It's 2:00 am on Tuesday, May 3 here. Fox has been exhaustively repeating -- I mean reporting -- on the US Attorney General's middle-of-the-night announcement that they've arrested a US citizen with a Pakistani background for planting the exploding SUV in Times Square on Saturday night. Saw parts of AG Hold'em's statement. He seems about as braindead as Janet Napolitano, who seems to have such a hard time staying awake. Thank God for the NYPD. Hold'em suggested that Faisal Shazzam! (shades of Gomer Pyle) or whatever the arrested's name is, is actually a... well... a... gulp... "terrorist." He's trying to kill Americans.
OMG! Someone call the police!
So Fox is waking up all their commentators and reporters asking them why Hold'em is making this announcement in the middle of the night.
Apparently Hold'em wants to impress us all that the White House is finally convinced that "terrorists" truly do exist.
Do ya think? Next they'll be claiming that Iran is seriously developing an atom bomb. (Abracadabrajab was haranguing about that all day at the UN, but I'm sure the Comrade will just charm the pants off him and get him to change his mind about wiping Israel off the face of the earth.)
Perhaps, like Van Jones, right up until this moment, Hold'em and the rest of the merry marxists thought it really was George Bush who blew up the Twin Towers in a major power grab. After all, they probably would have.
But no... Hey, maybe there really is an al-Qaeda trying to kill Americans. Or a Taliban, or someone. Spooky.
What a bummer, huh? Maybe they better lock the guy up, what do you think?
Shazzam! was arrested at JFK airport as he was boarding a plane for Dubai. Oh dear, hope they didn't do any profiling in tracking this guy down. Maybe he looks like an Middle Easterner. Oh-oh -- there goes any chance of conviction at trial. I mean, you don't want to actually suggest that a Middle Eastern-looking person would be involved in anything like al-Qaeda or the Taliban. We must be fair. Hope they searched a few Swedes and Icelanders while they were at it.
They did read Shazzam! his rights. Think they'll maybe question him? No... better get him a lawyer. Maybe from Hold'em's former law firm doing their fair share of pro bono work. They seem to sympathize with people who are somehow vaguely connected to "man-made disasters." Especially when they happen in the United States.
What a damn circus, know what I mean?
And again, thank God for the NYPD. Deep in my heart, I don't believe the feds had anything to do with it.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Louisiana hit again
Poor Louisiana. The oil spill looks like a big and long-lasting mess.
Just wish I could believe it was all accidental, coming so closely on the heels of the Comrade's oh-so-generous announcement that he would "allow" people to think about drilling in the USA. So big of you, Comrade, to bless the obvious necessity. But who really needs you, anyway?
Anyone but me wondering if the Comrade counts himself among the number of those who have "made enough money"? Exactly how much is "enough," Comrade? I'm sure you have all the answers. And I'm sure you need much more money than most other people, being a step above all of us unwashed proletariat, right?
Look, it's late. I'm tired. I'm oh so tired of the crap coming out of Washington. Specifically the White House.
Worried about America and genuinely afraid of the underhanded and power-grabbing tactics of this regime.
And I can picture very clearly the scene from last Monday: Carol Brownose, David Axelgrease, and Ram Emanuel, all in black, faces smeared with camo paint, paddling a small rubber boat into the pitch black of the Gulf at midnight, and all of them wielding Bic lighters. The waves lap against the sides of the boat. The half moon disguises their tedious but determined progress toward the targeted oil platform....
Is this the Reichstag Fire yet? Are the buttheads still trying to sell crap-n-tax? Or trying to resurrect it?
It would be so nice to be able to trust someone in government again. Or at least trust that they're merely stupid, rather than stupid and evil.
And why did the Republicans decide to allow debate on the terrible dem financial regulation bill? Do the Republicans honestly believe that they can make some difference in it? Or, for that matter, that they can regulate better?
Funny... Happened across two of the three debates the Brits have been having for their upcoming election. This involves three parties: Conservative, Liberal, and Labor. Gordon Brown, current P.M., is Labor. David Cameron is Conservative, and there's this other guy trying to act like Obama who's the Liberal. He's a good speaker, young and enthusiastic, and a total socialist loony. In England, socialism is pretty acceptable and accepted. After all, they had George Bernard Shaw and John Maynard Keynes.
It's rather horrible listening to the debate. They discuss how they will carve up the U.K., what kinds of benefits their subjects will get, how much they'll have to pay in taxes, etc. And the people -- the subjects -- just sit there and take it in stride. They're in total compliance, but through most of their history, they always have been. Sort of starved into submission.
They don't have a Constitution like ours -- that is, written -- and I'm not overly impressed with the Magna Carta, though I guess it was a start. It was possibly the first thing written in Europe that tried to limit the powers of a monarch.
Anyway, thought it was interesting that the Conservative is in the lead in the polls. He would not be "conservative" in the USA, but for England I guess it's a start.
Also read somewhere that England is having tea parties -- I mean like ours, but rather more civilized. And they might actually involve the drinking of tea. Anyone else see any irony in that?
Got in a discussion with some Brits once about politics. You know, it was the USA that ruined the Empire via lend-lease in the early days of WWII, he said. OK. Like they could keep all their colonies and defeat Hitler at the same time. England might have done it, though. All of England is about the size of Illinois, and look what kind of an impact the Brits have had over history.
