Day: February 17, 2009

2009 Anal-Ocity

And the crapper is getting full!

The soon-to-be-merged financial giants — Morgan Stanley and Citigroup’s Smith Barney — announced the payments during an internal conference call last week, but warned advisers against describing them in terms that would cause PR headaches

“There will be a retention award. Please do not call it a bonus,” said James Gorman, co-president of Morgan Stanley. “It is not a bonus. It is an award. And it recognizes the importance of keeping our team in place as we go through this integration.”

Sorry guys…..but that smell is still the smell of bailout money being used for bonuses,,,,and it flippin’ stinks!

Bi-Partisanship?

Somethings never change….regardless of what the pundits want you to believe.

Bi-partisanship is just so much crap!  This term has been thrown around in the news as well as Congress for well over a month.  Both sides, Dems & Repubs, have accused each other of not wanting the practice to be used in Washington.  Maybe this term should be put on the list of words and terms when used, a donation of a $1000 could be sent to a worthy charity.  In the last month someone would have had their budget increased.

Bi-partisanship?  What is it?  Good question and it will depend on who is defining it for you.  To me it means that both parties in Congress work together for the better of the country.  After you decide on your definition then ask who really is practicing it in Washington?

First, both sides have got to want to work together.  After the last election, it would be a pipedream to think that partisanship was going to work.  Why?  Repubs are pissed that they were handed their butts in the election.  The Dems feel that they have a chance to pass all the programs that the Bush days could not.  For those two reasons the partisanship is getting deeper.

And then there is the fact that ALL politicians are looking ahead to the 2010 election.  Dems thinking that they could knock off a few more Repubs if their plans work.  The Repubs thinking that they can regain at least control of one house of Congress if the plans fail.

It was so important that everyone point fingers at each other, condemning each and then instead of working together they take a vacation–and still very few have even read the 675 page stimulus plan……thinking……how can you be for or against this plan if you have not read and understood it?  You can if partisanship is the only thing that matters.  The people are not even stumbling blocks anymore.  They are just ignored completely….that is unless you are 7 foot tall while standing on your wallet.

CHUQ

My Problem With The TARP

Since the beginning of all this crumbling economy I have been saying that none of this is working and that it is the wrong approach.  The only way to stop this slide into darkness is to replace the lost money from the write downs of the banks.  That is the only way for the TARP to work.  Once money becomes a premium, prices decline, people stop spending, unemployment will rise, burrowing will slow, and economic growth will grind to to a halt…a recession.  I know…all this is just sounding familiar.

All the TARP is accomplishing is moving cash around the economy and not accomplishing a whole lot in the interim.  It is not helping in the creation of any new money to replace that which was lost during the massive write downs in September.  The TARP is NOT helping to replace the money that has been lost, for that reason it will do little to return confidence in the economy.  Banks are told to be capital strong and to do that they will horde their TARP money to make their balance sheet strong…no loans….

In order for the TARP program to work it would have to have create new money to replace the lost. If the lost money is replaced then all money in existence stops gaining in value and consumers will go back to spending money, prices will stop falling, asset prices will stop declining, unemployment will stop rising, demand for borrowed money will return and economic growth will once again turn positive.

I know after all that you want to ask, then how does the government create new money, professor?  Good question, Irene.  Sorry to say that it will mean higher taxes.  But in reality, somewhere down the line everybody’s taxes will go up….it will hurt the low and middle class more than the wealthy, but they will go up.  All the programs and packages will need to be paid for eventually or the economy will suffer the consequences.

A First For Saudi women

The appointment of a woman to Saudi Arabia’s influential council of ministers is a “first step” for women’s rights in the country, but it’s unclear if she will have any real power, an outspoken advocate said Sunday.

King Abdullah on Saturday appointed Norah al-Faiz to serve as the newly created deputy minister for women’s education as part of a major Cabinet reshuffling. It is the first time a woman has been appointed to the council.

