follow the boilerplate, the Giuliani image spread to the rest of the nation, spitting out all these tough-talking, ass-kickers. Around these parts, a noteworthy example is Chris Christie- that fake thug all grown up, still believing he's a tough guy, but even money in any conflict to have strips of bacon cut off his back. In politics, they use the term chickenhawk, which is not an exact depiction, but gets the point across.
Christie was always an asshole- Bridgegate should have eliminated all doubt. Sometimes, through some anomaly, they have charisma. Bokolis has been aware of Donald Trump on the TV since I started giving a shit about things other than sports and cartoons. I've always understood him to be a windbag, and likely a scumbag.
He's been threatening to run for President- always as a Democrat- since the '80s. But, he's always been the essence of no labor pains, just the baby. It never stuck, but Bokolis always sensed that, as much as he lacked the necessary diligence, he was throwing things out there to see what stuck.
At some point, Trump went national, with a TV show acting like the sociopath described above, like a Steinbrenner. It didn't so much reveal Trump to the masses as it revealed the masses to Trump. As a NYC parochial, he was stuck operating as a Democrat. He's always said this kind of shit, though to a lesser degree, as he didn't often get his (figurative) hair mussed up like he has in this campaign. But, nationally, he played better to the peckerwoods as a Republican. This switch quite likely played no small part in why it stuck this time.
People have romantic notions of themselves. Many are delusional enough that they see a bunch of themselves in him, or delusional enough to want to be Trump (or at least a contemporary), a guy with fuck you money, a guy who talks a good fuck- or at least a good pussy-grab- a guy who looks like he gets shit done. Maybe they think they are just a half-step removed from being able to project as such a bad-ass. This is the new American Dream.
So, irrespective of reality being almost certainly far from it, all you have to tell them that Liberals are conspiring to keep you from this dream. That's more than enough to turn many men, even thinking men, into wingnuts, or at least a bunch of Barry Goldwaters. As can be implied, this had been in place well before Trump; he is an effect, not a cause.
He is also a tool, but not so much in the pejorative sense. Considering Hillary had bought her nomination beforehand, she had the time to engineer her matchup. If there was one Republican she was certain to defeat, it was Trump, where she wouldn't have to campaign on the issues; just wind him up and wait. It was a total sucker job, only possible if you have obstinate ideologues at the helm.
Trump winds up being a vehicle to indicate how, you can throw up any dingbat and they will still get the support of 40% of the people- 43% if the opponent is utterly unlikeable. He could never be a viable candidate- I mean, really, WTF would have to happen so that a wave develops, not to carry Trump to victory, but for a majority to conclude, yeah, we this is the muthafucka need in there. As the good of the nation would demand an honest-to-goodness Republican, Bokolis laments that the party was snookered into running him up there.
Bokolis supposes that, as they have during the previous two Democratic administrations, the Republicans get what they want just the same, as Hillary fights almost as dirty as Cheney, is as beholden to the political donor class as Boehner was and will do its bidding. The only thing different is the sign on the bathroom. It's left for me to rhetorically wonder, as many a shady associate used to say, who's fucking who?
Once upon of time, we had Bill Clinton as President. Halfway through his first term, the Republican party gained control of both houses of Congress for the first time since Hoover*. They ran in there like it was a Black Friday sale and, like regime change from one dictatorship to another, undid 60 years of legislation in a hot minute.
* Bokolis knows that the Republicans snuck in a couple of sessions where they were the majority. I said control.
In those days, Clinton profiled very much like Obama did in his first days. Clinton more or less came out of nowhere. Despite numerous derailments, he managed to gain his party's nomination. With Ross Perot involved- think Ron Paul with a sprinkle of the pragmatic side of Trump- in the general election, enough votes were pulled away from George Bush (41) that Clinton carried some southern states and rode to victory with only 43% of the vote.
While they both had shallow ascensions, Obama was more obscure than Bill Clinton. Obama gained the party nomination essentially because Hillary Clinton is unlikeable. He was able to win because t
Similarly, Obama didn't, then couldn't get shit done. He had carte blanche, even more so than Dubya after 9/11, to rein in and shatter the banks, which managed to scuttle the economy in less than 10 years after given their own carte blanche. Even with ~59% control of both houses, he tanked, opting for, and, perhaps, being bought off with, Obamacare, which, far from universal health, is a massive giveaway to the HMOs- like when the carting company comes to your business and tells you that you have to use them for garbage disposal...and, if you don't, when they aren't vandalizing your business, they call the health inspector on you.
Then, when he deservedly lost control of the House, its next Speaker spent four years cockblocking any legislation, doubtless at the behest of the political donor class. Boehner, when no longer beholden to the money, lashed out at his erstwhile puppetmasters when he stepped down from Congress, intimating that these tactics are no good for the long-term well-being of the nation...way to get religion there.
Clinton's shallow victory was just as much a repudiation of Bush for going back on his "read my lips..." election promise and raising taxes, as well as for a recession happening on his watch. Ironically, his broken promise, ill-timed to boot, was for the good of the nation in the intermediate term.
The country had changed a lot since the last time there was not a Republican in the White House. Because of the markedly lower tax rates of the highest earners- even after Bush raised them- said highest earners found it expedient to use this money-directly or indirectly- to help influence policy, which is another way of saying tilting the playing field further in their favor. The outgrowth was a new breed of Republicans, who, either beholden to their backers or married to a perverse ideology, sought to implement the wishes of said backers. The 104th Congress was the payoff.
Clinton found it impossible to get much done. Moreover, because the political donor class was still manageable back then, and it had been a good while since we'd poured money into a boondoggle of a war, significant money still found its way into research and development in the '90s. This led to a rolling economy in the middle of the decade and the tech boom-turned-bubble in the late part.
Clinton got with the program. His second term was what Bokolis jokingly likes to say is the best Republican president we've ever had. He signed all sorts of shit the Republicans ran through Congress, including the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which effectively undid part of the Glass-Stegall Act and paved the way for the finance monoliths of Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo...funny how the next bubble was already being inflated before the previous bubble had even burst.
Not content with having a Democrat president who is functioning as a Republican, the Republicans tried to run Clinton out of office under the pretense that he was lying about smashing out one or more broads. Clintons' levels of impropriety depend on your moral code. Not everyone's is the same, so Bokolis would back off trying to rub Clinton's nose in it. This kind of temperance is lost on a bunch of petulant zealots, seemingly having no moral code of their own, yet hell-bent on imposing one on you. The alarm bells on this new-age McCarthyism couldn't be heard over the closing bell- these days, Wall Street money buys whack jobs all the air they'd like.
When it was time to elect Clinton's successor, well, we didn't quite accomplish that. We had this WWF (E) dusty finish, where we eventually installed another George Bush (43). Whereas our first impression of his father was as goofy George because he didn't often come off as a commanding presence, he was downright stately compared to Dubya, who came off as a straight-up fratboy dipshit.
This Bush embraced an economic theory that his father called voodoo economics. Without getting too technical, the basic tenet of supply-side economics is that, by reducing taxes, the extra money to the taxpayer will be churned at a fast enough rate so that tax revenue will eventually increase. In theory, there are conditions where this is possible; the most likely would be where the extra money is placed in the hands of those who would spend the money as fast as they get it.
In practice, however, they gave the tax breaks to the highest earners, who have enough money so that they don't spend money as fast as they get it. Such tax breaks didn't come to the lower half of earners. When someone called bullshit! on that, we were told to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain; that, similarly, the richest having more money means that the economy will churn so that everybody will have more money.
In reality, this tilts the field so that the factors of production are concentrated in fewer hands, who then control the spigot. This means that, far from having more money, the best that everybody else gets is a low-paying job working for the guy with all the tax breaks. Mr Taxbreaks doesn't spend his lighter-taxed profits in any way that benefits his workers...well, he might buy pizza on Fridays or some shit. More likely, he will spend his money on tax attorneys and legislators' ears to further tilt the playing field.
Quite ironic, isn't it, that, while the theory claims that the resulting increased velocity of money would overcome the decreased rate of taxation, the effect on velocity is to slow it. Propaganda, obligations and complacency conspire to convince the masses that this is is the best course, that rich guy problems are somehow far worse than their own.
That wasn't true in the days of the robber barons, it wasn't true during Reagan's presidency- Reagan's legacy greatly benefits from the economy having nowhere to go but up; he correctly made obvious moves, but overdid it- and it's not true today.
If following along is too much trouble, simply remember that, if everybody had money, it wouldn't be worth anything. Nonetheless, Bokolis maintains that, if you have nothing better to do with your money than lobby the government, then you have too much of it and are deserving of a punitive tax rate.
Dubya's history is still reasonably fresh, as it still shapes our present. So, beyond the two tax cuts and two wars and two market crashes, Bokolis doesn't feel the need to rehash it. Suffice it to say that he is a lowly-rated president.
However, he didn't ride in that way. Even though Dubya was installed and not elected, even though the air was coming out of the tech bubble, times were good and there wasn't enough conviction in Al Gore for us to bet bent out of shape. If that had happened in today's climate or, if we had some hindsight, shit might've just jumped off.
But, Dubya got a relatively wide berth. In the aftermath of 9/11, despite a recession, after the bread and circuses tax cut, we gave him full support. It took until about when the markets bottomed out for some real grumblings. Even after it became apparent that he was a blithering fool- as opposed to the affable idiot we'd already known- we gave him a second term, likely because we were pot-committed.
The war criminal pieces started soon thereafter. Whether that's the case or not, Dubya surely earned the vitriol. But, with Obama, the worst president ever nonsense started and his ass hadn't yet warmed the seat. In fact, the petulance extends to all things liberal. The upshot was that, unlike the Bush bashers there could be no credence given to the Obama bashers, no matter how ineffective Obama turned out to be.
It used to be, about 15-20 years ago, that you'd run into a few of these yahoos, indoctrinated into thinking keep calm and fuck those evil liberals. These days, the countryside is full of them, lathered up that liberals are plotting to overrun their cow-town with Blacks, Jews and queers...and, oh yes, Arabs now. Bokolis wondered why that is. It could be that
- the internet had become more navigable to all,
- Facebook had turned to the old folks home it is,
- back then, we could play online poker and trade music files, leaving not as much time for 9/11 conspiracy theories and porn,
- the contentious nature of war, and the contentious circumstances of the Iraq war, have triggered a pervasion of a choose sides mentality,
- after their boy took such abuse and, hopped up on conservative talk radio, the right-wing crazies were loaded for bear,
- that we're simply bigger jerks than we were
That last point is definitely true. Bokolis would like to link this to the rise to exalted status currently enjoyed by the corporation, which favors such sociopathic behavior. But that is PhD-thesis shit, so I don't want to do it here and deny any of those muthafuckas the opportunity.
If you buy the idea, and you believe shit rolls downhill, you can picture it rolling down to the rank and file and carried over to the public sector, as the utter lack of ability to run a tight ship in government opened the way for the pragmatic to step into the void. Of course, it doesn't happen so that we correct to some happy medium- we get some Newton's laws shit happening, where the opposite undesirable scenario takes hold. In this case, it's the reign of the hyper-pragmatic asshole.
In that regard, Giuliani was the archetype. Those who had suffered him since his days as US Attorney- no, he didn't lock up Bokolis or any associates, but we used to call him Giussolini- knew him to be a dickhead bent on taking over the city. As mayor, he got shit done, being a massive prickbag in the process. Fewer guns (and panhandlers) on the streets cleaned up the city for the chain stores, but also gave room to the fake thugs and frat boys, who, no longer fearing the reign of the tec, found voice to chirp. Nonetheless, for his work in the aftermath of 9/11, when a guy like him comes in handy, the cow-towners adopted and christened him America's mayor, just as we were getting rid of him.
While they didn't follow the boilerplate, the Giuliani image spread to the rest of the nation, spitting out all these tough-talking, ass-kickers. Around these parts, a noteworthy example is Chris Christie- that fake thug all grown up, still believing he's a tough guy, but even money in any conflict to have strips of bacon cut off his back. In politics, they use the term chickenhawk, which is not an exact depiction, but gets the point across.
