Help is on the way.

So very glad the bailout passed and saved the market.

oh…wait. It didn’t work. The Dow fell 800 points today. Maybe the markets think this bailout won’t work. Funny, all those people who called their congresspeople thought the same thing.

Final step in the abject failure of the Bush Administration.

 

Madame Speaker

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.

 

George W. Bush is right

Lord, it pains me to write the title of this post, but in interest of preserving my principles, I must. A farm bill is winding through Congress and Bush has threatened to veto it. He is absolutely right to do so. Farm subsidies have gotten entirely out of control. I understand the basic principles and reasons for subsidies. One, a nation’s food source should be protected, ’cause if we can’t eat, it will be hard for us to invade soverign nations, wiretap the citezenry, torture people uhh…I mean spread democracy…and the second reason is a significant input of farming (weather) is completely uncontrollable and (insert whining noise) it’s just not fair.

The second reason rings a bit false for me. I work in an industry where oil prices have a major negative impact on sales. Neither me, nor my company controls the global price of oil. (I do, however control the global price of copper, which is why I’m writing this post from my yacht….damn, must have been dreaming again).

Every industry has unknowns and uncontrollable elements. We used to refer to that in econ text books as “risk”. There aren’t any sure things in a capitalist system. That’s kinda part of the fun.

The only difference between my industry (which is suffering and threatening the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people) and farming (which doesn’t employ nearly as many people) is that Washington D.C. protects one of these and tells the other to go fly a kite.

But this is America! The Golden Land of the Globally Free Economy! Do you mean to say we have protectionism (cue scary music)???

Uh yeah, we do. The farmers are protected by way of lobbyists. My industry does not do as good of a job of lobbying Congress. That’s it. The only difference. How else can you explain broad bipartisan support for this bill. It’s amazing, Congress can’t agree if the sun rises in the East anymore, but suddenly a bolt of bipartisan cooperation overtakes the Capital.

I mean for God’s sake, the republicans are lobbying George Bush sign a bill supported by Nancy Polosi! Is it opposite day?

Anyway, Bush is right to oppose this and ask for more reform. I’m realize probably the only reason he’s opposing this is because the Dems control Congress, but (TeamKuntz law #41) “A right decision made for the wrong reason is still the right decision.”