acerbic

I’ll get to the bailout in more detail, but for now I will say I am pleased it failed. Many Republicans are blaming the failure on a partisan speechgiven by Nancy Pelosi.

My take on the speech is a wee bit different. An excerpt

When President Bush took office, he inherited President Clinton’s surpluses — four years in a row, budget surpluses, on a trajectory of $5.6 trillion in surplus. And with his reckless economic policies, within two years, he had turned that around.

And now eight years later, the foundation of that fiscal irresponsibility, combined with an anything goes economic policy, has taken us to where we are today.

Good point Madame Speaker! George Bush singlehandedly mangled the economy beyond recognition. He ruined the budget and deregulated everything he could get his brush-clearing mitts on. He ruled with an iron fist with no checks or….

Oh wait…something about this is sounding strange….

My question to Nancy Pelosi: where the f*ck were the Democrats? You have been the majority party for nearly two years. In that time you have bent to Bush’s will on nearly everything. The war being the most notable act of treason. The voters put you into office to stop or at least slow down the juggernaut toward the apocalypse Bush administration. You have done nothing.

To be clear, I do believe the Bush philosophy is wrong. I believe there needs to be regulation. But I’m mostly pissed at the Democrats. The wars are still going on. Billions of dollars are being wasted every month. There has been no movement toward any kind of healthcare reform.

No wonder your approval ratings are lower than Bush.

This is the best thing I have seen all day.

Sarah Palin Disney Trailer

What’s the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom?

When pit bulls can’t control themselves, we are allowed to euthanize them.

Watch Palin’s recent interview with Couric.

My first reaction, besides wincing, was, “Wow, that looks like… someone’s mom trying to perform as a politician on the national scene.”

And then I realized that reaction shouldn’t surprise me at all.  Because that’s all she is.  Hell, that’s all she’s billed herself as: the mom of quite a lot of someones.  And soon, she’s be someone’s grandma.

I don’t know about you, but I only like my hot grandmas when they are in comedy films about virgins.

Enough jabs on Palin. (Oh, who am I kidding: there can never been enough jabs on Palin!! But I still have to move on to the rest of the post.)

I have been watching the pathetic drama on the McCain Campaign front the past few days, and they are really tiring themselves out with all this crazy campaign suspension and flying to Washington stuff!  Whew!  I wouldn’t have thought they had any need to panic like they are.  I thought the so called “Palin/McCain” ticket was riding high.

Oh, sure, Couric ripping Palin a new one might not change some die-hards who think having someone “real” in the campaign is just the cat’s pajamas (read: all those fundie God ‘n’ Guns freaks.)

But I’m hoping some people who are trying to make an informed decision will see that Palin lacks just that: information.

Now, on to the other side.  I tend to agree with Slate that Obama performance lately has been “gutless and vapid,” but it seems all of a sudden like there is some sense to his lack of movement in the face of the pathetic flutterings of Grandma and Grandpa.

I am not saying, mind you, that this was the strategy.  I really don’t give the Obama campaign advisors that much credit.  I think it is mostly turning out to be a happy accident.

But Obama might do well to keep on with with his zen-like “not-doing” for another week, and then hammer it home in October with some great events, and bring back a couple of great speeches he’s known for.  Let the other side’s last swings finish, and then one knock out punch to win.

(Oh, uhm, also, Pit Bulls are adorable and don’t frighten me deeply. And most importantly, you can spay them.)

I have seen this kind of post before. The theme: blue states have worse economies than red states. The usual culprits are trotted out; high taxation, burdensome regulations and closet-Marxist liberals.

A few examples to get us warmed up. First from The View from Alexandria

Red states continue to experience healthy economic growth, while blue states are in recession. 

But the people in the blue states aren’t blaming their own Democratic leaders for the high taxes, crippling regulations, and generous government spending that hold their economies back.

full post.

Next; Pajamas Media.

If you’re looking for troubling times, visit the blue states. You’ll find plenty.

Looking for high unemployment?

• First, go to California (Kerry by 10% in 2004, Democrat-dominated legislature, and might-as-well-be-Democratic governor). Its seasonally adjusted August unemployment rate was 7.3%, up from just 5.4% a year ago.

• Then go east to Michigan, where things have gone from bad to really bad during Democrat Jennifer Granholm’s tenure. Wolverine State July unemployment was 8.5%.

