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Thursday, April 16, 2009
I Know What You Are
I don't think in my entire life, I've used or heard the word "teabagging" as much as I have in the past week. It's nice to be given the excuse to be excruciatingly vulgar, and no one is allowed to reprimand you by doing anything more serious than rolling their eyes.
I refer to the nationwide "grass roots" tax revolt that weird conservative groups orchestrated this week. All over the country, well-planned and spontaneous outrage broke out all over the land, as people, mostly over 55, judging by the video, complained that they are being taxed to death.
Oddly enough, 95% of Americans received a tax cut on their pay starting at the beginning of the month. 95% of us! Basically, anyone earning less than 250k a year now has more cash than they did a few weeks ago. Anyone believe that the majority of these huckleberries waving signs this week are making that kind of cake? Me either.
So, what the hell is going on? Is it just politics? The beloved W is gone, and now we have some lib'rul, excuse me, Socialist/Marxist in charge? Is that it? I think it's kind of pathetic to muster up outrage over crass party politics, especially while the object of your ire is making your life incrementally better. But that's your right.
I have, over the past several years, tried to understand why people who have no assets rail against the Estate Tax, which only impacts assets north of 10 million dollars. They believe the lie of trickle-down economics, that if we only make the super-rich super richer, they will suddenly get all lovey-dovey toward the rest of us, who were too stupid to be born into money, or who have failed to make ten million on our own.
You're an economic Uncle Tom, defending your masters, while they own your ass, lock, stock and barrel. How can you be house slave even after you've lost your house? But that's still not what this is about.
As much as I hate to say it, because it's been said so often for so long, that it's nearly become meaningless, this is about racism.
When did deficits become bad? When did America start careening down the wrong path? This is about a relatively small percentage of people who are outraged that the land that Jesus himself reserved for them started being run by one of the mud people.
"We're losing everything, man!" come the cries from former tough guys, now reduced to tears by the notion of a person not born rich or white has managed to become President. They gave Clinton the same crap for being highly-aspiring white trash, but at least the trash he was had the proper shading to it.
There are currently more than half-a-dozen state legislatures in this country currently mulling over bills declaring "sovereignty." Texas governor Rick Perry crawled right up to the edge of calling for Texas to secede from the US over the budget and stimulus packages that have been passed. He's still taking the money, of course. He sort of has to, he's a fucking hypocrite.
So now it's treason for you poor sons-of-bitches, you're ready to quit the country because the president's dad was black. I'd say good riddance, but I like that we have 50 states; it's a nice round number and easy to remember. Y'all need to stop being such emotional drama queens, take two steps back, and think for one minute who is actually responsible for this sorry state of affairs.
And by all means, keep on teabaggin'. I'm just glad the British never taxed the holes in corn.
I refer to the nationwide "grass roots" tax revolt that weird conservative groups orchestrated this week. All over the country, well-planned and spontaneous outrage broke out all over the land, as people, mostly over 55, judging by the video, complained that they are being taxed to death.
Oddly enough, 95% of Americans received a tax cut on their pay starting at the beginning of the month. 95% of us! Basically, anyone earning less than 250k a year now has more cash than they did a few weeks ago. Anyone believe that the majority of these huckleberries waving signs this week are making that kind of cake? Me either.
So, what the hell is going on? Is it just politics? The beloved W is gone, and now we have some lib'rul, excuse me, Socialist/Marxist in charge? Is that it? I think it's kind of pathetic to muster up outrage over crass party politics, especially while the object of your ire is making your life incrementally better. But that's your right.
I have, over the past several years, tried to understand why people who have no assets rail against the Estate Tax, which only impacts assets north of 10 million dollars. They believe the lie of trickle-down economics, that if we only make the super-rich super richer, they will suddenly get all lovey-dovey toward the rest of us, who were too stupid to be born into money, or who have failed to make ten million on our own.
You're an economic Uncle Tom, defending your masters, while they own your ass, lock, stock and barrel. How can you be house slave even after you've lost your house? But that's still not what this is about.
As much as I hate to say it, because it's been said so often for so long, that it's nearly become meaningless, this is about racism.
When did deficits become bad? When did America start careening down the wrong path? This is about a relatively small percentage of people who are outraged that the land that Jesus himself reserved for them started being run by one of the mud people.
"We're losing everything, man!" come the cries from former tough guys, now reduced to tears by the notion of a person not born rich or white has managed to become President. They gave Clinton the same crap for being highly-aspiring white trash, but at least the trash he was had the proper shading to it.
There are currently more than half-a-dozen state legislatures in this country currently mulling over bills declaring "sovereignty." Texas governor Rick Perry crawled right up to the edge of calling for Texas to secede from the US over the budget and stimulus packages that have been passed. He's still taking the money, of course. He sort of has to, he's a fucking hypocrite.
So now it's treason for you poor sons-of-bitches, you're ready to quit the country because the president's dad was black. I'd say good riddance, but I like that we have 50 states; it's a nice round number and easy to remember. Y'all need to stop being such emotional drama queens, take two steps back, and think for one minute who is actually responsible for this sorry state of affairs.
