You're Probably An Elitist If...

Virgin Ben Shapiro, the godawful scion of two Ivy League educated Reaganauts and himself an Ivy League graduate, has pontificated on how Barack Obama and his liberal minions are elitists.

Indeed, he's even written a list of qualities to assist in identifying elitists!

In true FReeper fashion, he's ignored a few. I'd like to flesh out his list for him:

If you know a polo player, you're probably an elitist.

If you went to an Ivy League school without an affirmative action scholarship, you're probably an elitist.

If you drink martinis wearing a suit and a tie, you're probably an elitist.

If you've ever smoked a Cuban cigar, you're probably an elitist.

If you know anyone who has a chauffeur, you're probably an elitist.

If you went to a prep school, you're probably an elitist.

If you live in a gated community, or were raised in one, you're probably an elitist.

If your dad (or mom, to be politically correct) made most of her income last year from stock options that the board of directors voted him, you're probably an elitist.

If you ride in the corporate jet, you're probably an elitist.

If you have a golden parachute, you're probably an elitist.

If you have a portfolio that includes more than a Charles Schwab account and a few CDs, you're probably an elitist.

If you own an original Rembrandt, you're probably an elitist.

If your idea of a "drink after work with the guys" includes a stop at Harry's Bar on Hanover Square, or any Morton's restaurant, you're probably an elitist.

If you've ever played croquet or lawn bowling and HAD TO WEAR WHITE, you're probably an elitist.

If you've ever been to a cotillion, a debutante ball, or a "coming out party" for a girl of teenage years (not the "out of the closet" kind), you're probably an elitist.

If you have ANY friend who is proudly called Muffy, Biff, or Dexter, you're probably an elitist.

If your friends include more than one person who uses two initials in addition to a first and last name ("C. Russell M. Taibi"), you're probably an elitist.

If your household help...well, you're probably an elitist right there, but...if your household help addresses you by your professional title, you're probably an elitist.

If you've voted Republican for the last four Presidential cycles because, goshdarn, Barry Goldwater said you should always vote Republican, you're probably an elitist.

If you've never set foot in a store in Harlem, despite the fact that your commuter train stops there daily, you're probably an elitist.

If you can discuss the finer distinctions between Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, you're probably an elitist.

If your make of car has two names (e.g. Rolls Royce), you're probably an elitist.

If your house has more bathrooms than there are residents, you're probably an elitist.

If you can name the last three squash world champions or have attended the world championship at least once, you're probably an elitist.

If you can tie your own bowtie, you're probably an elitist.

Finally, if you're in your twenties, are male, attended an Ivy League college and proudly claim you never got laid, even by a townie, YOU'RE AN ELITIST!

Friday Music Blogging

NIN - Closer

Everyone thinks this song's title is "Fuck You Like An Animal," but it's not! This video always creeps me out and in keeping with the kind of Halloween scary spirit of the blog today...

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) BREAKING: Election prediction: McCain wins by one vote; porn star Peak Anger blamed! (h/t Miss Cellania)

2) Election Prediction #1: Actor212 will easily win his bid to be elected NotPresident. In a strong show of cross-party voting, Democrats, Republicans and Independents gave him such an huge mandate, he even won some votes in the general Presidential election!

3) Election Prediction #2: Despite Actor212's strong showing, Barack Obama won the election for US President with over 300 electoral votes.

4) You guys outside of New York (and Pittsburgh and a pale imitation in Green Bay...New York's was the original) never got Chiller Theatre, but it's BACK! For one night only, CW11 (formerly independent station WPIX, channel 11) will broadcast the groundbreaking horror film series "Chiller Theatre" with original host, Zacherle! Once you've seen this intro...

...you'll understand why kids all around the tri-state area were glued to their sets.

5) In other scary news...total consumer credit card debt in the third quarter of 2008 stood at $2.6 trillion dollars. Now that the mortgage industry is going thru it's workout phase, there's another monster in the grass: there's still ONE TRILLION DOLLARS in available, high risk unsecured credit card debt out there, just waiting to be used. This ain't over by a long shot.

6) Welcome to the party, Al!

7) This story smells funny. When even Michelle Malkin won't touch it with a ten foot pole, you know there's something weird going on. Personally, I believe she had a confrontation and probably, um, embellished the story a little, but I'll wait for the ATM camera evidence.

UPDATE: Like I said...I hate being right all the time...

8) Unusually cautiously, the Times has jumped on the Obama bandwagon.

9) Yet another smear by the right wing. This time, Gateway Pundit, who really ought to try the decaf brands, tries to paint Obama as a "whitey hater" by lifting a quote entirely (and clearly) out of context.

10) McCain family values, indeed!

11) When you lose the Goldwater family, the conservative icons from your own home state, you've fucked up royally!

12) If you had any money left in the stock markets this morning, kiss it bye bye!

13) They don't have the evidence, yet(i)!

(showing Memeorandum the luvvvvvvvvvvvv)

A New Beginning

Barack Obama has taken a couple of days from campaigning to attend to family matters. We here at Simply Left Behind, including ThumbPer, offer our prayers and hopes for Granny Obama's swift recovery.

As I stood in the shower with little to do except rinse, I pondered American history, and it occured to me that we have reached yet another crossroads for our nation.

It seems to happen every three generations or so, roughly every hundred years, and I'm not sure that it's a coincidence that it happens near the turn of a century.

Events in this decade will echo until the next century, in other words. The pattern is pretty immistakable: an attack on the American economy, followed by a blunderous decision to go to war, followed by a mad scramble to rectify the troubles we've created, followed by a mid-century conflagration the likes of which we hope never to see again.

A brief look back: In 1807, the American frigate Chesapeake was boarded with nary a fight by sailors from the British warship Leopard, on the pretext of searching for deserters. Four were found, only one of which was actually British: three Americans, two black and one white, were also seized.

Ironically, the event itself turned out fairly well for the Americans: only the British sailor was actually tried and hung, while the Americans were eventually returned to America, and Britain offered to pay reparations for damages to Chesapeake

However, this incident did force the passage of the Embargo Actof 1807, which led directly to the War of 1812. The Embargo Act was a pretty dumb idea (conceived by arguably one of the smartest men in history, Thomas Jefferson). America had tried to remain neutral in the French-English conflicts then brewing, and had this act not been passed, likely could have avoided the War of 1812 altogether.

That war saw Americans attacked directly in their own homeland, something that would not happen again until September 11, 2001.

The war begat the era of expansionism, the Monroe Doctrine (buhbye Native Americans), manifest destiny, and an overall sense of hubris and domination on the part of all American citizens, which culminated of course in the Civil War, one of the most humbling experiences any nation can confront.

Skip ahead a few decades to the 1900s, and the Great Panic of 1907. This is an interesting crossroads in history, because some much of what we know today of the Federal Government-- The Federal Reserve, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Federal income tax-- finds its roots in this crisis.

In a nutshell, the United States nearly went bankrupt because of the greed of two men: Otto Heinze and Charles Morse, who cornered the market first in ice, and then attempted to corner the market in copper by forcing his brother Augustus to abandon his company.

The mechanics of the scheme are complex (altho it does involve short selling, which is an underpinning of the current crisis), and suffice it to say, Otto failed. Miserably. Instead of driving the price of Auggie's company up, it dropped precipitously.

Otto Heinze's brokerage collapsed under the weight of its debts, money borrowed to finance this sceheme using shares of the copper company as collateral.

Worse, many banks that owned stock in the copper company as collateral also collapsed, the flip side of these transactions, as the price dropped.

Banks affiliated with those banks, so-called correspondent banks, like Mercantile Bank of New York, began to suffer under the weight of the outstanding loans they had made to the banks that held these worthless shares as collateral.

