Endless War In A Service Economy

Growing up, my Grandfather had a cabin in Northern Michigan, on an inland lake, a log cabin he had built himself. On one corner of his property was a trailer, a two-wheeled trailer, with the axle in the center and some sort of railing around it, used for hauling wood from the forest, or garbage to the dump. When it was parked, and empty, one end stuck up in the air while the other touched the ground, much the way a see-saw looks when nobody's riding it. As children, we would stand at the lower end of the trailer and run up towards the high end, until that fell with a crash, and we were on the low end again, which caused us to laugh.
It's kind of like our political system. While at the edges, there are those who are doggedly right or left, liberal or conservative, Republican or Democratic, the bulk of American voters run from on side to the other. After several years of Bush cutting taxes and increasing spending started to put a damper on things, voters, the same voters who had voted Bush and Republican previously, ran to high end of the trailer, hoping that the Democrats would change things. Like they had promised. And while the system sank deeper into the shit, those on the right cynically asked "How's all that hope and change working out for ya? To which I reply, about as well as your cynicism and stagnation are working out for you, but I digress.
But as voters run from one side to the other, nobody seems to notice they're not getting anywhere. Things aren't getting better. There getting worse. The party we have chosen as leaders have decided they don't want to do anything that isn't bi-partisan. I guess they don't want to take the blame if things go wrong. The other party is offering nothing new, the same old tax-cuts-and increased-spending solution.
Our time is coming soon. Our schools are running out of funding. Our states are falling deeper into debt. Some can't even pay your income tax refund. Our politicians, both parties, have traded our future for endless war in a service economy. A lot of them are walking away this year, with a pension and a lifetime of free medical care. Most of them into a lobbying position with some mega-corporation that hasn't stolen enough from us. And what will we do about it?
Run to the higher end of the trailer, of course.

2012

End Timers have been making a big deal lately about the Mayan Calendar which "predicts" the end of the world in 2012. While it may not signify the apocalypse, it's a fairly safe bet that the United States Empire will be gone by then, and not because voters will elect Sarah Palin as president.
What we'll begin to see very quickly is the wholesale looting of our country as the dollar loses reserve currency status. That means all those petrodollars the world bought from us to buy oil will be leaving the world's central banks and coming home to roost, drowning the banks we have left here in too much capital. This will spur a round of hyperinflation not dissimilar to what was seen at the end of the Weimar Republic. Foreclosures will increase, but this time it won't just be the lower classes suffering. Unemployment will increase as people scramble to take any job available.
So while the economy has been tanking, and the brokers have been looting, the corporate media lackeys in this country have been dutifully keeping the public distracted with protests against the wrong people, celebrity worship and too much sports coverage to notice that the ship is sinking.
Why is this happening? Because somewhere, someone decided that they didn't actually have to manufacture a product to make money, all they had to do was to convince the brainwashed masses into believing they needed a product bad enough that they'd mortgage their future to keep ahead of their neighbors. Fortunately for them, they had a Congress on their payroll that was only concerned with getting re-elected and so they would do anything they were asked to keep those campaign contributions rolling in. And why wouldn't you want to be a politician when you can work two and a half days a week, make $165,000 a year, and invest in wars you support. So now uniquely American products like the Hummer will be built in China.
And finally, when the American people wake up because their cable television has been disconnected, they'll take to the streets against the crooks who robbed them (the ones still in this country anyway) they'll find that the criminals will be protected by police who have evolved from Andy Taylor into something resembling Robocop. Good luck with that.