Then this other Brit asked if I knew whether or not it's true that Americans mostly prefers coffee to tea because of events in Boston Harbor. It's a possibility. Also, coffee is grown in South America while tea came from China. That might have had something to do with it, too.
Anyway, I need some sleep.
And I stand with Steven Hawking: I don't believe the aliens are friendly and want to help us. I think it's probably more like that Twilight Zone episode, "To Serve Man." It's a cook book!
Just wish I could believe it was all accidental, coming so closely on the heels of the Comrade's oh-so-generous announcement that he would "allow" people to think about drilling in the USA. So big of you, Comrade, to bless the obvious necessity. But who really needs you, anyway?
Anyone but me wondering if the Comrade counts himself among the number of those who have "made enough money"? Exactly how much is "enough," Comrade? I'm sure you have all the answers. And I'm sure you need much more money than most other people, being a step above all of us unwashed proletariat, right?
Look, it's late. I'm tired. I'm oh so tired of the crap coming out of Washington. Specifically the White House.
Worried about America and genuinely afraid of the underhanded and power-grabbing tactics of this regime.
And I can picture very clearly the scene from last Monday: Carol Brownose, David Axelgrease, and Ram Emanuel, all in black, faces smeared with camo paint, paddling a small rubber boat into the pitch black of the Gulf at midnight, and all of them wielding Bic lighters. The waves lap against the sides of the boat. The half moon disguises their tedious but determined progress toward the targeted oil platform....
Is this the Reichstag Fire yet? Are the buttheads still trying to sell crap-n-tax? Or trying to resurrect it?
It would be so nice to be able to trust someone in government again. Or at least trust that they're merely stupid, rather than stupid and evil.
And why did the Republicans decide to allow debate on the terrible dem financial regulation bill? Do the Republicans honestly believe that they can make some difference in it? Or, for that matter, that they can regulate better?
Funny... Happened across two of the three debates the Brits have been having for their upcoming election. This involves three parties: Conservative, Liberal, and Labor. Gordon Brown, current P.M., is Labor. David Cameron is Conservative, and there's this other guy trying to act like Obama who's the Liberal. He's a good speaker, young and enthusiastic, and a total socialist loony. In England, socialism is pretty acceptable and accepted. After all, they had George Bernard Shaw and John Maynard Keynes.
It's rather horrible listening to the debate. They discuss how they will carve up the U.K., what kinds of benefits their subjects will get, how much they'll have to pay in taxes, etc. And the people -- the subjects -- just sit there and take it in stride. They're in total compliance, but through most of their history, they always have been. Sort of starved into submission.
They don't have a Constitution like ours -- that is, written -- and I'm not overly impressed with the Magna Carta, though I guess it was a start. It was possibly the first thing written in Europe that tried to limit the powers of a monarch.
Anyway, thought it was interesting that the Conservative is in the lead in the polls. He would not be "conservative" in the USA, but for England I guess it's a start.
Also read somewhere that England is having tea parties -- I mean like ours, but rather more civilized. And they might actually involve the drinking of tea. Anyone else see any irony in that?
Got in a discussion with some Brits once about politics. You know, it was the USA that ruined the Empire via lend-lease in the early days of WWII, he said. OK. Like they could keep all their colonies and defeat Hitler at the same time. England might have done it, though. All of England is about the size of Illinois, and look what kind of an impact the Brits have had over history.
Then this other Brit asked if I knew whether or not it's true that Americans mostly prefers coffee to tea because of events in Boston Harbor. It's a possibility. Also, coffee is grown in South America while tea came from China. That might have had something to do with it, too.
Anyway, I need some sleep.
And I stand with Steven Hawking: I don't believe the aliens are friendly and want to help us. I think it's probably more like that Twilight Zone episode, "To Serve Man." It's a cook book!
Friday, April 30, 2010
The myth of America
Watched the History Channel's "The Story of Us," at least the episode on the American Revolution. It's a series. I wonder how many episodes. I missed the first one, and it seems they entirely skipped over the French & Indian War's role in laying the groundwork for the Revolution.
Oh well. I don't think the series is targeted at hardcore history buffs. It seems intended to inspire. It hits all the major cliches -- "The shot heard 'round the world," Paul Revere's "The British are coming" (try saying that like you never heard it before), and the miserable hardship of Valley Forge.
The series also seems to pay particular attention to the number of blacks involved in colonial America -- not only as slaves, but the freemen of Boston -- and noted that Von Steuben was gay. I didn't know he was gay. I have a copy of his drill manual, though.
So what is this series all about? Reconciling US history with political correctness?
I don't mean to be harsh or overly critical, though. The first man who died in the Revoluion was a black mechanic, Crispus Attucks, killed in the "Boston Massacree." And I have no problem with Von Steuben being gay. Do believe his drill manual was used up to an including the beginning of the Civil War in 1861. And possibly throughout the Civil War. The drill and approved conventions never did quite catch up to the innovations introduced during the Civil War, like really effective skirmishers and snipers armed with rifles, the use of railroads for logistics, cavalry with breach-loaded, repeating Spencers and Henrys, and telegraphic communications. Not to mention the iron-clads, land mines, and trench warfare.
Anyway.... "The Story of Us" appears to want to be inspiring, mainly. But they really kind of glossed over the whole idea behind the Revolution. They did quote the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" thing from the Declaration of Independence, and Newt Gingrich, as a commentator, noted that individual rights were, for the first time, claimed as coming from God rather than the government, and were "inalienable," or impossible to take away. And that's about it, as far as philosophy goes.
