Liberals Love Themselves Some Oil Spillage

You’ve got to just love the rancid way that Liberals are jumping all over the British Petroleum Oil Rig spill on the Gulf Coast.  I missed Keith Olberman’s show, so someone will have to fill me in on what I am sure was a rhetoric, vapid, hate-filled, fear mongering, “Special” comment show.  This is the Left’s evidence that we have to end our reliance on oil…right now.

Okay, Libs…I’ll Bite.  Let’s do it.  But first, you have to stop using or unplug everything made with or that uses petroleum-based products, including your laptop, cell-phone, electric car, private jet, plastic water bottle…for that matter plastic of any type, your iPhone, your iPad   (how the hell do you think these things are shipped to you?), your bicycle (grease and plastic, synthetic rubberer made with OIL),  your solar panel, windmill (they aren’t self-lubing, ya know, and have massive amounts of plastic), laminate flooring, black lacquer paint (this one is going to hurt), furnace, Air Conditioning (your AC compressor uses oil), your plastic cubicle, your pot pipe, condoms, your watch (this one shouldn’t matter since you don’t know how to use one anyway, most Libs I know are always late), your lawn mower, television, radio, the internet, your digital camera, ANY camera, your crack pipe, the little plastic baggies you carry your drugs in, your clothes (they lube the weaving machinery with SOMETHING), DVD’s, movies, food of any type unless home grown (you can’t eat because we can’t ship it) ……………………..shall I go on?

Or should we just shut the fuck up about oil for now, work toward a sustainable solution, and quit your damn whining?

No Recovery, No Jobs, Part Three

Would you buy this Apple?

Continuing my series about what caused our economic collapse, when it actually began, and why the “Recovery” will remain a jobless recovery until we reverse the effects of Free Trade and the outsourcing of jobs by America companies, allow me to present Exhibit A:  Apple, Inc.

You read that correctly.  Most of American sweetheart Apple’s manufacturing takes place overseas, especially in China, where labor is dirt cheap, young and workers don’t talk back, or complain about sixty-hour-work-weeks.  And why does Apple manufacture overseas?  Because the US gives them tax breaks to do so, and the World Trade Organization gives them subsidies for employing third-world labor.

That iPhone you just had to have?  Made in China.  That brand new too-cool-not-to-own iPad?  Not Made in America, like Apple claims.  Nope, it, too, is made in China.  Why?  Because even though Apple is a premium company which charges and gets premium DOLLARS for its products, apparently they are also a company that believes in paying its employees almost nothing.

A study completed by the Personal Computing Industry Center at  UC-Irvine showed that wages paid to non-US workers for production of the iPod in 2009 was $90 Million.  Those wages were paid to 19,190 employees, for an average annual wage of $4,689.

I didn’t forget a zero at the end of that average wage.  It really is $4,689.

Yet another source, Harvard Business Publishing, calculated that iPod prices would not differ greatly were Apple, Inc. to manufacture the iPod in the US.  Two examples display this perfectly, at the high-end and low-end of the price differential between manufacturing overseas (China) and here in the US.  The Apple iPod Shuffle 1GB sells for $79 currently, and as manufactured in the US, would sell for $108, a 37%  differential.  If all Apple products had that kind of differential, you might understand why they manufacture overseas.  However, the Apple iPod Touch 32GB sells for $399 as manufactured in China, whereas it would sell for $428 if it were manufactured here, only a 7% differential. The estimated costs of labor in the U.S. and China are $24.59 and $1.47 per hour, respectively.  At those rate differences, this isn’t about Capitalism, it’s about slavery.  It turns out that the higher the price of a good manufactured by Apple, the less of an effect the cost of labor has on it.  Which begs two questions; why is Apple selling America out,  and why isn’t the media saying anything about it?

I am going to give you some homework, now.  Don’t worry, it’s nothing difficult.  Your assignment is to Google “Apple factories”, and see what you find. It’s guaranteed to change everything you thought you knew about Apple, Inc.

Tax breaks for Apple to create jobs overseas.  Subsidies from the WTO for creating jobs overseas.  Child labor.  Near-slave labor.  Sixty-hour work weeks.  Toxic working conditions.

How badly did you want that iPad?  Badly enough to be willing to kill for it or endorse child labor or slavery?  That’s what you’re doing when you buy an Apple product made overseas.

