An End To Republican-Style Austerity?

Those Republicans Are So French
TalkingPointsMemo

Me...again...

OK, so about two years ago I claimed to be back to this blog and then promptly disappeared after just a couple of postings.  Things happen.  A guy loses track of the stuff he means to take care of and pretty soon, you look up, and someone has a tacked a calendar on the wall that states, quite emphatically, that it is currently the year of your lord 2012.  Two Thousand and Twelve!  Well holy Jeebus!  That means it's the final year in the series doesn't it?  Personally I don't think those Mayans were fucking around, and here I am already into the second quarter of the last year ever...so no time to waste!

Plus it's an election year, so there's that.

Things That Suck, for $400, please Alex...

States as well as individual counties and cities were among the hardest hit by the Wall Street scam known as collateralized debt obligation (CDO). As a result of the financial mess caused by the gangster bankers, or "banksters" as many people call them these days, many municipalities have been put in the position cutting back on services in order to make ends meet.

• A judge in Ashtabula County Ohio advises citizens to arm themselves because almost half of the county deputies have been let go. What could possibly go wrong there?

• In Colorado Springs they are turning off a third of their street lights, cutting budgets on both the police and fire departments and cutting their parks budget to the tune of 75%...they are removing all trash cans from public parks, will cease all litter removal from parks and will only mow public parks once per month. Now that sounds like it's going to be a really nice place to live in the coming months. Less money for police. Less money for the fire department. Less illumination at night. Trash piling up in the parks. The only silver lining being that the overgrown grass may hide a lot of the garbage.

• Lawmakers in Illinois want to call in the National Guard to help curtail the ever growing body count (never mind that it would probably be illegal to do so)...the homicide total is at 113 year-to-date (the same number of troops that have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the same time frame), and part of the reason is that the Chicago police department is stretched far too thin. And they haven't even got to the long, hot, humid Summer months yet. The last time the Guard was called in was for the 1968 riots. I was there as a young boy and don't remember it being a party.

• California as a state is in big trouble, but Los Angeles in particular is in truly dire straits. The city controller has projected that unless the mayor is able to borrow $90 million from the city's emergency fund immediately the second-largest burg in the country will go belly-up on May 5th. As a resident all I can say is, I hope that doesn't screw up traffic.
  

• Tens of thousands of educators across the country are in danger of receiving pink slips this year as local school boards come to grips with the fact that they are almost broke. Some districts are "...planning to close schools, cut programs, make classes larger and shorten the school day, week or year to trim costs." The overall effect of these cuts will be to ensure that the USA has the least competitive work force on the planet (with the possible exception of Antarctica, but I hear the penguins have taken up graphic design). Which will dovetail nicely with the fact that there probably won't be any U.S.-based jobs to be had anyway...at least none that don't require a grown person to wear a name tag and ask if you'd like more lard with your lardburger.

All of the above are troubling when looked at separately. But when you put them together, and then throw in all of the other budgetary crisis throughout the country that are due in large part to the above mentioned CBOs, which were sold by the banksters at Goldman Sachs who knew that they were worthless, well then it becomes truly and utterly startling.

In fact about the only thing that would make it even more startling would be if a person or group of people...say, all 41 Republican Senators...opposed making any regulatory changes to keep this from happening again. Now, it has taken a great deal of restraint on my part to refrain from using any profanity or name calling in this post and I don't want to ruin it. So I will not call the GOP a bunch of self-serving fuckers of their own mothers and I won't label Mitch McConnell a chin-less ass monkey who licks at the taint of his Wall Street overlords. I just won't. They are not worth it.

And besides, I need all my spare time to start learning Chinese so I will be able to understand the new landlords when they get here.

Ni hao bitches!

Yikes!

Back to stay...for now...

It's been over a year of trying to just write happy thoughts on another blog. I now realize I need this outlet for the vitriol, so I'm back. If you choose to dig into the older posts...and I certainly encourage you to do so...be warned, they are not for the easily offended.

"I just can't follow all of this, have a life, work, and raise a family too! My heads going to explode!" - comment made by a friend on Facebook during a discussion on the Health Care Reform bill.

