Greed, the Zombie Elite, the Cure

For the last three years, I have written extensively on greed. Unadulterated, rampant greed.

And yet to write about greed, and the elites that practice money worship and the hunger, seems almost un-American. The defenders of capitalism see greed as "normal." It is acceptable. And to utter a disparaging word on greed, draws the defenders out. Right wingers, employees of the elite, they come. They attack.

But what they cannot do-is defend greed. And they don't because they can't. And so it is that they launch those attacks on behalf of their nanny and elite employers. Displaying their loyalty. Hoping for a bigger piece of that wealth themselves. Indeed, it is a sickness.

And as I write this, I see that Manny Ramirez has re-signed for the 2010 season with the LA Dodgers. Twenty million for six months of play.

I stumbled onto this piece. Written by an MIT graduate with a nice string of credentials. It focuses on greed with an out take our two on our systemic priorities and the philosophy of Ayn Rand blended in.

http://www.sramanamitra.com/2009/03/28/capitalism-20-the-need-for-regulation/

So what does an MIT genius and a blogger from nowhere have in common? Perspective. Two years ago, I didn't know who Ayn Rand was. I got my perspective courtesy of a little town in central Idaho, where the wealthy and elite blend in with us bourgeois', coupled with my fascination with business news. And so two completely different folks, on completely different routes-converge on the same conclusion.

No amount of wealth and power will ever satiate the insatiable. They cannot and will not rein themselves in.

A few years ago, I would have disagreed with my MIT writer on the cure. Unconscious egos that are left forever wanting. Education and a shift in values. Moral decay. After viewing this up close and personal, mulling over education, consciousness, and and the commitment to improve values- that cure is simply not available. You can't make zombies undead. It annoys them. Regulating the zombie elite to the graveyard smacks of government control and pay czars.

How about we return to a real free market system of competition without government sanctioned monopolies, subsidies, and interference? Election reform. No heavy handed intrusion, no government intervention, get the hell out of our lives and quit stealing us blind? Ah yes, Libertarians. Never thought of that.

The only other viable answer? Let the elite system implode. All previous democracies have failed. This stuff doesn't last forever anyway.

Mucho Gracias Yankees

I got a kick out of this. Seems Bank of America was giving out credit cards to illegal aliens without social security numbers.

Taxpayers gave 'em 35 billion. Courtesy of Frankenstein.

How sweet of us to bail B of A out and supplant their astute business making decisions. Linkeration via Snopes that verified the allegation- http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/bankofamerica.asp

This brings up a lot of questions for me...like those involving accounts and other taxpaying consequences but arrgghh...gonna leave it alone...

More Frankenstein Government

Got this in an email from an old friend. He is part of the lunatic fringe that we used to refer to as "patriots."

Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle
of a desert. Congress said, "Someone may steal from it at night." So they
created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.

Then Congress said, "How does the watchman do his job without
instruction?" So they created a planning department and hired two people,
one person to write the instructions, and one person to do time studies.

Then Congress said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing the
tasks correctly?" So they created a Quality Control department and hired
two people, one to do the studies and one to write the reports.

Then Congress said, "How are these people going to get paid?" So they
created the following positions, a time keeper, and a payroll officer,
then hired two people.

Then Congress said, "Who will be accountable for all of these people?"
So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an
Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal
Secretary.

Then Congress said, "We have had this command in operation for one Year
and we are $18,000 over budget, we must cutback overall cost."

So they laid off the night watchman. NOW slowly, let it sink in. Quietly, we go like sheep to slaughter.
Does anybody remember the reason given for the establishment of the
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY.... during the Carter Administration? Didn't think so!

Bottom line: We've spent several hundred billion dollars in support of
an agency...the reason for which not one person who reads this can
remember! Ready??

It was very simple...and at the time, everybody thought it very
appropriate.

The Department of Energy was instituted on 8-04-1977, TO LESSEN OUR
DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.

Hey, pretty efficient, huh???

AND NOW IT'S 2009 -- 32 YEARS LATER -- AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS "NECESSARY"
DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR. THEY HAVE 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES
AND APPROXIMATELY 100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES; AND LOOK AT THE JOB THEY
HAVE DONE! THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY, "WHAT WAS I
THINKING?"

AND, NOW, WE ARE GOING TO TURN THE BANKING SYSTEM, HEALTH CARE, AND
THE AUTO INDUSTRY OVER TO THE SAME GOVERNMENT? HELLOOO!