Sounding familiar? Like banks that owned the derivatives of worthless mortgages that weighed on the books of the banks that lent the money to shareholders today?

There was a run on Mercantile, which led to a run on all the money center banks, and banks were running out of money. Banks were reluctant to lend to other banks so that those banks could lend to customers, and as a result, the stock markets collapsed.

Boy, this really DOES sound familiar!

And so on. In 1912, as a result of this crisis, President Woodrow Wilson established the Federal Reserve, thus ceding the printing and issuance of American currency to a quasi-private enterprise composed of many of the large money center bankers (the precise list of board members is unknown).

Wilson's trade policies were at the center of America's entry into World War I. He was a free trader, lowering tariffs wherever possible and trying to remain strictly neutral in the European conflict, using the central bank to keep money flowing freely.

Both Germany, by attacking American shipping including the Lusitania, and England, by embargoing Germany, tested American neutrality. Wilson managed to avoid going to war on either side, of course, until his second term when Germany tried to recruit Mexico as an ally.

And World War I begat American global influence with the Fourteen Points, the League Of Nations and our participation in the Treaty of Versailles, which begat World War II and so on...

And then there was September 11. Which begat the Bush attacks on American governance and oversight, filling the Federal government with the hubris that the markets could police themselves while we attempted to engage in a dual homeland security/ego-driven war policy overseas.

Which begat our current financial pickle.

History comforts us with the knowledge that somehow, things work out for the short term better, and that it doesn't particularly matter whether the President in office is particularly intelligent, like Jefferson, or particularly principled, like Wilson. Somehow, things work out.

That's not the most comforting thought imaginable, but what's past is prologue and it is a new hope for us all.

I Am A Real American

I was born in this great nation. I was born to two people, one of whom was born here, and moved abroad as a young girl, the other born abroad and moved here after the war to find his opportunity, to two people who loved this nation.

My father was awarded one of the most prestigious civilian awards for his service to both this nation and his homeland, a value he made certain to instill in all of us from a young age.

I won't get into the myriad of accolades I've received as a citizen of the United States, but they started as a young child, and have continued into adulthood. I shouldn't have to wear my various medals and post my various certificates on the wall of my house.

But according to some in this nation, I am not a real American. Indeed, according to some, I am anti-American.

Sarah Palin:

Speaking at a fund-raiser in North Carolina, the Alaska governor said: "We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation."

Michelle Bachmann:

“Absolutely. I’m very concerned that he [Obama] may have anti-American views,” she said.

It seems to me that some small-time hoodlum Congresscritter from a flyover state once ran this scam on America. Lemme think...Joe...McDonald? McCasey? McCain?

I can't recall.

In Palin's defense, she offers up an apology:

Democrats and others immediately criticized Palin, alleging she was saying that some part of the country are more patriotic than others.

Palin denied that was her intention in an interview with CNN on Tuesday.

"I don't want that misunderstood," Palin said. "If that's the way it came across, I apologize."

To put this weak-kneed response in perspective, say Sarah Palin ran over your dog:

If indeed it was my car, it was not my intent to run over your dog and if I did happen to squash Fluffy under the wheels of my Hummer, and there's no proof of that despite the word "Hummer" tattooed on his ass, if that's the case, I apologize for your misperception

What is it with Republicans and responsibility that they simply can't take any?

If this meme was limited to these two rather desperately moronic Republicans, then I'd be tempted to say "justice will be served on November 4," and ignore it.

But it's pretty clear that the Republicans have decided to declare class warfare on America:

On MSNBC this morning, McCain adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer asserted that “real Virginia” does not include Northern Virginia:

I certainly agree that Northern Virginia has gone more Democratic. … But the rest of the state — real Virginia if you will — I think will be very responsive to Senator McCain’s message.

MSNBC host Kevin Corke gave Pfotenhauer a chance to revise her answer, telling her: “Nancy, I’m going to give you a chance to climb back off that ledge — Did you say ‘real Virginia’?”

But Pfotenhauer didn’t budge, and instead dug a deeper hole.

Real Virginia, I take to be, this part of the state that’s more Southern in nature, if you will.

Corke ended the segment noting that Pfotenhauer was appearing via satellite from Northern Virginia. “Nancy Pfotenhauer, senior policy adviser for the McCain campaign, joining us from Arlington, not really Virginia.” “Alright, I’m just gonna let ya– you’ll wear that one,” Corke responded. Watch it:

So this was not a slip of the tongue. This was not a tossed off insult in the heat of the moment, when one might get worked up and exaggerate one's point.

No, all three of these have been a coordinated attack on anyone who is Democratic or lives in a blue state, which means this is a campaign tactic. I'd say "strategy" but it's clear McCain has none.

You know what? After six years of "real Americans" running the Congress, the Presidency and the courts, and after eight years of "real Americans" running two thirds of this government, maybe "real America" just ought to take a hint from Jon Stewart's reaction and shut the fuck up already.

Real Americans, you know, the ones who built and shaped this nation into the greatest economic power that the world has ever known, into the most innovative and progressive knowledge base in the history of the frikkin' universe, who created and destroyed and rebuilt this nation over and over again, are getting a little tired of listening to people decide who is American and who is not.

Real Americans, who own your gas stations, and teach your kids, yes, right through college, who fight your wars, who do your plumbing, who hope for that one shot at the brass ring that is the American Dream, are tired of being pitted one against the other to determine who is a patriot and who is not, as if America was some horribly tragic reality show, "Survivor America".

Real Americans live in cities and suburbs and small towns, and on farms and in mansions.

Real Americans drive jalopies and bicycles and ride in limos.

Real Americans don't criticize their fellow Americans because real Americans understand that as great as this nation is, we each of us still have to survive day to day, all the time watching our money get stolen and off-shored by the cronies of the Palins and Pfotenhauers and Bachmanns, who let it go without protest, because their money is safely invested with those folks who take our money and deposit it on Bermuda or the Cayman Islands.

Real Americans are us. Not you, Sarah Palin, not you, Michelle Bachmann, and not you, Nancy Pfotenhauer.

And me. I am a real American.

UPDATE: Seriously, Republicans, shut the fuck up!

Can I Get An "AMEN", Brothers and Sisters????

One could only hope for this:

SHOULD Barack Obama win the presidency and Democrats take full control of Congress, next year will see a real legislative attempt to bring back the Fairness Doctrine - and to diminish conservatives' influence on broadcast radio, the one medium they dominate.

Yes, the Obama campaign said some months back that the candidate doesn't seek to re-impose this regulation, which, until Ronald Reagan's FCC phased it out in the 1980s, required TV and radio broadcasters to give balanced airtime to opposing viewpoints or face steep fines or even loss of license. But most Democrats - including party elders Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Al Gore - strongly support the idea of mandating "fairness."

It's funny. I never really noticed how much I missed the disclaimer that my local television stations had to broadcast.

See, when some moron, say, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, would wrangle a moment of air time from the local television outlet, a) he was forced to keep his comments factual and polite, and b) the station was forced to "provide free air time for responsible spokespeople of opposing views."

In 1980, sensing an opening, the broadcast media, owned and operated in many instances by stridently right wing corporatists with an agenda (think Richard Mellon Scaife) prevailed upon Ronald Reagan's FCC to do away with the Fairness Doctrine, thus eliminating reasoned discourse presented for the public enlightenment.

The Fairness Doctrine was introduced in 1949 by the FCC, but until 1969 was usually applied on a case-by-case basis.

In 1969, journalist Fred Cook was torn to shreds on the radio program of the Rev. Billy James Hargis. Attacked personally for writing a book about Barry Goldwater, Cook argued before the Supreme Court that the FCC doctrine implied the right to free and equal time to respond to the scandalous (and nearly slanderous) charges levelled.

