Wild, Wonderful West Virginia. And a $65 million surplus.

Think what you may about West Virginia - backwards, hicks, inbred (well, people say that), third lowest in per capita income in the U.S., last in median household income, lowest proportion of adult population with a bachelor's degree, etc., etc. My aunt from Wisconsin moved there for a time because of her husband's job transfer. We visited them there...it's "Deliverance" country.

I suppose those hillbillies are having the last laugh now...with their 65 million dollar budget surplus and all.

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"Misread" or 'incomplete information"? You pick.

VP Biden: "We misread how bad the economy was..."

Pres. Obama: "No, no, no, no, no,"...Rather than say 'misread,' we had incomplete information."

So then this most recent stimulus package was configured on "incomplete information"?

President Obama just recently put his initials on a new $15 billion food security program intended to assist poorer countries in their food production. The emergency supplemental appropriations bill that was signed a couple weeks ago spends billions overseas. We seem to have an endless supply of money to dole out overseas, yet our unemployment rate is rising and the economy isn't on an upslide.

And there's talk that OUR COUNTRY may need another stimulus package. Where's that money coming from? Doesn't this strike a chord with any of you out there? California is so broke it wants to hand IOU's to state taxpayers and so is the City of Los Angeles and yet LA found $1.4 - $4 million to spend on Michael Jackson's memorial service.

Why are there's so many of you acting like nothing's happening? Is anyone taking this seriously?

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Wise words...from the French?

French President Nicolas Sarkozy says that the economic maelstrom that has captivated the world's attention for the last 17 months is "not a crisis of capitalism" but, in actuality, a breakdown of a system that has "drifted away from capitalism's most fundamental values."

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California's consumer lending numbers in the toilet.

Saw this in today's Wall Street Journal. The only reason I haven't moved back to the Midwest is because I still have a job. TODAY I still have a job...

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Obama admininstration's bark is worse than its bite.

According the Associated Press, "On Sunday, Obama told CBS's 60 Minutes the House's plan to slap a special tax on the AIG executives would be unconstitutional. Borrowing a line from his Feb. 24 speech to Congress, he said he would not "govern out of anger."

You can't use the Constitution as a safety net for all your screw-ups, President. First, the government OK's a bailout of AIG without taking into consideration the fine print that allowed AIG to dole out $165 million in bonuses. The country goes into an uproar. The President goes into an uproar. The House goes into an uproar and passes legislation to tax that bonus money in order to get some of it back. Then Obama says wait a second - we can't do that.

Seems like a lot of people are doing things they're not supposed to be doing and the American people are paying for it. Seems this administration's "roar" is nothing more than a "meow".

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Federal gov't. takes "moral road" while AIG screws us all in the ass.

Frank Rich wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times that my friend Stephen Alan Carver featured on his Facebook site (thanks, Stephen). I'm not a Frank Rich fan - he ripped on Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ and I felt that Rich's arguments were hollow and that he was just one more Jewish person with an axe to grind. But I liked this piece in which Rich tackled the AIG fuck-up (cause that's what it is).

There's a video link of CBS's Bob Schieffer interviewing Lawrence Summers, chief economic advisor to President Obama and Director of the White House's National Economic Council. I was struck by a comment Summers made during the interview. What follows is my comment that I made on Stephen's FB site (I edited it somewhat):

"I love how Summers said that AIG CEO Edward Liddy and Treasurer Secr. Tim Geithner met to discuss the most prudent action to get the AIG bonuses back and that Liddy is doing everything within his power - "legally and morally" - to accomplish this.

"Morally"?? As I understand it, the crux of the AIG bonus debacle is that no one wanted to risk breaking any legally-binding contracts that might result in the Federal government facing a lawsuit (Geithner said this). That's why it was agreed that the $170 billion bailout of AIG by the U.S. government (and taxpayers) was OK'ed with the stipulation that the bonuses be paid out as contracted. Problem is this information became public.

Morally? Liddy is doing everything within his "moral power"? What is moral about executives no longer employed by AIG taking bonus money? Or any employee taking bonus money? Can't be for a "job well done". What's moral with AIG borrowing from the government, which is now an 80% owner of AIG (along with taxpayers), then giving away millions of that borrowed money in the form of bonuses? For that matter, what about Bernard "I'll be someone's bitch soon" Madoff or Merrill Lynch or the two guys who ripped off the Iowa Public Employees Pension for millions - you can go on and on. There IS no MORALITY in the world of finance right now, friends. NONE. Greed? Yes. Morality? No.

Why is it that every other American worker is forced to forego vacations, bonuses, raises - or lose their job, but the American government must step on egg shells because of contracts that were entered into by AIG? Why does the American government have to take the "moral road" when these moral-less fuckheads from AIG are handing out bonuses to more moral-less fuckheads from AIG and miscellaneous companies overseas? When any other company goes under or changes ownership, often times all contracts are null and void. I've got a friend whose eye doctor messed up his cataract surgery - blinding him - and my friend's lawsuit has been determined to be "null and void" as the doctor died - the attorney told my friend you can't sue a dead man.