Could moving those jobs back to America keep Apple competitive?  If their product is as good as they claim, they’ve proven an ability to charge almost any price for it, and get it.  The faithful will continue to buy Apple’s products presumably no matter what.  There is no doubt that if Apple moved its factories back to the US, prices would increase.  But the percentages shown aren’t anything at all like what I expected.  I have no doubt that Apple could continue sales growth at its current pace even charging ten to fifteen percent more than it does now.  They make cool stuff.  It works.  People will pay premium dollars for it.

After reading this article, will you?

No Recovery, No Jobs, Part Two

Small businesses are dying. Why? Because Big Box Retailers dominate the market in every aspect. They receive tax cuts that small businesses don’t. They name-brand and then market products made by near-slave labor in foreign countries…and call this Capitalism.  Those same Big -Box retailers have also been responsible for driving smaller, Mom-and-Pop businesses out of business.  Convenient?  Yes.  So convenient that America is choosing to enslave ourselves to them while our government bends over backward for them.

But our current Administration wants you to know that “The Recovery” is on schedule and moving along nicely.

Small businesses in America got some help, though.  A $30 Billion bill, which Republicans wanted to filibuster, was passed to provide tax cuts for small businesses who hire people.  Considering the number of small businesses in America, that’s about $1,000 per business.  When AIG came crying to Hank Paulson, they got $150 Billion.  The mantra holds true in America; the bigger you are, the more “help” you’ll get from government.

Recovery?  Not hardly.  One in five American males is jobless.  That’s twenty percent, for the math-challenged, and that doesn’t count those who have been out of work for so long, that they no longer qualify for unemployment benefits, or for all of the small businesses that have failed.     Ω

No Recovery, No Jobs, Part One

Unemployment currently sits at 9.7%, and one in five American Males are out of work, while seventeen percent of ALL Americans are Underemployed.  That’s six months or longer for unemployment news as bad or worse than this.    Meanwhile, Wall Street continues to “recover”, but not for long.  News of an impending Financial Sector Reform bill has traders very skittish.  The Credit crisis is still very alive and very real, as small businesses all over America are having a very difficult time getting the credit they need to keep their doors open.  (I’ve been saying this for eighteen months!)   In the meantime, the Fed continues to lend to Giant Mega-Banks (the ones who caused the Wall Street meltdown) at zero…read that again, zero percent.

According to the Moderate  Independent:

The economy is in collapse – there is no recovery.  We also know why there is no recovery:  A)  Free trade/outsourcing has sent our jobs overseas; B)  the “Big Boxing” of America has put most industries in the hands of a handful of oversized players who suck all of the money up to the few at the top, leaving the rest of the nation without the ability to earn actual livings.

Yes, there is the talk – is this recovery?  You hear the insanity coming from the Obama administration – jobs will be here by Spring.

“Jobs will be here by Spring…”  Remember that mantra last Fall of 2009?  Recovery is just around the corner?  Things will get better soon?

No, they won’t.  It’s time you learned the truth.  Outsourcing of good paying jobs continues, manufacturers continue to move out of the States, and our government continues to reward Corporations for moving jobs and dollars overseas, and for concentrating wealth in the hands of a few.  Remember that campaign slogan “I’m going to end the tax breaks for corporations who move our jobs overseas!”?  John McCain and President Obama both said it, as has every politician running for office for the last twenty years.  A dash of hope followed by a whole lot of nothing.  Hold them accountable!

And make no mistake here; it is the outsourcing of jobs and the tax breaks for the wealthy for keeping their money out of America that has caused the never-ending economic collapse.  The only way to end it is to end outsourcing of American jobs, and to end tax cuts for people who hide American money overseas.

Economic Recovery Is A Farce; There Are No Jobs Coming Back, And There Won’t Be

Over the next few days, I am going to begin a discussion with you about what caused our economic collapse, when it actually began, and why the “Recovery” will remain a jobless recovery until we reverse the effects of Free Trade.  Along the way, I’ll include links for you to follow at your own pace.  Suffice it to say that the Housing Bubble did not cause the downfall; instead, it was just a symptom of it.