• Move on to Ohio, which went from pseudo-red under Bob Taft to blue in 2006, with the election of a Democratic governor, who has been aided and abetted by a mostly complacent GOP legislature. July unemployment: 7.2%.

 So if there is indeed a recession taking place, blame it on the blue states and blue regions, with their high-tax, high-regulation, high-giveaway environments.

Well as much as I like just taking things at face value, I thought I’d throw some actual analysis at the problem and see what I found out.

A few notes on my methods.

People are way too simple when it comes to a Red vs. Blue states. Tom Blumer over at Pajamas Media used a mix of 2004 election results, governor’s offices and state legislature to determine whether a state is red or blue.

 I used four data points to determine if a state was red, blue or split. My four data points; 2004 Presidential Election results, current governor,  current state senate & current state house. If a state had three or more blue data points, I designated them blue. If they had  two and two, I called them split and so on.

A few other assumptions:

I designated Washington D.C. a state. I used the mayor and city council to determine the red/blue status.

Nebraska has a unicameral legislature. It didn’t really matter because the other 3 data points were red.

I compared unemployment for July 2008. My source was the Federal government’s official BLS numbers.

Here’s what I came up with.

1) 20 states had a July unemployment rate that was higher than the national average.

2) Of those states, eight were red, eight were blue, and four were split.

So yes, I think I have to agree. There is a clear correlation between party affiliation and unemployment. (That’s sarcasm for you kids at home).

My analysis:

I’ve spent my lunchbreak checking in on the latest government acquisition; AIG. I don’t know a whole lot about the regulatory environment for insurance, but once again, we have a situation where a company got so big that it could wreak havoc on the financial system. Hence, USA-AIG Inc.

The problem here is Wall Street. I don’t mean the caricatures that are getting thrown around in the media. It’s way too easy to imagine evil Wall Street tycoons twirling their mustaches. McCain is especially playing this up. After all, it’s pretty easy to invent a villain but much harder to explain how things actually work. Witness recent republican electoral victories (including the forthcoming republican victory).

Many managers at publicly-traded firms earn their compensation through the share price or some derivative thereof. Wall Street does not reward companies that do not grow. Traders are looking for the next Google or Microsoft.

This creates a clear and strong message for managers - GROW OR DIE. And the easiest way to grow is through acquisitions. In the olden days there were regulatory limits on acquisitions. Growth was regulated either through government agency or statutory limits. Under the Sherman Antitrust Act (and many others) certain types of mergers and acquisitions have to be approved by the federal government.  

The other kind of regulation are statutory limits. These laws expressly forbade certain kinds of companies from engaging in certain kinds of business. An example I’ve talked about before is the Glass-Steagall Act which separated commercial and investment banks.

Over the past thirty years banking and many other industries have become increasing deregulated. Managers have taken advantage of this and turned Mergers & Acquisitionsinto big business. Toss in a few CEO’s who want to build global empires and well, here you go. We’ve seen massive consolidation in all kinds of industries most notably banking and insurance.

Hence we have a collection of companies that are all too big to fail. And now the federal government is spending money faster that it’s presses can keep up.

There’s a point to all this rambling. E.F. Schumacher said it best, Small is Beautiful. We need to get back to a time when regulation actually existed and companies were smaller. There is scant evidence that any good is derived from acquisitions and business history is littered with failures. AOL-Time Warner, and DaimlerChrysler come to mind.

 Despite this scant evidence, mergers and acquisitions continue to happen. As long as compensation is tied to stock price, there will be a strong institutional push to acquire. Companies will not police themselves. They will continue to M&A themselves to death. The short term rewards of massive bonuses and stock options are too great.

This is why government intervention is needed.

We have massive market failures when the government abdicates it’s responsibility. Examples? Savings and Loan crises, California Energy Crisis of the early 2000’s, the housing crisis, the credit crunch…all of these have their origins in some kind of deregulation.

Go ahead, call me a socialist, but what do you call the current administration? We have deregulated ourselves right into full-bore socialism. Karl Marx would be so proud.

As a postscript, I will agree with hardline free marketers that our regulatory state is very fragmented and confused. It should be made simpler and clearer, but that’s the topic for another post.

The Federales have taken over AIG. The Federal Government is now the world’s largest insurance company as well as the world’s largest holder of mortgages.

Who’s next? My bet is Citigroup……

Lehman Bros has filed for bankruptcy. Just another casualty from the sub-prime, credit crunch mess. Lynch is hanging on by a thread. WaMu is probably going to fall.

