Back in the old, old, days the big men of the tribe used to react to problems by placating the gods. When the rains failed, or when there was too much rain, or when the tribe was faced with some other sort of disaster the big men would have their goons grab a virgin, or two or three, and throw them into the volcano where they believed, or professed to believe, that the gods lived. They did this to soothe the worries of the tribe. And, of course, they did it to preserve their own positions of power and prestige.
In these more enlightened times the big men no longer throw virgins on the barbie. Instead they burn great quantities of your money as their answer to worries on the part of the great herd of the common people. Deep down almost everybody knows that burning great quantities of money will have no more effect on the problems than burning virgins would; but it makes people feel better to see the government "doing something." And, of course, it dampens down the urge on the part of the common people to put the blame for problems where it belongs.
Last fall fifty plus percent of the American people very properly rose up and kicked out the tired old Republican administration that dithered while our current economic problems developed. But they failed to toss out the Congressional Democrats who were every bit as responsible, and perhaps even more responsible, for the problems.
In October, to placate the economic gods, the then Republican President and the Democratic Congress made a midnight rush deal to burn 700 Billion Dollars. Half of that money has already been burnt up with virtually nothing to show for it except for allowing incompetent bankers to party on for a few more months. Ironically, the very same politicians who voted to burn up that money are now the loudest in complaining that the money is going to banks that were and are run by incompetents. The other day the President proposed that the incompetent executives who ran their banks into the ground should be limited to no more than $500,000 a year in compensation. That, of course, begged the question of why those incompetent executives are still in charge of the banks.
And now, the new Democratic President and those same Democratic Congressmen who voted for the last big virgin burning are running around saying that it's urgent that they act quickly to burn up another 900 Billion Dollars. The Democrats in Congress who are fueling up the great big barbie on which to burn the $900 Billion are the very same Democrats who did a very great deal toward creating the economic problems by fueling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with unlimited money to pour into the mortgage markets and by requiring Fannie and Freddie and the other banks to make loans to people who could not afford to repay those loans.
So, thus far they've burned up about $700 Billion, and shortly they will start burning up another $900 Billion. By the time they're done these two rounds of virgin sacrifices they will have burned up about $5,300 for every man, woman and child in the country. Think about that, they could have sent out checks for over $5,000 to you and every other person in the country. They could have sent $20,000 to every family of four; but instead they decided to burn the money.
They will tell you that "The Treasury" is providing the money they've been burning and the further money they plan to burn; but there are only two ways "the Treasury" can lay its hands on Benjamins to throw onto the barbie. It has to borrow the money, in which case somewhere down the road you're going to be taxed to pay that money back. Or it can print the money, in which case somewhere not very far down the road you're going to find out that inflation has reduced even further the value of your retirement money.
Once the Benjamins are burned up they're gone, just like those virgins.
Showing posts with label Republicans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Republicans. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Perspective
I never win lotteries or prizes; but today I won a minor one in the great lottery of life. When I got to the polling place there was a long line of H to R people and a moderate line of S to Z people; but there was only a short line of A to G people; so I got in and out within a half hour or so.
Best of all, I was just behind Bob Brant in line, so I got to chat with him a bit. Bob was there as a civilian, simply voting today; but I've seen him at the polling place every couple of years for twenty or more years because he's been the Republican Committeeman for our district all that time.
And then, after I had my little voting chit, I ran into Bud Templeton on my way to the voting machines. Bud was there as the Republican poll observer. I've seen Bud less frequently because he has moved from polling place to polling place over the years. Bud graciously welcomed me to Upper Providence when we moved here thirty years ago. He made sure we got registered, and then he made sure for the first few elections that we knew where our polling place was if it moved in those days before we had a good sense of the township.
Few of us adequately appreciate the part-time work done by guys like Bob and Bud, and their counterparts on the Demoncrat party side. Behind the scenes at every election, and between elections, there are patient party people on both sides getting people registered, explaining the voting process, calling to remind "their" voters of important local issues, organizing the polling places, watching over one another like hawks to keep the process honest, and generally making the whole system work. Without literally hundreds of thousands of people like Bob and Bud in tens of thousands of local voting precincts across the country our elections wouldn't work, or worse they wouldn't be sufficiently trustworthy to keep us all content with the outcomes.
And we do have a magnificent system bequeathed to us by those bewigged characters who designed it and got it started against all odd a couple of hundred years ago. It's the best such system in the world by far, even if it's unappreciated by most of us who have lived within it all our lives.
Back in 1992, a local legend named Clay Hess put it in perspective for me. He was old school, really old school, perhaps eighty years old in 1992. He was a farmer and an auctioneer, born in the township. Clay told stories of the time when local farmers graded the gravel roads adjoining their farms, before the roads were paved. He told of grading those roads with a horse team. By the time I knew him he was the local Republican Party chairman, and as partisan as anyone, but he also retained a healthy perspective.