Make no mistake.  This is not going to be pretty for either Political Party, both of whom have been, and still are guilty of perpetuating the very causes of the American economic collapse.  I have sources and articles from over fifteen years ago that began warning American economic leaders about the dangers their policies created.  I have articles written in 2004 from a well-known source that reads like it was written yesterday.  Remember, this was 2004, when the Bush Administration was playing the same game that the Obama Administration is playing today; that the Recovery is here, but that jobs will lag.

Jobs never came back, and the good-paying, family surviving jobs have left our shores seemingly forever.  We keep hearing about high-paying “service jobs”; heck, I recall hearing about them as early as 1992, yet those “service jobs” are no where in sight.  The Mainstream Media can’t even define what is meant by “service job”.  Neither can your elected official, or Paul Krugman, who keeps parroting that we ought to increase the national debt.

Free Trade was sold to us under a false bill of goods.  It is the foundation that Conservatives built, and Democrats have perpetuated, and as you follow the Free Trade Acts, as you follow the jobs leaving our shores, you can also track the money.

This is serious stuff.  Folks, our economy is not coming back, no matter how much “Stimulus” money is spent.  Free Trade is making China rich, and us a vassal state.  Wall Street, of course, will continue to get rich, because Wall Street doesn’t rely on American jobs to put food on the table.  So when you look at this deceivingly incredible recovery that Wall Street has made, keep in mind that the recovery will never spread to main street.  Why not?  Because there are no jobs to recover.  Conservatives created the Free Trade myths, and now they are trumpeting that Americans are lazy and only want to live in a Socialist, Nanny state.

Never mind the FACT that it was Conservatives that have created the conditions necessary for the rising state of social programs in this nation.  Democrats are merely perpetuating what Republicans built.  Things are going to get much, much worse.  Stay tuned.

Political Partageddon

A while back, I wrote an article about Primary elections.  As a follow up, I have some news about Primaries, as well as some encouraging stats for Independents.

Proposition 14 in California, a referendum that would allow Indies to vote in statewide primary elections, is coming up.   Since Primary elections are primarily for the selection of party candidates, the debate has been long and vitriolic over whether to pass it or not.  Here’s what the bill would actually provide:

If Proposition 14 passes, Californians will still participate in two-stage elections. But instead of a party primary, the first stage would be a contest in which candidates from any party — or no party — could participate. The top two finishers in the first stage, even if they are from the same party, would move to a runoff election, and the winner of that election would get the office. Races for Congress, the Legislature and statewide offices would all be governed by the new rules; those for local offices and the presidency would not.  LA Times

It’s a small step in the right direction.  Nevertheless, even as it is debated, Republican and Democratic Party officials are screaming like the evil terminator at the end of Terminator 2 as he melts.  You can imagine the rhetoric.  “It will be the end of days!  Or at least the end of political party’s!”

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST!

Basically, what Prop 14 does is allow Indies to run as candidates in the primaries against the Republican or Democratic candidates.  It makes taxpayer funding of Primaries more palatable.  Prior to this, Indies were stuck with paying for Primary elections that they had no part in.  Talk about controlling government!  Let’s get the rest of this done, and get every state on board with free and open elections for all.  The hoops that some state’s election boards put a candidate through are ridiculous, especially if that candidate is a third-party or Indie candidate.  It’s time to break up the cartel, boys and girls!

Finally, an article from The Collegian states:

Young Americans are opting not to affiliate with a political party.

Fully 50 percent of voters aged 18-29 now identify as independents, and the percentage of the electorate under 30 is growing. In 2006, 18-29 year olds accounted for 21 percent of the electorate. By 2015, estimates are that 18-29 year olds will account for 33 percent of all voters.

But the millennial generation finds itself confronted by an electoral system designed by, and for, the “I Like Ike” crowd. Party politics dominates. Election districts are gerrymandered to serve party interests. Many states require poll workers to be registered Democratic or Republican. The Federal Election Commission is comprised of three Democrats and three Republicans, rendering it both structurally impotent and blind to the concerns of independents. And most significantly, primary elections are off-limits to independents in 17 states.

Did you read that?  Primary elections are off-limits to Indies in seventeen states?  But Republicans and Democrats will steal their tax dollars to pay for their primaries, won’t they?  Blood suckers.

The good news is, more and more voters are choosing to go Indie.

Can you hear it?  It’s off, in the distance…a tolling.