And by all means, keep on teabaggin'. I'm just glad the British never taxed the holes in corn.
Labels: Barack Obama, budget, race, stimulus, teabag
posted at 8:41 PM
0 comments
Monday, March 03, 2008
Waste not, want not
This is an expression I vaguely recall hearing as a child, although I'm pretty sure that my parents were decent enough to spare me hearing it from them. I don't know where I heard it, but I know it's an old expression. It sounds old, like some Puritan maxim, because everything is a sin, after all.
But I get it's meaning: Reasonable consumption now, avoid starving to death later. This is something I can really get behind, because if there's one thing that just bugs the hell out of me, it's waste. It irritates me when someone orders food that they barely touch. It strikes me as stupid for someone to purchase a four-wheel drive vehicle that will be used for nothing more harrowing than getting back and forth to work, or taking kids to school. It's overdoing it, just because you can.
Even with the looming recession, people can still live better in many ways than ever before. During the last real recession this country had in the late 70s until about 1982, people's standard of living took a noticeable step back. There would have been no point in the president going on television and using phrases like "mixed economic indicators" or "some slowing of growth." He would have been hooted down.
A woman I work with tried to tell me that there is no recession because when she went out last weekend, there were long waits at restaurants, and parking lots were crowded. I responded by pointing out that there are still plenty of people who are doing just fine (just not most of us), and that more importantly, because it has been a full generation since the last serious economic downturn, people really don't realize the magnitude of what is happening to them, and they won't slow down their consumption until their credit cards stop working.
The housing crisis is really only just beginning, and the fallout is going to poison many and varied sectors of the economy before it really plays out. Some studies I've seen indicate that, without another bubble (possibly in the alt energy sector) it may be as long as 2011 before the slide in the real estate and financial sectors bottoms out and is fully corrected.
The US Secretary of the Treasury has decided that consumers now living in homes that are worth less than the loans outstanding, in so many words, can go fuck themselves. You should have read the fine print, you should have believed what the lenders told you, and we're not going to reward bad behavior. And you definitely shouldn't have lost your job or gotten sick.
The reasons sound good, but the upshot is still a lot of people living in their cars. The new Middle Class Homeless. I like that. I may go on Nightline with that one.
But on the other hand, at least the Old School Homeless are benefiting in some cases, as many foreclosed homes are being squatted in by those affectionately named Urban Campers. Nature abhors a vacuum.
Waste not, want not.
Stimulus checks will be in the mail in 60 days, and the money will make a vague dent in the downturn, but it's not going to solve the housing crisis. $160 billion dollars, handed out, and most of it will be pissed away. A waste.
I've already speculated on the good that money of that type could do for infrastructure in the US, but I'll allow that people are probably more concerned about saving the roof over their heads than they are about some bridge over the Mississippi River.
At some point, as small banks, and eventually larger ones begin to fail, the government will realize that a bailout is inevitable. It's going to be gargantuan in scale, just like the recession caused by the lending crisis.
I'm going to propose some government waste.
The government will not bail out the banks. The government will assume these trillions in bad loans, people will remain in their homes with all loans converted to 30 year fixed-rate mortgages at 5%, paid to the government directly. The government will make commensurate monthly payments to the lender institutions at a rate of 4%.
Will the banks lose some money? Yeah, probably. Less than you might think though. The target lending rate will be no higher than 2.5% by March 18th, and possibly a quarter point less than that. The banks will manage, they just may have to cut back on the marble fixtures, and will likely put chains on all the pens again.
The government will also open the program to first-time home buyers by offering them 30 year fixed rate loans at rates from 3.5-5%, based on the banks' target lending rate. People will start snapping up homes that have been sitting on the market for months and years, and then they'll also do crazy stuff like buy things to put inside them. There's your fucking stimulus.
At some point, if the banks don't like being frozen out of the mortgage business, they can buy the loans back from the government, but with a transaction fee of 10% of the remaining value of the loan. The banks can piss and moan, but they understand compound interest, and will take the deal. The conditions of these loans will be unalterable by the institution that buys them back from the government. The bank will make a nice, slow, long-term profit, homeowners will make their payments, and this economic rollercoaster shit will end for awhile.
Who will pay for it? All of us. Will there be waste? Have you ever seen a government program that didn't have plenty of it?
I still hate waste. But I'll take it over want any day of the week.
Labels: economy, recession, stimulus
posted at 7:38 PM
2 comments
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Stimulus For Dummies
A great deal of talk about economic stimulus packages this week, as the US economy careens toward recession, all the while dragging the rest of the world with it.
So far, it appears that people making less than $75k a year will get $600 bucks each, plus $300 per kid. Thus a married couple with three kids and a combined income of $110,000, will get a check for $2100 from the party of fiscal restraint.
It's a nice chunk of dough, and theoretically, we'll all run out and buy flat screens, and the economy will be saved. I'm not exactly sure how the purchase of Asian electronics will help US workers get raises to save their foreclosed homes, but I freely admit that I am not an economist.
What I am is a person with a long-term memory. In some cases, I can even remember things that happened six months ago. It's an inherited trait known as "not being a drooling moron."
