Enjoy Taking a 20% Cut?

So, you who have put your faith and service into the United States of America, who have sacrificed a lot for principle,  and enlisted or volunteered in the armed forces, are now,  about to get a 20% cut in pay?

• How will your family live?
• How will you pay your bills?
• How long until the Sheriff puts your home up for auction?

And why it this?

Because Republicans don’t want billionaires to pay one more penny per dollar earned on all income OVER a million dollars……...

 

There is no other reason you are taking a 20% cut in pay for serving your nation in the most patriotic fashion….

You just got bumped by millionaires….  Thanks to the Republican Party of the United States of America……

So, how do you feel now?

 

 

Taxes and The Wealthy

Right click to open full image… Pictograph Courtesy of Viral..

So, can someone tell me again, why we shouldn’t tax the rich, and instead, balance the budget on the backs of everyone else?…….

I seem to be missing that little detail where that all makes sense……

Of Course Mother Nature Hates Republicans!

Many of the areas hit by the storm had also been hit by Irene. In New Jersey’s Hamilton Township, Tom Jacobsen also recalled heavy spring flooding and a particularly heavy winter before that.

“I’m starting to think we really ticked off Mother Nature somehow, because we’ve been getting spanked by her for about a year now,” he said while grabbing some coffee at a convenience store…..

OF COURSE YOU DID, DUMMY. YOU VOTED FOR REPUBLICANS!

Ha, Ha, Ha………

Switzerland’s biggest bank said today it may be unprofitable in the third quarter after the loss from “unauthorized trading” at its investment bank…..

UBS has discovered a loss due to unauthorized trading by a trader in its Investment Bank. The matter is still being investigated, but UBS’s current estimate of the loss on the trades is in the range of USD 2 billion. It is possible that this could lead UBS to report a loss for the third quarter of 2011. No client positions were affected.

Unauthorized trading? WTF is that….

Who did it?

Could it have possibly been: the Vice-Chairman of the Investment Bank Division? What’s his name? Phil Gramm? Perhaps putting a too big of bite on Halliburton Stock and not exiting before it’s fall today?… lol.

Actually an arrest has been made. London police arrested someone with an Arabic sounding name: Kweku Adoboli …
His boss, John Hughes, is reportedly to have resigned… (I should hope so..)

But the current profile coming out now, too has questions.. Records from the City regulator suggest Mr Adoboli joined UBS as a trainee in March 2006, making him a 5 year employee.
(Roughly 9.2% of UBS’s global employee base work out of the London office.) Apparently he studied communications at University of Nottingham, apparently good qualifications for the investment choices of other people’s money. That and his picture, make this certainly look like a fall guy. On his LinkedIn profile, Adoboli’s title is listed as “Director ETF and Delta1 Trading at UBS Investment Bank.”

How is a 5 year employee with a communications degree given the responsibility over $2,000,000,000 dollars?

The only thing clear is that the wall needs to go back up.
Banks are here to keep money safe; Investment firms are for taking extreme risks to help us grow capital quickly.

It is impossible for one entity to perform both functions at once.

Time for the Glass-Steigle Act (originally passed in 1933, rescinded in 1998 by Phil Gramm’s bill), to be re-instated.

Remember this…

Under Chief Executive Oswald Grubel, the bank claimed to have put in place new risk management practices, pulled back from proprietary trading and focused on a low-risk client-driven model.

Bonini-conomics

It’s clear as day.

When you have no engine in your car, you have to put one in… When banks aren’t lending, when the private sector is incapable of spending, the government has to..

It is called deficit spending. It’s been done before. Whereas we suffered a horrible Great Depression, Sweden emerged from theirs in 1934 by using just such a Keynesian approach towards deficit spending. While America suffered through dust bowls, “Grapes of Wrath”, Hoovervilles, soup kitchens, and one out of every four workers unemployed, Sweden was thriving and its citizens were living quite comfortably.