It’s getting louder, and soon, the Republicans and Democrats will hear it, too.  They will hear it, and they will recognize it; after all, it’s the bell that rings for them, the death knell of corrupt political parties.  One day, and I believe it to be soon, being a member of a political party will be as poisonous to a candidate as belonging to the KKK.

With the most recent financial disaster, and another one looming on the horizon, more and more information is coming out about how members of both parties played a hand in sculpting the system that made it all possible.

More than 40% of Americans already identify themselves as Indies.  It won’t be long now…dong…..dong…..dong….

In Which I Take On the Liberal Racist Accusation Machine

My blogging friend Bob Cesca has a post up at his site, where in essence, and mistakenly, I believe, he accuses the Conservative Base of America to be racist.  Here is the comment I left for him.  I don’t know why I bother.  I’m probably going to called “racist” by a dozen people who are almost totally focused on using color as a weapon but somehow don’t see that as racism.

My point?  Until we see the human race as one race, there isn’t an American in existence who can’t be called racist. But, you know what?  They probably won’t see things that way.  Who am I to hope I’ll convince anyone?

“It goes without saying, however, that advancing whiteness and repressing brownness are aren’t mutually exclusive and are equally about race. “

Does it go without saying, then, that advancing brownness is also about racism?

As I said last week, this is a lazy, disingenuous approach to a much deeper set of issues.

Now, I understand some of it; I understand that there are some for whom the “change” in America is definitely about their racist tendencies and phobias. But to say it about the “Conservative base” (your words, not mine) is akin to saying that all liberals are uneducated and on welfare and only want to live off of government entitlements. (if you don’t know this, it is what conservatives think of liberals)  Nothing could be further from the truth, but there it is; it’s an accusation that is based on what liberals say and fight for, even though you fight for far more than just this.

I also said last week that I agree with Eric Holder; that America doesn’t have the balls to have a discussion about race, as in, America doesn’t have the balls to have a TWO-SIDED discussion about race.  It’s all one sided; with Liberals pointing the fingers at white conservatives time after time at the drop of a hat.  You have some white people in America afraid to open their mouths at all for fear of being called “racist” no matter what they say.

I’m independent; I hold some liberal views and some conservative.  I’m white.  Am I racist, too?  Am I racist because I just said that I’m not blind enough to ignore that the race discussion in America, if such a thing even exists, all flows one way?

Sometimes I think of myself as an outsider to this entire discussion, and I see that in certain segments, the liberals have valid points.  But I also see that in some segments, conservatives have valid points.  This is the danger with swallowing a political ideology hook, line, and sinker.  Ideology knows no limits, no restraints.  With ideology, a group of people is either all one way, or all another…nothing in between.  There can be no safe middle ground, for to allow such a middle ground is to lose the war on message.  And what is your message?  That all of conservative America is racist.  You don’t have to say the word “all” for people to get your meaning.

That’s why many people are afraid to say anything.  Well, I’ll say it.  You can call me racist until you are blue in the face if it suits you.  Here it is:

Until you are willing to have an honest discussion about race in America, no discussion will take place at all.  Personally, I think you and many liberals like it that way.  It’s far more easy to cry “Racism” than it is to have an actual honest dialogue about it.  Why would you want to change anything when “Racism” works so well?  Why would you want to form the landscape of America in equality when instead, you can stir up the masses in anger or fear (dependent upon whether you’re liberal or conservative)?  The truth is, you like things this way.  It’s convenient.  It wins votes.  It makes the Democrats the party of the minorities.  Yet from personal observation, I see no difference.

Liberals are more comfortable handing out condoms or providing abortions to brown people than they are with actually helping them and working with them to improve their personal situations.  Hand them a box of rubbers, give them a welfare check and hope you never see them again.  Doesn’t that make you feel all “Christiany”?

To a liberal, from my observation, a “brown person” isn’t a person at all.  He’s a focus group.  He’s a bloc of votes.  He’s a means to an end.  The brown person in liberal America is always poor, always uneducated, and always persecuted.  But this is somehow not racism.

Getting to the point, to a liberal, a brown person is a reason, an excuse to forward the entire liberal agenda.  When you speak of “brown people”, you do not see individuals. The language you use proves this beyond doubt.   You see a focus group.  I call it out as I see it, and as I see it, that is the worst sort of racism there is.  In the guise of helping your brown “friends”, you are actually making things worse for them.