At first blush, it may seem that this was not a matter for the Courts to decide, free enterprise, First Amendment and all, but the SCOTUS took note of the fact that the airwaves were a public trust overseen by the Congress and therefore were actually public domain. As a public trust, there was no reason the government couldn't require such a doctrine and upheld Cook's complaint.

(The other thing the Fairness Doctrine required was programming "in the public interest" which is why your rock or hip-hop station broadcasts those bizarre programs really early on Sunday morning, like herbal medicine shows or community affairs programming.)

When the Reagan administration effectively eviscerated the Fairness Doctrine, it created Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Monica Crowley, Michael Savage and any number of right wing knuckleheads whose only claim to fame is being potty-mouthed and willing to be paid for it.

It also created Stephanie Miller, Air America Radio, Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann.

I apply the Fairness Doctrine to my columns, you see... ;-)

This deregulation of the broadcast market, along with the consolidation of power amongst five mammoth content distributors, created the hugely right wing media goliath that we have today.

It is no secret the agenda that General Electric, Disney, and the others have established: entertain at the expense of informing. Don't tell the truth, tell a masking of truth. Put lipstick on a pig and trot it out as a beauty queen. Tout "American Idol" rather than America's failures in Iraq.

In short, cry havoc and unleash the dogs of war on the people of the United States. Beat us into submission until we no longer care, and never EVER let a responsible spokesperson with an opposing point of view have any air time whatsoever, except in a context where he can be edited and mocked into submission.

Mr. Anderson's article, as panicked as it is (after all, he works for Rupert Murdoch, who made his life's fortune on being a strident partisan and suppressing rational discussion), points out the enormous success lying on the radio has had.

It's about time it stopped. He cites the First Amendment, but as anyone with a speck of understanding can see, the First Amendment is under more savage attacks without the Fairness Doctrine than with.

What Anderson is more concerned with (and his article amply demonstrates) is comfort. The comfort of not having one's views challenged substantively. The comfort of being truly elitist because one is truly ignorant. The comfort of being, in short, an idiot.

So "amen" to the Fairness Doctrine, and long may she oversee the dialogue of this great nation.

What Part Of "Comedy" Do You NOT Understand?

Here is the Jon Stewart piece from Boston.

Here is the reaction of Mary Katharine Ham at The Weekly Standard (click at your own risk)

The media has devoted hundreds of stories of late to the tenor of audience comments at McCain-Palin rallies, fretting about "rage" and "incitement" by the campaign, but the only account of Stewart's appearance is a one-sentence mention in the Boston Globe, and his abusive Palin comments are not included.

Now, admittedly, this is not Stewart's funniest bit. I think the network censors force his comedic stylings to focus on delivery, more than content.

But to equate a stand-up comedian to these folks:

Or these folks:

Hammie, that kinda smacks of desperation, dontcha think? I would like to believe that the "wing" that has both Rush Limbaugh AND Glenn Beck, two avowed "comedians", would understand that sometimes humour gets angry, humour gets ugly, and humour makes a point.

Sorry your skirts are ruffled, Hammie, but Stewart's points are spot on: the cities and suburbs ARE where most of the people in America live and you know what? Maybe those folks in small town America have some wisdom that we SOphisticated city folk don't, but I'd like to see one walk from Wall Street to Harlem, just once, without a frikkin' map and GPS system.

And understand that running a country is a LOT HARDER than negotiating a simple grid formation (north is higher street numbers, east is lower avenue numbers, etc.)

Perhaps your fainting couch is in dire need of a visit, Hammie?

(show Memeorandum the love, gang!)

A Bit Of Comic Relief

Offered without further comment:

I can't prove it, but I suspect that the DOJ is as "tainted" as the FEC. Various FEC auditors have reported that they received orders that they are NOT to investigate anything to do with Obama's campaign financing, or campaign irregularities - only McCain's. Rumors have it DOJ has gone the same way. Paulson and Soros now own Bush - it's an inside takeover that's already done.

It's also fairly common knowledge that that agencies like the NSA and CIA are also full of democratic sympathizers, and it's quite likely that this is the also the case at the DOJ. There IS a reason such a big deal was made out of Bush removing a Federal Attorney, while nothing at all was mentioned about Clinton removing 240. It was to prevent Bush from taking action against any other Clinton appointees anywhere else. Better take a look at how many of these guys are either Clinton appointees or Democratic "sympathizers". There won't be any action from the DOJ on this, and anything that makes it to court will be delayed until after the election and swearing in ceremony.

Also, there is a reason Obama has already planned his victory party, and the headlines announcing his victory have already been written, just awaiting November 5th publication. Telcoms are under control like the media, just hasn't come out yet. Whole freaking infrastructure has been conquered without a single shot fired - all 5th column stuff.

Consider this - what happens when the networks - ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN - ignore actual voting numbers and simply make up their own, provided by Obama central command? They put on a show that has Obama winning by a landslide in all 50 states as they sweep across the country during election night. Next morning the NY Times and LA Times headlines announce the "Obama Landslide".

What % of the population would know better? What would the consequences be, and what % would just fall for it? Better give this some thought - because something like this appears to be in the works. I don't dare say any more than this, but let me assure you that there are PLENTY of dirty tricks yet to come - nearly EVERYTHING that has taken place up until this point has just been a disctraction, a red herring, including the obvious media bias. Better wake up and look around - the NY and LA Times certainly isn't going to report on anything, and start looking PAST the obvious things that are going on...

Listen everyone - this rabbit hole runs MUCH, MUCH deeper here than anyone has even BEGUN to realize yet. This whole thing has been in "the works" for 10+ years now - funded by tens of billions of dollars worth of George Soros' and his associates money - so much so that the Dems are completely blatant about things now - they don't even care about holding an election at this point - things are rigged so they CAN'T LOSE. They don't care about being called on fraud, or anything else - they won't be called on it, and even if some do-good State AJ happened to bring something up, well, they have enough judges in the right places to take care of things if anything does happen to "come up".

Bottom line - They already know they have this completely sewn up and have no need to worry about anything as inconvenient as an "actual vote". This is a coup d’état in progress, not an election - if you think any different, then try to get someone in the FEC to examine how much money BHO has and where it came from. Won't happen. Try to get someone in DOJ to find out why the FEC isn't investigating. Won't happen. GET THIS THROUGH YOUR THICK HEADS - THERE WILL BE UN "PEACEKEEPERS" on AMERICAN SOIL after this election to "DEAL WITH THE VIOLENCE" - no small number of them KENYAN. THIS IS A FREAKING COUP D'ETAT IN PROGRESS, NOT AN ELECTION, and IT'S damn near a FAIT ACCOMPLI at this point. I DON'T THINK IT CAN BE STOPPED. UNDERSTAND???

Somebody had better start digging into Obama's mysterious and hidden background - birth, school transcripts, etc. - because there's more hidden there than anyone realizes, and there is still something that they are deathly afraid of coming to light until after the election. Berg Versus Obama and the DNC might be a good place to start. There are less than 3 weeks left to do something about this. November 5th will be too late. Forget the DOJ and FEC - they aren't going to be helpful. I'm getting the hell out while travel still hasn't been restricted by martial law...

OK, one comment: Life During Wartime.
Talking Heads

I Love This Election!

I love this election so much I think I want to have sex with it...

If the current polls hold, Barack Obama will win the White House on November 4 and Democrats will consolidate their Congressional majorities, probably with a filibuster-proof Senate or very close to it. Without the ability to filibuster, the Senate would become like the House, able to pass whatever the majority wants.