America finally… five years later, had no choice but to follow suit after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. We too spent money we didn’t have and guess what? From 1939 to 1941, U.S. manufacturing shot up a phenomenal 50 percent!

So what happens to those people who have no choice but to work, when the government gives them a job? They spend…. soon,… more people have to work… who spend… so even more people have to work,… who spend … so even more people than the more people spending money previously, have to work. … and they spend.

Republicans clamor we need more jobs… Mike Castle even hands out a giant check he voted against! LOL.. But they are all lined up against the very engine that brought us out of The Great Depression… How silly is that?

They say… we’ll owe sooooooooooooooo much money… Hello…Excuse me? Uhhh, have you ever bought a … house? Don’t you personally owe soooooooooooooooo much money? A $200,000 dollar house cost over $455,000 by the time the last payment is made. But…… how long would it take you, forced to spend more than you currently make just to live, to save $200,000 cash just to buy that house outright?

Right…. you couldn’t…

The same principal applies to economics. If you need to spend money for jobs right now…. and don’t have it… when and where will those jobs come from?

They won’t. Duh.

Therefore when Bonini says “Delaware spends more per person than any other state, excluding Alaska and Hawaii…” and that “the No. 1 employer in Delaware is the state itself, and the number of people employed by the state has doubled in the past 12 years” … right now we should be grateful… not troubled. Because we too are making some of that money those people are spending.

When he says…. “Tough economic times have prompted people to get involved in the political process,” it’s hilarious…. Especially when you look at this… on the Republican side… THEY ARE ALMOST ALL MILLIONAIRES…. (C’mon… It’s Delaware… Even if you’re Republican you gotta laugh)…

But, when he says … “The fact that people are making tough economic decisions in their personal family lives is bringing attention to the fact that the government is not,” it shows he doesn’t understand government’s role in the economy. It unfortunately shows us all that he doesn’t either read, or understand, American history.

And… that is what makes him a dangerous person to put in as our State Treasurer. He’s a great guy, and I certainly wish him well, but now is just not right time for someone who does not understand deficit spending to be running our state’s Treasury. Thirty years from now… based on my best estimates…that will be his time.

kavips Explains The Banking Failure

Why are we here?

Mostly due to stagflation that occurred during the post Vietnam economy. That stagflation, where inflated prices led to a crippling lack of profit, created an atmosphere in which deregulation appeared to offer a viable solution..

And what a solution it provided. It offered hope and people responded by again putting their money up for investment, and the markets responded to the new influx of cash by growing towards more prosperous times. Ronald Reagan is usually given credit for this recovery.

This spirit of deregulation, since it appeared to work, spread out to all other fields…

One was banking… Banking works like this.. The bank borrows money on which it pays low interest, and lends out that money again at high interest… It makes its money on the spread between the high rate, and low rate.

Recognizing that the health of banks was tied up with the health of our nation, strict rules were placed on banks after the first Great Depression, to make sure no federal economic crises could occur again. One of those rules was to forbid any interest from being paid out on the capital the bank used as collateral: primarily that money which individuals placed into their checking accounts. This low cost of capital 0%, meant that the spreads would be beneficial to banks during both good and bad times, and … that banks would not have to charge as high on the upper end to achieve and cover their profit margins.

So during the 80’s the idea came up that having fake banks offer similar services could provide competition to banks and make them trimmer and healthier. We began using semi-safe money market accounts in place of checking account mechanisms and banks who had to compete against them, soon got permission to join in…. The bank was no longer paying out 0%. Nor was it’s capital safe from all financial fluctuations as it would have been had it remained depositor’s only.

Banking is risky. A bank provides safety to those lending money to it… and provides risky financial capital to those entities who borrow from it… The bank is expected to absorb all risk, and charges accordingly to cover the cost that such a risk involves.. This was typically done by buying short, and lending long…. The bank charges a low interest rate for a short period of time, because it can quickly get its money back and there is less risk of losing it. The bank will charge a higher rate on a long term loan because there is greater risk that it will not receive its money as agreed…

In the spirit of deregulation, banks began using money other than that of their depositors to make high risk loans. Since this money cost them more to buy, they made riskier loans on the high side to make up the difference.