You are trying to legislate what can only be taught at home.  Race relations start at the family level, not at the Federal level.  It begins one-on-one, not on MSNBC or CNN with two sides shouting at each other, or in the columns of the print media, or on the screens that view the internet.

You have it backwards.  You are keeping it backwards.  You like it that way.  Racism.

I’m a racist, you’re a racist, everybody in America is a racist.  What have we accomplished?  Precisely nothing.  For all of your shouting, all of your finger pointing, all of your rhetoric, you have accomplished nothing.   Despite the growing number of Federal programs or Federal mandates, race in America is still about dividing people according to color.  That’s a liberal accomplishment, Bob.  It’s also a worthless one.  We’re not supposed to be dividing ourselves; we’re supposed to be uniting ourselves.

Angry, finger-pointing rhetoric never accomplishes something positive.  Haven’t you learned this life-lesson yet?  Why should you?  Why, when “racism” works so well for liberals?

If you want to change America, change yourself.  If you want to change “race” relations in America, change yourself.  Stop shouting “racism”, and get your hands dirty.  Stop viewing people of color as a divided group, as a separate group of Americans, as a focus group.  Start seeing the individual, instead of the crowd.

I know, I know.  The crowd gives you more votes.  But, if you really want to change things, it won’t be about votes; it will be because your heart breaks when you walk a mile in your brown friend’s shoes and you suddenly see this person as a human being for the first time.  Bob, most people (liberals included) don’t even do this for their “white” friends.  How are you ever going to do it for your brown ones?  If you can’t stop yourself and feel the emotions of your neighbor, think the thoughts they are thinking, and listen to the inner dialogue they are having inside, the same dialogue you have inside, how are you ever going to see them as  human?

If you can cry out “racist”, and label the entire conservative base as racist, you merely prove that you do not see groups of people as individual human beings.  Until you do, you are as racist as the people you accuse.

I realize that viewing yourself in this mirror won’t be pleasant, and your natural tendency might be to respond equally as unpleasantly.  Like I said, call me a racist if you have to, but between you and I, we both know the truth.  Your accusation isn’t truth; it’s just another false accusation.  If it makes you feel better to say it, then go ahead.  I won’t hold it against you.

Before you do, however, I ask that you do me a favor.  I ask that for five minutes, you pay attention to your own inner dialogue, and your own thoughts.  I ask you to count how many of those thoughts weren’t about you, and of those thoughts not about you, how many weren’t in relation to you.  The answer will more than likely be zero, if you are human.  What does that have to do with race?

If you can’t stop thinking about yourself for five minutes, how on earth can you claim to not be racist?  How on earth can you claim some higher moral ground, when your every thought is about yourself?  It’s a conundrum, I admit.  It’s a problem we ALL face, every single member of the human race.  But it is the most essential of all human qualities; that we are all, at our most basic level, almost totally selfish.

Liberals and Conservatives alike share this trait.  And yet we point our fingers at each other as if we somehow have moved beyond basic human nature, and left our white conservative friends back in the days of Kunta Kinte.  It’s not true.  You are, at your foundation, concerned almost totally with yourself.  We all are.

Let’s start there.  Let’s start our race discussions right there.  That’s where discussions like this belong, at the most basic human levels.  What good is it to love one group of people and hate another?  In reality, when you face the truth, you can see that dividing America according to color is something that both sides are guilty of.  But doesn’t the individual inside of you want to see things differently?  Your words tell me that you want to see yourself as a kind, loving man, to whom color makes no difference.  You’re not there yet, Bob.  You’re still using color as a weapon.  That sort of behavior dehumanizes the very people you want to help, if you really do want to help them.

At some point, America has to learn that when it comes to race, there is no black, white, red, yellow or brown.  There is only the human race, and we are all bound by common traits, common dreams, and common hopes.  At the macro level, you can’t get there.  But that’s where most liberals are.  It’s not pretty, but I thought it was about time someone told you the truth.

President Obama Awash in Goldman Sachs Money

Yes we can

$994,795.  That’s the amount of money President Obama received from Goldman Sachs employees, members, and owners.  I don’t care what direction you come from, what side of the fence you’re on, or what your perspective is.  That amount of cash from a firm that was just sued by the SEC, and has a history of dubious Wall Street dealings looks bad.  Very, very bad.  How bad?