Worth noting here. There is no accountability as a component in project development or management Frankenstein style. Once these useless agencies are created-they are never reviewed in terms of goals or accomplishments, they are superior in terms of wasting a shitload of money. The Dept. of Energy is responsible for cleaning up Superfund sites. The number one Superfund site in the U.S. was the giant contaminated copper pit in Butte, Mt. My hometown. After studying the problem, the DOE simply walked away. Sweet.

Eating Yourself

I don't know what the big deal is.

A trillion here, a trillion there. You guys act like this is some big deal. The sky is falling, the sky is falling.

Now our annual GDP, or the total cost of everything produced in the U.S., is only 14.4 trillion. The national deficit is currently only 12 trillion. See it here: http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Next year, annual GDP and our debt will match for the first time evah! In 2011, it will spill over.

Every kid born now owes an immediate 39,000 bucks just for being born- and I think its high time they started paying the freight. This waiting until age 15 to tax them is bullshit. That's why we owe so damn much money in the first place.

And while I'm at it, isn't a high school education a capital gain? Franky got a piece of my salary every time they paid me to go to some job related training-so what gives? Ok, maybe that's weak sauce...onto the point...

I don't even think a trillion is accepted as a large number, but baby anything to the 15th power has to be. Behold the quadrillion. 1,000,000,000,000,000 (one thousand million million; 10¹⁵
That's even more money than Goldman Sachs has. I don't even think the Powerball jackpot has gotten that high.

So we are in a race for the first quadrillion deficit. Now with all the pipeline deficits, Social Security, Medicaid, and the existing deficits...add in new programs like the 1.2 trillion health care bill and the cap and trade bill, and we are going to eclipse 60 trillion and march toward one tenth of a quadrillion. Very soon. But what if interest rates rise? Oh, baby then we got big time probs. The race for a quadrillion is on.

So just where is Franky gonna get the dough to pay that interest and that debt? He's coming for you-elite and wealthy. But you know what? Elite and wealthy people aren't gonna stick around and get ripped off. They got the chips. They ain't giving them back, Franky. Ex-patriation. Most of them have already expatriated their dough.

A government for the people, by the people, is about to consume itself. And that top 5% paying 95% of the taxes? They ain't waiting around for Franky to come and raid the cupboards. This Thanksgiving, say a prayer for that turkey you're about to eat. The biggest consumer nation on the planet is getting ready to eat itself. We may be the turkey in the years to come.

Get Ready to Sell Your Teeth!

Years ago, I had several gold crowns put on various molars. This happened back when gold traded at 300 bucks an ounce although undoubtedly, I paid something north of that.

Yesterday, India was reported as buying 6.7 billion worth of gold. India chose to invest in gold rather than US securities. Interesting. They bought at 1040.00. Today gold is trading right at 1100. They have already made 4 or 5%. Try getting that rate of return anywhere.

Because the dollar is so hideously weak, and oil is traded in dollars, the price of oil continues to trend up. That and China is signing contracts with anyone willing to sell. It's over 81 bucks a barrel.

Now I watch CNBC Business News. Far more than I should. And because they are a network, and a news channel, they bring on these talking heads. Today they were talking about commodities "bubbles." Thinking that all of this pressure on commodities is about to burst and rapidly deflate just like the housing bubble.

Not so. In fact, what makes this situation different is that this is not wild speculation. It is simply people and countries investing their money in a tangible, relatively safe asset. They are not buying paper hoping to make more worthless paper. That is a no confidence vote in the dollar as the world's reserve currency. China is doing the same thing. I expect oil exporters to follow suit. All of that demand of course is simply going to drive the price of gold up.

And there's not a damn thing the U.S. can do about that. Kinda makes a guy wonder whether Obama, Bernanke, and Geithner got a little gold socked away. Or whether or not the Fed Reserve is buying gold. Don't know. We can't audit them. What an excellent trade. Give money away and buy gold at the same time. Sweet.

At any rate, don't worry about all that talk of a commodities bubble. Unless of course, China and India quit using oil. Or they quit producing wealth and buying gold. Or the U.S. quits printing worthless and non existent currency.

I ain't selling my teeth for anything less than 1500.00. Don't be a sucker and don't worry about missing the boat, it may arrive sooner than you think.

http://www.moneymorning.com/2009/10/27/dethrone-the-dollar/

A Psychotic Episode at Winco

I want to talk about pop. Soda pop. I need a Frankenstein breather.

For years, I have witnessed this phenom which I am about to describe. Yet I have never stopped to ponder it until last night.