“I’m very proud to be nominated and selected for such a prestigious position,” al-Faiz said. “I hope that other ladies, females, will follow in the future.”

She noted that Saudi women still do not have the right to drive and are recognized under Saudi law as the property of men.

Al-Maeena said that King Abdullah has “always been on the side of women and this stems from his pure and ideal Islamic values, which gives rights to women. …”

“But unfortunately,” he said. “Over the past few decades, there had been some, you know, backrolling of women’s participation.”

Now this is something to celebrate right?  IMO, NO!  This is just a move to silence all their critics in the West.  Women in Saudi Arabia will be NO better off now than they were last week.

This is a smoke screen!  Saudi Arabia has taken a lot of criticism recently for its policies towards women.

Now if they want me to believe that women are equal, then let them drive, give them equal rights,  maybe when they accomplish that the world will stop being so critical of their policies toward women and they can move into the 21st century with most of us.

Speculators To Make Out In Stim Plan

First of all let us take a good look at what land speculation can do.

During each period of industrial activity, land values rose steadily, culminating in speculation that drove them up in great jumps. This was invariably followed by a partial cessation of production, reducing effective demand as a correlative. A commercial crash generally accompanied this. A period of comparative stagnation followed, during which equilibrium was slowly reestablished. Then the same cycle began again.

By now most everyone should realize that the president got his stimulus plan passed by Congress and it awaits his signature later this week.  There has been a lot of back and forth on what this plan will do or not do…time will tell who is right.  But something that has been overlooked in this plan.

I read a piece written by Deam Baker of the Center For Economic & Policy Research.

The reporters covering the stimulus have been so busy editorializing against it that they haven’t had time to pay attention to what Congress is doing. Tonight Congress approved the Isakson amendment which gives $15,000 (or 10 percent of the purchase price, whichever is lower) to every person who buys a home in 2009.

Somehow, Isakson has this thing costing just $19 billion. Let’s break the Washington rules and try a little arithmetic. Even with weakness in the housing market, it is still virtually certain that we will sell close to 5 million homes in 2009. The overwhelming majority would qualify for the full credit. So, we get 5 million times $15,000. That sounds a
lot like $75 billion.

And this is before we get to any gaming. It’s hard to see why tens of millions of people wouldn’t figure out a way to buy a house from a friend or relative and get their $15k. If we can get one-third of the country’s homes to change hands (lots of jobs for realtors) that would be good for $375 billion.

It would have been helpful if reporters had talked to an analyst who could have explained these points for readers.

Now we have this plan that will do more for land speculators than for the average person…so where do the loyalties lie…who on Main Street will this amendment help?…..you tell me.

Sarah Screws Her Fav Store

It just keeps getting better and better…..no matter how we try we cannot get enough of Mrs. Palin.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin‘s favorite consignment shop has been forced to change its name after she brought the trendy, upscale Anchorage boutique unintended legal problems during last year’s presidential campaign.

Out of the Closet owner Ellen Arvold said she was served a cease-and-desist letter by a Los Angeles-based chain of thrift stores with the same name — same trademarked name, it turned out — after Palin mentioned her store in an interview.

Rather than fight, Arvold agreed to change the name to Second Run. The change is effective Saturday, the store’s fifth anniversary.

Palin came under heat as John McCain‘s running mate when it was disclosed the Republican National Committee spent $150,000 to outfit the Alaska governor and her family during the presidential campaign.

Palin told reporters at the time the clothes were neither her idea, nor her property. In an interview with Fox News in October, she said she was a frugal shopper and her favorite shop was “a consignment shop in Anchorage, Alaska, called Out of the Closet.”

Arvold said Palin was last in the store a few days before McCain made her his surprise pick for vice president in late August, and sent a note Arvold a photograph from the campaign trail, showing her wearing a pink Dolce & Gabbana jacket she bought at the store.

Included was a note that “thanked us for the clothes, and apologized for all the flak we took, so that was really thoughtful of her,” Arvold said.