On August 1 of last year, the I-35 bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed. We all shook our heads and wondered how this could happen in America, and we talked about how under-funded our infrastructure is, and how this is the tip of the iceberg. But then, some other stuff happened, pennant races, steroids, Labor Day sales, and we forgot about it.
In the meantime, the subprime scams have helped the economy take a giant shit. People can't afford their homes, jobs with good wages evaporate as unemployment rises, and no one can think of anything that can be done except mail out checks to us like we were a nation of apocryphal welfare queens.
Well, I thought of something.
Every state in this country, every damned one of them, has infrastructure problems. Roads, bridges, schools, parks, sewers, all of it in disrepair. No one has any money to fix this stuff. Bush's answer, as it was after September 11, 2001, was to ask us to go shopping. I think people would rather have jobs with good wages. I'm thinking construction jobs.
Why can't the federal government (who again, is about to mail out $150 billion dollars for no guaranteed return) organize a 21st century Works Projects Administration? During the Great Depression, millions were out of work, and the government put Americans to work building and repairing everything from freeways and dams to local projects like parks and common areas.
Why can't we do this again? Even someone like me who knows nothing about construction could learn enough to be useful. I can use a shovel, put hammer to nail, or any number of things. We would be government employees, similar to the military, and we would be paid good, fair wages to repair America.
It would cost hundreds of billions of dollars, yes. Maybe even trillions. But if America's infrastructure is being improved, then commerce benefits. If out of work Americans are making good wages, then they are paying taxes, and spending freely. I don't understand how this isn't the type of win/win situation that everyone claims to want all of the time. We end up with a better country, both in a physical sense, and in terms of our mental outlook. We will all be far more invested in the place we live.
I doubt I'm the only one who has thought to combine these two problems in order to reach a decent solution, but if so, why haven't I heard or read about it? Is it possible that things are the way they are for a reason, and that the people who make the important decisions simply want them this way? Again, I'm no economist, but is the disappearance of the middle class really so advantageous to the wealthy, that they might prefer the nation to struggle in large measure, rather than prosper as a whole?
I want someone to explain to me why this can't work. And if all you can come at with me with is "they'll have to raise taxes," then I'll know I'm right. You get what you pay for.
So far, it appears that people making less than $75k a year will get $600 bucks each, plus $300 per kid. Thus a married couple with three kids and a combined income of $110,000, will get a check for $2100 from the party of fiscal restraint.
It's a nice chunk of dough, and theoretically, we'll all run out and buy flat screens, and the economy will be saved. I'm not exactly sure how the purchase of Asian electronics will help US workers get raises to save their foreclosed homes, but I freely admit that I am not an economist.
What I am is a person with a long-term memory. In some cases, I can even remember things that happened six months ago. It's an inherited trait known as "not being a drooling moron."
On August 1 of last year, the I-35 bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed. We all shook our heads and wondered how this could happen in America, and we talked about how under-funded our infrastructure is, and how this is the tip of the iceberg. But then, some other stuff happened, pennant races, steroids, Labor Day sales, and we forgot about it.
In the meantime, the subprime scams have helped the economy take a giant shit. People can't afford their homes, jobs with good wages evaporate as unemployment rises, and no one can think of anything that can be done except mail out checks to us like we were a nation of apocryphal welfare queens.
Well, I thought of something.
Every state in this country, every damned one of them, has infrastructure problems. Roads, bridges, schools, parks, sewers, all of it in disrepair. No one has any money to fix this stuff. Bush's answer, as it was after September 11, 2001, was to ask us to go shopping. I think people would rather have jobs with good wages. I'm thinking construction jobs.
Why can't the federal government (who again, is about to mail out $150 billion dollars for no guaranteed return) organize a 21st century Works Projects Administration? During the Great Depression, millions were out of work, and the government put Americans to work building and repairing everything from freeways and dams to local projects like parks and common areas.
Why can't we do this again? Even someone like me who knows nothing about construction could learn enough to be useful. I can use a shovel, put hammer to nail, or any number of things. We would be government employees, similar to the military, and we would be paid good, fair wages to repair America.
It would cost hundreds of billions of dollars, yes. Maybe even trillions. But if America's infrastructure is being improved, then commerce benefits. If out of work Americans are making good wages, then they are paying taxes, and spending freely. I don't understand how this isn't the type of win/win situation that everyone claims to want all of the time. We end up with a better country, both in a physical sense, and in terms of our mental outlook. We will all be far more invested in the place we live.
I doubt I'm the only one who has thought to combine these two problems in order to reach a decent solution, but if so, why haven't I heard or read about it? Is it possible that things are the way they are for a reason, and that the people who make the important decisions simply want them this way? Again, I'm no economist, but is the disappearance of the middle class really so advantageous to the wealthy, that they might prefer the nation to struggle in large measure, rather than prosper as a whole?
I want someone to explain to me why this can't work. And if all you can come at with me with is "they'll have to raise taxes," then I'll know I'm right. You get what you pay for.
Labels: economy, Minneapolis, recession, stimulus
posted at 7:07 PM