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If one wants to know everything that is wrong with governments in the United
States look no further than California Watch's story on lobbyists for the
chemical industry and their desire to shut-down attempts by Connecticut
and California to ban the chemical BPA from cans and baby items - From
the story:
"As leaks go, this one was scandalous.
A year ago, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Washington Post wrote about the
minutes of a strategy session among grocery and chemical industry lobbyists.
They were brainstorming about how to defeat laws that would ban the chemical
Bisphenol A in Connecticut and California.
The group doubted it could convince a scientist to serve as its spokesperson,
the minutes say, a nod to mounting evidence that the chemical may result in
birth defects and disrupts hormones in children.
So they would resort to "fear tactics," emphasizing the harm a chemical ban
might have on the poor and minorities. A pregnant mother would be the "Holy
Grail" spokesperson, according to the summary of the gathering at the Cosmos
Club, a tony Washington, D.C. social club.
The plan backfired in Connecticut.
The state’s attorney general read
about the meeting and blasted the campaign for
"confusion and concealment.' Connecticut lawmakers had just passed a Bisphenol A
ban for baby bottles and formula cans.
In California, though, the plan
seems to have worked like a charm."
Just great! - The problem is that Liberals scream we need more money
for Government and Conservatives say leave Business alone and the fact of the
matter is that none of these Bastards GIVE TWO RIPS ABOUT THE
PEOPLE THEY ARE SUPPOSED
TO WORKING FOR!
Memo to Elected Leaders: YOU WORK FOR US, THE
AMERICAN PEOPLE! - Unfortunately, most of the Sorry
Excuse for Public Servants work for the last SOB that walked thru their door
offering "Campaign Contributions" and here is the sad reality: Most of
these "Elected Leaders" would sell out the American People, their constituents
and often even their own families to
stay in political office because they love the "Game of Politics" more than life
itself! - Are we surprised that the Chemical Industry would sacrifice the safety
and health of babies in order to turn a Buck and that our elected
leaders would help the Chemical Industry to do just that? - Not in the least and
that says all you need to know about Governments on all levels in the Roman
Empire of the 21st Century, otherwise known as the United States
of America! - Lobbyist "fear tactics" to fight BPA ban
seem to be working
Afghan President Hamid
Karzai says that...
"Morally, Afghanistan should give access as a
priority to those countries that have helped Afghanistan massively in the past
few years,"
Karzai told the institute.
"What . . . we have to reciprocate
with is this opportunity of mineral resources, that
we must return at the goodwill of the Japanese people by giving Japan priority
to come
and explore and extract."
What the Hell? - Hamid Karzai
believes that JAPAN should have priority to the mineral resources of
Afghanistan? - Our only question
after Karzai's comment is:
When is the United States of America going to toss this
Karzai character
out on his ear?
Why is it that the United States of America is sacrificing the lives of
Americans in Afghanistan and
spending HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS
OF DOLLARS so Karzai, his corrupt brother and cronies can sit in Kabul
and steal Billions from both the
Afghan people and even America? - If this crapola continues this will just be
a replay of the Idiocy of Iraq where
we spent $1 Trillion Dollars to rid the Iraqi people of Saddam Hussein and gave
the Iraqis the opportunity to form a Democracy, but the Buffoons in the Bush
Administration did not make
sure that the United States had first
dibs on Iraq's oil resources at market prices! - Are these people in
Washington DC just stupid or can they just always be played as the
chump....or is it actually both? -
Stupid
and The Chump! - What the Obama Administration needs to do is
to send an envoy over to Afghanistan and tell Karzai that he and the corrupt
clowns in his government have
24 hours to get the Hell out of the country or we will drop all security around
the Afghan government - Is there anyone in Washington DC with
the balls to tell Karzai how it is going to be or will these Candy Asses on the
Potomac continue to pour our Money and Treasure into Afghanistan and let Karzai
to play our Republic and thus
the American People as the Idiot? - Please, get a clue and let's start acting
like the leading country on the planet today instead of a frightened schoolchild
that is afraid of its own shadow - Japan Has
"Priority" On Rights To Mine Afghanistan Mineral Deposits Says Hamid Karzai
What? A former contractor for BP says that BP never received federal
approval at Another Gulf Rig? - What the Hell? - As reported by the Washington
Post and Business
Insider:
"The overwhelming majority of documents and drawings
had never received any engineering approval at any phase of development,"
Kenneth
W. Abbott, who was fired in February 2009, says in
testimony prepared for delivery Thursday to a House subcommittee"
Is there anyone driving this train with the Federal Government or are these just
a bunch of Lackeys and Buffoons that are constantly running around Kissing the
Rear-Ends of Big Oil Companies? - Criminal investigation
of BP? - Hell, we need to open a
criminal investigation of these
Bastards in the Department of Interior that may have sold the Gulf of Mexico and
the American People down the river! - IT GETS WORSE:
Former Contractor Says BP Never
Received Federal Approval
At ANOTHER Gulf Rig
Of course CalPERS, the state of California's pension program manager, is about
to ask the state for $600
Million Dollars to shore up the Incredibly Stupid decisions made by their
Clueless Investment Managers
and Leaders - Yes, this makes perfect sense that CalPERS would be hitting
the state up for $600 Million Dollars on top of the over $3.3 BILLION DOLLARS
they they now get from the state of California! - The Donkey in the room here is
that the REAL REASON that California is imploding is that the Massive Amount of
Government Employees on the Payroll Currently
and that are now Retired that are draining BILLIONS OF DOLLARS from schools and
public safety! - Throw in
the Outrageous California Air
Resources Board which is a 1 BILLION DOLLAR Boondoggle that along with
AB 32 is destroying thousands of jobs
in the state and you have a recipe for disaster all created by the Buffoons
in
Sacramento! - Does anyone in Sacramento give two rips about the People of
California? - Not a Chance in Hell that they would because they are
all owned lock, stock and barrel by
any SOB that stops by their office and drops off a few coins for their
"campaign!"- CalPERS looking for
$600 million from state
It is time for the US Government, OUR GOVERNMENT Who Work For the American
People Don't Forget, to quit playing Footsie with these Bastards at BP and start
arresting these SOBs! - Check out the latest from the BP BS!
BP engineer called doomed rig a "nightmare well"
"BP took measures to cut costs in the weeks before the
catastrophic blowout in the Gulf of Mexico as it dealt with
one problem after another, prompting
a BP engineer to describe the doomed rig as a
"nightmare well," according to internal documents released Monday.
The comment by BP engineer Brian Morel came in an e-mail April 14, six days
before the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion that killed 11 people and has sent
tens of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf in the nation's worst
environmental disaster.
In a letter to BP CEO Tony Hayward, Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Bart
Stupak, D-Mich., noted at least five questionable decisions BP made in the days
leading up to the explosion.
"The common feature of these five decisions is that they posed a
trade-off between cost and well
safety," said Waxman and Stupak. Waxman chairs the
energy panel
while Stupak heads a subcommittee
on oversight and investigations.
"Time after time, it appears that BP made decisions that increased the risk of a
blowout to save the company time or expense," the lawmakers wrote in
the 14-page letter to Hayward. "If
this is what happened, BP's carelessness and
complacency have inflicted a heavy toll on the Gulf, its inhabitants, and the
workers on
the rig."
Despite warnings from its own engineers, "BP chose the more risky casing option,
apparently because the liner option would have cost $7 to $10 million more and
taken longer," Waxman and Stupak said.
In a brief e-mail exchange, Morel and
a colleague, Richard Miller, talked about the
last-minute changes.
"We could be running it in 2-3 days, so need a relative quick response. Sorry
for the late notice, this has been nightmare well which has everyone
all over the place," Morel wrote on
April 14.
In spite of the well's difficulties, "BP appears to have made multiple decisions
for economic reasons that increased the danger of a catastrophic well failure,"
Waxman and Stupak said."
OK, that's it! - Instead of the Congress taking testimony from the CEO of BP
and the President meeting with the
CEO and Chairman of BP we should arrest both of these SOBs when they
land in the United States and "Perp Walk" their Asses out of the airport in
front of TV cameras so that the American People know that OUR GOVERNMENT is
actually doing something! - Companies should not
be allowed to play Russian Roulette
with our Environment and our Gulf of Mexico and it is way past time to start
tossing CEO's in jail that commit
crimes against the American People
and OUR Republic! (Of course, that would mean that most of the Wall
Street CEO's would already be in
jail!) - BP engineer called doomed
rig a "nightmare well"
If you don't think that the Number of Government Employees and their Outrageous
Salaries and Pension Benefits are OUT OF CONTROL get a eyeful of this Madness! -
In the City
and County of San Francisco, that has
a population of only 808,977 people has 9,488 Government Workers that make over
$100,000 A YEAR! - That is Absolute and Complete Madness and just imagine for a
moment the Massive Pensions that these Government Workers will be hauling down
with only 20 to 30 years on the job! - If you don't think California is headed
toward and complete and absolute bankruptcy then you are not paying attention! -
City of San Francisco Top Earners
Always
More $$$$$$$ - That is
Always the Answer in Washington DC....Isn't It? - That the Obama Administration
is asking the Congress for $50 BILLION DOLLARS for the
states so that lots of Government Workers will not be laid off only shows the
Absurd Position that Government
on all levels has grown to in recent
years - The Fact is that State Governments exploded their state payrolls in
recent years all based on Bogus Economic Bubbles Ginned
Up by the Federal Reserve not
managing US Monetary Policy in an appropriate manner (Got Alan Greenspan and
Uncle Ben Bernanke?) and now we have the Federal Government arguing that we must
throw more money at people that
should have never been hired in the
first place so that the Economy will
not go down even further! - Is this
the Bizarro-World that we are
living
in? - All this $$$$$$$$ is not about Firefighters, Policemen and Teachers, but
about the Massive Government Bureaucracies that have been built up in Recent
Years that are paying these people at much higher rates and with much more
generous pensions than the people paying their salaries even have! - Yes, this
is
the Bizarro-Land!
We will tell you about what this $50 BILLION DOLLARS request is all
about - It has nothing to do with firefighters, policemen and
teachers....It is nothing more than another Massive Washington Bailout, this
time for the Public Employee Unions that don't Give a Damn about anything but
getting more and more $$$$$$$$ from the American People!