You may have noticed that I'm not a big fan of Barack Obama. If so, you've had only the merest glimpse of how much I was not a fan of Bill Clinton back in 1992 when I was only 18 years out of the Navy and he was infamous for his Vietnam era statement that he "loathed the military." I was writing an opinion column for a local paper leading up to the 1992 election, and I was hot. So hot that I can't begin to count the number of columns I started and then tore up before the election because they went over the line.
Well, on election day in 1992 I made the rounds of the local polling places to write up a news story for the paper; and in the process I ran into Clay Hess up at the old Township Building. Despite his age Clay was aware of just about everything that went on locally; and he was certainly aware that I was hot about Clinton, although as a political tactic he always professed obliviousness to what appeared in the local papers. Anyway, Clay caught me aside and reminded me that no matter how the election turned out I needed to keep it in perspective relative to a very important fact.
"Sully," he said (I'm paraphrasing), "the important thing is that people are peacefully going to the polls and selecting the next president. I don't have much respect for Clinton either; but if he wins he will be our president. Having everybody respect a system that peacefully turns over power is precious. A whole lot of countries in the world wish they had such a system."
A very wise man, Clay Hess. That was one election; and this is one election. Win or lose, we all need to remember that in our constitutional system we have a priceless gift.
Update: 80 81 87 78 79 ;<)
Best of all, I was just behind Bob Brant in line, so I got to chat with him a bit. Bob was there as a civilian, simply voting today; but I've seen him at the polling place every couple of years for twenty or more years because he's been the Republican Committeeman for our district all that time.
And then, after I had my little voting chit, I ran into Bud Templeton on my way to the voting machines. Bud was there as the Republican poll observer. I've seen Bud less frequently because he has moved from polling place to polling place over the years. Bud graciously welcomed me to Upper Providence when we moved here thirty years ago. He made sure we got registered, and then he made sure for the first few elections that we knew where our polling place was if it moved in those days before we had a good sense of the township.
Few of us adequately appreciate the part-time work done by guys like Bob and Bud, and their counterparts on the Demoncrat party side. Behind the scenes at every election, and between elections, there are patient party people on both sides getting people registered, explaining the voting process, calling to remind "their" voters of important local issues, organizing the polling places, watching over one another like hawks to keep the process honest, and generally making the whole system work. Without literally hundreds of thousands of people like Bob and Bud in tens of thousands of local voting precincts across the country our elections wouldn't work, or worse they wouldn't be sufficiently trustworthy to keep us all content with the outcomes.
And we do have a magnificent system bequeathed to us by those bewigged characters who designed it and got it started against all odd a couple of hundred years ago. It's the best such system in the world by far, even if it's unappreciated by most of us who have lived within it all our lives.
Back in 1992, a local legend named Clay Hess put it in perspective for me. He was old school, really old school, perhaps eighty years old in 1992. He was a farmer and an auctioneer, born in the township. Clay told stories of the time when local farmers graded the gravel roads adjoining their farms, before the roads were paved. He told of grading those roads with a horse team. By the time I knew him he was the local Republican Party chairman, and as partisan as anyone, but he also retained a healthy perspective.
You may have noticed that I'm not a big fan of Barack Obama. If so, you've had only the merest glimpse of how much I was not a fan of Bill Clinton back in 1992 when I was only 18 years out of the Navy and he was infamous for his Vietnam era statement that he "loathed the military." I was writing an opinion column for a local paper leading up to the 1992 election, and I was hot. So hot that I can't begin to count the number of columns I started and then tore up before the election because they went over the line.
Well, on election day in 1992 I made the rounds of the local polling places to write up a news story for the paper; and in the process I ran into Clay Hess up at the old Township Building. Despite his age Clay was aware of just about everything that went on locally; and he was certainly aware that I was hot about Clinton, although as a political tactic he always professed obliviousness to what appeared in the local papers. Anyway, Clay caught me aside and reminded me that no matter how the election turned out I needed to keep it in perspective relative to a very important fact.
"Sully," he said (I'm paraphrasing), "the important thing is that people are peacefully going to the polls and selecting the next president. I don't have much respect for Clinton either; but if he wins he will be our president. Having everybody respect a system that peacefully turns over power is precious. A whole lot of countries in the world wish they had such a system."
A very wise man, Clay Hess. That was one election; and this is one election. Win or lose, we all need to remember that in our constitutional system we have a priceless gift.