And that, in a nutshell, is the real problem. Most people on both sides of the political spectrum are in the same situation as my friend described above...too busy with life, work, family...and rightfully so... to have the time to really dig-in and figure out for themselves what's being done in our names in D.C. (not to even mention the 50 state capitals where all kinds of nefarious shit takes place under the radar). So they take what the talking heads give them as gospel.

If you're on the Left and the only "news" you are watching is Keith Olbermann than you are, sadly, very under-informed. Keith rarely presents more than one side of an argument and will never, ever, have a guest on his show who disagrees with his basic script...all Republicans are evil. (Simply not true...most of them are, but surely not all...are they?) If time is short and you can only watch one show, wait an hour and tune in to Rachel Maddow. It's a much more balanced presentation and Rachel is not afraid to engage in actual debate.

And if you are on the Right and you've crazy-glued your remote so that the Fox News logo is permanently emblazoned on your TV screen, you doing yourself a huge disservice. "Fair and Balanced" is what they wipe their asses with in the men's room. Shepard Smith is the only guy there who gives even a semblance of even-handedness to his reporting, and when he does he usually catches holy hell for from the viewership...they don't want no tonic water in their orange juice.

Which brings me to the real subject of this post...the attacks that have taken place against Democratic politicians and their families in the last week or so. It's far too easy to blame the violence on the fact that people are angry over passage of the HCR bill. Yes, people on the right are definitely angry. But there's a reason for that...Fox has told them to be angry. Fox has demanded that they be angry. Fox is the reason there is so much anger on the Right.

The talking douche bags of Fox, not to mention right-wing politicians from John "Need more spray tan"Boehner to Eric "Born to be somebody's bitch" Cantor to Mitch "less chin, more bullshit" McConnell to John "Damn kids get off my lawn" McCain to Michelle " goddamn even I think I'm batshit crazy" Bachman, and most of the rest, have spent the last 8 months telling their base that Obama was creating "death panels" (he is not) and that the bill would create a huge deficit (it does not) and that all negotiations were being done in secret behind closed doors (they were not) and that it was not bi-partisan (true, but only because the Right CHOSE to not participate) and every other lie they could think up about this bill for the sole reason that they did not want to give Obama a "win" of any sort.

Well the Right-wing's strategy did not work and they lost big. And now their chickens have come home to roost in the form of violence. And the violence that is happening now is reprehensible... the death threats, the spitting on congressmen (not to mention the name-calling that harkened back to 1960's), the gas lines being cut at the house of a brother of a Dem congressman, the windows being broken at Democratic congressional offices, the children of Democratic politicians being threatened...all of it... sits squarely on shoulders of O'Reilly, Beck, Hannity, Boehner, Cantor, McConnell, McCain, Bachman...and I haven't even gotten to the drug-addicted blow-hard that is Limbaugh yet. Each and all of them are responsible for what is happening. Not one of them has the sack to own it.

But mostly it is Fox. David Frum, former speech-writer for George W. Bush said this week: "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we're discovering we work for Fox." A few days after speaking the truth Mr. Frum was ousted from his position at the Right-wing American Enterprise Institute. Fox, the puppet-master, pulling more strings.

The Republican Senators and Congressmen are beyond pathetic in this. They have done it all for what they think is political gain...they believe they are going to clean up in November. Well here's my prediction. The Dems will gain seats in the house and either gain or retain the same number of seats in the Senate come November. The Republicans have shown their true colors here - yellow - and it will be to their detriment.

oh, here it is!

I've been looking all over for this damn blog. It's been months since I last posted...since well before Obama kicked Crazy John's ass in November. Odd that Crazy John is still crazy...for some reason I was hoping it was just an act meant to fire up the legions of retarded...sorry...'challenged' right-wing heartlanders.

So anyway, long story short, Obama won, Bush is gone, we've ended the war in Iraq, Afghani women are walking around in thongs and my 401k has gained back all the cash I lost on the AOL - TimeWarner merger (and hey, if I never said it before..thanks Steve Case and Gerald Levin, that was swell idea!).

