Wall Street Whiners vs the 99%

     When I got this in my email the other day I had but one thought: I gotta share this masterpiece. As macabre threats go, this has everything except bayoneting grandmas and skinning babies. In fairness, it does look like the writer ran out of paper.

     It's a pretty nasty letter, but I think you'd have to expect such things if teams lined up ninety-nine players to one and you realized you were on the short side. A little trash talking never hurts, does it? Then again, most trash talk doesn't influence the outcome.

     This curious epistle seems to blur the already fine line between mad and crazy. I guess that's why those words are often synonymous.

     But really. Taking credit for a 14,000 Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA)? Did Wall Street really give us that? Tell me, which car did it build, which drug did it invent, how much electricity did it produce, which smart phone did it design? Americans invested money in companies that produced things of value because that's how investing works. Wall Street provided a platform to streamline the buying and selling of our shares. Which part of the 14,000 DJIA did Wall Street create?

     Oh, Wall Street banks provided the financing that made it all possible? The ones who eventually invented bogus investment vehicles and sold them globally with a straight face and a grade AAA+++ rating? The ones who blamed their customers when the bottom fell out? Wall Street banks definitely had an impact on the DJIA, but it might be more clearly focused on the March 9, 2009 close of 6,547.05.

     I've read in the Bible that someone giveth and someone taketh away but I'm pretty sure Job wasn't talking about Wall Street banks.

     And this wound licking assertion that Wall Street is our scapegoat? Listen up, Skippy. Thousands of years ago the Jews would bring their priest two goats on the Day of Atonement. The priest would chose one and anoint it with all the sins of their community, then send it out to the wilderness to die, and all the community's sins with it. Get it? The scapegoat was blameless and died bearing the sins of others. Assuming you know how to connect dots I'm pretty sure you can figure out that of all things that you are, the blameless scapegoat isn't one of them.

     And it seems like the Day of Atonement may be coming.

     You eat what you kill? Which of you ate Washington Mutual, Bear Stearns, Indy Mac and Lehman? In all, the Wall Street Journal claims 386 banks have been killed since 2008, so I gotta admit that is some appetite you all worked up. May as well toss in Enron, World Com and AIG while we're at it. There must be a lot of fine trophies hanging on those mahogany walls.

     I know, I know, we've got all the cushy high pay, low effort jobs locked up outside the gulag you call Wall Street. All the nurses with double shifts, the firefighters that saved as many of your pink butts on 9/11 as they could, the social worker who walks into a house to find children beaten, bloody, and starving, the teacher who buys paper, pencils, and books (even toilet paper!) out of her own money so her students have the bare minimum to compete with your little silk stocking preppies: how cushy can you get, eh? And to think those people are lazy good for nothing union members. Is that what's bothering you, Bunky? Of course those jobs are nothing excruciating like staring at a computer monitor all day or making your bazillionth cold phone call to tout some dog stock that someone in your research department thinks might not totally suck.

     Hey, if you want to come and join us out here and chase a 48” John Deere mower around our yards in 98 degree weather and humidity that makes it tough to breath, and all for little more than minimum wage, bring it on. They're ten to twelve hour days, but don't even think about calling it overtime. I think I could sell a few tickets to that. I spent some time working in a foundry some years back and if that's a cushy over-paid job that you'd be interested in, I can't recommend it highly enough. I can just tell that you're the kind of guys that love that filthy, sweaty, exhausting work from your letter.

     You're going to stop buying your little import cars? Boo-Hoo. Lexus, Mercedes, BMW, and Audi sold 775,000 cars in the US last year. Assuming Wall Streeters bought 10% of that total (which is very unlikely) and that each car cost around $75,000, that's about $6 trillion of lost sales. Do you really think that will cripple the economy anything close to the unspent money of the 14,000,000 unemployed US citizens? Using the 2010 average annual income of an American worker, those 14 million would churn more than $580,000,000,000 through the economy this year. Would I rather see these people employed or you in a Bimmer? Hmmmm?

     Wall Street's been crying and whining for the past forty years that there's too much regulation in your industry. After paying every legislator with an open palm (and that's most of them) the rules that you wanted to see eased were dropped one by one; but each time  you guys got more freedom you totally screwed up the economy.

     Remember the 1980's Savings and Loan Crisis which cost the US taxpayer $124 billion to resolve? That was followed by the collapse of hedge fund Long Term Capital Management.

     New “mark to market” accounting rules and energy deregulation acts let Enron pick California's pocket to the tune of $40 billion, wipe out $60 billion of market valuation and screwed its employees out of $1 billion.

     The 2008 mortgage bundling fiasco has sent ripples through the economy that suggest a total cost of to the tune of $14 trillion dollars

     When we propped up your cock-eyed investment strategies and fixed the damage your foolishness caused to our society it just wasn't enough for you. Now you threaten to steal our food and our money? You already did that. Do you think we'll let you do it again?