Update: 80 81 87 78 79 ;<)
Monday, September 29, 2008
An eight minute tutorial on how politics works
Here's an eight minute video of clips from a congressional hearing in late 2004 that tells you all you need to know about who's most responsible for the fact that the financial crisis is as bad as it is. Even President Clinton now recognizes the truth.
The main fault that lies with Republicans is that they should have forced this issue to public consciousness in 2005.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs&eurl=http://5.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?pid=dell&url=http://www.google.com/ig/modules/youtube_videos.xml&nocache=0&up_pre
The main fault that lies with Republicans is that they should have forced this issue to public consciousness in 2005.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs&eurl=http://5.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?pid=dell&url=http://www.google.com/ig/modules/youtube_videos.xml&nocache=0&up_pre
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Stupid is as stupid does
Meanwhile in breaking news from Norristown:
Gordon Glantz, managing editor of The Times Herald, published a perfectly predictable column slamming the GOP for a lot of things, one of which was stupidity.
Which was interesting, because Mr. Smarty Pants Managing Editor Glantz wrote in the next to last paragraph - "A choice of Jindal - a Native American no less - would have shown that the Republican Party still has some residual mojo. . ."
He meant Bobby Jindal, the Republican fellow those Good Old Boys down in Louisiana elected to be their Governor a couple of years ago.
To me Bobby Jindal being a Native American didn't sound exactly right, even though a politically correct fellow like Gordon Glantz said he was. First off, as a good Republican I have a mental picture of Bobby Jindal to go along with my mental appreciation of his policy positions, and in my mental picture Bobby Jindal is a good couple of shades darker than I remember Tonto and Cochise being. I was pretty sure he wasn't the kind of Native American who used to hold up his hand and say "How" when he wasn't shooting arrows at John Wayne.
Those gun toting racist Republican hicks out in Alaska elected the wife of a Native American as Governor a couple of years ago; but he's descended from kayaking Native Americans, the sort who used to hunt seals and walruses. The Republicans in Colorado elected a fellow descended from the sort of pinto pony riding, buffalo steak eating Native Americans Glantz was thinking of, but not Louisiana. I was pretty sure Louisiana Republicans elected a fellow who was born in this country but who's ancestors were Shrimp Vindaloo eating Indians, you know, folks who were from the Indian Subcontinent rather than from the Indian Territories.
But I like to be careful about such things; so I did a couple of clicks on this newfangled internet thingy that Mr. Glantz must not have heard about, to check my memory and my thinking. And then I wrote Mr. Glantz a respectful email:
"Only the Times Herald could have a managing editor who thinks Bobby Jindal is a "Native American" and is dumb enough to put it in a column.
Do you do your research before or after you neglect to check the headlines for spelling?
Another, less reliably leftist managing editor might have meant he was born in America. But you, of course, meant that his ancestors counted coup on white devils like Custer out on the great plains.
Turns out his ancestors, given his parentage, are a lot more likely to have counted coup on Mohammedans or British accented white devils over in old India.
Regards,
Sully
P.S. Love your 'stache, but I recommend you ditch the white jacket for a rainbow tie-dye. "
Me again - In the interests of fairness I shall certainly post Mr. Glantz's reply if he makes one. Incidently, since sending him the email I have reconsidered my opinion of Mr. Glantz's droopy at the sides moustache. On reflection it makes him look like an underdeveloped walrus, or else a walrus after the attentions of a pinniped version of Lorena Bobbitt. He should ditch the picture.
Update: My remarks above relate to the picture of Mr. Glantz in the print edition of The Times Herald. His column of Sunday, September 7th wasn't up on the website (as of September 7th). There is a different picture of him on the web. In that picture he doesn't have a Fu Manchu moustache.
Update - September 9th - In today's paper The Times Herald published a tiny little correction of this pretty big error on Mr. Glantz's part, given that he regularly writes about national politics. The correction reads. "In Gordon Glantz's column on Page A4 of Sunday's edition, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was incorrectly identified as a Native American."
Gordon Glantz, managing editor of The Times Herald, published a perfectly predictable column slamming the GOP for a lot of things, one of which was stupidity.
Which was interesting, because Mr. Smarty Pants Managing Editor Glantz wrote in the next to last paragraph - "A choice of Jindal - a Native American no less - would have shown that the Republican Party still has some residual mojo. . ."
He meant Bobby Jindal, the Republican fellow those Good Old Boys down in Louisiana elected to be their Governor a couple of years ago.
To me Bobby Jindal being a Native American didn't sound exactly right, even though a politically correct fellow like Gordon Glantz said he was. First off, as a good Republican I have a mental picture of Bobby Jindal to go along with my mental appreciation of his policy positions, and in my mental picture Bobby Jindal is a good couple of shades darker than I remember Tonto and Cochise being. I was pretty sure he wasn't the kind of Native American who used to hold up his hand and say "How" when he wasn't shooting arrows at John Wayne.