Christie was always an asshole- Bridgegate should have eliminated all doubt. Sometimes, through some anomaly, they have charisma. Bokolis has been aware of Donald Trump on the TV since I started giving a shit about things other than sports and cartoons. I've always understood him to be a windbag, and likely a scumbag.
He's been threatening to run for President- always as a Democrat- since the '80s. But, he's always been the essence of no labor pains, just the baby. It never stuck, but Bokolis always sensed that, as much as he lacked the necessary diligence, he was throwing things out there to see what stuck.
At some point, Trump went national, with a TV show acting like the sociopath described above, like a Steinbrenner. It didn't so much reveal Trump to the masses as it revealed the masses to Trump. As a NYC parochial, he was stuck operating as a Democrat. He's always said this kind of shit, though to a lesser degree, as he didn't often get his (figurative) hair mussed up like he has in this campaign. But, nationally, he played better to the peckerwoods as a Republican. This switch quite likely played no small part in why it stuck this time.
People have romantic notions of themselves. Many are delusional enough that they see a bunch of themselves in him, or delusional enough to want to be Trump (or at least a contemporary), a guy with fuck you money, a guy who talks a good fuck- or at least a good pussy-grab- a guy who looks like he gets shit done. Maybe they think they are just a half-step removed from being able to project as such a bad-ass. This is the new American Dream.
So, irrespective of reality being almost certainly far from it, all you have to tell them that Liberals are conspiring to keep you from this dream. That's more than enough to turn many men, even thinking men, into wingnuts, or at least a bunch of Barry Goldwaters. As can be implied, this had been in place well before Trump; he is an effect, not a cause.
He is also a tool, but not so much in the pejorative sense. Considering Hillary had bought her nomination beforehand, she had the time to engineer her matchup. If there was one Republican she was certain to defeat, it was Trump, where she wouldn't have to campaign on the issues; just wind him up and wait. It was a total sucker job, only possible if you have obstinate ideologues at the helm.
Trump winds up being a vehicle to indicate how, you can throw up any dingbat and they will still get the support of 40% of the people- 43% if the opponent is utterly unlikeable. He could never be a viable candidate- I mean, really, WTF would have to happen so that a wave develops, not to carry Trump to victory, but for a majority to conclude, yeah, we this is the muthafucka need in there. As the good of the nation would demand an honest-to-goodness Republican, Bokolis laments that the party was snookered into running him up there.
Bokolis supposes that, as they have during the previous two Democratic administrations, the Republicans get what they want just the same, as Hillary fights almost as dirty as Cheney, is as beholden to the political donor class as Boehner was and will do its bidding. The only thing different is the sign on the bathroom. It's left for me to rhetorically wonder, as many a shady associate used to say, who's fucking who?
Saturday, January 23, 2016
The Waybach Machine: We don't need no water let the mutha...
Courtesy of the BBC, Bokolis jumped into the waybach machine to revisit the Bradford City stadium fire at Valley Parade, 1985, years before I'd venture into the English countryside. The fire killed 56 and, when I first read about this many years ago, immediately triggered my hood senses. I've linked to Wikipedia, but there is plenty out there on this.
Now, it's highly doubtful that it was the arson many are claiming but, callously negligent, while the simplest and most convenient explanation, may not be enough to describe this; this is a screaming case of LIHOP. Ownership had been warned that the place was a tinder box- even provided the most likely cause of a fire- and did next to nothing about it. The program explains that Heginbotham had a firebug past but, given that it wasn't exactly a secret at the time, I'm surprised it doesn't explain that the stand was scheduled for upgrade/renovation- because of Bradford's promotion, not because it was a tinder box- over that summer (at least, I didn't hear them note it...for all I know, Bokolis' attention span may be slipping). Those renovations would've cost much more than they invested into the club- back in those days, clubs saw fans as a liability, rather than something to harvest/monetize. So, leaving aside that they actually made out on the exchange, it doesn't take a cynic to speculate that ownership wasn't excited about such an expenditure.
That the fire occurred on the final match day is an incredible coincidence and, depending on your perspective and motives, good/bad luck. To boot, the guy claiming to have accidentally started the fire lived half a world away and had been in town visiting family. The program doesn't say what became of him, other than he has since died. Bokolis would presume that he fucked off back to Australia, far enough away so as not to be hounded for any followups.
It's all circumstantial evidence to be sure, but when viewed from that perspective, the official story does not pass the smell test. Since we've seen the lengths to which they went to cover up, frame even, the Hillsborough Disaster- it took 28,000 people to shout at a politician, as infuriating as it is inspiring, to gain the impetus to finally cut through the bullshit- looking the other way on an insurance job, even paying him off, isn't farfetched. If nothing else, it should have taught us all that the authorities' word can NEVER be blindly trusted.
justice for the 96
justice for the 56
YNWA
Now, it's highly doubtful that it was the arson many are claiming but, callously negligent, while the simplest and most convenient explanation, may not be enough to describe this; this is a screaming case of LIHOP. Ownership had been warned that the place was a tinder box- even provided the most likely cause of a fire- and did next to nothing about it. The program explains that Heginbotham had a firebug past but, given that it wasn't exactly a secret at the time, I'm surprised it doesn't explain that the stand was scheduled for upgrade/renovation- because of Bradford's promotion, not because it was a tinder box- over that summer (at least, I didn't hear them note it...for all I know, Bokolis' attention span may be slipping). Those renovations would've cost much more than they invested into the club- back in those days, clubs saw fans as a liability, rather than something to harvest/monetize. So, leaving aside that they actually made out on the exchange, it doesn't take a cynic to speculate that ownership wasn't excited about such an expenditure.
That the fire occurred on the final match day is an incredible coincidence and, depending on your perspective and motives, good/bad luck. To boot, the guy claiming to have accidentally started the fire lived half a world away and had been in town visiting family. The program doesn't say what became of him, other than he has since died. Bokolis would presume that he fucked off back to Australia, far enough away so as not to be hounded for any followups.
It's all circumstantial evidence to be sure, but when viewed from that perspective, the official story does not pass the smell test. Since we've seen the lengths to which they went to cover up, frame even, the Hillsborough Disaster- it took 28,000 people to shout at a politician, as infuriating as it is inspiring, to gain the impetus to finally cut through the bullshit- looking the other way on an insurance job, even paying him off, isn't farfetched. If nothing else, it should have taught us all that the authorities' word can NEVER be blindly trusted.
justice for the 96
justice for the 56
YNWA
Thursday, July 10, 2014
World Cup 2014...The King of Soccer
After sweeping through the semifinals, Bokolis is now 12-2 in the knockout stages of the 2014 World Cup, retaining my position- as an old bookmaker dubbed me- as the the King of Soccer.
I call my winners, I call my losers ahead of time, I call it when it's going penalties. It IS kind of scary how good I am at this...no, it's not. What is scary is the amount of China traffic I have been getting during the World Cup. I figure their government will be firewalling, so as not to put the people in People's Republic. Who knows, as the traffic may be government officials that Bokolis is making rich.
Despite Bokolis telling y'all that Brazil were inadequate, we all still had to see that steamrolling to believe it. I thought they would lose 3-0. After watching about six minutes, I texted some friends that, if Germany doesn't score at least three goals on these impostors they should be embarrassed. Nonetheless, I still let out a fire-yell when the Germans unpicked the lock. At some point, the Germans must have felt like George Foreman did during his six-knockdown victory over Joe Frazier- that they had better keep battering them before Brazil get up and kill them.
Of course, the Germans zipped right past three. On the half-hour, Bokolis gets a call from, of all people, me mum, toiling away somewhere, in inhuman conditions, having gotten wind of something far-flung...Hello. Is it true? Yes, Germany have 5. {click}. The overseers on her plantation don't allow phone use by the minions, but she has a rose card to play. That she would play it for football, for two non-affiliated nations, so close to quitting time, is all I needed to understand about the shock.
The Dutch played 330 minutes of knockout tournament football. For about 325 of them, they had no output, as their two goals game in a 3-minute span late on against Mexico. When Bokolis saw that they would open in a 5-3-2 against Argentina, with de Jong suddenly fit, I thought, uh-oh. So, it didn't overly bother me that Argentina wasn't scoring because they didn't suffer much pressure from the Dutch.
The bottom line is that the Dutch didn't want that game badly enough to take it. They were closer to relieved- that they wouldn't have to play any more and that they at least won a PK shootout- than distraught that they lost. They figured they did well enough.
Bokolis was impressed with van Gaal and is unsettled that he is now off to the theatre of pisspots to run manchester united. I take solace that he is very likely three-years-and-out (and bored as a nun in his third year) and that they still aren't going to win with the talent they have.
What to do about the final? Before the tournament, Bokolis had picked Argentina to defeat Germany in the final. However, I am now leaning the other way. While I am a clear leader in my pool- and the only one to have correctly picked the final matchup- because of the weight placed on picking the champion, there are two jokers who picked Germany that can still flag me down.Who fucking makes these pools What to do, what to do...
I call my winners, I call my losers ahead of time, I call it when it's going penalties. It IS kind of scary how good I am at this...no, it's not. What is scary is the amount of China traffic I have been getting during the World Cup. I figure their government will be firewalling, so as not to put the people in People's Republic. Who knows, as the traffic may be government officials that Bokolis is making rich.
Despite Bokolis telling y'all that Brazil were inadequate, we all still had to see that steamrolling to believe it. I thought they would lose 3-0. After watching about six minutes, I texted some friends that, if Germany doesn't score at least three goals on these impostors they should be embarrassed. Nonetheless, I still let out a fire-yell when the Germans unpicked the lock. At some point, the Germans must have felt like George Foreman did during his six-knockdown victory over Joe Frazier- that they had better keep battering them before Brazil get up and kill them.
Of course, the Germans zipped right past three. On the half-hour, Bokolis gets a call from, of all people, me mum, toiling away somewhere, in inhuman conditions, having gotten wind of something far-flung...Hello. Is it true? Yes, Germany have 5. {click}. The overseers on her plantation don't allow phone use by the minions, but she has a rose card to play. That she would play it for football, for two non-affiliated nations, so close to quitting time, is all I needed to understand about the shock.
The Dutch played 330 minutes of knockout tournament football. For about 325 of them, they had no output, as their two goals game in a 3-minute span late on against Mexico. When Bokolis saw that they would open in a 5-3-2 against Argentina, with de Jong suddenly fit, I thought, uh-oh. So, it didn't overly bother me that Argentina wasn't scoring because they didn't suffer much pressure from the Dutch.
The bottom line is that the Dutch didn't want that game badly enough to take it. They were closer to relieved- that they wouldn't have to play any more and that they at least won a PK shootout- than distraught that they lost. They figured they did well enough.
Bokolis was impressed with van Gaal and is unsettled that he is now off to the theatre of pisspots to run manchester united. I take solace that he is very likely three-years-and-out (and bored as a nun in his third year) and that they still aren't going to win with the talent they have.
What to do about the final? Before the tournament, Bokolis had picked Argentina to defeat Germany in the final. However, I am now leaning the other way. While I am a clear leader in my pool- and the only one to have correctly picked the final matchup- because of the weight placed on picking the champion, there are two jokers who picked Germany that can still flag me down.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
As if we didn't know
The merger of state and corporate power is steadily and surely cinching (Guardian & Ritholtz my co-conspirators) its lock on us. The FBI, which doesn't fuck around, working in tandem with DHS and local police, put the hammer down on these Occupy cats. The even had some help by the banks, which, while borrowing funds from the People, had private security gathering intel on people to share with the fuzz.
The corporate media was too busy trying to figure out how to pitch Occupy to bring this to light. I'm not surprised by either, as I've been hip to the increasing degree, over 20 years, of quasi-facsist muzzling of dissent. Media is there to bring you to advertisements, which sell you shit paid for with money borrowed from banks.
How's all that for a feedback loop? Everything we do feeds this machine. We really are only free to work or starve. Now, shut up and shop.
I guess, the Devil had nothing to do, so he fucked his kids.