Always More Money....When the Hell
will this irresponsible and outrageous spending on all levels of Government ever
end? - Since 99 percent of our "Elected Leaders" rather like spending the
American People's $$$$$$$ they
will only stop when the US Government is not able to borrow money at a
reasonable interest rate - That day is coming and when it arrives these Bastards
in Washington DC are going
to have nothing left to do because all
the politicians in the last 30 years
have done nothing but spend more
and more money without a care in the world where it was coming from or
how it would ever be paid back - This
is just a short-term measure the
Obama Administration claims, but in reality this $50 Billion is already
about the 5th installment on what
will become the Massive Bailouts of
states like California that have thousands of employees on the government
payroll that could be
fired tomorrow and no one would
notice a thing had changed! - Yes, give Billions to the Buffoons in California,
but be prepared for the next time around, and there will be a next time, because
this Bailout will be a signal to the Morons in the
Golden
Broken State that all of their outrageous spending was A-OK and they would only
keep spending more and of course looking
to Washington for the money to fund
all that spending! - Yes, that makes perfect sense! -
Obama pleads for $50 billion in state, local aid
Do you want to know why the American People are Pissed Off! - We are Pissed Off
when we ready headlines like this:
Additional BP Tankers Aren't
Expected Until July
What the Hell? - Are the Three Stooges Overseeing these BP Bastards? - Get
a load of this CRAPOLA:
"The Obama administration's point man for the Gulf
Coast oil spill on Friday said it will be at least July before BP PLC has the
tankers in place to capture the latest estimates for
crude flowing from the blown well.
Even if undersea efforts to direct the
oil to the surface succeed, it will take weeks to
get the proper equipment in place to hold it, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said.
Mr. Allen gave reporters the update in Washington a day after a government task
force said the blown-out well may have been spewing as many as 40,000 barrels
of oil a day—twice as much as the government's
previous worst-case estimate.
He acknowledged that reliable
numbers on the severity of the crisis
are hard to get. "I think we're still dealing with
the flow estimate. We're still trying to refine those numbers,"
he said."
At least July before BP has tankers in place to capture oil flowing from the
blown well? - This is Day 53 of the OIL SPILL! - BP should have had tankers and
all manner of other vehicles that could be cleaning up this oil spill WEEKS AGO!
- What the Hell is going
on down there in the Gulf of Mexico? - Please, someone get Pee Wee Herman
on the phone and put him in charge of this oil spill cleanup because Pee
Wee could run circles around these Buffoons! - Additional
BP Tankers Aren't Expected Until July
We may be moving into "High Crimes and Misdemeanours"
territory for people working in the US Federal Government and with our "Elected
Politicians" that are supposedly representing the American People - Consider
this headline from the
New York Times:
Efforts in Gulf to Limit
Flow of Spill News
"When the operators of Southern Seaplane in Belle
Chasse, La., called
the local Coast Guard-Federal
Aviation Administration command center for
permission to fly over restricted airspace in Gulf of Mexico, they made what
they thought was a simple and routine request.
A pilot wanted to take a photographer from The Times-Picayune of New Orleans to
snap photographs of the oil slicks blackening the water. The response from a BP
contractor who answered the phone late last month at the command center was
swift and absolute: Permission denied.
“We were questioned extensively. Who was on the aircraft? Who did they work
for?” recalled Rhonda Panepinto, who owns Southern Seaplane with her husband,
Lyle. “The minute we mentioned media, the answer was:
‘Not allowed.’ ”
Journalists struggling to document
the impact of the oil rig explosion
have repeatedly found themselves turned away from
public areas
affected by the spill, and not only by
BP and its contractors, but by local
law enforcement, the Coast Guard
and government officials.
To some critics of the response effort
by BP and the government, instances
of news media being kept at bay are just another
example of a broader problem of officials’ filtering what images of the spill
the public sees.
Scientists, too, have complained about the trickle of information that has
emerged from BP and government sources. Three weeks passed, for instance, from
the time the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20 and the first images
of oil gushing
from an underwater pipe were
released by BP.
“I think they’ve been trying to limit access,” said Representative Edward
J. Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts who fought
BP to
release more video from the
underwater rovers that have been filming the
oil-spewing pipe. “It is a company that was not used to transparency. It was not
used to
having public scrutiny of what
it did.”
What the Hell? - Let's make this very clear: The American People have a
right to know every Damn thing that is happening in OUR GULF OF MEXICO and if
anyone in the US Federal Government (the one the American People own....oh,
that's right the Wall Street Bastards actually own it!) is restricting the right
of the "Free Press" to cover the oil spill in the Gulf then they are putting at
risk their future Freedom - We still have Elections in
our Republic and the Democrats and Republicans should not assume that a member
of one of their political parties will be sitting in the White House come
January 2013 - Everything that every Politician, Wall Street Bastard, Corporate
Leader had done in the last decade could very well be under
intense scrutiny in only a couple
of years and that means people
working for the US Federal
Government should be working
for The People and NO ONE ELSE!
The Wall Street Bastards have a lot of schemes and levers constantly moving that
are aimed at finding ways to
Rip-Off the American People and Hoodwink what they see as the Clueless
Government Bureaucrats, but the most OUTRAGEOUS thing that the Bastards of
Finance have going right now is the tax rate that they pay on "carried interest"
- What is "carried interest"
the
average American asks? - Good question! - Basically,
"carried interest" is the shares of
profits that managers of funds, limited partnerships, hedge funds and other
financial schemes these SOBs dream
up which over time throws off income
to those managers and unlike 99 Percent of Americans that pay the Ordinary
Income Tax Rate on what they "Put
into their pocket" (up to 35 Percent!) these Bastards only pay a 15 Percent
Income Tax Rate on their income! -
No,
this is not a joke! - These Financial Bastards not only get their precious
rear-ends bailed out every time they
get their butts in a sling and have an unlimited and basically free credit line
of money at the Federal Reserve, many of these Bastards pay the same OR
EVEN LESS of an Income Tax Rate
than the laborer in the fields, the construction worker, the waitress,
and the Average American! - The Wall Street Journal has a very good article
on this sad reality where they write:
"A three-year battle over how the federal government
taxes investment partnerships is coming to a head, after Senate Democrats
unveiled a proposal that would more than double the taxes on private-equity,
hedge-fund and certain real-estate managers.
The move is the strongest indication
yet that financiers will pay higher taxes to help
close an expanding U.S. budget gap. Congress is taking aim at the perceived
excesses of the
financial-services industry, but the proposed
changes have implications well beyond Wall Street.
The proposed law would tax "carried-interest" income, or the share of profits
that fund managers receive as part of their compensation. This income is
currently taxed at a 15% rate, while
the ordinary income by most wage earners is taxed at
up to 35%. The new law would raise the tax rate for partnership income to an
effective
30% in 2011 and 33% in 2013
A vote on the bill isn't expected until next week,
leaving room for last-
minute horse-trading. Still, there is a growing
expectation on Capitol Hill that a version will pass, showing how sentiment has
shifted in Washington. The financial industry had blocked similar bills several
times in the
past three years.
Industry executives continued to
attack the plan, swarming Capitol
Hill to make their case. Stephen Schwarzman, the
chief executive of Blackstone, and Leon Black, head of Apollo Global Management,
were in Washington Monday and Tuesday meeting with lawmakers.
The section of the bill that most
rankles financiers is the enterprise-value tax.
Lawyers and lobbyists for investment-management partnerships describe the
provision as punitive and having no precedent. The sale of a grocery store,
manufacturer or bank would still be taxed at lower capital-gains rates."
Of course the Wall Street Bastards are
in Washington DC meeting, begging
and no doubt buying off our "Elected Leaders" with campaign contributions
if only they will keep this
OUTRAGEOUS AND SWEET TAX
BREAK for a very small group of
very
wealthy SOBs!
Here is what we think at Mad
As Hell And...
The US Tax Code is a Travesty! - The
US Tax Code is no longer a vehicle
to raise the largest amount of Tax Revenue at the Lowest Possible Tax Rates, but
merely a thing used by wealthy people and companies to get their own preferred
tax breaks which
all just terribly undermines the American Republic - If you can show up in
Washington DC with a pile of Cash and Buy off OUR "Elected Leaders"
with campaign contributions which leads to you getting a Much Larger Pile of
Cash then we no longer have a Republic but merely a Crap Game in a Back Alley
that is not only unseemly
but has rigged dice that always come
up just right for the folks with the $$$$$$ while the Average Hard
Working American Takes It in the
Gut! - It is way past time to go back
to First Principles in America: If you put a Dollar into your pocket you
will pay a minimum amount of tax on that Dollar and as more Dollars go into your
pocket you will pay a moderately
higher tax rate capped somewhere at the Federal Level in the mid 30 Percent
Range - All Americans, even these Wall Street Bastards need to have the
income they put into their pocket or that goes into their bank account in a
fair, equitable and American Way and
it
is time to blow-up the current US
Tax Code and replace it one sheet
of paper:
New US Tax Code for
Individuals and Corporations
No Payroll Taxes - No Deductions
of Any Kind - No Capital Gains or Dividend Tax Rates - Very Simple Principle:
If It Goes Into Your Pocket
or Bank Account You Pay An
Income Tax On That Money - All Tax Rates Indexed to Inflation
Individual Tax Rates
Income 0 to 50 K - Tax Rate 10 %
Income 50K to 100K - Tax Rate 17.5 %
Income 100K to 250k - Tax Rate 25 %
Income 250K to Infinity - 35 %
Corporate Tax Rates
Income 0 to 1 Million - Tax Rate 10 %
Income 1 M to 10 M Tax Rate 15 %
Income 10 M to Infinity - Tax Rate 20 %
(1 New Class of Corporation for all companies in America of all sizes so
that all Income will be treated equally for individuals and companies)
You want to get the US Economy
growing again and realign incentives where they should be to get capital flowing
back into companies that will then create real jobs? - Then throw the US Tax
Code out the window and put
in something very simple that every American individual and corporation can
understand and demand that all
the states do the same - Will our "Elected Leaders" do any of that? -
Not a chance in Hell because our "Elected Leaders" are paid a lot of money to
keep things complicated
and to create tax breaks for people
that
give them all that money - Just another case of the US Government WORKING FOR
EVERYONE BUT
THE PEOPLE THAT ACTUALLY OWN THE COUNTRY! - Showdown on
Fund Taxes
Politico.com recently reported that Public Employees and their Unions are
becoming increasingly under fire because of the amount of money and resources
that go into maintaining a large government bureaucracy, especially in a time
when basic public services like education and health for the poor are being cut
- Pols turn on labor unions
The
American People do not bemoan government employees that work in needed jobs to
serve the Public especially when they work hard to do their job to the best of
their ability, but what really Pisses Off people is when they see Government
becoming little more than an Employment Agency so that Public Employee Unions
can grow their membership - We could cite incompetent government work until
the cows come home, starting with the Interior Department and BP, the SEC and
Bernie Madoff, the entire US Government and the Wall Street Bastards, but below
these high-profile cases are people working in the government bureaucracy that
are little more than busy-bodies that sit around all day and dream up ways to
Stick it
to Legitimate Businesses and the American People
Case in Point: Maybe the the City of Seattle and its Government workers
are now living and working in
Bizarro-Land, but whatever is going
on
the story with this headline, Macy's rethinks downtown
Seattle skybridge
as fee soars, provides great insight
into why the American Republic is circling the drain! - Get a load of
this outrageous BS:
"When the Bon Marché skybridge opened in 1960 in
downtown Seattle, city officials established a
$300-a-year permit fee and OK'd the walkway for 15
years.
