The macro-culture war is demographically lost. That is the logical outcome of universal suffrage of civic and economic illiterates. Their elected representatives will lawfully take and redistribute property and individual rights. The Obamrades will soon control the courts and will change the laws that do not suit their goals
Obama is a visionary and realized that the era of increased affirmative action was over. So he sidesteps it by making education through college and graduate school universal and shifts the financial burden to the public treasury. He will do the same for unionization, health care and cultural decarbonization of the planet. The mob will love him for it.
I did not particularly care for the army recruiting slogan of "an army of one" but lately it has a more pleasing and universal resonance. I modify that to the equally silly "carbon footprint" mantra and come up with a good life strategy of being an army of one and lessening your footprint. Get closer to the ground. Assume your personal life and privacy will come under more governmental scrutiny and control and your property more subject to more confiscatory taxation and seizure.
Draw your own map and structure a plan B, C, D and X. Reduce your exposure and protect what is yours. Be smart and do nothing foolish.
Washington DC, which by any measure should be part of Maryland will be made a state, and blacks, the underclass and illegal immigrants will further expand the natural evolution of the Democratic Party.
ReplyDeletePrisoners will be organized and will vote and the prison population will be dramatically reduced as a means to save money.
ReplyDeleteObama sees himself as a revolutionary figure and will try and transform the US as radically as Lincoln.
ReplyDeleteIn the previous post:
ReplyDeletebobal said...
"The Bible Belt's got to get over this anti-Mormon stuff. That helped give us McCain."
There will be no Republican Party in the Northeast as long as the Republicans forget that individual and state's rights should not be subject to nationalization and federalization.
And let's not forget the Haitians:
ReplyDelete"MIAMI — Vialine Jean Paul has noticed a change when she drops her 7-year-old daughter off at school each morning in recent weeks. Her daughter, Angela, is not sure that her mother will be back to pick her up.
“She tells me, ‘Mommy, good luck,’ ” Mrs. Jean Paul said, choking back tears. “She asks me, ‘Mommy, if you go to Haiti, what will happen to me?’ ”
Though Angela does not know it, the hopes of tens of thousands of Haitian immigrants and their relatives have become fixed on her mother’s fate. Mrs. Jean Paul is one of more than 30,000 Haitian citizens who have been ordered deported from the United States. Her case could be an early test of whether the Obama administration will break with the strict immigration enforcement policies of the Bush administration.
After an estimated 1,000 people were killed in mudslides in Haiti last year, the government asked the United States to grant temporary protected status to Haitian immigrants — relief that was extended when Honduras and El Salvador were hit by similar disasters. The designation is intended for countries in such dire trouble that receiving deportees would undermine their stability."
NY Times
Isn't it up to the individual states whether a felon can vote, or not?
ReplyDeleteI believe it would--should--take a constitutional amendment to give D.C. an actual vote in Congress, but we have been throwing the constitution out as a flawed document. Being a flawed document, you don't have to amend it, just disregard it, so the argument seems to be.
Santeria and voodoo shall be welcome guests in our multicultural religious town square.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the Amish have had it right all these years. Just try to stay away from it.
ReplyDeletegrrnite
I thought Carter, affirmative action, the Church commission, and all the rest would be the end of us in 79', too. It wasn't.
ReplyDeleteThis won't be, either.
Remember "The Club of Rome?" "The Limits to Growth?"
ReplyDeleteThey hugely underestimated the exponential nature of the growth of Science, and Technology.
When all else fails us, this will save us.
Does not seem, yet, to be much different than the Pink Sunset of the Bush Years.
ReplyDeleteA couple of points of regression, to the Clinton etas' tax rates, does not a gulag make.
An explosion of Federal debt, to be followed by inflation, a song we've all sung before.
If you choose to be an agent of the Federals, employing folk and taking responsilbility for their tax payments and health care insurance, that is your choice to make. Some of us stepped away from that responsibility without authority, long ago.
Welcome aboard, to those that follow suit.
Yes, Mr Obama sees himself as being as transformative as Mr Lincoln was. The Country survived Lincoln, it'll survive Obama, as well.
As the supporters of Team43 told US, long ago, the blame for the current failures of the Federals is still on the previous Administration, at least until September 11.
The Messiah Saved Me!
ReplyDeleteAs for felons voting and the authority of the individual States ...
ReplyDeleteSpeed limits are set by the various States, they are uniform, across the country. Time was, when they were not.
Some call that progress.
Long Live the Messiah!
ReplyDeleteThis headline falls firmly under the legacy of GWBush.
ReplyDeleteEconomy Shrinks At Staggering Rate
Challenges Loom Larger Than Feared With Sharpest Contraction Since 1982
By Annys Shin and Neil Irwin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, February 28, 2009
To True Believers, 'Rat, but even my dislike of Bush does not warp my perception to that extent.
ReplyDelete---
Freedom Is Slavery
The Markets are not Blind:
ReplyDeleteThey know a Marxist when they see one.
The problem is not the "market" doug.
ReplyDeleteIt is the systemic lack of profitability of the underlying companies. That the smoke has dissipated and the mirrors been left broken does not change the underlaying reality. The Bush expassion was not based upon real growth, but accounting gimmicks and magic tricks.
