I know I am totally ignorant of the details of high finance and economy. I realized that I have some simple economic rules to live by and only spend what you have is the principle law I live by. I think most of you live the same way. Yes you will take out a mortgage, car payment, dinners, and vacations on credit but most of us do not take on so much debt that we cannot meet our monthly charges.

The refusal of the House to pass the bailout bill might actually be a good thing. I know it will be painful, but think about it. All government entities would be held to the same standards that we impose on ourselves. Every time they wanted to spend more than they expected we would have a vote on whether to allow the spending. Businesses that require short term loans to bridge the gap between collecting revenues and spending the revenues would have to make an adjustment but look at the savings in interest that would be saved. College loans that strap the newly graduated for a lifetime would be halted. Save some money take some courses. I spent years in night and weekend courses for my degree. I paid as I went and owe nothing for my education. Given the length of time it takes to graduate for alot of these kids it would not matter. All loans would be scrutinized before a lender would just blindly give out the money. People with savings accounts would actually get some real interest rates like we did in the past.

I have to believe that not being a debtor country would make us the real power house in the world. I have to believe that it is not so much Wall Street that fears this problem but the biggest waster of money our governments. Local, State, and Federal government would be restricted from spending money they do not have. No more give aways to foreign countries to llow them to trade with us, but ends up financing their hatred of this country. No one wants to be owned and told what to do except the most childish people.

Today really emphasized the ethereal quality of our finances. Yesterday the market tanked, today it is gaining some back. That IBM stock did not change overnite, just your attitude towards it. So how real is the stock values? Maybe we should just hold hands sing cumbayah and wish for it to rise. Having workedin State government I learned that their method of measuring deficits and surpluses have more to do with how they want to paint the other party than in checkbook finances. They constantly play games with projected spending and projected revenues to create any scenario they want. The state of New Jersey generally does not have a clue where they stand unless they freeze spending in the fourth fiscal quarter to find out hwere they really stand at the end of the fiscal year. All this juggling would go away.

So now what do we do, pay 700 billion dollars to remain the biggest debtor nation or do nothing and see where we go? We stand at the brink of a high cliff. Is there a soft landing or rocks at the bottom? I can not tell you. I am just one of many that pays the bills so that these experts can get their butts in a wringer and get bailed out when they screw up.

We argue about Governor Palins’ ability to step in for Senator McCain
in case he dies in office. There is nothing like having a wake before
the person dies. She is not running for President. Senator Obama is
running for President with his lack of experience. So how do you argue
for his inexperience versus Sara Palin’s inexperience when she is
unlikely to have to step in for Senator McCain. Let us not forget one
of the most famous inexperienced Vice Presidents, Harry Truman. He
owned a haberdashery. Selling mens clothing. He was in the dark
completely about the war and the atom bomb. Yet when thrust into the
Presidency by Roosevelts death grasped the concept of dropping the bomb
and saving thousands of our military. Duh, Roosevelt could have dropped
the bomb earlier but was too much of a patrician. Elitism personified
who fought every social change until blackmailed by the union
president. Yeah you don’t need degrees to make a calculated choice just
good advisors and the will not to sit on your hands thinking about what
to do.
Crazy Old World just keeps turning along.
We argue about
McCain’s campaign staff members being lobbyists. What do retired
Washington politicians do but become lobbyists. What about Senator
Obama. The national press likes to show him as someone that worked
their way through Harvard. This stretches all credulity. I had the GI
Bill and still had to work fulltime to pay my way through a State
college. So what is the truth? Senator Obama aligned himself with a New
York City Councilman that linked him to a Moslem living in Texas that
has problems with the Jewish Holocaust. This “esteemed” person called a
Saudi prince that then “asked?” Harvard to enroll Obama as a personal
favor. This Prince then paid all of Obama’s expenses and college costs.
Now tell me he doesn’t owe someone some big favors. So what is the
difference. At least McCain has American friends not foreign backers.
Crazy Old World just keeps rolling along.
President
Bush has a lot of baggage and decisions to answer for but so do all the
members of the Senate and Congress. Let’s not forget the former
President William Clinton. Wasn’t he the one that the national press
referred to as a Rhodes scholar when all the documents I’ve read say
Fulbright scholar. Major difference, Rhodes scholar equates to proven
genius while Fulbright scholar equates to a political gift for up and
coming politicians based on who you know not what you know. Clinton was
also the one that pushed the free trade agreements that was going to
keep people in their own country and promote trade. We bled jobs,
killed unions, lowered living standards for thousands, took away
benefits to create a medical mess. Bill Clinton also encouraged lenders
to lower the qualifications for mortgage loans creating a low initial
payment and almost destroying fixed rate mortgages just to get people
into their own homes. This was based on the hope that in five years the
homes would have value that people could parlay into downpayments in
the future. Also people would get raises that would cover the balloon
payment. Trouble was with the the trade agreements no one was getting
raises, benefits were destroyed and when it came time to pay the piper
these same people could not afford the monthly payments. Mass
foreclosures, and a still questionable future economy based on someone
using taxpayer monies for someones personal altruism. Since when did I
agree to ruin my life and waste my years of hard work and savings to
give away what I earned.
Sure is a Crazy Old World that just keeps limping along.