Those gun toting racist Republican hicks out in Alaska elected the wife of a Native American as Governor a couple of years ago; but he's descended from kayaking Native Americans, the sort who used to hunt seals and walruses. The Republicans in Colorado elected a fellow descended from the sort of pinto pony riding, buffalo steak eating Native Americans Glantz was thinking of, but not Louisiana. I was pretty sure Louisiana Republicans elected a fellow who was born in this country but who's ancestors were Shrimp Vindaloo eating Indians, you know, folks who were from the Indian Subcontinent rather than from the Indian Territories.
But I like to be careful about such things; so I did a couple of clicks on this newfangled internet thingy that Mr. Glantz must not have heard about, to check my memory and my thinking. And then I wrote Mr. Glantz a respectful email:
"Only the Times Herald could have a managing editor who thinks Bobby Jindal is a "Native American" and is dumb enough to put it in a column.
Do you do your research before or after you neglect to check the headlines for spelling?
Another, less reliably leftist managing editor might have meant he was born in America. But you, of course, meant that his ancestors counted coup on white devils like Custer out on the great plains.
Turns out his ancestors, given his parentage, are a lot more likely to have counted coup on Mohammedans or British accented white devils over in old India.
Regards,
Sully
P.S. Love your 'stache, but I recommend you ditch the white jacket for a rainbow tie-dye. "
Me again - In the interests of fairness I shall certainly post Mr. Glantz's reply if he makes one. Incidently, since sending him the email I have reconsidered my opinion of Mr. Glantz's droopy at the sides moustache. On reflection it makes him look like an underdeveloped walrus, or else a walrus after the attentions of a pinniped version of Lorena Bobbitt. He should ditch the picture.
Update: My remarks above relate to the picture of Mr. Glantz in the print edition of The Times Herald. His column of Sunday, September 7th wasn't up on the website (as of September 7th). There is a different picture of him on the web. In that picture he doesn't have a Fu Manchu moustache.
Update - September 9th - In today's paper The Times Herald published a tiny little correction of this pretty big error on Mr. Glantz's part, given that he regularly writes about national politics. The correction reads. "In Gordon Glantz's column on Page A4 of Sunday's edition, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was incorrectly identified as a Native American."
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
The real reason Obama picked Biden
All the political commentators are wondering why Barack Obama picked Senator Joseph Biden as his running mate. And none of them can seem to come up with a good reason.
Biden is much older than Obama and he's been a senator for more than thirty years, so he hardly fits Obama's message of "We are the change we have been waiting for." And Biden is from Delaware which only has a few electoral votes, so he doesn't add much to the ticket in that regard. Biden has a lot of experience on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, so he probably knows where Azerbaijan is, and he probably knows that the Georgians in the news a lot lately don't eat grits and gravy. But Biden being so experienced is a bit of a two-edged sword. Having Biden on the ticket may reassure some folks, but it may also reinforce the concern among other folks that Obama himself doesn't have much experience.
So why did Obama pick Biden when he could have picked someone like Governor Ed Rendell? Rendell is younger than Biden, and he's a much fresher face on the national scene. And Rendell might have some real clout when it comes to winning Pennsylvania's big electoral vote count.
I think Obama picked Biden because guys like Rendell, guys with a future in politics, dodged when he asked them. They think he won't win. And running for vice-president on a losing ticket is about as healthy for a political career as getting caught in a love child controversy.
Which brings me to John Edwards. He ran for VP with John Kerry in 2004 - and they lost. Being an old VP nominee didn't help him a lot when he ran for president this year. He got trounced by both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and that was before the love child controvery hit the papers.
Then there's Joe Lieberman. He ran for VP with Al Gore in 2000 - and they lost. Joe Lieberman more recently found himself ganged up on by members of his own party in Connecticut when he ran for the Senate again. Being an old VP candidate of their party didn't cut much mustard with them.
Most of you have forgotten Jack Kemp, so I'll tell you he was a football player and then a long time congressman. He ran for VP in 1996 as the running mate of Robert Dole. They lost, and nobody has heard of Jack Kemp since then.
Here are some more loser VP candidates - Dan Quayle 1992, Lloyd Bentsen 1988, Geraldine Ferraro 1984, Walter Mondale 1980. All losers, and all have gone nowhere since they lost. There's a pattern here. Running for VP is outright political poison if you lose.
And what if you win? One of the country's countless forgettable VPs memorably described the office of Vice-President of the United States as not being worth a pitcher of warm spit. Less than a pitcher of warm spit, that's what you get if you win!