The Seattle City Council renewed the bridge permit again last week — for
two years. And the annual permit
fee? $31,185.
Why are these idiots in the
Seattle government even charging
for a skybridge in the first
place? - That is Outrageous!
Permit fees for skybridges across the city are expected to rise dramatically
under a new city formula that weighs adjacent land values to determine how much
the owners of skybridges should pay the city. In the case of Macy's, the Bon's
successor, store officials in talks with city staff say they are evaluating
whether the cost of the skybridge is worth the use it receives.
The new permit formula is "essentially ensuring that the public is getting the
fair market value for this
encroachment on their right of way," said Angela
Steel, a strategic adviser for the Seattle Department of Transportation.
Skybridges — beloved by department stores and shoppers in downtowns
such as that of St. Paul, Minn., where the weather
can be severe — actually are discouraged by Seattle building laws. A 1982 city
ordinance sought
to "eliminate the proliferation and adverse effects"
of skybridges.
"What a skybridge does is it takes people off of the right of way and puts them
up in the air, and leaves usually the people who aren't good enough to
go in the buildings down below," City Councilmember
Jean Godden said.
"It's really not very friendly."
Skybridges also block views. A decade ago, the expansion of the Washington State
Convention Center included two skybridges that blocked views of Pike Place
Market. Councilmembers Nick Licata and Peter Steinbrueck opposed the design so
loudly that it nearly derailed the entire project.
"The goal is to have people actually
on the street," said Sally Clark, chair
of the council's Committee on the
Build Environment. "Our highest priority is making
sure that the street
is a place that is safe and
convenient.""
What? - Is this article from the Seattle Times a Saturday Night Live skit
making fun of how stupid people in Government really are? - A skybridge
is nothing more than a passageway, a hallway, a way to get from building to
building without having to take an elevator down to street level and
then go back up in an elevator - We thought these Wacko Governmental Nuts would
like using less energy, but NO, these NUTS can't stand it that
there are people up "in the air"
walking from building to building and saving a few minutes in their day! - No,
we can't have that! - Boy Oh Boy, these Government Types are VERY STUPID PEOPLE!
- What's next, bathrooms on the 14th floor are not right and
everyone should have to come down to street level to take a piss? - Geez! -
Now you have a little idea of what the American People think about some of these
weenies that work in Government that have nothing better to do but
worry
about citizens using
skybridges! - We still think that this is just an April Fool's Joke by the
Seattle Times! - Macy's rethinks downtown Seattle
skybridge as
fee soars
Of course the Congressional Democrats do not have the Guts to face the Voters,
the American People in Town Halls...
...Is
Anyone Really Surprised By That Fact? - Didn't think so! - As reported
by the New York Times the Congressional Democrats are little
more than Cowards because they are afraid that The People they represent might
actually ask them SOME
TOUGH QUESTIONS!
"With images of overheated, finger-waving crowds
still seared into their minds from the discontent of last August, many Democrats
heeded the advice of party leaders and tried to avoid unscripted
question-and-answer sessions. The recommendations were clear: hold events in
controlled
settings — a bank or credit union, for example — or
tour local businesses or participate in community service projects.
And to reach thousands of constituents at a time, without the worry of being
snared in an angry confrontation with voters, more lawmakers are also
taking part in a fast-growing trend:
the telephone town meeting, where chances are remote
that a testy exchange will wind up on YouTube.
For incumbents of both parties facing challenging re-election bids, few things
receive more scrutiny than how, when and where they interact with voters. Many
members of Congress err on the side of being visible, but not too
visible, and make only a few public appearances
while they are back in their districts."
Yes, GUTLESS DEMOCRATS, but when you don't even have the simple courage to pass
a Budget for the US Federal Government through the Congress
when you are RUNNING UP MASSIVE DEFICITS AND DEBTS that will passed on to our
children would anyone expect that these spineless and sorry excuses for "Public
Servants" would dodge facing the People That Actually
Own the United States of America? - Again, didn't think you would be surprised!
- There is only thing that is going to solve the problem of these "Elitists" in
Washington DC that don't really Give a Damn about anything but keeping their
precious rear-ends in office - It is time in 2010 for the American People to
stand-up and to start sending a message to the Useless Bastards in both
political parties that have proved they would put the American Republic in
danger to serve the SOBs that stuff $$$$$$$ into
their pockets - Be Proud Democrats
for you are the Most Gutless People on the Planet...yes, even worse than the
Useless Republicans...which is saying a whole lot! - What a Pitiful and
Meaningless Choice the American People face on Election Day - Spineless
Democrats that would sell out the country and our children to serve Unions and
Trial Attorneys and Republicans that would put at risk the environment and even
the Republic itself just as long as the $$$$$$$ flow keeps coming from the
Corporations and Wall Street! - As we said, a
HELLAVA and in reality...NO CHOICE
AT ALL! - To Avoid Voter Rage, Democrats Skip Town
Halls
Surprise - Surprise! - Actually, NOT
A SURPRISE AT ALL! - Moody's Investors Service reported today that the Financial
"Reform" Bill
championed by the "Water-Carriers"
of Wall Street (About 75 Percent of
the Elected Officials in Washington
DC) does nothing at all to address the problem of Too Big To Fail for the
country's largest financial
institutions! - As we said, NOT A SURPRISE AT ALL! - Let's go to the Moody's
Report:
"[A] key issue that challenges the feasibility of
the proposed legislation
is that it would not fully eliminate the issue of
interconnectedness, nor is it likely that resolution authority could fully
eliminate the systemic implications of allowing a large
and/or highly interconnected firm to default,
especially with respect to
large international groups, and it certainly would
not eliminate the risk of contagion," the team of analysts led by Robert Young
wrote.
"[T]he interconnectedness and contagion risks would not be completely
eliminated, nor would
the incentives and tools for regulators and the
government to provide
support via emergency liquidity or other programs
that would continue
to be part of the framework,"
they noted."
That seems very straightforward to us here at Mad As Hell And... and it only
confirms what many people have said for awhile now, that the Financial "Reform"
bill isn't "REFORM" at all! -
If the "Water-Carriers" for the Wall Street Bastards really want to reform the
Financial System then they would
be wise to pass a law that would do something similar to what Warren Buffet
recommended to the FCIC commission on what should happen to the CEO and his wife
if the large financial institution he is running
has to get help from the government
to stay in business:
"The CEO's should lose all of his net worth and his
wife should walk-away with nothing as well."
Now that would be Serious Financial Reform because Serious Financial Reform
would put every CEO and his employees directly on the line if they made stupid
decisions and blow their company up and threatened the American economy - Right
now the
Wall Street Bastards can do anything they damn please, take any risk imaginable,
scam any person in the world, and the US Government will be there to bail them
out! - The Financial "Reform" bill does nothing to address the real problem with
Wall Street, namely that the Wall Street Bastards don't give two rips about
anything but the Almighty $$$$$$ and they would always swap The American
Republic
for turning a Buck! - Until that is
fixed and every Nickel of these
Bastards Net Worth is on the line
with every decision they make the United States of America is at risk
and Wall Street will continue to pose a Clear and Present Danger to the American
People - Senate Financial Reform Bill DOESN'T End Too Big
To Fail, Major Credit Rating Agency Says
You say that the US Mint is out of
American Eagle Gold Bullion Coins?
"Production of United States Mint American Eagle
Gold Proof and Uncirculated Coins has been temporarily suspended because of
unprecedented demand for American Eagle Gold Bullion Coins. Currently,
all available 22-karat gold blanks are being
allocated to the American Eagle Gold Bullion Coin Program, as the United States
Mint is required by
Public Law 99-185 to produce these coins “in
quantities sufficient to meet public demand . . "
That the US Mint is out of American Eagle Gold Coins just proves to us that the
American People are a lot smarter than the Politicians and Wall Street paper
traders think they are! - The American People are smart enough to see a Massive
Ponzi Scheme funded
with Humongous Amounts of Debt
when they see it and that there is not a Chance in Hell we will ever be able to
pay off all this debt! - Why Oh Why would Americans be buying so much Gold? -
Let's go to chart for Gold
over the past decade...
And now the chart for the S&P 500
for the same period...
Seems like the Unwashed "Buffoons
and Idiots" as We The American
People are called by the Ivy League Elitists that have created this Massive
Ponzi Scheme and allowed our formerly great Capital Markets to turn into an
Unregulated Las Vegas Casino are the ones THAT HAVE BEEN WRONG! - We would
recommend the US Mint put in a Very Big Order for Gold because
Uncle Ben over at the Federal Reserve has the Printing Presses going full
blast to prop up his Buddies and Masters on Wall Street and since the Wall
Street Bastards count on all that Free Money to pay for all their houses and
cars we don't see the Printing Press being shut-off anytime soon! -
US Mint Out of Not Only Silver But Gold American Eagles as
Well
From The Stock Market is the NOT
The United States of America Department: Doug Short provides a
very compelling comparison of Stock Market's performance in the last
decade compared to its performance after the Crash of 1929:
In other words, people that expect
the Stock Market to make them rich
may be in for ANOTHER decade of mediocre or negative performance -
One day the American People are
going to wake-up and realize that the Casino Operators and Snake Oil Salesmen
that now dominate Wall Street and Finance in our country do not represent the
only place one can invest one's savings - Beyond gold and commodities, investing
in oneself via education and training so you can get a better job is one good
place to spend your money - Another is making investments in your local
community, town or city where there are always
lots of young entrepreneurs with
great ideas that are hungry to make a success of their lives - There are
commodities like gold, platinum, copper, foodstuffs, etc. that are
actually real products that humans
use everyday in their lives, which
makes them much different from the Casino Chips that these Wall Street Bastards
trade-in! - Yes, the American People need to realize that the Stock Market is
not America and that there are lots of places to invest one's money with real
companies and products that are beyond the control of the Wall
Street Bastards who care about nothing but stealing $$$$$$$ from your
wallet or purse - Now, if we can only
get these Buffoons in Washington DC
to figure out that Bailing Out and Kissing the Rear-End of Wall Street
only Enables these SOB's that don't give two rips about the country - Monetary
and Treasury Policy in the United
States should not be concerned with propping up Banks disguised as Vegas
Casinos, but instead should be focused on serving the People of the United
States - Memo to the Regulators and Monetary Authorities: These Bastards
on Wall Street DON'T GIVE A DAMN about the American People beyond figuring out a
way to stealing more of their money so QUIT KISSING THEIR REAR-ENDS! -
Is The Market About To Crash, Or Is It Just About To Start
A Long Grind Sideways?