Price earnings ratios, they tell the real story, of the "market".
Yeah, markets never look to the future.
ReplyDeleteIn your World.
The Bush Mirage is responsible for step down A.
ReplyDeleteThe Marxist Promise,
step down B.
Shall we quibble numbers?
Kudlow is not always right.
ReplyDeleteCalling the Messiah's plan a war on business and the Middle Class is most assuredly right.
Watching Newt, I would say it is more a war on the lower class because of the Energy Taxes.
ReplyDeleteaka
"Carbon Credits"
Gingrich
ReplyDelete(the first 9 minutes is disgusting celebrity worship)
...Newt does a great job of eviscerating Bush as well as Obama.
"Bush/Obama Continuity of Policy"
We should give Clinton Full Credit for Welfare Reform.
(just for the sake of argument)
And Condemn DC for dismantling it.
Gingrich:
ReplyDelete"Bush Obama Bipartisan Big Spending Plan"
...Timmy Geithner at the controls for both.
American Solutions dot.com
ReplyDeleteObama/Ash Medical Plan Will Shut Down Hospitals
ReplyDeleteAfter a lifetime of not thinking much about it, this is the conclusion I've come to as well--
ReplyDeleteI don't believe there is any pattern at all to historical movements.
and
In the sense in which Santayana uses the term 'history', not only does history not repeat itself. It doesn't even happen the first time.
Wise Sayings That Aren't
Maybe we can say the same kind of shit happens over and over, as in a fallen being makes the same mistakes in different circumstances.
"Shit Happens"
ReplyDeletesign in bar
"Same Kind of Shit Happens"
sign in another bar
obama reminds me of some of the bloggers at this site, words have no meaning, where...
ReplyDeletewithdrawal from Iraq = 50,000 troops that still provide U.S. force protection & targeted counterterrorism missions = no combat troops
desert rat, your Obama schtick is fairly pathetic at this point
Zero Attacks Charitable Giving
ReplyDeleteThis rightly ought to tick a lot of people off.
Ammo Shortage Hits USA
ReplyDeleteIt's true too. Wal-Mart was out of .38 last I checked, said they didn't know when they'd get any.
Obama has helped at least one industry.
Whether this is a bad omen or a good sign is hard to tell.
I don't remember anything like it in my lifetime anyway. There was a rush to buy certain rifles at the time of the last gun ban frenzy, but I don't recall a run on ammo, at least not of this magnitude.
Years and years ago I recall buying a box of .22 shells in Worley, Idaho. At that time there was some paperwork when buying ammo. The old boy started out on the form, then said "Fuck it, I didn't have to do this shit when I was your age", handed me the ammo and threw the forms in the trash.
" your Obama schtick is fairly pathetic at this point"
ReplyDelete---
Don't we give points for fairness?
...and now,
ReplyDeleteto present the "fairly pathetic"
Trophy,
Pat Sayjak!
Bobal,
ReplyDeleteSon relinquished $600 worth of Ammo when he sold his Desert Eagle back to his friend.
Wives' Rule!
...I didn't even get to fire it.
50 Caliber ain't eggxactly Ak Ammo.
ReplyDeleteWhether this is a bad omen or a good sign is hard to tell.
ReplyDelete---
One thing's for sure:
It's a hell of a lot more of an accurate indicator than anything coming out of DC.
I was looking at a .50 caliber rifle the other day at Black Sheep. Good Lord, big heavy sucker. $4,000 and some dollars, bolt action, tri-pod.
ReplyDeleteNot for plinking beer cans, or shooting ground squirrels.
I, actually, don't know what it's for.
Looked like you could knock over a small tree with that baby.
ReplyDeletePresident Obama on Tuesday night tapped Vice President Joseph Biden to lead "a tough, unprecedented oversight effort" to make sure the public's money is not wasted in any of the administration's multi-billion dollar reform and economic plans.
ReplyDeleteGood! What a relief. I was really worried some money might be wasted in the construction of the bullet train from LA to Vegas, 'The Desert Debtor'.
Now with Joe, and Harry too, overseeing things, I know the money will be well spent, the taxpayer will be well represented.
Bankers: Stop trashing us...
ReplyDelete"Mr. President, of the over 8,000 banks in this country, very few ever made a single subprime loan, and they did not engage in the highly leveraged activities that brought down Wall Street firms," Yingling said.
Yingling referred the president to statements made by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the powerful chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, in which he said that the toxic mortgage lending that sparked the current crisis was done by mortgage brokers and others not subject to the strict rules that govern commercial banks. "
Walk of life
ReplyDeleteWe cannot judge the future, only predict it.
ReplyDeleteThe past, though, that can be judged.
Many here and elsewhere held GWBush harmless in the 9-11 -01 Federal fiasco, since he had only just taken charge, a mere eight months before hand.
But those same folk want to hold Obama responsible for the results of Federal policiies that were a decade in the making. At least responsible for everything since September 2008.
That's fairly pathetic, truly.
Now I try to give the President of the United States the benefit of the doubt. Shit, gave GWBush a couple of years to prove himself inept, incompetent and failure at his self-assigned tasks.
I figure Obama gets at least 90 days, maybe more, before his actions can begin to take effect.