Pussies. Plain and simple. You wanna beat the British in the American Revolutionary War, you hide behind trees and "Indian fight". We lost the Vietnam War because we couldn't adapt to the Vietnamese way of fighting. And we'll lose this battle if we don't toughen up. ADAPT. Our government is turning into a bunch of pussies. And anyone who thinks I'm the only mouthy sonofabitch who thinks that is as dumb as our government is."

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Separated at birth? Talosian and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

The Talosian is on the left - from Episode One - "The Cage", Star Trek television series (1966)

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Even the U.S. mortgage crisis won't muzzle the NAACP.

It's not looking for damages...it just wants the problem fixed.

So says NAACP CEO Benjamin Jealous. With the mortgage debacle in the thick of our country's economic crisis, one would think the two most important issues to address are 1) go after the lending companies who approved mortgages to people who shouldn't received them, and 2) go after the people who had no business applying for and getting said mortgages but did so anyway because they're greedy dumb asses.

But the NAACP doesn't care about that. Under subprime lending, people who don't qualify for lower interest rates can borrow money at higher rates. The NAACP is arguing that the companies gave subprime rates to African-Americans who qualified for better rates and gave better rates to white customers with similar credit histories.

Which is discriminatory, I agree. So go after the blacks and whites who had no business applying for a mortgage because they're greedy assholes and go after the lending institutions who approved the mortgages. Let everything settle down and get back to normal. THEN address the discriminatory bank practices. Why can't the NAADUMBASS just forget about "race issues" until we get everything straightened out? Geezus Christ.

And change the name of your organization already. "NAACP" offends me.

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HUD shoots its WAD.

HUD Allocates More Than $10 Billion of Recovery Act Funding One Week After Bill Signing Wednesday, February 25, 2009

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today allocated nearly 75 percent of its funding, or $10.1 billion, made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The Recovery Act includes $13.61 billion for projects and programs administered by HUD, 75 percent of which was allocated to recipients today - only one week after President Obama signed the Act into law.

This - from the President's own website - Recovery.gov. Check it outand read the entire press release. How much you wanna bet that President Obama's newly appointed HUD Secretary, Shaun Donovan, will be back asking for more money. Nice, isn't it? Just over a half billion of the $13 billion total allotted to HUD is going just to the Native American Indians. Or is it just "Native Americans"?

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Los Angeles Times front page today. Why am I nervous?

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What did you think Bill Clinton would say, Ms. Curry - "yes"?

Feb. 16 - TODAY’s Ann Curry talks with former President Bill Clinton, referencing a list that placed Clinton among the Top 25 people who share blame for the the current economic downturn. There should be a video box toward the bottom right of the article.

He said, "no". Seems to me she should've followed up with, "why do you think that?". No? Bad, Curry. Baaaaad, Ann Curry. To see the entire list TIME put together, read here.

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President Obama...let the party begin. That'll be $150 million, please.

I thought the Obama Era was supposed to be a CHANGE in our political climate. A new beginning. History in the making. Really?

The Associated Press is reporting that the Obama inauguration gala, all told, cost around $150 million, give or take. $41 million of that was raised by President Obama's inauguration fundraising committee. The other $119 million - I suppose you and I pay, hmm?



Now Obama deserves an inauguration like any other president. And I'm not saying his heart and motives aren't true. But I thought he's UNLIKE any other president we've had? That's what he and his supporters have been touting throughout his presidential bid. His platform was based on "CHANGE".

So wouldn't it have been in line with his platform and his campaign to forgo the multi-million dollar celebration (the most expensive, mind you) and spend the $150 million more wisely? On something that would last more than a few days?

Seems to me that Obama - if he really meant everything he said during his campaign - should have backed up his campaign promises and rhetoric and done what FDR did for his 1945 inauguration - FDR made a short speech and served guests cold chicken salad and plain pound cake. Fine - you can substitute something else for the chicken salad and pound cake. During WWI, President Wilson didn't have any parties at his 1917 inaugural, saying that such festivities would be undignified. The thinking was that, with the nation at war, excessive celebration was inappropriate. Those moves were indicative of how history has viewed both FDR and Wilson.

Obama's inauguration committee says it is mindful of the times and is not worried people will see the four days of festivities as excessive. "That is probably not the way the country is going to be looking at it," said committee spokeswoman Linda Douglass. "It is not a celebration of an election. It is a celebration of our common values."

Well, that's not the way I'm looking at it, Ms. Douglass. People are tightening the belts. People are losing their jobs. During this "time of CHANGE", shouldn't the new administration set an example? After all, we are all "neighbors", right? While in the midst of an economic hardship we haven't seen in decades, the arrogance that is rampant in U.S. politics rears it's ugly head in the form of a little pomp and circumstance - partly at OUR expense.

Not the way I would've expected President Obama to begin his presidential tenure.

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