Yes, things are mighty rosy for us here in the land of plenty. Except that they aren't. I mean, Bush is gone, that's true, and that's a great and long overdue relief. But as for the rest of it, well, it's about as appealing as that wildebeest piss that pours out of the back of a garbage truck when the driver puts that sucker in gear and hits the gas, leaving a trail of viscous, foul-smelling, chicken-based liquid for the kiddies to splash around in. We're in bad shape and it doesn't look as though things are going to get better anytime soon.

But on the upside it's only 54 more days till the Cubs start the '09 season...what could go wrong there?

Yikes!

Guvm'nt in our heads...

Mrs. Coop complaining that Yikes! has been absent posts recently so it's back to the typewriter-machine for me.

Last night was not a good one. I got almost no sleep. And apparently during the rare minute that I did drift off I was snoring so loudly that Mrs. Coop had to remove herself to the sofa in the living room. Now, the question is, why did I get so little rest last night? Too much pepperoni? Too little wine? No. The correct answer is my government is trying to kill me. That's right, I said it. No, they're not doing it in any kind of overt, car-bomb under the seat sort of way. They prefer to do it slowly, one nerve at a time. And good Christ are they wearing my nerves down these days.

I've sent e-mails to Senators and left voicemails for Representatives, trying to get them to defeat the bailout/handout bill. I've bothered every friend I have to please please please do the same. So Congress defeats the bill, completely defying the White House and the leadership of both parties. HUZZAH!!! I did the right thing! I fought the good fight and I won! Right? Right?

C'mon, somebody throw me a fucking HUZZAH here because I'm quickly beginning to rethink this thing as I'm lying in my bed in a cold sweat last night. Images flash through my mind: of my amazing wife and our two incredibly beautiful kids living out of the back seat of the minivan, which hasn't moved in months because gas either costs too much or just isn't available (take a look at the Southeastern U.S. for more on that!) and so the van has grass and weeds growing up through the wheel wells . Those two incredibly beautiful kids are underfed and filthy and battling severe colds because we can't afford to take them to the doctor because we no longer have any health insurance because I've lost my job because the small film studio I worked for could no longer afford to pay me or any of my fine co-workers because the line of credit that it relied upon to pay those fine employees dried up because the credit facility went bust because the bailout funds were never allocated because I sent e-mails to Senators and because I left voicemails for Representatives, trying to get them to defeat the bailout/handout bill and because I bothered every friend I have to please please please do the same. WHAT THE HELL HAVE I DONE?!?! And the sweat pours off me and I toss and I turn and every god damned nightmare scenario that I can conjure plays in my head.

But the problem is, even here in the bright light of day, I can't say for sure that what I did was the wrong thing to do. In fact, I still think it was the right thing to do! And that's where that thing about the government trying to kill me comes in. You see, nobody has yet to fully explain this unholy mess to the public. Do we need the bailout? Is it really just corporate socialism to protect the wallets of a few fat cats? The only one who has come close to explaining it all is Paul Krugman and I'm not sure I even understand him most of the time.

So I think the powers-that-be (and we know who they be) are just trying to drive us mad. Make us more irrational than we already are as a people. But to what end? They already own all the good stuff. They couldn't possibly want any of the crap that the rest of us own, it's all shit. I mean, the top 400 richest people in the US got even richer, to the the tune of $650 BILLION, during Bush's reign of stupidity. So what else do they want from us? Could it be that, having taken all else, they've come back to snatch our sanity?

YIKES!

Credit Default Swaps...What The Fuck???

I first heard this term, Credit Default Swaps, or CDS, on the radio yesterday. A "financial instrument" (read: red-hot poker...bend over please!) I had never heard of before...and now it seems that this will be the one to take down the economy of the country...and beyond.

Here's what I think may be a pretty good explanation of what CDS's are.
NOTE: This was written by Ben Stein, a right-wing apologist if ever there was one, but nonetheless a pretty smart guy. I've highlighted the section that explains CDS's.
http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/yourlife/109609;_ylt=AihYXGa_2tf9PJDeCl.2G0S7YWsA