In the 2000 Presidential election, George W. Bush received over $120,000 from Enron executives, members, employees, and owners.  For that connection to them, he was skewered by the Left and the Press.  Time wrote an expose called Bush’s Enron Problem, while Jonathan Salant of the Associated Press headlined with Bush-backing Enron Makes Big Money Off Crisis.

So far, the press has remained mostly silent about President Obama’s ties to Goldman Sachs.  Even though I am a supporter of President Obama, I truly hope that silence changes.  Bush received from Enron one-eighth of what Obama received from Goldman Sachs.  That in itself is a story.  Bush claimed he never knew that Enron was a house of cards.  I am sure Obama will claim that he never knew Goldman Sachs was the Mafia.  Timothy Geithner will say the same, and White House Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emanuel will just tell us all to fuck off.

The question is, what will the Media say about it?  Anything?  Will the Left be as outraged over this as they were over Bush’s Enron ties?  Will the Right use this as a political poison dart?

All of this, of course, is after the fact, just as Bush’s ties with Enron were.  What can President Obama say that will make any sense?  This looks bad because it is bad, and no amount of White House spin is going to change that.  Probably Obama knew absolutely nothing about Goldman Sachs and their Mafia ways.  There was nothing he could have done.

The problem is, that doesn’t matter.  Not in politics, it doesn’t.  The American people are already fed up with the domination of our government by big business and special interests.  This is just another not-so-subtle example of bad imagery.  It looks like corruption.  It looks like money-f0r-political-favors, not because those favors were already given, but because we are now left to assume that any punitive action taken by the SEC against Goldman Sachs will have been attenuated by all that money they paid President Obama.   That’s what the general public believes when our elected officials accept campaign cash from the Mafia.

Hey, if you are man enough to accept the cash, then you have to be man enough to accept the assumptions that go along with it.  I’m just an ordinary citizen, but even I know that if or when I run for office and I accept large amounts of cash from an organization like Goldman Sachs, it’s going to look like I owe them something.  That’s the nature of the beast in politics.  If you don’t want to look corrupt, don’t accept huge amounts of cash from huge corporations and special interests.

I would think that a little bit of common sense would have whispered this sage advice to our President, and to every politician who came before and will come after.     Ω

Goldman Sachs Scheme Was An Old Fashioned Mafia Insurance Scam

An excerpt from my April 7, 2010 post called, Was the Financial Meltdown Manufactured By Banks-Too-Big-To-Fail? Yes, many of us in the investment business were talking about the probability of scams and frauds due to CDO insurance long before the SEC made its move.

How do we reign in these mammoths?  Do we need to get more serious about prosecuting some of these people?  An even bigger question lies unanswered:  Was the housing bubble artificially created?  With the advent of Credit default swaps, did these huge banks see a way to take on very risky debt at high interest rates and get paid anyway?  Did they use that opportunity to create a crisis where they knew the government would have to bail them out and honor AIG’s CDO commitments?

No one has answered these questions.  No one in our government has even asked them.  Why not?  I want to know.  Was the financial meltdown MANUFACTURED by these Banks-too-big-to-fail?  History is not on their side.  The only evidence we have from their collective pasts is that, hell yes, we ought to be massively investigating if they manufactured this crisis for a huge payday.

In light of the SEC’s lawsuit against Goldman Sachs for defrauding investors, I think the answer to the above question is yes, and as time goes by, we are going to see more and more evidence of this.  The trouble is, most of what Goldman Sachs did was legal, which begs the question, what idiot thought that allowing a giant like Goldman Sachs to create a tranche of mortgage bonds that it could sell as an “investment” while betting against it in a hedge fund and buying “insurance” on it was a good idea?  Who thought that this being legal was smart?

My God!  A five-year-old knows that if they want to be proven right about something, all they have to do is “make it happen”.  Example:

Spanky:  “Hey, Alfalfa!  I bet your new bike gets stolen!”

Alfalfa:  “No way!  You’re on!  How much?”

Spanky: “Five bucks!”

Next day, Alfalfa’s bike is stolen, by Spanky.

This is EXACTLY what Goldman Sachs and John Paulson did to investors.  And…

it was legal.

If you don’t think we need financial regulatory reform, I am going to suggest that you like America being run by the Mafia, because this type of scam, though it sounds sophisticated, is nothing more than a simple Mafia insurance scheme.