Maybe that's supposed to be enough. But it's really more myth now than reality in the USA.
In the ads for upcoming episodes, or maybe just an ad from sponsor Bank of America, a whole bunch of people from different backgrounds stand up and say "freedom" in different contexts. Like that's what it's all about.
That is what's all about. Or that's what it used to be all about. But I wonder if the word "freedom" has any real meaning anymore, or if it's just become some kind of nonsensical mantra for most people. Now it seems many citizens are much more concerned about getting their one-kind-or-another welfare check on time, getting surplus cheese or whatever, and complying with the beast-of-burden model of being forced to shoulder the expense of non-citizens who don't know anything about the USA, though they do recognize prosperity when they see it.
Like, I believe it was the AFL or the CIO or possible the UAW protesting "Wall Street Excesses" today. Honey, let me tell you -- that takes some nerve! Since those very same unions have extended unfunded and unfundable promises to their members about pensions and health care that they expect -- no, they DEMAND! -- that non-union citizens provide for them. I mean, after all, it's more important that the union leaders spend their own real and collected budgets on lobbying.
In Quncy, Illinois, on the Mississippi, and quite historic in some ways, too, the local cops called up a police Tactical Squad -- all dressed up in what looked like black leotards, like the "official" Jihadists in Iran -- to make sure no Tea Party person took a pot shot at the Comrade while he delivered one or another unremarkable load of bullshit to a hand-chosen choir.
Tell me when you see the "freedom" part of any of this.
Meanwhile, Mexico's official policy toward undocumented "immigrants" and "foreigners" crossing the border into their fine nation requires that the perpetrators be prosecuted and deported or spend up to a year in jail. But the Mexican government scolds us for trying to prevent their murderous drug-thugs from killing US citizens, let alone their "coyotes" defrauding and killing untold numbers of Mexicans by packing them into vans like cattle and shipping them across the border for non-existent jobs here. Mexico, also, has one hell of a nerve.
Apparently Mexico -- and apparently other nations along with oour own domestic liberals -- seem to be mistaking the USA for a cornucopia. That is to say, they regard the USA as so magically and everlastingly terrific, we can pay for every else's sins. We can "fix" everything for everyone.
They've been eating the same peyote buttons the Comrade is munching on.
So I find "The Story of Us" mainly very depressing. "Well, I used to love her, but it's all over now...."
If you keep dumping on US citizens, suppressing our inalienable rights, appropriating our property and the fruit of our labor, refusing to defend and protect us from foreign usurpers and invasion... eventually you do transform the nation. It becomes something like Mexico, or the USSR, or Zimbabwe, or Greece.
WE WORK FOR WHAT WE'VE GOT. TRY THAT. MAYBE IT'LL WORK FOR YOU, TOO. 'COURSE, IT IS A WHOLE LOT EASIER TO SIMPLY STEAL FROM US THAN TO MAKE IT ON YOUR OWN.
And making it "on your own" is what freedom is. It's not easy. It's not cheap. It can't be legislated. And apparently it can't be preserved or protected, either. At least not by the buttheads holding office right now.
Again with the Thomas Jefferson: "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." We haven't been vigilant enough. Especially internally. The myth of America is not enough, when our own government is right now working so diligently to destroy its reality.
And my cat died, too. And the USPS has failed to deliver two checks due to me. Possibly the IRS has adopted a new policy to streamline operations and improve efficiency: skip the part where the citizen gets paid for his or her work and just seize all income before it falls into the hands of the person who earned it.
All in all, not a good week.
Oh well. I don't think the series is targeted at hardcore history buffs. It seems intended to inspire. It hits all the major cliches -- "The shot heard 'round the world," Paul Revere's "The British are coming" (try saying that like you never heard it before), and the miserable hardship of Valley Forge.
The series also seems to pay particular attention to the number of blacks involved in colonial America -- not only as slaves, but the freemen of Boston -- and noted that Von Steuben was gay. I didn't know he was gay. I have a copy of his drill manual, though.
So what is this series all about? Reconciling US history with political correctness?
I don't mean to be harsh or overly critical, though. The first man who died in the Revoluion was a black mechanic, Crispus Attucks, killed in the "Boston Massacree." And I have no problem with Von Steuben being gay. Do believe his drill manual was used up to an including the beginning of the Civil War in 1861. And possibly throughout the Civil War. The drill and approved conventions never did quite catch up to the innovations introduced during the Civil War, like really effective skirmishers and snipers armed with rifles, the use of railroads for logistics, cavalry with breach-loaded, repeating Spencers and Henrys, and telegraphic communications. Not to mention the iron-clads, land mines, and trench warfare.
Anyway.... "The Story of Us" appears to want to be inspiring, mainly. But they really kind of glossed over the whole idea behind the Revolution. They did quote the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" thing from the Declaration of Independence, and Newt Gingrich, as a commentator, noted that individual rights were, for the first time, claimed as coming from God rather than the government, and were "inalienable," or impossible to take away. And that's about it, as far as philosophy goes.
Maybe that's supposed to be enough. But it's really more myth now than reality in the USA.
In the ads for upcoming episodes, or maybe just an ad from sponsor Bank of America, a whole bunch of people from different backgrounds stand up and say "freedom" in different contexts. Like that's what it's all about.
