Sorry

I know I started and then disappeared for a month. Life just happened and I either couldn't manage to get to things here or i was too tired when I could manage it time wise. Again sorry for disappearing without a word.

Bailout Failure

This started as a comment to another comment. It has grown into something more. So I will do my first new post in over a month.

I think I was not understood about the bailouts. It was likely me being obscure, and maybe a tad trite, that caused that misunderstanding. I didn't say let them fail. I alluded to that we should take them over and undo the too big to fail part. For the bailouts it has gotten to the point where it is pretty much just paying bonuses. Of the largest banks/financial institutions that received bailout money (and stroke of the pen multi-billion dollar tax breaks in the past year), the vast majority of those paid out more in executive bonuses than what they made in profit. Billions of dollar that they didn't make went into their top Executives pockets. Where did it come from? The US Govt. by way of the Fed printing money.

The Fed, whose current printing policy, is a single word. Infinite. That is the amount of money that the Fed is willing to produce to bailout FUTURE risky investment practices of the largest banks is... infinite. And the banks aren't doing risk management any different now than they were before they created a worldwide crisis that almost plunged the entire world into a global economic depression.

Now I do understand that there was and to an extent still is 10s if not 100s of dollars in fake assets called derivatives floating out there... and it was and maybe still is this ethereal financial game of hot potato. However the bailout money that was supposed to go to fix that hasn't. We still very much have the same problem. The banking answer however is to take real property and (getting to be almost fake) government money to bolster what is actual assets. Only by doing that they are devaluing everything that they touch. Fact of the matter is that if we had thrown money at the S&L crisis and hope the industry would fix itself then we would be in a depression today. In fact the S&L crisis and deregulation is what led us here in the first place because of the creation of derivatives to stop the financial collapse then. When they were created the creator warned that they needed to be heavily regulated which the paraphrased response was, 'The market will take care of itself and the people who will trade in derivatives will understand the complexities and do so responsibly. How did that work out? We are still in danger of massive collapse no matter what the Politicians espouse.

A we have massively failed with bailouts. Yes the system is slightly more stable. But at what cost? Well let us take just one of the money pits. AIG. Now they have received multiple times the amount we first gasped at when Hank Paulson held a gun to our head. AIG first started with saying they needed $75 billion not to fail, we gave them $86 billion to start, as of last month they had received at least $182 Billion of US Govt. money (not including tax breaks) and Geitner was working to get them more. Ok you can shake your head at the sad state of affairs. But there is a punchline, which side you want to believe is your choice.

Days before Geitner gave AIG everything they wanted and more, when we were into AIG for no money at all, the CEO of C.V. Starr (yes, Hank Greenberg) had a deep understand and said that AIG was not insolvent but simply had liquidity issues. He was of the opinion that the bridge loan would wipe out assets detrimentally and the Federal Govt. needn't get involved because AIG had $20b in assets they could use and there was investors that would invest $30b to make AIG liquid and get them past the temporary issues they were having. That is $50 billion and none of it our money. C.V. Starr, 12% stock holder of AIG and major share holder wasn't allowed in the room when Geitner made the deal with AIG. I guess C.V. Starr's solution didn't involve robbing our great nation so they didn't want to hear from them. Now AIG is devalued and they suck at the government corporate welfare tit in exclusion to fixing their issues.

What a different day this would be if the flood gates were not opened.

Now what is the solution? Well part of it is regulation pre-Reagan days and more to deal with the new financial world. I know the current thieves say that will bring the financial system to ruin. Well the CEO's and major players that made the strongest economic force the world has ever seen say regulation is what is needed. So the whom is right? The people that built the economy or those that think 'greed, for lack of a better term, is good' and destroyed the strongest economy the world has ever know? I think if you want to fix something you talk to a builder not a destroyer.

Also you break them up. Chase, BOA, Wells (Norwest owning the Wells Fargo name), Citi, and conspirators have actually managed to get bigger, yet still manage to fall out of the largest world banks at the same time. Break off 49 state bank (North Dakota already has a state bank) and put walls between their investment banking and the money we deposit with them. A dozen massive banks could easily be several hundred different companies and should be. Yes, their are many that say that breaking up corporations raise prices and make us less competitive as a nation. Really? Corporations always tend to stifle in the name of expediency, and small business tends to push innovation.