If you lose you're almost certainly headed for the political graveyard. No young politician with half a brain in his head will accept an offer to run for vice-president unless he's pretty darn sure the presidential candidate he's tying himself to is going to win.
So now you know why Obama picked Biden to be his running mate. The young Democratic Party politicians all turned him down. They've been watching Obama's poll results decline ever since early Spring and they don't like the trend. They're acting excited about Obama, but they think he's a sinking ship and they don't want to go down with him.
Barack Obama picked Joe Biden because he couldn't convince any of the other nationally known Democrats to run with him.
Biden is much older than Obama and he's been a senator for more than thirty years, so he hardly fits Obama's message of "We are the change we have been waiting for." And Biden is from Delaware which only has a few electoral votes, so he doesn't add much to the ticket in that regard. Biden has a lot of experience on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, so he probably knows where Azerbaijan is, and he probably knows that the Georgians in the news a lot lately don't eat grits and gravy. But Biden being so experienced is a bit of a two-edged sword. Having Biden on the ticket may reassure some folks, but it may also reinforce the concern among other folks that Obama himself doesn't have much experience.
So why did Obama pick Biden when he could have picked someone like Governor Ed Rendell? Rendell is younger than Biden, and he's a much fresher face on the national scene. And Rendell might have some real clout when it comes to winning Pennsylvania's big electoral vote count.
I think Obama picked Biden because guys like Rendell, guys with a future in politics, dodged when he asked them. They think he won't win. And running for vice-president on a losing ticket is about as healthy for a political career as getting caught in a love child controversy.
Which brings me to John Edwards. He ran for VP with John Kerry in 2004 - and they lost. Being an old VP nominee didn't help him a lot when he ran for president this year. He got trounced by both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and that was before the love child controvery hit the papers.
Then there's Joe Lieberman. He ran for VP with Al Gore in 2000 - and they lost. Joe Lieberman more recently found himself ganged up on by members of his own party in Connecticut when he ran for the Senate again. Being an old VP candidate of their party didn't cut much mustard with them.
Most of you have forgotten Jack Kemp, so I'll tell you he was a football player and then a long time congressman. He ran for VP in 1996 as the running mate of Robert Dole. They lost, and nobody has heard of Jack Kemp since then.
Here are some more loser VP candidates - Dan Quayle 1992, Lloyd Bentsen 1988, Geraldine Ferraro 1984, Walter Mondale 1980. All losers, and all have gone nowhere since they lost. There's a pattern here. Running for VP is outright political poison if you lose.
And what if you win? One of the country's countless forgettable VPs memorably described the office of Vice-President of the United States as not being worth a pitcher of warm spit. Less than a pitcher of warm spit, that's what you get if you win!
If you lose you're almost certainly headed for the political graveyard. No young politician with half a brain in his head will accept an offer to run for vice-president unless he's pretty darn sure the presidential candidate he's tying himself to is going to win.
So now you know why Obama picked Biden to be his running mate. The young Democratic Party politicians all turned him down. They've been watching Obama's poll results decline ever since early Spring and they don't like the trend. They're acting excited about Obama, but they think he's a sinking ship and they don't want to go down with him.
Barack Obama picked Joe Biden because he couldn't convince any of the other nationally known Democrats to run with him.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Flash - Some Republicans are as dumb as Democrats
New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Republican, wants to put huge windmills on top of his city's skyscrapers to make the city green. What especially caught my eye was that he was quoted by New York Times reporter Michael Barbaro as saying that he imagined the Statue of Liberty’s torch being one day “powered by an ocean wind farm.”
Duh! Mr. Mayor, with all due respect, the Statue of Liberty's torch doesn't have a light in it anymore. The old torch, which did have a light in it, was replaced by one covered with gold leaf when it was renovated in the 1980's. And, duh! Mister Barbaro, you might have followed up by reminding the mayor or pointing out in your article that Miss Liberty's torch is already powered by the renewable energy of. . . reflection.
I owe seeing this item to Greg Pollowitz at National Review's Planet Gore blog. Mr. Pollowitz, who is probably a lot smarter than Mayor Bloomberg and Mister Barbaro, and who is also probably a bit more of an engineer than me, noted that the Mayor ". . . didn't say which buildings (he wants windmills on) . . . probably because putting a giant windmill on top of a giant skyscraper creates engineering stresses that said building was not designed to absorb. . ."
You can read the whole thing at http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTUyODkyNTJhMDdmY2NhOGIwMTBjMzI0Zjk5ZTI1Yzc
Update - the more I think about it the more proud I am of avoiding the cheap temptation to go on with a very politically incorrect riff on this post given the probable ethnic backgrounds of Mayor Bloomberg, Mr. Barbaro, Mr. Pollowitz and Al Gore. Could it be that I'm finally maturing? Nah, it's just that to work that riff has to start "A Jew, a Dago and a WASP pedal their bikes from an environmental conference to a smoke free smoothie bar where they find a Polack smoking a cigar and sipping a bourbon,". . . I'm not fully pleased with the rest of the joke as I've developed it so far. If anyone comments with a better completion than I have it will be posted here for posterity to admire.