Then came 9/11 and the collapse of the economy. Interest rates were dropped excessively low to stimulate growth. The drop in interest rates, made houses cheaper to buy and many people did.. A housing boom market was born. Since one could afford a more expensive house because of the new low rate, housing prices rose to meet that demand. If one had an existing house whose value was rising rapidly, that person could afford to borrow more. Their home, if sold, would cover whatever would be the default amount. And if a risky loan was made, the house’s rising worth would cover the defaulted loan amount and then some. In this environment it made financial sense to loan to anyone who couldn’t afford to pay the regular amount. You made money for a few years on the ARM portion and then, sold the house at auction to make even more money..

It was safe. Since it was so safe, the idea came up as to why you couldn’t buy or sell these safe investments.. Bundle the mortgages together, and find a buyer.. If a small institution had doubts about a mortgage, it sold it to a larger one. Eventually, because these investments were so safe (you’d just sell the house if it ever defaulted), the global economy invested heavily in this replacement for depositors. You paid out the low rate, and sold that to a buyer for a higher rate… and made money on the spread.

The only thing that could possibly go wrong, was if housing prices fell. Then, the house couldn’t be sold.. and the loan would go into default… Then the institution covering that default, would be the one absorbing the risk.

As ARM prices began morphing into regular interest rates, a lot of people simply walked away from their new mortgage responsibilities. As banks scrambled to sell these houses (that no one wanted), they couldn’t. As the numbers walking away grew rapidly, banks now left with a lot of properties on hand, had to sell them at bargain prices to get some cash back on the balance sheets. This impacted the price of everyone’s house. Why buy a $250,000 house on market when its neighborhood was selling at auction for $95,000?

Suddenly no home was worth an adequate amount to secure its loan. That made every mortgage basically as secure as any credit card transaction. Everyone hoped the person would make payment, but if that person defaulted, there was no way to collect upon the debt. Suddenly the institution was severely at risk.

Which meant,… just as suddenly, … the entire banking industry across the globe, was instantly based on nothing. Absolutely nothing, except the “hope” that American house payments would continue to come in….

With nothing to back up money, (it is after=all, just a piece of paper) suddenly everything, became without worth… Absolutely everything… One’s house, one’s wallet’s cash, one’s credit cards, one’s employer’s credibility, one’s paycheck, one’s accounts receivable, one’s accounts payable, one’s tax refund check… each and all of these were now based on the slim hope that perhaps everyone who found out that had no worth left, would continue making their mortgage payments out of habit… Not a reassuring dose of confidence.

Into this void steps the United States of America saying, ” We will guarantee all these loans, even though it may cost us a pretty penny, we will make sure everyone gets paid.”, The United States economy was large enough at that time, so such a statement was believable. A lot of investors large and small, closed their eyes and went to bed that night..

Socialism saved the world. Government action, not private enterprise, saved our ass. It was done by a Republican administration because it was the right thing to do. It was done by a Republican administration because it was the only thing to do…

So do us a favor, the next time you spend any money at all, whether it’s to pay a bill, pay a toll, buy something for your kids, pick something up that you always wanted, or even when you see your automated deposit hit your account… say a little prayer thanking God for socialism…. Because without it, there wouldn’t be an America right now..

And if you happen to hear someone abuse socialism in any derogatory form or fashion, do us all a favor, use your American given right to carry a gun, and shoot them* for us, …. P L E A S E ?

