Fed to markets: Let the bubble blow David Callaway – MarketWatch

Fed to markets: Let the bubble blow David Callaway – MarketWatch

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Politicking: The New Media Century

Lately we’ve heard about the wrestling match going on between the Senate and the White House Administration about when, how and if we should close Guantanamo Bay. Better known as Gitmo. This battle, or war, is being defined by the PR through the public response to the information being passed to us through the Media. You might ask the question, “is there some other way to understand what’s going on?”.

Lets just look at the campaign without the blinders. First we have the campaign promises of Obama on the road to the White House. The next thing we hear is that a one year commitment Obama made to look into the facts about the prisoners being held there so that a plan for dealing with them can be created. The funny part are the things that begin to happen after this.

Next Obama requests 80 million dollars from Congress in order to properly transfer, try and relocate these prisoners according to their threat levels, the evidence surrounding their suspicions, and whether or not they deserve to be released, not to mention everyone’s desire to keep all the secrets secret. Whatever that means.

Now if we look at the dynamics that are occurring in the media we begin to see an array of complexities that are being introduced by the different measures of PR Politicking that is appearing in the press. This is where TV Media gets most of its sources for our prime time viewing. The front page of the NY Times online, for instance, started with not only the articles regarding the events occurring in Congress and the White House, but suddenly there appears this article about a one year investigation that ended in the arrest of several people that, according to the NY Times, have no Terrorist affiliations. Their plan, according to their sources, was to plant an explosive in a car and detonate it at a Jewish Temple.

The investigation, supposedly, lasted for a full year before any arrests were made, and its got me wondering why so long. The fact is that just because someone is accused of something doesn’t make it real until they are convicted fairly, but in America it has become popular to convict people in the media, especially if it runs concurrent to timely events.

Well, someone at the White House must read the papers pretty early, because the next thing that happens is the White House announces that President Obama will appear before the public on the same day to present his case to the American People and to discredit the actions and legal council of the previous administration. And suddenly, this is the new NY Times Headline! That’s when it hit me that this was all a chess game of PR to form an opinion, in the minds of the people, that will allow the course of future events surrounding the prisoners in Guantanamo, to become the path of least resistance. Like parting the Red Sea, so that events can travel through the path created instead of creating one based on facts and truth.

To me this has all become the reasons why we will never, under these conditions, reach any of the goals that were laid down by Obama when he was running for President. People always talk about “how Washington operates”, and from this brief look at the politics of our media, I can see that it is a combination of Lobbyist powers (private and governmental) coupled with the Media Game, and the numbers in their ingenious poles. This is entirely built on the foundation that people, as a mass response, are dictated by their emotional bond with the story behind why we embrace certain points rather than the truth involved.

The second Iraq invasion is a perfect example of how American’s can be blinded into seeing justification within the perfect lie. Their PR work on the ‘War on Terror’ was so effective that Obama must now confront the existing momentum of those past policies in order to change course. He will have to prove to the American People that the things they were doing, speaking of the past Administration, were quote: “unjust, haphazard, ad hoc approach”. The old PR slant was to push people into thinking that Democrats were NOT tough on Security Issues. Then Cheney appears out of nowhere to refute Obama’s claims against the Bush Administration, and this will go on for a week.

This is slightly off topic, but has a similar relationship to the dynamics I’m seeing. Last night I watched a documentary on Frazetta, an artist whose work became so popular on science fiction novels that publishers wanted to buy his art before they had a novel to put it on. People would buy the books just because he had done the art on the cover, regardless of the content. Our Pop Media has become so caught up in this that the momentum alone has become bigger than any one reporter, or team or paper, or network.

This is what the decline of a culture looks like. When truth becomes someones slant and facts are things we say ending in the phrase, “these are the facts”. And, if you don’t believe me just ask someone for there opinion about something recent in the news and you will get quotes from whatever news agency they preach. Then try to point out any real facts you have uncovered and see where the conversation goes. I’d like to say it’s fun, but it’s not. It’s a bit sad if you ask me.