Update 2 - August 21st
"NEW YORK (AP) - Mayor Michael Bloomberg is backing off his suggestion to put windmills on city bridges and rooftops after newspapers mocked the idea with photo illustrations of turbines on the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building.
"There are aesthetic considerations," Bloomberg said. "No. 2, I have absolutely no idea whether that makes any sense from a scientific, from a practical point of view.""
So now Mayor Bloomberg admits he was an idiot last week. It's a fair guess that he's still an idiot. What a maroon.
The whole article is here - http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080821/D92MJ32O1.html
Duh! Mr. Mayor, with all due respect, the Statue of Liberty's torch doesn't have a light in it anymore. The old torch, which did have a light in it, was replaced by one covered with gold leaf when it was renovated in the 1980's. And, duh! Mister Barbaro, you might have followed up by reminding the mayor or pointing out in your article that Miss Liberty's torch is already powered by the renewable energy of. . . reflection.
I owe seeing this item to Greg Pollowitz at National Review's Planet Gore blog. Mr. Pollowitz, who is probably a lot smarter than Mayor Bloomberg and Mister Barbaro, and who is also probably a bit more of an engineer than me, noted that the Mayor ". . . didn't say which buildings (he wants windmills on) . . . probably because putting a giant windmill on top of a giant skyscraper creates engineering stresses that said building was not designed to absorb. . ."
You can read the whole thing at http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTUyODkyNTJhMDdmY2NhOGIwMTBjMzI0Zjk5ZTI1Yzc
Update - the more I think about it the more proud I am of avoiding the cheap temptation to go on with a very politically incorrect riff on this post given the probable ethnic backgrounds of Mayor Bloomberg, Mr. Barbaro, Mr. Pollowitz and Al Gore. Could it be that I'm finally maturing? Nah, it's just that to work that riff has to start "A Jew, a Dago and a WASP pedal their bikes from an environmental conference to a smoke free smoothie bar where they find a Polack smoking a cigar and sipping a bourbon,". . . I'm not fully pleased with the rest of the joke as I've developed it so far. If anyone comments with a better completion than I have it will be posted here for posterity to admire.
Update 2 - August 21st
"NEW YORK (AP) - Mayor Michael Bloomberg is backing off his suggestion to put windmills on city bridges and rooftops after newspapers mocked the idea with photo illustrations of turbines on the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building.
"There are aesthetic considerations," Bloomberg said. "No. 2, I have absolutely no idea whether that makes any sense from a scientific, from a practical point of view.""
So now Mayor Bloomberg admits he was an idiot last week. It's a fair guess that he's still an idiot. What a maroon.
The whole article is here - http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080821/D92MJ32O1.html
Friday, July 18, 2008
The biggest financial scandal in the history of the world
The biggest financial scandal in the history of the world is now unfolding so there are sure to be some interesting political games played over the next few months and years. Democrats are the chief scalawags involved and they probably have laundered and stashed most of the loot, but since the thievery has been proceeding more or less in plain site for 16 years it's sure that at least some Republicans have managed to glom onto some goodies as well, if only to keep them quiet during the times when they have controlled the congress.
In some ways it's a complicated scandal, and the politicians are sure to make it seem very complicated indeed as they select the five or six designated fall guys to take the rap, but at base it's very simple.
In 1992 Federal Regulators appointed and controlled by the then Democratic Congress gave Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae a special dispensation to continue to operate like banks and keep all of the profits they made on loans, but without the troublesome necessity of being responsible for most of the risk on the loans and with extra special super-duper permission to violate all normal rules of banking by maintaining only a thin facade of cash reserves in their vaults. Armed with those advantages over other banks Fannie and Freddie, as they are affectionately know by political bag men, proceeded to grow like weeds.
Now I'm not a financial analyst but it's possible even for a schlub like me to make a rough estimate of how much those special regulatory perks were worth to Fannie and Freddie as they and their political contacts gorged and swilled over the past 16 years. Right now, you see, is when the chickens are finally coming home to roost and crap all over the heads of the two special banks. And the Wall Street Journal today helpfully printed a chart which shows that between the two of them they have about $80 Billion in Reserves whereas two normal banks heir size would be required to have over $180 Billion in Reserves. The special dispensations mean that Fannie and Freddie are short $100 Billion, and they've been able to be short of reserves for 16 years.
