McCain is old. There's a 50% chance of him dying in office. And he has a temper. In 2000, he almost left the Republican party for the Democrat party. He was a member of the Keating 5, the 5 Senators who intervened on behalf of Charles Keating, Jr. who had defrauded Americans during the Lincoln Savings and Loan collapse. He urged the Reagan administration to meet RENAMO, a Mozambique terrorist group - without precondition.
But most of all, I just don't like him. I think he's a hypocrite and a huge won at that. Any faults that he finds with Obama can easily be seen with himself or Palin. He has changed his mind drastically in the past year on many issues. A year ago he said that he would have attacked Iraq before 911 and would be there for a hundred years. He is a warmonger. He said in January that he has no knowledge of economics.
He supports a major tax change that would affect the lower class more drastically then "socialism". Your employer provided health care would be taxed. That would throw good health care out the window. Many people will opt not to have health care rather than pay higher taxes.
And he chose Palin. President Bush tried to appoint Harriett Myers to the Supreme court when no one knew anything about her - except that she had been his personal lawyer for decades. I would be afraid that McCain would chose members of his administration like Palin chose members of her governship's administration - close friends and allies who are not necessarily qualified for any job.
Palin is the biggest example of poor judgement. Nevermind the $150,000 that was her fall wardrobe. Or the million+ a year that she earns. She's just like the rest of us, except, if the current mayor of Wasilla, AK is any indication, lazier. Her background includes winning a beauty pageant, dropping out of four colleges, being a sports reporter, being a mayor of Wasilla for 6 years, and being a governor for a year. An interview with the current mayor of Wasilla, AK reveals that the mayor doesn't manage any departments, services, other then signing checks on Thursdays. A demanding job, I'm sure. As mayor, she supported the "Bridge to Nowhere" only to claim that she never did later. She put friends from high school in office. She was found guilty of firing a State Trooper because he had divorced her sister. Her husband was part of the party that wanted to succeed from the USA. Her campaign manager says she has gone rogue. She cannot say a cogent sentence without queue cards.
Next is Biden. He hates the internet as we know it. His bills have been strictly anti-current day internet. He wants emails to never be encrypted. He supports internet taxes. He wants all the music on your computer to have DMCA - even past songs that you may own (you would have to repurchase your music). He supports "net-neutrality" - a misnomer that really means the opposite of what it infers.
And then Obama. I actually don't care about him supposedly "not being an American citizen" - the Democrat party would not take that gamble this late in the game. It doesn't bother me that he won't say the pledge of allegiance - the words were changed in 1960 anyway and I'm pretty sure that there are phrases in it that the founders did not intend (and what's so special about the flag? I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America - not its flag.) It doesn't bother me that his middle name is Osama - it's only a name and a famous one at that. (What does bother me isn't him but the racist comments that many people make about him.)
My gripes with Obama are exactly my gripes with all the other four previous contenders. They are all the same when it comes down to the nitty-gritty. None of them are different.
(Note: In the following, "they all" does not refer to Palin, who does not have the experience to have actually have voted for the following.)
They have all supported the economic sell-out, I mean bail-out package. They were ardent on getting it done quickly, even though time obviously was not needed (the stock market dropped 700 points the Monday after it passed).
They have all supported Acts that ruin our Constitution, particularly the the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act, which do away with half of the Bill of Rights and give the President dictatorial powers in "a national emergency".
They have all called for more war. McCain is belligerent towards the Russians. Obama has called for US military action crossing the border into Pakistan. They all haved called for military threats against Iran.
They are all members of the Council on Foreign Relations, whose most notable accomplishment is NAFTA, the trade agreement that many in Midwest would claim has caused lost jobs. NAFTA is also why our foods are currently unlabelled with the country of origin. NAFTA has quite possibly been responsible for lost jobs in Mexico - who import many of their fruits from other countries, despite plenty of them being homegrown. If CFR has anything to do with it, expect an international government sponsored bank soon here in America - similar to Europe's move to a centralized European bank.
