Representative Cummings

On CNBC this morning Congressman Cummings from Maryland mentioned that he noticed there were no signs at the 9/12 protest in Washington DC that said anything about executive pay and bonuses.

Mr. Cummings that's because the government is on a path that will make all the executive bonuses and pay issues seem trivial compared to the destruction that will be caused by reckless government spending. It is called prioritization. You may chose to fiddle on the deck while the ship sinks, but the people who took the time and spent their own money to show up in Washington on September 12, 2009 we there to express their extreme concern for what is going on and to let their represenatives know they are paying attention.

Despicable and Shameful? Hi Pot meet Kettle!

Wow, the tea parties really seem to have struck a nerve with some. http://tinyurl.com/cfluhm

Funny thing about these tea parties is I bet the same things we said about the Founding Fathers of this country 220 plus years ago. This Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) from Evanston obviously did not spend anytime finding out who might have attended these events. The attendees were not there to support a party, they were there for the most part out of concern for the well being of the country we live in that has been on a path to financial disaster for a long time and movement in that direction has been accelerated recently. The people of the United States are concerned and this probably scares the heck out of big time liberals like Schakowsky because if people start "meddling" in the affairs of their own government, it will become harder to accomplish their agenda. Darn!

The AIG sideshow

Should the AIG bonuses have been paid? Who knows? I certainly can not take Barney Frank's word nor Andrew Cuomo's as both are beating this horse for maximum coverage. What I do know is it appears that these were contractual obligations of the corporation and like it or not, we need to maintain the integrity of contracts if we want to recover from the economic problems of today. If the government uses it's ownership to violate AIG's contracts that will do more damage in one fell swoop that paying out %165 million in bonuses ever could.

Also missing in all of this-Congress attached earmarks equal to 52 times the amount of AIG bonuses. Where is the outrage about this waste of taxpayers money?

Financial Markets - TOAST

Barron's has articles saying the stock market probably could not get much worse and that Bank of America might be a deal at $3 and change. And they may actually be correct but I'm not going to be putting my money at risk. The financial markets around the world have been gamed and polluted with fraud. Until the fraud is accepted and the losses on that worked through the system we are not going anywhere. And further, since it seems "denial" isn't in fact just a river in Egypt, we still have a ways to go. Also today the WSJ talks about the possibility of a global stimulus framework. More money down a rat hole. Once we accept that 2006-2008 is over and the values assets traded for during that period are not going to come back anytime soon then the sooner we will be able to move on with our lives and start building for our future. As long as the denial survives we can not start the rebuild and will suffer more job loss, more foreclosures and more individual tragedy.

No Way!

A breaking news bullet on WSJ.com this morning says, "Federal Budget Deficit To Hit $1.75 Trillion". Wow! The Bush Administration did many things in 2008 that were less than desirable and did help dig a hole that Obama did inherit but, as much as Obama would like to say he inherited this deficit, thats is just untrue! The new Administration is out of its mind if they think this size of a deficit is going to fly with out some serious damage to our economy. This is scary stuff. The equities markets are going to have a field day with this and it is not going to be pretty!

A picture is worth a thousand words!

Wow. This cartoon certainly sums things up very well. President Obama is giving a big speech tonight. It will be very interesting indeed to see what he says and more importantly how the markets react to his work. What ever he says better be clear as the absolute last thing we need in the world right now is more conceptual mumbo jumbo. Ideas with a plan and details behind that are just what we need.

Is Pelosi crazy?

Speaker Pelosi was on meet the press this weekend and below is some of what she had to say...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?
PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?
PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

WOW - this is amazing. Actually I wish the Democrats well on their family planning endeavors. While none of this has any immediate stimulative effect, long term it will sure hurt the Democrat Party.

The Chosen One has arrived

Politics and the economy

I am growing more cynical everyday. I am truly beginning to think that most of what we see and hear in our media is all show.

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