The corporate media was too busy trying to figure out how to pitch Occupy to bring this to light. I'm not surprised by either, as I've been hip to the increasing degree, over 20 years, of quasi-facsist muzzling of dissent. Media is there to bring you to advertisements, which sell you shit paid for with money borrowed from banks.
How's all that for a feedback loop? Everything we do feeds this machine. We really are only free to work or starve. Now, shut up and shop.
I guess, the Devil had nothing to do, so he fucked his kids.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
What do we know...
Nah, man, Bokolis wasn't out fuckin' with these Occupy cats. I didn't catch a pepper spray to the grill. As I stated earlier, I'm not trying to do the dissident's 5-year bid. I'm not even trying to spend the night in Central. Besides, any protest that does not involve rock throwing is destined to ring hollow.
Say what you want about these muthafuckas. What you should've picked up from their adventures is that you start fucking with the PTB around here, Constitution be damned, they will come down on you. It should've also showed, once and for all, that corporations- and money- have more rights than people and our methods of handling disturbances are strikingly similar to the methods of the backwards countries we seek to "enlighten."
What makes the state of our nation all the more dire is that the police are all too willing to be the errand boys (the word is stronger, but using it would probably unneccesarily distract from the message) for the muthafuckas that are fleecing us. That, to Bokolis, is the biggest disappointment to come out of the first installment of the Occupy movement.
I don't really need to point out that the make-up of the police forces around this country is increasingly ex-military. Stereotypical NYPD used to be the drunk Irish hooples that let me walk right through them outside Joe's. In other cow towns, I was a bunch of Deputy Perkins-looking muthafuckas.
At some point, they decided to try and make the NYPD force look more representative of the demographics of the city. So, they let in more Blacks and 5-foot Latina birds. Nationally, after some well-publicized firefights with some cats armed for Armageddon and with the coming of the two wars, the faces on the force, as well as their battle gear, increasingly resembled military units. Municipalities all over the country are taking federal funding and buying up military surplus weaponry. At this point, Perkins is long-retired and living off his pension.
That brings me to the only good thing about the job- its pension. If Bokolis had become a cop (yeah, right) or a fireman (possibly) back when I'd become eligible, right about now, I'd be able to retire at half-pay. I'm still young.
Aside - Truth be told, if I avoided having the Towers fall on me, I'd've retired sometime shortly after 9/11 at quarter-pay of my highest of the last three years- which would've been 2001, as the overtime those cops were making in the aftermath would've probably gotten me close to the same pension as 20 years. I was still a kid at that point.
The reason I point out what a self-centered prick I'd've been is that the pension is the carrot dangled out in front of them to plow the field ahead of building all chain stores. After all, you can't build a bigger corporate monolith if enough ground is not level. So, while there has never been much police to protect us from the transgressions of business, there sure as shit is plenty of police to ensure that, if business does transgress upon us, we can't do shit about it.
Many cops, as we saw, were all too keen to do the job. They took relish in hammering hipsters that hardly put up resistance, much less a fight. They burned books and detained people for longer until arraignment that they would for violent offenders. But, we shouldn't expect anything more than cowardice from cops. With the pension dangling, their greatest incentive is not to fight crime. Their greatest incentive is to protect themselves and, like the rest of us, to keep their job; fighting crime is ancillary, protecting us is coincidental.
This isn't to say that all cops are this way. I'm sure there are quite a few that live the job. Collectively, however, that's what they are and what they do.
It's a shame, too. We don't expect any better from our leaders. After all, they are beholden to corporate soft money to keep their job. In the case of the Apple, the stooge in charge is one of them, a remorseless shill.
The public at large is largely misguided. Why else would anyone mock by telling protesters to get a job? I'll get to that. The point is that the public will believe whatever bullshit is fed to them my the corporate MSM. Protests will be covered insofar is the MSM call sell them.
It's left then, to change the attitudes of the police. The cops don't owe these muthafuckas any loyalty. They must think they do. Again, the carrot is the pension.
What the cops don't realize is that these muthafuckas are fucking them over, too, in a way that pensions and sweetheart loan deals don't make up for. They fuck us all by debasing our currency, which cheapens the value of our blood, sweat and tears- the only thing most of us have to offer. For the cops' efforts, they are taxed at a greater marginal rate than the muthafuckas they protect. knowing what side your bread is buttered on is of not much use when you are eating burnt toast.
So, when someone tells a protester to get a job, they should realize that the protesters are doing the working man's work, as the working man is getting fleeced even more so than the unemployed slob that is out protesting. When the cop gets out his pepper spray, or his billy club, or digs his knee just a little deeper into a non-violent protester, he should remember that the protester was not out to fuck with him.
But, maybe they should be. Failing this epiphany, the protests may be better served to take on a tone that will test police commitment to the ruling elite. That may include armed conflict...in a manner that is consistent with the idea that, if the police overstep their bounds and use disproportionate force, rather than wait for the courts to sort it out, the people will defend themselves.
Bokolis isn't saying that cops need to die or even get hurt- though it would inevitably happen. I'm saying that shit needs to happen that makes policemen reassess what they are protecting. They need to be tested. Since they can't see for themselves, they need to be made to see. How that gets done is not my call...just sayin'
That's all the fuck I got. I think I'm ready...
Say what you want about these muthafuckas. What you should've picked up from their adventures is that you start fucking with the PTB around here, Constitution be damned, they will come down on you. It should've also showed, once and for all, that corporations- and money- have more rights than people and our methods of handling disturbances are strikingly similar to the methods of the backwards countries we seek to "enlighten."
What makes the state of our nation all the more dire is that the police are all too willing to be the errand boys (the word is stronger, but using it would probably unneccesarily distract from the message) for the muthafuckas that are fleecing us. That, to Bokolis, is the biggest disappointment to come out of the first installment of the Occupy movement.
I don't really need to point out that the make-up of the police forces around this country is increasingly ex-military. Stereotypical NYPD used to be the drunk Irish hooples that let me walk right through them outside Joe's. In other cow towns, I was a bunch of Deputy Perkins-looking muthafuckas.
At some point, they decided to try and make the NYPD force look more representative of the demographics of the city. So, they let in more Blacks and 5-foot Latina birds. Nationally, after some well-publicized firefights with some cats armed for Armageddon and with the coming of the two wars, the faces on the force, as well as their battle gear, increasingly resembled military units. Municipalities all over the country are taking federal funding and buying up military surplus weaponry. At this point, Perkins is long-retired and living off his pension.
That brings me to the only good thing about the job- its pension. If Bokolis had become a cop (yeah, right) or a fireman (possibly) back when I'd become eligible, right about now, I'd be able to retire at half-pay. I'm still young.
Aside - Truth be told, if I avoided having the Towers fall on me, I'd've retired sometime shortly after 9/11 at quarter-pay of my highest of the last three years- which would've been 2001, as the overtime those cops were making in the aftermath would've probably gotten me close to the same pension as 20 years. I was still a kid at that point.
The reason I point out what a self-centered prick I'd've been is that the pension is the carrot dangled out in front of them to plow the field ahead of building all chain stores. After all, you can't build a bigger corporate monolith if enough ground is not level. So, while there has never been much police to protect us from the transgressions of business, there sure as shit is plenty of police to ensure that, if business does transgress upon us, we can't do shit about it.
Many cops, as we saw, were all too keen to do the job. They took relish in hammering hipsters that hardly put up resistance, much less a fight. They burned books and detained people for longer until arraignment that they would for violent offenders. But, we shouldn't expect anything more than cowardice from cops. With the pension dangling, their greatest incentive is not to fight crime. Their greatest incentive is to protect themselves and, like the rest of us, to keep their job; fighting crime is ancillary, protecting us is coincidental.
This isn't to say that all cops are this way. I'm sure there are quite a few that live the job. Collectively, however, that's what they are and what they do.
It's a shame, too. We don't expect any better from our leaders. After all, they are beholden to corporate soft money to keep their job. In the case of the Apple, the stooge in charge is one of them, a remorseless shill.
The public at large is largely misguided. Why else would anyone mock by telling protesters to get a job? I'll get to that. The point is that the public will believe whatever bullshit is fed to them my the corporate MSM. Protests will be covered insofar is the MSM call sell them.
It's left then, to change the attitudes of the police. The cops don't owe these muthafuckas any loyalty. They must think they do. Again, the carrot is the pension.
What the cops don't realize is that these muthafuckas are fucking them over, too, in a way that pensions and sweetheart loan deals don't make up for. They fuck us all by debasing our currency, which cheapens the value of our blood, sweat and tears- the only thing most of us have to offer. For the cops' efforts, they are taxed at a greater marginal rate than the muthafuckas they protect. knowing what side your bread is buttered on is of not much use when you are eating burnt toast.
So, when someone tells a protester to get a job, they should realize that the protesters are doing the working man's work, as the working man is getting fleeced even more so than the unemployed slob that is out protesting. When the cop gets out his pepper spray, or his billy club, or digs his knee just a little deeper into a non-violent protester, he should remember that the protester was not out to fuck with him.
But, maybe they should be. Failing this epiphany, the protests may be better served to take on a tone that will test police commitment to the ruling elite. That may include armed conflict...in a manner that is consistent with the idea that, if the police overstep their bounds and use disproportionate force, rather than wait for the courts to sort it out, the people will defend themselves.
Bokolis isn't saying that cops need to die or even get hurt- though it would inevitably happen. I'm saying that shit needs to happen that makes policemen reassess what they are protecting. They need to be tested. Since they can't see for themselves, they need to be made to see. How that gets done is not my call...just sayin'
That's all the fuck I got. I think I'm ready...
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Just who's fault is this anyway
As we watch our politicians play gay chicken with our nation's debt rating, I have to wonder how the hell we got to the point where the Alpha Betas are running things. Howthefuck did we get to the point where we've allowed a bunch of people who blatantly demonstrate that they don't give a dead rat's asshole about us are leading us?
We're not going to really blame this on the partisan nonsense because we put them in position to do this. We must look within for the answer. Life is about you vs. you, not you vs. them. The "...by the people..." as government, even if forgotten, is apropos, as this is our own doing.
By being asleep at the switch and neglecting our civic duties in favor of monetary enrichment (which is a vicious circle, as the scumbags serve as our role models), we've allowed for the rise of the military apparatus, the empowerment of the corporate entity at the expense of the rights human entity.
We've allowed ourselves to be dumbed down, to accept the Readers Digest version of things for the sake of convenience, to the point where we are incapable of confronting and processing reality. Our minds are not sharp, and we have frames to match. What betterment of body and mind we do pursue, we pursue for self, for primarily personal gain, whether it be to outrun the next guy, to self-medicate, just to feel good or to score a piece of ass.
I don't feel like listing examples here. I'm not an accountant, so I don't record history. I simply retain the parts that interest me and hope that my mind does not distort it too much. It's enough for me to say that, with all the information available (even if it creates a poverty of attention), for me to encounter so many dull minds is as saddening as it is draining.
Bokolis can say that, like- I assume- most people, I'm liberal about some things and conservative about some things. I'd like to think I possess enough logic to form cogent views about matters and do not ascribe to any party's line because in many, if not most circumstances, your ideology is to your detriment.
As I generally avoid imposing my will on people (ostensibly because I'm self-abosrbed, but really because I'm afraid of wielding that much power), I quash others' attempts to impose their will upon me. Because, if Bokolis were in charge, you can be damned sure that I'd impose my will upon everybody (until they eventually clipped me). It wouldn't be because I'd be a mad tyrant...I've been convinced for some time now that shit has gotten so bad that things can no longer be fixed by political process.
Can you imagine you were in charge and that, whenever you did something, no matter how noble your intentions, you had half the populace pissed as hell at you?
The noble person would eventually quit in disgust.
Some of us who swear they can catch him would chase the leprechaun. If they don't get clipped, they eventually get marginalized.
Some of us would stand up to the apparatus. Those guys get clipped for sure.
Then there are the street-level guys that will not only stand up to the apparatus, they'll harness others' rage. If they have back, those guys are the dangerous ones. They probably don't give a fuck about the cause; they love power and a good fight (beatdown).
It's muthafuckas like this that are most likely to change the world. Unfortunately, they are only fit to destroy and dominate, not to lead. Once a guy like this gets into power, it just becomes a new type of misery.