And for those that remember, AT&T forecast massive rate hikes declining technological advancement, and deteriorating infrastructure if their monopoly were to be broken up. How did that work? Infrastructure vastly improved with some help from regulation on the state level, technological advancement blew up, and frankly if I called how I do now under the AT&T monopoly I would see $500+ phone bills a month instead of the $100 total I do now.

Well that is where I am coming from. The only change in banking that has helped us is if we deposit money in one branch it doesn't take 4 days to make to the other branch anymore. Everything else has gotten worse in my opinion. To big to fail equals too big to exist. The revolution starts now.

What do you think?

Ok I went further than I expected...

Believe it or not I had hoped when I wrote about politics that I would take a more intellectual approach. I have heard people talk about the politics of politics without exposing much of their own political alignment. My reasoning was that there are imperative rights and wrongs that transcend partisanship.

However the annoyance of the Partisan Warriors derailed me almost straight out of the gate. So since I have started down the road I might as well expose my positions on the politics of the day.

First there are emotional, hot button issues that aren't real issues. Those are not politics or really issues. At least not ones that politics or political operatives have any right exploiting. If it has something to do with legislating what consenting adults do in the bedroom or some issue that inflames the passions but an elected official have little or no authority to effect... then it is simply a hot button issue. Hot button issues addle the brain and distract from looking at the content of ones character. I don't fight over them. I don't bash my head into a wall just to watch the wall bleed either. So don't expect me to bite of popular hot button issues. They aren't what the real world is about.

Second the Wars. Do them right and completely or don't them at all. The currents wars we (the United States of America) are being done wrong. People say that wars in tribal nations are impossible to win. That isn't true and as Americans should know that. However this isn't the way you win a war against tribal peoples. The way you do it is in our own history. You kill and relocate all the tribal peoples while you colonize the lands. Anything short of that in Afghanistan is a waste of time and resources. Iraq is lost. Not because of our armed forces but because of bad policies that saw the oil wells working in under a year and (last I checked)five or more years to turn the lights and water back on. Lots of people have a lots to answer for.

US Armed Services. We are treating them horribly and in that sense I am ashamed of our country. We are destroying our nations security by long engagements, stop lose policies, underfunding them while paying mercenaries top dollar to undermining our troops efforts. It is disgraceful that we are faking a withdrawl from Iraq while paying more to move more Blackwater Soldiers of Fortune at better wages and no clear rules of engagement to give our great nation more than just a black eye. Most empires fall when they resort to hiring Mercenaries to fight their wars... especially when they have the best troops in the world at their disposal and are simply stretching them to far.

Bailout. Like I said I am an economical conservative. Bailing out the banks and not investing anything that will bring a tangible asset to the nation because they are Too Big To Fail is complete and utter tripe. If there are abuses in a company or industry that is that big to threaten our very existence we need to do what we would to any threat to our nation. Take it over and restrict it to the point where it is impossible to hurt us again. In terms most people can understand, if it were an aggressive nation that even in some remote way threatening our national security, we would have special and secret operations crawling all over their country to figure out what they were about and their weaknesses. We would then mobilize our troops, bomb them into near submission until they were softened and disorganized enough land the ground troops to swiftly neutralize the threat.

It is the same with the too big to fail banks along with everything else that adversely effects us. We need to carpet bomb the banks, there are not innocents so we won't worry about the inhabitants. We need to nationalize or simply audit the fed (same as making it disappear with a magic wand), break up the 2 failing car companies, get rid of Nafta and apply tariffs that are at least on the same order as those countries that enjoy putting massive tariffs on our goods while they import with impunity to our nation. Let us make China and Japan at least work to permanently topple us as the world's premiere economy. If we are the greatest nation in the world let's get it all back and start being that great nation.

Healthcare. Which is not the same as health insurance, though the insurance companies would have you believe that. There is no reason that health insurance should be 16% of our GDP. Prohibitive cost for health insurance make us an unhealthy nation and an unhealthy nation is not a productive one. This is another thing that ends empires.

