CharlesMac

This isn't without precedence. Remember Nixon's "secret plan" to get out of VietNam during his re-election campaign.

BTW.

"The longer we stay in Iraq, the more we put off the day when we fully join the fight against the real al Qaeda threat and finally defeat those who attacked America seven years ago."

Then why don't we attack Saudi Arabia? Weren't most of the alleged conspirators Saudi? Although distanced by his family, Bin Laden still operates on his personal wealth as a Saudi.

This is, of course, a stupid idea. But no where near as stupid as invading and occupying Iraq.

And for the future, why should we continue to put more troops in Afghanistan, while every single other member of the NATO forces is pulling out? Does anybody remember that the same Afghanistan virtually destroyed the USSR's military? They don't give up. We have already proven that they will just pick up where they left off, as soon as we turn our back.

Washington has the most circuitous plans, and a trillion dollars in Pentagon budget and additional funding, to do what?

Catch and/or kill Osama Bin Laden. Game over. Justice served.

And you can't do it. Ten times the military number and intelligence community of the rest of the world, and you can't find one freakin' guy?

Instead, you involve Us in hapless military action, after hapless military action.

You just enjoy figuring out new rationalizations to keep the military busy.

Now that's stupid. posted 05/16/2008 at 12:31:14

I don't know if your numbers or correct but you draw a distinctive analogy.

There is a asset class and there is a paycheck class.

My portfolio reached a retooling point in its multiyear cycle this Fall. This means i had to start paying attention, to some degree, to the market. Unfortunately that is inextricably entwined with the pornography of pundits and financial demi-gods.

Sickening to watch, to the asset class, things like mass layoffs are cheered. Better profit margins for the company. Better portfolio. Most statistical numbers like inflation, unemployment, consumer price index etc are actually geared to provide the asset class economic trends which can be used to position their assets. Screw the people being crushed by the numbers.

Meanwhile, I fight every month to keep my monthly budget the same size as my month. The month has been winning over the past two years. We cut out more and more as costs go up and up.

Ability, effort, and education will always be the economic measure of people's value. And that's fair. But your opportunities erode very quickly if you can't build assets.

And everything I have had to witness in the past ten years, has strengthened the asset class and punished the paycheck class.

A paycheck person can no longer save their money, put it in the banks, CDs, T-bills, savings plans, and keep up. They HAVE to go to markets where risk and robbers abound.

The asset class has won. posted 05/10/2008 at 21:48:54

Yeah, this is kind of simple. Get the numbers for the Democrats re-re-registering as Repubs for the general election.

If they are weak enough to flip their registration for the primary. They will be too weak to live with the thought of being a registered Democrat. They will want to show themselves and their clever scheme. That's their real psychological payoff. They will re-re-register.

BTW, you really shouldn't feed the monkey. posted 05/05/2008 at 23:14:27

I'm saying just maybe.......

His wife is dieing right before his eyes. It grips his children's hearts. Each and every day.

Maybe he doesn't give a damn about the election, politics, and all of the lurid awfulness it represents.

Maybe he doesn't want to spend the days and nights that belong to her, "mustering support".

Would you? posted 05/04/2008 at 01:06:03

I have been biting my tongue on this for a while. I need for you all to take a look at who they put in charge of the Economics and Statistics Administration. That includes all of your BEA and Census Bureau numbers. Gross domestic product, retail sales, personal income, housing starts, inventory levels, international trade.....Cynthia A. Glassman

https://www.esa.doc.gov/under_secretary.cfm

She was a disruptive power at the SEC for 5 years. Some superficial research catches her at times, against regulation on principle alone. Her operative method was to demand statistical evidence that a regulatory action was needed, before it should be considered. .... you would have had to prove that those CDO trash bags of sub-prime mortgages were WMDs. Or the Auction Rated Securities were actually not "as good as cash".

She was key to the familiar Rich Big Guys' plan... to avoid obviously invoking non-regulation, but turning it into bad regulation.

Bush's people appointed her temporary Chairperson of the SEC in 2005. Cynthia couldn't get a confirmation. Why?

Because Cynthia has had dinner and spoke more frequently at The Heritage Foundation than Dick Cheney.

As far as I'm concerned, they sent her ahead to the ESA to cover the numbers until everybody could get out of town.

Check out her Head Economist. Dr Kennedy was a legal mouthpiece for MAPI . He has only published one purely economic paper. Guess who funded the paper and publishing.... You got it!.... The Heritage Foundation. posted 05/05/2008 at 21:22:51

C'mon Ole' one. You know how important it was for that GDP to be positive. It buys them another quarter to make their getaway without meeting the "R" word standard of the NEBR.