Now it's not fair to estimate the extent of the loot based on the current $100 Billion of missing reserves because the two banks have been growing fast during all of those 16 years, so I'm going to give the thieves the benefit of the doubt and assume the average shortfall of reserves has only been $50 Billion during each of the 16 years. And I'm going to assume that being allowed to be short of all that cash in the vaults only resulted in a 5% bottom line advantage for Fannie and Freddie. That would make the value of those special dispensations 5% of $50 Billion which is $2.5 Billion times 16 years for a total of $48 Billion. But that $48 Billion has a time value, just like all other cash. If we assume a conservative 6% rate of return it's actually worth about $96 Billion in current 2008 dollars.
Now Fannie and Freddie surely didn't give all of that loot to the politicians in envelopes, they only gave them a commission. How much of a commission? In this regard most politicians are actually pretty cheap in my estimation, they're mostly too stupid to be sharp negotiators. I doubt they got more than 6% or $6,000,000,000* or so, and it may well have been less even though this was the ultimate sweet deal - thievery in plain site, a very long time frame before the theft was noticed by the public, plenty of time to launder the loot, and even testimonial dinners and awards praising those politicians and Fannie and Freddie executives as public spirited citizens.
The great train robbers in London only got about $6 Million and they got a movie made about them. Here we have politicians hauling off something like one thousand times that much. It's worth at least a movie. I say it should have a cast of hundreds and be set on Devil's Island with whips, chains, snarling dogs and a special iron time out box in the sun for anyone who talks back to the warden. But, given the way politics works, the movie about this crime of the millenium will end with four or six or eight** peripherally involved folks spending a few years at a special resort whose main inconvenience to them will be lack of a masseuse on call down by the prison pool.
*$6,000,000,000 is $6 Billion. That's about five hundred big suitcases full of $20 bills neatly packaged in bank wrappers like the ninety large they found in Democratic Congressman William Jefferson's freezer down in New Orleans. It's probably a thousand or more suitcases of loose used $20's stuffed in there the way Democratic Congressman Patrick Kennedy would do it while, uh, disoriented, or the way Congressman Wilbur Mills and Fannie Foxe would have done it before going for a swim. Note - Fannie Foxe is not related to Fannie Mae even though they may appear to have more in common than their first names.
**It has to be an even number because the rules of Washington are that an equal number or Democrats and Republicans have to take the fall for any sizable scam, especially one that involves as unindicted co-conspirators every Congressman, Senator, Federal Judge, Treasury Department official and Securities and Exchange Commission manager who hasn't gotten around with a seeing eye dog since 1992. Come to think of it a thousand big suitcases wouldn't have been nearly enough for all the payoffs, they must have used medium sized ones.
In some ways it's a complicated scandal, and the politicians are sure to make it seem very complicated indeed as they select the five or six designated fall guys to take the rap, but at base it's very simple.
In 1992 Federal Regulators appointed and controlled by the then Democratic Congress gave Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae a special dispensation to continue to operate like banks and keep all of the profits they made on loans, but without the troublesome necessity of being responsible for most of the risk on the loans and with extra special super-duper permission to violate all normal rules of banking by maintaining only a thin facade of cash reserves in their vaults. Armed with those advantages over other banks Fannie and Freddie, as they are affectionately know by political bag men, proceeded to grow like weeds.
Now I'm not a financial analyst but it's possible even for a schlub like me to make a rough estimate of how much those special regulatory perks were worth to Fannie and Freddie as they and their political contacts gorged and swilled over the past 16 years. Right now, you see, is when the chickens are finally coming home to roost and crap all over the heads of the two special banks. And the Wall Street Journal today helpfully printed a chart which shows that between the two of them they have about $80 Billion in Reserves whereas two normal banks heir size would be required to have over $180 Billion in Reserves. The special dispensations mean that Fannie and Freddie are short $100 Billion, and they've been able to be short of reserves for 16 years.
Now it's not fair to estimate the extent of the loot based on the current $100 Billion of missing reserves because the two banks have been growing fast during all of those 16 years, so I'm going to give the thieves the benefit of the doubt and assume the average shortfall of reserves has only been $50 Billion during each of the 16 years. And I'm going to assume that being allowed to be short of all that cash in the vaults only resulted in a 5% bottom line advantage for Fannie and Freddie. That would make the value of those special dispensations 5% of $50 Billion which is $2.5 Billion times 16 years for a total of $48 Billion. But that $48 Billion has a time value, just like all other cash. If we assume a conservative 6% rate of return it's actually worth about $96 Billion in current 2008 dollars.
