Stealing the Treasury Again? Meet Me At The Gallows Pole

It is stunning to me that the Republican administration of George W. Bush is about to lead another effort — reminiscent of so many other times in the past:  the creation of the Federal Reserve System, the Vietnam War, the S&L crisis/bailout, on and on and on . . . — to literally steal the treasury of the United States and give it away to their crooked friends.  I’m talking about the “bailout” plan being pushed by Henry Paulson and GWBush himself.  Their friends will benefit, we will all suffer if it passes.  Note, I am not suggesting that we will all suffer if certain safeguards are not included in the legislation, rather, I am suggesting that no matter what form it takes, Bush and Paulson are about to spirit away the USA’s remaining good credit standing, and to give money borrowed against our grandchildren’s futures to the same shitbirds that run the corporations that got us into this mess through their speculative and fiscally unsound, maybe even criminal activities.

What is the key?  The legislation, if it is aimed at purchasing bad debt, must limit the purchase price to the “mark to market” bargain-basement pricing of the MBS’s, and CDO’s that has already been required of the Wall Street investment banks.  Remember all those “writedowns” of the bad debt that occurred over the summer that resulted in the bad MBS and CDO assets being reduced in value by 90%?  We must not now allow these bad securities to be marked back UP to the previously-stated and completely bogus “full value” – essentially, we’d be buying a Salvation Army Thrift Store closeout item at a full Nieman-Marcus retail price.

The only other alternative is to set up a sturdy gallows down in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, halfway between the White House, and the U.S. Capitol, and start dragging all the motherfuckers out in the street, and one by one hang them until they are dead.  I think they’d get the message that we are not going to stand for another minute of the greed and hypocrisy, and thievery.  Enough is enough.

Cazart.

Betrayal

One thing I am learning the hard way as I get older is that, no matter how much we might love someone — whether it be friend, family, parent, spouse, work colleague.  They will all betray you like a total stranger, given the right circumstances.  So far in the past 18 months I’ve suffered major betrayals by: a best friend I’ve known for 20 years, my wife, her mother (my mother-in-law), and my father-in-law, and the former head of my department at work.  Not just little things, either, but major issues that went right to the heart of the relationship I thought we had.  I am, apparently, a poor judge of the state of my personal relationships, and of the appropriate amount of trust I place in those around me.  It’s enough to force me to reevaluate whether I’m spending an adequate amount of energy looking out for number one.  Once trust is broken by a major betrayal of that trust, how do you get it back?  Will I always have the betrayal centermost in my mind as I try to deal with these people again?  Or is the relationship over once a betrayal takes place?  What is it about the human psyche that engenders betrayal?  Is it a rationalization? 

If the betrayal stems from a singular rationalization event — a weighted bet, as it were, that as to this issue, it will serve me better to place my own self-interest before all other considerations in the relationship I have/had with ________ — it seems to me a good indicator that the parties did not view or value the relationship itself in the same way.  That is, one party valued the relationship differently than the other party, such that they viewed the risk that the relationship could or would be harmed by the rationalization event as less important or less weighty than the payoff they expected from the product of the rationalization.

Was the betrayal a miscalculation, a mistake, or a misunderstanding?  Easily, that could be the case.  But let me tell you how I know that, for example, the betrayal by my wife suggests to me that she doesn’t love me.  In response to the betrayal, it is not enough for me simply to say, “I would never have treated you that way.”  That could mean nothing more than that I’m a chump.  If she had cheated on me with another man (this is not the betrayal at issue in this case), I think that my declaration that I would never have done that to her is essentially irrelevant.  She knows, because she knows who I am, that I never would do that to her.  I think that issue is a red herring that did not matter in her decision to betray my trust.  So what was it that allowed her to betray me?  Stay tuned.

Musical Interlude

So one other thing I do is music, potential get-together among like-minded musical-type people tomorrow.  Awaiting word from J.  Some coffeehouse in need of some entertainment.  We’ll see.

Scooping the B dog

I just want to be the first to congratulate myself on scooping Barack with the “lipstick on a pig” comment he made over the weekend.  Read my post from September 4.  I emailed it to the campaign, they used it.  ‘Nuff said.

Bowing politely, exiting stage right.