When Bokolis was in Spain this Spring, I encountered peaceful protests (I didn't hear much about this in the American MSM, BTW) regarding the people's plight in this global financial seizure (es una estafa). Their Madrid base camp (I had two separate one-day stints in Madrid) happened to be about a ~10 minute walk from my hotel.
Aside- while the government declared the base camp- in a public square- illegal, they sent sanitation to clean up after them. There were no police.
The first time, I went down dolo. I'm bouncing around, listening and taking it all in. It's (probs jobless) people sitting around speaking; no vitriol, no loudness even. It had the impression of a tourist colony.
Next time through, I linked up with one of my Madrid contacts (American friend who I know from here) to mix it up with them. Bokolis' Spanish is functional, but not good enough for high-level conversation necessary to get across my points. The gist is that, while I don't necessarily agree with their views, I'm glad they are doing this.
Ultimately, I'm as guilty as anyone else. While Bokolis placed in the money at Carlito's angles tournament, I don't lay it on the line to stand up to these muthafuckas, resolving instead to snatching up those nickels before the steamroller gets them. Aside from being relatively comfortable, because I need convenience like everyone else, I don't have time to do the dissident's 5-year bid. I want the revolution fermented and ready to go so I can jump in it.
Ignorant as I am, I thought I may have my chance. I asked if they were ever going to storm the castle or some shit. When told no, I wished them luck and bounced.
That's all the fuck I got.
We're not going to really blame this on the partisan nonsense because we put them in position to do this. We must look within for the answer. Life is about you vs. you, not you vs. them. The "...by the people..." as government, even if forgotten, is apropos, as this is our own doing.
By being asleep at the switch and neglecting our civic duties in favor of monetary enrichment (which is a vicious circle, as the scumbags serve as our role models), we've allowed for the rise of the military apparatus, the empowerment of the corporate entity at the expense of the rights human entity.
We've allowed ourselves to be dumbed down, to accept the Readers Digest version of things for the sake of convenience, to the point where we are incapable of confronting and processing reality. Our minds are not sharp, and we have frames to match. What betterment of body and mind we do pursue, we pursue for self, for primarily personal gain, whether it be to outrun the next guy, to self-medicate, just to feel good or to score a piece of ass.
I don't feel like listing examples here. I'm not an accountant, so I don't record history. I simply retain the parts that interest me and hope that my mind does not distort it too much. It's enough for me to say that, with all the information available (even if it creates a poverty of attention), for me to encounter so many dull minds is as saddening as it is draining.
Bokolis can say that, like- I assume- most people, I'm liberal about some things and conservative about some things. I'd like to think I possess enough logic to form cogent views about matters and do not ascribe to any party's line because in many, if not most circumstances, your ideology is to your detriment.
As I generally avoid imposing my will on people (ostensibly because I'm self-abosrbed, but really because I'm afraid of wielding that much power), I quash others' attempts to impose their will upon me. Because, if Bokolis were in charge, you can be damned sure that I'd impose my will upon everybody (until they eventually clipped me). It wouldn't be because I'd be a mad tyrant...I've been convinced for some time now that shit has gotten so bad that things can no longer be fixed by political process.
Can you imagine you were in charge and that, whenever you did something, no matter how noble your intentions, you had half the populace pissed as hell at you?
The noble person would eventually quit in disgust.
Some of us who swear they can catch him would chase the leprechaun. If they don't get clipped, they eventually get marginalized.
Some of us would stand up to the apparatus. Those guys get clipped for sure.
Then there are the street-level guys that will not only stand up to the apparatus, they'll harness others' rage. If they have back, those guys are the dangerous ones. They probably don't give a fuck about the cause; they love power and a good fight (beatdown).
It's muthafuckas like this that are most likely to change the world. Unfortunately, they are only fit to destroy and dominate, not to lead. Once a guy like this gets into power, it just becomes a new type of misery.
When Bokolis was in Spain this Spring, I encountered peaceful protests (I didn't hear much about this in the American MSM, BTW) regarding the people's plight in this global financial seizure (es una estafa). Their Madrid base camp (I had two separate one-day stints in Madrid) happened to be about a ~10 minute walk from my hotel.
Aside- while the government declared the base camp- in a public square- illegal, they sent sanitation to clean up after them. There were no police.
The first time, I went down dolo. I'm bouncing around, listening and taking it all in. It's (probs jobless) people sitting around speaking; no vitriol, no loudness even. It had the impression of a tourist colony.
Next time through, I linked up with one of my Madrid contacts (American friend who I know from here) to mix it up with them. Bokolis' Spanish is functional, but not good enough for high-level conversation necessary to get across my points. The gist is that, while I don't necessarily agree with their views, I'm glad they are doing this.
Ultimately, I'm as guilty as anyone else. While Bokolis placed in the money at Carlito's angles tournament, I don't lay it on the line to stand up to these muthafuckas, resolving instead to snatching up those nickels before the steamroller gets them. Aside from being relatively comfortable, because I need convenience like everyone else, I don't have time to do the dissident's 5-year bid. I want the revolution fermented and ready to go so I can jump in it.
Ignorant as I am, I thought I may have my chance. I asked if they were ever going to storm the castle or some shit. When told no, I wished them luck and bounced.
That's all the fuck I got.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
I thought Defecit
A lot of good shit gets kicked on Barry Ritholtz' site, but this morning's post on Deficit Chicken Hawks vs Ronald Reagan got me to thinking...the issue, not so much his words.
Anyway, why waste a good shit-talking rant on his comments?
With regard to the debt, it's not so much a question of "how do we fix it now" as much as "how does it ever get fixed."
How do we get in a positon where we can consistently run the surpluses necessary to tame the debt when a unique event drove the only surplus of the last 40 years?
Can we really become that much more productive so as to generate the revenues to pay it down? Of course we can't. Even if we could, all that extra liquidity would short-circuit the taco stand.
Can the government spend less? Those damned illegal aliens that are the real drain on our budget...or so the chain e-mails tell me. The pork and the war spending will never stop because they both feed addictions. And, even if no more goes into them, the damage is done from the bailouts.
So, who do we tell to go fuck themselves?
----Our debt holders (READ: China)? Do we sit around and wait for them to implode and then decide that we don't have to pay them? That'd be a neat trick, but might cause more problems than it solves. Maybe they'll just turn into us and spend away their credit. Ummm, leaving aside that, if they call in their markers, we've got a problem, where are they going to get the necessary crude? Yay, more war! Addiction fed.
----Our old people? Cut Social Security? Letting me opt-out of paying it? Weaning people off of it? Bahh, too easy and logical. Why not just clip them while were at it? Medicare is the real problem and people are living too long anyway. Maybe a buyout option...on their Social Security, not their lives, although paid to check out would be an interesting proposition.
----Our richer people? Pursuant to the above, let's say anyone that has made $200k/yr in any 5 years (or $100k in any 10 years) is disqualified from Social Security Benefits. Because, really, if you couldn't make that work into a nest egg, shame on you...how do you like capitalism now?
----Our richest people? Essentially, this $13T+ debt is just the government giving away money to the richest people. It's time to give it back. I'm not talking 90% tax rates, but Gates having to fork over half his shit (fuck that charitable trust bullshit, give up the loot muthafucka) will weigh a lot less on him than it does on me when I have to fork over about a quarter of my earnings. Wait a minute...that's a quarter to Federal. State and local is another ~8%, FICA 7.65%, sales taxes, toll roads (somehow this became a separate "charge"), excise taxes. Muthafucka, I'm already forking over half my check. Woman, where's my torch and pitchfork?
ahem...
The argument that it would hurt job creation will be ignored because what we call the Bush tax cuts didn't do anything for job creation. In fact, since I've been close enough to observe- which is to say, since the early '90s recession- rather than leveraging existing talent and manpower, all I've seen is companies looking to reduce headcount...and spending on technology accordingly. Granted, there aren't enough smart and driven people to go around. But, if the last 20 years have been spent trying to run leaner, from where will the necessary innovation come?
See, y'all muthafuckas fucked up the game by dumbing down this country. You couldn't build out if you wanted to because y'all're dealing with a bunch of dumbshits and each guy is a bigger dumbshit than the last (I believe the economists call that the law of diminishing returns). It's now on the government to spur growth by putting people to work to shore up the creaking infrastructure 'round this muthafucka.
But, you speak too loudly about that type of government spending and people will start throwing tea bags at your ass.
See, the lot of us were dumbed down to the point that we've come to depend on the corporation for a job. Because we can't see ourselves as the boss, we don't embrace our jobs as such, rendering ourselves limited to the table scraps, and thus are married to opposition of any policy that would upset the corporate apple cart. So, instead of fighting for policies that would employ and empower us, we fight for policies that empower our employer...all in the misguided notion that our employer will keep us around forever, in the misguided notion that depending on a private employer for work rather than on the government is somehow further up the road toward self determination.
Who do we tell to go fuck themselves? It was a rhetorical question; we've been fucking ourselves all along.
Of course, by "we," I mean y'all.
Anyway, why waste a good shit-talking rant on his comments?
With regard to the debt, it's not so much a question of "how do we fix it now" as much as "how does it ever get fixed."
How do we get in a positon where we can consistently run the surpluses necessary to tame the debt when a unique event drove the only surplus of the last 40 years?
Can we really become that much more productive so as to generate the revenues to pay it down? Of course we can't. Even if we could, all that extra liquidity would short-circuit the taco stand.
Can the government spend less? Those damned illegal aliens that are the real drain on our budget...or so the chain e-mails tell me. The pork and the war spending will never stop because they both feed addictions. And, even if no more goes into them, the damage is done from the bailouts.
So, who do we tell to go fuck themselves?
----Our debt holders (READ: China)? Do we sit around and wait for them to implode and then decide that we don't have to pay them? That'd be a neat trick, but might cause more problems than it solves. Maybe they'll just turn into us and spend away their credit. Ummm, leaving aside that, if they call in their markers, we've got a problem, where are they going to get the necessary crude? Yay, more war! Addiction fed.
----Our old people? Cut Social Security? Letting me opt-out of paying it? Weaning people off of it? Bahh, too easy and logical. Why not just clip them while were at it? Medicare is the real problem and people are living too long anyway. Maybe a buyout option...on their Social Security, not their lives, although paid to check out would be an interesting proposition.
----Our richer people? Pursuant to the above, let's say anyone that has made $200k/yr in any 5 years (or $100k in any 10 years) is disqualified from Social Security Benefits. Because, really, if you couldn't make that work into a nest egg, shame on you...how do you like capitalism now?
----Our richest people? Essentially, this $13T+ debt is just the government giving away money to the richest people. It's time to give it back. I'm not talking 90% tax rates, but Gates having to fork over half his shit (fuck that charitable trust bullshit, give up the loot muthafucka) will weigh a lot less on him than it does on me when I have to fork over about a quarter of my earnings. Wait a minute...that's a quarter to Federal. State and local is another ~8%, FICA 7.65%, sales taxes, toll roads (somehow this became a separate "charge"), excise taxes. Muthafucka, I'm already forking over half my check. Woman, where's my torch and pitchfork?
ahem...
The argument that it would hurt job creation will be ignored because what we call the Bush tax cuts didn't do anything for job creation. In fact, since I've been close enough to observe- which is to say, since the early '90s recession- rather than leveraging existing talent and manpower, all I've seen is companies looking to reduce headcount...and spending on technology accordingly. Granted, there aren't enough smart and driven people to go around. But, if the last 20 years have been spent trying to run leaner, from where will the necessary innovation come?
See, y'all muthafuckas fucked up the game by dumbing down this country. You couldn't build out if you wanted to because y'all're dealing with a bunch of dumbshits and each guy is a bigger dumbshit than the last (I believe the economists call that the law of diminishing returns). It's now on the government to spur growth by putting people to work to shore up the creaking infrastructure 'round this muthafucka.
But, you speak too loudly about that type of government spending and people will start throwing tea bags at your ass.
