I am Sarah Palin's Friend!

I bet that wasn't obvious to you from my previous postings. Actually, it wasn't obvious to me either until she told me. My old buddy Sarah sent me a nice letter headed "Dear Friend, " asking me for my support. Ol' Moosehunter (as I'm her Friend, I'm sure she won't mind me calling her that) tells me she would be really pleased if I would join the Republican National Committee and give them a couple of thousand bucks out of my unlimited post-crash supply. They need the money because those pesky Democrats with their "fearful and pessimistic mentality" are "set to raise over $1 billion" (her bolding) to "relentlessy flood America's airwaves with their negative and false attacks against our Republican candidates."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the McCain campaign had opted for Federal funding. Shouldn't that preclude he or his co-candidate coming to me with hand out, even if it is for that no-specific-candidate body, the RNC? By the way, exactly how is the RNC going to run ads that don't urge you to vote for a specific candidate? Are there several Republicans running for President? Forgive me, I hadn't noticed.

Well, I hate to disappoint my old Friend Sarah. I'm just too darn fearful and pessimistic to find hope in her "confident, optimistic view of principled, conservative government and opportunity for all." Even if it does mean the "Obama-Biden Democrats" will take "total control of our government."

As for cutting "through the false claims and fearful rhetoric of the [O-B D's]," I'm having trouble identifying same through the din of the "Palin around with the ignorant" mob. And in these dark times, I much prefer fearful to fear-mongering.

Sarah, with Friends like me, you better not quit your day job quite yet.

How to stimulate the economy

While Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats attempt to give the middle class a chance to recover from the overwhelming disaster that has befallen them in the last few weeks, the GOP has its own suggestion: make the already ludicrously rich even richer. Here are their ideas:

1. Removing legal barriers to speed up new offshore oil drilling. A law banning offshore drilling expired October 1, but Republican lawmakers say lawsuits could block new offshore rigs and want judges to quickly rule on the cases.

This will deliver untold billions to those same energy companies that are already making tens of billions a quarter while having absolutely no impact on American families for years to come, if ever. Why not allow the oil companies to spend as much as they want on windmills, tidemills and geo-thermal power and deduct the lot from their taxes instead? Of course, the trouble with those forms of energy is that once you've built them, they're self-sufficient. You can't go on selling the same old crap over and over again.

2. Lowering taxes on income that U.S. corporations earn from their overseas subsidiaries.

...making it even easier to offshore jobs and put more and more Americans out of work.

3. Eliminating capital gains taxes on the sale of homes up to $500,000 for a couple.

And that will help most Americans how exactly? THERE IS NO CAPITAL GAINS TAX if you move from one house to another. This ONLY helps those with second, third, forth and, yes, eleventh homes. Can anyone say "John McCain?"

4. Suspending capital gains taxes on securities purchased during the next two years.

Considering that most middle-class Americans don't trade in securities directly to speak of, this is another one that only affects the "investor class" - the ones with all those Bush tax dollars that they can now drop into the thoroughly deflated market and ride back up. Let's see, what can I do with that $700 thousand I just got in the McCain tax cut?

5. Extending government deposit insurance to business transaction accounts.

Bear in mind that small businesses are already covered. We're talking here about LARGE businesses like, oh, Enron, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and the like. That's really going to help the little guy pay his mortgage, isn't it.

6. Directing the government to guarantee inter-bank loans.

Then all the banks can just lend themselves out of debt. "Hey, you lend me a couple billion, I'll lose it (nudge, nudge), and then you can just claim it back from the government."

OK, all you people who think preventing gay marriage is more important than providing your family with a roof over their head and the odd square meal, go for it! After all, trickle-down economics has worked so well so far, why stop now?

We can't wait! We must act now!

Where have I heard those words before?  "Immediate passage of this bill is crucial."

Don't stop to read it or anything time-wasting like that, just pass it.  The world will end instantly if we don't pass this by COB Monday.

In the last eight years, that kind of thinking has cost us trillions of dollars in Iraq and has seriously eroded our domestic security and civil liberties.  Dennis Kucinich says he is the ONLY person in Congress who had his staff read the Patriot Act (sorry, the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act and please stand with your hand over your heart as you say that) from cover to cover (before refusing to sign it, I might add) and, as no-one has jumped up and said "I did!", I have no reason to question the fact.  Now we have yet another opportunity to blindly accept another staggering opportunity to throw another trillion of borrowed money at a problem without stopping to read the fine print.  This from the people who pushed de-regulation so far that fine print is regularly used to surgically remove any rights the signer might have had should things not turn out quite as advertised.

Did you notice how quickly the big guys leaped back in to the market once word was out that we, the taxpayer, were going to make everything all right?   My thoughts on the market are for another rant, though.  For now, lets hope that Dennis Kucinich is paying attention.  And let's hope that with a little sleeve-tugging he can get the attention of his fellow lawmakers before they stampede us over yet another cliff.   