I'm pretty sure both candidates would continue to "fight terrorism" with one hand and with the other and give money to terrorist groups, or future terrorist groups. We give billions to people like Musharraf and then we go to war with them.
To me, the choice for President is between war and socialism. Since war leads to economic depression (pouring money into another country that doesn't raise any revenues is pretty bad for the economy) and depression leads to socialism, I cannot support McCain. Since socialism leads to a lack of competition (so do capitalistic monopolies) I cannot support Obama. Since both candidates support similar policies that degrade civil liberties, that support war, that swipe more money from poor hands, that continue our failed economic policies, I cannot
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
The status of our economic system
The President wasn't a great leader last week. Instead of attempting to restore confidence in our system, he stated, "Give us a trillion dollars, or everything fails." Wait. What? At that point, it didn't matter whether they really needed a trillion dollars, his lack of confidence would cause banks to fail.
Is this bail out really necessary? If I make a lot of cars and people buy my cars, then my stock will go up. But if people stop buying my cars, then my stock should go down. Unless someone keeps buying my stocks, even though I'm not selling any cars. If I don't tell anyone that I'm not selling any cars, then my stocks look good and keep rising. At least short term.
What we have here in the bail out is effectively the same thing. We, the American people, are supposed to buy stocks that aren't worth a darn.
If the bill didn't pass, sure there would be hard times. Yes, even on Main Street. Car dealers won't be able to give out the same number of loans. Not as many houses will be able to be sold. Cities won't be to able to issue bonds at the same low interest rates. Many people could lose their 401K's invested in money market accounts (except that they are now insured). That's bad.
As of 2007, there was $700 billion dollars in circulation. This bill is supposed to buy bad debt (stocks) putting $900 dollars into circulation. That means the dollar will be worth half of what it was before. (Forgetting about debt based inflation for a moment.)
And this $900 billion will be "invested" in Wall Street. Why $900 billion? That number was just made up by Secretary Paulson. Congress and the Senate have not seen any analysis as to why it should be $900 billion.
There's a few other things to the bill. Raising the $250,000 FDIC limit is reasonable. A tax cut for the middle class though? I'm all for tax cuts, but isn't that contradictory based on the rest of the bill? So.. they are going to pay for this not by taxing us but just by printing money?? Is that how?
The worst part of the original bill was giving dictatorial power to Secretary Paulson. The original bill called for the $700 billion to be under his jurisdiction, without any further possibility for review or being able to be taken to court.
As one Senator put it, "Suppose some boats are sinking in a reservoir. You want to stop boats from sinking. So you blow up the dam. That's this bill."
The bill is simply too extreme. Doing nothing is extreme but a heckuva lot less extreme. The bill makes us more communist then any other country. How are we supposed to preach democracy and free market principles to other countries if we don't even follow those principles?
I blame Ben Bernanke and his colleagues for everything. He, who is in charge of the Federal Reserve and interest rates, claimed there is no housing bubble two years ago. He withdrew $125 billion this last week from the banking system. http://market-ticker.denninger.net/uploads/drain.png
If we keep propping up a system that is unviable, we could be doing it for decades, costing a lot more then a trillion dollars. If we allow assets to come down to their true values, then we might have a recession for a year. We're pretty much stuck no matter what happens. The question for us is simple - do we want to attempt to stall the inevitable and make it worse, or just go through with it.
How do we solve this?
End all Enron modeled companies. That is, end these companies that are simply balance sheet games but do nothing and have nothing.
Allow less amount of loans per dollar in the bank. Banks that failed had $80 dollars loaned out per dollar in the bank. The limit was eight times lower 5 years ago. (Didn't Bernanke become Chairman then?)
Regulate more exchanges such as OTC derivatives.
If we do pump money into the economy, do it less at a time, under the oversight of Congress each time and not some unelected official.