See, the lot of us were dumbed down to the point that we've come to depend on the corporation for a job. Because we can't see ourselves as the boss, we don't embrace our jobs as such, rendering ourselves limited to the table scraps, and thus are married to opposition of any policy that would upset the corporate apple cart. So, instead of fighting for policies that would employ and empower us, we fight for policies that empower our employer...all in the misguided notion that our employer will keep us around forever, in the misguided notion that depending on a private employer for work rather than on the government is somehow further up the road toward self determination.
Who do we tell to go fuck themselves? It was a rhetorical question; we've been fucking ourselves all along.
Of course, by "we," I mean y'all.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Fraudonomics
The following is a post on how this whole taco stand we call the American Economy is built on fraud.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/mark-ames/28354/confessions-of-a-wall-st-nihilist-forget-about-goldman-sachs-our-entire-economy-is-built-on-fraud
In real life, I've been telling people as much for years. This economy has always grown upon the hatching of a new scam and recessions occur from the time when the scam has run its course until the hatching of a new scam.
At some point, the scams stopped being enough and the PTB (starting with Reagan Adminstration) began pulling out the stops (deregulation, lower taxes for the wealthy and deficit spending) to foster growth. To his credit, Bush I had an attack of conscience and broke his infamous "Read my Lips" promise, at the expense of a second term, to slow the metastasis. Further deregulation during the Clinton Adminstration, institution of the Greenspan Put, a refusal of Bush II to go through the necessary correction (I'm thinking he was playing Civ III and got fucked over by war weariness) all paved the way for a complete contamination. On the way, the government essentially borrowed $10 trillion and gave it to the richest 0.01% Americans...and that was BEFORE the bailouts.
Ususally, Bokolis will not bring up a problem without offering a solution. But, as the piece explains, the fraud is now so ingrained that it would be impossible to eliminate it without sending the markets back to the Stone Age (early 1982) and thereby shattering the economy...seriously, the Dow would go back to like 750 'n shit and the NASDAQ would go to like 54 or whateverthefuck it was back then.
Ignoring that this taco stand is too big to fail, you can romanticize about some Trotsky-esque revolution- replete with nationalizations, appropriations and beheadings- that could fix everything...eventually, maybe, but not before the abovementioned shattering. Unless you put some scam in place (in front of the tank) that was going to save the average shlub's retirement plan- in other words, scam the scammers- there is nothing you could do. But, as Trotsky fond out the hard way, if you're going to go through the trouble of organizing enough might to take over, why give the spoils to the people when you can keep them for yourself?
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/mark-ames/28354/confessions-of-a-wall-st-nihilist-forget-about-goldman-sachs-our-entire-economy-is-built-on-fraud
In real life, I've been telling people as much for years. This economy has always grown upon the hatching of a new scam and recessions occur from the time when the scam has run its course until the hatching of a new scam.
At some point, the scams stopped being enough and the PTB (starting with Reagan Adminstration) began pulling out the stops (deregulation, lower taxes for the wealthy and deficit spending) to foster growth. To his credit, Bush I had an attack of conscience and broke his infamous "Read my Lips" promise, at the expense of a second term, to slow the metastasis. Further deregulation during the Clinton Adminstration, institution of the Greenspan Put, a refusal of Bush II to go through the necessary correction (I'm thinking he was playing Civ III and got fucked over by war weariness) all paved the way for a complete contamination. On the way, the government essentially borrowed $10 trillion and gave it to the richest 0.01% Americans...and that was BEFORE the bailouts.
Ususally, Bokolis will not bring up a problem without offering a solution. But, as the piece explains, the fraud is now so ingrained that it would be impossible to eliminate it without sending the markets back to the Stone Age (early 1982) and thereby shattering the economy...seriously, the Dow would go back to like 750 'n shit and the NASDAQ would go to like 54 or whateverthefuck it was back then.
Ignoring that this taco stand is too big to fail, you can romanticize about some Trotsky-esque revolution- replete with nationalizations, appropriations and beheadings- that could fix everything...eventually, maybe, but not before the abovementioned shattering. Unless you put some scam in place (in front of the tank) that was going to save the average shlub's retirement plan- in other words, scam the scammers- there is nothing you could do. But, as Trotsky fond out the hard way, if you're going to go through the trouble of organizing enough might to take over, why give the spoils to the people when you can keep them for yourself?
Friday, September 11, 2009
Kicking a Dead Horse's Ass
Lifted this from Barry Ritholtz' site, complete with symbolic posting time. 9/11 is as good as time as any to point out how Dubya crashed the Bus. In my view, it's symbolic because Bokolis sees Obama as the second plane.
Baby Bush: The Worst President in History?
By Doug Casey
I recognize that I’ve antagonized many subscribers over the years with “Bush Bashing.” In the January TCR, just after OBAMA!’s election, I said I wouldn’t mention Bush again, his departure having made him irrelevant. I only feel bad that he and his minions will apparently get away scot-free with their crimes; better they had all been brought up before a tribunal and tried for crimes against humanity in general and the U.S. Constitution in particular. But that is objectively true of almost all presidents since at least Lincoln.
Most of our subscribers appear to be libertarians or classical liberals — i.e., people who believe in a maximum of both social and economic freedom for the individual. The next largest group are “conservatives.” It’s a bit harder to define a conservative. Is it someone who atavistically just wants to conserve the existing order of things (either now, or perhaps as they perceived them 50, or 100, or 200, or however many years ago)? Or is a conservative someone who believes in limiting social freedoms (generally that means suppressing things like sex, drugs, outré clothing and customs, and bad- mouthing the government) while claiming to support economic freedoms (although with considerable caveats and exceptions)? It’s unclear to me what, if any, philosophical foundation conservatism, by whatever definition, rests on.
Which leads me to the question: Why do conservatives seem to have this warm and fuzzy feeling for George W. Bush? I can only speculate it’s because Bush liked to talk a lot about freedom and traditional American values, and did so in such an ungrammatical way that it made him seem sincere. Bush’s tendency to fumble words and concepts contrasted to Clinton’s eloquence, which made him look “slick.”
I’m forced to the conclusion that what “conservatives” like about Bush is his style, such as it was. Because the only good thing I can recall that Bush ever did was to shepherd through some tax cuts. But even these were targeted and piecemeal, tossing bones to favored interests, rather than any principled abolition of any levies or a wholesale cut in rates.
Is it possible that Bush was actually the worst president ever? I’d say he’s a strong contender. He started out with a gigantic lie — that he would cut the size of government, reduce taxes, and stay out of foreign wars — and things got much worse from there.
Let’s look at just some of the highpoints in the catalog of disasters the Bush regime created:
• No Child Left Behind. Forget about abolishing the Department of Education. Bush made the federal government a much more intrusive and costly part of local schools. Project Safe Neighborhood
• Project Safe Neighborhoods. A draconian law that further guts the 2nd Amendment, like 20,000 other unconstitutional gun laws before it.
• Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. This the largest expansion of the welfare state since LBJ and will cost the already bankrupt Medicare system trillions more.
• Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Possibly the most expensive and restrictive change to the securities laws since the ‘30s. A major reason why companies will either stay private or go public outside the U.S.
• Katrina. A total disaster of bureaucratic mismanagement, featuring martial law.
• Ownership Society. The immediate root of the current financial crisis lies in Bush’s encouragement of easy credit to everybody and inflating the housing market.
• Nationalizations and Bailouts. In response to the crisis he created, he nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and passed by far the largest bailouts in U.S. history (until OBAMA!).
• Free-Speech Zones. Originally a device for keeping war protesters away when Bush appeared on camera, they’re now used to herd.
• The Patriot Act. This 132-page bill, presented for passage only 45 days after 9/11 (how is it possible to write something of that size and complexity in only 45 days?) basically allows the government to do whatever it wishes with its subjects. Warrantless searches. All kinds of communications monitoring. Greatly expanded asset forfeiture provisions.
• The War on Terror. The scope of the War on Drugs (which Bush also expanded) is exceeded only by the war on nobody in particular but on a tactic. It’s become a cause of mass hysteria and an excuse for the government doing anything.
• Invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Bush started two completely pointless, counterproductive, and immensely expensive wars, neither of which has any prospect of ending anytime soon.
• Dept. of Homeland Security. This is the largest and most dangerous of all agencies, now with its own gigantic campus in Washington, DC. It will never go away and centralizes the functions of a police state.
• Guantanamo. Hundreds of individuals, most of them (like the Uighurs recently in the news) guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, are incarcerated for years. A precedent is set for anyone who is accused of being an “enemy combatant” to be completely deprived of any rights at all.
• Abu Ghraib and Torture. After imprisoning scores of thousands of foreign nationals, Bush made it a U.S. policy to use torture to extract information, based on a suspicion or nothing but a guard’s whim. This is certainly one of the most damaging things to the reputation of the U.S. ever. It says to the world, “We stand for nothing.”
• The No-Fly List. His administration has placed the names of over a million people on this list, and it’s still growing at about 20,000 a month. I promise it will be used for other purposes in the future…
• The TSA. Somehow the Bush cabal found 50,000 middle-aged people who were willing to go through their fellow citizens’ dirty laundry and take themselves quite seriously. God forbid you’re not polite to them…
• Farm Subsidies. Farm subsidies are the antithesis of the free market. Rather than trying to abolish or cut them back, Bush signed a record $190 billion farm bill.
• Legislative Free Ride. And he vetoed less of what Congress did than any other president in history. The only reason I can imagine why a person who is not “evil” (to use a word he favored), completely uninformed, or thoughtless would favor Bush is because he wasn’t a Democrat. Not that there’s any real difference between the two parties anymore…
As disastrous as he was, I rather hate to put him in competition for “worst president” in the company of Lincoln, McKinley, Wilson, the two Roosevelts, Truman, Johnson, and Nixon. He is simply too small a character — psychologically aberrant, ignorant, unintelligent, shallow, duplicitous, small-minded — to merit inclusion in any list.
On second thought, looking over that list of his personal characteristics, he’s probably most like FDR, except he lacked FDR’s polish and rhetorical skills. I suspect he’ll just fade away as a non-entity, recognized as an embarrassment. Not even worth the trouble of hanging by his heels from a lamp post, although Americans aren’t (yet) accustomed to doing that to their leaders.
Those who once supported him will, at least if they have any circumspection and intellectual honesty, feel shame at how dim they were to have been duped by a nobody.
The worst shame of Bush — worse than the spending, the new agencies, the torture, or the wars — is that he used so much pro-liberty and pro-free-market rhetoric in the very process of destroying those institutions. That makes his actions ten times worse than if an avowed socialist had done the same thing. People will blame the full suite of disasters Bush caused on the free market simply because Bush constantly said he believed in it.
And he’s left OBAMA! with a fantastic starting point for what I expect to be even greater intrusions into your life and finances. Eventually, the Bush era will look like The Good Old Days. But only in the way that the Romans looked back with nostalgia on Tiberius and Claudius And then Nero. And then the first of many imperial coups and civil wars.
Baby Bush: The Worst President in History?
By Doug Casey
I recognize that I’ve antagonized many subscribers over the years with “Bush Bashing.” In the January TCR, just after OBAMA!’s election, I said I wouldn’t mention Bush again, his departure having made him irrelevant. I only feel bad that he and his minions will apparently get away scot-free with their crimes; better they had all been brought up before a tribunal and tried for crimes against humanity in general and the U.S. Constitution in particular. But that is objectively true of almost all presidents since at least Lincoln.
Most of our subscribers appear to be libertarians or classical liberals — i.e., people who believe in a maximum of both social and economic freedom for the individual. The next largest group are “conservatives.” It’s a bit harder to define a conservative. Is it someone who atavistically just wants to conserve the existing order of things (either now, or perhaps as they perceived them 50, or 100, or 200, or however many years ago)? Or is a conservative someone who believes in limiting social freedoms (generally that means suppressing things like sex, drugs, outré clothing and customs, and bad- mouthing the government) while claiming to support economic freedoms (although with considerable caveats and exceptions)? It’s unclear to me what, if any, philosophical foundation conservatism, by whatever definition, rests on.