Incidentally, does anyone wonder where all this money is actually going?  I mean in detail.  Is it going to pay off the mortgages of homeowners about to be foreclosed on?  Or is it going to shore up the coffers so that large shareholders can protect their portfolios?  Methinks the latter is a tad more likely.  Still waiting for that trickle-down to reach you?  Keep waiting folks.

It's easier to fill a hole than to build a mountain

My wife and I try not to go shopping together. Whenever we do, we end up buying something that neither one of us would have had the nerve to bring home and try to justify the expense to the other. Somehow, that sense of well-being that comes with spending money you don't have on something you don't need just overwhelms us.

Seems Congress is the same. Whenever the prospect of throwing a few hundred billion at something comes up, partisan lines dissolve and it all gets approved in a day. Just say the word "crisis" and follow it up with "it'll cost billions to fix" and they're at the table, pens ready. Now even those who think that free health care is "Socialism" are eager to buy every bad loan in the country at some arbitrary price that might or might not be even close to their actual value. Isn't the government going into the property business "Socialism?" And didn't we just finish committing $3 trillion dollars to an unnecessary war? Now another trillion or two is going to go to bail us out of the mess that de-regulation built. Did I miss something?

Oh, and where are all these trillions coming from? All those countries round the world that are in to us so deep that they can't afford to see us fail. Ermm, does that sound familiar? Who do they think is going to bail them out when we start defaulting on our national subprime lending?

The old "always a bigger fish" is only true until you get to the biggest fish of all. And we're getting mighty close.

I'm having trouble these days trying to decide whether to put my money on global warming or global financial meltdown as the ultimate cause of H. Sapiens going the way of the dodo. Either way, I'm hedging with a fat investment in global stupidity.

The saga of de-regulation

1980. Ronald Reagan elected President. "The nine most terrifying words in the English Language are: "I'm from the government and I am here to help."

From the day Reagan was elected, we started to see a slow but inexorable erosion of governmental regulation and oversight which flipped into high gear under George Bush II and which is still espoused by John McCain (except when it sort-of isn't).

For the Adam Smith fans out there, let's look at what happens in the real world when an unregulated corporate world gets to play Free Market.

2008
Today: "Investigation finds FAA rushed jet approval" "FAA knew about the 'deficiencies' ... in part because of an overly close relationship with the manufacturer ... pendulum swing away from vigorous enforcement of compliance, toward an industry-favorable cozy relationship."

Today: "Wall Street plunges despite AIG bailout" "... after it lost billions in the risky business of insuring against bond defaults ... Goldman Sachs [] and Morgan Stanley remain under scrutiny" "AIG on the line for others' losses" "an exotic type of insurance to cover losses from investments tied to mortgages ... didn't envision that [it] could have gotten so out of hand"

This week: Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, WaMu teetering

This year: Foreclosures out the wazoo - "homeless" no longer only applies to down-and-outs.

This decade: How many Katrina "survivors" are still living in trailers and on welfare because FEMA had its funding and its experienced leadership taken away? Remember the mine collapse caused by over-zealous chiseling away at support walls? How many cranes have to fall in New York? How many highway bridges have to collapse? How many lead-heavy toys and bacerioactive vegetables have to poison our families before de-regulation gets a bad name?

Here's a little story of my own. My wife and I moved house in 2001. We got quotes from several movers and selected one (Sabra) that seemed competent and gave a reasonable quote (a little under $3000). They would bring 3 trucks, one with a trailor for my lawn tractor. The third tractor turned up at 7pm (only 11 hours late) and did not have a trailor. They tried to get the tractor into it with the hoist and nearly destroyed it before giving up and having to come back and pick it up the next day. We eventually left for our new home at 2am. They arrived there on the dot of 9 the next morning and presented us with a bill for over $6000. Cashier's check only, no cash=no belongings and a daily fee for storage if we didn't fork over the cash (on a Saturday). The difference between the quote and the bill was apparently based on several rolls of packing tape and some bubble wrap (?!). After "discussing" this at length with the movers and the owner of Sabra, we learned that thanks to DE-REGULATION, we had no leg to stand on and we had no choice but to pony up the six grand. On later talking to the previous owners of our new home, we learned that they had been treated to exactly the same scam by Nationwide.

We have had almost 30 years of De-Reagan-ulation and it's time to give Adam Smith a wake-up call.

Lest you think I'm over-reacting, let's remember Michael Milken and the Junk Bond Rip-off, Enron and the Great California Brown-out, the old Savings and Loan Fiasco (starring John McCain and his Keating Five), 8 and 9-figure bonuses for CEOs of failing companies - the list just goes on and on.

Basically, this last three decades has proven conclusively that, left to their own devices, our business leaders regard morality and ethics as expendable and expensive, getting in the way of piling up the old personal wealth. I wonder how many libertarians there were in feudal England. The only real difference between then and now is that Might is measured in dollars instead of soldiers. The serfs are still powerless against the Overlords.

Let's not let the Deregulators put us off with commissions and more tax-cuts for the wealthy. The only thing that's trickled down is disaster.