     I know that you can pay off more congressmen than me, but I'll support any legislator that's willing to re-regulate your industry. And it looks like the 99% are waking up a little more everyday and it's going to take more than forwarded emails from the right wing smear machine to calm things down.

     Of course, the legislators themselves need to pay attention to us because a lot of them that voted for the bail-out of the investment banking industry joined the ranks of the unemployed two years later.

     I'm not an “Occupy” member, but I understand much of their concern. I belong to the 99%: those you accuse of fomenting class warfare. But as they say, you only call it class warfare when we fight back. As long as we're complacent and let you pick our pockets, there's no mention of class warfare. You hope we're too lazy, stupid, or indifferent to stand up for ourselves.

    You could watch this short video to see our perspective.

    Many in your ranks seem to agree that reform is needed . Market Watch analyst Rex Nutting writes, “The 99% could take back the government from the 1%. We’d not only free our economy from the shackles of inefficient monopolies, but we could turn our government into an institution that actually solves our problems.” Market Watch's Paul B. Farrel sees a darker outcome and observes, “The 2008 meltdown never ended, lessons never learned. But now the end game is accelerating.”

    St. Paul seems to be pretty perceptive when he wrote in his letter to Timothy that “The love of money is the root of all evil.”

    Could there be better proof of the veracity of St. Paul's writing than your pathetic threats?
    "Then you better start swimming
    or you'll sink like a stone
    'cause the times they are a changin'"

White Women Fight Over a Shrinking Pie

Expect the claims of separated at birth bubble-heads Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin to grow more imaginative and less accurate. Neither is very intelligent and I can't wait until Michelle touts her degree from Oral Roberts U. (where the modern Tower of Babel stands in mute testimony to Oral Robert's ability to hold himself ransom until his followers paid up) while Sarah explains she left the University of Hawaii because it wasn't white enough for her.
It promises to be the best entertainment we've had since House Speaker Boehner bawled his eyes out on Sixty Minutes.
But wait. There is good news for the American citizen. While the Tea Party pushes their puppet-masters agenda further to the right, Americans are beginning to figure out they're just the same old hookers with a new corner to stand on. 
What's so funny is, as these polls show that voters are growing tired of their stupidity, that very stupidity keeps pushing them further right, yelling their vapid ideas at the top of their lungs.
So Michelle and Sarah are going to have a barroom brawl over a prize that has no real value.
Good luck and come out swinging.

Empty Holsters, Empty Minds

                               The Virginia Tech Shooter

There's a quiet  demonstration of stunning ignorance throughout Michigan today. 
Michigan citizens are incredibly adept at these sorts of demonstrations. 
When our unemployment rate lead the nation, there were protests in Lansing to repeal the motorcycle helmet law. 
When companies like Electrolux were closing their factories and moving to Mexico, the right to establish a dove hunting season made it all the way to the ballot box.
And now that the structure of the state's education system is threatened by diverting dollars to big business, these folks are worried that guns aren't allowed on college campuses so they're openly, proudly wearing empty holsters to class today.
Wouldn't it be quicker and a lot less work to simply scrawl MORON across their foreheads? 
Everyone would know where they stood on this (and a lot of other) issues.

Christian Hubris

The Governor of Alabama (the state that claimed American law is based on the 10 Commandments, not English Common Law) who announced that citizens who do not believe that Jesus is their savior are not his "brothers" is an ignorant jerk.
Christians don't like the story of the good Samaritan. It dissolves the differences that divide us (like religion, race, riches) and makes us confront our own prejudices. No wonder they don't teach it very often.
In case you forgot the story, from the book of Luke, chapter 10:
²⁵ On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

²⁶ “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

²⁷ He answered, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself'.”

²⁸ “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

²⁹ But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

³⁰ In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹ A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. ³² So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³ But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. ³⁴ He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. ³⁵ The next day he took out two denarii^c]">[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

³⁶ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

³⁷ The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Support for the governor seems to rely on the following:

“While [Jesus] was still talking to the multitudes, behold, His mother and brothers stood outside, seeking to speak with Him. Then one said to Him, ‘Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with You.’ But He answered and said to the one who told Him, ‘Who is My mother and who are My brothers?’ And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, ‘Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother’” (Matthew 12:46-50 NKJV).

I guess I'm missing something because I don't read the words "accept me as your savior" here. He does mention doing "the will of My Father in Heaven..."

I'm not smart enough to decide who is and who isn't doing the will of God the Father, but apparently some idiot in Alabama has it figured out. He should remember: Judge not lest ye be judged. (Matt. 7:1)

It seems like if Christians can't proclaim themselves superior to others they wouldn't bother being Christians.