It Wasn't Me

As the new 'economic stimulus' package starts to take effect, the cries of class warfare fill the air as taxes are raised on the wealthiest citizens. Meanwhile, in the same breath, many still blame the working class for taking out home loans they couldn't afford as the cause of the fall of our fine and upstandingshifty and greedy financial institutions.
As one of those people who received a subprime loan and defaulted on it, let's get a few things straight.
Five years ago I was going through a divorce, angry and unreasonable, much more than I am these days, I ignored the advice of those who suggested I rent an apartment after moving out of the house I shared with my ex-wife. Pigheaded, I sought out a house, and found a nice one, figuring that I deserved one since I was losing one. The prescription drugs weren't helping me think any clearer.
The real estate agent assured me she could get me a loan, even with a certain part of my income unverifiable (money I thought I might make on eBay that never materialized). She even suggested I put in a higher bid on the house, just to make sure I got the house (and, of course, so she got a bigger commission). I applied for a loan, never thinking that I would get one. But, much to my shock and chagrin, I got one, and when things went bad, I was left with a foreclosure on my financial record from a loan on a house I should have never been approved for. But I wasn't alone. Lots of people did.Why?
It all comes down to the financialization of our economy. As the growth of our economy moved farther and farther away from the production of goods as the basis for accumulating wealth and more towards the accumulation of paper wealth, the need for riskier and riskier loans became inevitable. So, basically, my desire to have a simple home was exploited by greedy bastards so that they may have more little pieces of paper than their neighbors.
So, don't blame me, I'm just another victim of a corrupt system run by shylocks and shysters whose only concern is to have more wealth with little effort.

Sorry Bibi, But We Can't Afford Your War

Is it un-American for the government to put a salary cap on the pay of executives scratching around congress for a handout? No, not really. Once you start asking the already overburdened US tax payer to subsidize your extravagant lifestyle, you should just shut the fuck up and take it like, well, a man, but according to Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ)

"Because of their excesses, very bad things begin to happen, like the United States government telling a company what it can pay its employees. That's not a good thing in America,"

Was it unAmerican for Wall St. demand that companies cut employee overhead or lose their stock value? A move that has left the US unemployment rate at the highest it's been in 16 years? (Which, coincidentally, was right after the last time we left Republicans in charge) I'm sure that if you were one of the over a half a million people laid off last month you might feel differently, especially if you knew that those jobs aren't coming back in a long time, and when they do, they'll be at a much lower rate of pay than what you were making on unemployment.
According to Joseph Stiglitz, the main cause for the economic slowdown that led to the recession, and in turn global depression has been the war in Iraq. The war has cost over half a trillion dollars so far, with no end in sight. We can no longer afford to subsidize the paranoia of Islamaphobes who think the solution to the problem is to drop bombs and shoot bullets, all of which costs taxpayer money. Money better spent on helping those hurt by the economic policies of the previous misadministration.
So even though there is no evidence that Iran is building any nuclear weapons, the soon-to-be PM of Israel Binyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu still wants the Obama administration to press Iran to stop it's perfectly legal and internationally sanctioned right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, or else Israel, ever the bastion of self-restraint (and such adherents to international law themselves) will strike at Iran.
The US taxpayer can no longer afford to support Israel's wars of aggression and ethnic cleansing, nor can they afford to pay the high oil costs that will be the inevitable result of Israel's cavalier attitude to obeying international law. Considering our new Secretary of State's pledged fealty to another country, I really don't see a change in our position on these matters from one administration to the next.

If Electing Idiots Is Our Way Of Having A Representative Government, What Does That Say About Us?

Face it: we're fucked. When not one, not two, but three of Obama's nominees have had tax problems, it raises serious questions not only about his vetting process, of which we heard so much about after the election, but just how stupid are the American people that they elect these borderline criminals to office. It's no fucking wonder the economy's down the toilet like a big brown turd, these people can't even manage their own budgets, and we expect them to manage the country's? This is the not the kind of change I can believe in, that's for fucking sure.
So, you may ask, is there anything that could be stupider than a Democrat? Apparently, there is, they're called Republicans, and they're so fucking bright that they decided to use Joe the Plumber as a political adviser, because he was such a big help to John McCain. I'm sure if I wanted to know everything about big brown turds that won't go down the toilet, I'd give him a call, but for someone who's had tax problems of his own by that I mean, trouble paying them, he's as about useful as me (because, admittedly, I have run into tax problems as well). It's hard to fathom what kind of political retard "Joe" appeals to, but you can bet they smoke a big cigar like a dick-turd, and abuse prescription drugs more than Elvis with a Nixon-supplied DEA badge.
So there you have it:we're fucked, because we seem to vacillate between party that seems to think we can spend our way out of debt like some crazed public-financed Ponzi scheme, and another that thinks that the way to understand the nature of a banker who would spend $35,000 on a toilet is by listening to the man who installed it for him.