*(inside joke: 🙂 don’t get yourselves bent out of shape over it)

Big Tits for Little Tats

Tit for Tat:

Anyone who reads this blog knows that comments are where the action is.. The best writing is usually below the canal, where smart minds give and take and dissect the others points of view… Having spent an inordinate amount of time on one such comment, I thought today’s epistle would be, something that in the olden days would have been titled: “Comment Rescue… ”

(Since I didn’t garnish another’s permission, I’m not naming him or her, but if they want to come forward on their own, they most certainly are welcome… They probably will, because their comment is not that hard to find.. But I thought the overall give and take was done well enough to showcase to others how all argument should take place on blogs, and use this as a measure upon which all other future commentary can be judged…)

“Bush is the person who fought a war in which Americans died for oil.” Where was Congress? I seem to remember they voted to send troops but that can’t possibly be so, can it?

There are two ways an administration can approach Congress… One is to say look at all the evidence and come to your own conclusion… The other is to say, take our word, we have the intelligence that says this will happen, we need your support as a fellow American… The latter was the path that was taken… Today, trying to pin Congress in on the instigation of the Iraq War, is nothing but a cowardly attempt to shift blame… Those of us who know human nature, chuckle at each such attempt, because we know that is done only by people who KNOW they are guilty… The act of blaming Congress actually drives home our point that Republicans were guilty and got caught! The proof is there. Cheney constructed the threat of Iraq and sold it… We found out too late it was nothing but a contrivance…

“Bush is the person who bankrupted our nation by spending every dollar of the surplus and then ran our nation on deficit spending for 8 years…Let our children pay for it!” So you’re a deficit hawk then. Great. Please direct me to the post where you go bananas when Obama takes a mere 143 days to surpass Bush’s 8 years of spending which included not one but two wars.

There are two kinds of deficits. one is flagrant spending of favors to bolster the Republican party’s power; the other is to borrow to save a nation… Deficit spending saved us during WWII… The deficit spending that was spent recently, is an investment that saved the entire financial global network. The government of the United States of America, absorbed the stupid Republican-caused collapse. We now own shares of the banks. When the economy grows, we can cash those shares in at a profit. Your deficit argument is like castigating a well-meaning American homeowner for going into debt for a house… After all, someone signing a $250,000 note while making $30,000 is scary. But it is a good thing for the rest of us, that a lot of homeowners have balls, isn’t it..

Republicans obviously don’t have balls or brains. … Their wimpy whinings are no more relevant than the naive advisor who says “don’t buy a house, rent… You don’t want to go in debt.” Bottom line, the deficit of saving a nation, worked.. or has so far. The previous administration’s deficit, of making the wealthier even wealthier, didn’t work. Instead it fucked up this nation….

“Bush is the person who pushed the Medicare Reform that first tripled the cost of pharmaceuticals and then reimbursed drug companies three times over what the drugs originally were worth.” Cite please. I agree that the program was ill conceived and even poorly executed but I’ve not seen anything approaching these numbers.

If you bought drugs over the counter and paid $40 dollars for your supply before the Medicare pharmaceutical supplements came to be passed by the Republicans, today those same drugs cost $120 dollars, and the government covers $80 of those dollars and you pay….. $40 dollars… What has changed for you? The pharma companies are now getting $120 dollars for the same drugs they once got $40 for…. you pay the same $40, and your children and grandchildren pay the $80, which assuming interest will accrue, could amount to about $240 dollars depending on how long we allow the debt to continue unchecked…… The sacrilege comes from the fact that the $80 dollars part, was added to the deficit, so the wealthiest 1% could receive a tax cut… We doubled the cost, while cutting the revenue stream in half…

Smart Republican policy… WE are all paying for our nations stupidity now, aren’t we? As for citation… go to you own bills or ask you parents… That is far better citation than I could ever give… Go look.

“Bush is the person who deregulated our finance industry, so it collapsed on his watch.”
Nope. Bush warned three times that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were headed for trouble and he was rebuffed three times. Misregulation was the cause not deregulation. The largely unregulated hedge fund industry (Cerebrus Capital notwithstanding)skated through while the very tightly regulated insurance and banking were devastated.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were not the problem although Bush was right to warn us of their unwieldiness… No, they were secondary symptoms caused by the main problem which was in Phil Gramm’s Commodities Act, a clause he inserted which allowed all derivatives to be unregulated. Insurance on these derivatives, was also unregulated… When the time came for AIG to cough up? There was no money! It had all been spent on bonuses… and when the Feds coughed money to save AIG, they tried again to spend it on their bonuses… such malfeasance among our corporate brethren, can only happen on a Republican’s watch… “do what you want… we Republicans won’t interfere.” The Democrats would have been all over that before a crises had occurred…

“Bush is the person who sent your manufacturing jobs overseas.” Really? Did he put them in boxes or…? Labor and regulatory costs sent them overseas. Blame our high standard of living.