At least one good thing is coming out
of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and that is the American media are all over
this story and are often ahead of the people that should be leading and solving
this boondoggle, the US Government! - The Wall Street
Journal has done some topnotch reporting on the lead-up to the explosion of the
Deepwater Horizon
and in Tuesday's paper they are back
at it again! - Three Wall Street
Journal reporters, Russell Gold, Ben Casselman and Maurice Tamman
have now gotten almost to the bottom
of what caused the Deepwater Horizon to implode and cause a Massive
Environmental Catastrophe and
the role OUR GOVERNMENT played
in this disaster!:
"Just a week before the Deepwater Horizon exploded,
BP PLC asked regulators to approve three successive changes to its oil well over
24 hours, according to federal records reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.
The unusual rapid-fire requests to modify permits reveal that BP was tweaking a
crucial aspect of the well's design up until its final days.
One of the design decisions outlined in the revised permits, drilling experts
say, may have left the well more vulnerable to the blowout that
occurred April 20, killing 11 workers and leaving
crude oil gushing into
the Gulf of Mexico.
The Minerals Management Service approved all the changes quickly, in one
instance within five minutes
of submission.
Both BP and the MMS have faced growing scrutiny from congressional investigators
looking into the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the resulting oil spill. Last
week, a Wall Street Journal investigation found that BP had made a series of
choices that made the well more vulnerable to a blowout.
BP's flurry of revisions and
re-revisions stands out as uncommon. Of the more
than 2,200 wells that
have been drilled in the Gulf since
2004, only 5% have had multiple permit revisions
submitted to MMS within one calendar day, according
to a Wall Street Journal analysis
of MMS records.
In only one other case, a 2005 well drilled in just 48 feet of water, has a
company submitted three revisions within 24 hours, as happened on BP's well.
BP's well was in nearly 5,000 feet of water, which has made dealing with the
well far more complicated.
By April 14, when BP filed the first of three permits that would later be
amended, the London-based oil company had already faced many problems with the
well, including
losing costly drilling fluid and
fighting back natural gas that
tried to force its way into the well.
The problems had caused BP to use eight pieces of
steel pipe to seal the well, rather than the planned six
pieces. The permit filed on April 14 dealt with the
eighth and final
section, which hadn't yet been
installed in the well.
BP had hoped to get a 9 7/8-inch
pipe—big enough to handle a lot
of oil and gas—into the reservoir. But for the final
section, the largest pipe they could fit was a 7-inch pipe. The company had to
decide whether to
use a single piece of pipe that
reached all the way from the sea
floor down to the oil reservoir, or
use two pipes, one inside the other.
The two-pipe method was the safer option, according to many industry experts,
because it would have provided an extra layer of protection against gas
traveling up the outside
of the well to the surface. Gene Beck, a longtime
industry engineer and a professor at Texas A&M University, said the two-pipe
method is "more or less the gold standard," especially for high-pressure wells
such as the one
BP was drilling.
But the one-pipe option was easier
and faster, likely taking a week less time than the
two-pipe method. BP
was spending about $1 million per
day to operate the Deepwater
Horizon.
In an April report, a BP engineer concluded that the one-pipe option
was the "best economic case" despite having "some
risk" of leaving an open path for gas to travel up the outside of the well. The
two-pipe option, the report said, would provide an extra barrier against gas but
would only be used if "stability problems" or other issues arose with the well.
In addition to well-design tweaks, the company's day-to-day operational plan was
also in flux, according to testimony from an investigative hearing held by the
Coast Guard and MMS in Kenner, La., last week.
On Thursday, Jimmy Wayne Harrell,
a Transocean employee who was the rig's offshore
installation manager, said "the drilling program was constantly changing."
He testified that BP representatives overseeing the job had repeatedly altered
plans in the days leading up to the accident, and he had had to argue to ensure
certain tests were done.
BP senior drilling engineer Mark
Hafle, in testimony on Friday at the same hearings,
blamed the multiple well-design corrections on an inexperienced data entry
employee who "made some
typos" filling out the forms."
If the above details on the days
leading up to the explosion and eventual sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil
rig doesn't convince everyone that is paying attention that BP put the Almighty
$$$$$$$$ ahead
of the Environment and Even Their
Own Employees then NOTHING
WILL! - It is time for the United
States Government to fully hold BP
and its subcontractors and partners completely responsible for the disaster that
is now unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico! - At a minimum BP should be required to
post a $25 Billion Dollar Deposit with the US Treasury to make sure they will
completely pay for
the costs to cleanup up OUR Gulf of Mexico! - BP Revised
Permits
Before Blast
If you would like one thing that can
sum up everything that is wrong
with the Federal Government and Washington DC, look no further than
the recent Pennsylvania Democrat Primary for the US Senate - First we have a
long-time sitting Republican US Senator in Arlen Specter switching to the
Democrat Party ONLY because he knew he would have lost in the Republican Primary
- Yes, that is bad, but it gets worse - Arlen Specter's opponent in the Democrat
Primary, 1st term Congressman Joe Sestak is approaced by a former President of
the United States in Bill Clinton (Now, we are assuming you actually believe
this Clinton - Sestak story, which only a TRUE MORON would really believe is
the truth...but we digress) and is
offered an "unpaid position" if he
would drop out of the race against Specter (Again, if you believe this Clinton -
Specter job offer story you are either a TRUE MORON or a Member of the National
Media in Washington
DC!) - Joe Sestak tells Bill Clinton that he will just run for the US Senate
seat against Specter and then beats him in the Democrat Primary and the White
House then embraces Sestak against
the Republican candidate in the November election - Yes, that sounds fine, if
the United States of America
is a Banana Republic of the First Order and we have folks representing The
People (Remember, the folks that actually OWN THE COUNTRY?) that would be better
suited to running a whore house! - President Harry
Truman had these Bastards in Washington DC "called Public
Servants by the Clueless Media!"
long ago:
"My choice early in life was
either to
be a piano-player in a whorehouse
or
a politician. And to tell the
truth, there's hardly any difference."
Oh, that's RICH and VERY
ACCURATE! - Yes, the "Elected
Leaders" are bad enough, but the REAL PROBLEM in America is that the News Media
that supposedly covers these Bastards is little more than their ENABLERS and
like most Enablers you can get them to believe anything if
you just repeat it often enough! - The Government Types and Media Types
like
to act like they have an
adversarial relationship, but in reality in the watering holes and salons of
DC, Georgetown and Alexandria, VA they are laughing and carrying on
and crowing about what a bunch of
saps the American People are! - One day, maybe we will actually have a member of
the media that will have the Guts to stand-up when a "Public Servant" is
prattling on about
Absolute BS and that media member
will say:
ENOUGH WITH THE BS! How about just telling the
truth for once!
Will that ever happen? Not a chance
in Hell because if the Media actually started covering the Government they all
couldn't get together at events like the Gridiron Dinner and Kiss Each Others'
Asses and act like they are all going to the Oscars when they are supposed to be
doing and covering
the Nation's and The People's
Business! - No, don't hold your
breath on that happening, unless of course it might involve covering a
politician that might upset their
cozy little set-up and expose the Bastards in both Government and the
Media for what they really are: In
bed with each other and loving every minute of it! - Those
Nuisance Voters
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) came out with its
annual ominous hurricane warning this past week, NOAA hurricane
forecast alarming, that in 2010
we are going to have:
14 to 23 storms big enough to be named
Eight to 14 hurricanes — storms
with winds of 74 mph or greater.
Three to seven major hurricanes —
those with winds exceeding 111 mph.
Oh No! BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES.....Hold it a minute,
hasn't NOAA been wrong on their hurricane forecast 75 percent
of the time, 3 of the last 4 years and wrong 7 of the last 11? - Yes, that
is right which reminds us of
our old friend:
Dr. James Hansimian!
We have already proved here at Mad
As Hell And.. that a monkey could run circles around the California
Pension Fund CalPERS in generating returns
on pension investments, but could a monkey beat the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in predicting the number of
hurricanes each year? - ABSOLUTELY, and our money would be with the
monkey, because as pointed out by
the National Center for Public Policy Research NOAA has been wrong
about the number of Hurricanes 3 out of
the last 4 years and 7 out of
11 years! - Bring on the Monkey,
James Hansimian, PhD! -
Dr. James Hansimian's
Hurricane Forecast Center
Hell, the US Government has bailed
out everyone from the Greedy Wall Street Bastards, to the car companies,
to the US Mortgage Markets, to Public Employee Union Employees in every
state....so why not just go ahead and start bailing out private pensions! -
Yes, that makes Perfect Sense in Bailout-Americana! - Hell, let's not
stop with bailing out Private Pension plans, why don't we just call up Uncle Ben
Bernanke over at the Federal Reserve and see if the Pentagon has some empty
warehouses somewhere
that are not being used and we can just build some more printing presses and
Print Trillions more $$$$$$$ and just transfer $1,000,000 DOLLARS into
every American's bank account! - If
you don't have a bank account, don't worry, the Federal Government will
just bring the $1,000,000 DOLLARS to your house, or rather $1,000,000
DOLLARS for every person in your household! - All in small bills of
course, $20s, 10s and 5s! - That will
get the economy really going and then we can all gather together down at the
local park and hold hands and sing Kumbaya! - Actually, it isn't really Private
Pensions that the US Government is looking to bailout, but
the Pensions of Union Workers which
of course is being driven by the HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF
DOLLARS given to the Democratic
Party by the Leaders of Unions! - See how this works? - If you want
BILLIONS OF DOLLARS of Free Money from the US Government all you have
to do is give MILLIONS OF DOLLARS
to our Elected Leaders! - It worked perfectly for the Wall Street Bastards, the
Auto Unions and the Car
Companies, the Public Employee Unions, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and now the
the Democrats wants to payoff another big contributor, the Private Pensions of
the Unions! -
Yes, this is all just GRAND! - Of
course, who will really end up picking up the tab for folks that give MILLION OF
DOLLARS to politicians and get BILLIONS OF DOLLARS back in return for their
smart "investments?" - That would be the Average American that works hard all
his life, saves for his children's education and his/her retirement, and for
being a solid
citizen and doing his duty he is then sent a Massive Bill run-up by the
Politicians that do little more than
serve the people that stuff their
pockets with $$$$$$$! - Hmmmmmm, where oh where has a bogus system like the one
that we now have in the United States of America existed before in world
history? - That would be the corrupt Roman Empire for you folks that weren't
paying attention in high school or college history class! -
History be Damned! - Just keeping printing the DOLLARS Uncle Ben and everything
will just work out Fine and Dandy.....NOT! - Get a Copy of Are We Rome? and GET
A CLUE! - Is America About To Start Bailing Out
Private Pensions?
