Jubak Calls Out the Truth — Must read !!!

What do you want to do America?  Let the greedy pricks who caused this continue covering their tracks setting up their continued gang bang of the entire planet?   

Democrats, yes, are just as guilty as Republicans.

Or stop them?  Yes stop them.   It’s time for middle America to read. Read every day.  We have much to learn. 

Read the Jubak article here.

I lost my mantra today.

I lost my mantra today.   

 

 

In the zone and engrossed by a lengthy to-do list, oblivious to gloom,  I walked through the front door  at work today and nearly walked past a client who’s been with our company for 5 years.   After an embarrassing double take that betrayed my inattention, I greeted Jim and learned that he lost his job several months ago.  Three managers were let go on the same day.  He was one of three.  This client is my first intimate contact with the recession.   

Ours is an academic economy, we’ve been telling ourselves.  We’ve enjoyed this mantra.  It’s been with us through many good “closes,” some unforgotten “losses” and most importantly, my own personal discovery of the martini and cabernet sauvignon.   

I lost my mantra today.  I still have my religion, such as it is, but I lost my mantra. 

Let’s talk about the grand summer of 2008 when the price of gas broke the buck.    That’s right a 222% change.  Percent change is change divided by base, right?  True, the price of gas only doubled in 2008.  Well, let’s get this right.  Prices hit three dollars then dropped for the 2006 mid-terms.   They hit four dollars then dropped for the 2008 election.  OK, but gas was $1.35 before we invaded Iraq.  It went above $4.35 in the summer of 2008.  That’s  $3 / 1.35 = 222% increase in five years.   222%

 Why has the media let off the hook those responsible for the price-fixing that defined 2008?  Demand more for your money,  America.  Demand the truth.   Who was responsible for the price fixing?  Yes, Wall Street is guilty of mortgage crimes.  Bankers are guilty.  Consumer borrowers are guilty.   There’s plenty of guilt.   You and I share in the guilt, reader and writer.

How did the 222% increase in gas prices affect the economy?   If this increase was the result of anti-trust violations, we have to hold accountable those who were responsible. 

When  you get filthy rich by breaking the law, there is a price to pay.  No exceptions. 

 

 

Old headlines, just in case you forgot about gas prices.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2006-04-27-energy-econ-usat_x.htm

By Barbara Hagenbaugh, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy has digested surging energy costs in the past few years with little more than a hiccup.

In a USA TODAY survey of economists taken April 20 to 25, 40% said higher energy prices are the No. 1 risk for the economy. While other risks were cited, such as a decline in the housing market and terrorism, energy was the top concern.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/business/09gas.html

Here in the Mississippi Delta, some farm workers are borrowing money from their bosses so they can fill their tanks and get to work. Some are switching jobs for shorter commutes.

People are giving up meat so they can buy fuel. Gasoline theft is rising. And drivers are running out of gas more often, leaving their cars by the side of the road until they can scrape together gas money.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/04/america/Economy.php

Economists believe the $168 billion stimulus program will continue to lift the economy in the current quarter, but many are worried that the economy could slow significantly in the final three months of this year and early next year as the impact from the one-time checks wears off.

Brian Bethune, senior U.S. economist at Global Insight, a private forecasting firm, said the GDP could post back-to-back declines in those two quarters, meeting the traditional definition of a recession.

“The rebates are not translating into anywhere near the spending impulse that Congress and the administration had hoped for,” he said. “Under these circumstances, the economy remains in very fragile condition.”

Will Tax Cuts Really Help?

On Limbaugh’s Demands for Additional Tax Cuts

• The Bush administration spent trillions of dollars we didn’t have on things we didn’t need as well as things that did us harm like an unprovoked war in Iraq. Sooner or later this debt must be paid down. Later is almost here.

 • During the boom days of the past decade (that were created by wistful real estate buying and obstruction of mortgage regulations by the executive branch of the federal government) the Bush tax cuts (for the old fashioned investor classes) failed to generate sustainable economic growth across class lines as required for trickle-down economics to work effectively. In other words, new jobs, new businesses, new money were not created at levels that could generate the tax revenue required to manage the eight Bush budgets. Bottom line: trickle-down, Reaganomics, tax-cut stimulation failed in the 2000s to keep up with government spending just like it failed to keep up with government spending in the 1980s. These facts pre-date the onset of the banking crisis which became publicly visible in August of 2007. Our government was outspending itself in the good times.