Why I don't Shop at Walmart

This is the first in an ongoing series explaining why I would comb through the newspaper circulars, clip grocery coupons, and turn my basement into a food pantry rather than patronize my local Walmart.
While I'm sure Walmart isn't the only American corporation employing paranoid sycophants to manage their investment, the level of competence they utilize seems excruciatingly low compared to other retailers.
And while Walmart does indeed hire people with physical challenges, one wonders if below market wages doesn't have something to do with it.
Take the case of Joseph Casias, a Walmart employee with sinus cancer and a brain tumor who was treated for a sprained knee last year. Walmart requires all injured employees to take a drug test when being treated for a work related injury, but Joseph was permitted to use medical marijuana legally by the state of Michigan to help manage the chronic, constant pain he endured.
Walmart, however, fired Joseph upon learning of his "drug use" claiming concern for the safety of its customers and "associates". I guess stocking them shelves is every bit as complicated and dangerous as brain surgery, flying an airplane or driving a school bus. Seems like shelf-stockers ought to be paid extra considering all the responsibility keeping customers safe and all.
Joseph was awarded Associate of the Year by Walmart in 2008. And Walmart was certainly aware of his medical condition.
So what did they suppose he took for his pain? Even over the counter antihistamines caution about machinery use and driving while using the drug. How about Rush Limbaugh's drug of choice OxyContin? Presumably, with a Doctor's prescription, Joseph would still have a job if he was using OxyContin, even if the side effects were more problematic than "the killer weed". Not to mention that if he'd used prescription Vicodin, Percodan, or Dilaudid he would still have a job. The problem is he would also pose a "risk" to Walmart shoppers, but hey, it was never really about that was it?.
Why didn't he use one of those opiates? Medical marijuana worked better for his pain relief with virtually none of the side effects of the opiates.
I understand that Walmart pricing has lead manufacturers into a fight to the bottom, assuring the the cheapest p.o.s. is the one Walmart offers, but applying the same standards to hiring store managers may not be the best idea.

The Economy That Tea-Baggers Don't Want to Talk About

Pointing out that the ignorance and duplicity of tea-baggers could be a passionate, revelatory cause if they weren't so openly, proudly ignorant.
The stimulus didn't work, the bank bail-outs were a waste of money, Obama ruined the American economy. Yada, yada, yada.
Well golleee old timers. Looked at your 401-k lately?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 7776 a year ago yesterday (March 23, 2009). Yesterday the DJIA closed at 10888, a 40% increase in one year.

Hey Joe! Here’s Ten Reasons I wasn’t a Tea Bagger (and you’re one of them)

I understand the most famous plumber that isn’t a plumber will be gracing our fair county soon. Sam Wurzelbacher (aka Joe T. Plumber) is coming to Livingston for the second time in just a few months. His first visit was with the traveling herd known as the Tea Bag Express which partied down at the Brighton Mill Pond. I’m told his moment with the microphone was charitably called unscripted as he was reported to have randomly ranged from gun possession to something about snakes on a leash, a difficult image to envision.

It’s not that I was too busy to attend that party, but there are many reasons why I preferred to observe the Tea Bag phenomenon from afar.

1.)The Boston Tea Party occurred to protest “Taxation without Representation”. The fact that folks like U.S. Representative Addison “Joe” Wilson shows up at these events kind of blows that conceit out of the water.

I have a representative whose name is Mike Rogers. The fact that I’ve never voted for him doesn’t mean that I’m taxed without representation.

Last year we all voted for our representatives from President to dog catcher. Some voted for winners, some didn’t. I suspect the tea baggers didn’t get their wishes from the vote fairy. Sorry.

2.)The Tea Parties attracted a gaggle of protesters. One group was there to protest the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program), the multi-billion dollar program to stabilize American commerce and finance. I can only assume that these folks thought that if the world banking system collapsed they would be immune to the effects. We may get a sense of the consequences from this week’s CITI bankruptcy. It may, unfortunately, provide a real lesson when small and medium size retailers not only can’t borrow money for inventory, they may even have their credit lines called in just in time for the holiday shopping season.

To understand what happens when a country’s (let alone the world’s) banking system collapses, consider Iceland where borrowing money will cost you well over 15% (if you can actually find someone with money willing to loan you money) and the currency is less stable than Zimbabwe’s. McDonalds even closed all of its restaurants there! The cost of the failure of Iceland’s three main banks is seven times more than Iceland’s GDP (the total value of everything Iceland produces in a year).

Immune? Sure, in a bomb shelter full of food, guns, and krugerrands. You’ve got all three? I see no reason for you to tolerate this society any longer and think you should relocate underground immediately.

3.)Anti-health care reformers apparently showed up in droves. They worried that granny will face a death squad just like the Republican legislature and Governor George W. Bush created in 1999 in Texas. Or force people to make life ending decisions when face to face with their Doctor like Sarah Palin touted in Alaska on April 16, 2008, her self proclaimed “Healthcare Decisions Day”.