One never knows where Common
Sense will pop up from and the latest Very Good Common Sense comes from Hedge
Fund Manager David Einhorn
in a New York Times Op-Ed - Mr. Einhorn starts out by saying...
"Are you worried that we are
passing our debt on to future generations? Well, you
need
not worry.
Before this recession it appeared
that absent action, the government’s long-term
commitments would
become a problem in a few
decades. I believe the government response to the
recession has created budgetary stress sufficient to
bring about the crisis much sooner.
Our generation — not our grandchildren’s — will have
to
deal with the consequences."
Mr. Einhorn lays out a very compelling case that the US Government's
reaction to the meltdown of a few bank on Wall Street in 2008 has put the
American Republic in a Hellava
spot! - Beyond Mr. Einhorn's
Common Sense argument that the United States had better deal soon
with the Massive Amount of Debt that
we are piling up on the books, he
flushes out some of the same things we have talked about here at Mad As
Hell And... about the current
monetary policies of the
Federal Reserve:
"Government statistics are about the last place one
should look to find inflation, as they are designed to not show much. Over the
last 35 years the government has changed the way it calculates inflation several
times. According to the Web site Shadow Government Statistics, using the
pre-1980 method, the Consumer
Price Index would be over 9 percent, compared with
about 2 percent in
the official statistics today.
While the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, this doesn’t even take
into account inflation we ignore by using a basket of goods
that don’t match the real-world
cost of living. (For example, health
care costs are one-sixth of G.D.P.
but only one-sixteenth of the price index, and
rising income and
payroll taxes do not count as
inflation at all.)
Why does the government
understate rising costs? Low
official inflation benefits the government by
reducing inflation-indexed payments, including
Social Security. Lower official
inflation means higher reported
real G.D.P., higher reported real
income and higher reported productivity.
Subdued reported inflation also enables the Fed to rationalize easy money. The
Fed wants to have low interest rates to fight unemployment, which, in a new
version of the
trickle-down theory, it believes
can be addressed through higher
stock prices. The Fed hopes that by denying savers
an adequate return in risk-free assets like savings deposits,
it will force them to speculate in
stocks and other “risky assets.”
This speculation drives stock
prices higher, which creates a
“wealth effect” when the lucky speculators spend
some of their
gains on goods and services.
The purchases increase aggregate demand and lead to
job creation.
Easy money also aids the banks, helping them earn back their still
unacknowledged losses. This has
the perverse effect of discouraging banks from
making new loans. If
banks can lend to the government,
with no capital charge and no perceived risk and
earn an adequate spread, then they have little incentive to lend to small
businesses or consumers. (For this reason, higher short-term rates could very
well stimulate additional lending to
the private sector.)
Easy money also helps the fiscal position of the government. Lower borrowing
costs mean lower deficits.
In effect, negative real interest rates are indirect
debt monetization. Allowing borrowers, including
the government, to get addicted to unsustainably low
rates creates enormous solvency risks when
rates eventually rise."
AMEN to that Mr. Einhorn! - Now is anyone listening or even worse does anyone in
Washington DC even care
that their current actions can be
easily compared to some of the very same foolish moves that brought
down the Roman Empire? - Please,
the folks in OUR Nation's Capital care about only one thing: The Next
Election, which is November 2010...forget about knowing about or learning from
the dangerous
and very relative lessons of world history - Easy Money,
Hard Truths
It is a nice thought that millions of Americans will have access to health care
and that "pre-existing" conditions will be eliminated for people that need
health care insurance, but what did the recently passed Health Care Reform
bill do about the biggest problem
facing Americans and US companies as it pertains to health care? - The
Biggest Problem would be THE RISING COST OF HEALTH CARE INSURANCE and the Health
Care Reform bill did NOTHING to slow down the escalating costs of health care in
America - Now
we have health insurance companies
in California that are about to Stick it
to Companies in the Golden Broken State again! - Get a load of this outrageous
crapola!
"Small businesses in California are being hit this
year with double-digit hikes in health insurance costs that could hurt the
state's economic recovery as companies curtail plans
for hiring and expansion to pay
their insurance bills.
Five major insurers in California's small-business market are raising
rates 12% to 23% for firms with fewer than 50
employees, according to a survey by The Times.
Similar increases are being felt by many small businesses across the nation,
including those in Texas, Ohio and Florida — mainly the result of escalating
costs for medical care and pharmaceuticals, insurers say.
In California, some small businesses say they are stunned by their latest
insurance bills. Longtime customers
of Blue Shield of California, for instance, are
facing rate hikes as
high as 76% after the insurer lost
money on a handful of plans."
Oh, it gets worse!
"Small businesses say 2010 is shaping up to be their
most expensive year yet, leaving them with few good choices. They say they can
pass charges along to employees, reduce benefits, cancel insurance programs or
raise the price
of goods — an option few are willing
to entertain because of competitive pressures.
"They just don't have the profit
margins to pay this cost," said insurance broker
Scott Hauge, who heads Small Business California,
an advocacy group. "It goes right to their bottom
line. It's a killer."
About half of the estimated 6
million Californians working in
small businesses get insurance
through their jobs.
Among the major insurers who serve
the small-group market, Aetna and Blue Shield are
each increasing premiums 18% on average this year, although some Aetna customers
who renew policies this summer will see increases of as much as 23%, the company
said.
Blue Shield, for example,
miscalculated the cost for three plans that pay all
medical expenses once customers meet thresholds for
out-of-pocket expenses. The San Francisco insurer is
now raising premiums as much as 76% for some small businesses.
"It turns out that people used a lot
more medical care than we had anticipated," said Tom
Epstein,
Blue Shield's vice president of public affairs. "We
need to increase the
rates to cover the medical costs. We can't lose
money on these products."
Many small firms say they feel a
duty to provide health insurance,
or see it as a necessary cost to attract qualified
job candidates. Either
way, they predict that a continued
rise in their healthcare bills will dampen their
prospects for recovery."
"Our margins will dwindle to
nothing," said Bill Thomas, chief executive of U.S.
Technical, an engineering firm in Fullerton. "It's
the beginning of the end."
Yes, on top of some of the Highest
Taxes on the Planet here comes the Health Insurance companies with big premium
increases which will only make it that much harder to turn a profit in
California and only lead to more job losses and in the end, less tax revenue for
the state - Please, someone let us know when Government on all levels will
actually do something that will lead to real economic and job growth instead of
just the direct payments to people and companies which does very little for the
long-term health of the Republic - Meanwhile, Californians take it in the chin
again! - Health Insurance rate hikes hitting California
small business could hurt state's economic growth
If you want a very good example of
what is wrong with the State of California look no further than LA Times
columnist Steve Lopez's piece this morning on school personnel
being allowed to give a drug to
epileptic children when they have
a seizure - Read and Weep the
Absolute Madness!
"Although Arnold Schwarzenegger
and I don't always see eye-to-eye, he was on to
something when he
described the Sacramento sausage factory like this:
"Money goes in. Favors go out. The people lose."
Case in point.
Pasadena resident George
Fatheree's 8-year-old son, Clayton,
has had epilepsy since he was an infant. For the
most part, medication controls the condition, but Fatheree and his wife live
with the nagging worry that their son will one day
have a damaging seizure when no
one is around who is trained to help. That's why
Fatheree is all for Senate Bill 1051, which acknowledges the statewide shortage
of school nurses
and would allow non-medical campus personnel to
administer a life-saving drug to children who suffer seizures.
The bill was introduced in February
by Bob Huff, a Diamond Bar Republican. But despite
some slow progress its fate is uncertain, which is frustrating to Fatheree and
other parents of an estimated 63,000 epileptic children who attend California
public schools.
One day, a Democratic senatorial
aide explained the holdup to Fatheree.
"The exact words were, 'This bill
would be a lot easier for the senator
to support if it had a Democratic author.' "
Translation:
It doesn't matter how much sense the bill makes. It's opposed by several
powerful labor unions that grease the palms of Democrats, including the
California Teachers Assn. and California Nurses Assn. To mask their true agenda,
which is to protect
nursing jobs and avoid additional duties for
teachers, the unions argue that a seizure is too serious a matter to be handled
by non-medical staff.
But Dr. Howard Taras, a UC San
Diego professor and advisor to several school
districts, disagrees. He says the drug of choice for seizures, Diastat, is
so simple to use, it's routinely administered by
parents, siblings
and babysitters."
Are you getting Pissed Off yet? There's more....
"It is safer to have non-nurses do it than not to
have them do it," said Taras, given that late response to a seizure can cause
brain damage or other lasting disabilities. He said it takes about half an hour
to train someone when and how to use Diastat, which is administered with a
rectal syringe. Even if the drug is administered unnecessarily, he said, "It's
not a dangerous thing."
Supporters also note that training
of school personnel would be VOLUNTARY, not
mandatory.
But Democratic legislators live in mortal fear of ticking off their sugar
daddies, just as Republican legislators answer to their own masters.
"So all of a sudden it's a jobs bill for
the unions rather than a health bill
for the kids," said Sen. Huff, who is hoping the
bill will move through the appropriations committee this week and on to a floor
vote.
Sen. Gloria Romero, a Los Angeles Democrat who's running for state
superintendent of schools, supports
the bill but admitted the "just-say-no bullies" —
the "alphabet soup" of teacher unions known by acronyms
like CTA, CFT and UTLA —
intimidate Democrats.
"They've all just said, 'Our jobs, our jobs, our jobs.' Yes, we empathize
and we're trying to get more jobs," Romero said. But
she suggested it's
time for Democrats to "examine their conscience and
reflect on whose interests should be served first."
A similar bill, by Assemblyman
Isadore Hall (D-Compton), would have allowed
non-medical school staff
to administer insulin to diabetic children. But with
many of the same groups opposed, the bill got no Democratic support and died."
Are you now starting to understand
why the leaders of the Public Employee Unions pose a great danger to the state
of California? - They will put Children's Lives at risk in order to save or
generate new positions, which is
driven by the desire to have more and more people paying UNION DUES! -
Politicians that blindly support
Public Employee Unions are not only putting the future of California at risk,
but now even children's lives as everything now boils down to: "Can
you get us more Government Jobs, Salary, Benefits and Pension
Increases!" - We have some news for
the leaders of the Public Employee Unions: We are not going to let you
take down the State of California and destroy the future lives of our
children! - Not that we expect the Democratic Party in California to do anything
but roll over for the Unions, just like the Republicans will roll over for Big
Business! - What a Hellava
Mess we have gotten ourselves
into....but this is just another step in Pissing Off the American People and
when we do get back our Government anyone and everyone that has served in
Political Office over the past 30 years better prepare for Grand Jury
Investigations for as far as the eye
can see! - There have been a lot of
rotten things going on and The
People are eventually going to get to
the bottom of many of them and hold the Politicians that have sold our country
out responsible for their actions!- Jumping down the
rabbit
hole in Sacramento
Here's an update of the below story on the Fine Public Servants at the US
Government's Minerals Management Service from Politico.com -
Minerals Management Service: Private
jets, gifts, email porn
Here is a quote from Democratic
Rep. Nick Rahall the House Natural Resources Committee on the
BP oil spill and MMS:
“As if catching MMS employees
literally in bed with industry officials wasn’t
enough, MMS safety
inspectors were flying high in private jets, taking
bribes while allowing oil and gas companies to fill out their
own safety inspection forms,” Rahall said. “ It’s
past time for MMS to stop acting as a farm team for the
industry — the Deepwater Horizon
oil rig explosion is proof that this
isn’t just a game.”