Tumbling Dominoes

Yesterday was Whacking Day in the building where I work. No, the employees there didn't drive all the snakes into a circle and beat them to death with clubs, it was another day of corporate downsizing, another step in the spiral to the upcoming economic meltdown heading your way.
I felt bad for these people, many of them I have become close to in the years I have been working here, a some of them came to our place of business, eyes red rimmed from crying at the prospect of having to look for a job in Michigan where unemployment lines stretch out into the cold winter air. And having been in the job market myself recently, with over 10% of the state population unemployed,as well as more heading for unemployment rolls finding a new job isn't going to be easy.
They tell us right now that the US is in a recession, but we were in a recession a year ago, now we are at the start of a new depression.
The economic dominoes have been tumbling for some time now. It all began when Congress passed NAFTA, and now some of the companies that lobbied for it's passage are now lobbying congress for taxpayer money to bail their asses out. Pumping more dollars into the economy is a futile effort, although I do respect the new president's efforts, as opposed to the treasonous bastards at Fox News, who wish that Americans continue to suffer at the hands of the corpocracy.

They Went To School To Be This Smart

Displaying some of that fine business acumen that forced them to go begging hat-in-hand before Congress for a slice of taxpayers dough, GM unveiled a new Cadillac at the Detroit Auto Show. I'm sure it's what most of what Wall Street will be spending their financial bailout on.
This highlights the out-of-touchedness of GM CEOs: while the country is in a depression, and many Americans have turned to shoplifting,they trot out a vehicle that even most people who can still afford to drive (what with oil prices sure to climb on the heels of the holocaust in Palestine) can't afford to buy.
There was a time when I supported bailing out US automakers, but as much as I would hate to see tens of thousands of autoworkers out of work, I cannot on the other hand see a continuation of a system that rewards such managerial incompetence.

The Philosopher's Stone

The Republican party was at a loss following the last presidential election, and seeking a leader. A number of the people in the party chose to rally around Sarah Palin, not because of any good reason, rather, because she said things that they wanted to hear. like "Drill baby, drill!"
Meanwhile, in the past election cycle, Ron Paul was ridiculed because he said things they didn't want to hear, such as things stated in the above video.
The American dream of unlimited growth is unsustainable. With a finite amount of resources available in this country, only so much value can be ascribed to it. The only way the truly wealthy can acquire more wealth is if the take it from the collective rest of us in a grand, glorified Ponzi Scheme disguised as a free market. The defense contractors and brokers and other criminal members of the corpocracy are looting the country, printing us up a bunch of worthless paper that becomes less valuable with every CEO that gets a bailout, until one day, all that will be left is a bunch of beer swilling television watchers wondering "Wha happened?" as they stand waving a flag that used to stand for something.

There's Always Someone Who Has It Worse Than You

Everyday I face the daunting task of going to a job I despise while simultaneously being thankful I still have one. I know there is no bailout for me, when that job is gone, it's gone.
But then I think of those less fortunate than me. Sure, I may have it tough, but I've weathered worse storms than this and survived. It's like Bob Dylan said, when you got nothin' you got nothin' to lose. What can we do to help those whose livelihood is teetering on the abyss?
SPONSOR AN EXECUTIVE

Economic Extortion:Bush Blackmails Barack

After losing much in this past election, the GOP has decided it needs a new identity. What it needs is a whole new platform.
Yesterday, when Barack Obama met with George Bush, he raised the posibility of a bailout for the auto industry. Bush said he might if the Democraps back a Columbian free trade agreement that Bush has been trying to pass and Democraps opposed. So what it comes down to is Bush is saying that either we give up these jobs here, or sign on to give up more jobs in the future. Either way, more Americans will be out on the street.
I hardly blame the worker or the CEOs for the auto makers problems. They were only making cars Americans wanted to buy, and four years ago, those were big gas guzzling SUVs. It wasn't until recently, when oil prices went up, did some Americans choose to give up their gas hogs, and by then it was too late.
But the problem isn't only that consumers aren't buying these cars, it's that the market has changed. America has switched from a manufacturing economy, which paid well, to a service economy, which doesn't. People in the service economy can't make house and car payments, as well as credit card payments, insurance payments, or any of he plethora of other payments, and still keep the gas tank filled (or shop at Circuit City) any more. The real criminal is out sourcing (which the auto industry has done to a certain extent) which has not only created a trade deficit, but a wealth deficit as well. And now President Bush wants to continue that policy, which has proven to be so detrimental to the US economy, and he wants to do it over the backs of the US auto worker.
So if the GOP really wants a new identity, perhaps it should give up the greed glorifying free market friendly one per center pandering image it has and instead do something that benefits the rest of the country. But don't count on it.

