To my army of 3 followers, it must seem like an eternity since I posted. My deepest apologies.
Obama sucks. I know, not long ago I was laying the yellow bricks for his walkway to a second term. He just can't LEAD! The country needs him to: 1) Declare a fucking medical marijuana policy for the States to follow so we don't get the stupid shit presently bogging down Arizona's progress; 2) Don't send good time Joe in with the Reubes to negotiate deficit reduction and then act surprised when it didn't work out; 3) Get us the hell out of Afghanistan!!
Now this last item has so many merits even Repubes are starting to grouse about it. Obama's tepid idea to march a few troops out here and a few out there is beyond my comprehension. It's been 10 years, we've killed and maimed enough young people, and we can't afford it!!!!! Oh, and that other small thing that no one dares mention - it's fucking un-winable. Even Russia couldn't defeat them (whoever "them" is) after 8 years, and they live right next door. I remember in the 1980's a political cartoon showing a turbine-topped fellow with a machine gun on his shoulder sitting in front of a sign that says "Welcome To Afghanistan". Only he's crossed through Afghanistan and written Vietnam. Yeah, it was the USSR's Vietnam. And because this country was once lead by the dumbest mother-fucker to ever hold office greater than a garbage-truck operator (my apologies to all garbage truck operators), we have yet another Vietnam. Let's see here, how did that turn out? Oh yeah, I remember - we lost. The paper tiger ran, as the communist knew we would eventually.
And so, the paper tiger needs to leave again - now. The Taliban will never, ever, just go away, and they didn't attack us. Install a UN peace force in Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar-I-Sharif and maybe a few other large cities to try and provide a safe haven for people and let the Taliban have the rest. From what I hear and read, the majority of people not living in the biggest cities would rather live under the Taliban rule again. They've fucking had it with war, and who can blame them. Al-Qaeda is on it's back, leaderless, out of money and hated by most in the region for killing too many Muslims, and they don't need Afghanistan to congregate and plot sinister things- they have Pakistan! On top of all that, the Afghan government is totally corrupt and we know this will never change. Leaving provides more benefits than the CEO of Exxon gets: we save tens of billions a year, no more killing of our kids, one less reason for the Muslim world to hate us as we are not occupying one of their countries, and one more roadblock eliminated in the argument for reducing the defense budget. A recent poll showed 60-something percent of people want the war to end, now. Sounds to me like a majority Mr. Obama.
We need to save money and cut the defense budget big time. The idiot politicians on both sides of isle are playing Russian roulette with the economy over increasing the national debt ceiling, and they have no idea how dangerous this could be. Next week, Economics 101 and Frog's secret recipe for getting the country back on solid financial footing. The ingredients are available, sensible and non-poisonous.
I can't wrap this week up without an honorable mention to the Republican Legislature of Arizona for refusing to change one word of a bill that would allow federal money to keep flowing for unemployment benefits. Everyone knows the unemployed are just sitting around smoking pot and watching re-runs of god knows what while getting free money. It's like Dan Quayle said during the last recession when he saw a help wanted sign at McDonalds. Shit man, they're jobs out there. Well, obviously he and the other employed Republican Americans just don't understand what the problem is. What I don't understand is how these slimy, heartless, soulless and obviously clueless politicians get elected. Aren't Republican voters out of work too? Don't they finally understand that their party would rather put people hanging by a thread into foreclosure, bankruptcy and let them starve rather than accept money from the feds that costs the state nothing in order to make some twisted symbolic gesture of fiscal discipline? That's your party Republicans!! Praise Jesus, light the pipe and pass the remote!
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Sunday, June 5, 2011
This Is Hard Work
Back in March I penned (errr, typed) a blog with a blaring title proclaiming the recession to be over. Yes, the statistics keep pouring in - exports are up, stock market up-a-plenty, unemployment down and corporate CEO earnings back in the ionosphere. Thank God! CEO pay was flat in 2009, and the poor bastards had to actually work - at keeping stock and bond holders convinced not to sell. Well the good times are back for these favored souls, and we can thank in order of importance: Bernanke the Fed chief, China, the federal government, the working slugs of America and the CEO's themselves.
The Fed? How about I give you all the billions you want, charge 0.0000001% interest and you can take the money and: bid up commodity prices, buy treasuries at 2.5%, loan it out at 5% or even buy steeply discounted mortgage backed securities for all Bernanke cares. Fucking hard NOT to make money in that game. In Arizona, CEO pay jumped 48% in 2010. The two old white fucks that run the local copper conglomerate Freeport-McMoRan made 43.8 and 47.5 million each - in just one year! Yeah, it was a tough slog too as copper prices quadrupled due to China needing (hoarding) metals and the rest of the commodities world jumping aboard for the ride. Thanks China. These money grubbers did nothing more than sit back and let the frenzied market drive the price of what they're selling thru the roof creating an artificial windfall for all those at the top. Oh yeah, I'm sure there were a lot of meetings and big decisions to be made and people to lay off. As Bush the Bonehead would say - "It's hard work"!