Which leads me to the question: Why do conservatives seem to have this warm and fuzzy feeling for George W. Bush? I can only speculate it’s because Bush liked to talk a lot about freedom and traditional American values, and did so in such an ungrammatical way that it made him seem sincere. Bush’s tendency to fumble words and concepts contrasted to Clinton’s eloquence, which made him look “slick.”
I’m forced to the conclusion that what “conservatives” like about Bush is his style, such as it was. Because the only good thing I can recall that Bush ever did was to shepherd through some tax cuts. But even these were targeted and piecemeal, tossing bones to favored interests, rather than any principled abolition of any levies or a wholesale cut in rates.
Is it possible that Bush was actually the worst president ever? I’d say he’s a strong contender. He started out with a gigantic lie — that he would cut the size of government, reduce taxes, and stay out of foreign wars — and things got much worse from there.
Let’s look at just some of the highpoints in the catalog of disasters the Bush regime created:
• No Child Left Behind. Forget about abolishing the Department of Education. Bush made the federal government a much more intrusive and costly part of local schools. Project Safe Neighborhood
• Project Safe Neighborhoods. A draconian law that further guts the 2nd Amendment, like 20,000 other unconstitutional gun laws before it.
• Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. This the largest expansion of the welfare state since LBJ and will cost the already bankrupt Medicare system trillions more.
• Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Possibly the most expensive and restrictive change to the securities laws since the ‘30s. A major reason why companies will either stay private or go public outside the U.S.
• Katrina. A total disaster of bureaucratic mismanagement, featuring martial law.
• Ownership Society. The immediate root of the current financial crisis lies in Bush’s encouragement of easy credit to everybody and inflating the housing market.
• Nationalizations and Bailouts. In response to the crisis he created, he nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and passed by far the largest bailouts in U.S. history (until OBAMA!).
• Free-Speech Zones. Originally a device for keeping war protesters away when Bush appeared on camera, they’re now used to herd.
• The Patriot Act. This 132-page bill, presented for passage only 45 days after 9/11 (how is it possible to write something of that size and complexity in only 45 days?) basically allows the government to do whatever it wishes with its subjects. Warrantless searches. All kinds of communications monitoring. Greatly expanded asset forfeiture provisions.
• The War on Terror. The scope of the War on Drugs (which Bush also expanded) is exceeded only by the war on nobody in particular but on a tactic. It’s become a cause of mass hysteria and an excuse for the government doing anything.
• Invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Bush started two completely pointless, counterproductive, and immensely expensive wars, neither of which has any prospect of ending anytime soon.
• Dept. of Homeland Security. This is the largest and most dangerous of all agencies, now with its own gigantic campus in Washington, DC. It will never go away and centralizes the functions of a police state.
• Guantanamo. Hundreds of individuals, most of them (like the Uighurs recently in the news) guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, are incarcerated for years. A precedent is set for anyone who is accused of being an “enemy combatant” to be completely deprived of any rights at all.
• Abu Ghraib and Torture. After imprisoning scores of thousands of foreign nationals, Bush made it a U.S. policy to use torture to extract information, based on a suspicion or nothing but a guard’s whim. This is certainly one of the most damaging things to the reputation of the U.S. ever. It says to the world, “We stand for nothing.”
• The No-Fly List. His administration has placed the names of over a million people on this list, and it’s still growing at about 20,000 a month. I promise it will be used for other purposes in the future…
• The TSA. Somehow the Bush cabal found 50,000 middle-aged people who were willing to go through their fellow citizens’ dirty laundry and take themselves quite seriously. God forbid you’re not polite to them…
• Farm Subsidies. Farm subsidies are the antithesis of the free market. Rather than trying to abolish or cut them back, Bush signed a record $190 billion farm bill.
• Legislative Free Ride. And he vetoed less of what Congress did than any other president in history. The only reason I can imagine why a person who is not “evil” (to use a word he favored), completely uninformed, or thoughtless would favor Bush is because he wasn’t a Democrat. Not that there’s any real difference between the two parties anymore…
As disastrous as he was, I rather hate to put him in competition for “worst president” in the company of Lincoln, McKinley, Wilson, the two Roosevelts, Truman, Johnson, and Nixon. He is simply too small a character — psychologically aberrant, ignorant, unintelligent, shallow, duplicitous, small-minded — to merit inclusion in any list.
On second thought, looking over that list of his personal characteristics, he’s probably most like FDR, except he lacked FDR’s polish and rhetorical skills. I suspect he’ll just fade away as a non-entity, recognized as an embarrassment. Not even worth the trouble of hanging by his heels from a lamp post, although Americans aren’t (yet) accustomed to doing that to their leaders.
Those who once supported him will, at least if they have any circumspection and intellectual honesty, feel shame at how dim they were to have been duped by a nobody.
The worst shame of Bush — worse than the spending, the new agencies, the torture, or the wars — is that he used so much pro-liberty and pro-free-market rhetoric in the very process of destroying those institutions. That makes his actions ten times worse than if an avowed socialist had done the same thing. People will blame the full suite of disasters Bush caused on the free market simply because Bush constantly said he believed in it.
And he’s left OBAMA! with a fantastic starting point for what I expect to be even greater intrusions into your life and finances. Eventually, the Bush era will look like The Good Old Days. But only in the way that the Romans looked back with nostalgia on Tiberius and Claudius And then Nero. And then the first of many imperial coups and civil wars.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Would you hire this man? Well, you did...TWICE.
He leaves as largely the same idiot he arrived, relieved to be back in Texas and seemingly oblivious to having run the nation into the ground. I took some measure of satisfaction from seeing Cheney leave in a wheelchair. Fitting and of not much consequence, if you ask me, as he would have had no one to whom he could wave. The only people loyal to Cheney operate in back rooms and cannot be exposed to daylight.
Most of this was e-mailed to me about half a year ago. I was saving it for today. I didn't edit for grammar. Though I didn't inject any Bushisms, any mistakes can be attributed to the spirit of Dubya. I added the most of the stuff about his failed oil dealings and sweetheart deals and pulled the last three bits from his "accomplishments" as President from here. I knew he was a soulless idiot 100 months ago, and I sure didn't "misunderestimate" him.
I will be available in January 2009, am willing to relocate.
RESUME
GEORGE WALKER BUSH
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20520
EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:
Law Enforcement:
I was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1976 for driving under the influence of alcohol. I pled guilty, paid a fine and had my driver's license suspended for 30 days. My Texas driving record has been 'lost' and is not available.
Military:
I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL. I refused to take a drug test or answer any questions about my drug use. By joining the Texas Air National Guard, I was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.
College:
I was a "cheerleader." I graduated from Yale University with a low C average. I was still accepted to grad school.
PAST WORK EXPERIENCE:
I ran for U.S. Congress and lost.
I began my career in the oil business in Midland Texas, in 1975. I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas. The company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock, but I was bailed out and made chairman of another company.
Most of this was e-mailed to me about half a year ago. I was saving it for today. I didn't edit for grammar. Though I didn't inject any Bushisms, any mistakes can be attributed to the spirit of Dubya. I added the most of the stuff about his failed oil dealings and sweetheart deals and pulled the last three bits from his "accomplishments" as President from here. I knew he was a soulless idiot 100 months ago, and I sure didn't "misunderestimate" him.
I will be available in January 2009, am willing to relocate.
RESUME
GEORGE WALKER BUSH
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20520
EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:
Law Enforcement:
I was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1976 for driving under the influence of alcohol. I pled guilty, paid a fine and had my driver's license suspended for 30 days. My Texas driving record has been 'lost' and is not available.
Military:
I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL. I refused to take a drug test or answer any questions about my drug use. By joining the Texas Air National Guard, I was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.
College:
I was a "cheerleader." I graduated from Yale University with a low C average. I was still accepted to grad school.
PAST WORK EXPERIENCE:
I ran for U.S. Congress and lost.
I began my career in the oil business in Midland Texas, in 1975. I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas. The company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock, but I was bailed out and made chairman of another company.
When this company also failed, I was given a seat on the board at Harken Energy and about $500k in stock because of my perceived politiocal connections.
While serving as a director at Harken Energy, I sold stock in the company the day before the company announced $56 million losses. I was cleared of wrongdoing by SEC chairman Richard Breeden, a friend of the family who was nominated by my father.
I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money. I paid for some debt using the profits gained from the abovementioned sale of Harken stock. I then sold the Texas Rangers in a sweetheart deal, netting almost $14 million profit from a $600k investment.
With the help of my father and our friends in the oil industry (including Enron CEO Ken Lay), I was elected Governor of Texas .
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS:
I changed Texas pollution laws to favor power and oil companies, making Texas the most polluted state in the Union. During my tenure, Houston replaced Los Angeles as the most smog-ridden city in America.
I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas treasury to the tune of billions in borrowed money.
I set t he record for the most executions by any governor in American history.
With the help of my brother, the governor of Florida, and my father's appointments to the Supreme Court, I became President of the United States, after losing by over 500,000 votes.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:
I am the first President in U.S. History to enter office with a criminal record.
I invaded and occupied two countries at a continuing cost of over one billion dollars per week.
I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury.
I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. History.
I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.
I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the U.S. Stock market. To be fair, in terms of largest percentage drop (just under 25%), I am second to Hoover.
In my first year in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs and that trend continues.
I'm proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. History. My 'poorest millionaire,' Condoleezza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.
I set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips by a U.S. President.
I am the all-time U.S and world record-holder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations.
My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and one of my best friends, Kenneth Lay, presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S. History, Enron.
My political party used Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to assure my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during my election decision.
I have protected my friends at Enron and Halliburton against investigation or prosecution. More time and money was spent investigating the Monica Lewinsky affair than has been spent investigating one of the biggest corporate rip-offs in history. I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. History and refused to intervene when corruption involving the oil industry was revealed.
I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. History.
I changed the U.S. Policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
I appointed more convicted criminals to my administration than any President in U.S. History.
I created the Ministry of Homeland Security, the largest bureaucracy in the history of the United States Government.
I've broken more international treaties than any President in U.S. History.
I am the first President in U.S. History to have the United Nations remove the U.S. From the Human Rights Commission.
I withdrew the U. S. From the World Court of Law.
I refused to allow inspector's access to U.S. 'prisoners of war' detainees and thereby have refused to abide by the Geneva Convention.
I am the first President in history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 US election).
I set the record for fewest numbers of press conferences of any President since the advent of television.
I set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one-year period. After taking off the entire month of August, I presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.
I garnered the most sympathy ever for the U.S. after the World Trade Center attacks and less than a year later made the U.S. the most hated country in the world, the largest failure of diplomacy in world history.
I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million people), shattering the record for protests against any person in the history of mankind.
I am the first President in U.S. history to order an unprovoked, preemptive attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation. I did so against the will of the United Nations, the majority of U.S. Citizens and the world community.
I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in duty benefits for active duty troops and their families in wartime.
In my State of the Union Address, I lied about our reasons for attacking Iraq and then blamed the lies on our British friends.
I am the first President in history to have a majority of Europeans (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security.
I am supporting development of a nuclear 'Tactical Bunker Buster,' a WMD.
I have failed to fulfill my pledge to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice.
Unemployment is pressing remorselessly higher.
Industrial production is contracting at the wickedest rate in 35 years, the retail business is in the dumps almost across the board.
I leave office with the nation mired in the worst recession since the Great Depression; its end is by no means in sight.
RECORDS AND REFERENCES:
All records of my tenure as governor of Texas are now in my father's library, sealed and unavailable for public view.
All records of SEC investigations into my insider trading and my bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice-President, attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review. I specified that my sealed documents will not be available for 50 years.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Congress 1, Paulson 2
Nonono, just kidding. Hah, I fooled you, you sumumabitches. This is what Paulson must be snickering to himself after successfully executing an all-time bait-and-switch job.
"...purchasing illiquid mortgage-related assets...at this time...is not the most effective way to use TARP funds, but we will continue to examine whether targeted forms of asset purchase can play a useful role, relative to other potential uses of TARP resources, in helping to strengthen our financial system and support lending."