No, our jobs went overseas because it was cheaper under the tax codes made up by Republicans to make something in another country and bring it back over… Under a better tax package this would not have occurred, we would not have had as deep of a deficit, and we would have had a much healthier economy. As pointed out in the Kavipsian theory of economics, the difference of only 5% in our top rate, is all we needed to keep our economy steaming forward as it did during the Clinton years.. Pure and Simple. It is the Republican financial philosophy that caused us to experience what earlier this week became official: 0 % real job growth over the entire Republican presidency… That is just plain sick.

“Bush is the person who tried to remove your social security.” If remove = privatize then yeah he made a half-assed attempt and then quit.

Facts are in: Had Social Security been privatized.. as of around somewhere in November 08… It would not have existed. I call that getting rid of Social Security.

“Bush is the person who tried to get rid of Medicare.” By increasing funding?

Medicare has always been on the Republican chopping block. Bush was nothing new at putting lip service into eradicating it… The increased funding you mention, was passed on to future generations… That shows real responsibility… “Here, spend as much as you can on your health… Don’t worry! Your children and grandchildren will foot the bill…”

“Bush is the person who came close to nuking Iran.” Define close.

As for defining usage of nuclear weapons upon Iraq, that is what all were saying… In fact, one ranking officer said he would refuse the order if given to bomb Iran… Everyone who wasn’t a neocon, received a sigh of relief…

“Bush is the person whose policy made the US hated around the world.” Really? How’s Barry’s Charm Offensive going? Poland hates us, he snubbed the King of Norway and the UK, our closest ally isn’t returning our calls. Bang up job there Barry. Oh, and Muslim terrorists are still trying to blow up our airplanes.

As for Barack, I haven’t seen the evidence you mention… I do know, however, that the entire globe breathed a sigh of relief to see the former president step down…

“Bush is the person who destroyed the economy…” Please keep it straight. Is he a dunce or an evil genius. He can’t be both. (I’ll give you a hint. Liberals typically make Bush the dunce and Cheney the Evil Genius.) YMMV.

So say what you will about Barack… He is no Bush and for that, every American can be thankful…..

Since taking office, he has saved this nation several times… Bush in eight years… with help from all Republicans, mind you… destroyed it… At the rate were are currently on, (knock on wood) we should be in good shape to remove the rest of Republicans from office by this November…

With lies about Barack circulating about, yes, we do have some work to do, but then again, everything wonderful that ever happened to this nation, has always had some work behind it….

Remember The Real Traitors

The health care legislation is about to go through… It will be the first time that Insurance Companies come under government control. That is worthy of celebration.

There are some real improvements over what we had… There are also some disappointments over what could have been… True, we will be paying more than we could have, because of the removal of the Public Option…. But, no longer will we be dropped because of a medical condition… “Oh you’re sick now? Good bye… Thanks for all your previous payments…”

There are some Democrats who will have to answer accusations of being sold out…. Maybe one of our own?

But, what is done is done… Just as the Cowboys whipped ass on Philadelphia last Sunday, we can’t change it.. All we can do is look forward to seeing the tables turned this week, when it counts…. or not…

But, what is done is done… Applying pressure on Tom Carper was good when it counted. Applying that same pressure now, is nothing more than a late hit, and should be called as such by the officials. After the whistle gets blown, it is universally considered wrong to tackle a player… No matter how mad you are at him….