And our "Elected Leaders" wonder
why the American People are SO
PISSED OFF? - Please, if we weren't Pissed Off at all this malfeasance and
mismanagement there would be something wrong with us! - Neil Armstrong Walked on
the Moon 40
PLUS YEARS AGO and you Clowns
can't shut off a Broken Oil Well?
Got Complete and Total
Incompetence? - The US
Government Does...IN SPADES!
We would like to say we are surprised, but would anyone really be surprised
to learn that the US Federal Government Agency MMS, the
Minerals Management Service that is supposed to be regulating and overseeing the
offshore oil industry
had employees doing drugs and
looking at porn? - No, it doesn't
surprise us at all, in fact
incompetence and lunacy is the
Order of the Day....Everyday in the Government of the United States of America!
- From Business Insider
via Jake Tapper at ABC News:
“Two employees at the Lake Charles office also
admitted to using illegal drugs during their employment at MMS,” Acting IG
Kendall wrote.
“We found that many of the
inspectors had e-mails that
contained inappropriate humor and pornography on
their government computers. Finally, we determined
that between June and July 2008,
one MMS inspector conducted four inspections of IOC
platforms while in the process of negotiating and later accepting employment
with that company.”
Yes, that is a BIG SURPRISE! -
NOT! - Please, is there anyone
running this Government and can anyone shut-off an oil well? - If not,
then it is time for the American
People to elect some "representatives" of this nation that can hold
Government Employees accountable and shut down ONE BROKEN OIL
WELL! - Jeez! - When will this Incompetent Madness End? -
Employees of Agency that was
supposed to be regulating oil
wells were looking at Porn instead
Its not just California which is headed for an epic meltdown because of their
Public Pension System, New York
state's pension system is massively underfunded and if current and future public
employee retirees believe that The People of those two states are
going to just accept massive tax increases so these folks can see
around on their duffs for 30+ years
we have something to say:
No Way in Hell!
"According to pension data collected
by the New York Times from the city and state, about
3,700 retired public workers in New York are now getting pensions of more than
$100,000 a year, exempt from state and local taxes. The data belie official
reports that the average state pension is a modest $18,000, or $38,000 for
retired police officers and firefighters. (The average
is low, in part, because it includes people who
worked in government only part time, or just a few years, as well
as surviving spouses getting partial benefits.)
Roughly one of every 250 retired
public workers in New York is
collecting a six-figure pension, and
that group is expected to grow rapidly in coming
years, based on the number of highly paid people in the pipeline.
But New York State found a way around it. In 1997, lawmakers created
a safe-harbor mechanism allowing retirees to collect
bigger pensions legally — a second pool of money
called the Excess Benefit Fund. Towns all over the
state pay the associated costs, even though only a few of them have retirees who
qualify. At least 28 recipients in New York get pensions above $195,000 a year.
One of the highest is George M. Philip, who gets $261,037 after retiring as
chief executive and chief investment officer of the New York State teachers’
pension fund. Since retiring, he has gone back
to work as president of the State University of New
York at Albany, drawing an additional $280,000
last year."
OH, THAT'S RICH! - Very rich in fact,
for these public employee retirees that somehow have come to believe that it is
the public's responsibility to support them in their retirement years (evidently
one's retirement years starts when he/she is only in their 40s or 50!) with
gold-plated pension programs
and unlimited healthcare....NOT! - We are about to have a Massive Wake-Up Call
in America and when that alarm goes off people of all stripes are going
to realize that either we cut
government spending on all levels to bring it inline with what we can
actually afford, or we are going to
bring down the American Republic - Here's Why New York's
Pension
System Is 100% Unsustainable
Just when you thought that it was impossible for our Gutless "Elected Leaders"
to sink any lower, we now
have the Majority Party in the
Congress, the Democrats, that are scared to produce a 2011 Budget for
the US Federal Government because they believe that all the Debt, Deficits and
Red Ink that would show up in
such a budget would make them look bad! - Can you say: Useless
Bastards? - Of course, this has
happened before, the Gutless Republicans in 2006 couldn't put together a Budget
for the Federal Government, but with Deficits and
Debt soaring, and HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS not even
being counted (like with the cesspools
of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac!) it is IRRESPONSIBLE for this Congress and
Democrat leaders to not produce a Budget! - Not that we believe that
any of these Sorry Bastards in the Congress of both parties give two rips about
the American People or
the country even....this whole "game"
is all about finding a way to get re-elected so they can continue to enjoy
the PERKS (Hint: $$$$$$$$) of
POWER! - These Bastards in Washington DC wonder how it could
be that the American People are pissed off so.....Uhhhhh, you Stupid SOBs,
if you actually worked for and represented the People that put you
into office, we would not now be in the Deficit, Fiscal and Economic Disaster
that we now find ourselves in! - Oh, that's right, some $4,000 dollar suit,
winged-tip wearing lobbyist was just in your office and he recently told your
finance person that he could raise a lot of $$$$$$$$ for your campaigns IF you
will.......and there is the exact spot where most Politicians throw the
interests of their constituents and the country itself overboard! - All because
some Sorry SOB Lobbyist that hasn't done an honest days work in his life
promised a few "Coins" for your future campaigns....DISGUSTING! - Here's
the truly sad reality: These Bastards
in Washington DC are just like the Greedy Bastards on Wall Street: Both
would Bankrupt the American
Republic, but each for different things...The Wall Street Bastards worship at
the alter of the Almighty $$$$$$$ - These Sorry SOBs in the Nation's Capital
have an insatiable desire for Power and to be on the "Top" of some Make-Believe
Political
Structure - Both would sell you, me
and the rest of us behind the tree in a split second though to achieve what
they so desperately want in life - Are
you now starting to understand why
the American Republic is in such great danger? - Good, now go out and vote these
Sorry SOBs out of office and then we can get to the Wall Street
Bastards next! - Budget woes? Just
don't pass one
HOLD THE BASTARDS ACCOUNTABLE!
As reported by the Miami Herald and Zero Hedge it looks as if BP's Insertion
Tube to try and stem the flow of oil is not working - With the US Congress
not acting, with mainly the Republic SOBs shilling for the oil companies, to
make sure that BP will be held fully accountable for the damage done to
the Gulf of Mexico and maybe even beyond it looks like it may be time for the
United States to move to seize the assets and cash of BP in the United States
and around the world! - Either our current "Elected Leaders" will
hold BP and TransOcean fully accountable for this oil spill or the American
People will find new leaders to replace the one's that look to us to
be little more than whores that have been bought off by rich corporations and
individuals! - The American
People are waiting for the United
States government to act against these BP and TransOcean Bastards and to hold
the companies and executives responsible for this disastrous and
what looks like an irresponsible oil spill! - Memo to the
Elected Leaders
in Washington DC: Start Acting Like You
Represent the American People
or the American People will find someone to replace you Bastards! -
BP Insertion Tube Isn't Working
The MADNESS continues in what is quickly becoming the Greece of the United
States of America,
CALIFORNIA! - David Crane in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed lays out the Essential
Nature of a Very Particular Kind of Idiocy that is practiced in
the
Golden
Broke State!
"In 1999 then California Governor
Gray Davis signed into law a bill that represented
the largest issuance of non-voter-approved debt in the state's history. The bill
SB 400 granted billions of dollars in retroactive pension boosts to state
employees, allowing retirements as young as age 50 with lifetime pensions of up
to 90% of final year salaries. The California Public Employees' Retirement
System sold the pension boost to the state legislature by promising that "no
increase over current employer contributions is needed for these benefit
improvements" and that Calpers would "remain fully funded." They also claimed
that enhanced pensions would not cost taxpayers
"a dime" because investment bets would cover the
expense.
What Calpers failed to disclose, however, was that (1) the state budget was on
the hook for shortfalls should actual investment returns fall short
of assumed investment returns, (2) those assumed
investment returns implicitly projected the Dow Jones would reach roughly 25,000
by 2009 and 28,000,000 by 2099, unrealistic to say the least (3) shortfalls
could turn out to be hundreds of billions of dollars, (4) Calpers's own
employees would benefit from the pension increases and (5) members of
Calpers's board had received contributions from the
public employee unions who would benefit from the legislation. Had such a
flagrant case of non-disclosure occurred in the private sector, even a sleepy
SEC and US Attorney would have noticed."
Does that sound incredibly stupid
to you? It gets worse...
"Eleven years later, things haven't turned out as
Calpers promised.
While state employees have been big winners from the
bet, the state budget has been, and will continue to be, a huge loser. Far from
being "fully funded" as promised, Calpers has already required $15 billion more
from the state budget than projected
in 1999 and $3.5 billion is budgeted
for this year, a figure that is more
than five times the expense projected by the state
legislature in its SB 400 analysis. Pensions are crowding out important programs
like higher education, parks and health care,
and the state will continue to whack away at those
programs because the legislature refuses Governor Schwarzenegger's request to
repeal
SB 400 for new employees."
Did you catch the Really
Outrageous Item in the above paragraph: "CalPERS
has already required $15 billion more from the
state budget than projected in 1999
and $3.5 billion is budgeted for this year!"
- Yes, Gray Davis and every
other person that has served in the California Government that voted for this
Stupidity should be identified
for the True Buffoons that they are!
But here's the real Idiocy Kicker!
"Recently, a Northwestern University professor
projected that California's pensions will run out of cash in 2026, threatening
even greater havoc to the state's budget, yet our pension funds have adopted a
"don't worry, all is well" approach and refuse to provide the information
necessary for the taxpayers– i.e., the people actually
on the hook for these bets -- to make
an independent analysis."
Oh the MADNESS! - Please, would someone turn out the lights when the Last Moron
leaves the State of California because pretty soon they
are not going to be able to even keep
the K-12 schools open - Dow 28,000,000: The
Unbelievable Expectations of California's
Pension System
If you want to know why the State of California is on the verge of being
FINISHED...yes, we just wrote FINISHED, the behavior of the new Speaker of the
state House is a Great Example - As reported by Dan Walters of the Sacramento
Bee:
"Memo to John Pérez, who became speaker of the state
Assembly
scarcely a year after being elected to the
Legislature: Dude, you aren't nearly as important as you
apparently think you are, and
before you open your mouth, you should do your
homework.