Weathervane McCain Can't Catch A Breeze

Okay America, and you Democrats in the House, ( you know, the ones who are to blame, but not really, except deep down on the same level as Dick Cheney's undisclosed location), John McCain is mad. he forgets sometimes why he is mad, or what he is mad about, but, he's steaming. He may actually suspend his campaign again!. Funny how he always does that right before a debate, this one being the Palin/Biden VP debate which Palin has spent all day today cramming for.
But don't accuse McCain of grandstanding. Just because he didn't contribute anything to last Thursday's meeting with the president, doesn't mean he won't take credit for a bailout, even when it doesn't pass. I guess McCain is the only one in Washington who thinks he's leading his party on it.
All in all, it's hard to say whether John McCain is fast tracking the Straight Talk Express into irrelevancy, or just trying to make it into the Guinness Book Of World Records for saying "Country First" the most times in a week.

So It's Come To This.....

All hail the corpocracy!! While millions of Americans were facing foreclosure on mortgages and losing their homes, Congress, both Democrats and Republicans sat idly by and allowed it to go on as if it were perfectly sane and normal, or oh well, should have never taken that mortgage in the first place.
God forbid anyone should regulate a bunch of criminals and John McCain thought deregulation was so super that he proposed it for our health care system as well. And while CEOs walked away with platinum parachutes, Congress was busy giving immunity to telcoms for breaking the law by spying on us, and feeding the military-industrial complex by funding the war in Iraq, very little of it going to the people actually putting their lives on the line.
Now, if Congress had taken a sliver of what it's going to take to save the financial district, and used it to help Americans hold on to their houses, this whole mess could have been averted, but Congress only has use for you two days a year: April 15 and the first Tuesday in November.
There are some who call the bailout of Lehman Brothers, et al, socialism, but socialism would imply that society as a whole would benefit from the action. And I think having a former banker standing on the corner, dirty and unkempt, with a spray bottle and rag offering to wash passing motorists windshields would do the country better than to have them retreat to their Ivory Towers with their security goon squad making sure that line between us and them is never breached while we are forced to work harder to pay off the debt they incurred.

It All Comes Down To Tuna

We've been told for years that the reason businesses needed to offshore many of our manufacturing jobs is because the cost of American labor had gotten too high. Things such as taxes, health benefits and other costs that kept the worker able to complete their mundane tasks and live comfortably were hurting the bottom line. But I see it differently.
The company I work for provides food service for corporate settings. We provide breakfast and lunches, and dinners in factory and executive locations. This gives me a unique perspective to see the differences between the two extremes.
A good example of this is tuna. The line worker in the factory gets canned tuna, usually made into tuna salad. The bread usually comes in frozen and is never fresh. The worker also pays for this food from their own pocket. The worker has twenty minutes to eat their food, unable to leave the grounds, because the company feels if they return late from their lunch break, productivity will be compromised.
The executive flying on the corporate jet, however, is fed sushimi grade tuna. While the worker in the factory would be fortunate to get flank or skirt steak on rare occasions, the executive can have nothing less than steak cut fresh from tenderloin. And the executives meals are provided for by the company itself.
Once a quarter, if the worker has not missed any days of work, the company will throw an "attendance celebration", where they get to dine on a five ounce strip loin steak, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and off brand fruit juices. The executive has weekly meeting where only the finest pastries, juices, and fresh fruit are served. While the factory worker has to make do with regular-old-coffee, the executives can have nothing less than Starbuck's coffee.
The executives have their own dining area, where they are waited on by good looking young women (as opposed to the worked, who gets food slopped on a plate by an old cafeteria worker), and have their choice of refreshments (including beer, wine, and liquor) to wash down their meals.
The job of a CEO is to make their company as profitable as possible, which in turn will make the price of the stock rise along with profitability . You would think that meant manufacturing products that people would buy, but as of late, it has meant cutting costs to make the company more attractive to prospective investors. Trade agreements such as NAFTA allow these companies to offshore manufacturing jobs with impunity. The downside to this is that the service jobs created don't pay as well as the manufacturing jobs they are replacing, and as a result, the economy has slowly been sliding downhill because people no longer have the money to buy the items made in this country that have traditionally driven the US economy, such as new cars or houses.
And now, the subprime crisis has led to a global $77 trillion in stock market loss, and the country is headed towards a recession. And it's all because some bigwig is too good for canned tuna.

