Cranky Blog

Is it any surprise that Alan Greenspan is no more forthcoming than anyone else who got caught with their pants down?  He sits there in Washington claiming ignorance, claiming that the fiscal calamity was a surprise.  I believe he’s merely a liar.

The tragic part of it isn’t that he’s lying.  It isn’t that he claims not to know anything – I heard it called the Sergeant Shultz defense, “I know nothing!”.  The tragic part is that he knows the truth.  He knows why it happened and by not telling why and how he’s hurting us all when he could help the country.  He could lay it all on the line and then everyone could stand back and say, “Holy Crap, are you kidding me!?”  And then we could have our overturning of the status quo and create something new.

But Alan Greenspan knows too much.  He is afraid to share whatever really went on and that to me is treasonous because he is undermining our democracy with his silence.  Nobody is going to convince me that Alan Greenspan did not see it coming because I saw the house of cards being built and I could have told him it would fall.  And I don’t know anything about economics except that a bunch of people borrowing enough to place their great grand children in debt is a dangerous thing.

Alan Greenspan knew it too.  He knew what was happening and now he isn’t willing to talk about how the systems were either too corrupt or too inept to take care of the problems.  I think he’s committing treason.

I am going to pay the bill on this debt that the government is doling out and I don’t know how many years I’ll be paying.  Alan Greenspan knows why it all happened and he needs to come clean so we can fix the systems or throw them out and start over again.  Whatever, Alan Greenspan needs to speak the truth.

But Greenspan is choosing to lie.  Who is he protecting?  Lying has become such a regular part of politics and public life it’s appalling.

I do find the position of John McCain hysterical.  He and Palin have lately been denouncing Obama as a Socialist who wants to “spread the wealth” around.  This is funny because McCain and his pal George Bush just engineered the greatest spreading of our wealth the world has ever seen in the bailout.  And guess what, the money isn’t coming back to any of us and the banks aren’t lending it to us either. 

Taxpayers are restocking the bank’s safes and the banks are just locking it away.  Just when America gives them a helping hand, they roll up the sidewalks and flip the “open” sign to “closed” and we’re all left with the bills and empty pockets.

We are just a bunch of stupid people if we leave any of the politicians in office.  Next week I hope we collectively run them out in a way that’s never been seen before.  Every incumbent ought to be flogged at the ballot box and run out on a rail.  Each and every last one of them ought to go.  And I’m not sure that McCain and Obama shouldn’t be included in the forced exodus.

And as for Alan Greenspan, if he refuses to tell the truth, I’d say it’s time to try someone for treason so let’s start with him.  We need the truth.

Well here we are a couple weeks out from the election and the examination of the fiscal crisis is in full swing.  Greenspan is before the Congress as the high and mighty want to know what wrecked the train.  What caused it to derail, who was driving, who was the conductor, who, who, who!!??

Well, all the stupid jerks ought to look in the mirror.  They couldn’t see this train wreck coming?  They couldn’t see that the stupid people buying houses they obviously couldn’t afford were going to go belly up?  They couldn’t see that there were millions of people going into hideous levels of credit card debt?  They couldn’t see all this?

What are they stupid?  Are they blind?  Are they ignorant?  What is it that they want to know that they couldn’t see before the wreck happened?  There were a bunch of people riding in first class on the train who financed their ticket to ride.  Get a freakin’ clue Congress!

Looks like it’s going to be President Obama and not President McCain.  I think that in the big picture it’s probably a good thing.  We are going to need a good talker, a good motivator over the next four years.  We are going to need someone who can give us good speeches sort of like good old Mom who took care of us when we had the flu.  Someone who can coo and put cold compresses on our heads and give us baby aspirin we don’t want to take.

Obama is going to be better at all of that than McCain.  McCain likes to hang out with other crusty old farts like Phil Graham who thought we all had a mental disorder in thinking we were in a recession.  I am still wondering where this genius of fiscal foresight is today.  I hope he moved to Bangladesh to give them advice because they sure need him.  McCain and his grumpy old men need to retire and leave the country to people who aren’t too cynical yet.

Gas is dropping like a rock.  So nice.  Yet, I wonder since the gas in California was around 5 a gallon a few months ago and that resulted from a price per barrel that is double what it is now, why isn’t my gasoline costing me 2.50 per gallon?  Why is it still over 3 dollars?  CROOOKS!!!!!!!  Dirty rotten CROOOKSS!!!!!

I want a horse for Christmas, and a coral and a barn full of hay.  Then I will sell my Honda and ride to work.  Me and my pony, and that’s not a lot of horseshit either.