Though we doubt most Americans realize it, this would be one of the most profound political and ideological shifts in U.S. history. Liberals would dominate the entire government in a way they haven't since 1965, or 1933. In other words, the election would mark the restoration of the activist government that fell out of public favor in the 1970s. If the U.S. really is entering a period of unchecked left-wing ascendancy, Americans at least ought to understand what they will be getting, especially with the media

I've railed ever since the Reagan administration about the pendulum, and how it swings in both directions and liberals would get their turn again at behind the wheel.

The nation is not a unitary monolith of ignorance or intellectualism. Instead, it is a living, breathing being, as capable of changing its mind and its heart as anyone of us, and now we're seeing the realization that progress happens, that liberalism, for whatever perceived flaws were magnified and exaggerated by the right, has its benefits to everyone.

And once we've persuaded the majority that we will not hurt them, that we are not the scary monsters we've been made out to be, oh what a glorious day awaits America and the world!

Get ready for it, folks. Please leave in comments the one thing you'd like to see a liberal super-majority accomplish.

(feeling da love from Memeorandum)

Nobody Asked Me, But....

1) Who knew? I would have thought it smelled just like chicken!

2) Well, clearly, here's a functional family.*polite cough*

3) W.W.O.D.?

4) If John McCain had been as funny on the hustings as he was at the Al Smith Dinner last night, this might actually be a race.

5) And Obama, who has shown flashes of witty sarcasm on the trail, could use a little of this loosening up himself.

6) (If you are video-impaired, here's a pretty good recap)

7) First, Russia bailed out Iceland. Now, China is bailing out Pakistan. You young-uns may not recall, but there was a time when the United States could bail out other nations...

8) I'd lay good money Sarah Palin has something to do with this story.

9) Reviews indicate that this movie will actually paint a sympathetic portrait of Dumbya, a man who is overwhelmed by events, genetics, and his own bad decisions. And here I was expecting a comedy!

10) Speaking of comedy and politics (seems to be today's theme), I wonder how An American Carol will fare at the box office this weekend?

Even McCain Knows It's Over

 

Debate number three is in the books now. This picture pretty much sums up the state of affairs. Senator Obama is walking away from Senator McCain, who will now be forced to kiss the ass of his opponent in order to get anything done in the Senate.

 

Unintentional, this photo may be (McCain tripped slightly as he pivoted to leave the stage), but in our unintentional moments, we reveal more about ourselves than when we try to mean something.

 

I purposely missed the debates this year after the early ones that the Democrats had (once I made up my mind, I saw no reason to make comparisons any longer). I was more interested in the reactions others had, and I wanted to be a clean slate, having no opinion of my own.

 

The Christian Science Monitor has been following the campaign with a "Patchwork Nation" theme: carefully selecting communities across the country that represent different sectors of voting Americans (some surprisingly sophisticated and nuanced choices there), they've contact representatives of each community at critical points along the way.

 

Last night was no different:

Down in Clermont, Fla. (our aging "Emptying Nest" community), Ann Dupee, a retiree, wrote, "For the first time he came out feisty. Too bad he hasn't been showing emotion all these months."

And in Baton Rouge, La. (our heavily African-American "Minority Central" community), Ed Pratt, a media-relations representative for Southern University, wrote that he didn't think McCain won but that he "was stronger tonight than at the other debates." Mr. Pratt added, "He was aggressive and tough."

But another correspondent in Clermont, who asked not to be named due to local sensitivities, was less taken with McCain's approach. "Senator McCain was often agitated and seemed at times that he was coming unglued," he wrote.

Out in Lincoln City, Ore. (our lower-income "Service Worker Center"), Patchwork Nation blogger Kip Ward, owner of the local Historic Anchor Inn, wrote that McCain's approach turned people off. He watched the debate with a half-dozen people at the hotel.

"All felt Obama won hands down," he wrote in an e-mail. "It doesn't really matter what either said. Most people will forget most of that by tomorrow. What matters again is that Barack looked cool, and presidential. McCain's head looked like it was going to pop, his eyes were bulging, and his face was contorting."

So the consensus seems to be, "Too little, too late". Obama's strong emphasis on policy over attacks seems to have won the day for him, and McCain has neither the intellectual forebearance nor the intestintal fortitude to deviate from the boilerplate Republican strategy: attack, smear, and attack some more.

 

"Fear is the mind-killer". Someone should really tape that up on the RNC headquarters wall. Abraham Lincoln is famously quoted as saying, "You can fool some of the people all of the time (ed. note: you listening, evangelicals?) and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."

 

Unfortunately for true political dialogue and the good and welfare of this nation, the GOP has run a campaign based on what amounts to a flea circus, trotting out the next distraction before you realize there was nothing in the first distraction but some wires and a motor.

 

Yes, I just called Sarah Palin a Stepford Wife!

 

This "Joe The Plumber" trope was an interesting debate point: neither side seemed to have real answers for him:

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Based on those comments he's made to NBC news since the debate, one has to think that he's not crazy about either candidate, but is leaning towards McCain. Even then, it sounds like he's holding his nose to vote.

 

It's a pity that someone hasn't made clear to Joe that his business is not likely to make a whole lot more than $250,000 a year for a while if ever and that, you know something? If it does, God bless him and now it's time to give a little bit back to the folks who make it possible to own a business and run it, and to help pave the same path he's just chopped out of the forest of opportunity.

 

It's the Christian thing to do!

 

So, Johnny, pucker up! Because it's going to be a long cold lonely winter for you.

 

 

A Personal Note

Happy birthday, Dad. You would have turned 90 today. I figure you're either looking down or up at this.

Doods, Dis Es Juss So RONG!

WTF?

The terrible Peruvian cat-eating spree has a name: La Festival Gastronomico del Gato. Or for those of you who don't speak Spanish—the Gastronomic Festival of the Cat.[...]

"They eat cat for tradition, but according to the townspeople, these are cats that come from special nurseries, they are not the cats that you'd frequently encounter in the streets. There exists a diversity of preparations: Cat Stew, Milanese of Cat, fried cat strips, grilled cat with Huacatay, among others. The most common is the cat stew. This year, they featured the dish Grilled Cat with Huacatay, but every year they present a different dish.

"The flavor is like the meat of a rabbit, and they say it's very delicious. I particularly have not had the opportunity to sample these plates, but I hope that next year I can try them. Perhaps you could visit us and have it in the next festival. That promises to be a grand gastronomic festival. It is a pleasure to chat with you. Kindest regards, Nilda [Nilda Pariona, who works for the regional government]."

DIS MUSS STOP OR WE GO SCARTCH DEY IZE OUT!

Who's wiff me????

I Wash My Hands Of You All!

I bet you didn't know today was Global Handwashing Day...

In India, cricket star Sachin Tendulkar will be leading the campaign that will see children across South Asia simultaneously washing their hands.

The UN says it wants to get over the message that this simple routine is one of the most effective ways of preventing killer diseases.

Nearly half the world's population do not have access to adequate sanitation.

Leave it to the Beeb to understate the case, a little.

According to the United Nations' "Water For Life Decade" campaign, upwards of four billion people live with water scarcity every day, as defined by demand exceeding local supply. Note that this figure includes several portions of the United States, most notably the Southwest.

Included in this percentage is about 1.1 billion people who simply have no access to safe drinking water, period. That's three times the size of the United States population. Imagine if every man, woman, and child in the US had to drink sewer water to survive.

Some of these people may have access to a gallon of water a day or less! Imagine being given a gallon jug every day, and told that you can have only that, for drinking, bathing, and cooking, each day, every day. And there's no guarantee it's clean!

Water scarcity is particularly a woman's issue, as well. In many societies, it is the woman who is tasked with obtaining clean fresh water for drinking, washing and cooking (images of African tribeswomen with jars on their heads should immediately confirm this intuitively).