Pérez demonstrated this week that
he's not ready for prime time when he got himself
into a spitting match with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger over
the state budget.
Schwarzenegger unveiled this year's version of what the Capitol calls the "May
revise" on Friday and
ordinarily, legislative leaders quickly react, not
wanting the governor to
have the media stage to himself. Accordingly, the
president pro tem
of the Senate, Darrell Steinberg, listened to the
governor's
presentation and then quickly
issued sharp criticism.
Pérez, however, was absent because
he was attending a big bucks "golf tournament" in
Pebble Beach to raise campaign money from special
interest groups. That may have been
a little unseemly, but Pérez would
have been well-served to take
whatever criticism came his
way silently.
Instead, he decided to play the
victim card. "I don't think the timing was
coincidental," Pérez said when asked about his absence. "I think it
was proven to be really a good opportunity for the
governor to make ugly proposals and dump the trash
on a Friday and then try to distract you into
talking about where I was instead of what the substance of his proposals are."
"As long as we have a two-thirds requirement and we have a handful
of members holding out and blocking us from putting
together a budget
that meets the expectations and the values of a
majority of the people of
the state of California, I've got to do everything I
can to create the
political circumstances for me to
have two-thirds Democratic control
of the Assembly so we're not hamstrung," he said,
"and part of
that is raising enough money to
do campaigns."
Having jammed both of his feet into
his mouth, Pérez should have quit while he was
behind, but no, he did it again, insisting that resisting the governor's budget
cuts was all about saving the economy because public employees would lose their
jobs – a stance that is, if nothing else, illuminating.
The most important contributors to Democratic campaigns are public employee
unions and, one presumes, they were heavily represented at Pérez's fundraiser in
Pebble Beach
last Friday."
AMEN to the Dan! - As we have said
here many times before, the "Elected Leaders" in Sacramento are not only going
to take California off the cliff, they are stupidly Doubling-Down on some of the
most Asinine Public
Policy Decisions in World History -
Yes, raise taxes even higher you Idiots...It has worked out so well so
far! - Perez jams both feet into mouth
It looks like in China that the Government actually holds CEO's
and Business Owners that break the
law accountable for their actions! -
Isn't that ironic?....We had a few
banks in New York that almost
brought down the entire American Economy and the Securities and Exchange
Commission can only find
one very flimsy fraud charge that is based upon an action that happens thousands
of times on Wall Street everyday that no one says a word
about - If the United States
Government really did regulate and oversee these Wall Street Bastards
they would find that they flaunt the rules on leverage that commercial banks are
supposed to be complying to...but again, no one says a word.... - That reality
can only make us wonder...Who THE HELL is driving
this train? - We all know the answer
to that question and it's not the
Elected Representatives that are supposed to be representing The
People - Again how ironic: In China
if a CEO breaks the law they throw his sorry ass in jail - In America when a CEO
breaks the law he is feted on TV and is celebrated in Washington DC
as a hero (as he hands out Millions of $$$$$ over drinks and shrimp
cocktail!) - Yes, we are now living in
the
Bizarro world where we can arrest and imprison a guy like Bernie Madoff that any
random monkey out of any
zoo could have convicted him two decades ago, but the Folks that are stealing
the Real Money are taking it right out the front door in view of everyone...and
nobody says a
word! - Please someone send us a
note when the US Constitution and the laws of the country actually apply to ALL
AMERICANS, not just to us poor peons out her in the hinterlands
while the Bastards get a free pass! - Chinese tycoon Huang
Guangyu sentenced to 14 years in prison
Mort Zuckerman says it a lot better
than we ever could on the Cost and Ultimately the Danger that Public Employee
Unions Pose to the American Republic - Any time that a very large group of
people, like the Public Employee Unions, have an incentive to support political
candidates because they will give them more pay and benefits, puts that group of
people in direction opposition to the best interests of the country - With Wall
Street running a Las Vegas Casino, Corporate America in search at profits at ANY
COST, Governments on every level piling up debt as far as the eye
can see and Public Sector Unions working to guarantee themselves
more salary, benefits and pensions... The American People are getting lost
in the shuffle.....AS USUAL! - Again
we ask: Does anyone represent The American People and what is best for the
American Republic or will the Money Stuffers (into
politicians pockets) win out
again? - The Crippling Price of
Public Employee Unions
If you are an American Citizen then
you need to take a few minutes to
watch 60 Minutes Scott Pelley's
report on the Deepwater Horizon Disaster - What is
very clear from Pelley's report and his interview with Mike Williams, a
crewmember of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, is that BP and TransOcean are both
responsible for the explosion of this oil rig and
that yet again we find corporations operating in our nation that put their
profits ahead of EVERYTHING
ELSE! - Now let's imagine for a
moment that the United States of America had a Justice Department
that actually held corporate leaders accountable for their actions, then we
would have already seen the CEO's of
BP and TransOcean "Perp-Walked"
out of their corporate offices or off
their million dollar airplanes (as several Wall Street CEO's would have been two
years ago as well!)....but
no, we can't have that....Since the oil companies have made sure that they have
spread plenty of $$$$$$$ around to anyone and everyone that oversees and
regulates them! - Again, the Politicians in the United States
wonder why the American People are Pissed Off? - Please, most of these
Politicians haven't interacted with regular Americans in any meaningful way in
years and they do nothing more than Sit On-High telling all of us
Peons that they know what is best for
us - The title of the movie that
depicted the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial seems like an apt warning for these
Bastard Politicians and the Corporations and Rich Folks that lead them around by
the noses:
Inherit the Wind
Yes, the world is now upside down -
It is Corporate America and the
Wall Street Bastards that Fight Like Hell to maintain the corrupt status
quo, because they have so rigged the entire American system with Bogus
Capitalism, which is little more than CEO's buying off politicians with one hand
while they claiming they are free market champions with the other - These CEO's
are actually nothing
more than Socialists that feed off
the American People by bribing politicians with "campaign contributions! - Where
is the Spencer Tracy of today to speak up for and represent the American People?
- It may not matter, because yes, the American People are now awake and you
Bastards that have run up this Massive Pile of Debt and Mortgaged
our children's future while giving
away the store to anyone that stuffs $$$$$$ into their pockets are going
to "Inherit the Wind" and then as Abraham Lincoln once said "we shall save our
country." - Yes, we may just! - Blowout: The Deepwater
Horizon Disaster
The Governator of California rolled
out his revised budget for the
Golden
Broken State on Friday after tax revenues imploded in April and not surprising
to anyone was Arnold's
plan to eliminate entire programs to reduce the $20 BILLION DOLLARS BUDGET
DEFICIT that the state is
now facing - Of course, the Governator, state legislators, and the state
bureaucracy are really only nibbling
at the edges, because the real problems are ahead with thousands of Public
Employees slated retire in the next decade that will require BILLIONS OF DOLLARS
from the state's General Revenue and once the Pension
Tsunami hits it will make 2010 look
like a walk in the park - Yes, the state
of California has been spending
money like drunken sailors that had someone else's money over the past 15 years,
but there is something else going on here.....and that would be the
ALL-OUT AND 24 HOUR A DAY WAR that the State of California has been waging
against businesses of all types that have driven entrepreneurs and
job creators out of the state which has led to a $40 BILLION DROP in state
revenues in only 3 years - No, the Recession alone cannot explain a
$40 BILLION DOLLAR REVENUE DROP and as long as the State of California and its
Massive Bureaucracy Wages Their War on Business at the
insistence of Democrat Politicians
and Public Employee Unions then we can expect to see the state struggle for
years to come with the People of California, often the most vulnerable people in
fact, suffering terribly - Isn't it ironic that the Very People that are Waging
the All Out War on Business in the State of California are the Very Same People
that want these Huge Social Service Programs? - There is a huge irony to that
reality, but we are not counting on any of the Liberals to understand that IT IS
THEM that are the people directly responsible for the cuts that they now decry -
Yes, these
are VERY STUPID PEOPLE! - Schwarzenegger's budget deals
blows to the poor
Are the US Equity Markets Rigged? - It is hard to imagine that there are people
stupid enough in Government and/or Private Business that would be put together a
conspiracy to send enough "BUY" orders to stock markets in the United States to
push the markets up - Of course, the very same Morons that were running the Wall
Street Banks and at the highest levels of Finance in the Federal Government were
there in the 2000s and all of
them were claiming that "Sub-Prime" loans were not a threat to the
Financial System or Country - Yes, these are very Stupid, and often Very Greedy
People, but if there was
anyone working for the Federal Government at the US Treasury, Federal Reserve,
or anywhere else that colluded with Wall Street Firms to purchase stocks so that
the market would go up and would thus vindicate the actions they took when they
bailed out these Sorry Ass SOBs on Wall Street then there will be a lot of
people going to prison one day
because there is no way that a conspiracy to manipulate the US Equity Markets
could be legal - Zero Hedge has a post: "Insights From An Ex-Wall Street
CEO that includes:
"I am Ex CEO of mid sized Wall Street Firm. Known
for equity research; reasonably good trading; acceptable Investment Banking. Now
retired
Equity Block Trader early in career. May have traded more 1,000,000 share blocks
than anyone over 10
year period.
Executed 1st program trade that I
am aware of. Manually handled blocks of stock vs
options on the XMI for expiration October of 1983.
Oversaw global equity trading, for
top 5 firm. Was senior trader and oversaw hedge book
during 87 crash. Still have time and sales from that
day for all trades on NYSE.
Can read the tape as well as most.
I cannot come up with any explanation for market activity for last 15 months
other than treasury intervention. Probability of other explanation is
nonexistent.
But if that is the case…and I was
Tim, how would I work it…starting
in March 09.
1) I would only have one … at most
two … firms involved. And only
3-4 at those firms…although it is
more likely 10. (My bet is JPM).
2) I would assume that I had TARP money or other unaudited Fed money to work
with (ZH has documented
past documents that tangentially referenced this
possibility) and it would be north of 10B allocated.
With leverage thru the loan
process…much bigger.
3) I would –as you have suggested – wash the order thru liquidity loans
to my 1 or 2 firms; with the understanding that they
would buy equities that they would then
deposit as collateral for such loans. That way I
could almost time my equity support for the market with
a notional understanding that I wanted the “
collateral” created and posted in a very short time frame.
4) Not on paper, but at the coffee house, I would discuss how I
generally would support....."