This is all I have stomach for at the moment. More later.

Movie Reviews

Ok today I have two in theater and two DVD reviews.

First I went to Sherlock Holmes yesterday not expecting much. That was just from the previews, not even realizing that it is a Guy Ritchie film. It was, as the previews suggested a bit over the top on the action. Despite that it did work well with the story even if the action was only put in to up box office receipts. I liked this film. If you set aside the Holmes mystery angle, it all works on the strength of the main actors selling you on the story. Though I don't believe Robert Downey, Jr is particularly smart, I know him to be a brilliant actor and he played the part as it needed to be played to look smarter and translate well to the target audience.

All in all it is an action Holmes that is a fun ride as long as you are not looking for a hardcore thought provoking Doyle/Holmes mystery.

Avatar however... humans go to Pandora trying to take the unobtainable. The world is pretty, the female aliens are sensual and all their willowy assets are well displayed, but don't look for the story to be any deeper or smarter than that. Also don't expect the human or CG characters to be particularly expressive actors.

Rented Worlds Greatest Dad. Bobcat is as weird as he ever has been. It is an interesting film. You really have to be in the mood for a truely raw film experience to watch this one.

The Hurt Locker doesn't seem to flinch. However if you remotely human, you will. It is a good movie, however it is a bit dry. You follow a bomb disposal unit in Iraq as they count down the days to their rotation out. If you keep yourself well informed about the world around you, this will not surprise you, if not then it might open your eyes to a small segment of what is going on over there.

We also rented Observe and Report thinking it was a Paul Blart with a harder edge. Nothing could be further from the truth. Seth Rogen takes us on a bizarre (and often painful) journey of a mall security guard... er head of mall security. It is a dark and sometimes brutal comedy that makes Pineapple Express look somewhat tame by comparison. If you are a big Rogen fan, see it.

Partisan Warriors

For those that drink to deeply from the koolaid, believe everything that is shoveled to them and espouse definitive generalized statements just because of a D or R that is associated a persons name. Grow a pair and learn to think critically.

If you have a singular news source and especially if it is a talk show host (radio, TV, print, and internet) then start getting other sources. For example World News Network. News from all over the world, from all sorts of different backgrounds and political alignment. Because where you get information is not nearly as important as the accuracy of that information. Your political talking points distributors and those that make masses amounts of money pedaling fear and hate is not the best sources of news. In fact no matter how accurate a personality (radio, TV, print, and internet) they don't usually source their comments, and if they do, it can simply be their take on what that source is saying. Or in some examples the source is simply another personalities opinion... this is of course more rampant at Fox News than anywhere else.

As a progressive liberal, whom is also a bottom line fiscal conservative, let me tell you I have listened to too many personalities that are President Obama apologist as well. Then I have heard those that simply regurgitate what they have heard on radio or TV, and not source any of it. I have been guilty of that with numbers myself... even after I read them the number that I heard will trump the number that I read. Titillation is king I guess.

However there are to many that don't even try. The Left side is LESS prone to do this than the Right. The Left personalities frames things in a different fashion than the Right personalities, whom just tells you what to think. The main apologist in my sphere are Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes, and Mario Solis-Marich. The right wing talkers here that tow party line and fear monger are to numerous to mention. The point is that blind loyalty to someone else's view point is lazy and stupid for the sake of being lazy and stupidly uninformed.

Yes I know that staying informed takes work. But if you are going to have a strong opinion know why you have it. Read and source your belief system by at least reading bills and how certain political figures have voted and ask those leaders to explain their reasoning.

Why this rampage through the lazy leading the dumb, or lazier? Well It has always been a pet peeve. But more to the point I was reading the local news on one of the local TV channel sites about Governor Ritter deciding not to run for a second term. Of course like all sites now there was a comment area that for some weird reason my browser takes me to on that site before the story (that irks me too) low and behold the first thing I read is about how Ritter and the Democrats are ruining the country and making it safe for terrorist. And I am thinking, "Oh for the love of Pete!" I read on and the argument tends to rage between Big D Democrats, Big R Republicans, Big C Conservatives, and Big L Liberals that spew generalization after generalization all regurgitated from talking points from political talk personalities. Not an original idea amongst them and almost nothing to do with Governor Ritter's service. I say almost nothing because I didn't read it all and saw nothing that directly pertained to Governor Ritter. Almost completely about slurs.