We in America, with our broad swaths of temperate rain forests, forget how hard some countries, some people, have it with even the most basic subsistence materiel.

So go wash your hands, and then go online, spread the word, and donate. Skip one bottle of Poland Spring or Dasani or Aquafina (and if you're still drinking bottled water after all the talk about landfills and plastic bottles, then this is one more reason you should give it up), and give that $1 or two to WaterAid.

Then go wash your hands once again. You don't know where that keyboard's been!

(much love to Memeorandum for showing me the love and featuring this post)

Stick A Fork In Him

You Ask, "How Desperate?"

I answer "This desperate":

1) OBAMA SEX PERV SCANDAL - Apparently, the right wing, not content with the reaction that Bill Ayres got from the general public, has now decided to paint Obama as the ally of child molesters. Mark Foley, anyone?

2) A New Wrinkle (or Unwrinkle) in the Campaign: The Biden Brow - GASP! A politician who has had Botox treatments! Wow, who could imagine a politician could be so vain?

3) Fighting Words - Drunk right wing blogger sets up straw man, dukes it out with him in his imagination and somehow ekes out a split decision.

4) Ugly Misogyny at the Official Obama Blog Site - Wow! Random advertising unauthorized by the Obama campaign (who subsequently removed the offending ad after being notified!) proves that Obama beats his wife!

5) McCain Claims Obama Rally Crowds Call Him Terrorist, Traitor - TRANSLATION: "Look, my supporters get to make shit up, why can't I????"

6) Worst Case Scenario - To arms! To arms! THE LIBERALS ARE COMING! THE LIBERALS ARE COMING!

7) My God is Bigger Than Your God- A vote for McCain is a vote for Jesus.

8) AN OBAMA PANIC? MARKETS FEAR HIS POLICIES - SCARY BLACK MAN! WE'LL ALL BE ON THE WELFARE! Nevermind that the market ALWAYS does better under Democratic presidents than Republicans, and that's even after you factor out the two major stock market crashes of 1929 and 2008!

9) TIP: RICO ACTION TO BE FILED AGAINST ACORN TOMORROW MORNING - US Attorney will file charges against Obama-led organ-- what? No? Oh. Nevermind! NOTE MAJOR WALK-BACK OF ORIGINAL STORY

Kinda sad, when you come right down to it...

Way To Go, Paul!

A Nobel Prize in Economics?:

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — The American economist Paul R. Krugman won the Nobel economics prize on Monday for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity.

Mr. Krugman, 55, a professor at Princeton University in New Jersey and a columnist for The New York Times, formulated a new theory to answer questions about free trade, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

“What are the effects of free trade and globalization? What are the driving forces behind worldwide urbanization? Paul Krugman has formulated a new theory to answer these questions,” the academy said in its citation.

“He has thereby integrated the previously disparate research fields of international trade and economic geography,” it said.

Gee...I can't imagine how the right wing is flopping about, gasping for air on that announcement. Go congratulate him.

She Can't Even Fool Hockey Fans

I happened to watch the Flyers-Rangers game from Philadelphia last night, being the Rangers fan that I am. The special guest to drop the ceremonial first puck (think throw out the first ball at a baseball game) was Sarah Palin, perhaps the best known hockey mom in America right now.

I thought I had heard boos, but then the mic pick up switched to the PA system, which was playing some really bad song about hockey moms or something, and even tho I could still hear a smattering of boos, I figured the crowd, which is usually pretty polite to politicians and women, overpowered the few who jumped ugly early.

But I forgot: these were Philadelphia fans, who once booed Santa Claus....

When Sarah Palin dropped the ceremonial first puck at the Flyers’ opener on Saturday night at the Wachovia Center, she was greeted by resounding (almost deafening) boos. Ed Snider, owner of the Flyers, had her introduced to the crowd more as a hockey mom than as the Republican candidate for vice president. She was flanked by Scott Gomez (ed. note: also Alaskan. They actually kissed.), the Rangers center, and Mike Richards, the Flyers center.

While Philadelphia fans are known for not being shy about voicing disapproval, the question has been raised — including by me in an earlier version of this post — whether the appearance was appropriate at a sports event like this.

Note the word "deafening"...hockey fans know a fraud when they see one!

Oh...that Santa booing? It was at a football game:

Philadelphians did boo Santa Claus -- well, what was a sad excuse for one, anyway. The original Claus (not Kris Kringle) failed to report, and the replacement was a skinny, drunken fan from the crowd at an Eagles game.

Friday Music Blogging

The Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen In Love?

The Buzzcocks were the band that first really merged punk music into the mainstream pop (as this song demonstrates). It didn't stop them from having the same strife that most punk bands I grew up with had, but hell, at least it was music I could play loudly at home with the 'rents in the next room.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) The soft bigotry of low expectations. Why did I know McCain would be this desperate?

2) You keep playing that one note on the kazoo, Johnny! You'll fall so far behind, I anticipate that by October 19, you'll have Sarah Palin doing interviews topless on Howard Stern.

3) Between Uncle Ted's pickle and Troopergate, this will be a bad day in Palinville.

4) Sarah probably understands now how Bristol felt just before the little dot turned blue.

5) If you are still on the fence about McCain and Obama, and few of you here are, or if you have friends who are still struggling to make sense of it all, Consumer Reports has a great article contrasting their health care plans.

6) Sorry. As a Finn, I have to crow a little. I figure he enforced the peace by threatening to feed them lutefish.

7) "So...what are you wearing, comrade?"

8) Term limits was, and is, a stupid concept. Period. End of discussion.

9) Oh CANADA! Apparently, conservatives all around the world can't keep their peckers in their pants!

10) Listen, the world may seem like it's crumbling, the government may be totally unresponsive to your needs, and even the dolphins may have had enough, please, just...

Born In The USA

You know, I was born and raised in a free country, not a socialist, totalitarian state:

WASHINGTON — Having tried without success to unlock frozen credit markets, the Treasury Department is considering taking ownership stakes in many United States banks to try to restore confidence in the financial system, according to government officials.

Treasury officials say the just-passed $700 billion bailout bill gives them the authority to inject cash directly into banks that request it. Such a move would quickly strengthen banks' balance sheets and, officials hope, persuade them to resume lending. In return, the law gives the Treasury the right to take ownership positions in banks, including healthy ones.

Effectively, this gives the US Federal government the right to dictate bank policy, decisions, and effectively makes the US Government a shareholder, directly dependent on the quarterly profit of these firms.

 

This is not freedom, folks. Banks will be obligated to conform not just to the regulations and laws the US Congress has passed, as overseen (however poorly) by the executive branch, but to the caprices and whims of whatever man sits in oversight, presumably Hank Paulson, Treasury Secretary until January 20, 2009.

 

And who knows who, beyond that?

 

Now, that person may make good decisions, possibly. And he may influence better oversight and policy from the bank managers and boards themselves. But he also may make terrible decisions, terrible choices, and that alone makes this a really bad idea. After all, underpinning each and every bank in America, each and every investment bank in America, is the hard-earned money of the American worker. Those are your savings accounts that WaMu leveraged out to lend to mortgagors. Those are your checking accounts that Wachovia invested to earn themselves an extra few pennies in income.

 

And these were people who were supposed to be experts! Now turn this power over to someone with a political agenda.

 

Do you see where this might go? Imagine a bank in New York state that has lent money to build an abortion clinic, overseen by a McCain Treasury Secretary shoved down his throat like Sarah Palin was. Or a bank in Arkansas that's been forced by court order to lend money to minority clients for affordable housing, something guaranteed not to give the same return as a commercial property in Little Rock.