I recently made $5.00 per share by shorting Wellpoint after the healthcare bill passed.  I only did it to hurt Wellpoint and to prove a point.  But I will say this:  Shorting stocks should be illegal.  Allowing people to make a run on a company for no other reason than because they “bet that the company’s stock will drop” is not only immoral, but it flies in the face of everything America stands for.  We didn’t build this country by betting on its failure.  Likewise, you cannot and will not build a stable financial foundation by allowing the Mafia to bet on failure.

Take Hedge Funders and Shorters to Las Vegas, where that kind of asinine betting belongs.  Then guys like John Paulson and Lloyd Blankfein can work with their Mafia friends on devising new gambling schemes.  Take it to  Las Vegas, where fucking Americans with weighted dice is legal.  That’s what this was: a game of loaded-dice.  The outcome was never in doubt, and Goldman Sachs knew it.  At least in Vegas, they tell you they’re going to fuck you ahead of time.

As for the American press, I don’t know what the confusion is all about.  It’s not like we’ve never heard of or seen the oldest game in town; a Mafia insurance scam.  That’s all this was.

A New Fox News Show About Your Money? No Scamming Going On There!

I happened to be flipping through channels last night when I caught a snippet of Mike Huckabee casually advertising a new Fox News Show about Money.  I didn’t stay long enough to know exactly when it will air or what it will be called, but I did stay long enough to hear that it would be a “guide” to you, the consumer, on how to make the most of your money, how to spend your money wisely.  Suze Orman and Clark Howard, move over.

Now, I know what you’re thinking; “PPP is about to slam on Fox News Channel…again.”

You’re right, I am.  What else can I do with a network that calls itself news, and has exactly two hours of the entire day dedicated to “News”, with the rest of their lineup slated for political opinion shows?  Besides, we’ve seen this song and dance before.  We know exactly what Fox News thinks you should do with your money;  give it all to them.

Have you ever seen a “news” network with more “anchors” peddling pamphlets, books, DVD’s, pens, T-shirts, Bumper Stickers  and coffee mugs?  And there are the Fox “experts”, who again peddle their books, DVD’s, and pamphlets.  Fox News isn’t news; it’s a twenty-four hour infomercial.  It is in that background that they introduce their show about your money and how to spend it.

You don’t need to be a genius to know what’s coming.  Every night, Fox “Money” will have a guest or two who have just written a book, made a DVD, or have an upcoming lecture series that you can pay to attend.  The entire show will revolve around that book, DVD, or lecture, and throughout the hour, you’ll be given “opportunities” to get in on this ground-breaking advice about your money, all for $29.99.  Can you see it?  Can you?  It’s going to be epic.

I wonder who is going to host it?  I think it should be Sean Hannity, because he’s not shy about scamming people for their money.  After all, he’s the kingpin of a “charity” for the children of fallen Veterans that gives 12% of everything it takes in to those children.  Twelve percent!  What a hero!  Remember when he promised to be waterboarded for charity?  Apparently, there wasn’t enough profit in it, or you can bet by gosh and Gomorrah that Sean-o Hannity would be dripping wet by now!

No matter who hosts the show, you can bet that you are going to get gobs of “insider” advice on how to get rich.  Why, there will be Mutual Fund Managers telling you to give your money to them, and authors whose fortunes have been made writing self-help books, telling you how to make your fortune as a small business owner or through hard work and savings.  And there will be lots of commercials…for Armageddon Gardens and Gold!  Yes, buy Gold!  You don’t need to have the actual nugget in your hand; just let Goldline “store” it for you!   Nothing odd about that!  And be sure to get in on the groundbreaking $149.99 package of seeds, from which you can grow your own survival garden!  Who knew that seeds could cost that much?  Apparently, when they can survive nuclear holocaust, they are worth more than their weight in …gold!  Don’t forget to write down the number for your set of Ginsu knives!

Folks; I give advice about money here for free.  My advice to you is this: stay away from peddlers who have a book or DVD to sell you about your money.  Maybe you like the Fox News lineup; it’s a choice only you can make.  But please heed my warning when I say that the only concern Fox News Channel has about your money is that it’s still your money, and not theirs.  Don’t waste your time, and especially, don’t give them a dime!  Not even if Sean Hannity “promises” that “it’s for the kids”.  It’s not; it’s for him, and Fox News.