Paulson turns around and, fuck what he told Congress, he's got something better to do with the money. After he made sure his homies were satisfied, the rest of the money will go to:
"...purchasing illiquid mortgage-related assets...at this time...is not the most effective way to use TARP funds, but we will continue to examine whether targeted forms of asset purchase can play a useful role, relative to other potential uses of TARP resources, in helping to strengthen our financial system and support lending."Paulson turns around and, fuck what he told Congress, he's got something better to do with the money. After he made sure his homies were satisfied, the rest of the money will go to:
- "...use the TARP to encourage private investors to come back to this troubled market, by providing them access to federal financing while protecting the taxpayers' investment..."
- "...carefully evaluating programs which would further leverage the impact of a TARP investment by attracting private capital, potentially through matching investments...we will also consider capital needs of non-bank financial institutions not eligible for the current capital program..."
That sounds suspiciously like he's got more homies with their hands extended. Oh, and this shit will now cost (moves pinkie towards mouth) $3.5T...and they've already spent it. From Yahoo's TechTicker:
"...the tally so far is nearly $3.5 trillion, and that's before a likely handout for the auto industry.
Yes, $3.45 trillion has already been spent, as Bailoutsleuth.com details:
- $2T Emergency Fed Loans (the ones the Fed won't discuss)
- $700B TARP
- $300B Hope Now (the government's year-old attempt at mortgage workouts)
- $200B Fannie/Freddie
- $140B Tax Breaks for Banks (WaPo has the details)
- $110B: AIG (with it's new deal this week, the big insurer got $40B of TARP money, plus $110B in other relief)
"Approximately 40 percent of U.S. consumer credit is provided through securitization of credit card receivables, auto loans and student loans and similar products. This market, which is vital for lending and growth, has for all practical purposes ground to a halt. Addressing these two priorities will have powerful impacts on the overall financial system, the strength of our financial institutions and the availability of consumer credit."
Let's not bullshit each other here. Of course, consumption drives the economy. It has fueled over 25 years of virtually continuous economic growth. If we stop spending, it would do far more harm than a few bad mortgages are doing. If the default rate on credit cards were to reach, say, (pulls number out of nearest trash bin) 15%, the credit markets will seize up like fuckinfuggedaboudet.
Aside - The median real wage has held steady for 40 years, meaning Average Joe's grandson is no better off than Average Joe. The growth has come at the top of the ladder, as the boss-to-shlub salary ratio has gone from 50:1 to 500:1. At the same time, public debt has increased from <$100B to >$10T (see debt clock). Taken simply, it's like the government has taken $10T and given it to the bosses.
The wrinkle is that consumption comes at the expense of saving and we passed the point where we spend more than we make a LONG time ago. At some point, the debt burden becomes too much to bear. Anyone with any economic sense knows that a day of reckoning is coming. If that people tighten up on their spending as necessary to tame consumer debt, it would scuttle US economy.
Tangent alert!!!
It doesn't even need to get that point. Corporations, especially publicly traded ones, have rosy assumptions of sustained growth factored into their planning (not to mention their stock price). When the outlook becomes less than rosy, like the Mafia after someone gets clipped for something that can get back to the boss, people get clipped left and right. Companies were cutting to the bone last time around, when the New Economy dream cloud was eviscerated, then evaporated in the smoke-screen of 9/11. This time around is already lot worse than last time around, as companies are positioning for the second round of job cuts.
As far as were concerned, it's like these corporations, having gotten people to flip into new cars every three years instead of five, and buying a new flatscreen every two years, by living outside their means, started factoring that these same indebted people will now flip into up-model cars every two years and by a bigger and better LCD every year. Apply a similar analogy to other industries. When putting off the saturation point becomes too much of a challenge, their strategy resorts to denying (to themselves) its existence.
For the banks>>brokerage houses>>investment bankers responsible for this clusterfuck, securitized debt is their LCD, and it's all dependent upon people speding beyond their means. Defaults are a temporary issue; not having debt to securitize is the long-term problem.
Remember Milken with the junk bonds? This is 5000 Milkens. This is a whole economy of Milkens.
Paulson and his homies know this and, as the powers that be have always done, are just trying to put off legitimate pain, both for themselves and, by coincidence, for us. I think I've told y'all this before; the foundation of all mental illness is the unwillingness to experience pain or legitimate suffering or discomfort. They've been putting off experiencing such pain for so long, call it Percocet for the economy, and most of us are so beholden to our debt, that we couldn't bear the pain.
End of tangent alert.
To get out of this pickle, they're going to have to find a way to put more money on the table for the American consumer. Unfortunately, since the system has been bleeding us dry for years, other than by stimulus packages, the modern day equivalent of caesar throwing loaves of bread into the crowd, they've probably got no clue how to get it done. I'd suggest, but they'd never do it. I'll rather save it for another time.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Eventful times
All this shit's been happening. I've been (vainly) trying to find those Baked Tostitos scoops, Halloween, playoff game (crushed those chumps on the first leg) and, uhhh, oh yeah...the nation elected (such as we can; we don't actually vote for President) a bi-racial cat to the Presidency...thass wassup.
Aside - I didn't vote for Obama. Bokolis always votes for himself. Life under Bokolis would be a good ol' time, until someone fucked up. Then, muthafuckas'll be getting executed like a muthafucka.
America has been so quick to suck its own dick for electing a black guy. If racial hang-ups weren't still an issue, nobody would give a fuck. But, like everything else, it's exaggerated and overblown. Obama was raised- in his version of an Army brat upbringing- mostly by white people. He's Ivy League educated and has been around the world like Akinyele and Lisa Stansfield's tour bus. If you turn up the sound and look away- the opposite of what you would do if Joe Buck were speaking- Obama is every other politician. The standard here is Derek Jeter, who is viewed outside of any race. Switch pigmentations on them and nobody would point out Obama's race...and Jeter would be far less clutch and Yankees fans may even acknowledge (to themselves) that he's a shitty fielder.
You know when we'll be past all the bullshit; when we have a stretch where 3 out of 4 Presidents that are something other than white males- they don't even have to be particularly good presidents- and there is no sentiment for a need to get a white guy back in there.
Baby steps, right? If you must focus on looks and/or pigmentation, it's not like Wesley Snipes, or some "real bruhh," (Chuck D?) is president. That's where I want to see y'all. Obama looks like Urkel, talks like The Rock. I can't bullshit; I'm waiting for Obama to pull off a mask and there's Bernie Mac, still alive, yelling, "Here I am, muthafuckas! Here I am!" I could picture Mac, in his twang, going, "...white people walking around, looking at each other (his eyes would be wide-open, looking around, p-noid like some shit was about to jump off), like, 'What the fuck did we just do?' "
Anyway, it only took eight years of the worst president in the history of our country and an ancient lizard, who projected more of the same, for an opponent, with politics' answer to Paris Hilton for a running mate. Putting aside his dogfight with Hillary because either one was going to break a ceiling, if Obama didn't have a good draw, then no one has.
Full credit to him, though. Let's see what ya got, homeboy. I mean, President-elect presumptive Obama. After the past 8 years, if Obama exits to the critique of, same ol' bullshit, it will mean that he will have held his own.
Kids (20-somethings) were out there celebrating like we overthrew the Bush dictatorship. While I think they are blithely naive if they believe real change is coming, I can't say that it was that much of an exaggeration. I thought for sure that the current cabal, when its time was nearing the end, was going to find some way to stay on...pull like a code red on the DHS scale, suspend the Constitution or some shit. There's still time, I guess. But I have to believe that Bush has a countdown clock on his desk and that he can't wait to get back to Crawford and re-hit the bottle. Laura Bush will have to be weaned off Zoloft. No worries, as long as she doesn't drive, we'll be all right.
We have lovely parting gifts for Gov. Palin, as well...a tee shirt, made in some hostile nation, like Africa, that says, "I ran for Vice President and all I got was a stupid wardrobe, which I'm going to return, 'cause I'm no diva." We also have a pair of Love Pink sweat pants, with "DRILL BABY DRILL" stitched into the rear. Farewell, enjoy your fade into bolivian. Give a fist-pound to Quayle. See if he has gotten potatoe worked out.
Aside - I didn't vote for Obama. Bokolis always votes for himself. Life under Bokolis would be a good ol' time, until someone fucked up. Then, muthafuckas'll be getting executed like a muthafucka.America has been so quick to suck its own dick for electing a black guy. If racial hang-ups weren't still an issue, nobody would give a fuck. But, like everything else, it's exaggerated and overblown. Obama was raised- in his version of an Army brat upbringing- mostly by white people. He's Ivy League educated and has been around the world like Akinyele and Lisa Stansfield's tour bus. If you turn up the sound and look away- the opposite of what you would do if Joe Buck were speaking- Obama is every other politician. The standard here is Derek Jeter, who is viewed outside of any race. Switch pigmentations on them and nobody would point out Obama's race...and Jeter would be far less clutch and Yankees fans may even acknowledge (to themselves) that he's a shitty fielder.
You know when we'll be past all the bullshit; when we have a stretch where 3 out of 4 Presidents that are something other than white males- they don't even have to be particularly good presidents- and there is no sentiment for a need to get a white guy back in there.
Baby steps, right? If you must focus on looks and/or pigmentation, it's not like Wesley Snipes, or some "real bruhh," (Chuck D?) is president. That's where I want to see y'all. Obama looks like Urkel, talks like The Rock. I can't bullshit; I'm waiting for Obama to pull off a mask and there's Bernie Mac, still alive, yelling, "Here I am, muthafuckas! Here I am!" I could picture Mac, in his twang, going, "...white people walking around, looking at each other (his eyes would be wide-open, looking around, p-noid like some shit was about to jump off), like, 'What the fuck did we just do?' "
Anyway, it only took eight years of the worst president in the history of our country and an ancient lizard, who projected more of the same, for an opponent, with politics' answer to Paris Hilton for a running mate. Putting aside his dogfight with Hillary because either one was going to break a ceiling, if Obama didn't have a good draw, then no one has.
Full credit to him, though. Let's see what ya got, homeboy. I mean, President-elect presumptive Obama. After the past 8 years, if Obama exits to the critique of, same ol' bullshit, it will mean that he will have held his own.
Kids (20-somethings) were out there celebrating like we overthrew the Bush dictatorship. While I think they are blithely naive if they believe real change is coming, I can't say that it was that much of an exaggeration. I thought for sure that the current cabal, when its time was nearing the end, was going to find some way to stay on...pull like a code red on the DHS scale, suspend the Constitution or some shit. There's still time, I guess. But I have to believe that Bush has a countdown clock on his desk and that he can't wait to get back to Crawford and re-hit the bottle. Laura Bush will have to be weaned off Zoloft. No worries, as long as she doesn't drive, we'll be all right.
We have lovely parting gifts for Gov. Palin, as well...a tee shirt, made in some hostile nation, like Africa, that says, "I ran for Vice President and all I got was a stupid wardrobe, which I'm going to return, 'cause I'm no diva." We also have a pair of Love Pink sweat pants, with "DRILL BABY DRILL" stitched into the rear. Farewell, enjoy your fade into bolivian. Give a fist-pound to Quayle. See if he has gotten potatoe worked out.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Congress 1, Paulson 0?
Some people act as if this were the OJ trial, where they only get one shot at it. They will circle the wagons and keep at it until it passes. But, at least they didn't just roll over. I'd like to think that Congress, made to pass the Patriot Act without reading it and green lighting the Iraq war after buying the load of horseshit pitched to it, has finally decided to push back.
{opens up locker, puts that next to deed to Brooklyn Bridge} It might just be more posturing.
But, even if unintended,the question to the banks is posed: WTF would y'all do if we didn't hand over the money?
I'm sure that the banks could get out of this mess if they had to...they just don't want have to use their own money to do so. Paulson doesn't have the financial system's needs or the People's needs in mind; he's looking to bail out his homies...with the People putting up the bail.
While I hate to have to hand over (more) money to these crooks, every panic/depression in US history went down because the banks couldn't/wouldn't supply money. Would the banks scuttle the financial system to be spiteful and/or predatory (or in to save their asses)? I'm not sure if we, as a People, have the balls to find out and/or play the game.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Everybody gets it, the whole crew
You know shit is getting bad...in telling us to stay tuned to its "coverage" of the breakdown of our financial system, CNBC is playing actionmoviejingle. FishLips looks beaten. Dubya got this morning on and looked geuinely pissed. Either he's sore that they've made his brother look like a piker, or he must not like it when he can't crack jokes. I want to believe that he just wants to get the hell out of there.