 

Suddenly, the government is not only in a position to dictate policy, but enforce it from inside, with little or no dissent. Imagine if in the 1950s, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a credit card from a bank run by the government, the same government that tacitly allowed the states to determine segregation policies? Do you honestly think they would listen to a lone nutcase? Or would they yank that card, freeze hsi assets, and bring him to "justice"?

 

It gets worse, folks. Just the other day, there was talk that the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve might step in to buy commercial paper issued by companies like General Motors, or IBM, or Campbell's Soup. Now take those banking scenarios and extend them to buying food, clothing, shelter, or transportation.

 

And the bad news is capped off with the little notice but plaintive wail of individual states now unable to make good on their own bond issues, unable to make interest payments, unable to provide sufficient collateral for the funds they've borrowed, in danger of default.

 

Not only are they having trouble making good on these bonds, but they can't even refinance them because the credit markets are effectively closed until the bailout funds are made available, which may take months.

 

Careful readers of this blog will note that more than two years ago, I predicted the worst economic meltdown this nation, this world, has ever faced.

 

I underestimated the threat. This will make the Great Depression look like a picnic.

Poor Kathleen Parker

Last week, I pointed out how the scales fell away from Kathleen Parker's eyes and she suddenly realized to her regret that some of her colleagues on the right don't take kindly to criticisms.

 

Well, K-Pax has had yet another revelation about her instigated brand of politics:

 

But words can have more serious consequences than lost votes and we've already had a glimpse of the Palin effect.

Dana Milbank of The Washington Post reported that media representatives in Clearwater were greeted with taunts, thunder sticks and profanity. One Palin supporter shouted an epithet at an African-American soundman and said, "Sit down, boy."

McCain may want to call off his pit bull before this war escalates.

Yea, um, not to put too fine a point on this, K-Pax, but you brought this on yourself. Where were you when your conservative "colleagues" were calling Bill Clinton a "scumbag"? When Rush Limbaugh was calling Chelsea Clinton a "dog"? When John McCain was laughing when constituents were calling Hillary Clinton a "bitch"?

 

The comments to this column, which is actually fairly reasonable until you consider who is writing them, make K-Pax out to be a criminal or worse. Perhaps this experience will have softened her, I don't know. I can only hope that she can find some solace in the fact that she's not the first, nor the last, person to be the target of the hate-filled venom of the Town Hall mafia.

The Paradigm of the Progressive Pyramid

This is how government services, and for that matter, personal income, are currently skewed. The top 1% of income earners (including corporations) get the first drops of tax money to trickle down from government:

 

Those at the bottom, and this is in accordance with supply side economics, get the last drops of government tax policy. It is supposed to trickle down to those with the least, those who do the bulk of the grunt work that runs the economic engine of this nation and it's corporations.

In theory. And in a strictly capitalist society, this is precisely the way things are supposed to run: Those with investable capital put their wealth on the line, take the risk, and reap the rewards of that risk, mostly off the backs of those who do not have the wealth to strike out on their own. If the risk blows up, the ones who lose the most are the folks who funded the venture in the first place, who hired the people to run the business that failed.

In private enterprise, for the most part, this is a highly efficient system, weeding out the weaker companies while rewarding the stronger. There is a kind of savage logic to this. After all, no one is supposed to have emotional feelings about a corporation (nor should a corporation have human rights, but that's a different essay.)

A codicil: I am neither cheering or criticizing capitalism, per se, merely pointing out how it is supposed to work from a clean, clinical, theoretical point of view of how for-profit economics works.

Government is not a for-profit venture, and yet the benefits accruing to society from government seem to skew, indeed even reward, the top one percent to the detriment of every income group below it.

When the economy is in trouble, who is the first to get help inthe forms of tax breaks and incentives? Big corporations. The wealthy. When the economy is humming along, who is the first to reap the benefits of higher tax revenues? Big corporations. The wealthy.

Let's take the infamous "Bridge To Nowhere" in Alaska, which connected the town of Ketchikan to the seaport across a small. That seaport was a destination for tourists travelling by cruise ship, and would facilitate their travel into town (it would cut miles off the drive around the end of the inlet, and hours off ferry rides). Who benefitted? A handful of cruise operators, and the town of Ketchikan.

Now, I'm not arguing against tourism in Alaska, to be sure. Ketchikan is probably a lovely place if so many ships are willing to dock there. What I am arguing against is lining the pockets of greedy cruise operators when times are good with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. If the bridge was so necessary, let them pool their money together and build it themselves. Let the state of Alaska and the town of Ketchikan kick some money in. It's a local matter, and should have been handled locally.

But that's not how government works, is it? This is how government should work:

You'll note that here, the people who need the most help are the ones most directly benefitting from the "rain" of government money. But notice something else: this graphic presentation hints at something that would be of great benefit economically to the wealthy.

 

The "funnel" effect: By distributing funds in this fashion, each level would end up "paying forward" whatever benefits they didn't directly use themselves. The rich would continue to aggregate wealth, just not as directly as they do now.

 

Let's take the recent spate of bailouts: despite running annual deficits alarmingly close to a half trillion dollars, we're suddenly informed that, somehow, the Fed managed to find almost a trillion dollars of government money to use to help bailout banks and investment banks.

 

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. So the question must be asked: if you could find that now, in a crisis, why couldn't you find it before the crisis to help people pay down their mortgages, or at least keep current on their payments?

 

A trillion dollars divvied up amongst 330 million Americans works out to around $3,000 per person. If you're late on your mortgage, that could go a long way to helping you catch up. If you don't have a mortgage or credit card bills, you'd probably end up spending it on something nice (yea, a percent or two of you would end up saving it, but even that's OK, since it would put money back into the capital markets). $3,000 would buy a couple of nice meals for a rich person. Indeed, they'd be the most likely to spend it outright.

 

What's standing in the way of this? It is how politics works. The fact that the poorest 20%, the poorest 60%, can't buy the influence that the richest one percent can.

 

Re-read that again: the poorest majority of this country is outspent in politics by the richest one percent. 180,000,000 people have a weaker voice in a democracy than 3,000,000!

 

(To my critics, I know I'm mixing apples and oranges a little here, talking about the richest one percent in terms of corporations and then citizenry and back again, but the numerical impact of a few tens of thousands of corporations on numbers of this magnitude is minimal, statistically speaking).

 

In terms of realpolitics, I have no trouble with money getting you some additional access to a candidate and/or officeholder, you know, maybe you need a stoplight on your corner, but when we start talking about trillions of dollars and we start talking about walking a tightrope that falling from might end the country, then I think we have to redraw the political map.

And flip the pyramid that's been in place for generations now. FDR had it right, and it seems to have toppled and flipped over as a succession of Republican presidents have weighted the money in the apex and pushed it over.

Friday Music Blogging

Heart - These Dreams

I just felt like we all needed something hypnotic and sexy to take our minds off this past week.

Friday Kitten Blogging

I has a flavor! So mush so, mah peeps, dat da bet had to see me dis week. Her sed I has a flavor ob "new roses"! I fink dass a gud fing, right? I tase so gud I lecked da fer rite off mah tummy! Dadby got skeered an tuke me to da bet but da bet sed noffin wrong wif me dat kitty Prozac won hep!

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) Winter really IS coming soon...To MARS!

2) I have a feeling this is good news for Obama.

3) You might have missed this rather important story this week, so as a service to you, here it is again.

4) I often despair of the attention span and intellect of the American voter, but finally, there are signs of life!

5) Only the Republicans could claim that a not-quite-epic fail was a success...

6) By the way, here's a really cool random Palin phrase generator. She really does sound like the infinite monkey.

