Category Archives: Politics & News

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Guest Post: Geno on Changing Political Party Affiliation

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Regular correspondent Geno sent this along:

Yesterday I went to my financial planner with a check for $30,000 and purchased a fixed-index annuity. I had withdrawn the money from a passbook savings account that paid me .75% interest, and when I purchased the annuity I got an immediate 15% bonus ($4500).

So, my $30M in the savings account would earn me about $300 a year after compounding, but the 15% bonus on the annuity earned me $4500. That equals $34,450 or an increase of $4500. The downside is that I can only draw out %15 of it per year for income if I need it. I don’t need it.

I have a half dozen of those, and a couple are well above $100M–and each of them will let me draw out 10% per year for income if I need it. I don’t need it–because…

…Mrs Geno and I sat down last night and figured it out. Since President-elect Obama’s tax plan will ensure that no one earning less than $50 will have to pay income tax, she and I will join the Democrat party in 2010. She plans to retire in 2010–after which we will both be pensioners, earning prolly around $27,000 and only withdrawing enough from our annuities to stay below the $50M cut-off line.

Of course, once we are democrats we will vote to make sure that the arrogant people earning above $50M get no tax relief. Screw them, the selfish f***ers.

Hoperfully Universal Health Care will have become a reality by then or shortly thereafter. It sure would be nice to sit back with $50M and not have to pay anything out for taxes or victimization expenses like health care and such. Mebbe we can get a tax rebate for driving old cars–even though we will not have paid any taxes. I love liberalism.

I have always wanted to be a democrat because I love Katie Couric … and that Dan Rather was a hoot.

2008 Bail Out

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We’ve heard of the Year of the Rat. The ancient Chinese welcomed the Rat as their protector and source of material prosperity. 2008 was the Year of the Thieving Rats.

I don’t usually like to see a year end. I love sunsets because the sky colors light up my life at the end of the day but the end of 2008 just means I’m another year older and deeper in debt.

I started out the year with a Schwab One account and now have a Schwab .015 account.

Speaking of our financial institutions, we also started 2008 with a credit fiasco when some mope lifted Herself’s wallet in Philly; the credit card processing center kept sending substitute cards they wouldn’t let us activate.

“What are the last 4 digits on your card, Mr. Harper?”

5884.

“This looks like a replacement for a card that was lost. That’s your old card number.”

No, my old card ended in 3399.

“That’s not right. I show the old card as 5884 and the new card as 6091. Let me put you on hold.”
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“Thank you for holding. We value this opportunity to service your call. Please continue to hold for the next available advisor.”
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“The current hold time is approximately 8 minutes.”

At least they had a nice symphony playing as their hold music.

I found out later that, while I was on hold, the banks scored $700 Billion on my other credit card.

Start a spreadsheet. Right now. Immediately. List every credit or debit card you have. All of them. Include the card number, the institution name, the institution phone number, the full name in which it is issued. Include its expiration date. Make a column with every autopay you pay with each card. In a spreadsheet.

Did I mention to do it in a spreadsheet? Spreadsheets are cool.

Brett Favre, who is Herself’s favorite quarterback of all time, lost his last ever Championship hope with an illegal forward pass yesterday. On the other hand, the rest of the Jets did complete more lateral passes in a single play than anyone had seen in a professional football game this year. If they hadn’t been using their hands, we would have thought it was professional soccer.

I bought my first hard disk-based “Personal Video Recorder” this year so I could pause the news and Herself could pause fuhball.

Built in China, of course, so I did my best for the economy.

This may be the second most irritating product on the market. The operating system was designed to operate bulldozers instead of showstoppers and the remote control pretty much doesn’t. Despite that, I wanted to buy two of them and the seller shipped two of them but only one arrived. Somebody stole the second “in transit.” And now this brand is off the market. Maybe if I had ordered three or four…

Our neighbors decided a couple of years ago that my project to rebuild the North Puffin garage “disappointed” them so they sued us. In the process of beating on us with their lawyers they magically grew their postage stamp sized camp lot by a few feet to the South and a few more to the North.

We lost a few feet of land on our southern boundary and our other neighbors lost a couple of feet of land on their northern boundary but at least we have finished that episode and are done with them.

I bought General Motors stock earlier this year. Automakers and auto dealers immediately tanked. GM suspended its dividend; later Congress decided to suspend GM. I didn’t understand it then but I understand it now; I spent 100 hours and $200 selling a $1,700 used car for $1,400 this Fall.