Last Night on TV

So, last night I’m watching the La Lakers take the first game of the Western Conference Finals (online of course) and I get to watch all the commercials on ESPN. Some of you might think that’s a bit odd, but I don’t have access to commercial television; no cable or satellite dish, just my internet connection.

All through the game I saw a lot of different advertising and this one I couldn’t believe. First of all Toyota is advertising their prius and it’s Green Appeal, and then I see this Cadillac Escalade commercial and it hits me that this whole GM bailout is going to fail, sure as shit. How is this any different?

Toyota and Honda are both selling cars that people need in order to meet with the changes coming, frankly gasoline cannot last for ever and these things can get 50 mpg. What does an Escalade get for mileage. I don’t even care. Like I said I don’t even own cable..

It amazes me we even bothered bailing anything out at all, the banks the insurers and the automakers can fold and I don’t think I would miss them at all. It seems to me that they got themselves into this mess, right!?

But, promising the American Government that it would change directions and then going on like “business as usual”, minus the layoffs, factory closures, and dealer closings. Don’t worry we’ll help you stretch out that failure, while we let our factory workers and and sales people find something else to do.

Personally I believe that all that bailout money would have been far more wisely spent on education, because the people running these companies obviously missed out on economics 101…

My Name is America, and I’m a Power-aholic…

Since the dawn of Power, Nations have sought to control the world through political and military strength. It is quite rare that countries and there power are ever totally honest about their own repercussions unless they are defeated by the next leader of the “Known World”.

For the last two years (one of the longest campaigns in history) we have heard about the “Change” embraced by the Obama Administration, but what does that mean. Well, according to Alex, change means to fix the pipes that are broken. Bronco says that it is an inherent trait of every administration to build new things in order to leave a mark in history, but the problems are underground, in those pipes.

What really needs to change in America lately seems to be the need to change. We live in a two party political system that swings like a rusty pendulum, where nothing ever really seems to change at all. It’s renamed or ignored and the thing that does seems to change is usually the etiquette defining the behavior surrounding it, rather than the thing itself. If you don’t believe me try ending some pork barrel project in the democratic whip’s state.

Seriously, we all just need to get used to it. Franky nothing short of a total overhaul of Washington will accomplish a thing, because no matter what it’s just going to keep pretending to represent the people and will continue to support the special interests of politicians that benefit from their constituents political payoffs, in the form of campaign funding. It’s all about getting and keeping you position, rather than sacrificing any political future to do what is right for the individuals whom you represent.

America needs to go to Rehab, and get off the politico-Crack it’s high on. And the media, which is supposed to be the public watch dog, has way fallen short of it’s duties, suffering the same addictive behaviors that Washington is suffering from, which is the threat of being cut off by the dealers that are swinging the Blonde, Gold the political system is all cracked out on!

“Half measures availed us nothing.. We stood at a turning point” and guess what happens if nothing changes… you got it, “Nothing Changes”!

Is that Tamiflu in your pocket…?

OMG!! We’re all gonna DIE! Again… It really amazes me how ridicules the Nation’s Media is. Look, I like Drama just as much as the next guy, but Pandemic? The Spanish Influenza kill 50 million people in 30 days. Loosing 200 in a week is not on the same scale. First of all only about 50-75 people in the US have contracted this thing, and according to “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (they) estimate that approximately 1.1 million persons are living with HIV in the United States.”(1)

The funny part about living with the US’ Media is that they are all on the same script. I wonder if viewers could start a group law suit for starting a panic over total misinformation. When Howard Dean was tore apart by the Media after misinterpreting what I would consider to be a pep rally to raise the morale of the thousands of volunteers that were there to support his Campaign. For weeks we had to see this one stupid picture that fraudulently depicted his actions, while the “commentator news core” ripped on him and told us all about his poor behavior, unbecoming of a president.