That is what's all about. Or that's what it used to be all about. But I wonder if the word "freedom" has any real meaning anymore, or if it's just become some kind of nonsensical mantra for most people. Now it seems many citizens are much more concerned about getting their one-kind-or-another welfare check on time, getting surplus cheese or whatever, and complying with the beast-of-burden model of being forced to shoulder the expense of non-citizens who don't know anything about the USA, though they do recognize prosperity when they see it.
Like, I believe it was the AFL or the CIO or possible the UAW protesting "Wall Street Excesses" today. Honey, let me tell you -- that takes some nerve! Since those very same unions have extended unfunded and unfundable promises to their members about pensions and health care that they expect -- no, they DEMAND! -- that non-union citizens provide for them. I mean, after all, it's more important that the union leaders spend their own real and collected budgets on lobbying.
In Quncy, Illinois, on the Mississippi, and quite historic in some ways, too, the local cops called up a police Tactical Squad -- all dressed up in what looked like black leotards, like the "official" Jihadists in Iran -- to make sure no Tea Party person took a pot shot at the Comrade while he delivered one or another unremarkable load of bullshit to a hand-chosen choir.
Tell me when you see the "freedom" part of any of this.
Meanwhile, Mexico's official policy toward undocumented "immigrants" and "foreigners" crossing the border into their fine nation requires that the perpetrators be prosecuted and deported or spend up to a year in jail. But the Mexican government scolds us for trying to prevent their murderous drug-thugs from killing US citizens, let alone their "coyotes" defrauding and killing untold numbers of Mexicans by packing them into vans like cattle and shipping them across the border for non-existent jobs here. Mexico, also, has one hell of a nerve.
Apparently Mexico -- and apparently other nations along with oour own domestic liberals -- seem to be mistaking the USA for a cornucopia. That is to say, they regard the USA as so magically and everlastingly terrific, we can pay for every else's sins. We can "fix" everything for everyone.
They've been eating the same peyote buttons the Comrade is munching on.
So I find "The Story of Us" mainly very depressing. "Well, I used to love her, but it's all over now...."
If you keep dumping on US citizens, suppressing our inalienable rights, appropriating our property and the fruit of our labor, refusing to defend and protect us from foreign usurpers and invasion... eventually you do transform the nation. It becomes something like Mexico, or the USSR, or Zimbabwe, or Greece.
WE WORK FOR WHAT WE'VE GOT. TRY THAT. MAYBE IT'LL WORK FOR YOU, TOO. 'COURSE, IT IS A WHOLE LOT EASIER TO SIMPLY STEAL FROM US THAN TO MAKE IT ON YOUR OWN.
And making it "on your own" is what freedom is. It's not easy. It's not cheap. It can't be legislated. And apparently it can't be preserved or protected, either. At least not by the buttheads holding office right now.
Again with the Thomas Jefferson: "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." We haven't been vigilant enough. Especially internally. The myth of America is not enough, when our own government is right now working so diligently to destroy its reality.
And my cat died, too. And the USPS has failed to deliver two checks due to me. Possibly the IRS has adopted a new policy to streamline operations and improve efficiency: skip the part where the citizen gets paid for his or her work and just seize all income before it falls into the hands of the person who earned it.
All in all, not a good week.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Congress cooking up more s***** deals?
Saw parts of congress interrogating Goldman Sachs yesterday. Apparently the feds retrieved an email that referred to the sale or attempted sale of bad mortgages as a "shitty" deal.
"So you try to sell people shitty deals?" asked congresscritter Carl Levin, trifocals balanced on the end of his nose.
Politicians subscribe to the theory that no matter how stupid or ignorant you are, if you get those weird glasses, and better yet, get them to perch on the tip of your nose, others will mistake you for an intelligent person. Clinton and Schumann (or whatever, the loud mouth from New York) do it too.
Anyway, my question to congresscritter Levin: "So YOU try to sell people shitty deals?"
Those mortgages are the ones congress and the feds compelled banks to make, with no down payment, to the unemployed and unemployable, etc. etc. Let's face it, those are shitty mortgages. If they weren't shitty deals -- almost guaranteed money-losing deals -- the banks wouldn't need the feds prodding and threatening them to extend credit to people who can't pay it back. Why wouldn't Goldman Sachs try to unload those mortgages? After all, isn't it the federally-chartered purpose of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to try to unload them? You can put ribbons and bows on those contracts, they're still shitty deals.
Seems Goldman Sachs -- or someone -- even used bundles of these mortgages in some kind of hedge fund deal. In a hedge deal, you borrow a stock (or something tradable) that you know is going to lose value. You BORROW it from a broker, you don't buy it -- and you have to pay something to borrow it.
Then you sell that stock to someone else. Who knows why anyone would buy it. Maybe looking for a loss to offset taxes or something? Maybe just ignorant? Anyway, you sell that stock to someone else for, let's say, $50.00 per share.
Then you wait for the stock value to drop. This is what you expected to happen; you've actually got fingers crossed that the value will fall. Bad quarter annoucement? Shitty mortgage deal? Something like that... and the value goes down.
Then you buy the stock back -- not necessarily from the guy you sold it to -- only you buy it back for maybe $40.00 per share. The seller is probably glad to get anything for it, because the value is going down.