• Rush Limbaugh presently spends his days demanding more tax cuts based on his presumption that we have not yet figured out that the Bush tax cuts didn’t work. The boom of the 2000s was a speculative housing bubble. Period. Nothing more. The Bush tax cuts did not generate sustainable economic growth. The tax cuts Limbaugh now so crudely demands will perform the task of righting the economy no more effectively than they performed under Bush.

• I am challenging loyal Rush listeners to call the show this week and start asking the hard questions that Rush doesn’t want to hear. Mr. Limbaugh, isn’t “insanity doing the same things over and over and expecting to get different results? If so, why should I support the policies of the Bush administration that created the budget deficits that plague our country today? It didn’t work during the Bush boom, why will it work during the Bush crash?”

• I’ve read Limbaugh’s holy-grail, by the way, Atlas Shrugged.  I probably read it before Rush read it.  It is the reason I am a fiscal conservative and not a liberal. It is an exceptional book with truly prescient insights into the chaos that surrounds us today. The author understood that it is the captains of industry who make opportunity and that they must be rewarded with a fair and reasonable tax code. I am not in favor of Obama deficits any more than I was in favor of Bush deficits. All this said, there are elements of the Obama budget that we must accept as necessary medicine. This is the subject of a future post. For now we have to stay on task. Limbaugh is demanding more of the bad medicine that created the economic collapse keeping Americans awake at night.

• Post disagreements, agreements, questions and challenges of any kind on this blog.  Get a dialogue going. It’s time for all of us to roll up our sleeves and get into the heart of the questions at hand like:  more tax or less tax for those earning over $250,000 per year?

Rush Limbaugh & the Mortgage Crisis

https://lehmanbrothers.wordpress.com/

Did Democrats Cause Crash?

Let’s put this in perspective.  The entire global banking system is imploding.  Governments across the entire planet are propping up, buying, nationalizing, insuring, lending to nearly every bank and investment firm in existence.   Those not yet affected will be affected by those presently failing as well as those yet to fail.  They all rely on each other.  When one fails another loses assets.  It is a positive feedback loop with devastating consequences. 

As we ask ourselves, did the democrats cause this, we have to put it all in perspective with this question;  Is is possible that a calamity of this magnitude was caused by Barney’s equal housing campaign?  Let’s think this through.  The sub-prime market was but a small piece of the global economy.  There ARE many factors at play.  Sub-prime is only one of them.  Congress may have encouraged sub-prime experimentation.  Congress did not pass any piece of legislation, though, directing any bank or investment firm to abuse derivatives or credit default swaps.  This problem is exponentially bigger than a trillion odd dollars in sub-prime  mortgages that still have a true present and future cash value.   

The Bush administration did in fact push this bubble up and up and up.  Please open a new browser window, go to www.google.com and put the words Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in the search window.  Dig and dig, America.  There is plenty of blame to go around, and much of it lands squarely on the Bush administration. 

All this said, within the past three weeks John McCain said the economy is fundamentally sound.   We now know without any doubt that John McCain’s understanding of the gravity of the situation could not have been more wrong.  John McCain is not qualified to lead America at this time.   Sit down, John.  Take a deep breath.  Then retire.

Go to:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis

Conservative Angst

I am an independent conservative who ten years ago moved from my family’s red state to Illinois.  The family-nurture influences on my social perspectives were Christian, Catholic, social conservative, fiscal conservative… you know the drill. 

Many of “their” values remain mine.  That’s why the arguments that I now have with conservatives leaves me, literally, with knots in my stomach.  The present administration has betrayed its party, its constituents, its country and democracy itself.  They have abandoned fiscal conservative restraint without even the pretense of accountability.  

Along the way, they have ignored the constitution, under-taxed the profiteers who bankroll their elections, lied their way into war,  botched that war at every turn, created multiple civil wars in the Middle East, incessantly fed the pressure points that have driven up the price of crude oil, dropped interest rates dangerously low for extended periods of time, encouraged unethical & immoral banking practices and brought the worlds banking system to its knees through misregulation …  The list of betrayals is too exhausting to continue. 