Now, everyone may not agree with me, but I think he was the only president running at the time who had any real plan, including a balanced budget, health care for America, and alternative energy. We could have really used him in 2004, but that’s not what happened. Instead we got a Republican agenda which was running rampant against all the things most American’s believe in, like Torture and Financial System Bailouts, and 4 dollar a gallon gasoline.

Personally I feel that any format that presents itself as a news program must leave commentary to the commentary segments and should be held accountable for the facts they present as news to America. I wish Howard Dean would have sued AP News and any parrot news agency who repeated the lie. It’s bullshit and we all know the Media is a PR scandel in American life. If you don’t believe me check out your sources and the fact surrounding them and see what’s what. Don’t take my word for it, do a little research on your information.

1). Taken from the CDC website.

A Taxing Tea Party

In response to Congress’ new Stimulus Package A site called taxdayteaparty.com/ has become the highly vocal spirit behind the movement to protest the taxation built into the new Congressional Stimulus Package. Fox News, as well, have begun running commentary ringing the theme “Take Back America”. A big position for a National News Service, to say the least.

It has been my opinion that there is a strong and steady building of sides that has cast a shadow on the Obama Administration. Probably not as potent as the separation of ideals that originally led to the breakaway states that ignited the Civil War in the 1800’s, but America has definitely come to a turning point in its History.

As Fox News has pointed out there is almost no coverage from many of the Major News Services in the US or abroad for that matter. It doesn’t seem PC to discuss it.

Michael Steel, RNC Chairman, had to respond publicly to rumors that he was asking to be counted in as a participant of the Tax Day Demonstrations. According to his response he had never considered himself involved in any way, nor had he suggested that to Tax Day Tea Party or its organizers.

In the past few months since Obama has taken office there have been a cacophony of voices cheering on one side of the isle, while another less casual voice from across the way that has begun chanting descent of the Liberal Pull that has swept through Congress.

But, lets not forget that the Republicans got the ball rolling with the TARP program request to Congress which gave $700 bil to financial institutes, who essentially put the US in dyer straights with reckless decisions, while ignoring the systemic risks involved, not to mention the bailout of Bear Stearns and AIG, Instigated by George Bush’s choice for Fed Chief, Ben Bernanke.

Some of America have become quite upset with the bailout and feel that the economy should have followed the natural course it had created for itself, which could have brought a huge number of major banks to ruin. It’s hard to say what’s really helping, but it is well known in economic circles, that the Government isn’t responsible for the health of the economy, or shouldn’t be. Hence the idea of Free Enterprise.

Its very hard to predict where this movement will take us, as it is equally difficult to predict whether or not the now Trillions of dollars being spent on these broken financials will ultimately do what it has been intended to do.

The good news is that people are talking about topics that were once considered taboos in America. Lets just hope it comes to wholesome and constructive ends!

GM, Chrysler shake up…

It is something you would expect from the conservative right wing, telling Chrysler to get bigger by merging with Fiat. This deal does a few things that I consider contradictory. First it is inviting Fiat to import cars into America, made easy through the Chrysler Auto Dealership McCartel. The thing that boggles me is all this talk about “Too Big to Fail”, but not too big for Fiat.

I am amazed we haven’t seen a public uproar about the de-regulation that has allowed these monopolies to exist. Think about it, if there were say 60 auto companies that all had to compete with each other for our hard earned dollars, do you think there would be a lot more options and more economical automobiles. it is safe to assume the answer would be yes, but we in this generation will never know.

This is the generation of “BIG”. the banks are too big to fail, the auto makers are too big to fail, the insurance companies are too big to fail, which all makes America “Too Big to Fail”. What a rediculas position for a (so called) capitalist society to be stuck in. In a poker game when there are only 10 people holding all the chips, we refer to it as the final table.

The fact is that from the time of Nelson D. Rockafeller and Dale Carnegie, almost every corporation, including Union Pacific through Microsoft have done things that would land most of us in prison for the rest of our lives, but in this country we reward them with trillions in bailout money while we gnaw on our tonges to subdue the pain of our teeth.