The trend line, on the cover of the USA Today, from yesterday, tells the tale. A solid line graph of Federal Spending, rising inexorably with each passing year.
Back through Ron Reagan they went, but it could have gone further, back to WWII and the Ike eveyone liked.
I do not see future economic ruin in returning to the tax rates that held sway during the Clinton era. There certainly were profits taken, even at a 20% capital gains rate.
A 4.5% increase in the top tax rate, not the end of capitalism, not by any means.
Now I do not support many of the new projects being funded. I oppose the way the TARP and the latest "Economic Recovery" legislation were processed through the Congress. But that was a bi-partisan waiving of procedure, to be sure. Something "HAD" to be done. And something was.
The title of thread says it is time to adapt to a "Washingtonian" Federally centric governemt. I'd say that if you are only adapting NOW, because of Obama, you've missed the boat.
I see some humor in the amazement of what the Federals are about to do. It was never about McCain and Obama, Obama had that wrapped early on. But the 44 Senators, loyal and true, that could have been achieved, if Jerry Wright had not been made the strawman stalking horse.
Said so at the time, say so now.
44 Senators, loyal and true, that's what was needed.
The GOP cannot find 38.
That is really, truly pathetic.
"if Jerry Wright had not been made the strawman stalking horse..."
ReplyDeleteExactly.
What's the big deal about an Anti-American, Racist, Hate Filled Nazi, anyhoo?
No big Whoops:
We're all guilty, right?
...FUCKING MORON!
Correction:
ReplyDeleteSelf-Satisfied, conceited, stupid motherfucking, Moron.
" I'd say that if you are only adapting NOW, because of Obama, you've missed the boat."
ReplyDelete---
Gee,
Dickhead:
My son did not go to
ONE DAY OF PUBLIC SCHOOL.
(to be indoctrinated into the madness)
I have not watched ONE MINUTE of the perverted shit you get off on.
(like Britney Spears as something other that a pathetic commentary on how SICK Motherfuckers like you and yours ARE!)
Bite Me!
other "THAN" a pathetic commentary...
ReplyDeleteWell we had higher tax rates in the time of Rooooos-velt, as dad called him.
ReplyDelete---
In the spirit of Deuces post I offer this about our Western Heritage, from Joseph Campbell- "The Flight of the Wild Gander:
--If a does not equal/ does equal x(the transcendant unknown) be taken as the formula of the Oriental, Buddhist-Vedantic order of experience, and a/R/x (a is related to x) the Levantine, Hebrew-Christian-Islamic, then aRb will represent the European, where b is not an assumed being or personality transcendent of temporality, but another phenomenal entity, like a; as were both Tristan and Isolt. The Greeks and Romans, the Celtic and Germanic peoples have generally tended to maintain a decent respect for the interests and value judgements of the empirical sphere of experience. And yet their perceptions have not been confined to this foreground view. There is more to aRb than meets the eye.
In the poet Gottfried's representation, for example, of the mystery of love, as symbolized particularily in the grotto chapel of the goddess Minne( remember Minnie Mouse?), something not a little like the Indian sabaja concept appears, when he writes that the young lovers, when they had drunk of the potion, "realized that there was between them just one mind, one heart, and one will....The sense of difference between them was gone." Through the influence of the potion of love, that is to say, a dimension had opened beyond the plane of time and space, wherein the two experienced themselves as one, though in the field of space and time they remained two--and not only two, but each as an individual irreplaceable, not at all (as in Coomaraswamy's formula) of no more significance for each other "than the gates of heaven for one who stands within." For according to the principle of amor, as opposed to that of agape and eros (which is simply a search of the genitals for one another), the particular person, the form and character of the individuation of perfection, continues to be of great moment, even of central concern, and "in every ethical sense" resepected. An appropriate formula for this mode of experience of the Love dimension, then, would be, where a is Tristan and b Isolt--
a does not/ does = x =equals/ does not equal b
while in the field of space and time, which is where that dimension is experience:
aRb
the experience of the x dimension(the transcendant) being a function of R.
continued...(this is what we should be fighting for, if we fight for anything)
Ron Reagan = Barrack Obambi
ReplyDeleteDesert Rat = SHIT!
You babble, Bobal,
ReplyDeleteI speak the truth!
Other "Strawmen"
ReplyDeleteRobert Byrde
George Wallace
David Duke
Up is Down
continuing on...
ReplyDeleteIn Gottfried's poem, tragedy follows the inability of the characters to reconcile love (Minne), on the one hand, and honor (Ere), on the other. Gottfried himself and his century were torn between the two. The Love Grotto in the dangerous forest represents the dimension of the depth of experience (x) and King Mark's Court, the world in which that experience has to be borne. Holiness, the ideal, and intimations of eternity, are focused in the cave, which, though described as if in Cornwall, is not a historical place, but a shared psychological condition: "I have know that cave," states our poet, "since I was eleven years old, yet have never set foot in Cornwall."
*reference cited to 'Black Elk Speaks'
(I call this good)
Though himself probalby a cleric, and certainly learned in theology, Gottfried is openly disdainful of current Christian doctrines....He prays for inspiration not to the Trinity and the saints but to Apollo and the Muses; shows the destiny of his characters to have been governed neither by their own free will nor by God but by the Goddess of the Grotto, Minne, "Love", and employs the very language of Saint Bernard in celebration of the eucharist to recomment to his readers the lovers in adultery on their blessed crystalline bed.
