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Was the Bailout the Right Move?

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No! Talk about making the wrong move. Not only is the American government taking an historic step in bailing out some of the greediest people in the history of the planet, they’re doing so with YOUR tax dollars! Better yet, one news agency is reporting that Americans, by a 90-to-1 margin, wanted nothing to do with the bailout bill. From the CBS News website, courtesy of Bob Schieffer:

Yet when Congress first confronted the issue early in the week and decided to do nothing, the vote told us that beyond Washington many Americans just didn’t see it that way.

The president, Democratic leaders, the two presidential candidates all called for immediate action. Yet some members of Congress told me their phone calls and e-mails were running 90-to-1 against the rescue plan.

Get it? Americans did NOT WANT this bailout plan! Everyday Americans did NOT NEED this bailout plan! People working for greedy organizations on Wall Street wanted the bailout and because money talks while (apparently) everyday Americans walk, they got what they wanted. It’s bull.

Americans need to take action on this disgusting bailout immediately.

This means that you, as a taxpaying citizen, need to demand the best from your legislators. They just took $700 billion of YOUR dollars to give to gigantic, multibillion dollar banks. Hold them accountable. If you’re so disgusted with the bailout bill then vote against anyone in your district who voted for it. Send a message. If you don’t want to go that route, then stay in touch with your elected leaders and make sure that they are exerting the proper amount of oversight and that they overseeing the funds in a way that YOU want them overseen.

Americans need to become re-engaged with their government. This is definitely the election year to do so. This bailout bill was unnecessary – greedy people had what they had coming to them and the government bailed them out. Where’s the bailout for student loans? Where’s the bailout for the Americans who CAN make their mortgage payments, but just barely? Why would ANYONE continue to make mortgage payments now that they know the government is there to pick up their slack?

Disgusting.

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Reviewing the Vice-Presidential Debate

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Here we go again… You guys know the drill. The biased media has already claimed that Senator Joe Biden won this debate in a landslide. And, in a weird twist, they’ve decided that by not goofing up, Governor Palin “won” her end of the debate. In other words, by not being bad she was being good.

Does that make any sense?

Yet another reason why you can’t trust a damn thing you read or hear from the media these days. I had a different view of the debate altogether.

First, I think that each candidate won, but in different areas. For example, Palin was much more likable while Biden was much more of a diplomat. Palin was more down to earth while Biden was more or less the typical Washington insider. Yet Biden appeared to know more on the issues while Palin appeared to only look at the big picture stance on them. What the biased media cannot understand is how each of these stances is a win for the respective candidates.

Palin needed to appear informed on the issues in order to rally the Republican base. She did that. Biden needed to stay away from him common gaffes to energize the Obama campaign. Mission accomplished. That’s not to say that everything Senator Biden put out there was fact, because it certainly wasn’t, but he did manage to stay away from sticking his foot in his mouth.

All in all, I thought the debate was oddly reserved and yet pleasantly collegial. There were no severe barbs thrown between the two candidates as each was carefully treading historic ground. A bit too bland for my liking. Hey, did you know that nearly 70 million people watched the debate the other night? Amazing. Now the stage is set for McCain vs. Obama 2 on Tuesday night. McCain won the first debate and he needs to hit a homerun in order to move the polls in his direction.

Yet at this point with Obama up in all of the polls one has to wonder whether or not it even matters how well Senator McCain performs in the final two debates. He can knock it out of the park both nights and the media will still crown Obama the winner and the popular support will still go in his direction. Is this race still a winnable one for McCain?

Who Won the First Presidential Debate?!?

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Alright, you guys know the way this process goes every four years. There’s a debate between two candidates over a variety of issues and each campaign claims victory afterward. The media generally sides with the Democratic candidate and their claim of success while the internet becomes akin to the wild, wild West. From where I sat, it was McCain’s night on all fronts.

In terms of style and presentation, McCain is a better off-the-cuff speaker than Obama is – no questions there. This is why Obama refused the various town hall debates with McCain over the summer months. As a speaker, Obama is overly reliant on long pauses as well as “ummm,” “aaaahh,” and “ii…iii…iii,” sounds in between his statements. For those debaters out there, you know that this can sometimes be an unconscious reaction to an unclear mental state or a confusion in train of thought. Hell, I do it quite frequently while I teach! It happens and, unfortunately for Obama, I didn’t like the way he came off while saying it.

In terms of content, Obama had a great point when he said that McCain would give even greater tax breaks to the wealthy. On the flip side, McCain decimated Obama during the Iran discussion when he suggested that the American President would not sit down with the Iranian President without preconditions.

But when it got down to discussions of military strategy (not tactics, mind you), McCain trumped Obama on almost every point. I’m not saying that I agree with every single thing that McCain said, but he absolutely won the debate. To me, it seemed that Obama sometimes got caught in saying anything in order to win the immediate debate. In other words, I heard some contradictions in his speeches that I’m sure none of the media will bring up (as soon as a transcript is available, I’ll try to flesh some of this out in a future post).

In terms of actually putting policy specifics out on the table, Obama failed though this is par for his course. Obama never really speaks in specifics and that’s because he’s still trying to be all things to all people. He will do himself and his campaign a great favor when he starts laying out specifics in terms of his policy. Simply saying that everyone making $250,000 and above will have their taxes raised isn’t good enough. He has to acknowledge that the more you tax a business, the less chance that business has of hiring more employees and increasing the wages of its workers.