So then you keep the $10.00 per share you made on your sale and buy-back, and give the BORROWED stock back to the broker. You've got to pay the broker something for use of the stock, and if the stock doesn't go down in value, then you lose money. Usually there is also a pretty tight time-frame involved in all of this -- you've got to do all these deals in a matter of days or weeks or so. You don't usually make a lot per share, either, which is why only people who can invest $50,000.00 or more even get involved in hedge funds. You've got to do volume trades or the deal probably isn't worth it (in other words, it becomes a shitty deal....)
That's hedge trading. That's how George Soros made his millions. Or trillions. That's what funded the Comrade's presidential campaign and is supporting his regime. So why don't they have George Soros -- king of the hedge fund traders -- in front of congresscritter Levin?
Anyway, so apparently Goldman Sachs was playing with Freddie and Fannie mortgages in the hedge market. Well, that's one way to make some money off the shitty mortgages. Otherwise, the mortgages are just a total loss, right?
So congress made this mess, then when their house of credit cards started falling apart in 2008, they set up Goldman Sachs to try to recover ANYTHING from the shitty deals. So Goldman Sachs did their best, and now congress is nailing them to the cross for it.
On Fox last night, Charles Krauthammer commented on this by pointing out how if the Incas had a crop failure, they'd pick a citizen and do a blood sacrifice to the gods.
He got that right. Thanks to TARP, Goldman Sachs is still "too big to fail," so they become the fall-guy. Apparently CitiBank, about the only other "too big to fail" that survives, instead of using hedge funds to recover their losses, has chosen to gouge their consumer credit customers. I suppose they'll be next in the Hot Seat.
Nice going, congressional buttheads. But you're not fooling anyone.
I love it when idiot do-gooders in congress jerk business around with price limits, stupid regulations, etc., that cost money. Congress seems to think the money will come out of the profits of business. ROFL. (Rolling on the floor laughing.) No. they just pass those costs on to consumers -- or they do things like hedge funds to try to make some money.
Businesses are not charities. They don't have a lot of money laying around to funds congressional castles-in-air. If business doesn't make money, it folds it tent and steals away -- unless they can get a TARP bailout. And who pays for that?
And God, does reality ever piss off congresscritter Carl Levin, among others. No free lunch? What a frickin' nightmare!
Save the republic -- vote the bums out.
"So you try to sell people shitty deals?" asked congresscritter Carl Levin, trifocals balanced on the end of his nose.
Politicians subscribe to the theory that no matter how stupid or ignorant you are, if you get those weird glasses, and better yet, get them to perch on the tip of your nose, others will mistake you for an intelligent person. Clinton and Schumann (or whatever, the loud mouth from New York) do it too.
Anyway, my question to congresscritter Levin: "So YOU try to sell people shitty deals?"
Those mortgages are the ones congress and the feds compelled banks to make, with no down payment, to the unemployed and unemployable, etc. etc. Let's face it, those are shitty mortgages. If they weren't shitty deals -- almost guaranteed money-losing deals -- the banks wouldn't need the feds prodding and threatening them to extend credit to people who can't pay it back. Why wouldn't Goldman Sachs try to unload those mortgages? After all, isn't it the federally-chartered purpose of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to try to unload them? You can put ribbons and bows on those contracts, they're still shitty deals.
Seems Goldman Sachs -- or someone -- even used bundles of these mortgages in some kind of hedge fund deal. In a hedge deal, you borrow a stock (or something tradable) that you know is going to lose value. You BORROW it from a broker, you don't buy it -- and you have to pay something to borrow it.
Then you sell that stock to someone else. Who knows why anyone would buy it. Maybe looking for a loss to offset taxes or something? Maybe just ignorant? Anyway, you sell that stock to someone else for, let's say, $50.00 per share.
Then you wait for the stock value to drop. This is what you expected to happen; you've actually got fingers crossed that the value will fall. Bad quarter annoucement? Shitty mortgage deal? Something like that... and the value goes down.
Then you buy the stock back -- not necessarily from the guy you sold it to -- only you buy it back for maybe $40.00 per share. The seller is probably glad to get anything for it, because the value is going down.
So then you keep the $10.00 per share you made on your sale and buy-back, and give the BORROWED stock back to the broker. You've got to pay the broker something for use of the stock, and if the stock doesn't go down in value, then you lose money. Usually there is also a pretty tight time-frame involved in all of this -- you've got to do all these deals in a matter of days or weeks or so. You don't usually make a lot per share, either, which is why only people who can invest $50,000.00 or more even get involved in hedge funds. You've got to do volume trades or the deal probably isn't worth it (in other words, it becomes a shitty deal....)
That's hedge trading. That's how George Soros made his millions. Or trillions. That's what funded the Comrade's presidential campaign and is supporting his regime. So why don't they have George Soros -- king of the hedge fund traders -- in front of congresscritter Levin?
Anyway, so apparently Goldman Sachs was playing with Freddie and Fannie mortgages in the hedge market. Well, that's one way to make some money off the shitty mortgages. Otherwise, the mortgages are just a total loss, right?
So congress made this mess, then when their house of credit cards started falling apart in 2008, they set up Goldman Sachs to try to recover ANYTHING from the shitty deals. So Goldman Sachs did their best, and now congress is nailing them to the cross for it.
On Fox last night, Charles Krauthammer commented on this by pointing out how if the Incas had a crop failure, they'd pick a citizen and do a blood sacrifice to the gods.
He got that right. Thanks to TARP, Goldman Sachs is still "too big to fail," so they become the fall-guy. Apparently CitiBank, about the only other "too big to fail" that survives, instead of using hedge funds to recover their losses, has chosen to gouge their consumer credit customers. I suppose they'll be next in the Hot Seat.