What hurts most is that my defense of conservative values today results in my being labeled a liberal.  Lib.  Progressive.  Fairy.  Tree Hugger.  Green Freak.  Atheist.  Commie Pinko Pig.   What kind of mind control is going on in this country?  Why do those betrayed not see this betrayal?

 

This is a republication of an earlier post.  The American climate feels right to put this one out there again.   New reader & contributors are welcome.

Psst, the banking failures began August 2007 – everything since is suspended animation

A few thoughts that I have to post before going to bed. 

• Hours before congress voted down the bailout yesterday, the government announced the extension of additional discount-window loans that will keep liquidity up for some time into the future.  Now there was an intense tightening of money in the days leading up  to Bush’s request for $700 billion dollars to be doled out at will by his right hand, Hank, or is it Brownie, I forget which.  My point is this.   The drama of the past month has been well planned and timed literally down to the hour and day.  Little was left to chance.   Even the drying up of commercial paper occurred right on time.  The banks actually failed more than a year ago.  The Fed has been extending loans to banks and investment firms all this time.  We are in a protracted state of suspended animation.  In one of my blogs, I said that I could not support the bailout if it did not eliminate the need for banks to borrow from the Fed.   The Fed did not wait for the bailout vote to announce the release of its next “bridge” loan for Wall Street bankers.  Money was drying up, as intended, so they could scare up votes on the Hill for the bailout.  
• I agreed with much of what Rush said during his first hour today.  The bailout is a scam.   It does not meet the criteria I outlined in a previous post to the blog.  It was designed in fact to save the weak and the guilty – prolonging the inevitable retractions that must follow a seven year bubble. 
• During the first several minutes of Rush’s second hour today, though, I heard a prologue to what promised to be a long and bellicose two hour rant about how the Liberal Democrats are trying to payoff the homes of (all these black people who didn’t qualify for mortgages to begin with).  The original bailout was introduced by Mr. Mandate himself, The President.  It is supported by McCain.  It was to be executed by the Republican, Hank Paulson.  One third of House Republicans voted for it.  Yes, Democrats are in the kitchen spoiling the stew along with the many, many Republicans who called for this pig roast.   Indeed they are.   Bush continues daily as well to step up to the microphone demanding immediate passage of this $700 billion aid package for failed businesses.  How do we get our minds around the transition from these facts to a rant blaming the bailout on Democrats?
• Is it logical to blame Democrats for this bailout creature that is being demanded by the President?

Pin this on the Donkey, the Elephant, the CEO or Voter?

Are Republicans Responsible For Banking Crisis ?

 

 

All four share blame.  The article above helped me understand whether or not the Republicans had a role in the wall street collapse.  Please, click and read.

Well orchestrated dismantling of corporate icons

Hey brothertwo.  Welcome. 

You’ve noticed by now that my posts are sometimes carefully written.  Other times they are hammered out over a few minutes of free time.   Time is still money even if the dollar isn’t.

I hope you’re comfortable disagreeing openly and honestly.  Blogging isn’t just for tree huggers anymore.   Real conservative Americans like you, my brothers, have to be heard If we are going to take back conservative values.  

While I should be ashamed of the way I rambled on in my last real blog post, I felt compelled to put a few ideas out there. 

1. bailouts will not improve home values regardless of  what Hank and Ben say
2. we’ve witnessed a well orchestrated dismantling of corporate icons this year
3. nothing has been left to chance – each deflation has had its own premeditated PR campaign
4. you and i will suffer investment losses with and without the bailout
5. a Paulson / Bernanke bailout  puts taxpayers in distant last place
6. the companies they serve are at the front of the line
7. that’s not acceptable – the guilty should not be pampered, pardoned or paid

Letter to My Senator Enclosed

Stop the Wall Street bailout.  The banks will immediately start to settle asset values and begin lending to each other no sooner than we force them to. 

The bailout will not help me or you, Sir.   Sure, we must all take our share of the losses, but this bailout insulates and protects only the guilty.

Absolutely no bailout.  America will not forgive another bailout.