Thoughts about the "Crisis" and the "Bailout"

So, we are to have a new Bank of the United States. I thought Andrew Jackson got rid of that in 1836. $700 billion. That’s $700,000,000.00. I don’t know if you got the email I’ve received a couple of times, but if you take that amount and divide it among all the adults in the United States, we could each have something like $280,000. Each. That’s after taxes.



HEY CONGRESS! You want to save the economy and help people? Send us each just $200,000. A lot of us would pay off our house and that would send cash flowing into the troubled banks. Others would be able to catch up on their back payments. The poor could finally afford a few nice things, like a house, a car, a college education, and 400 channel cable TV. Oh wait, a lot already have the cable.

And, with 200 million Americans spending that money on a new house or an addition to the house, a new car, new appliances, beer, decent clothes, CDs, DVDs, and so on, the economy will automatically kick up a notch. Yes, some people will waste the money and in two years will be no better off than they are now, but think of the few fun years you in Congress provided. What better way to buy votes? Much better than only helping the executives that drove their company into the ground.

But, since this plan makes too much sense and sounds too much like socialism (unlike the government running the banks, which apparently is not socialism for some reason), this brilliant idea was not even considered in Congress or by our Presidential hopefuls.

Seriously, one of Jackson’s reasons for killing the Bank of the US, is that it had too many foreign investors. The US Government is in debt. To who? To foreign investors and foreign banks. This puts the US in a horrible disadvantage. Many of these countries are in a precarious friendship with the US. If something should happen that would cause a break in relations, what happens to the money supply? I admit it is all too complex for me, but I know enough to be worried.

The US needs to stop spending so much, even for “good causes.” “The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be intrusted to man…” We need to chop pork and make people and companies pay for the services they use. Maybe more of our interstates need to be toll roads, though those that use them will complain mightily. Maybe we could do away with a few government departments. Maybe someone in Congress needs to read the Constitution and see what the Government is supposed to do.

The banks are in a mess for two reasons. 1. The Clinton Administration thought it would be nice to let “the poor” (i.e. people with insufficient means) buy a house so they loosened the regulations. A “good cause.” 2. Greed, pure and simple. Banks were more than happy to extend credit to anyone, and to extend more credit than warranted. When we moved to our current town, we went to get pre-approved for a house loan. It would be our first house. I was going to be making $38,000 a year and I am the sole support for a family of six. The bank said, “You are approved for $200,000.” I said, “Are you nuts? Did you see how much I will be making? I didn’t get an A+ credit rating by being stupid.”

But, too many people were stupid. Others lost their jobs or had other unexpected hardships. They bought too much house (or too fancy a house) and when hard times hit, then they really suffered. The banks were stupid, they should suffer. Now the Nation is suffering, and that extends to the world. Other than sustenance farming, I don’t know what to do about it, I just needed to rant.

Buy my book: How to Fix-up Your House to Sell.

McCain Picks Palin, I Wonder...

I wonder if Obama wishes he had picked Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius for his Vice President running mate. Apparently Sebelius was in the short list of four. She would have countered any strengths that Palin brings for a lot of moderately left people. Not that that would change my vote. I want someone who realizes that terrorists will not sit down and talk about it. "Some people should die, that's just unconscious knowledge"-Jane's Addiction. This is not Utopia, this is the Real World.

I've read several blogs today and it's amazing to me how worked up people can get about someone they know next-to-nothing about. Pro and con. And how much they read their beliefs into the general populace. The conservatives are all "She's perfect! This clinches the election for us!" The liberals are all "HA! She's lousy! We have it in the bag now!" Get real people. There are an awful lot of people (like in the millions) that are not partisan one issue voters. The election is not clinched for either party, it's a long way to November.

If it's the Economy, then you're Stupid

Kyle Smith has a good short post for those who like to complain about the Economy. It’s the Stupidity About the Economy, Stupid. The U.S. is growing at a better rate than most other Western countries.

China and India are outgrowing the US. Hands up, all those who would rather live there.

Now I've known some Chinese students here in the U.S. and they are very interesting and nice people. The Communist government is what I don't like about China. That and the crowds. I like my small-town America. Smith's post links to a spreadsheet in the Economist magazine. Take a look at the unemployment numbers and tell me the U.S. is doing poorly compared to the world. And the Economist is not conservative and not American. It's British.

Big Willie Says Buy American!

I always buy American when I can, if not, I buy North American, then South American, then European, then non-Communist, then as a last resort, I buy Commie-made crap. All the big-box stores have Commie-made crap all over the place. When I was buying a circular saw, I didn't expect to find anything but Commie-made in my price range, but as I was standing there looking at a Commie saw, I glanced over and on a box it said "Made in USA." It was only $10 more, so I jumped at the chance to buy an American-made tool. It is a great saw. I'm glad I found it (saw it? ha ha). Yes, it cost a little more, but most Americans have too much junk anyway. Better to buy less and higher quality than to have more junk. Now if you are Canadian or whatever, you should buy Canadian- or whatever-made. I fully support everyone buying local-made products wherever you live. I just happen to live in the middle of the United States so I buy American. My thought for the day.

Bumper Stickers, Personalized Tags, etc. are for Agressive People

People who use bumper stickers, personalized tags, or (one would assume) art cars, are more aggressive than those who don't. The reason is that those who personalize their car are making the "public" space of the car into "personal" space and therefore, they are more aggressive in defending their space. I always thought I was just to cheap and/or lazy to put a bumper sticker on my car. Turns out, I'm not aggressive enough. I am a very likable guy.

Hit tip: Dirty Harry's Place

Class on blogging?

This is a post from a class. This is our teacher.

Conservative Librarians

The Loneliness of a Conservative Librarian is an interesting article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. For those who don't know, the Chronicle is the New York Times of the academic world. It's true that librarians are overreacting to lots of what's going on in the country. But I think that can be said about most any group right now.

The clearest way to take care of the polarization is to kill half the Baby Boomers. The most extreme right and left. Seeing as how that isn't practical (and I wouldn't want to be the one to decide who is to be taken out), we'll just have to wait it out.

In other (related) news: Respected scholar and sociologist Alan Wolfe has gone off his nut. In this weeks Chronicle (not free, sorry) he continues his anti-conservative rants that the Chronicle editors keep publishing. Oh, you're suprised?

He seems quite convinced that to be conservative is to be mentally unbalanced. See his 4/2/2004 article "A Fascist Philosopher Helps Us Understand Contemporary Politics." In that article he states

To understand what is distinctive about today's Republican Party, you first need to know about an obscure and very conservative German political philosopher.

I believe he is, or was, a moderate type person, and it grieves me to see him go down this road.

Are Consumers Anxious or are Analysts Psychologists?

The slow down in retail sales is credited to "Anxiety" by some mind-reading analyst types. Could it be that our gas budget has more than doubled and Christmas is coming? I don't feel anxious.

Speaking of Christmas someone had a boycott Christmas idea. I'll find it and link to it soon.

Putting on another's shoes

Marylaine Block has written a well thought out article on getting out of our tunnel-vision. I don't agree with everything she says, but as she states, "The object of these imaginative exercises is not achieving agreement. We don't need to agree with each other." But we do need to respect each other.

Not another blog!

Yes folks, another blog. I just want to say at the start that I don't like the word 'blog.' Something better should have been used. Oh, well, seeing as how I am late getting into this game I guess I don't have much to say about it, do I? How about webl? As in "He's a webl, yeah yeah yeah!" One thing I can guarantee you is that this won't be another blog annoucing what I ate for breakfast and how lazy I was at work. Snoozefest. If you read this blog long enough I will probably assult your ideals. We'll see how this goes.