The Red Brick Times

After listening to pundit after pundit on three major news shows last night (day of the big DOW drop) my synopsis is as follows:

1) Lots of house members are up for reelection soon.
2) They don't care about the state of the country, only about being reelected.
3) The voters in their home districts are plenty pissed off about the proposed bailout and may not take passage of same too kindly.
4) These voters don't understand anything, are way stupid, and should just shut the fuck up and do what their betters tell them to.

Here's an alternative view by a senior lecturer in economics at Harvard University (who was one of 166 academic economists who signed a letter to congressional leaders last week opposing the government bailout plan). Why wasn't this view given just a smidgen of time on any news show last night? Beats me.

My personal take: The neocons have spent eight years raping the US Treasury for the benefit of corporate lobbyists and the ultra-rich in ways too numerous to mention. This bailout plan is their parting gift to what Bush calls "my base".

(P.S. Dear Banking Lobbyists, I'll be happy to fall in line and remove this post for certain... y'know... "considerations?".)
Posted 5:40 AM by whatley (1) comments

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Jeffrey Miron says some things that feel right, that reflect the way most of us have to live. If you can't make it, you suffer, and there is no one out there to make it all better. The newly appointed head of Freddie will be paid 900K per year to do a job that no one is confident can be done. I would take that position for one year and then retire in shame and failure (with the bonus buy out) to happily reflect on my sins and grow vegetables. But the specter of abandoning the promise of home ownership to anybody who really, really wants it badly (regardless of ability to pay)undercuts our desire to equalize the economic and social center of our country. We have always decried those who shrugged off poverty by saying "they must deserve it". Do we now have to admit that equality, at least in housing, is truly beyond reach? What's next, differential census taking, like in Thom Jefferson's day when the 13 slave states that entered the union did so under the stipulation that five Afro-Americans would count as three Caucasians for census and electioneering purposes?
This is the latest crisis in the USA's experimental revolutionary government. How we transmute this determines whether we evolve or continue with the cycles of boom and bust and over control begun with FDR after 1929.

# posted by  Andy : September 30, 2008 6:45 AM
 
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Let the games begin:

"Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.

Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.

At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees."

Posted 4:49 AM by whatley (2) comments

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Do what I did this morning. Call your entire Congressional delegation. Two Senators one Congressman. State very succinctly that Section 8 of Secretary Paulson's little manifesto is a deal killer(Quote:"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.") and that any purchase of anything from any corporate entity will be secured by an equity position the company equal to the investment.

It only takes a few minutes and its fun. Use the handy links below.

Contact Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
Contact Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
Contact Obama: http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/contact2

Find Your Senator
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Find your Congress Critter
http://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

# posted by  A. O. : September 22, 2008 8:24 PM
 
If we ask real nice maybe the Iraqis will place a call to their Swiss bankers and help bail our economy out.

# posted by  whatley : September 24, 2008 5:20 AM
 
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Now that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got their bailouts, Ford, GM and Chrysler are batting their eyes and sending chocolates and flowers to Congress
Posted 5:50 AM by whatley (2) comments

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May showers of Higgs Bosons scintillate their declining years.

# posted by  Andy : September 10, 2008 8:36 PM
 
Maybe someone at Lehman Brothers dared to say NO to the Bush leaguers, and the White House is covered for fire, theft and water backup by AIG. That makes as much sense as anything else for the uneven playing field. The phrase "Too big to fail" has been batted about frequently. Who's next - the US government? Who bails them out? The anti-West factions around the world are likely hopping with glee at the financial distress and public discomfiture.

# posted by  Andy : September 17, 2008 6:28 AM
 
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With the exception of a few posts in this last week I've resisted my impulses to post anything election oriented. Not that I've really had that many. Overall my feelings toward our national government are, um, let's just say disrespectful and let it go at that, so cheering on one side or the other doesn't come naturally to me. I vote, but never can shake the feeling that I'm always selecting the lesser of two evils, something that over time dampens one's enthusiasm for the whole process. In that spirit I offer this link, an Op-Ed from the NYT that, at least to me, sums things up rather nicely.

P.S. PayPal has been giving me some grief lately about tRBT account there. I think it's suspended for the moment. I'm not sure what exactly they want but until it's all sorted out please try to resist any overwhelming urge to donate that way (you may send a check, or gold bullion would work too ;-).
Posted 4:58 AM by whatley (1) comments

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Last night I was asked by a friend, "Aren't you a Vietnam veteran?". I said, "Yes." Then he asked, "Do you think McCain's service in Vietnam makes him better than you?" I said, "No it does not." Later I pointed out there is no glory in getting caught. Apparently someone forgot to mention that McCain, like many of us, had had SERE training (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape). He managed the first, barely, failed miserably at the second, third and fourth elements. While I appreciate he was injured there is some question in my mind how he allowed himself to come to ground in Hanoi.

So does getting caught make you 'better'? I think not.

Related issue, military command experience (McCain's is VERY limited) is nothing like civilian leadership. The former has the attribute of institutionally enforced compliance without debate or dissension permitted. The latter requires much more, more than McCain has demonstrated.

Being a 'maverick' is not being a leader.

At end, is he qualified to lead innovatively? I propose the answer is NO.

# posted by  jeichenlaub : September 08, 2008 9:11 AM
 
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Letter written by a resident of Wasilla, Alaska, offers viewpoint of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
Posted 6:09 AM by whatley (0) comments

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Forty-five states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws requiring the credit bureaus to enable consumers to protect their credit files with a security freeze.Ohio, along with Alabama, Iowa, Michigan and Missouri, do not allow their citizens this most basic of protection. Well, lo and behold, the Ohio lobbyists must have decided that the bribes they pay our state representatives to keep this service from us have gotten way out of hand because, as of today, they're now allowing it in Ohio.

Posted 6:14 AM by whatley (2) comments

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I recently got my house insurance bill and, lo! it was substantially elevated. The accompanying text stated "you are not being offered the lowest price" because they are basing insurance pricing in some part on non-claim information, like the fact that I have not been working for two years and my credit history reflects that. In the thirteen years I have had this same policy, I have never claimed, never been late with a payment, never given them anything but steady, reliable income from my business. So, of course, my rates go higher because I was unemployed for a time. I think that the use of credit info, and a security freeze, do not NEARLY go far enough. This is greed and financial abuse by companies that are now required by law of all consumers (like auto insurance) due to industry lobbying efforts.

The surcharge charged by the County on all vehicle registrations is another financial blood-sucking. It adds a flat $20 on top of all other costs. What do we get? A big new County office building in downtown Elyria. And lousy money-losing management of the Lorain County Airport.

The State's license policy too. I did not register my Honda in May, but let it sit idle until August to save $$. When I bought the sticker in August, the cost was the full year amount. That's the State's policy - make one pay even when the services proffered are not used.

# posted by  Andy : September 02, 2008 6:43 AM
 
Try not owning a car. If for some reason (maybe you lived in NYC or on a college campus) you didn't own a car, and therefore didn't need car insurance, when you next try to get it you will be considered "high risk" and will pay accordingly.

# posted by  whatley : September 02, 2008 12:29 PM
 
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