I pondered it because as I stood in the eternal line of 12 items or less at the grocery store, I began counting the shoppers ahead of me, many with 30 items or more. Rather than club them to death or say nasty things, I pondered. That's new for me. And as I pondered, I noticed at the checkout counter that they have those little bottles of Diet Pepsi in those little coolers-my drug of choice.

There was a tag that said a twenty ounce bottle was only 1.39.

Yet here I was in that glacial line, holding a giant 67 oz bottle of Diet Pepsi. It cost only 1.00. And for a moment, I felt like a criminal. How could this be? With my intensely mathematical mind, doing quick calculations (although I certainly didn't need to) I should have been paying something north of 4 bucks for this loot. Was this the deflation that those CPI guys were talking about?

And as my mind drifted, I thought about bootlegging Diet Pepsi. I mean, couldn't I simply fill up some re-usable 20 oz. bottles, fill them from those enormous bottles, sell them at 59 cents apiece and still make 100% profit? Isn't that the American dream? Find a niche and exploit it?

Any time you can make a 100% profit margin, that is a good deal.

Then I thought, why do people buy those small 20 oz. bottles? Do they think, "Hey, let's be as stupid as we can and pay three times as much for something that is a useless and damaging drink in the first place! This is America!" Then it dawned on me.

Of course. We are idiots and we are lazy idiots to boot. We can't be concerned with these little distractions like wasting our dough- as we lead our enormously important and desperate lives.

People just don't like lugging those three pound bottles around and worse yet, there is no way in hell my drink holder could handle that behemoth. Pop everywhere. Then it hit me. Had I ever seen a drink holder that could accommodate enough pop to float an oil tanker? Yes, maybe.

Those Range Rovers have little fridges in them. But they cost a shade over 50k. That is kind of a drawback.

You know what? You get a Ph.d from me in multi tasking if you can figure out a way to hold one of those giant things, steer and shift, run your navi and satellite radio, put makeup on, talk on your cellphone, occasionally bitch at other drivers while reloading a magazine or two, and not die in a fiery crash.

Eventually, I snapped out of my psychotic break and I was able to conjure up enough where with all to greet the cashier and pay for the 13 items I was holding because I never get a basket. That's how it is for us genius types. We can't be distracted by such things.

Trickeration, Frankenstein Style

Being a libertarian is hard and lonely work. Running around and chasing Franky through gothic landscape (while keeping my torch lit) is not for the faint of heart.

Let's take a meandering and circuitous walk and try to make this fun.

I didn't choose to be a libertarian. I became one by default. I had the two emotional precursors that all libertarian must have. I came to believe that crooked politicians enriching them selves and their elite friends was wrong. (Republicans) I believed as well that enriching yourselves, enriching your friends, and making it appear as though you were helping the poor and downtrodden was also wrong. (Democrats) In both instances, the minions get hosed. So it doesn't really matter whether you steal my money and give it to your friends, or give my money to the poor. Either way, you are stealing my money.

It's like being captured by benevolent headhunters. Death by sodomy or death in scalding water. Then we eat you. But either way you will be eaten. Now choose and be thankful we are nice enough to give you a choice.

The current Frankenstein thugocracy works like this. Watch video for serious laughs.



The other precursor I attribute to Einstein. That doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insane. That is the R and D dance. Just keeping hopping back and forth and Franky will survive. Franky has flourished for the last 50 years.

Now there are a lot of intelligent people out there defending R and D philosophy. People far smarter than I. But they have overlooked one thing. They are locked into a belief system that says any vote for an un-viable third party is a wasted vote. It is that faulty logic that allows Frankenstein to thrive. He loves that belief system.

Ok, let's get to the point.

The libertarians believe in liberty and free choice. One of the major stumbling blocks of the Libertarian Party platform is the belief that drugs should be legal.

Whoa! That stops most people dead in their tracks. So why doesn't that stop a retired cop and small town retired Police Chief? Didn't you fight that war? Don't you believe drugs are bad?

The answer is yes, on both counts. In fact I won't even take ibuprofen.

The answer lies in the replication and triplication of anti-drug efforts. At the Federal level we have this giant, money wasting, and drug war losing agency called the DEA. (I could throw in a few other agencies, like border patrol or ICE, ATF, and IRS who with a wink and a nod usually get dealers for tax evasion) A horrible failure by any accounting method. At the state level, we have have the state police duplicating the same job. At the local level, we have county and city cops triplicating the same effort.

Instead of just legalizing and regulating dope how about we shed the biggest money loser of all-the DEA? Wouldn't that return some of the authority back to the states to regulate how they wanted to enforce drug law? I mean they still have state and local cops. Isn't that how the framers of the Constitution envisioned this? States having their own authority? Of course it is.