Heck, we haven't even gotten to revisions yet. Down you say? They still have the All-Conference Record jobs number revisions for August to beat. The 1Q GDP should go up, easily, a point or 2. They can make up chit in their sleep that would cover a measly couple of points. A quick substitution or adjustment to a hedonic model and Voila!, "Houston, the "V" recovery has been attained". Ya know cowflop is going to have an imputed value soon.

Maybe all 90,000 of the teachers they missed in August, bought cars and HDTVs in February. And they missed that. Plus some government contractor has been building expensive widgets for the past two months to fill warehouses they can say they missed. The possibilities are only limited by their imaginations. Proven both capable and boundless.

BTW, with house prices falling, resales dead in the water, soon-to-be non-owners going bankrupt, and walk-aways occurring everyday, I didn't hear any note of severe negative impact from imputed owner-occupied housing. We got a hell of a boost in past GDPs on value that didn't exist. Only seems fair to ratchet it back out. posted 05/04/2008 at 21:04:14

Have we all developed the attention span of fruitflies? He's not a flipflopper, he's a pathetic logical conclusion to politics and power.

He originally was respected opposition here. A sensible voice of moderation from the reactionary Republican din.

There must be 100s of these turnabouts.

That's what makes his transformation so disillusioning, and twice as frightening. posted 04/28/2008 at 22:29:00

This has been ruminating in my head for a long time. It may seem facile use of the brain, or a facile brain....

In 2000, the Case/Shiller has the index at about $100,000 for an average home. We look at today and see it has fallen about 7% to $186,000

We then go back to our Census Bureau report of the median household income. It was about the same as it is today. About $48,000 adjusted .

I know that mean and median don't necessarily match out, because the median doesn't exactly sit atop the middle hump of the Bell Curve. But let's consider it close enough for even Bush government work, with my apologies for lack of precision.

Now let's assume that we have a nice median household that wants a home. Second, let's assume they have not given into the mob consumption and have reasonably small shortterm debt. And they have managed to save 10% in cash for a down payment on their home.

Finally, let's assume they have no intention of leveraging out 30 to 1 like Bear Stearns, and will undertake a mortgage a full 2 1/2 times their income. If we back into the number, they can afford a home at about $133,000. In 2000, that leaves them with a real solid opportunity to get a nice home.

Today, that gets them a garage, or a crack house, which recent arrests have left empty. posted 04/28/2008 at 22:09:25

MSNBC

Hillary 66

Obama 34

We now take second place behind Connecticut as the stupidest voters in the Nation. posted 04/22/2008 at 20:48:17

We live in Pennsylvania. A half hour into the debate, my wife turns to me and says "What the f*** is this?" She never uses the fbomb.

It was supposed to be serious time. Up-to-date, out of their mouth, ... policies, problems, and solutions. Don't rhetoric me, deliver something I can get my teeth into. I don't care what you said in the past 9 months, I want the final version. By the time we got there, how could anybody give a shit. ABC owes us a major explanation. That was the most irresponsible, skewed, screwed and blewed interrogation I have seen in my 40 years of voting.

If the intention of Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous was to permanently discredit themselves, they were permanently successful.

It was a hit on the Democratic candidates. Were Gibson and Stephanopolous fingermen for ABC? Hacks? Dogs? This is America?

I CANNOT believe what I saw. There had better be some loud screaming about this.

and BTW, We Pennsylvanians have a lot more on our minds than that knuckledragging woman who wanted to know why Obama didn't wear a flag pin.

Disgrace.

Disney, ABC, and all of its sister channels just got blocked in this house.

Disgrace.

I'm an American first, a Republican second. I wanted to hear what the Democrat candidates had to say.

Disgrace. posted 04/16/2008 at 23:30:18

That badge was digitally enhanced. I didn't see the badge on first look. When you mentioned it, a closer inspection found it out of sync with lighting, exposure, and particularly white balance. Bringing it up in Photoshop finds the badge pixels impossibly uniform in color tone.

But that is why you caught the badge, it was out of place to your experienced eye. posted 04/15/2008 at 19:02:35

First he didn't know anything about anything.

Then, it was proven he knew about it, but maintained he had nothing to do with it.

Then, it was proven that he had to have something to do with it.

What the f*ck was he going to say next?

No hablo inglés ? posted 04/13/2008 at 01:19:20

We can only hope.

Black and a woman. With the Conservatives' tentativeness towards voting for McCain.,she will finish off any thoughts the Conservatives had of voting at all.

Go Condi! posted 04/06/2008 at 19:27:44

I thought I was in a time warp. This "news" is at least many thousands of wounded old. This "news" is at least many hundreds of dead soldiers old.