Oh, and did anyone notice that Obama suggested a few times throughout the night that he agreed with McCain’s stance on certain issues? McCain only said that Obama was too inexperienced or that he didn’t understand certain issues. Just something interesting that I picked up on.

There was another thing that I didn’t like (and this is really me scolding the country, not the politicians). At one point, Obama said that McCain was wrong when he supported going into Iraq and wrong about the weapons of mass destruction. Talk about a distortion of reality. First and foremost, weapons of mass destruction WERE found in Iraq! Nuclear weapons were not found, but hundreds of chemical weapons were found. These are also weapons of mass destruction! Second, let’s not forget that almost every national politician supported going into Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein in 2003. To look back five years later and say, “What a bad decision,” does nothing to put the decision in a historical perspective.

The last thing that I’ll say about the debate is that Jim Lehrer did a decent job as moderator and I enjoyed the new back-and-forth format. Jim Lehrer is one of those old school newsmen who doesn’t realize that he’s blatantly partisan while on the air, but I thought he did a good job as moderator. Now, as for Ray Suarez who had the hosting duties on PBS – that’s another story! Talk about a biased, defeatist person…

Finally, I just wanted to point out that I tried to log-on to PickensPlan.com after the debate to be a part of his online chat room or discussion or whatever it was and I couldn’t get on his site! If you’re going to spend the money on airtime to promote an online discussion, then have the bandwidth to handle the capacity! Also, while I was flipping around the television after the debate, I found it funny that both ABC News and CNN were advertising their political coverage on FOX News. Kinda funny when you think about it.

Anyway – what do you think? Who won the debate?

The Bailout is Doomed

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Far be it from me to be the harbinger of bad omens, but this bailout stuff is going to fall flat on its face. Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but sooner or later we’re going to look back on the bailout and be disgusted with the entire fiasco. Some observations…

Capitalism. What a country we live in, huh? You have the opportunity to do anything that you want in America. Some folks are fortunate that they are born into wealthier families and thus they have less financial pressures. Other people are born into highly religious families and they are usually happier and more content. Yet some still are born into poor families with strong family bonds and they learn the power of relationships. We have it all in America including an economy where you can either make it on your own (Bill Gates) or climb up the corporate ladder to find success. That’s what a capitalist system is based on!

But in a capitalist system, you can also fail. There are many reasons for failure, not the least of which is greed, deception, and bad decision-making. Many of the failing financial institutions were marred by these characteristics and – in a capitalist system – this will lead to failure. Whether it’s a loan officer who is closing a loan that he knows is not good for the borrower so he can make some extra income (greed), an internal manager who fudges the numbers so his bosses won’t get mad at him and his division for under-performing (deception), or a company hiring the wrong people to the wrong positions (bad decision-making) – this is what happens in our system!

And in a capitalist system when you fail – YOU FAIL. Imagine if the casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas gave you your money back after you blew it throughout the night. Unacceptable.

The Smell Test. I don’t know about you guys, but when I hear that the people who already proved that they are not good at running their organizations will be getting government dollars (i.e. taxpayer dollars) to bail their companies out, that pisses me off. This country was not founded on bailing out greedy scumbags with taxpayer dollars. In fact, you can make a case that taking money from taxpayers and using it for ignoble purposes is what spurred the American Revolution. What the hell am I paying taxes for? To pay the $20 million payout package of the CEO who failed at WaMu?

This bailout idea does not pass the smell test. How can you give money back to the people who squandered it? NO ONE in their right minds would do that! Would you give a murderer a gun while he’s in the courtroom? Good grief!

Consumer Debt. This one pisses me off the most. A portion of this $700 billion is supposed to go towards a housing trust fund to help bailout those mortgagees who are in over their heads. What a crock of shit this one is!

What about those people who have already lost their homes? How are they supposed to be helped from this bailout? They already lost in this game! What about those punks who knowingly went out there and bought up too much house for their income? They are to be rewarded for not living within their means?!? Well what the F is that all about!? Maybe I should go out and buy a million dollar mansion really quick since I know the taxpayers are about ready to pay it off for me.

And why are we only looking at mortgages? I heard a rumor that some of this bailout will be aimed at those with high consumer debt. So if you’ve overextended yourself with credit cards or other loans, you might not have to worry about making the payments! Do student loans fall into that category? I doubt it. What a bunch of bullshit that is??! I go out of my way to spend money on a venture that increases my knowledge and is a proven method of making society “better” (it’s a cost-benefit analysis thing) and yet I’m now being asked to spend MORE money for those who make bad decisions? Are you out of your f’ing mind?!

What if all of us who have ridiculous student loans start bitching and moaning? Will we get a bailout, too?

Artificial Timelines. Why does a bailout bill need to be reached by midnight tonight? Why does something need to be done before the markets open on Monday? This is crazy. The market will do what the market does. Do we really have to take $700 billion in taxpayer dollars and spend it on bailing out the system? NO!

This entire bailout thing is such a complete joke. There is no way to make everyone happy. The real shame, though, is that there are real people in this country who were duped into making the wrong decision and their situations are different. They are being lumped into this bailout mess and it’s not right. Those people who were out there scamming homeowners and new homeowners should be found and prosecuted to the greatest extent possible. It’s a disgrace.

Hilarious Presidential Debate Op-Art

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Just a random update for everyone… I was browsing around the New York Times website and they had Statler and Waldorf from the Muppets talking about the upcoming debates. For some reason, I got a big kick out of this and I thought that you might, too. These guys were always my favorite Muppets – just two grumpy, opinionated old men who made fun of everything around them – awesome!

Statler and Waldorf on the upcoming debates

Enjoy!