What's Goin' On?
AIG, GM,--------WTF? The real culprit is Goldman Sachs (GS). GS punked AIG by getting a very low rate of insurance on the toxic assets that they were pushing. When the assets failed, AIG had to pay 50 Billion in losses. When the taxpayers bailed out AIG, we were actually paying for Goldman Sachs bad investment. Here's the kicker ----GS stock $110, AIG $1 --- WTF? If a dumbass like me can understand, what's wrong with DC?
I Heard It Through The Grapevine
The threats by our executive branch that it will allow GM to fail and go into receivership are idle threats. It is called brinksmanship, bringing a situation to the brink of disaster so that an agenda can be accomplished. If you think that Obama and the Democratic Party would allow GM to fail, thereby abrogatiing the labor contracts of the UAW, you are nuts. By the way, why was the CEO of GM forced to resign, but the head of the UAW is still there? No answer needed, it was rhetorical.
Let's Get It On
In the Dallas ISD there is evidence that a principal allowed certain students to fight, bare fisted in a cage at the school to settle their difeferences. How 'bout Barney Frank and Rush Limbaugh in a no-holds-barred fight for the right to take this country to the extreme left or right.
Sectional (sp) Healing
The rift in the country today is not a lot different than it was in the 1800's. Back then each section of the country had its own agenda. The Northeast was manufacturing. The South was the plantation system. The West was transportation and infrastructure. Each section, or faction, represented a lot of people.
Now, the factions, are big business, the middle class, the working poor, and the people who feel entitled. I hope that each will help the others succeed . We do not owe anyone anything that is able to work and chooses not to. There will always be poor people. There has never been a time in history when there wasn't. The great thing about this country is that no matter how poor you may be, you can still succeed with ambition and hard work.
If you noticed the headings, they reflected an April Fool's Day event 25 years ago. ----------------------------------- The murder of Marvin Gaye. How Sweet It Is.
I think I'm sorry I asked for a new post:) I don't really understand the anger against Obama. I understand it from Rush and Hannity and O'Reilly. For them, it's all about ratings. The more people they get stirred up, the higher their ratings. I don't understand it from people that I would consider independent thinkers ( I mean, who would want to be called a dittohead). The simple fact is that Obama inherited a huge mess. I won't blame it all on Bush. The Congressional Democrats and Republicans and Wall Street (among others) are also to blame. However, I don't think anyone can blame the current Presidency for the mess. Obama’s doing what he believes he needs to do to get the economy going again. It may not work or it might only partially work, but I think everyone agrees that something needs to be done. I don't think it is fair to say that you are against the bailout actions and then be benefiting from those actions. The truth is we don't really know what would have happened if the bailouts didn't occur. It's possible that we would have made it through, but it is also possible that the whole economy could have crashed to a point where we wouldn't be able to revive it (or it would have taken a much longer time). The economy sucks right now, but I wouldn’t say it is completely broken. In my opinion, the bailouts provided a softer landing for the economic crash. It is analogous to an airplane crash where you have the option of landing in the water or crashing into the land. Both options suck, but most people would go for the water.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, I’ve got to say I think we have chosen an excellent President and not just because he is a Democrat. There are many Democrats I wouldn’t want to be President or dog catcher. It’s because he seems to be trying to do things and to explain (articulately) why he is doing them. I’m certain there are many people who don’t like what he is trying to do, but, at least, they should agree that we now have a President that is trying to address all of the issues that face the nation. Our previous President really only addressed one issue- “Keeping us Safe”. Certainly, I would like to be as safe as the next guy, but it doesn’t mean that is all I’m concerned about. It would be much safer for me to just stay in my house all day and have pizza delivered to my door, but I don’t think I would consider that living. Why can’t a President “Keep us Safe” and do other things. Essentially, the previous President (and Congress) ran up huge deficits, but didn’t have anything to show for it. We have no health care policy, no energy policy, a crumbling infrastructure and we ran up trillions of dollars of debt for what? If you are going to run up the deficit, at least have something to show for it. The fact is, we have 8 years of neglect we need to make up for.
I know the conservative argument to this is that we should just make the government smaller and then the private sector will have more money so spend. Frankly, I agree with that argument for the most part. I don’t think there is anything inherently right about the government spending money. However, the reality is that the government is huge and it will take time to whittle it down to make it more efficient. I’ve worked with a lot of government contractors and I know there are many inefficiencies. I think you could probably cut the government workforce (including contractors) by 20% and increase productivity (I mean some people spend their time writing comments to blogs while they are supposed to be working on a government contract. If you can believe that:) However, what are the economic implications of doing that. There definitely needs to be a concerted effort to streamline government, but I think most economists would agree that you shouldn’t undertake this during a recession. Let us get out of the current recession and then see what Obama does. If he is not working diligently to make government more efficient, then he should be criticized, but I doubt that will be the case. In the end, Obama seems to come to logical conclusions and there is no logic to having an inefficient government.
As far as the Barney vs. Rush fight goes, I would like to see something like that, but only if we were guaranteed that the winner would be shot afterwards. Then, maybe the 80% of people in the middle could get something done and we wouldn’t need to hear the other 20% yelling at each other all the time.
Saludos
I thought the coolest part was my Marvin Gaye references :(
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