 

Kisses, KM

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — What the candidates should have said . . . Installment 1

I don’t know whether the major party political candidates for President, and Vice President of the United States know that they both need better writers, but both of those dudes, if they expect us to believe that they think they know what the fuck it is they’re doing — whether they do or not being beside the question – ought to know better.  Do they believe we’re so stupid we won’t notice?  Barack, and especially John, please repeat after me:  “I am not always the smartest guy in the room.”  Repeat to self several times.  See?  It will free your mind from the prison of ‘you are so important’, and makes you think about other people in terms of their value, rather than their cost,  to you. 

Anyway, what I’m blabbing about is two quotes from two major candidates for public office concerning the apparently imminent government takeover-bailout of the immense mortgage finance Government Sponsored Enterprises, The Federal National Mortgage Association, or “Fannie Mae” in modern parlance, and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (“Freddie Mac”).  I’m talking about one reaction quote attributed to Sarah Palin, and a corresponding reaction quote attributed to Barack Obama, in an excellent article by AP Business Writer Alan Zidel, and appearing at:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080906/mortgage_giants_crisis.html

As I understand, Ms. Palin’s response to the $25,000,000,000 (yes, $25 Billion U.S. Dollars) bailout proposal that is about to become reality this weekend was, as follows:

“They’ve gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers. The McCain-Palin administration will make them smaller and smarter and more effective for homeowners who need help.”

Sarah, you and I need to talk, and I’ll talk to you first.  Notice, dear that I’m not asking your permission.  This is my blog, you’ll listen if you really know what’s good for you. 

Sarah, we think that you are a woman – you look like one, anyway.  So, you’re a woman, for Pete’s sake, so shouldn’t we reasonably believe that you know, honey-child, that the size is not all there is to it.  There.   That was too easy, right?  Tell the truth, and no, I’m not compensating or lacking in that department – every woman I’ve ever enjoyed has remarked well on girth and length.  ‘Buv average, luv.  Awfully hard to hide it when I’m dressed, if you know what I mean.  

No.  Sarah, Fannie and Freddie are crashing and burning because of some very bad decision-making at the highest levels of those corporations.  Isn’t that your supposed bread and butter – change?  And what is change, but shorthand for sweeping in and tossing the incompetents out on their ears?  If you’re going to carry that theme, and make something of yourself, at least your writers ought to be able to pick up on that bon mot –  as in, you shouldn’t be able to miss the broad side of the barn.  Incompetent performance by the leaders of our government is the biggest cause of the current high level of anger and frustration of the people in this country today, and it’s logically the one that you can most easily do the most about in the immediate term, and that will have the effect of immediately increasing the quality of life for we your beloved (we hope) fellow citizens of the United States of America.  So, here’s a freebie for you — drop a comment to me with your campaign director’s cell number, so that i can text her (it is her, right?  You better have a good one, at any rate - don’t listen to Karl Rove, ever.  He is the devil – what, did you expect the devil to be all red and wearing horns?  Grow up!) my phone # so that she can call me if you’d like to hire me as a written communications consultant for the campaign.  I’m a lawyer, got my litigators’ instincts and writing skills at a Connecticut Avenue government personnel system legal practice more than 15 years ago – I got cred.  My fee is 200,000Euros wired to a swiss bank account, my exclusive access, up front.  If you win, with my help, I’ll stay on as your Chief Campaign Communications Consultant throught the 2012 election campaign for 500,000Euro/yr., same way.  Ahem. 

My suggestion, for a true leader of the future — the future, Sarah — on the best way to respond when deep kimchee (like the Fannie/Freddie debacle/bailout) is about to fall flat on top of the average little guy like me and you goes something like this:

“The failure of the corporate management team for both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to competently manage a business that is so closely linked to the critical real estate economy of the United States of America is resolute, a disgrace, and utterly unacceptable.  As the Republican Vice Presidential nominee, I can assure the American people that John McCain will hold the management of these corporations accountable, and he will go one step further — he will change the law to insure that poor management by government officials can not result in harm to your home value.  You’ve worked hard for your home; other than the investment we make in bringing a child to life, it’s the most important investment most of us will ever make.  Gross mismanagement by corporate insiders – often caused by simple arrogance and poor judgment – cannot be permitted to threaten the good health of our real estate and financial markets.  We have learned from the mistakes of the past, and we will not repeat them.”

Oh, and don’t bring God into this discussion.  This is about what kind of country we leave to our children.  The rest of the world is not filled with motherfucking fools, to put it bluntly, and believe me when I say that there are people in your audience who are well beyond bowing heads and folding hands in homage to a seemingly ’imaginary man’, beseeching help from outside of the world of reason.