I think the bottom line is that monopolies are dangerous to any capitalistic society. It is the precurser to imperialism, especially when they are able to dictate the behaviors of a Nation’s Government that was built on the plateform of a “Democratic Republic”.

re⋅pub⋅lic  /rɪˈpʌblɪk/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ri-puhb-lik]  –noun

from the latin Res publica, literally meaning “public issue” or “public matter”.

1.	a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.

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We Own You, Citi!

Now that we own a 36%, most likely majority, stake in Citibank I would like to propose a solution to help ease the suffering of its stock holders, the American People. Lets trim down the company and sell off all the divisions of the bank until it is NOT “Too Big to Fail”. All those little subsidiaries and other companies that Citi purchased during its rise to being too big can now go back to being their own little businesses. At least that’s my vote, since I now own it!

Assessing the companies risk, based on the conditions of the present financial climate, I feel that this decision, which may effect the lives of many of the companies stock holders in a positive way should begin commencing now.

One of the things that totally amazes me is that Congress hasn’t begun the Anti-trust hearings for these bailout banks, and the auto makers. Who wants to have a few companies that are too big to fail ever again? Oh, but wait! That’s just how it is…

Yesterday I watched a Documentary on the Labor Movement of the early 20th Century, when the IWW was trying to get an 8 hour work day for ALL workers in America. The government of the US finally got so disgusted with this sense of an empowered workers organization that they arrested all the Union leaders and sentenced them to prison for causing disruption to the American way of life, and it dawned on me! This has always been a war, and as long as socialism was the enemy, the Company of the United States of Wealthy Corporations would use every tool in its arsenal of abuse to discourage anyone from ever joining sides with the enemy…

It amazes me (an yet doesn’t surprise me) that there isn’t the biggest outcry in American History, for the heads of the Corporations and Financial Institutions, that have put our children’s and their children’s future at risk. Remember, when Bush took office in 2001 there was a 6 Trillion Dollar Surplus in the US budget, and that administration along with the previous Republican Congress’ habit of deregulation turned our country completely over to the point that the rating firms are watching to see if the US Credit rating might not be threatened, by the massive debt we’ve accumulated.

There has always been a tenuous thread of difference between the Social and Capitalist leans in America, and it usually takes a time like this to point out the massive division of wealth that the rich enjoy when we forget the lessons of the past. Greed has never made our country prosperous for very long. When Reagan pushed for the trickle down economic measures that brought us out of the 70’s recession, it barely lasted through his term in office, and the same thing happened during the second Bush. It doesn’t work and deregulating the financial institutions, trusting them to monitor and assess their own risk leads to greed, and not longevity of prosperity for everyone, because the flawed part of the Trickle Down part always gets stuck in linings the rich pockets.

I think it’s hilarious that Fox News and some Conservative Politicians are calling Obama a Socialist like its a bad thing, while using the excuse “I Worked Hard for What I Have”. Excuse me, but who worked hard? To me it looks like all those people who are losing their jobs right now were some of the hardest working people out there. Most CEOs don’t even do their own dishes, let alone work. And if you think that’s not the truth, ask them, or better yet let them try to make billions of dollar without our help. See how long that lasts. What a joke…

Another Waste of Breath

It only took Congress 5 years to finally complete phase 2 of an investigation to the pre-war intelligence over the invasion of Iraq, and the build up by the White House to go to war on stretched information and sometimes blatant lies. I mean we all saw Colon Powell deliver that hopeless bull to the UN about the aluminum tubes. It was on every channel and no one questioned it at the dinner table, or thought about how many lives would be destroyed by sitting there listening and not voicing there objections.

We all saw the President stand up in front of Congress and tell us about the Nigeria paper that had already been disproved by Valerie Plame’s husband, as a fraudulent forgery, that Saddam was trying to get yellow cake (enriched uranium), and this was part of his “WMD” program, but the Republicans in Congress were trying to protect their buddies and had no intentions of protecting the sovereign citizens they supposedly represent.