We read their life, we read their death,
And to us it is sweet as bread.
Their life, their death, are our bread.
So lives their life, so lives their death,
So live they still and yet are dead
And their death is the bread of the living
be continued...
NEWSPEAK RULES!
ReplyDeleteDesert Rat for Tsar!
Doug = Tristan
ReplyDeleteSonia = Isolt
All of Hawaii is the Crystaline Bed
'twas for that, you escaped King Mark's Court
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete:-)
ReplyDelete"I have know that cave," states our poet, "since I was eleven years old, yet have never set foot in Cornwall."
ReplyDeleteThis is excellence.
What if he was? So what?
ReplyDeleteWe cannot judge the future, only predict it.
ReplyDelete==
The future is to be made, not to be predicted.
The future is to be fucked by Green Dentists.
ReplyDelete...whoever wanted Green Teeht?
"Teeth"
ReplyDelete'Rat's Madness is contagious!
continuing further...
ReplyDeleteChiefly, Gottfried's inspiration had sprung from his recognition in the Celtic legend, compounded of Pietish, Irish, Welsh, Cornish, and Bretan elements, of an order of poetic imagery congenial to his own mode of experience. It was a legend rooted, like all Arthurian romance, in the most ancient native European mythological tradition--that of the old megalithic, bronze-age goddes of many names, mother of the gods and the immanent power of all nature: the earth, not as dust (Genesis 3:19) but as the source, the living body out of which all things proceed and to which they return at peace. Moreover, tht Gottfried knew of whom he was speaking when he wrote of the Goddess Minne is evident in his statement (among others) that her chapel, the grotto, la fossiure a la gent amant, had been designed and built for lovers by giants in pre-Christian times. The Grail legend, also, had sprung from that pre-Christian base. However, whereas in the Tristan legend the tragical theme is of a dissociation between the sphere of nature and society, sincerity and religion, the timeless forest and the time-bound court, love and life, in the Grail legend the leading theme is of the healing of that breach; a renewal of the Waste Land of the Christian social order through a miracle of uncorrupted nature, the integrity of a noble, resolute heart.
I call this excellence.
continued...
...whoever wanted Green Teeht?
ReplyDelete==
Green tea is good for you. Drink up!
In short, the oil/car/military mafia is incompatible with small government and right wing principles. The Republicans need to recreate themselves as Green Libertarians, if they ever hope to present a coherent political platform to challenge the Leftist global imperialist cabal.
ReplyDelete...waiting to see if we have a bar fight here, or if Doug is just off in a corner, shadow boxing himself...
ReplyDeleteIn short, the oil/car/military mafia is incompatible with small government and right wing principles. The Republicans need to recreate themselves as Green Libertarians, if they ever hope to present a coherent political platform to challenge the Leftist global imperialist cabal.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, mat puts bar mates to sleep with his rambling cant...
zzzzzzzzzzzz...
ammo shortage hits the U.S. -
ReplyDeleteGo to your local gun shop and ask them the wait time if you want to buy an AR based rifle - colt, bushmaster, DPMS, or RRA
the manufacturers can't make them fast enough
Further we read in our primer--
ReplyDeleteThe earliest extant version of this most profound European legend is the Perceval, Li Contes del Graal (c. 1181-1191) of Chretien de Troyues, the court poet of the Countess Marie de Champagne. Chretien was apparently a clegyman, a canon of the Abby of Saint-Loup. The story had been assigned to him, he declares, by Count Phillip of Flanders, who had presented him with a book in which the legend was contained. But he left his poem unfinished. Like all his work, it is fluent and charming. However he here shows little sense for the import of the symbols and may have felt that they were against his grain.
...
The primary source of the Grail symbol, on the other hand, was the vessel of ambrosial drink of the Celtic sea-god, Manannan. A second sphere of association was with the sacramental bowls of the late Classical Orphic sects that were brought into northern Europe during the Gallo-Roman period and which, though indeed equivalent in a way to the Christian Chalice of the Redeemer's Blood, referred to a mystery rather of inward illumination than of reconciliation with an angry god. And one of the most impressive things about the great Parsival of the master poet Wolfram von Eschenbach is the way in which the author linked his central symbol to both of these early contexts, the Celtic and the Classical, while at the same time suggesting the relevance of its legend to the cure of the malaise of his time. In his work, the Grail is not a vessel at all but a stone, "The Wish of Paradise", named "lapsit exillis", which, as we read in a late alchemical work, the Rosarium Philosophorum was a name of the philosphers stone. This alchemical Grail, Wolfram declares, was carried from heaven to earth by the angels who had remained neutral when Satan turned against God and the war in heaven ensued. They had been those, so to say, "in the middle", " twixt black and white". But such a stone, brought down by angels, suggest the Ka'aba of islam. Thus Wolfram makes an explicit effort to assimilate to his symbol islamic as well as Christian themes. The Grail, for him, was a cult-transcending talisman of cross-cultural associations, pointing to an image of man (The Wish of Paradise--The Supernormal Image-
The
Elementary Idea) released from ecclesiastical authority, perfected in his nature through his own personal adventure, serving the world not through servitude but through mastery, and through love fulfilled, not raveaged and destroyed.
to be continued....but, I'd vote for that.