Nice going, congressional buttheads. But you're not fooling anyone.
I love it when idiot do-gooders in congress jerk business around with price limits, stupid regulations, etc., that cost money. Congress seems to think the money will come out of the profits of business. ROFL. (Rolling on the floor laughing.) No. they just pass those costs on to consumers -- or they do things like hedge funds to try to make some money.
Businesses are not charities. They don't have a lot of money laying around to funds congressional castles-in-air. If business doesn't make money, it folds it tent and steals away -- unless they can get a TARP bailout. And who pays for that?
And God, does reality ever piss off congresscritter Carl Levin, among others. No free lunch? What a frickin' nightmare!
Save the republic -- vote the bums out.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
The president should resign
Very interesting last couple of days.
Apparntly the Comrade, Harry Reid, and Pazzo Pelosi are really counting on the bogus votes from illegal aliens, be they murderers, theives, drug traffickers, white slavers or whatever.
Hell, those three clowns just forced through congress a massively expensively bill that will bankrupt the US just to provide free health care to anyone who can swim across the Rio Grande. That's their voter base, apparently -- non-citizens. Surely no one who can actually speak English and who understands anything but "gimme," would vote for these fools.
So Arizona passed a bill that says they'll deport anyone they find to be illegals. The illegals call it profiling. The police will be stopping Mexicans who look suspicious. Well, gee, who else might be sneaking across the border with Mexico, carrying drugs and weapons, shooting ranchers, etc etc. The feds won't defend the border because the dems want the votes. They're inviting illegals -- dangling all kinds of freebies, like free major surgery -- to attract them. So Arizona is sick of the drug trafficking, kidnappings, and home invastions, and tried to act like responsible citizens to preserve their corner of nation.
Then the illegals go wild! What is it, now four days of what looks kinda like riots in Phoenix. Vandalizing public buildings, throwing rocks and bottles at the cops, running like frigging maniacs through the streets.
Hey, you know, based on these "demonstrations," I don't want these people in the country, either. They're showing us why they don't belong in civilized society.
And the Comrade? Didn't he call upon them to rise up and continue to vote for him, or something like that? Yeah. His constituency: the worthless, the unmannered, the unemployed looking for free handouts for themselves and their families.
And heaven knows, other liberals are all ablaze with cries of injustice and whatever.
You know what, illegals have no claim to the protections provided by US law. They're... well, illegal. They aren't citizens. They've ruined their own country, now they want to ruin ours.
But hey, as far the Comrade, Reid, and Pelosi are concerned -- this is their voter base, the people they cater to.
So, tell me again what a threat the Tea Party protesters are. If I could watch Chris Mathews without puking, or Keith Olberman, it would be interesting to see how they twist this.
And the Comrade -- my God, what a disaster. He'd done nothing so far but nationalize industries and inspire and promote class warfare -- including inventing the classes. Divide the nation, getting us all hating each other and hating the government.
The mother fucker needs to resign while there's still something left. He's not only completely incompetent, but hell-bent on destroying America. However, I'm quite sure the son of a bitch has neither the honor nor sufficient respect for the USA to do the right thing.
Save the republic.
Apparntly the Comrade, Harry Reid, and Pazzo Pelosi are really counting on the bogus votes from illegal aliens, be they murderers, theives, drug traffickers, white slavers or whatever.
Hell, those three clowns just forced through congress a massively expensively bill that will bankrupt the US just to provide free health care to anyone who can swim across the Rio Grande. That's their voter base, apparently -- non-citizens. Surely no one who can actually speak English and who understands anything but "gimme," would vote for these fools.
So Arizona passed a bill that says they'll deport anyone they find to be illegals. The illegals call it profiling. The police will be stopping Mexicans who look suspicious. Well, gee, who else might be sneaking across the border with Mexico, carrying drugs and weapons, shooting ranchers, etc etc. The feds won't defend the border because the dems want the votes. They're inviting illegals -- dangling all kinds of freebies, like free major surgery -- to attract them. So Arizona is sick of the drug trafficking, kidnappings, and home invastions, and tried to act like responsible citizens to preserve their corner of nation.
Then the illegals go wild! What is it, now four days of what looks kinda like riots in Phoenix. Vandalizing public buildings, throwing rocks and bottles at the cops, running like frigging maniacs through the streets.
Hey, you know, based on these "demonstrations," I don't want these people in the country, either. They're showing us why they don't belong in civilized society.
And the Comrade? Didn't he call upon them to rise up and continue to vote for him, or something like that? Yeah. His constituency: the worthless, the unmannered, the unemployed looking for free handouts for themselves and their families.
And heaven knows, other liberals are all ablaze with cries of injustice and whatever.
You know what, illegals have no claim to the protections provided by US law. They're... well, illegal. They aren't citizens. They've ruined their own country, now they want to ruin ours.
But hey, as far the Comrade, Reid, and Pelosi are concerned -- this is their voter base, the people they cater to.
So, tell me again what a threat the Tea Party protesters are. If I could watch Chris Mathews without puking, or Keith Olberman, it would be interesting to see how they twist this.
And the Comrade -- my God, what a disaster. He'd done nothing so far but nationalize industries and inspire and promote class warfare -- including inventing the classes. Divide the nation, getting us all hating each other and hating the government.