Giving the states back control is not what Franky wants. He wants to expand his control and power base at all costs, to usurp the authority of all of us-to govern ourselves. Frankenstein accomplishes this by whispering how wonderful he is while picking our pockets. And yet, nothing ever changes. Kids still die and our federal prison system keeps expanding but Frankenstein keeps telling us that all that money he steals from us and spends is for our own good. Kind of like those benevolent head hunters.

Trickeration, Frankenstein style.

The Latest Version of the Healthcare Omnibus Spendulus Maximus

Here at Frankenstein Government, we (meaning my multi-personalities and corresponding voices) are committed to bringing you the latest version of Frankenstein's, "Healthcare Omnibus Spendulus Maximus" or HOS 'M bill whilst you are sleeping.

Presumably, some of you still have jobs. You will need your rest so that you can go to work and pay for my health care costs while I spend hours retrieving this information for you.

Obamas' original price tag on the HOSM was 900 billion. Other reliable sources are putting it closer to 1.3 trillion. But don't worry about that. Nancy Pelosi is quoted as saying that this bill will actually reduce the deficit.

Kind of like government buying you a new car, and just because they love you, they pay all the rest of your bills for you.

Like I said, you can't make this shit up. Click here to get it straight from the floor, yesterday.

The "Big Heist", Let's Have a Seance'

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson

Well in my little hometown last week, they "jerry rigged" a local school bond levy for 60 million. They did it one week prior to the towns regular elections. Why?

Because they were trying to attract the least amount of participation as possible. That and the law that allows them to do that will likely vanish next year.

My little area is heavily populated with second homes. Homes unoccupied by owners probably not even registered to vote locally. Ski season hasn't arrived yet. And so our school district exploited existing law, mounted the rallying cry, claimed it was GREAT for the local economy, and whipped up all of the support that they could.

The majority went MIA. Apathetic and absentee homeowners.

A whopping 27% turnout. Thus a super-minority was able to spend the dough of the majority. They claimed victory. Some of them even claimed patriot status for the act. (I helped an old lady move today, which took far more effort-but alas, I was denied patriot status for the deed.) The richest school district in the state, and one of the richest per pupil in the U.S., just got 60 million richer.

Guaranteed genius status for their kids. You're buying.

I actually considered exploring an injunction but didn't. Not because I feared all those whiny ass libs that think spending your dough will get their dull kid into MIT-but because I am no longer a resident. You see, I have no standing.

But it's not because I don't care. I don't consider it the fault of those missing property owners or apathetic voters. I don't even hold the school district responsible for exploiting the letter of the law. I don't even blame those nanny libs who believe in spending and wasting money and patting themselves on the back like they did a good deed.

You see, what I do hold accountable is a Frankenstein Government (this one at the state level) that allows compromised and clearly conflicted school districts to hold sneaky elections, whip up support with veiled and undisclosed projects, and then hold the damn election in their brand new and existing schools. Schools complete with district employees stifling back sniffles and tears as the guilty no voters must file in and avoid the stares of their neighbors-like a jury just coming into the court room with a guilty verdict.

If the great polymath, Thomas Jefferson, were alive today-would he sanction such an event? I hardly think so. It's mob rule Tom, except the minority is doing the ruling. The majority is busy at home watching fitness shows, drinking wine, and wondering where their tax assessment is on their second home in Idaho. That's how it is.

There is no honor left. No doing the right thing even when people are watching. Every school district dog for himself. What option is left for the people who can't afford this kind of waste? Like one writer wrote in to say, "if you don't like it leave."

And it is precisely that snarky response that solves nothing-and ensures that it will continue. What's left for us to do? Oh yea, that seance' thing.

"Hey Tom, a group of us were thinking about getting together around midnight on Monday, holding hands and murmuring stuff. Would you care to join us?"

Voyeurs Paradise

Hear Ye, Hear Ye old men. We may have missed our chance.

The article states that streaking pumpkin heads may have been arrested and thus listed as sex offenders. Wow. Having harmless fun in frigid temperatures...well we can't be having any of that!