Now Fannie and Freddie surely didn't give all of that loot to the politicians in envelopes, they only gave them a commission. How much of a commission? In this regard most politicians are actually pretty cheap in my estimation, they're mostly too stupid to be sharp negotiators. I doubt they got more than 6% or $6,000,000,000* or so, and it may well have been less even though this was the ultimate sweet deal - thievery in plain site, a very long time frame before the theft was noticed by the public, plenty of time to launder the loot, and even testimonial dinners and awards praising those politicians and Fannie and Freddie executives as public spirited citizens.
The great train robbers in London only got about $6 Million and they got a movie made about them. Here we have politicians hauling off something like one thousand times that much. It's worth at least a movie. I say it should have a cast of hundreds and be set on Devil's Island with whips, chains, snarling dogs and a special iron time out box in the sun for anyone who talks back to the warden. But, given the way politics works, the movie about this crime of the millenium will end with four or six or eight** peripherally involved folks spending a few years at a special resort whose main inconvenience to them will be lack of a masseuse on call down by the prison pool.
*$6,000,000,000 is $6 Billion. That's about five hundred big suitcases full of $20 bills neatly packaged in bank wrappers like the ninety large they found in Democratic Congressman William Jefferson's freezer down in New Orleans. It's probably a thousand or more suitcases of loose used $20's stuffed in there the way Democratic Congressman Patrick Kennedy would do it while, uh, disoriented, or the way Congressman Wilbur Mills and Fannie Foxe would have done it before going for a swim. Note - Fannie Foxe is not related to Fannie Mae even though they may appear to have more in common than their first names.
**It has to be an even number because the rules of Washington are that an equal number or Democrats and Republicans have to take the fall for any sizable scam, especially one that involves as unindicted co-conspirators every Congressman, Senator, Federal Judge, Treasury Department official and Securities and Exchange Commission manager who hasn't gotten around with a seeing eye dog since 1992. Come to think of it a thousand big suitcases wouldn't have been nearly enough for all the payoffs, they must have used medium sized ones.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
I hope you're enjoying $4.00 Gasoline
I can't understand the talk about why we shouldn't permit drilling for new oil in Alaska and off the coasts because "it will take years to get to market." The very same folks making that argument are also arguing for massive government investments in alternative energy schemes (like wind and solar and tides and such) that will also take years and even decades to get to market.
It's not that I'm against wind and solar and tidal power, it's just that we know oil companies can find and develop oil fields, but we don't yet know how fast those alternative schemes can get off the ground and actually start producing significant energy. Solar power, for instance, still produces less than 1% of US energy needs, and the government has been "investing" in it since Jimmy Carter declared a crash program in 1970 or so.
Jimmy Carter also declared a crash government program to develop fusion power back in 1970 or so, but the believers in big government programs want to forget about that because the net result has been no energy at all.
There are a lot of dim bulbs in the Democratic Party who are addicted to pandering to the Al Gore wing of the so-called environmental movement which really wants us to freeze in the dark for our sins. Having prevented drilling in Alaska and offshore for the past 30 years they now want us to buy an argument that we shouldn't drill because it will take too long to get the oil to market.
Not that the guilt is all on one side here. Much to their shame the Republican Party has allowed this situation to continue to develop while it has held power over for the last 8 years. Republicans are now feeling good about President Bush who the other day lifted the executive order which prevents offshore drilling. But why didn't he do that on his first or his second or his six-hundredth day in office. It's true that the lifting of the executive order is not enough, Congress still has to act to lift the congressional ban on offshore drilling; but why didn't President Bush hold their feet to the fire sooner?
It's not that I'm against wind and solar and tidal power, it's just that we know oil companies can find and develop oil fields, but we don't yet know how fast those alternative schemes can get off the ground and actually start producing significant energy. Solar power, for instance, still produces less than 1% of US energy needs, and the government has been "investing" in it since Jimmy Carter declared a crash program in 1970 or so.
Jimmy Carter also declared a crash government program to develop fusion power back in 1970 or so, but the believers in big government programs want to forget about that because the net result has been no energy at all.
There are a lot of dim bulbs in the Democratic Party who are addicted to pandering to the Al Gore wing of the so-called environmental movement which really wants us to freeze in the dark for our sins. Having prevented drilling in Alaska and offshore for the past 30 years they now want us to buy an argument that we shouldn't drill because it will take too long to get the oil to market.
Not that the guilt is all on one side here. Much to their shame the Republican Party has allowed this situation to continue to develop while it has held power over for the last 8 years. Republicans are now feeling good about President Bush who the other day lifted the executive order which prevents offshore drilling. But why didn't he do that on his first or his second or his six-hundredth day in office. It's true that the lifting of the executive order is not enough, Congress still has to act to lift the congressional ban on offshore drilling; but why didn't President Bush hold their feet to the fire sooner?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