What else in the world is happening?  I don’t know because I live in the US where we don’t seem to believe that there is a world beyond our borders a lot of the time.  Fortunately I get BBC on satellite radio so once in a while I tune in to see if England is still floating out there across the pond.

Greenspan says that nobody was smart enough to see what was going to happen.  Man, I thought he was a smart guy.  All he had to do was ask me, I could have told him.  The train was wobbling, the train was losing wheels, the train was full of freeloaders, the train was nearly to the end broken end of the tracks hanging off a cliff.  Alan really, you have to be kidding me, you saw it, you’re lying if you say you didn’t.  I saw it, my friends saw it, we all talked about it Alan!  You should have some to my BBQ’s Alan.

I’ve been too tired to write lately.  It seems to me that the election campaign has dragged on for most of the 21st century and I can’t wait until it’s over.

With the state of mind in the country right now I think Obama is the best choice.  I doubt anyone in the Oval Office can actually change things but considering our emotional fagility and our obsessive attachment to our credit card spending - plus -  our brittle standing in the world.  I think what we need now more than anything is someone who can inspire – or at least shovel huge piles of BS – in order to calm our fears and give us hope. 

McCain is a nice man but he really doesn’t seem to be able to do either of those things.  And, I have to agree with Bill Maher that Sarah Palin is a Category 5 moron.

Caribou Barbie?  I saw Palin on SNL last night and it wasn’t worth waiting up for.  Tina Fey insulted her and then Baldwin insulted her and then she went out and introduced the show.  I couldn’t see the point of it from her standpoint, she looked like she just signed up to be used.  Maybe she had a part in the show again later on but I thought she stood there like a bit of an idiot taking the insults and then kicking off the show with mock enthusiasm.  Very lame, she ought to leave the comedy to McCain.  Some say she was a “good sport”, there is a difference between graciously ignoring insults and showing up to receive them in person.

I think that half the future debates should be done in a comedy format.  Watching those guys do a stand up routine at that Catholic fundraiser was good medicine.

Does McCain think that he’s living up to his pledge to reach across the aisle and across the world to bring people together when he accuses his opponent of the sin of socialism – as he says, just like the European leaders?  I mean really, how dense is that?

Perhaps it’s time for a little isolationism.  Perhaps we need to pull back in and let the rest of the world rot for a while.  Sell them stuff and stay home and enjoy our beautiful country.

That little boy being kidnapped by Mexican drug dealers in Las Vegas makes a sad statement about the security of our country.  The incident really represents an escalation that highlights the need to secure the borders.  We have these drug cartel animals coming all the way into Las Vegas kidnapping children?  Wow, I’d say it’s a lot worse than I thought.  We need to shut it down, collapse their tunnels under the border, inspect all trucks, eliminate Mexican trucks from coming across the border.  All of it needs to be shut down.  Oh, and keeping Jose Canseco at home would be a great idea too.

Powell has signed up for the Lieberman club of schmoes who double-cross their party.  At least he had the decency to wait until after the convention so he didn’t have to make a speech.  I thought that the Republicans had him under wraps since his UN misleading speech.  I wonder what attacks he will endure now that he has come out in favor of Obama.  Interesting stuff, wish I could have been up early enough on Sunday to watch the show. 

Figures that the clueless NBC executives would put an important show like Face the Nation on Sunday morning at 6 AM and put bubble gum Today show on at 7 AM.  I wonder it they think that the public might like actually getting real news.  Or maybe its cuz they likes us ignorant.  I listen to PBS most of the time since they actually do news and in-depth interviews instead of Martha Stewart BS like how to make a potted plant arrangement or how to filet a carp for dinner.

Republicans have called Democrats “Tax and Spend Liberals” for many years.  Republicans call Liberals big spenders who create “entitlement” programs.  In other words, programs that provide things for people that they come to feel they are entitled to.

What are we entitled to in terms of this massive and growing government bailout.  I hear the word “investor” tossed around as the politicians describe the role of the average taxpayer in these bailout packages, as the government buys huge parts of private banks and “loans” massive sums of money to investors here and abroad.

What is the average taxpayer’s expectation in these investments?  All the money that our government has comes from us, from our taxes.  So if they “invest” our money in these bailouts, won’t we all expect to be entitled to some dividend?

What are the dividends?  How will we be repaid?  Will it be simply that the debt is repaid on a dollar for dollar basis?  Is there going to be interest that will net a profit which can be spent on something for the people?  I wonder how much my taxes will have to go up in order to balance the budget in the face of this massive government “investment” of our tax dollars.