We need to come together… So wrapped up are we in our own battles between Progressives and Blue Dogs, that we forget the real enemy who desires to destroy America is hiding in the trees and working their way around the fort..

That is the Republicans… They are the ones who destroyed America, and Democrats are the ones who fought them every step of the way. We can never forget what they did to every American’s life…. This vile vermin that infests our media today, is manifest in spreading its vision of disease and decay.

Wait a second… they’re not vile… Mike Castle is a nice guy!

He may be a nice guy… but he is still a Republican…. He voted 65% with Bush…

Bush? Bush who?

Bush is the person who fought a war in which Americans died for oil.
Bush is the person who bankrupted our nation by spending every dollar of the surplus and then ran our nation on deficit spending for 8 years…Let our children pay for it!
Bush is the person who pushed the Medicare Reform that first tripled the cost of pharmaceuticals and then reimbursed drug companies three times over what the drugs originally were worth.
Bush is the person who deregulated our finance industry, so it collapsed on his watch.
Bush is the person who sent your manufacturing jobs overseas.
Bush is the person who tried to remove your social security.
Bush is the person who tried to get rid of Medicare.
Bush is the person who came close to nuking Iran.
Bush is the person whose policy made the US hated around the world.
Bush is the person who destroyed the economy…

And Mike Castle was behind him every step of the way…

Sure Mike Castle is a nice man… but he is still a Republican… Which means he will not be voting for you…

As mentioned earlier, he voted 65% with Bush… Since the Republicans got thrown out, he has voted 85% with those few Republicans left… Yes, he’s one of those same guys who destroyed this country once… and insists on destroying it again… Republicans are the vilest of vermin and he votes with them…

Delaware: you have a choice. You can vote for a nice guy who made your quarters interesting. Or you can vote for a Democrat who by taking on the insurance, pharmaceutical, medical, petroleum, natural gas, coal, and power companies, can put another $160 bucks a month into your pocket…..

Only a Democrat can do that… Even one that has not been elected before.. Because of what Republicans have done to America, any Democrat is better than a republican ever could be, when it comes to Congress…

WE, the People, can never forget what those traitors did to our country…..

Never…. They are cowards when it comes to facing down the wealthy… They are soft when it comes to corporate crime… They are useless when it comes to making our lives better…

We can never forget that. Never. Not only is it our prerogative, but it is our duty, … to never shut up about what they did.

September 19th: Talk Like A Pirate Day

It was two years ago, and I believe Donvitti led the charge on Delaware’s blogworld. I was just beginning my reading of blogs and probably, solely because of all the fun that persisted throughout that day (check out one of Cassandra’s finer moments), I kept at it, and today here I am…

It’s appeal is that it is so outrageous. And one can’t let themselves be bested by their friends in pirate speak….. And so, each entry ante’s up the next until one is laughing the entire day…

We may not be as much fun now.. We may have lost our luster… but for those that want to give it a shot, here is the Wikipedia version of how the “Day” came about…

And here is the Official “Talk Like A Pirate Website”…

Here are the official lyrics: Here is the official song... (warning: as sung by real pirates, it’s a little harsh)

Google has a pirate talk search engine here…..

To those who listen to radio, this is not a new thing. Most DJ’s give it a try sometime throughout the day… so no doubt you have probably heard of this day before.. But on the airwaves, unless you are practiced at pirate speak, it sounds amateurish…. something that doesn’t happen on blogs… We do things right here…

There is even a pirate keyboard for those serious about the attempt….

So not for me, but for blogdom in general, I would ask that during the twenty-four hours of Saturday, September 19th, that pirate talk at least make its’ appearance here across our media. For helpers here is some references to terms that can be used.

Those of you with facebook, can drop down to the bottom of your page, change your language from English (US) to English (Pirate) no kidding… Twitterites can go here...

“And, t’ make it easy, a handy, dandy pirate translator be here. “….

Closing Argument

The reason we are in an economic mess right now…. and the reason you are losing…

Is because the wealth was NOT spread…

Bottom line.

McCain.

Bottom line.