Day: March 24, 2009

Random Thoughts

Once again these are notes that I have taken and they did not necessarily warrant an entire post.
1–She recently gave birth to eight kids, so maybe she’ll end up having an equal number of PR flacks. Victor Munoz, the latest rep for octuplets mom Nadya Suleman, has told Usmagazine.com that he’s resigned. And while no one’s exactly accused Suleman of good judgment lately, she can probably do better than a publicist who offers up these choice quotes along with news of his resignation: “It’s pretty much a free-for-all over there right now. They are freaking out … Nadya got real greedy. This woman is nuts.” Munoz is the second publicist to leave the octo-nest; an earlier rep quit after her firm received a slew of hate mail.

2–Palin’s daughter and financee have called it splits…was there any doubt?  He is a cockhound and she is a conquest….Wasilla…..lock up your daughters.

3–In Iraq, shoe thrower gets 3 years in prison.  What would he have gotten if he had actually hit old what-hius-name?

4–Was 6500 the bottom of the stock market?

5–Last week Obama was a prick because his stim plan would do no good for the country–this week after 3 days of steady growth in the markets, he is a prick for being too optimistic.

6–“Punching bag” Rhianna and “boxer” Chris Brown (is he kin to Bobby Brown?), are recording a duet—I have heard it has a good BEAT and should be a big HIT…….what is this girl thinking?

7–Do people realize that the rise in the stock market is nothing but bargain hunters taking profits, right?

8–Is it just me or is competitive eating just a cover for gluttony?

9–Pres. Bush gets a $7 million book deal–the publish is Charmin Toilet tissue.

10-At least 13 firms receiving billions of dollars in bailout money owe a total of more than $220 million in unpaid federal taxes, a key lawmaker said Thursday. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., chairman of a House subcommittee overseeing the federal bailout, said two firms owe more than $100 million apiece.

11-10,000 wanna-be models stampede in NYC and 3 people are hurt that is because the combined weight of all those models was 54 lbs.

A Form Of McCarthyism?

To begin with–HA HA HA!

I have heard all the right wingnuts call the outrage directed against AIG as a form of McCarthy-ism.  First of all, what total crap that is!  Rush and FOX News needs to do a bit of research on the meaning of “McCarthyism” before they start their lips moving, maybe then they will not look so damn foolish.

The charge of McCarthyism is both absurd and odious. The McCarthyism of the 1950s was a campaign by the American ruling class to demonize all socialist and left-wing thought. It was based on a lie—that socialists were criminals. The campaign destroyed the lives of many workers and intellectuals in the drive to fully subordinate the institutions of American society—the unions, the media, the universities—to the capitalist system and the global aims of US imperialism.

The popular outrage against bonuses for financial executives is, on the contrary, entirely justified. These are individuals who amassed their wealth on the basis of parasitism and speculation. Now that the financial house of cards has come crashing down they are demanding that the public treasury foot the bill, while insisting that there be no consequences for their own standard of living.

Social being determines social consciousness. The social character of the American ruling class has generated a corresponding social psychology—one that is profoundly anti-democratic. It is typical of an aristocratic social layer to view the society upon which it parasitically feeds with a mixture of fear and hostility. It views democratic institutions—even in the thoroughly eroded form that they take in the American political system—with contempt, as unnecessary constraints on its personal prerogatives.

Please when you hear do-do from the right wingnuts call them on it!  I do.

What To Do With Toxic Assets?

Geithner is expected to announce the creation of a new government entity, called the Public Investment Corporation, which will oversee the bailout. This agency will be backed by $100 billion not yet allocated from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that was proposed by the Bush administration and authorized by the Democratic-controlled Congress last October.

The first prong of the three-part plan involves the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the agency created in the 1930s to insure the savings of ordinary bank depositors. The FDIC will establish partnerships with hedge funds and other private investment firms to buy whole home loans—as distinct from loans packaged into mortgage-backed securities–from banks that agree to sell them. (In this, as in the other parts of the plan, the participation of banks and investment firms is entirely voluntary).

The other two prongs of the administration plan are directed at the banks’ money-losing securities backed by mortgages and other forms of consumer and commercial debt. One will expand a Federal Reserve program, the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), which was launched last week to extend low-cost loans and guarantees against losses to hedge funds and private equity firms that purchase new securities backed by auto loans, credit card debt, commercial mortgages and small business loans.

TALF will be enlarged to include the purchase of previously existing asset-backed securities, including those backed by residential mortgages. In addition, the Fed will be required to offer longer-term loans to private investors than under the original TALF plan, possibly as long as seven years. This is designed to provide sufficient time for markets to recover so that the investors can reap big profits before their loans come due.

Finally, the government will establish a so-called “public-private partnership,” in which the Treasury Department hires a number of investment management firms to buy mortgage-backed and other securities from the banks. The Treasury will match, dollar-for-dollar, money from private investors who participate and will also loan funds to increase the investment funds’ purchasing power.

All this is to free up money so that loans can be made and revivie the economy…..but if no one is working or buying or building….then who will be asking for the loans?

Where Have All The Poppies Gone?

No damn where!  Opium production in Afghanistan is going full tilt, just another indication that the “War on Drugs” is about as worthless as tits on a bull.

US efforts to eradicate opium poppy crops in Afghanistan have been “wasteful and ineffective”, the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan says.

Richard Holbrooke said the $800m  a year the US was spending on counter-narcotics would be better used in supporting Afghan farmers.

Efforts to eradicate poppy cultivation, Mr Holbrooke told a conference in Belgium – the Brussels Forum – had failed to make an impact on the Taleban insurgents’ ability to raise money from the drugs trade.

“It hasn’t hurt the Taleban one iota,” he said, “because whatever money they’re getting from the drugs trade, they get whatever they need whether we reduce the acreage or not.”

The US said last month that poppy cultivation had been reduced by 19% last year. Despite the drop, the UN estimates that Afghanistan accounts for 90% of the world’s illicit heroin supply.

“The United States alone is spending over $800m a year on counter-narcotics. We have gotten nothing out of it, nothing,” he said.

“It is the most wasteful and ineffective program I have seen in 40 years.”

Ya think?  Pretty much sums up the ENTIRE program of the War on Drugs….time to look for a REAL alternative and save the money for whgere it is needed…in the good old US of A.