What am I entitled to as a taxpayer in this whole mess?  George and the boys are committing unthinkable sums of money to shore up a broken banking and finance system.  They are backing investments of foreign governments with my money and my future money.  What exactly is my payoff?

I have not been mailed any stock certificates.  I have not been told how much I must pay and yet I know I must.  It is clear that we all will and that we have been taxed without representation, and in all likelihood beyond all reason.  Can someone in authority tell me how much my monthly payment will be so I may adjust my budget appropriately?

For me, I want entitlements.  I want a secure retirement.  I want health care.  That’s all.  Not a lot, although in the face of spending enough to put my great-great-great grandchildren into debt, I think it may be way too much to expect.  I suspect that I don’t ever see a dividend check and I don’t think that the government will have the cash to provide my desired “perks”.

Do I have a right to expect something for my money?  I think so.  I think if the government asks me to pay for something they ought to be able to define what I am paying for and what I will get for my money.  I don’t hear anyone talking like that.  I don’t hear anyone who has the balls to say, here’s what you are going to pay and here is what you’ll get for the privilege.

We started this crisis here in America.  There is no doubt about that.  But the global greed fed it.  Without the global investment in the credit market here, there is no way we would have had the money to overspend the way we did.  And the foreign investment experts made these decisions of their free will.  We did not put a gun to their head.  They are no more innocent in this than we are; yet on the surface, we are going to pay to bail out the foreign investors.

Am I entitled to a vacation to the South of France?  May I expect a free coupon for a gondola ride in Venice?  How about a discount coupon for some bangers and mash at a good London pub?  I think I need something if I am paying.  I need some entitlements, or at least some benefits.  All I hear from the politicians is that we’ve done the bailout AND we are going to get the much worse “alternative” at the same time.  No benefits, no stocks, no bonds, no entitlements, just higher taxes, higher deficits, and less of everything else.

Blah-blah-blah…all the leaders from both parties ought to resign.

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”  Plato

It seems to me that the economic light is clear.  The greed of our nation has been fully illuminated, completely exposed to the light of day.  It is scaring the men of this country.  We’ve lived a long night of partying, spending, nightlife, and excess, but now the sun is up and the house is a mess.

It does not seem that the part of our greed that is scaring everyone is the ugliness of it.  It seems to me that the thing that is scaring everyone is the loss of its illusory power, the emptiness of greed’s promise.

Our American Dream was never a television in every room or a Wii for every kid.  It was never two cars and a four thousand square foot McMansion that we don’t have time to clean ourselves.  Our American Dream was not a country so driven by greed to acquire that we would endanger the future of our nation, the quality of life of our children.

And yet we have and we did and we are all paying a price but nobody is willing to tell us what the actual price is.  This economic crisis is a little like buying a car.  We know it costs a lot but nobody is willing to tell us the exact amount.  It’s like a restaurant where people are so rich that there aren’t any prices on the menu, the problem is that we aren’t rich and it does matter what it all costs.

The light is shining on our system and the paint is peeling and the lawns are dead and there are bank repo signs in the front yard.  The politicians are working their hardest to make us all believe that it isn’t really happening.  They are trying their best to place blame anywhere but where it belongs, on our doorsteps.

It may be that the light is shining on the unraveling materialistic fabric of our society.  It could be that we are all going to have to live with less, desire less, covet less, eat less, drive less, travel less, spend less.  It may be that the light of day hasn’t risen far enough yet to show where the bottom of the market really is, perhaps, and perhaps not.  But the light is shining brightly enough to show that there are no more shopping sprees on Visa, no more Hawaii vacation on American Express, no more Harleys on MasterCard.

And the Sacramento Bee headlines last week read, “The Nation is Gripped by Fear”.  Perhaps the lie of greed is the light that shines, perhaps the exposure of greed’s false promises are driving the fear.  For what is everyone afraid of after all I wonder.  Nobody is starving, most people are working, all we’re facing so far is a dismal Christmas by modern standards.  And yet, this Christmas could be the best ever.

If Americans are truly afraid of the light shining on their greed and avarice then shame on us all.  Shame if we are not mature enough adults to learn the lesson of this economic breakdown and to acknowledge that it wasn’t simply large banks and wealthy people who created this mess – although they hold a key element in it.  It was each of us.  It was every person who defaulted on a loan or credit card, everyone who bought something they could not afford and failed to make the payments, everyone who bought a big house on a fantasy mortgage, everyone who bought, sold and flipped houses fueling the market frenzy.  We all contributed in some way and we’re all going to pay.  I think we’re tough enough to look at our financial behavior in the light of day and not be afraid but rather to hitch up our pants and trudge onward from here - wiser and unafraid - together.