Unbelievable!

Ok I'm not one for the gossip pages or celebrity rags. I am actually starting to loath these professional experts and their worthless conjure and overall stupidity. Ok before I completely lose you let me explain.

The other night I was sitting watching TV and on came a one of those complete waste of energy and airwaves with t5he top 10 celeb scandals of 2009, most of the celebs I have never heard of and most of the "scandals" I was blissfully unaware of. However my back was hurting from a home improvement project I was failing at and the remote was across the room. So I figured that some mind numbing celeb claptrap would be the perfect thing to let my mind wander to figuring out the problem I had encountered.

However one of the celebs I did know. David Carradin (sp?). Not that I am a fan or care about him... I just didn't know that he had died so it did grab my attention. Almost immediately when they started talking about the auto-erotic asphyxiation I started to lose interest and even more so when Medical Examiner and professional limelight hound, Dr. Batra (I don't care if I spell his name right) started conjuring. I really don't like the Quincy want-to-be's. They seem to only care about fame and don't have Krugman's character. I was tuning the tv back out when another Quincy want-to-be that seemed to be a vapid man with pretty face with the title of, I believe, "Expert Forensic Detective" said the weirdest thing... behind lines of conjure and likely self importantly babbling about fetishisms, the strutting moron intoned, "And it is important to investigate the possibility of crossdressing!" With an almost comical seriousness to him. How moronic can one get. Not the moron per say. Well the hateful moron too, but the show and the network that allows that misinformed tripe to be aired.

First in the purely sexual context it is called Transvestic Fetishism. Second it is not important. Nor is the any of the other sexual preference/fetishes. I don't care about his fame, or the exact way that he died. That is a dysfunction all of its own to be that into the morbidity details. It does matter if he was with 3 girls, two boys and a Bruce Lee look-a-like while hanging upside down from a giant phallus when he died. If the issue should be the poor man died no matter how, and if the people directly or indirectly responsible for his accidental death fled and/or didn't take responsibility for their actions.

And if David was a Crossdresser and wasn't just into the sexual fetishism of it, then more power to him. But it makes no difference his death and least of all is not important to his death that it has to be banded about in the same way one would say "it is important to note that X had several bouts with CANCER!"

So spotlight seeking hack (I don't know his name, nor is he important enough to waste my time to justify him by looking up what it might be) and those that listen to such spotlight seeking hacks. And actually to the bigotry against the Transgendered. Crossdressing is not a disease. You can't catch it, it isn't fatal nor does it even make one sick. It is almost more a fashion choice and gender identity expression. If you don't wear the clothing of the opposite gender that you were born (GG be careful to judge here I would guess that 95% of you or more have crossdressed), it should not be seen as anything more controversial than big floppy hats.

Quick Review

Ok so after getting back home from the seemingly endless task of Christmas shopping around 1 am last night I had rented movies in hand and was determined to fall asleep to a movie. Despite rave fan appeal I figured wouldn't care to much for The Hangover and promptly rented it anyway. Upon viewing it started pretty decent but something nagged at me. It didn't take me long to figure it out. It was constantly winking at me. The entire movie was one continuous wink-a-thon about the "Tales of Vegas" or to drag out what they dragged out all the times they used it to often... "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas". It is already a tired degenerating line and it is positively geriatric in The Hangover.

That said I can understand the appeal. It is an easy film that doesn't pretend to be even the remotely intelligent, or strangely even stupid. It aspires to average and nails it. I would like to tell you that it makes average look good, but it only manages average. Average cast, average mentality, average jokes, average cast, average movie. It is just to bad that I was so wired I actually watched it all. However it wasn't until the end that I felt I wasted my time, so it was a good relaxing movie that maybe helped me get a little more emotionally centered.