The Magical Imaginary World Of George W Bush

Has there ever been a more out-of-touch chief executive than George W Bush. Still firmly ensconced in his bubble, the White House is now downplaying talk about an economic recession, even as it works to pass an "economic stimulus" package. I guess when your base hasn't really been affected, you could really give two turds, until aides point out it may reflect poorly on your legacy to have completely destroyed the country.
So if you ignore the record number of foreclosures and the drop in single family home sales, the slowest increase of the GDP in five tears, consumer spending down, skyrocketing food prices , not to mention the falling stock market, then, yeah the economy looks pretty good. I mean, if Bush can ignore the NIE, ignoring this should be no problem for someone living in his own version of reality.

Refund On Intelligence

Bubble Boy's bubble must have finally burst.
Following his trip to the Middle East to promote peace by trying to gain support for war, the president has returned home to finally focus on America, only to find that his economic policies here are immense failures, too. All those tax cuts for the rich, coupled with deficit spending on the war, and rising oil prices because of the war, have pushed this country to the brink of a recession. Ooops.
So Bush and Congress have a plan. Neither he, nor Congress believe the NIE on Iran, and since we spent $43.5 billion last year on the NIP, they have decided to give the taxpayers a refund on the money they spent on intelligence operations.
"Here, take this $300 and buy yourself something while we go start another war."

Deep Dark Recession Excessive Misery

The Republicans candidates had another debate Thursday night in South Carolina with much more posturing in response to the alleged Persian Gulf incident, with all candidates (with the exception of Ron Paul)
promising war if they were president.
When the topic turned to the impending recession, they all tried to top each other with what they would do to help out the economy. Like going to war? One of the factors in the current economic state is the fact the high oil prices (caused by military misadventures) is driving up the price of everything else. McCain, who in ads portrays himself as an outsider in Warshington says he would make Bush's tax cuts (which has increased the deficit) permanent, Huckabee and Romney promised tax cuts as well, and Ghouliani, not to be undone promised he'd push through the "biggest tax cut in history."
Either these people are complete morons, or they're hoping the people of South Carolina are. Six years of Republican economic policies have put us in the situation we're in, they're not going to get us out of the hole. Maybe their plan is to follow Ghouliani's lead and ask people to work for free.

The Grand Old Patriarchy And It's Hysterical Homophobia Strike Again

Hoo boy! You can always tell an election year, it's when the gays come out of the closet and into your living room as the cause of all the world's problems. Mitt(head) Romney and Mike Huckabee have both run adds attacking civil unions, and now, the pope has come out attacking civil unions as the cause of unrest in the world. Funny, when you have the Christians attacking the Muslims, and the Jews attacking the Muslims, and the Muslims attacking the Christians and the Jews, I would suspect the number one cause of unrest in the world would have to be religion.
So I wonder, just who out there is afraid of civil unions and why? I mean with oil prices rising and the dollar dropping, mortgage defaults at a record high causing the the collapse of the housing market, which when combined with the possibility of rising unemployment and factories slowing down signals that we are heading for a recession, shouldn't we be working on solving these problems, rather than scapegoating gays, whom I'm pretty sure had nothing to do with these problems? Perhaps we should thank God we live in a country where hysteria can be misdirected away from the real culprits towards a minority of people whose only wish is to be granted the same rights everybody else enjoys.