It amazes me that we have come to this point as a “democracy”. What do people expect when there is nothing remotely close to a reaction over something that has killed literally hundreds of thousands of people while the mentality of complacency rings in with banners and bumper stickers to support our troops. What a joke. And if the pre-war intelligence for Iraq was theater for our entertainment then so must be everything else this administration has claimed and Congress has rolled over for.

Maybe if we hadn’t allowed Congress to lock the number of House Representatives at 450 something in the early teens, we might still have a voice in our political process. The story isn’t even important anymore. No one really cares about it. All we care about is our life-style obsessions.

America is as broken as it can get and Congress is so blinded by soft money and lobbyists that it can’t even end farm subsidies in the wake of a world food shortage. Of course they’re not going to impeach the President for one of the lies that took us to war. That would be doing something.

I find it amazing that there may not be enough solid evidence to convict Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and yet we as a nation have gone to war twice because we were so sure we were right about 9/11, that we were willing to kill for it. So where’s the WMD’s?

The bottom line is that the President swore an oath to protect the Constitution. It clearly states that the President must annually inform the Congress of the “State of the Union”. When He stepped behind that podium and told Congress and the American people that the Nigeria paper was solid evidence that Saddam had Nuclear ambitions he knowingly committed perjury under oath. The CIA had informed him after reading his speech, previous to the State of the Union address, that the intelligence might not be accurate.

The investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame’s identity to the media, and the conviction of I. Lewis Libby’s perjury, reveals foreknowledge of the Presidents actions before Congress, that the White House Administration was attempting to hide the indiscretion, by discrediting an OpED article by Joseph C. Wilson (Plame’s husband), which revealed the Nigeria Paper to be a forgery. It reveals the motive behind misleading Congress, the UN and the American People, that the White House was intent on attacking Iraq, even if they had to lie to achieve this end.

Senate Panel Finds Iraq Intelligence Exaggerations

So Many Home Owners, So Little Time

Shiela C. Bair – chairman of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation wrote an OpEd entitled “How the State can Stabilise Housing Market” in which she is suggesting to the White House a plan involving loaning $50 billion to home owners with unaffordable mortgages as a way to stop the decline in housing prices, which is pushing some home owners with prime mortgages to jump into foreclosure as a way to shed their negative equity holdings.

It seems that the real problems, with the housing price declines we’re seeing across the country, have little to do with just the few (1 million) Subprime investors that her plan will effect. Currently there are 4 million borrowers holding adjustable rate loans that have either already jumped to higher interests or will soon.

It would cost the Federal Housing Authority approximately $200 billion to pay-down 20% of their loans and add a partner to their profit taking if they were to sell their house before any FHA loan could be fully paid.

Former economic adviser to President Reagan and current Harvard professor Martin Feldstein, in his own Editorial has offered a similar plan that will make $300 billion available to the FHA to loan to home owners, but has more stringent rules then the plan offered by the FDIC. It extends the duration of the loan to 15 years instead of the 5, Shiela is suggesting, but in the end its just another loan with more complicated strings than a simple foreclosure.

The Fed has thus far loaned several hundred billions directly to the banks that have used it not to turn around and loosen up on the tight reins of liquidity we’re seeing, but rather they have continued their momentum of tightening.

It would have made more sense to have given the funds they made available to the home owners who have been caught in this trap instead of the lenders who created the problem in the first place through extremely poor lending practices. It may have even stopped the collapse in house prices if it had been done in the timing of the bank bail-outs.

The real losers in this fiasco are the families that have refinanced their homes in the last 5 years, when home values were high, and are now sitting on negative equity, and none of them qualify for any kind of relief.

Neither plan seems to be a shoe-in for Congress or the White House, which believes that any bailout should be done privately. The essential question of the day seems to be timing. If action on this matter waits then what some people are calling an adjustment may over shoot the bottom, either that or the momentum will be too much to stop at all. A lesson we should have learned from Japan in the 90’s.