With all due respect for so many things, to all our southern neighbors, the mythologies of the old northern ways made much sense, and might guide us well, if we had the sense to follow them.
ReplyDeletePut simply, I wish to say,
ReplyDelete"Fuck King Marks Court"
Go your own way.
zzzzzzzzzzzz...
ReplyDelete==
That sounds like an Exxon Mobil board executive.
I can't understand that, you can't understand anything, when one is asleep.
ReplyDeleteWhy does it take twelve or ten or whatever the number is, to have a meeting, when you really can only do it by oneself?
No one can help you, not even your friends.
On the death bed, the synagogue will do you no good. Remembrance might.
Scraping Bottom
ReplyDeletehttp://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/03/canadian-oil-sands/kunzig-text
We're going to the Lionel Hampton Fest...later
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awJTX1NRx8s
ReplyDeleteWell, doug, it seems that you are not amongst the ill-prepared. So that particular comment would not have applied to your suntanned hide.
ReplyDeleteWhile those going to their local gun store for a new AR varient certainly are, ill prepared. If a renewal of the "Assault Rifle" ban leaves you unarmed, that is being ill prepared.
Reagan was the first President to publicly speak of drawing down the nuclear arsenal, to zero. So that can be the baseline of conservatism. All the subsequent Presidents have reduced the number of warheads the US maintains. Conservatives all. Maybe Obama will continue the trend, betcha he does, because it is a conservative trend that will continue.
The Federal government has grown since the end of WWII, even during the Reagan years. The Department of Education was not disbanded, even then.
That Mr Reagan provided the US with a different rhetoric, is to be sure. Did the tax cuts improve the economy, surely. As a similar approach worked for JFK. Both were cutting the top margial rates from levels far higher than the Clinton era rates.
Indeed as the Pottstown Mercury tells US
In 1963, Kennedy asked Congress for an across-the-board tax cut that would reduce the top income-tax rate from 91 percent to 65 percent. ...
So, if the economy can 'boom' with a top rate of 65% it ought to sizzle and explode at 39.6%.
Now Mr Reagan got the rates cut, even more than JFK.
During Reagan's tenure, income tax rates of the top personal tax bracket dropped from 70% to 28% in 7 years
But Mr Clinton, Bush 40 and Bush 42 all found that the 28% was to low to maximize revenues while promoting optimum growth. All three supported tax rates on top income earners of above 34%.
Now there is certainly room to revamp the entire Federal tax system. This could be done in a massive overhaul or piecemeal, as it's been done, historically.
It is a really ripe area for political debate, but never seems to "catch on" with the electorate.
The IRS Code continues to grow, special favors doled out and the high income earners continue to be sheltered by the highly regressive FICA limits on taxable income.
America, Love it or Leave it
You're leaving it, right?
ReplyDeleteChun King Rules Court!
ReplyDeleteCitigroup: World's Worst Investment to Get Even Worse
ReplyDeleteLosers double down.
That's the classic trading rule which the USA is about to violate in an enormous way. According to trading maven [1] Dennis Gartman, one should "never, ever, ever, under any circumstance, add to a losing position."
And yet that is what we are about to do.
To review: Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson made a terrible investment on behalf of the taxpayers by purchasing a 7.8% stake in Citigroup (C) for an initial $25 billion dollars. He further put the US on the hook by guaranteeing against 90% of future losses on $301 billion in assets. Subsequently, we (the taxpayers) injected another $20 billion dollars.
At the time, Citigroup had a market cap of about ~$50 billion dollars. Today, its worth ~$13 billion.
So for about 100% of the market value of Citi, plus insurance guarantees worth of as much as 500% of its value (~$275 billion), we got less than 1/10 of a company that in total was worth 1/5 of our investment.
Pretty good deal, eh?
That $45 billion dollar stake now has a market value of just over a billion.
And, its about to get even worse.
NYT:
"Under the terms of the deal, the Treasury Department has agreed to convert up to $25 billion of its preferred stock investment in Citigroup into common stock. It will convert its stake to the extent that Citigroup can persuade private investors, including several big foreign government investment funds, to do so alongside the government, two people close to the deal said."
What does this do for us? Well, the higher investment stake creates an enormous incentive for John Q. Public to continue to pour money into Citi, regardless of valuation. The inept banking giant then has access to infinite amount of capital, courtesy of you, the 1040 filers.
Its just another example of why these insolvent banks should be nationalized, or for you squeemish free marketers, FDIC mandated, pre-packaged Chapter 11, government funded reorganization.
If Obama continues to listen to the god-awful advice of Larry Summers and Tim Geithner, he will doom his presidency, and finsh marginally ahead of George W. Bush on the list of worst presidents.
This is not change we an believe in . . .
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/02/worlds-worst-investment-to-get-worse/print/
http://snipurl.com/cuadw
==
Only one thing wrong with this assessment. It does not take into account the CDS waiting to be triggered.
I'm still along for the ride, doug.