Regular readers will recall that I had had a yen for a special plate and expected, when I bought this particular KeysCar, that I would get one. After all, DICK was available in Vermont.

Unfortunately, Vermont said I’m not a Dick.

I listed the car on the free craigslist classified advertising site. Three legitimate buyers called. I sold it to one of them for a stack of $100 bills. 15 Nigerians or Nigerian-trained operatives offered cashier’s checks. Every last one of those bounced.

Gasoline flirted with $5/gallon about 20 nanoseconds after I decided to start driving everywhere again. I have some small hope that the oil speculators who caused that spike (and have now taken it in the ear when oil dropped back to traditional levels) were the same financial wizards who robbed us in the mortgage markets.

Or maybe not. There was very little justice in 2008.

Denny Crane sure was something, though. All he asked for was my interest every week but he earned my respect and he got my vote.

The stories we Pollyannas tell ourselves are more optimistic than these. 2009 is going to better, right?

“Nothing Is Free”

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I never thought I would say this: Cubans understand economics better than Americans.

In 1932 Lionel Robbins defined Economics as “the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.”

I think that is not true any more. At least, not here.

Economists should study and report on who produces, distributes, and consumes goods and services, how they do it, and where it happens. The “soft science” of economics allegedly uses empirical data but in reality is now a political exercise. In today’s scientific environment, we know more about Global Warming than we know about the economy and there is certainly more politics than science in the climatology data.

In Cuba, nothing is free, reports the Miami Herald. The Cuban people pay for it [all] with their work.

“A Cuban gets a salary of 500 pesos a month (about $20) and is told that education and healthcare are free,” Uva de Aragon of FIU Research Institute told the Herald last week. “Nothing is free. The Cuban people pay for it with their work.”

What a concept. Health care. Food. Housing. Consumer goods. All related to the sweat of one’s brow.

Despite the media furor, have you noticed that you don’t directly pay for your health care? Most of us don’t. Most of us have “insurance” (or Medicare or Medicaid). When was the last time anyone reading this brought a home-grown chicken to the doc’s office to pay for the visit? Or traded an hour of computer service for it? Since there is a disconnect between the delivery of the service and the payment for same, we don’t care that the cost has spiraled out of sight. The incoming Administration and the Congress want to take over Health Care to save you money. Right.

The Cuban earns 500 pesos a month from the state. The rest of his or her production stays in the hands of the state to pay for that “free” care.

Education has long been publicly funded by land taxes. Since states like Vermont and Florida take those real estate taxes straight to the Capitol and dole out payments to the local schools, there is a disconnect between the delivery of the service and the payment for same; the cost has spiraled out of sight. Now that real estate values (and the taxes collected) have dropped, the Miami-Dade schools will sue the State of Florida for the “lost” revenue. Right.

The Cuban earns 500 pesos a month from the state. The rest of his or her production stays in the hands of the state to pay for their “free” schooling.

Food (so far) hits most Americans in the pocketbook. OK, except for those on Food Stamps. Oh, yeah, and except for the taxpayer-funded farm subsidies that keep prices artificially low. Still, most of us spend part of our paychecks at the supermarket every week.

The Cuban earns 500 pesos a month from the state. No free lunch there, either, since he has to pay for his meals out of the 500 pesos (about $20). It costs most American families more than twenty bucks to hit the Mickey D Supper Club once.

Congress and the Fed believe we can spend our way out of any problem–health care, food, housing, bad loans. That’s probably true if there is enough earned income to tax to do so.

Uh oh.

Congress and the Fed (and apparently the Miami-Dade school superintendent) believe we can spend our way out of any problem by printing more money.

And nobody in Congress has broken an honest sweat in years.

Here’s the reality check. If I take a fine art photograph, print and frame that photograph, and sell that photograph to Joe next door, I will receive cash money which I can then spend in the grocery store or at the gas pump. If I don’t take that fine art photograph, or print and frame that photograph, or eventually sell that photograph to Joe, I will have no money for food or gas or my tax bill.

Any Congress Critter who doesn’t understand that dooms you and you and you and me.

Good Money After Bad, Redux

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The news reported that the automaker CEOs will return to testify again this week

The President-elect will “pay close attention” to what the CEOs say. Barney Rubble plans to beat them up again no matter what the Congressman said on 60 Minutes. The Toyota Republicans say we ought not let Congress mess with a free market economy.

There is a timeworn and well known joke:

An older and particularly odious man approached a beautiful woman. “Would you sleep with me for 700 billion dollars?” he asked.

“Oh, I have to think about that. Yes!” she said.