Although extreme, end the Federal Reserve. They are the true-ist culprits in all of this. The Federal Reserve was established by only 3 Senators in the early 1900's, over a holiday break. Many argue that if the Federal Reserve hadn't gotten involved in the Great Depression, it only would've lasted a year or two - not a decade. They are the ones establishing artificial loan rates. They are the ones controlling our money supply and inflation. They seem to have many conflicts of interest.
Most importantly, listen to Ron Paul. His predictions, years in advance, have always been spot on. (And Senator Shelby - he actually seems reasonable.)
Is this bail out really necessary? If I make a lot of cars and people buy my cars, then my stock will go up. But if people stop buying my cars, then my stock should go down. Unless someone keeps buying my stocks, even though I'm not selling any cars. If I don't tell anyone that I'm not selling any cars, then my stocks look good and keep rising. At least short term.
What we have here in the bail out is effectively the same thing. We, the American people, are supposed to buy stocks that aren't worth a darn.
If the bill didn't pass, sure there would be hard times. Yes, even on Main Street. Car dealers won't be able to give out the same number of loans. Not as many houses will be able to be sold. Cities won't be to able to issue bonds at the same low interest rates. Many people could lose their 401K's invested in money market accounts (except that they are now insured). That's bad.
As of 2007, there was $700 billion dollars in circulation. This bill is supposed to buy bad debt (stocks) putting $900 dollars into circulation. That means the dollar will be worth half of what it was before. (Forgetting about debt based inflation for a moment.)
And this $900 billion will be "invested" in Wall Street. Why $900 billion? That number was just made up by Secretary Paulson. Congress and the Senate have not seen any analysis as to why it should be $900 billion.
There's a few other things to the bill. Raising the $250,000 FDIC limit is reasonable. A tax cut for the middle class though? I'm all for tax cuts, but isn't that contradictory based on the rest of the bill? So.. they are going to pay for this not by taxing us but just by printing money?? Is that how?
The worst part of the original bill was giving dictatorial power to Secretary Paulson. The original bill called for the $700 billion to be under his jurisdiction, without any further possibility for review or being able to be taken to court.
As one Senator put it, "Suppose some boats are sinking in a reservoir. You want to stop boats from sinking. So you blow up the dam. That's this bill."
The bill is simply too extreme. Doing nothing is extreme but a heckuva lot less extreme. The bill makes us more communist then any other country. How are we supposed to preach democracy and free market principles to other countries if we don't even follow those principles?
I blame Ben Bernanke and his colleagues for everything. He, who is in charge of the Federal Reserve and interest rates, claimed there is no housing bubble two years ago. He withdrew $125 billion this last week from the banking system. http://market-ticker.denninger.net/uploads/drain.png
If we keep propping up a system that is unviable, we could be doing it for decades, costing a lot more then a trillion dollars. If we allow assets to come down to their true values, then we might have a recession for a year. We're pretty much stuck no matter what happens. The question for us is simple - do we want to attempt to stall the inevitable and make it worse, or just go through with it.
How do we solve this?
End all Enron modeled companies. That is, end these companies that are simply balance sheet games but do nothing and have nothing.
Allow less amount of loans per dollar in the bank. Banks that failed had $80 dollars loaned out per dollar in the bank. The limit was eight times lower 5 years ago. (Didn't Bernanke become Chairman then?)
Regulate more exchanges such as OTC derivatives.
If we do pump money into the economy, do it less at a time, under the oversight of Congress each time and not some unelected official.
Although extreme, end the Federal Reserve. They are the true-ist culprits in all of this. The Federal Reserve was established by only 3 Senators in the early 1900's, over a holiday break. Many argue that if the Federal Reserve hadn't gotten involved in the Great Depression, it only would've lasted a year or two - not a decade. They are the ones establishing artificial loan rates. They are the ones controlling our money supply and inflation. They seem to have many conflicts of interest.
Most importantly, listen to Ron Paul. His predictions, years in advance, have always been spot on. (And Senator Shelby - he actually seems reasonable.)
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