The case for overhauling the health care system is obvious to everyone not on Medicare, an irony lost on the tea baggers. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan raised their premiums 20% in May and has applied for increases of as much as 31% going forward. As a former employer I know that providing health insurance at these levels and with these annual increases simply won’t be possible. And forget about raises if you’re lucky enough to have employer paid health insurance.

Just about every opinion poll except Fox News gives the health care reform with the “public option” an over 50% favorable rating (Fox admits 49% for the public option). The New England Journal of Medicine shows 62.9% of American Doctors support the public option. It’s not often I go with the flow but I will on this issue.

4.)When the busses rolled into Brighton for the party there was much concern that a black man was giving a 15 minute talk in some lily-white schools. That arbiter of all things stupid, Glenn Beck, announced he was keeping his children home from school so they wouldn’t be forced to watch the President of the United States of America speak to the nation’s youth about education.

I agree with Randy Speck, superintendent of Oakland (County) Christian School who noted “This kind of outrage gives conservative Christians a bad name.” Those wild and crazy liberals, Laura Bush and Newt Gingrich, thought it was a worthwhile message, but Beck’s kids will never know.

5.) Hucksters like Addison “Joe” Wilson, who hides his racism by claiming he’s simply trying to restore pre-Civil War Southern culture, goes to Tea Bag parties. Wilson is a member of the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, a group in good standing with white supremacist organizations around the country.

6.) Some Tea Baggers are still whining about the government bailing out General Motors and Chrysler. Mostly they’re anti-union people anxious to repeal Frankie Roosevelt’s administration. I laughed my butt off when the Southern legislators kept demanding that GM and Chrysler should be allowed to fail and then cried like babies when the local auto dealerships started closing. Did they really think the dealerships were going to stay open if GM and Chrysler closed? Were they really concerned when they talked about the necessity of the hardships Michigan workers were going to have to face? Apparently lots of jobs in Michigan don’t matter as much as a few jobs in Armpit, Alabama. Do those guys stand for anything besides the bad old days and fat campaign contributions?

7.)There are a lot of complaints about the national debt at these parties. I agree. I worry about the debt our children and their children will bear because of us. But I wrote often about the ballooning debt during the Bush years when low and middle class wages were stagnant or falling and only the wealthy prospered. I didn’t get any angry arguments from anyone in Livingston County when the deficit grew by more than 4 trillion dollars then.

Throwing money at the economic wreck Bush passed on to us is scary, but the economy was slipping into depression and token gestures like Bush’s “rebate checks” weren’t going to turn the tide. A robust, expanding economy will cure a lot of ills and that’s what the stimulus money is meant to do.

8.) Sorry, but I didn’t want to listen to Joe the Plumber, the guy who isn’t Joe and isn’t even a plumber yet. Joe’s claim to fame was announcing that he wouldn’t go into business because of increased taxes on the wealthiest 5% of Americans. Having run a small business for 16 years, let me tell Joe if he’s basing his desire to own a business only on the tax situation, he should just open a bank in the Grand Cayman Islands. If he doesn’t like taxes in the U.S. there are a lot of countries with almost no taxes. I hear Pakistan needs plumbers badly.

Or just maybe America’s infrastructure, that benefits both citizens and businesses and was paid for with taxes, has some advantages that aren’t enjoyed by many low tax countries. A legal framework to open and operate a business, trade laws to ensure fair and equal commerce, rails, rivers and roads kept open and operable for bringing goods to markets, and an educated work force are possible because of taxes. Since you can’t pick and choose which taxes you want to pay, communication with your representative (see No. 1 above) is the way to affect tax policy, which, by the way, is what the original Boston Tea Party protesters were demonstrating for.

9.)Some of the partiers were protesting the possibility of strong carbon emission controls. Since both Presidential candidates backed such action last year it seems like the timetable is more when than if.

We’ve done a great job of mucking up a beautiful planet. I’ll bet God’s not too pleased with how we’ve taken care of his creation. Whether the changes in our weather are man made or natural occurrences doesn’t mean we should keep treating the atmosphere as a dumping ground for the poisons that we generate.

Why do the same people who wring their hands over leaving their kids a large national debt have no problem leaving their children and their children’s children life on an ultimately toxic planet?

10.)Another group in attendance was the birthers, a movement so discredited that even Ann Coulter ignores it. I just find the word “birthers” hilarious and try to work it in to as many articles as I can.

Plus, the protesters at the Boston Tea Party wore Native American Indian costumes, presumably so they wouldn’t wake to British Red Coats knocking on their doors the next morning. That seems pretty brave as well as pretty cool.

But stapling tea bags to your clothes? Mmmm, I don’t think so.