Economists like to classify the population of the United States from a
range of poor to rich with a lot of middle class niches between them.
We happily go along with these ratings because we like to feel
superior. I believe the real truth is not based on currency and
property but power and influence. Taken the population then divides
into the Capitalist Kings, those that run major industry and determine
their own path. Next come the Political Princes, these are the ones
that sit and determine the path for the rest of us, the Populace
Paupers.
Since the United States crossed the Hudson River in it’s
expansion to California, the power of self dtermination has evaporated.
We no longer mark out a plot of land and subsist. We are told what we
can spend and where we can spend it and how much we are allowed to
spend. Choices have become totally illusionary. The last vestige came
about in the twenties and the institution of the temporary tax to
support the war effort. This tax is the demarcation in history when we
stopped controlling our earnings. You realize now that I am talking
about the income tax. After the war when we did not burn down city hall
or march on Washington, the Political Princes came to realize their
power. The Populace Paupers no longer had control of earnings. Ding,
ding, ding the silver ball carooms into the wall and bumper racking up
power points for the Political Princes.
Next came Prohibition, a
small test to see how far the Princes could dictate our leisure time
and see what happens. If it wasn’t for organized crime profiting from
the legal deprivation we could now have grown up without ever knowing
about the pleasure of a little buzz. Illegal profiteering had to be
stopped. Not only was there revenues that they could tap but anarchy
was about to destroy the fledgling beauracracy of the the Little
Princes. Their comfortable niche was being threatened. Too lazy to work
among us and too stupid to create a business, their very existence
relied on our complacency. So let them get drunk. Ding, ding, ding the
silver ball drops a little down from the top hanging onto the side. The
Princes saw a chance to solidify their positions. Investment ran wild
people obviously had too much money. Investing in the markets and
profiting, the unknowing Paupers were creating wealth. They could
possibly join the ranks of the Capitalist Kings further reducing the
rank of the Political Princes. Tada, bells and whistles going off, the
lights flashing and distracting until the Princes pulled the rug out
from us. TILT the great depression. Even those not invested were
affected. The Princes taught them a lesson. Absolutely no longer any
self determination. The Paupers were taught how ignorant and dependent
on the Princes we had become. Like the Roman Empire we were given bread
and circuses, this time bread lines and Hollywood.
We would have
been stuck in this doldrum forever but the second world war intruded on
our complacency. We could nationalize a goal. We could make money. The
Princes, were now ducking and hiding. None of them wanted to be
noticed. This was going to well for them, as long as we didn’t lose.
Our focus was now for the greater good with rationing and the Princes
exclusion from the depravation the Paupers willingly accepted it for
the common good.
So now we bounce along dropping and rising but
stuck on a playing field neither going back nor dropping through the
hole. The Princes are now drunk with their power. War on poverty, war
on drugs, war on Saddam, and we lose each because we cannot concentrate
on any one thing. We just go where we are told and do what we have been
trained to do, eat, drink, and watch TV. Now the hole at the bottom of
the table Is beckoning. The Princes have spent our inheritance by
diluting Social Security to nothing but figures on a spreadsheet. Now
they are moving to lock in their power and position by imposing $10,000
of debt on every man woman and child with the $700 billion dollar bail
out. I am sure the Capitalist Kings are thanking them for this gift.
Is
this the last go on this table? If I only didn’t care about the
perception of me as a gelatinous slug leaving a slime trail throughout
the world, I’d run for office. I wouldn’t even need a honeymoon period
to lose my naïveté. I already know the game. Oh well, down to the
bowels of the table waiting for someone to put another quarter in the
machine. Ding-a-ling, ding everybody.