ReplyDeleteSeems that the country is leaving me, much more so than I am leaving it.
But then America extends from Tierra del Fuego all the way up to the Artic, Ill be somewhere, in America. No Asian or Polynesian paradises for me.
ReplyDeleteElijah said...
ammo shortage hits the U.S. -
Go to your local gun shop and ask them the wait time if you want to buy an AR based rifle - colt, bushmaster, DPMS, or RRA
the manufacturers can't make them fast enough
I love the "common use" provision of the HELLER decision.
Remington started making an AR15 gun because they have been selling like hotcakes for years.
Good luck with the new ban, Bambi and Holder.
Fuckheads.
Recall that low interest loan, the one that Northern Trust put together for Senator Obama?
ReplyDeleteSeems that as a loss leader it worked out well, for both Obama and Northern Trust
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama would raise taxes on the rich, but as an investor, he seems eager to cut his own.
By Tim Middleton
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama wants to raises taxes on the wealthy, but as a member of that social class, he isn't eager to fall victim himself. He has invested at least $1 million in a fund that yields tax-free income.
The Illinois senator's latest campaign-finance disclosure shows that his investments have nearly tripled in the past two years to as much as $7.4 million, and his income in 2007 surged past $4 million, not counting his government salary.
Obama reported accounts with Morgan Chase Private Client Asset Management, an elite firm that deals only with the rich, as well as a host of retirement accounts, some in the name of his wife, Michelle.
Because the required disclosure forms allow candidates to report their assets in ranges, such as $250,001 to $500,000, Obama's net worth at the end of 2007 -- not including his home and other nonfinancial assets -- was pegged between $2,022,016 and $7,356,000.
Tax-free income
By far the largest account, valued between $1 million and $5 million, was in the Northern Municipal Money Market Fund. It generated tax-free interest in 2007 of between $15,001 and $50,000.
Northern Trust "has built a well-deserved reputation around being the banker for the überrich," says Andrew Richards, a Morningstar equity analyst. In a report on the Chicago company's stock, he writes, "The firm estimates it serves roughly 20% of the richest families profiled annually in the Forbes 400."
It will not be a ban, bob, but a fee or a tax.
ReplyDeleteJust like they do with automatic weapons.
The fee could easily be north of $1,500 per weapon. More if the costs of the FBI background search are factored into the fee.
Totally justifiable and legal.
If the weapons are not already in your closet, you're ill prepared and a patsy.
... his wealth has ballooned, notably due to sales of two books, "Dreams From My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope." In 2007, he collected royalties of $815,971 on the former and $3,278,719 on the latter.
ReplyDeleteAccording to an attachment to his report, Obama received an advance in 2005 of $1.9 million for those books plus an untitled children's book, which has not yet been published. The attachment says that $200,000 of that was pledged to charity.
The royalty payments received in 2007 are in excess of the advance, reflecting robust sales.
Obama's Senate salary in 2007 was $165,200, rising this year to $169,300, in line with core inflation of 2.5%.
The Obamas also reported owning U.S. Treasury notes valued between $500,001 and $1 million.
As for Jerry Wright, doug, using him as a strawman and a stalking horse for Obama DID NOT WORK!
ReplyDeleteIt was bad strategy.
Most Americans do not give a shit about the preacher someone else listens to.
Evidenced by Obama's election.
It is understandable, that you have lost touch with America, as it is today, cutting yourself off from the cultural entertainment the resonates so well amongst real Americans. Expanded cable television.
And by putting 2,500 miles of ocean between yourself and continental life, you clearly prefer being back to nature, with water heated by that Polynesian sun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgkMSsCyhfc
ReplyDeleteSo long, Sparks. And God bless.
real American
ReplyDelete==
That would be Shamu and her 300lb lard ass waiting for your scruffy ass and automatic plastic pistol at McDonald's golden arches. Doug, you Polynesian pollyanna.
"As for Jerry Wright, doug, using him as a strawman and a stalking horse for Obama DID NOT WORK!
ReplyDeleteIt was bad strategy.
Most Americans do not give a shit about the preacher someone else listens to.
Evidenced by Obama's election.
It is understandable, that you have lost touch with America, as it is today, cutting yourself off from the cultural entertainment the resonates so well amongst real Americans. Expanded cable television.
And by putting 2,500 miles of ocean between yourself and continental life, you clearly prefer being back to nature, with water heated by that Polynesian sun."
---
yeppers,
Now all I need to do is find a way to turn that Sonia fantasy into reality.
The perverted bastard posing as her sure won't do the trick.
Trish,
ReplyDeleteCan you translate Mat's latest passive-aggressive outburst for me?
...I gotta take a bike ride.
(Massive CO2 Footprint...
don't tell Mat!)
Thanks
ReplyDelete(I said it on the inhale, so it is as Carbon Free Pure as Linear's Winter Snow)
:)
ReplyDeleteThere you go, Doug.
(No need to bother Trish, she's busy with her casserole).
I figured she was on one of her porcelain thrones, discarding carbon-laden waste.
ReplyDeleteThe Messiah is a TRANSFORMATIONAL leader.
ReplyDeleteWho else would have thot of a SHIT TAX?
PBUBarry
WTF?