The mother fucker needs to resign while there's still something left. He's not only completely incompetent, but hell-bent on destroying America. However, I'm quite sure the son of a bitch has neither the honor nor sufficient respect for the USA to do the right thing.
Save the republic.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Surprise! Socialized medicine already increasing costs
I'm shocked! Shocked!
Health and Human Services, or whatever that nasty meddling fed bureaucracy is called, has reviewed the socialized medicine legislation just passed, and has concluded that it will cost $311 BILLION more than congress admitted to. So far... Maybe they've only read halfway through it.
I wonder, too, if they're calculating the cost of the salaries, benefits, and pensions of those 16,500 IRS henchmen that will be hired to make sure citizens are actually swallowing the crap they're shoving down our throats... And/or the salaries, benefits, and pensions of all of those who will populate the 150 or so additional agencies and bureaucracies who will occupy federal jobs otherwise related to shoving this crap down our throats.
Anyone actually surprised that socialized medicine ALREADY costs billions of dollars more than stated? And the legislation isn't even in operation yet.
Wait, I promise you -- there's a whole lot more coming.
I can't afford it. The feds have priced health insurance out of the market. Put me in jail, buttheads. I'm sick of working for the man already anyway.
MORE UNHAPPY NEWS:
I'm an American history buff, and I'm especially interested in the Civil War. I don't dress up or anything, but I've gone to re-enactments, and I have absolutely no idea how many battlefields I've visited.
I love Gettysburg. It's very cool because the way it's laid out, Gettysburg is almost a textbook for military tactics. It's also very pretty in some places, and very peaceful -- now. If you have as much imagination as I do, you hear the cannons roar, picture the fields covered in smoke and blood, appreciate the truly foolish valor and determination of both sides engaged.
So next year, 2011, is the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. I've heard the National Park Service invited a marxist communist to speak there next year.
Dear God. Ruin that for me too.
Save the republic.
Health and Human Services, or whatever that nasty meddling fed bureaucracy is called, has reviewed the socialized medicine legislation just passed, and has concluded that it will cost $311 BILLION more than congress admitted to. So far... Maybe they've only read halfway through it.
I wonder, too, if they're calculating the cost of the salaries, benefits, and pensions of those 16,500 IRS henchmen that will be hired to make sure citizens are actually swallowing the crap they're shoving down our throats... And/or the salaries, benefits, and pensions of all of those who will populate the 150 or so additional agencies and bureaucracies who will occupy federal jobs otherwise related to shoving this crap down our throats.
Anyone actually surprised that socialized medicine ALREADY costs billions of dollars more than stated? And the legislation isn't even in operation yet.
Wait, I promise you -- there's a whole lot more coming.
I can't afford it. The feds have priced health insurance out of the market. Put me in jail, buttheads. I'm sick of working for the man already anyway.
MORE UNHAPPY NEWS:
I'm an American history buff, and I'm especially interested in the Civil War. I don't dress up or anything, but I've gone to re-enactments, and I have absolutely no idea how many battlefields I've visited.
I love Gettysburg. It's very cool because the way it's laid out, Gettysburg is almost a textbook for military tactics. It's also very pretty in some places, and very peaceful -- now. If you have as much imagination as I do, you hear the cannons roar, picture the fields covered in smoke and blood, appreciate the truly foolish valor and determination of both sides engaged.
So next year, 2011, is the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. I've heard the National Park Service invited a marxist communist to speak there next year.
Dear God. Ruin that for me too.
Save the republic.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Financial "reform"
My favorite quote from Thomas Jefferson goes something like this: If a man is not fit to rule himself, how then can he be fit to rule others?
The b.s. coming out of the dem-dominated congress is astounding. They established this farcical "blame" for the financial crisis as "banks behaving badly," then propose a huge government-run bureaucracy to fix that behavior.
First of all, it was largely CRA legislation -- congress's requirement that banks make bad mortgage loans. During the Bush Administration, with the Dot-Com Bubble collapsing followed by 9/11, the economy began to tank. So the Fed (the bank authority, that is) set prime rates close to zero to "stimulate" the economy.
Net Result: Pumping lots of hot air into the housing market. Then shunting all those bad loans into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac funds -- federally guaranteed. Thus, all that very bad paper got "redistributed" into financial markets all over the world.
All the mortgage foreclosures, falling property values, and all of that is the market correcting itself. It will continue to do this -- on its own -- no matter what the government or individual financial institutions try to do about it. This whole government-created disaster is what can be called a "rolling readjustment" of hype and over-bidded value of real estate.
The government pretends it has something to do with hedge funds. And maybe it does. Mostly what I know about hedge funds is that George Soros (radical communist financial backer) is the master of them, and that they only make money in a down market, or on falling stocks. I do understand how a hedge works, but it's too damn hard to explain here. (Look it up.)
At any rate, it looks like some kind of perfect storm. The housing and financial (read mortgage) markets were shoved to the edge of a precipice through legislation and excessive regulation, and someone -- maybe Soros, he's done it before; he's destroyed the economies of two nations that I know of, and maybe more -- pushed the market over the edge. Soros, after all, makes money on hedge funds, which work only in a down or collapsing market.
So who benefitted from this?
At any rate, what I can gather about proposed financial "reform" legislation is that is puts tighter governmental controls over banks and other financial institutions. The good news is that officers from banks and other institutions get to sit on the regulatory board. The bad news is that the federal government has almost autocratic authority over the board's decisions, and can even circumvent the board if it feels the need.