Barack – my man.  Your corresponding view was expressed in similar misguided fashion, and you even threw in some ambiguity to give the red-staters some “flippy floppy” ammunition:

“These entities are so big and they’re so tied into the housing market that it is probably true that we have to take steps to make sure they don’t just collapse, because the housing market, which is already weakened, would be in even worse shape if we didn’t take some steps.”

See my advice to Sarah, substitute your name for hers and McCain’s.  This is so big that you ought to be talking about it.  McCain let his bitch talk for him.  You could have one-upped the motherfucker by saying something intelligent, instead of what you actually said.  Feel free to use this for the Sunday talk shows, consider this my permission.  Fannie and Freddie bailout is as much an indictment of George Bush and McCain’s policies as you will get within 60 days of the election.  My god, man, what were you thinking?  Are you just exhausted?  Get some sleep, you will need a printout of this column with you when you go on Meet the Press, or whatever, in the morning.

Have a great night, folks!

Kisses KM – Bruce

Lipstick on a pig

In a way, it doesn’t matter what Sarah Palin said tonight from the dais in St. Paul.  It’s all mere windowdressing to cover over the filthy, cracked, scorched window on the American collective soul that is the legacy of the Bush-Cheney era in our history.  A legacy of corruption, outright theft of the birthright of our children – in a country founded on a Constitution, a sense of justice and moral right that we maintained until it was stolen away after election day November 2000.  She’s the lipstick on the McCain pig.

Conjuring up the image of a smiling John McCain, flashing the thumbs-up to his fellow captives as he returned to his cell in the Hanoi Hilton, fresh from a brutal torture session in which his arms were stretched to the breaking point as he was hung from the ceiling by the ‘gooks’ that he still hates to this day, Ms. Palin no doubt touched the hearts of many.  But as you know people, and as I know people, you know it’s modern myth, legend, and stories we tell ourselves to fend off fear of the dark.  Say it with me: John McCain is not superman — he cried like a pussy all the way back to his cell, just like you or I would.  Or he was unconscious from the pain, and the guards dragged him down the hall as he lost control of his bowels, and they tossed him on the floor like a sack of dead weight to lay in his own filth until he awoke to the rats scurrying over his aching body, biting him and scratching him with their claws.  Or, not, if that’s simply too painful an image for you.  A lot of adults, I find, like to live in a state of uninterrupted mental comfort and bliss, preferring to look away when the visuals get too intense or disturbing.  If you’re one of those, by all means, do what you must to maintain your zenlike calm.  For the rest of us sentients, consider that McCain has never offered for public inspection the debriefing he gave to military interrogators upon his return to US custody and control.  So we don’t really know whether stories of his bravery are true, or are deliberate fantasy.  That’s the problem with a man who doesn’t trust the American people to know as much about him as there is to know – you don’t know when it’s OK to start believing him, and you don’t know how much truth is actually there, and how much of it is simply cobbled-together half-truths that he would prefer we have simple faith in, truth be damned.

Whatever you think of Sarah Palin and her sweetly flawed and ordinary family,  she is on the ticket for one treason only – she’s the lipstick on the pig.  Keep your focus firmly on the pig . . .

 

P.S. The young man who had been raucously fucking Sarah’s daughter is in quite a pickle.  He certainly couldn’t have realized what he was getting into when she was shedding her calvins for him in the back seat of his souped-up Dodge Neon during the endless midnight of the Alaskan winter.  I’ve seen some uncomfortable things in my life, but none so much as the rabbit-in-the-headlights look of young Levi as the cameras focused in on the sweat on his brow.  Could he have possibly imagined when he was withdrawing, and laying down “the money shot” on her bare back that the psychotic mother of this barely nubile, but somewhat worldly conquest later would trot him out before a world television audience as Exhibit A to receive the most public damnation possible regarding his youthful indiscretions, forced to accept the role of the faithful stud who will be forced to marry that stupid girl (that he begged not to make him use a condom) from the wrong end of an AK-47?  And you know he’s not allowed to sleep with her before the wedding, either.  Too bad - he may have found some comfort in her abundant decolletage had he been permitted.  But his life, for now, is over.  He may be OK later, if he can shake loose of that crazy family, but only after many, many years of therapy, and hundreds of replays of that pitiable scene last night — like a nightmare that seems without end – as long as the campaign goes on.  He is pledging his eternal allegiance to Satan that McCain loses so that he can hit the road hard, and make fast getaway from that woman, never to return, as soon as the election is over, and Barack is safely ensconced.  For now, Sarah and her man own his genitals.  They keep them in the nightstand by their bedside, firmly squashed between two Alaskan volcanic flat rocks.  If he wasn’t a bed-wetter before, he soon will be. 

retardez.