ReplyDelete...that's gonna become the byword for this era.
Genetic offshoots will become known as the
ReplyDelete"WTF Generation"
That's just a euphemism for her casserole cooking.
ReplyDeleteI was fortunate enough to be one of the
ReplyDelete"What Me Worry?"
Clan.
That's not what Joe the Plumber calls it.
ReplyDeleteIs Buffett Getting Margin Calls?
ReplyDeleteFebruary 24, 2009
Perhaps it is nothing more than wild speculation at this point, but rumors are popping up on the street that Warren Buffett may have received margin calls related to derivative/option investments. Yes, these are the same type of investment that Mr. Buffett has termed, "financial weapons of mass destruction." As crazy as this may sound, there is obviously something going badly wrong as Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) is down over 20% in 2009 and many of the individual positions within the portfolio have been outright devastated.
To add insult to injury, Mr. Buffett has recently made many ill-timed investments that are wreaking havoc within his portfolio, which is down a whopping 45% over the past 12 months. If you recall, back in May 2008, Mr. Buffett was convinced that the credit crisis was coming to an end when he proclaimed to the world on Bloomberg Television, "`The worst of the crisis in Wall Street is over." Unfortunately, he put his money where his mouth was and decided to add positions to the portfolio and several have dropped more than 50% since. That is not the only problem though.
http://www.thedisciplinedinvestor.com/blog/2009/02/24/is-buffett-getting-margin-calls/
http://snipurl.com/cukct
Fuck You!
ReplyDeleteYou remind me of that Concert by his nephew that the wife shamed me out of.
Feels like steppin on a pop top.
"Mr. Buffett was convinced that the credit crisis was coming to an end when he proclaimed to the world on Bloomberg Television, "`The worst of the crisis in Wall Street is over."
ReplyDelete---
Sounds like that Chart-Driven Bullshit you emitted yesterday.
What will the IRS call the Carbon Fart Emitter tax?
ReplyDeleteTaxpayer Paid Party at Northern Trust! Concert and Drinks…
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thedisciplinedinvestor.com/blog/2009/02/24/party-at-northern-trust-concert-and-drinks/
http://snipurl.com/cuks8
==
Surreal.
Sounds like that Chart-Driven Bullshit you emitted yesterday.
ReplyDelete==
But I made sure to qualify it (as BS).
There's a difference.
I would love to have an arsenal of old heat-seekers to take down every Hypocritical MFing politician flying around in a Jet at our expense.
ReplyDeleteStarting w/you know who.
...I musta missed the qualification.
ReplyDeleteIf so, I apologize.
If not:
It's your turn.
Gotta take that ride.
ReplyDeleteIt's already down in the seventies.
GD Freezing F...... Climate Change!
"My guess is, this means we've made a bottom."
ReplyDelete==
If that's not a qualifier, I don't know what is.
Video: SEC Missed Another One
ReplyDeleteIt is beyond comprehension that the SEC is unable to follow up and clamp down on massive fraud. Listen, it isn't like this is a two-bit hoodlum scheme to rip-off $100,000. We are talking BILLIONS and BILLIONS here…
http://www.thedisciplinedinvestor.com/blog/2009/02/21/video-sec-missed-another-one/
http://snipurl.com/culky
==
Surreal.
The Fish Rot's from the Head:
ReplyDelete41, Clinton, 43,
Luckily, the Transformational One will save us.
...him and Holder, that is.
Holder while I Raper.
I need a Self-Peddling Bike.
ReplyDelete...or Keyboard-Powered.
What are you selling?
ReplyDeleteDon't tell me it's bike pedals.
ReplyDeleteUsed Girl's Bicycle Seat-Covers.
ReplyDeleteThey better smell like roses.
ReplyDeletePink Roses!
ReplyDeleteYou'll have to ask Trish about that.
ReplyDelete...later...
"My guess is, this means we've made a bottom."
ReplyDelete---
That's the kind of Bedrock Data that drives my investment portfolio.
(aka the weekly allowance my wife doles out)
A Life, Interrupted
ReplyDeleteHannah Emily Upp vanished on a jog. She was pulled out of New York Harbor nearly three weeks later, alive.
---
"she was told that she was suffering from dissociative fugue, a rare form of amnesia that causes people to forget their identity, suddenly and without warning, and can last from a few hours to years."
...I was thinking of that as a survior's strategy, now I'd be found out by Holder Quick-Like.
“Who was I before?
ReplyDeleteWho was I then — is that part of me?
Who am I now?”
…the story of my life.
189. buddy larsen:
ReplyDelete"well, the worst anybody could say of O pre jan 20 was that he was a pure politician –similar to Hillary in that respect –and knowing that no pure politician would work against himself in service to any ideology, we could count on his doing the right things –even from the left margin of the right things –for the country and the economy.
but now we have these weird prolongations –when time is costing so dearly in terms of permanent damage to national wealth and national security and national social compact –such as leaving this mark-to-market (dead from 1938 to 2007) in place until as of now nationalization of banking is a near fait accompli. state capitalism is fascism; we can only hope now that it’s leaders’ whims will lean toward peace.