The question on Wall Street is ‘will the government bail out any other banks?’. Over the weekend the Feds told Lehman ‘no way Jose’ and that precipitated the filing.

Our government is turning into quite the diversified conglomerate. They’ve started an investment banking wing (Bear Stearns), a mortgage business (Freddie & Fannie) and have promised to get into the automotive business. (There are preliminary agreements for the government to make low-interest loans to the Detroit automotive companies.)

What we’ve been hearing over and over is these companies are too important and Too Big To Fail. The libertarians scream and gnash their teeth over these bailouts. I do too. I disagreed with the Bear Stearns bailout. I don’t support low-interest loans to the automotive companies.

But Freddie & Fannie…..oh that’s a horse of a different color. Allowing those two to falter would have sent massive shockwaves throughout the financial system. People way smarter than me have no idea how bad it would get if suddenly half the mortgages were held by two bankrupt companies.

I’ve heard the usual suspects trotted out. Corrupt CEOs, greedy shareholders, meddlesome liberals, but none of these scapegoats are the real perp.

You know who’s at fault? We are. Me & You.

George Carlin once said “They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.”

Well George, you were right and we’re being rudely awaken right now.

We have allowed ourselves to buy into this American dream bullshit. Specifically the part about everyone owning a house with a white picket fence in the suburbs. I hear it over and over again during this campaign. Comments praising “small town Americans”, the suburban campaign stops, it goes on and on. Obama is being rediculed for being ‘elite’ because he’s well-read and well-spoken.

As I’m fond of saying…anyway….

Owning a home. That’s one of the most basic tenants of the American Dream. A place where a man can be free to do as he wishes. People do not realize how much this ideal is supported by the federal government. Our highways that allow longer commutes – federal government. Cheap housing outside of the city – again the federal government is behind that. That’s what Freddie and Fannie did. They bought up mortgages. Almost half of them to be exact. They allowed banks to loan money, collect the transaction fees and then sell the loan so it became someone else’s problem. Namely, the federal government.

Add to this the federal practice of redlining, which restricted federally-backed mortgages in the city, and you have the federal government practically screaming “ATTENTION WHITE PEOPLE IT IS TIME TO MOVE TO THE SUBURBS!!!!!”.

So we did. Or a lot of us did. Enough to cripple cities. Some have recovered (New York, Chicago, Boston) and some have not (Detroit).

Why would the government want the population arranged in this manner? I don’t generally believe in government conspiracy theories, but I do believe the government had ulterior motives.

One; it played on the racism of white people. By getting white people out of the city and keeping black people in, the government could count on the support of racist, wealthy and politically active whites. Gerrymandering helped minimze the impact of the black vote. Score one for the feds.

Two; by dividing us by race, we identified with race rather than class. The government has almost always been terrified of organized labor. A good way to weaken organized labor is to convince people that racial concerns are more important than economic ones. Score two for the feds.

Three, spreading people out destroys a sense of community. I’ve lived both in the suburbs and the city. In the city, you identify with your neighborhood much more closely. There is a sense that if something bad happens to the neighborhood, it happens to everyone in the neighborhood. That’s why community organizers exist. Living in Chicago, I’ve seen my fair share of byzantine neighborhood fights. There’s one involving a soccer field that I still haven’t gotten my arms around.

Anyway, by destroying a sense of community, the individual has been elevated. This has allowed the “get mine and get out” brand of right wing politics to flourish for the last 30 years. This is why every speaker at the G.O.P. convention made fun of community organizers. To them and their white, suburban constituancy, there is no community to organize. The concept is foriegn to them.

Score three for the feds.

So the government sold the American Dream to us and made it easy to live far away and easy to buy a home. Now it’s all unravelling and the costs are starting to become insurmountable. The federal highway budget is a complete mess and the government has just become the worlds largest backer of mortgages. We’ve suffered through nearly 30 years of right-wing rule and likely to suffer through at least 4 more.

I don’t know about you, but I think it’s time to mow the lawn.

Hurricane Ike is ravaging Texas.

Quick aside; best joke I’ve heard in a while:

“Ike is coming, better run for it, Tina.”

Hah.

Anyway…Why do I have the feeling that FEMA’s response is going to be whole lot better than Katrina? I don’t think Bush is going to let a bunch of chaw-chewing, back-assed-woods cracker white boys drown.