In a story on the adjacent page of the paper, thousands of people are wondering how they will manage to eat and find a place to live due to the cutbacks in state and local spending. Many are laid off, ex-middle class white people, not whiny black welfare exploiters.
Then there's the federal government. Reagan's trickle sideways idea, Senior Bush's continuing deregulation of everything, Clinton's signing off on the demise of the Glass-Stegall Act, Junior Bush's complete abandonment of the SEC enforcement efforts (Madoff loved it!) and now Obama's continuing ambivalence toward business and his failure to push tax-reform that would: 1) limit corporate welfare tax breaks, and 2) make hedge-fund billionaires pay the same fucking tax rates working people do. As Warren Buffett famously said - "My secretary pays a higher tax rate than I do". And the Supreme Court's recent ruling upholding the 1880's idea that a business is somehow a person and allowing limitless corporate campaign contributions to politicians. This shit isn't partisan, it's unbelievably unjust.
And the working slugs of American? Yes, we all had a hand in this. By voting against our own economic self-interest time and time again, we have reaped what we sowed. Let's see, I'm religious and Democrats are not, so I'm voting Republican. Let's see, I'm an atheist and Republicans are not, so I'm voting Democrat.
Which leaves the CEO's. Unconscionable pay and stock options granted to them by their buddies on the board and aided by the majority stockholders, who are almost always institutional outfits like pension plans, that say nothing as their board members hope to one day be on the board of the company who's stock they own.
Nobody is worth 47 million a year, unless they invent a cure for cancer. When that day comes, I will personally make every effort to find out which lab scientist making 75K a year actually made the discovery and make sure his name is included in a future blog. That's right, money can't buy everything!
The Fed? How about I give you all the billions you want, charge 0.0000001% interest and you can take the money and: bid up commodity prices, buy treasuries at 2.5%, loan it out at 5% or even buy steeply discounted mortgage backed securities for all Bernanke cares. Fucking hard NOT to make money in that game. In Arizona, CEO pay jumped 48% in 2010. The two old white fucks that run the local copper conglomerate Freeport-McMoRan made 43.8 and 47.5 million each - in just one year! Yeah, it was a tough slog too as copper prices quadrupled due to China needing (hoarding) metals and the rest of the commodities world jumping aboard for the ride. Thanks China. These money grubbers did nothing more than sit back and let the frenzied market drive the price of what they're selling thru the roof creating an artificial windfall for all those at the top. Oh yeah, I'm sure there were a lot of meetings and big decisions to be made and people to lay off. As Bush the Bonehead would say - "It's hard work"!
In a story on the adjacent page of the paper, thousands of people are wondering how they will manage to eat and find a place to live due to the cutbacks in state and local spending. Many are laid off, ex-middle class white people, not whiny black welfare exploiters.
Then there's the federal government. Reagan's trickle sideways idea, Senior Bush's continuing deregulation of everything, Clinton's signing off on the demise of the Glass-Stegall Act, Junior Bush's complete abandonment of the SEC enforcement efforts (Madoff loved it!) and now Obama's continuing ambivalence toward business and his failure to push tax-reform that would: 1) limit corporate welfare tax breaks, and 2) make hedge-fund billionaires pay the same fucking tax rates working people do. As Warren Buffett famously said - "My secretary pays a higher tax rate than I do". And the Supreme Court's recent ruling upholding the 1880's idea that a business is somehow a person and allowing limitless corporate campaign contributions to politicians. This shit isn't partisan, it's unbelievably unjust.
And the working slugs of American? Yes, we all had a hand in this. By voting against our own economic self-interest time and time again, we have reaped what we sowed. Let's see, I'm religious and Democrats are not, so I'm voting Republican. Let's see, I'm an atheist and Republicans are not, so I'm voting Democrat.
Which leaves the CEO's. Unconscionable pay and stock options granted to them by their buddies on the board and aided by the majority stockholders, who are almost always institutional outfits like pension plans, that say nothing as their board members hope to one day be on the board of the company who's stock they own.
Nobody is worth 47 million a year, unless they invent a cure for cancer. When that day comes, I will personally make every effort to find out which lab scientist making 75K a year actually made the discovery and make sure his name is included in a future blog. That's right, money can't buy everything!
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