What does Sarah Palin’s breach of ethics as the Alaskan Governor mean to the election?  I think her lack of ethics is well-reflected in McCain’s use of the fear being generated by the economic crisis.  The McCain Campaign is generating fear and taking advantage of people’s insecurity in a way not seen in many years.

I hear the catcalls of the people at the campaign rallies of Palin/Mcain.  They call out traitor and liar and worse in response to McCain’s charges against Obama.  What are the ethics of supporting, encouraging and fomenting such cries of hatred.  It seems to me that the McCain political tactics verge on crying fire in a theater.  Instilling fear in people in this way is highly irresponsible and dangerous.

When such a level of anxiety and fear prevail within the country as currently exist, and when people are fearful about the wars we are engaged in and the fundamental reason given, that being combating terrorism; I think it is a grave mistake to charge that Barack Obama is a terrorist by association.

I wonder if John McCain and Sarah Palin comprehend the linkage they are making in people’s minds.  How will someone who is unstable or mentally ill respond to such outreaches to anger, hatred and panic?  What actions might such a person make and what might they be capable of?

I think that McCain and Palin are acting unethically when they try to paint Obama as a terrorist, or at the very least as a terrorist sympathizer.  I think that by playing on people’s anger and fear they are creating a dangerous situation.  We need leadership at this time that encourages us, that raises us up and that builds our spirits.  We do not need leadership that preys on the darkest fears of our people in order to gain political advantage.  I recall that’s how Hitler got into office, by playing on the fears and desperation of the German people.  He got into power by blaming groups of people, by making scapegoats out of them.

I believe that it is unethical and potentially dangerous for McCain and Palin to continue to follow the campaign path they are on.  I think they are tempting fate, I think they are acting recklessly, and I do not think that they should be entrusted with leading from the White House for the next four years.

I do not want a leader who thinks that the best way to get elected is by diminishing others, by building on existing public fears, or by taking advantage of people’s anxiety or by insinuating negative images onto their opponents.

I work for a business that I think is symbolic of the model that we’ve built our business structure upon.  The first morning of this week we heard of two other businesses that had closed their doors: one was a competitor and another was a business we regularly did business with.

Here’s the issue, vendors of goods and services are all lined up like the dominoes falling now across the globe.  Our business has provided services for which others owe us money.  In effect we have provided credit to those businesses and homeowners.  The vendors who provide us the materials we need to do our work often did so on a credit account.

Get the picture?  If the people who we worked for fail to pay us, then we may fail to pay the vendors who would then fail to pay the manufacturers and the shippers and so on up the food chain.  This is why having available credit is important to business.  If we have to pay cash for everything we can’t do business because we – by California state law – can only charge 10% ($1,000 max) of the bill up front.  This means we are in effect required by law to borrow in order to complete our construction-related work.

Our business has already been hit hard by the housing crisis.  Two major subdivisions went under and the developer went bankrupt leaving us hanging out to dry with huge bills against the work we did and bought materials to complete.  Our employees got paid and our vendors will get paid over time, but the bottom line is that we will lose that money.

All I can say is that if the government can’t fix this credit crunch and prices and values keep falling then it won’t be over until all of the dominoes are laying flat.  Then whoever is left to conduct business will be doing it on a cash or barter basis and credit as a means of conducting commerce will be all but dead.  Is it an economic Armageddon?   That may be a erring on the side of Chicken Little but I may build a chicken coup over the weekend so I have eggs and chickens for barter!

One thing I know about falling dominoes is that if one can pull a couple out of the row before they get hit then all of them won’t fall.  I guess what the government is trying to figure out is where the key dominoes are that will stop the clicking over.  Perhaps they were handicapped by their trickle down mentality.  Perhaps the dominoes were never poised to click over from the top but rather from the bottom.  Perhaps there is a fundamental misunderstanding among our our leadership of where the strength - and now the systemic weakness - of the economy lay, at the bottom.  The middle class is where the dominoes started to fall and now the bankruptcy has trickled from the homeowner, to the local bank, to the credit market, to Wall Street, to the government and now to the global economy.  Click-click-click.

Trickle down prosperity has turned into trickle up bankruptcy.  I don’t know if John McCain or Barack Obama get it.