As long as it’s decent white people who vote republican and hate gay people, the full faith and credit of the federal government is at your disposal. Otherwise, you are on your fucking own.

I’m supremely annoyed at my country right now. While many people are weighing the careful decision of voting for John “Grandpa” McCain or Barack “It’s probably a good idea if I run my campaign exactly like John Kerry and Al Gore” Obama, I find myself weighing the decision of voting or not voting.

I’m serious. The idea of pulling a George Carlin and dropping out of this sick mess appeals to me. I’m on the verge of losing faith in my countrypeople. People around me are seriously considering voting for Grandpa because his twit of a VP has spent a large amount of her downtime shooting animals and having children.

This country is very nearly beyond all hope. We are sinking because we have rejected science, reason, and economics and replaced it with Jesus. It’s a strange version of Jesus though. (Full disclosure, I was raised by God-fearing conservative Christians and I probably know the Bible better than most churchgoers.)

This version of Jesus is all about exclusion, hatred and conformity. This Jesus is all about judgment and very little about love and acceptance. In my churchgoing days, those were the qualities that made me think Christianity was a pretty great religion.

Jesus hung out with the poor and the sick. He healed them. His followers were whores, cowards and tax collectors. For those of you not in the know, Matthew (yes, he wrote one of the gospels), was a tax collector for the Romans. Essentially he was a Nazi sympathizer.

If Jesus showed up today the conservative Christians would rally. Specifically, they would rally to kill him again. That’s what annoys me about today’s religious right. They are entitled to their beliefs, of course, but they’re wrong. They don’t even get the basics of their own religion down. They use is it as an excuse to hate.

And those people are winning. That’s why I want to drop out. I can’t change them and there’s no point in trying. Let the American Taliban turn this country into a third world country. Who am I to stand in their way?

Gotta hand it to Dr. Dobson. This guy really has that compassionate conservative thing down.

“The media is already trying to spin this as evidence that Governor Palin is a hypocrite, but all it really means is that she and her family are human.”

article here.

Another one:

“Being a Christian does not mean you’re perfect,”

Article here.

He’s really getting behind McCain-Palin. He now claims he’s ready to vote for them.

This is a guy who was extremely vocal about not supporting John McCain. His exact words were that he would not support McCain “under any circumstances.”

Why the big change, Jimmy boy? I thought Christians were steadfast; God is unchanging and his rules are forever. You know, like those rules about gay people. If it was good enough for an ancient nomadic society, it’s good enough for us.

There’s other rules in the Bible as well. Rules about not eating pork. And rules that require killing the children and infants of your enemies (1 Samuel 15-3.) Hmm…maybe we don’t exactly follow every single rule….However it does make one think why conservative Christians don’t support abortion for liberals. I mean, they are the infants of your enemies.

Anyway, I digress.

The question is why Dobson has changed his tune. He is easily the most important man on the Christian Right and he’s singing the praises of an unwed, teenage mother.

The answer is simple. He’s scared Obama will win. Dobson wants his followers to vote for McCain. Otherwise the Supreme Court will become stacked with pro-choice judges. Then the fire and brimstone will start.

Essentially Dobson is making the exact same calculation that I am. He’s voting for the lesser of two evils. We are just diametrically opposed on who the lesser evil is.

I imagine I could sit down with Dobson and have a chat about politicians. I bet we could find that we have many things in common. We could complain about politicians that pander to us but are really beholden to their contributors. We could complain about our support being taken for granted. We could complain about being ignored the day after the election.

You hear the ‘lesser of two evils’ comment all the time in the media. Is it really any wonder why over 40% of people don’t vote in presidential elections. Why is it I can walk into a grocery store and find seven varieties of flour, but our country can only manage two candidates?

The two party system is the culprit. The Dems and the GOP rely on each other more than their own constituencies. They work hard to keep third party candidates out of debates and other events. Then they work extra hard to scare us to death about the other guy.

No one is actually voting for someone. We’re all voting against someone else. The only vote that I have cast that was for someone was in 2000. I voted for Nader.

Since then I have voted against Bush and will vote against McCain.

The mountains win again.

I know she’s not even married yet – she’s not even legal voting age yet – but I really can’t wait until Bristol Palin’s messy divorce. Which will probably involve some scandal which her mother will try to cover up. And then her impending single motherhood.

There, I said it.

Yes, I am petty.  I’m also not pregnant.

Thank you.