The headlines scream doom. There are endless references to the economic situation being "the worst since The Great Depression." Immense names in finance have collapsed and sunk beneath the waves of the financial crisis. Please allow me to try to explain a bit of what's going on.
First of all, all you have to do is look around you to see that in terms of daily life, we are not anywhere near The Great Depression. Unemployment is barely about six percent. It was 25 percent at the nadir of The Great Depression. Real per capita incomes adjusted for inflation are at least five times what they were during The Great Depression. Airplanes are full. High-end restaurants are full. Prices are painfully high for food. These are not signs of a Great Depression.
On the other hand, the losses in financial products have been devastating. The Dow is off 23 percent from its high in 2007. Financial stocks even after the recent rally are off staggeringly. The biggest insurer in America has become a basket case. Most of all, there is REAL FEAR in the air. Decent, hard working people are terribly afraid as they see their life savings melt away. Retirement has become just a forlorn dream for tens of millions of Americans.
How did it happen?
Here s one big part of the answer. First, the alert reader will notice that Ben Stein said many times that the amount of money at risk in the subprime meltdown was just not enough to sink an economy of this size. And I was right...to a point. The amount of subprime that defaulted was at most - after recovery in liquidation - about $250 billion. A huge sum but not enough to torpedo the US economy.
The crisis occurred (to greatly oversimplify) because the financial system allowed entities to place bets on whether or not those mortgages would ever be paid. You didn't have to own a mortgage to make the bets. These bets, called Credit Default Swaps, are complex. But in a nutshell, they allow someone to profit immensely - staggeringly - if large numbers of subprime mortgages are not paid off and go into default.
The profit can be wildly out of proportion to the real amount of defaults, because speculators can push down the price of instruments tied to the subprime mortgages far beyond what the real rates of loss have been. As I said, the profits here can be beyond imagining. (In fact, they can be so large that one might well wonder if the whole subprime fiasco was not set up just to allow speculators to profit wildly on its collapse...)
These Credit Default Swaps have been written (as insurance is written) as private contracts. There is nil government regulation of them. Who writes these policies? Banks. Investment banks. Insurance companies. They now owe the buyers of these Credit Default Swaps on junk mortgage debt trillions of dollars. It is this liability that is the bottomless pit of liability for the financial institutions of America.
Because these giant financial companies never dreamed that the subprime mortgage securities could fall as far as they did, they did not enter a potential liability for these CDS policies anywhere near their true liability - which again, is virtually bottomless. They do not have a countervailing asset to pay off the liability.
This is what your humble servant, moi, missed. This is what all of the big investment banks and banks and insurance companies missed. This is what the federal government totally and utterly missed. This is what the truly brilliant speculators in these instruments did not miss. They could insure a liability they could also create and control. It is as if they could insure a Cadillac for its value upon theft - but they could control what the value the insurer had to pay off was. The insurer thought it might be fifty thousand dollars - but it was manipulated into being two million.
This is the whirlpool sucking down finance.
Now, we are about to have a similar phenomenon happen with commercial mortgage debt, debt from mergers and acquisitions, credit card debt, and car loan debt. Many trillions of dollars in Credit Default Swaps have been sold on all of this, and the prices of all of them have fallen and can be made to fall more.
As I said, the pit of loss is bottomless. Warren Buffett, the smartest man of all time in the world of finance, has called financial derivatives - of which Credit Default Swaps are a prime example - "weapons of financial mass destruction." And so they are. As with the hydrogen bomb, no one thought they would ever be used to end the world. But unless someone figures a way out - and maybe the new RTC is and maybe it isn't - we are in real peril. This should never have happened. Now that it did happen, should the taxpayer pay to make the billionaire speculators whole on their bets? What the heck is to be done?


Unbelievable what greed can do. Mind-numbingly unbelievable.
And, dear friends, 'YIKES' doesn't cover it anymore...

I Loves Me Some 538!

Check it out! Check it out! Check it out!
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

Ahhh. There we go. The sun shines a bit brighter. The flowers smell a bit more, er, flowery. Food even tastes better today. That wasn't so hard was it? A little financial implosion is all it took to make McCrazy look like the simpleton he is.

Oh, and not knowing which hemisphere Spain resides in probably hasn't helped him either.

That whole Spain/Latin America thing put me in mind of the great Dan Quayle and his own superior knowledge of geography. I'm thinking of this: "I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix."

God I love the Republican party...they are all about the supply-side humor!

Boy, if I had signed up with the McCrazy campaign in hopes of a cush government gig, well right about now I would be thinking: YIKES!