“Would you sleep with me for one dollar?” he asked.

“Never! What do you think I am?”

“Madam, we have already established that. Now we are simply negotiating the price.”

We ought not let Congress mess with a free market economy??? Sorry, folks, that horse has long since left the barn.

Throw Good Money After Bad

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Congress critters have the right to free speech. They also have the right to remain silent. There is a message there to those who would listen.

Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT), is a lawyer and Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), is a lawyer and Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

“With regard to the automobile industry, certainly we should not throw good money after bad,” Senator Dodd said, “nor should we subsidize ineffective performance and inefficient production.”

Thank you, Senator, for that insightful, positive, and critical decree.

I need to analyze the players a bit before I get to the main point of this piece.

Senator Dodd and Representative Frank make the perfect pair. Combined, they are the Barney Rubble of the United States Congress.

I looked at the $700 billion Barney Rubble campaign finance bill and it is indeed an interesting pattern. See, Barney Rubble specifically enabled the formerly illegal activities that lead us into the “mortgage crisis,” then rejected all attempts to get Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under control. Barney Rubble has blocked expanding domestic oil production because it is bad for us. (As an aside, Saudi oil minister Ali Al-Naimi told 60 Minutes last night that he is bullish on oil’s future and that expanding domestic oil production here is bad for us.) Barney Rubble did plenty more but you can Google it yourself.

I have been noodling about how this perfect storm of a financial crisis hit. Few scientists, fewer engineers, and no forensic guy believes in coincidence. It is almost impossible to believe that sheer happenstance conspired to put crooks in the banks, burst the housing bubble, jack oil prices, and more all in the same few months.

Somebody did it on purpose.

I nominate Barney Rubble.

Has our hero ever held a real job? Made anything with his (collective) hands? Yes, I used collective on purpose. Barney Rubble gave away $700 billion in handouts with scarcely a whimper but when three actual manufacturers who are the end source of more than a third of this country’s jobs asked for just five percent of that in loans, Messrs. Rubble know, absolutely know, that Congress needs to micro-manage the supplicants.

Boy, do I feel better about my tax dollars now. Congress gonna protect me from those evil auto makers.

Why?

My friend “Bob” posited the question, “Anyone know how to find which politician got money from which source?

“My guess is,” he said, “you will find that the car companies haven’t been making their proper political contributions like the lads on Wall Street.”

Christopher Dodd has received $21,202,690 in contributions. His top contributors include security brokers and investment companies, lawyers, the insurance “industry,” banks, investment banks and hedge funds, and, of course, lobbyists.

Barney Frank has received only $4,231,044 in contributions. [Piker.] His top contributors include lawyers, UBS Americas, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co, JPMorgan Chase, Ernst & Young, the Credit Union National Association, and Independent Community Bankers Of America.

“Bob” was right. Not a single car company on the list.

Money doesn’t buy influence, right? Our Congress Critters would never sell their votes, right? Right?

To paraphrase “Bob,” if you pay off Barney Rubble, he treats you right. If you diss him, he burns you. Just like the Mafia. Our Congress.

Main Point: Starting today, certainly we should not throw good money after bad, nor should we subsidize ineffective performance.

Not one single Representative or Senator has offered to work for $1 per year. The car company CEOs are.

Not one single Representative or Senator has offered to give up their aircraft. The car company CEOs are.

BROKEN NEWS

We are doomed. Sell your automobile stock right now. Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank held a news conference today.“Come March 31,” Speaker Pelosi said, “it is our hope that there will be a viable automotive industry in our country with transparency and accountability to the taxpayer.”

Under the plan, automakers will be given $15 Billion in loans.

That’s a win–win for Congress. Barney Rubble can say “We did all we could but they screwed the pooch.” Sure enough. Since $15 billion is less than half what the companies need to weather the crisis, they might as well fold their tents now.

“How could you possibly accept the same management to run restructured companies that have driven us into the ditch we are in?” Senator Dodd asked.

Was he talking about the automakers or the Congress?

Paraphrasing Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), The model of this Congress is failure. This Congress has already failed and should we rescue them? I say no.

Senator Dodd almost said it. Starting today, with regard to the United States government, certainly we should not throw good money after bad, nor should we subsidize ineffective performance.

Thanks to Senator Dodd, we don’t have to.

Say, hey, IRS. It’s been real but I’m afraid you won’t be getting any more checks this year. Senator Dodd says NO to throwing good money after bad.

And about Barney Rubble? I’ve said it before. It’s time to throw da bums out and start over.