7) In the details of this story, check out the name of the California health department spokesperson!

8) For want of a vacuum cleaner, we would not have a pretty decent Scotch.

9) Wow. Karzai has to get Saudi help to get the Taliban to talk? It seems to me that we ought to get our sorry asses out of Iraq and take these bastards out.

10) I have a job for John McCain once he loses this November.

A Real Bailout

OK, I've given this at least as much thought as McCain did to skipping Letterman last week, and I have a bailout plan. It's not simple, it won't be easy, and it will take a few months to work itself through the system. Please consider this as part of the "NotPresident" Campaign Platform ©.

Here goes:

1) End the invasion of Iraq, immediately. In totality, this has cost us nearly $700 billion over the past five years. I don't think this is a coincidence. I sometimes wonder, late at night after that cup of cocoa that's supposed to make me sleepy for three days, if indeed we aren't paying extortion money to Al Qaeda, instead of bailing out the banks.

2) Take that $700 billion bailout and pay it to every man, woman, and child in the country. It seems to me that this is a no-brainer. It's roughly $3,300 per person. People who need it for their mortgages will help bailout their local bank. People who don't need it will either spend it or invest it, which will raise both economic activity and available investable capital. More on this in a later post. And this way, accountability is directly to the American people.

3) Cut out the middle man. There ought to be a truth-in-lending law that traces who your specific mortgage is sold to. If you need to bargain for a refinance or a repackaging, that's the person who you ought to be speaking to. They have the skin in the game (by buying the mortgage, they take the risk out of your bank's balance sheet), plus this forces them to personalize their policies regarding refinances/repackagings. Right now, they can be bloodless, heartless bastards. Let's force them back into the pool.

4) Raise taxes on the rich. Obama has already said he would do this, but he needs to be clearer, much clearer about it. If I was debating McCain, and was challenged on this, I would look straight into the camera and say the following: "My fellow Americans, Senator McCain would like you to believe that I will raise your taxes. Well, I won't, and this is a promise you can take to the bank: I will not raise your taxes. I am going to raise theirs, and that terrifies them."

5) Create government work jobs, make work if necessary. $3,300 is a good start to jump starting the economy, but our workforce will be suffering layoffs. We will need a program to absorb as much of these folks and utilize them for the good of the nation. We have infrastructure problems, we have security issues, and we can create grand programs to modernize such things as Internet access in rural communities (yes, they still have dial up in large swaths of the country!) and bring green energy technologies to everyone.

6) Impose an excess profits tax on oil companies. 40% ought to do it, above and beyond the profit earned at the $50 a barrel level. Hey, we gave them a price support when oil was hovering around $15 a barrel, they ought to be *grateful* to pay.

7) Strong incentives to communities to develop mass transit. Transportation uses about two thirds of US energy consumption each year. That's ridiculous. This could be part of my public works program. Our economic freedom will never be assured until we can get people out of their cars and into work.

8) Treat corporations as second class citizens. Finally, I would nullify the 1979 Supreme Court decision that expanded the "civil" rights of corporations to actually make them more free than you or I. It's about time to acknowledge that in this nation, speech is not free, but is priced at what the market can bear and that corporations have an enormous advantage over true human citizens. If I had to pack the SCOTUS to do this, I would, but I would simply have Congress pass new legislation, and hold a figurative gun to the head of any Congresscritter who felt even the slightest temptation to vote his re-election coffers.

There should be more done, but this is the barebones outline (as I said, I've given this only a little thought) for a bailout plan that rewards human beings for surviving this far, and not faceless corporate entities.

Welcome To The World Of Liberal Journalism, Katie!

Kathleen Parker, that is:

Who says public discourse hasn't deteriorated?

The beauty of this rather naked confession on Ms. Parker's part is, she got raked over the coals by thr folks on her side of the aisle!

To-wit:

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a traitor and an idiot. Also, my mother should have aborted me and left me in a dumpster, but since she didn't, I should "off" myself.

Those are a few nuggets randomly selected from thousands of e-mails written in response to my column suggesting that Sarah Palin is out of her league and should step down.

Now, that's a reasonable position she's taken, if a bit provocative. After all, for the bounce Palin gave the ticket early on, the erosion of said bounce has Palin dangerously close to a dead weight on McCain's campaign...not that it needs the help, mind you.

Parker's conclusion from this experience? Well, after careening all over, trying to slap some of the blame on Nancy Pelosi and liberals in general, she finally sputters forth this set of bromides:

The picture is this: Anyone who dares express an opinion that runs counter to the party line will be silenced. That doesn't sound American to me, but Stalin would approve.

Readers have every right to reject my opinion. But when we decide that a person is a traitor and should die for having an opinion different from one's own, we cross into territory that puts all freedoms at risk. (I hear you, Dixie Chicks.)

Well, at least she's back to acknowledging that the fault, my dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

And may you long remain beneath our contempt, madam.

Obama's Best. Day. Ever.

Wow! To read up on both Memeorandum and the Google News homepage, this must be Barack Obama's best day on the campaign trail!

Obama Over Fifty Percent In Florida - So The Daily Show focus group was NOT an outlier!

Debate Moderator "In The Tank" For Obama - The world according to Mickey Mouse, MALKIN, I mean: Black journalists can only now write about white people.

Nervous GOP Urge McCain To Attack - Apparently, they want the negative campaigning to get even stiffer. What else can McCain do? Claim Obama's a "tar baby"?

No Sale- Fudgie The Whale finds that NBC executive Jeffrey Zucker is behind an Obama Youth video...OOPS!, wrong Jeff Zucker! He can't keep his Jews straight, even on Rosh Hashana!

Poll: Obama Has 15 Point Lead In Pennsylvania - Maybe he bought the entire state guns and Bibles?

Springsteen, Joel To Headline Concert For Obama - OK, this one I might go see, just for shits and giggles.

New Voters Like Obama, But May Not Show up at Polls - I've had dates like that. Still, outpolling McCain 2 to 1 in new voters is a good sign for Obama.

Jay-Z concert in Miami for Obama - Not to be outdone, hip hop is representin'!

Palin To Debate As Edge Wanes Among Wal-Mart Moms - You can lead a redneck to a candidate, but you can't make them vote!

Palin refuses to name papers, mags she reads - In defense of Sarah, this is a step up for the United States. She can read.

Palin Continues to Question Human Role in Global Warming - Or perhaps she can't, after all

False Truths

My good friend, Britisher, makes a very cogent observation in comments from yesterday's post:

Im a technical ignoramus when it comes to high finance but...isn't this while mess ALL about debt? Debt incurred by gambling on future profits based not on tangibles but on "prospects"?.

It seems to me that for years now trade has not been based on identifiable tangible need ( barter as it were) so much as on desire.

I mean a lot of the money at stake is surely imaginary. A lot of the wealth accumulated was imaginary. Investments were made without any supporting collateral and then more investments were made on those investments that weren't supported by anything so everyone shuffling money got rich by pure accumulation.

In short investment banks started 'printing' money and trading that money for other money and more money which was also 'printed'.

This mess is actually a market adjustment.

Am I right? Or partly right?

Yes, Virginia, there was a Santa Claus.

I'm going to get financially technical for a moment, but bear with me. I think I can make it understandable.

All investments are speculations. When you purchase an investment, any investment, from your house to a 1952 Mickey Mantle baseball card to a diamond ring, you are placing a bet.

See, factored into the price you pay for your house/card/diamond/stock is what are called "future cash flows". These can either be income, like a dividend or an interest payment, or capital gains, meaning your purchase is going to go up in value.

This future income or profit is discounted and added to the cost of the investment (what it physically costs to create). In most investments, that cost is minimal (it is not in the purchase of a house).