I guarantee, the Comrade and the merry marxists will "feel the need."
Additionally, the proposed regulations don't touch Fannie and Freddie, which were the primary sources of all the problems to begin with.
So it looks kinda like this bill is yet another attempt of the socialists in the White House and the congressional majority to seize control of institutions that right now are already w-a-a-a-y over-regulated. The bumbling and short-sighted regulations were the cause of the problem to begin with.
These self-proclaimed financial experts in the federal government keep claiming that the 2008's financial disaster was caused by "irresponsible" and "reckless" activities perpetrated by private financial institutions. George Bush gave them free rein to run rampant on Wall Street. Bull shit, you know? Although we should credit the Fed with a strong assist.
So the government caused the initial problem and is now working very hard to tighten its control over financial institutions, which know their industry much better than the blockheads in the federal government.
What's wrong with this picture? Sorta like the lunatics running the asylum?
'Course the icing on the cake is the feds now proclaim that their bail-out pet, Goldman Sachs, has been indulging in bad behavior. "See," they say, "you can't trust anyone on Wall Street." I never trusted Goldman Sachs. It was Geithner and the feds who trusted them, wasn't it?
But you know what? I trust Wall Street a lot more than I trust Washington. Wall Street only wants to make money. Nothing wrong with that. A genuinly free market is self-regulating -- they screw up, they go bankrupt. They screw customers, they go bankrupt. They over-extend, they go bankrupt. And good riddance. Let them fail. Failure clears out the deadwood and makes room for newer, better companies.
On the other hand, Washington wants power and control -- and in order to get it, they have to take it away from us. And based on recent history, they don't know what the hell they're doing in regard to the financial industry.
So remember: If a man is not fit to rule himself, how then can he be fit to rule others?
Save the republic.
The b.s. coming out of the dem-dominated congress is astounding. They established this farcical "blame" for the financial crisis as "banks behaving badly," then propose a huge government-run bureaucracy to fix that behavior.
First of all, it was largely CRA legislation -- congress's requirement that banks make bad mortgage loans. During the Bush Administration, with the Dot-Com Bubble collapsing followed by 9/11, the economy began to tank. So the Fed (the bank authority, that is) set prime rates close to zero to "stimulate" the economy.
Net Result: Pumping lots of hot air into the housing market. Then shunting all those bad loans into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac funds -- federally guaranteed. Thus, all that very bad paper got "redistributed" into financial markets all over the world.
All the mortgage foreclosures, falling property values, and all of that is the market correcting itself. It will continue to do this -- on its own -- no matter what the government or individual financial institutions try to do about it. This whole government-created disaster is what can be called a "rolling readjustment" of hype and over-bidded value of real estate.
The government pretends it has something to do with hedge funds. And maybe it does. Mostly what I know about hedge funds is that George Soros (radical communist financial backer) is the master of them, and that they only make money in a down market, or on falling stocks. I do understand how a hedge works, but it's too damn hard to explain here. (Look it up.)
At any rate, it looks like some kind of perfect storm. The housing and financial (read mortgage) markets were shoved to the edge of a precipice through legislation and excessive regulation, and someone -- maybe Soros, he's done it before; he's destroyed the economies of two nations that I know of, and maybe more -- pushed the market over the edge. Soros, after all, makes money on hedge funds, which work only in a down or collapsing market.
So who benefitted from this?
At any rate, what I can gather about proposed financial "reform" legislation is that is puts tighter governmental controls over banks and other financial institutions. The good news is that officers from banks and other institutions get to sit on the regulatory board. The bad news is that the federal government has almost autocratic authority over the board's decisions, and can even circumvent the board if it feels the need.
I guarantee, the Comrade and the merry marxists will "feel the need."
Additionally, the proposed regulations don't touch Fannie and Freddie, which were the primary sources of all the problems to begin with.
So it looks kinda like this bill is yet another attempt of the socialists in the White House and the congressional majority to seize control of institutions that right now are already w-a-a-a-y over-regulated. The bumbling and short-sighted regulations were the cause of the problem to begin with.
These self-proclaimed financial experts in the federal government keep claiming that the 2008's financial disaster was caused by "irresponsible" and "reckless" activities perpetrated by private financial institutions. George Bush gave them free rein to run rampant on Wall Street. Bull shit, you know? Although we should credit the Fed with a strong assist.
So the government caused the initial problem and is now working very hard to tighten its control over financial institutions, which know their industry much better than the blockheads in the federal government.
What's wrong with this picture? Sorta like the lunatics running the asylum?
'Course the icing on the cake is the feds now proclaim that their bail-out pet, Goldman Sachs, has been indulging in bad behavior. "See," they say, "you can't trust anyone on Wall Street." I never trusted Goldman Sachs. It was Geithner and the feds who trusted them, wasn't it?
But you know what? I trust Wall Street a lot more than I trust Washington. Wall Street only wants to make money. Nothing wrong with that. A genuinly free market is self-regulating -- they screw up, they go bankrupt. They screw customers, they go bankrupt. They over-extend, they go bankrupt. And good riddance. Let them fail. Failure clears out the deadwood and makes room for newer, better companies.
On the other hand, Washington wants power and control -- and in order to get it, they have to take it away from us. And based on recent history, they don't know what the hell they're doing in regard to the financial industry.
So remember: If a man is not fit to rule himself, how then can he be fit to rule others?
Save the republic.
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