And it continues on - Like we said earlier, it is hard for us to believe that
there are really people stupid enough to try and pull off something that is so
clearly illegal and would break dozens of US Securities Laws, but if it is true
then there is little doubt that the American People no longer own their country,
but instead a very small
Cabal is driving this train and their only interest is enriching a group of
people that are already some of the richest people on the planet! - Conspiracy
Theories that include
black helicopters are of very little interest to us, but Bastards that put
themselves and the Almighty Dollar above the American Republic itself
and its People have our Full Damn Attention! - We remind the Wall
Street Bastards that we still have elections in our Republic and one day there
may be someone in the White House (and at the US Justice Department as Attorney
General) that will not be so friendly to the SOBs running this Las Vegas Casino
(think Andrew Jackson or Teddy Roosevelt...Oh, that can't be a good thought!)
that has little to do
anymore with Real Business and
the raising of Capital for
American companies - Insights
From An Ex-Wall Street CEO
Leave it to George Will to define the Madness and Outright lies and
misrepresentation by people in the highest positions in business and government
- Read it and weep!
"To understand the pertinence to America of events
in Greece, notice General Motors' most recent misbehavior. A television
commercial featuring CEO Ed Whitacre demonstrates
the institutional murkiness and intellectual dishonesty that result when the
line between public and private sectors disappears.
In the commercial, Whitacre says
GM has "repaid our government loan in full." Rep.
Paul Ryan, R-Wis.,
noted that GM used government
funds to pay back the government:
It "simply transferred $6.7 billion
from one taxpayer-funded TARP account to another."
The government still owns 60.8 percent of GM's common equity, and the
Congressional Budget Office
projects that the government
will lose about $34 billion of the
$82 billion of TARP funds dispersed
to the automotive industry.
When Ryan and two colleagues
asked the Treasury Department for clarification,
they got this careful reply: "Treasury has never suggested that the loan
repayment represented
a full return of all government assistance." A
Treasury press release did say "GM Repays Treasury Loan
in Full." The loan is, however, a
small part of taxpayer exposure. Under crony
capitalism, when government and corporate America merge, both dissemble.
So the U.S. government, which would borrow 42 cents of every dollar it spends
under the president's 2011 budget, is borrowing to rescue Greece and others from
the consequences
of their borrowing.
That nation, whose GDP is below
that of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, is
"too big to
fail," meaning too inconveniently connected to too
many big banks. Bailing out Greece really rescues European banks that
improvidently bought Greek bonds. Visit here for a useful New York Times graphic
illustrating how European nations borrow from one another. For example, Italy
owes France (French banks) $511 billion, a sum nearly equal to 20 percent of
France's GDP. About one-third of Portugal's debt is held by Spain, which has
$238 billion of its debt held by Germany and
$220 billion by France. Russell Roberts of George
Mason University notes that this "discourages
prudence and wariness" because
when "everyone has financed
everyone else, you can justify
bailing everyone out."
Oh, the Absolute Madness and these Elites really believe they know more than the
average guy in the street - The reality is that the Average American knows UP
from DOWN which is something most of the Elites in Washington DC and New York
would have a tough time defining! - Thanks Mr. Will, but you must know as we do
that the folks driving this train don't give a damn if it goes off the tracks or
not because they have their $$$$$ and the American People be Damned! -
Crony Capitalism:
From GM to
Greece, the Lies
Keep Growing
STOP THE PRESSES! - Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America disclosed
this week that their trading desks made money in every day of the first quarter!
- Oh, Don't Stop the Presses, because Any Random Monkey from any Zoo on the
Planet could Borrow Money for next to nothing and then just buy US Treasuries
and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds and
MAKE A MINT! - That any of these Greedy Wall Street Bastards make a
lot of money in the Las Vegas Casino when the Market is Rigged in a way
that the Boys in the Real Las Vegas would be stunned to see is like Yelling out:
"Hey, the Sun is coming up!" - Wall Street Banks Making Money? Please, the
US Government and
Federal Reserve EXIST to make sure the Wall Street Banks make a lot of money,
often impoverishing the American People in the process and transferring BILLIONS
OF DOLLARS from the American Republic to the southern tip of Manhattan! - If
anyone tells you that Wall Street is a place where American Business goes to
raise capital to start and expand business just look at them and say:
"Marx, Lenin and Stalin would have never dreamed they would have been able to
steal so much money from the People while also having so many people in
Government helping them steal it!" - Cad and Moron John Edwards was
right about one thing: There are two Americas! - There is the America that
spends a lot of $$$$$$ bribing public officials in Washington DC with "Campaign
Contributions" which makes both VERY RICH and there is the America that gets up
everyday and goes to work and gets pillaged and raped by the Bastards that do
very little real work but have a great knack for manipulating the "System" to
enrich themselves - Interestingly, it is the hard working Americans that have
made up about 99% of the US Armed Forces in the country's history and have
sacrificed their own lives for the American Republic while the Bastards learned
how to steal and cheat on someone's else's dime, all the while
not lifting a finger for their country outside of registering to vote! -
Doesn't strike you as OPPOSITE of
what America supposed to stand
for? - Rigged-Market Theory Scores
a Perfect Quarter
"Here We Go Again...Singing the
Same Old Song Again!" - As Tax Revenues Implode in the State
of California....
California Controller John Chiang April 2010 Cash Figures
...The
Business Relocation Coach
has found another 129 Businesses
that have either moved out of California or have made new investments outside of
the
Golden
Broken State! - The Insanity that is
the State of California and the
Liberals that have run the state in the ground as they continue to wage their
war on business (with the Legislature trying to pass dozens of new taxes on
business in a disastrous recession!)
is that ironically it is the businesses that the Liberals in California hate so
much that are the very providers of
the revenue that the state needs to stave off massive cuts and
bankruptcy! - Do you see what
Absolute Buffoons these folks are that have destroyed the
Golden
Broken State? - These people really do not know the difference between UP AND
DOWN! - If any of these Idiots really gave a Damn about the children that really
need a good education, food on table, and a safe place to live they would not be
Waging a Multi-Front War on Business that is driving out business and ravaging
state
revenues! - But then who ever claimed that a Liberal REALLY gives a damn about
the people they claim they
want to protect? - The Liberals in California are not Liberals as the
term is known today in the United States, but rather they are selfish and petty
people that care about nothing but enriching their friends, the people that put
and keep them in office,
and of course themselves! - Oh, the Absolute Madness, but then what is new in
the Land of the Morons? - Business Relocation Coach:
Updated Again: California's Hostile
Business Climate - 129 'Business Disinvestment' Events
Do we really have to have a Solar and Climate Scientist at the Harvard
Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Dr. Willie Soon, to tell us what any
6th grade student that has completed Physical Science would know? - Yes, it
seems so, because there are all kinds
of Wacko Environmental Nuts
running around claiming that CO2 is destroying the Earth when that is nothing
more that ABSOLUTE NONSENSE! - Here is what the
Harvard Astrophysicist has to say about the Global Warming Nonsense:
"Examiner.com: What drives
climate change on Earth?
Dr. Soon: Most of the weather and climate
variations we observed are essentially related to the sun and the changing
seasons – not by CO2 radiative forcing and feedback. The climate system is
constantly readjusting naturally in a large
way – more than we would ever see from CO2. The CO2
kick [impact of
CO2 emissions] is extremely small compared to what
is happening in a natural way. Within the framework
of a proper study of the sun-climate connection, you
don’t need CO2 to explain anything.
Examiner.com: What is your opinion of the
anthropogenic (man-caused) global warming theory?
Dr. Soon: It’s never been about the science – even
from the very beginning. It’s based on confusion
and a mixture of ideology. We
should deal only in the facts that
we do know.
Examiner.com: Many of the scientists promoting the
global warming
theory appear to be driven by
politics rather than hard scientific data. What are
your thoughts?
Dr. Soon: I am a scientist. I go where the facts
take me. And the facts are fairly clear. It doesn’t take very long to discover
that their views [of man-caused global warming] aren’t grounded in the facts.
Why would
any solid science need so much promotion and advertisement and
the endless shouting about how the science has all
been “settled”? And now we’re supposed to believe that
the growing consensus on the street that humans are
not responsible for global warming is due mainly to the confusion created by
climate “deniers.”
Examiner.com: Many scientists like you (often
referred to as “skeptics”) are ridiculed and isolated for challenging the dogma
of man-made global warming. Many of your peers have been very successful in
their efforts to marginalize anyone who deviates from the approved script? What
is happening?
Dr. Soon: The pro-AGW supporters have become more
and more confrontational in their attacks on scientists who challenge their
views. For instance, Stephen Schneider [a professor of environmental studies at
Stanford University], says that skeptics sell garbage and that we are playing
games with science. He compares it to selling drugs and believes that we are
criminals who should go to jail. Guess what? You don’t pull that sort of thing
on people who know something about science.
Examiner.com: What needs to be
done to combat the strong-arm
tactics being used against scientists who disagree
with the AGW theory?
Dr. Soon: Science needs to stand up. The AGW
movement is killing science. It’s very unhealthy in many ways. They are
corrupting science for material gain. It’s time for us to
take back climate science."
Yes, we must have a Harvard Astrophysicist tell us the truth
because the Wacko Environmental Nuts that would destroy the American and World
economy with their Absolute Nonsense....if we let them...and we are not going to
let you Stupid SOBs do that! -
Harvard astrophysicist dismisses AGW theory, challenges
peers to 'take back
climate science'
It is time for the folks in Los Angeles to face facts: The City of Los
Angeles is headed for a financial meltdown and assured bankruptcy because
as former Mayor Richard Riordan and now George Will point out:
"Riordan and Rubalcava say two numbers—8 percent and
5,000—
define the city's crisis. L.A. has conveniently but
unrealistically assumed 8 percent annual growth of the assets of the city's
pension funds. The two main funds' actual growth over the last decade have been
3.5 percent and 2.8 percent. And Villaraigosa added 5,000 people to
the city's payroll in his first term."
George Will continues:
"The nightmare numbers include the state's
unemployment rate (12.6 percent)—it is higher than the
nation's (9.9)—and the city's rate (13.5), which is
higher than the
state's. The city's long-term success depends on its
schools, in many of which most of the children come from homes without fathers,
and in some
of which, Villaraigosa says, 40
percent of the children are in foster homes. He has
little control over the school system and, anyway, unions oppose radical
reforms. He would
like to emulate the education
reforms of former Florida governor
Jeb Bush, a recent visitor to the mayor's residence,
but, holding his fingers three inches apart to suggest the thickness of the
standard contract with the teachers' union, Villaraigosa calls the union "the
most powerful defender of the status quo."
The mayor's residence is near
Wilshire Boulevard, which is named for a socialist
who made and lost several fortunes before dying destitute. The life of Henry
Wilshire
is a cautionary tale for this city
where the climate is usually Mediterranean and the
fiscal
climate is now Greek."
Well
said Mr. Will, well said... -
The problem is that no one in Los Angeles is listening, or California for that
matter and these Buffoons will take down the
Golden
Broken State
and the People of California all in
the name of keeping Public Union Employees on the Payroll! -
Absolute Madness! - Nightmare Numbers in L.A.
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