As Michael Kinsley points out in Time:

How is the country any richer if the exact same stock of existing housing is suddenly worth, say, 20% more? Other markets produce things. They sell what they produce. When prices go up, they produce more. Not so with real estate, for the most part. This market consists primarily of trading the same thing again and again. And you know the old saw about land: They're not making any more of it. Real estate is the only major consumer market in which how much you'll pay someone depends on your belief about how much someone else will pay you. In this market, prices go up when people believe they will continue to go up. To restore confidence would mean restoring belief in the greater fool.

And he's right, of course. Land is a fixed commodity, but there is plenty of land in the country, believe it or not, since half the population lives within 150 miles of a coastline. Yes, you want to be close to your job, but on the other hand, the way the economy is trending and the way workforces are being distributed and outsourced, you might want to live away from a city and telecommute now.

Land prices should probably fall back further, based on this alone.

But I digress. Kinsley's larger point, that buying a home is betting that you can get a sucker to pay even more for it after you've lived in it and aged it, is valid. Not only valid, but has been the basis of real estate sales since postwar America in the 50s.

Too, the perception that, by mortgaging nearly 100% of the cost to purchase you are in effect playing with house money, feeds into this conceit. You are gambling with money you have little responsibility for, because if you walk away from the mortgage, hey, the bank will foreclose, sell your house, pay off your mortgage and you still have a little left over, if the system works "the way its supposed to".

That's not to trivialize foreclosures: they are painful processes and usually occur because of some other trauma to the family/owner: job loss, medical expenses, or divorce. But if you know the bank will be "taken care of", you have one less worry on your plate while dealing with the primary problem in your life.

The trouble is, as Brit points out, it's all a fucking illusion. All of it. Rather explicity, I might also point out.

When you purchase a house, you should be paying what you think it is worth now to you, to live in, to spend some time in, to establish a domicile. We're not talking about buying a stock. Stocks are like going to a casino: you shouldn't do it unless and until you can afford to lose all of the money you invest.

This is why brokers are formally referred to as "broker-dealers" because they're dealing cards at a blackjack table, and they hold all the aces. The investment game is rigged in their favor and so any bets you might make have to be carefully picked for you to beat the house.

A house is different. A house is real money for a real necessity. If it goes up in value, then that's a bonus. But that shouldn't be the reason you go out and buy a house. You should buy a house because you need a house.

Now, you're sitting there thinking I'm kicking the American homeowner while he's down. I am, but I'm also not, because I don't blame people for wanting to believe what they want to believe, or for believing that house prices would always go up.

That's what we've all been told. And there's where the blame lies. Who told us? The bankers, brokers and developers who right now stand to be bailed out. The people who marketed "zero money down, interest only loans" without warning us that in five years, you'd have to start paying down principal AND that interest rates would like double or even triple! There is no way in the world your income can triple in five years, unless you are extremely fortunate.

The difference here is, while those banks and you gambled that you might earn enough money in five years to actually pay down your loan, or that your house might accumulate enough new value to pay off the mortgage on a sale, you couldn't have known better, while they should have!

They are financially savvy and you are not. Or at least they are supposed to be, which is why they are supposed to be licensed mortgage broker-dealers. But past history dictates that even the "experts" are not expert when things get complicated enough.

Hell, even I couldn't have foreseen the depth of this crisis, altho I had an inkling and indeed let my "inner pessimist" run amok on this blog about the coming collapse of the American economy.

There's a bitter lesson to be learned from all this: nothing, no part of your life, is without risk, is not a gamble of one sort or other. Houses were supposed to be the safest investment you could make. Indeed, they were the single largest investment you could make.

You have to start thinking about what you buy and how much you pay for it in terms of purchasing a car (the second largest purchase most people will make in their lifetimes, and an object lesson): what can the actually asset you are buying do for you?

See, cars only lose value when you drive them off the lot, at least for the first twenty years, and even then, you have to have taken immaculate care of them for them to earn back your original purchase price, even. The rational decision with a car is to buy one you can drive into the ground, making it cost as little as possible for the value attained from it (hauling groceries, taking vacations, commuting). You want to drive the car so much that the cost to own per mile is as small as possible.

So it should be with your house. You ought to buy a house that means something to you in twenty years, that makes it worth the purchase price, and forget that it *might* increase in value enough for you to retire on.

And screw the economic royalists and their attempts to shove down your throat some illusion. You're better than that!

Gravity Sucks

As anybody who's ever ridden a bicycle or even stood up knows, what goes up must come down.

This is as true for the stock market as it is for anything else. Granted, it's a whole lot harder for the market to fall back to sea level, something about retained earnings and asset values underpinning stock prices, but trust me on this: it is not impossible.

Enter Paul Krugman:

...The bailout plan released yesterday is a lot better than the proposal Henry Paulson first put out — sufficiently so to be worth passing. But it’s not what you’d actually call a good plan, and it won’t end the crisis. The odds are that the next president will have to deal with some major financial emergencies.

Absolutely.

I'm not arguing that this is the mother of all financial crises. I am arguing, however, that the MOAFC stands a better chance of happening now, when the market is weakened and the solutions ineffectual, just like an opportunistic flu is more likely to incubate when the body's defenses are weakened.

The trouble with this bailout package is, it's like giving a bandage to a patient who's suffered a heart attack because he got a papercut filling in his admittance forms.

The real trouble is, well, ask a hundred pundits the cause of this problem, and you'll get a hundred different answers, all of them wrong.

Ask a hundred different economic pundits and you'll get a hundred different answers, of which 95% are incomplete.

Make no mistake about this: this crisis is pervasive and infiltrates the coziest sectors of our economy, and the world's economy. There was no single simple cause and there will not be a single answer, although the ultimate solution may end up being enormously simple. I think. I'll post more on my solution later this week.

We were worried about avian flu? This is an economic avian flu.

Curiously and coincidentally, this flu, like the avian one, has its roots in Asia. America exports debt. Period. We're good at it. We export roughly $700 billion annually (there's a reason that the bailout was pegged at that figure, and that's the reason right there).

Asian nations, flush with cash as their economies have overheated, have invested heavily in American debt, first in Treasuries bill and notes, and then when the purchase of those became unprofitable (for the same reason mortgages became attractive) in mortgage backed securities.

The gamble everyone made was that housing prices could only keep going up. Remember the title of this column?

As housing prices peaked and slid down a little, banks stopped lending money, forcing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to step in to keep the supply of mortgages consistent with the (overmarketed) demand.

How many Ditech.com and Countrywide commercials were there each hour just a few years ago? Five? Ten? Twenty? It's no surprise that these companies were the canary in the flu mine. They had the riskiest loans with the least capitalization, and needed to borrow the money they were lending.

And banks were only too happy to lend to them. Why? Because banks knew that the Fed and Treasury would step in when things got hairy. After all, the Fed helped arrange the bailout Long Term Capital Management. They'd have to step in where people's homes were at risk!

This is not the only cause of the current crisis and books will be written about them all, until eventually a comprehensive picture is put together, but I think this is a reasonable timeline of this crisis and how it unfolded. Call it the tree on which to hang the ornaments.

But like a Christmas tree, what goes up eventually must come down...

Goodbye Old Friend, Redux

I had actually wanted to find the poster that my sister had on her dorm wall many many years ago, but I found this and realized it had more meaning to me.

What can I say that hasn't been said by a billion other people?

I met Paul Newman once in my life. He worked closely with one of the men who owns the firm I work for, so six years ago or so, Newman came up to the offices and I "chanced" by to get a signature. He was a gracious and lovely man, unassuming and despite people still fawning over him after nearly fifty years of fame, didn't tire of us.

Goodbye, Paul.