The issues with the body armor began at the advent of the "war". First supply was the issue, Then distribution was the issue. Then efficacy.

Paul Rieckhoff and his brethren have been railing on this specific subject for years. I can't imagine his frustration at the deadly silence heard from Congress.

The top executives at, by far, the largest contractor of the body armor are in appeal for convictions of insider trading, misappropriation of funds, and a dozen other ancillary charges. Would it ever occur to Congress that their lack of ethics and morality might reach to the quality of their product?

By next election, Madame Congresswoman, you and your fellow Democrats will have done absolutely nothing substantive since the midterms, regarding this issue. At which time, alert progressive Democratic candidates will use such obviation of reality and abrogation of responsibility to unseat the business-as-usual failures and enablers of this entire abomination.

"It's the very least we can do."

You may wish to begin considering your options after government service. For if your goal is to do the "very least" you can do, you have already accomplished that with an unspeakable efficiency.

It is quite difficult to imagine that you could come up with something less than zero. posted 04/06/2008 at 01:09:10

I wish that Hollywood would stay off of blogs and out of activism. They should focus on that which they do best, and cough up a decent movie on Iraq. The American people have been treated like mushrooms since Day One of the war. This is a perfect opportunity for Hollywood to step in and fill the void.

First and foremost, the movie has to resonate with the soldiers. So they can say "That's what it was like, that is what I experienced, that is what I feel now".

We need to be able to share a common understanding. Hopefully, then we will get off of our corpulent asses and put some effort into getting done what needs to be done for the returning soldiers. Instead of ignoring them, or flailing around after the fact of a problem.

I never thought I would be so gawddamned ashamed of my country. posted 04/01/2008 at 17:23:56

The Bush Administration disempowered both the SEC and the CFTA. They put people in the SEC who were against regulation on principle. They passed the Enron loophole and other legislation which blinded the CFTA. The SEC and CFTA are fine, they need to be permitted to do their job. Bush promoted poor regulation, not deregulation.

Meanwhile, the Administration empowered the Fed to disrupt economy.

Of all parties, the Fed is the last one to be put in charge of the economy. The Fed was created by the banks and are not accountable to voters, but they use our money to influence our financial and monetary systems .

If there is one issue worth throwing your body on, this is the one. The capitol of this country will become Wall Street and the Fed Building. The opportunities of the average American will go from the current slim, to none.

War and the Constitution become meaningless, if you have to fight to house and feed your family with the dollars you earn. posted 03/30/2008 at 18:00:10

Before we can have a meaningful discussion, we need a long forgotten principle called the TRUTH.

For the past 8 years, David Walker and the GAO have declared the Treasury Dept's Financial Reports rubbish. They have "no material support" for their numbers and their accounting procedures completely avoid GAAP. Generally Accepted Accounting Procedures, the standard by which an individual or corporation gets fined and/or goes to jail for breaking the procedures.

Simple example. The Treasury claims the deficit for the US Government in 2007, was approx $280,000,000,000. Hurray! We are lessening the annual deficit! This is while the Fed noted, the official National Debt increased approx $500,000,000,000 in 2007. We don't need a sliderule or calculator for this one.

I have zero hope for a country who's leaders are either sinister liars, or arithmetically challenged. (It's not even Math, it's basic Arithmetic) Because they continually walk around reporting the $280B, and the press prints it as fact.

If you can subtract $280B from $500B and get zero, then you have zero chance for a substantive discussion of anything related to fiscal policy. posted 03/29/2008 at 18:38:40

This country persists on being a bunch of mental midget ideologues. Consistently the argument against regulation is on principle, not situation.

There is a simple reason for that. Regulation creates transparency and enforces accountability.

You would think an industry which is stuck in the mud right now, would get it. The credit markets won't move no matter how much money we pump into them. The reason is trust. Without it, they won't and can't move.

The reason they won't move is because they don't know what kind of crap everybody has on their balance sheets. If it had had even a minimum of regulation, the assets would be much less daunting. The reason they can't move is because they don't know what the hell is on their own balance sheet. They have to sit on unnecessarily big provisions and reserves. Which our economy is providing to them by the boatload, at discount cost.

It was the financial industry's idea to force us out of savings accounts, CDs, gov't bonds, and minor stock investing. Virtually all of that was protected by the FDIC and other constructs.

We will ruin the common wealth of this country, if we hand it over to unregulated investment banks and brokers. They will leverage out every single dollar of it to the maximum multiple on horse**** inventions of their own delusion. That's what they do, that is all they do. posted 03/28/2008 at 23:20:23

Nobody can account for the Market. When somebody is right, it lasts for about 10 minutes. posted 03/24/2008 at 22:19:32