Lest we forget.

The Republicans’ ongoing spectacle in Minneapolis bears watching if only to shine a much-needed light on the depths to which they’ve fallen in a mere 8 years.  The party of Lincoln, and TR, is adrift in a sea of infighting and delusion.  While they still wheel out the mouldering carcass of the not-long departed actor-cum-godhead for adoration with predictable regularity, even the GOP is concerned that RWRs legacy has been co-opted by the hapless neocons.

Tis but an empty shell, yes?  He cut taxes, he defeated the Soviets!  But my god, Dutch, you ignored the threat of an economically powerful, nay, dominant China, and you did nothing to prepare America for that future challenge.  You chose investing our energy and treasure in fungible warstuffs at the expense of our roads, our schools, our scientists.  You encouraged the intertwining and co-dependency of religion – no, of the Christian faith – with the unholy workings of big-money, dirty politics.  You demonized your opponents (not your enemies), and you co-opted God for the petty greed of your contributors, for goodness’ sake. You turned a blind eye to the corruption of your closest allies, you placed party before all other considerations; you sacrificed the good of the many for the further advantage of the privileged few. Your policies, carried forward so proudly by your successors resulted in closed factories, substandard levees, lost opportunities, and a government so crippled by a thousand senseless, ill-considered, and even counterintuitive budget cuts, and so utterly derided and demoralized that it was unprepared and incapable of timely rendering even basic assistance in the aftermath of a routine Cat 4 storm, and a legacy of dashed hopes for a generation of poor, non-white, and non-well-to-do children.

No, the Republican Party’s biggest hero these days, other than the current, obligatory, but obtuse standard-bearer and his milf-y sidekick, is the unmemorable GHW Bush.  At least he garnered the longest ovation of the evening from the gathered faithful, the true believers, the right-to-lifers (being a generally respectful lass, I cheerfully refrain from referring to them, as might be fair, as the clueless, the greedheads, the low grade morons). Lest we ever forget, GHWB was so despised for his lame performance that he was swept out of office in a landslide of Clintonian proportions, such that he is but a footnote in any credible presidential reference, along the lines of Zachary Taylor.  And, lest we forget, from the loins of Poppy’s sodden neglect of the poor lads, borne o,f his sociopathic, tireless pursuit of self-aggrandizement and wealth, and Babs’ self-loathing — manifested as the endless, crushing invalidation of her dim-witted, bed-wetting spawn, sprung the miserable and unworthy Gollum currently squatting in our most sacred dwelling.  So cheer them on, wackos.  Raise your banner high for those wonderful Bushes, for all they’ve done for us.  HUZZAH. And by all means, don’t go a-changing on account of me.

Hannah, Hold On

Reconciled with wifey over the weekend, was like pulling teeth to get her to talk to me.  This, of course, to someone who is not completely insane, would suggest that there is a deeper issue of trust at work, but feh- what is a man to do when she says, OK, I was wrong and I’m sorry . . .

I spent yesterday evening working on a track that Allan sent me as exemplary of his studio work with a new friend.  A couple hours went into adding a lead guitar track that overall and for the most part I was pleased with, except for a few measures that don’t yet sit well in the mix.  I think that I will have to actually write a part to squeeze into the space between his drum, piano, acoustic guitar, and bass lines – believe me, a very tight fit.  Like a 19 year old, to be a little crude about it.

Somehow, that led me to begin a new songwriting this morning, started it in my head after my morning walk/run, and just before I hit the shower, then I polished it once behind my desk again – wanderlust seems to be striking me hard, but here it is:

Hannah, hold on -

honey, why you so far gone?

The family photo in your mind

turned out to be wrong.

Hurtling toward the finish line

you know it won’t be long.

Hannah, hold on – just a little longer

take me in your hands, and I’ll take you in my arms

We’ll get you feeling stronger,

just hold on a little longer . . .