E-mail this to a friend

Printable version

Police quash nude pumpkin run

Many of this year's runners got cold feet over the threat of legal action A "zany" annual Halloween tradition has failed to materialise in Boulder, Colorado, with the threat of police action quashing the Nude Pumpkin Run. Each year, dozens have run down the city's streets wearing only shoes and a hollowed-out pumpkin on their heads. Police said "full" participants this year faced indecent exposure charges. Up to 100 officers were deployed around Boulder this Halloween. As of early Sunday, local media reports said only one Halloween-related arrest was made. "I have heard people say, 'It's just not worth it. Let's not go down [to the city's mall]'," Boulder's Police Chief Mark Beckner told local newspaper the Daily Camera. 'Legal threat' Local reports say with up to 4,000 people taking part in Halloween revelry, a handful of individuals did take part in the run, but that when police caught up with them they were sufficiently clothed as to be "within the law". A Boulder police spokesperson said as of early morning Sunday only one Halloween-related arrest had been made, which was not connected to the Naked Pumpkin Run. A charge of indecent exposure could have led to participants being registered as sexual offenders. Last year, some 150 people turned out naked for the 10th event of its kind. Similar runs have also taken place in other US cities including Seattle, Portland and Arcata. On its website, the group had warned potential runners that "the violation of the Western societal more, enforced by law, of unclothed public exposure can indeed land you legal consequences. "Furthermore, the decision to participate is yours and yours alone," it added

IBGYBG...So Let those Idiot Taxpayers Get Caught Holding the Bag

Now it's CIT's turn. Read the link and and just feel your backside get hot.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aGR8yTH2eLwY&pos=1

Early in the banking crisis, before we ever passed Hank's bailout bill, I wanted to see every one of those insolvent banks go broke. Into receivership. Yes and have the great depression that we all so richly deserved. Get it over with.

In fact, that is the law. Government may have broken the law by passing TARP or so we'll find out.

http://www.beachwoodreporter.com/politics/is_tarp_legal.php

I remember this local brainiac telling me that the banks were going to pay back those loans. With interest. "We'll make money!" he said. Well, dude...it's like this. It's like loaning money to a soon to be dead guy. Dead guys don't earn money nor do they pay you back. Of the famous 4 "C"s of lending, the most important "C" is capacity. And broke banks, and dead guys, are fresh out of capacity.

So we lost 2.5 billion on the CIT deal, which more than offsets the 1.5 billion we made in interest from our loans to Goldman Sachs. And Bank of America gets stiffed for 7.5 billion by CIT. Bank of America as you recall, received 45 billion from taxpayers.

And the last snippet, of our Government Nannies, comes via Naked Capitalism and goes like this:

JAMES GALBRAITH: They let all of this run, because they were getting a superficially stronger economy out of it. The ownership society, all that was a scam, basically, designed to lure people who could never afford these mortgages into accepting them. And yes, I think they, any rational person, certainly people in the industry, knew that this was not going to last. There was a little industry code, I’ve learned, IBGYBG. “I’ll be gone. You’ll be gone.”

BILL MOYERS: Really?

JAMES GALBRAITH: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: The industry being the securities industry?

JAMES GALBRAITH: Well, and the mortgage originators and the bankers, generally.

BILL MOYERS: But that’s criminal fraud.

JAMES GALBRAITH: Oh sure. There was a huge amount of it. The Bush administration did not actively investigate the fraud that they knew, that the FBI knew was occurring, from 2004 onward. And there will have to be full-scale investigation and cleaning up of the residue of that, before you can have, I think, a return of confidence in the financial sector. And that’s a process which needs to get underway.

*sure it will. About the same time they begin playing ice hockey in hell.

The Only Sane Politician I Know

The Mistress of Disaster

I don't care much for lawyers as a whole. A few exceptions, the good ones. A few.

Worse than simply being a lawyer, is being a self serving and greedy lawyer. (although some would make an argument (pun intended) that there is no other kind) This Ms. fits all that. I might never have heard her name but I dug it out.

Another one of those privileged kids. Hey Harvard! Is this the best that you can do? A blurb about this criminal who was a Deputy AG and who of course while cooking the books, was never prosecuted.

Next up is Jamie S. Gorelick, whose official résumé describes her as "one of the longest serving Deputy Attorneys General of the United States," a position she held during the Clinton administration. Although Gorelick had no background in finance, she joined Fannie Mae in 1997 as vice chair and departed in 2003. For her trouble, Gorelick collected a staggering $26.4 million in total compensation, including bonuses. Federal investigators (PDF) would later say that "Fannie Mae's management directed employees to manipulate accounting and earnings to trigger maximum bonuses for senior executives from 1998 to 2003." The New York Times would call the manipulations an "$11 billion accounting scandal." Gorelick, it should be noted, has never been charged with any wrongdoing.

Reading about this woman is like guzzling Syrup of Ipecac. For those tougher than me...linkeration...

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2008/09/jamie-gorelick-mistress-of-disaster.htmlh