With the this credit crisis ratcheted up another level, the government has stepped in to save AIG. It deemed that Lehman was not worth saving. This is all- I think- unprecedented in US history, where the government, through the FED, which it funded through T-Bills, has taken a position in a company. Surely, there's more to follow.
Is this a landmark point of the corporate state, a furthering of corporatism, or, perhaps more properly, corporatocracy...probably worth considering, but another game for another day.
Regardless, comparable level of government market intervention must have occurred during the Panic of 1907. Even then, it took J.P. Morgan to rally the banks to pull off the move the FED is now attempting. This time around, the banks don't appear so healthy. They own these non-performing assests
Somewhere along the line, maybe two or three days into my career, I- someone who only pretends to be smart- learned to never (all caps emphasis wouldn't do it justice, so imagine Yosemite Sam yelling "never") chase yield. I guess those in charge of this Ponzi scheme are too smart for their own good.
Both the causes and effects of the failures here are systemic. A la China, the citizens (taxpayers) have been told to sit down and shut up at every step, starting with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (didn't take that long for them to fuck up shit, did it?).
Of course, in China, whenever someone exhibits such (criminal, in my view) negligence, they usually get executed. These muthafuckas would be getting off lightly.
However, I favor capitalism over government intervention. My suggestion: Put the prosepect of a 30 or 40 year prison term in front of those deemed responsible, put out the Ken Lay poison pill punch bowl and let the market take its course.
With the this credit crisis ratcheted up another level, the government has stepped in to save AIG. It deemed that Lehman was not worth saving. This is all- I think- unprecedented in US history, where the government, through the FED, which it funded through T-Bills, has taken a position in a company. Surely, there's more to follow.
Is this a landmark point of the corporate state, a furthering of corporatism, or, perhaps more properly, corporatocracy...probably worth considering, but another game for another day.
Regardless, comparable level of government market intervention must have occurred during the Panic of 1907. Even then, it took J.P. Morgan to rally the banks to pull off the move the FED is now attempting. This time around, the banks don't appear so healthy. They own these non-performing assests
- directly
- in securitized form, through their brokerage/investment banking units
- exposed, via credit default swaps, through their insurance/inverstment banking units.
Somewhere along the line, maybe two or three days into my career, I- someone who only pretends to be smart- learned to never (all caps emphasis wouldn't do it justice, so imagine Yosemite Sam yelling "never") chase yield. I guess those in charge of this Ponzi scheme are too smart for their own good.
Both the causes and effects of the failures here are systemic. A la China, the citizens (taxpayers) have been told to sit down and shut up at every step, starting with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (didn't take that long for them to fuck up shit, did it?).
Of course, in China, whenever someone exhibits such (criminal, in my view) negligence, they usually get executed. These muthafuckas would be getting off lightly.
However, I favor capitalism over government intervention. My suggestion: Put the prosepect of a 30 or 40 year prison term in front of those deemed responsible, put out the Ken Lay poison pill punch bowl and let the market take its course.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Take this to the FED
Remember when I told y'all about how Congress is cooking up some credit card reform...and I didn't point y'all in the right direction? I've made it better. Thanks to some bird named Liz Pulliam Weston, we've now got some direction. She says that y'all got until August 4th, to make yourselves heard at the Fed, which will possibly recommend (and kind of impose not so sharp-toothed) regulation on the banks. I plagiarized the shit out of her specific suggestions, though not her thoughts/analysis, and (anonymously) fired off some lame-ass shit. I've so graciously posted it here. It says that over 19,000 submissions have been sent. Get on it.
Having made so many unwise loans and even more unwise investment portfolio decisions, the banks are in a position where they need cash. It is fully understandible that banks must be well-capitalized, for, quite simplified, if banks don't have money, nobody has money.
But, their unwise decisions (any savvy participant in securities market would know to never chase yield), should not be borne by the backs of the people, who, as it is, will surely have to fund a taxpayer bailout/subsidy. Banks with credit card divisions should not be given carte blanche to scalp credit card accountholders just because, as we are the lowest on the credit food chain, we are an easy mark.
Capitalism- where banks can take advantage of inefficiencies and people's own ignorance- is one thing; a corporate bordello- where banks are allowed to make all the rules, tilting the playing field to their advantage- is another.
Corporations (and related entities) already have more rights than people. The MBNA-supported (since swallowed up by Bank of America) bankrupcy law is one example, where corporations have a greater legal right to declare bankrupcy than citizens.
Another example is that banks can "export" interest rates across states more easily than people can (legally) transport guns across state lines.
Finally, the credit card companies have the right to alter your credit card agreement at any time and for any reason. Nominally, we have no negotiating rights; any attempt to alter those terms, it typically states, would result in cancellation of the account agreement (read: they will close your account faster than they can wipe their asses with the paper on which you wrote your "amendments.").
In practice, of course, we do have negotiating powers (not rights), subject to our leverage and credit scores. Unless one has a credit score- which has dubious underlying logic and serious underlying reporting issues- of 760 or above, one is fighting uphill.
Among the practices that should be banned is retroactive re-pricing, or jacking up the rate on an existing credit card balance, for any reason other than the customer paying late. This would be on a par with welching.
On the subject of late payments, we must eliminate arbitrary due times, which make a payment late if it arrives on the due date but does so after, say, 1 p.m. Central time. How can this effectively be proven or dis-proven? The mail comes post-marked, but not time-stamped.
Eliminate double-cycle billing, which essentially charges two months' interest on a balance carried only one month.
Unfair payment allocation, in which the issuer applies your monthly payment only to your lowest-rate balance (typically a balance transfer), so that your higher-rate balances- typically purchases and cash advances- continue to accrue interest. No one of sound mind would agree to such an allocation, so banks should not have the right to impose such terms.
Bait-and-switch offers, in which one interest rate is heavily advertised but applicants wind up with another, much higher one. Banks know- through "soft" inquiries"- the approximate credit rating of each person to whom they make an offer. So, especially given all the impositions they make upon the cardholders, if a cardholder is going to be subjected to a "hard" credit inquiry, the banks should have to make a firm offer beforehand.
Ban the charging overdraft fees based on holds. Certain merchants (gas stations, hotels, car rental outfits) are notorious for placing big holds on your checking account when you use a debit card. These holds are typically for far more than you actually spend and may not be released for hours or even days after the transactions, yet some banks count these holds as actual transactions and charge fees as if you'd actually overdrawn your account. The consumer (though the parent company of the bank may own such merchants) certainly has no control over the amount of a hold and these holds are not subject to any binding regulation, industry standard or even custom and usage. The only person at risk here, through no action of our own, is the consumer.
Along those lines, ban mandatory bounce protection, or "courtesy overdraft" coverage, that can't be turned off, which means overdraft transactions automatically get approved and rack up big fees, hardly a courtesy. It's one thing for consumers to knowingly exceed their limits and it's not the government's responsibility- though it will do so for the banks- to save one from one's own unwise spending habits. But, such an option- and, indeed, notice- should be presented to the consumer before the actual transaction and resulting imposition of fees. Unbeknownst to the consumer, there may be an exorbitant hold, as explained above, placed on the account by a merchant. More generally, the consumer should be instantly armed with any information about the account that the issuer already knows.
Imagine, for a hot minute, that The People had the right to tell the card company that sending unnecessary materials (like when they send offers to buy pens with your statement), literature or other items (and The People have the right to determine that qualifies as unnecessary and an item) gives a cardholder the right to impose up to a $50 handling fee (for each item) on the banks, payable by a reduction in the account balance (at the cardholder's option, of course). Though this is not nearly as unfair as the terms imposed by the card companies, this would have the executives at the credit card companies (and their lobbyists) up in arms.
For once, they would know how the consumer feels.
Having made so many unwise loans and even more unwise investment portfolio decisions, the banks are in a position where they need cash. It is fully understandible that banks must be well-capitalized, for, quite simplified, if banks don't have money, nobody has money.
But, their unwise decisions (any savvy participant in securities market would know to never chase yield), should not be borne by the backs of the people, who, as it is, will surely have to fund a taxpayer bailout/subsidy. Banks with credit card divisions should not be given carte blanche to scalp credit card accountholders just because, as we are the lowest on the credit food chain, we are an easy mark.
Capitalism- where banks can take advantage of inefficiencies and people's own ignorance- is one thing; a corporate bordello- where banks are allowed to make all the rules, tilting the playing field to their advantage- is another.
Corporations (and related entities) already have more rights than people. The MBNA-supported (since swallowed up by Bank of America) bankrupcy law is one example, where corporations have a greater legal right to declare bankrupcy than citizens.
Another example is that banks can "export" interest rates across states more easily than people can (legally) transport guns across state lines.
Finally, the credit card companies have the right to alter your credit card agreement at any time and for any reason. Nominally, we have no negotiating rights; any attempt to alter those terms, it typically states, would result in cancellation of the account agreement (read: they will close your account faster than they can wipe their asses with the paper on which you wrote your "amendments.").
In practice, of course, we do have negotiating powers (not rights), subject to our leverage and credit scores. Unless one has a credit score- which has dubious underlying logic and serious underlying reporting issues- of 760 or above, one is fighting uphill.
Among the practices that should be banned is retroactive re-pricing, or jacking up the rate on an existing credit card balance, for any reason other than the customer paying late. This would be on a par with welching.
On the subject of late payments, we must eliminate arbitrary due times, which make a payment late if it arrives on the due date but does so after, say, 1 p.m. Central time. How can this effectively be proven or dis-proven? The mail comes post-marked, but not time-stamped.
Eliminate double-cycle billing, which essentially charges two months' interest on a balance carried only one month.
Unfair payment allocation, in which the issuer applies your monthly payment only to your lowest-rate balance (typically a balance transfer), so that your higher-rate balances- typically purchases and cash advances- continue to accrue interest. No one of sound mind would agree to such an allocation, so banks should not have the right to impose such terms.
Bait-and-switch offers, in which one interest rate is heavily advertised but applicants wind up with another, much higher one. Banks know- through "soft" inquiries"- the approximate credit rating of each person to whom they make an offer. So, especially given all the impositions they make upon the cardholders, if a cardholder is going to be subjected to a "hard" credit inquiry, the banks should have to make a firm offer beforehand.
Ban the charging overdraft fees based on holds. Certain merchants (gas stations, hotels, car rental outfits) are notorious for placing big holds on your checking account when you use a debit card. These holds are typically for far more than you actually spend and may not be released for hours or even days after the transactions, yet some banks count these holds as actual transactions and charge fees as if you'd actually overdrawn your account. The consumer (though the parent company of the bank may own such merchants) certainly has no control over the amount of a hold and these holds are not subject to any binding regulation, industry standard or even custom and usage. The only person at risk here, through no action of our own, is the consumer.
Along those lines, ban mandatory bounce protection, or "courtesy overdraft" coverage, that can't be turned off, which means overdraft transactions automatically get approved and rack up big fees, hardly a courtesy. It's one thing for consumers to knowingly exceed their limits and it's not the government's responsibility- though it will do so for the banks- to save one from one's own unwise spending habits. But, such an option- and, indeed, notice- should be presented to the consumer before the actual transaction and resulting imposition of fees. Unbeknownst to the consumer, there may be an exorbitant hold, as explained above, placed on the account by a merchant. More generally, the consumer should be instantly armed with any information about the account that the issuer already knows.
Imagine, for a hot minute, that The People had the right to tell the card company that sending unnecessary materials (like when they send offers to buy pens with your statement), literature or other items (and The People have the right to determine that qualifies as unnecessary and an item) gives a cardholder the right to impose up to a $50 handling fee (for each item) on the banks, payable by a reduction in the account balance (at the cardholder's option, of course). Though this is not nearly as unfair as the terms imposed by the card companies, this would have the executives at the credit card companies (and their lobbyists) up in arms.
For once, they would know how the consumer feels.
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