On umemployment, we all understand how it’s part and parcel of housing and lending, yet mark-to-market without any plausible rationale has frozen lending (on ‘book’ losses rather than ‘cash’ losses, which are low –banks have plentiful lending cash), which has frozen housing, which has forced the dynamic sectors to shed capacity, aka create unemployment. That this sorry mess is not totally innocent (meme: “Geithner is like totally working 24/7 but he’s understaffed due to the vetting caused by those tax problems, etcetera etcetera) was just revealed in the budget proposals, the elimination of the mortgage deduction, the exact wrong thing to do at this point in time when you are (supposedely) trying to pull private capital INTO the market rather than push it OUT.
This goes along with the general raising of taxes in the teeth of a worsening recession, exactly the wrong thing to do at this point in time. this is so blatantly a departure from all common capitalist sense that it’s crashing the markets to lower and lower depths, and making economic recovery farther away and of lesser power. there’s no debate on these assertions, they’re the historical record, and they’re the way the bats are gonna keep running.
So what gives? Are we Reds now? That was NOT what O ran on. he ran as a ‘liberal’, not as a marxist. This is fraud. How can it end any way but badly?"
NEW YORK (AP) - "This time, health care stocks bore the brunt of investors' wrath. Health insurers and drug companies, some of the better performers on Wall Street lately, led the market lower Thursday after the White House proposed cutting payments to private insurance plans.
ReplyDeleteThe Obama administration's $3.55 trillion budget plan for 2010 includes cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Private insurance plans serving Medicare seniors would take the biggest hit, but hospitals, drug manufacturers and home health agencies also face cuts.
As investors became aware of the impact that the budget, if enacted, could have on the companies, they turned against what had been one of the strongest industries in the stock market recently. Market watchers had been looking to health care to help lead the market's recovery along with other recession-resistant industries like consumer staples."
Some of us have been on the Mark to Market page for so long the ink has faded from the sunlight.
ReplyDeleteThe entire purpose of the "Crisis" was to transform the private bankng system, to further Nationalize and Centralize the economic authority and power in the New World Order.
mat told us, the other day or week, that Mark to Market was "going away", he was wrong.
Unfreaking believable!
ReplyDeleteOBama orders $20M tax payer dollars to immigrate Hamas Refugees to the USA
By executive order, President Barack Obama has ordered the expenditure of $20.3 million in migration assistance to the Palestinian refugees and conflict victims in Gaza . The “presidential determination” which allows hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States was signed on January 27 and appeared in the Federal Register on February 4.
Few on Capitol Hill took note that the order provides a free ticket replete with housing and food allowances to individuals who have displayed their overwhelming support of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the parliamentary election of January 2006.
A review of Barack Obama’s most recent actions since he was inaugurated a month ago:
- His first call to any head of state as president was to Mahmoud Abbas, leader of Fatah party in the Palestinian territory.
ReplyDelete- His first one-on-one interview with any news organization was with Al Arabia television.
- He ordered Guantanamo Bay closed and all military trials of detainees halted.
- He ordered all overseas CIA interrogation centers closed.
- He withdrew all charges against the masterminds behind the USS Cole and 9/11.
- Now we learn that he is allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refuges to move to and live in the US at American taxpayer expense.
- To verify for yourself: www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2009-02-04-E9-2488
Seems the police chase is winding down, doug.
ReplyDeleteWe'll go bust some heads in Afghanistan, to make up for it.
Gotta love the regal tilt of the head.
ReplyDelete(and the Dead White Guy in the background.)
Combative Obama vows to fight for his budget.
buddy larsen:
ReplyDeleteLINK
Check this out guys.
How do you make a query like that?
Henrietta Hughes Scam Artist And Looter, Wants More Of Your Tax Dollars
ReplyDeleteHenrietta Hughes asked a question at a Townhall Meeting and gets the "Joe the Plumber" type expose of her life.
ReplyDeleteSeems fair enough.
There are lots of folk that quit claim their property to their children, for tax benefits and such other governmantal benefits that acrue from a state of personal poverty. Why even bob suggested it, a day or two ago.
Non-revocable Living Trusts provide a bit more control over the assets than quit claiming them.
While still removing the assets from your balance sheet.
Yeah, the MSM and the Govt really came down on her didn't it?
ReplyDeleteLooks like a professional scam artist to me.
...probly come out like mother Teresa to you!
---
Property Records Of Henrietta Hughes Sweetness & Light
This commenter goes into quite a few different scams:
SSILargestFraudUS
February 24, 2009 at 3:57 pm
OK, LISTEN UP Folks, I’m going to tell you exactly HOW Henrietta Hughes did this.
I know, because of a tiny mountain community in very far-Northern California, where I live, and did the US Census 2000, as well as I know the people around here and “How” they do exactly what Henrietta Hughes. So here goes and it will be a REAL EYE OPENER!
What's the point of bringing up Bob!
ReplyDeleteHis wife's a member of ACORN, remember?
Obama To Pay My Mortgage!
ReplyDeleteThe entire purpose of the "Crisis" was to transform the private bankng system, to further Nationalize and Centralize the economic authority and power in the New World Order.
ReplyDeletePure Rat.
The bankers and everybody else have gotten together and schemed their own demise.
Every last thing is a conspiracy.
I don't know how you sleep at night.