Sarah Palin. The new George W Bush?

Click the image above for an interesting video.  Hint: George W. Bush the reformer.

America First? Sarah Palin believes in Alaska First.

I find it very odd that Sarah Palin was chosen by McCain to be his VP candidate since he is running on the motto “Country First”.  Besides the fast that she was already under investigation by her own state for unethically abusing the power of her position, her husband belongs to the radical political group Alaska Independence Party (AIP).  Sarah Palin is a strong supporter of this group, but she is not an official member because that would, of course, not bode well for her political career.   And one of this groups main agenda’s is to have Alaska secede from the United States, the same country Sarah Palin is now attempting to become the Vice President of.  Does that not strike anyone as a little peculiar?

John McCain may believe in putting his country first but Sarah Palin certainly does not.  Her motto is “Alaska First – Alaska Always”.

Meet Sarah Palin’s radical right-wing pals

Below is a video of Sarah Palin addressing the AIP at their 2008 convention where she tells them “Keep up the good work”.

Why Fox News is not real news.

I used to watch Fox News a long time ago.  At that time I don’t know if I was just too naive to notice how they were “reporting” the news or maybe it just was not as agenda driven as it has obviously become.  Today Fox News is basically a publicity firm for the Republican party.  There is nothing inherently wrong with the Republican party or the Democratic party for that matter.  The parties were started off with good intentions and were just a way to generalized some different beliefs in how our government should govern, particularly in the foreign policy area.  But over time, there have been constant changes and divergence of what it means to be Democrat or Republican and in the world today it would seem that the primary differences between the 2 parties are that Republicans generally feel that government should be less involved in our lives by having less regulation and government programs for the less fortunate, thus promoting the capitalist idea that each should “make” it on their own while assuming everyone in the US has an equal path to success whereas the Democrats seem to believe in a more socialist approach to assuring that all citizens are able to or at least given a better opportunity to achieve a better way of life for themselves and future generations of their family.  Of course there will never be 100% equal distribution of wealth and power, but it should not be the other extreme either which is having a very small group of ultra wealthy and powerful families ruling over a very large percentage of working class families that, by the terms of our Constitution,  should have the same rights and ability to prosper in our nation.

But what has happened is that there is a large group if individuals in this country that want to keep wealth and power to themselves in order to maintain that elite status over the populous working class.  It’s human nature to want to do good for oneself, but greed is something that will lead some to perform some absolutely sinister acts.  And unfortunately these groups of people have adopted the Republican party as their tool to try to sustain their agenda because the nature of the Republican supporters tend to be made up of individuals that lean towards the more selfish side when it comes to financial gain and overall class status.

And here is the beef I have with Fox News.  It seems that their agenda is to strongly promote the Republican parties because that parties policies generally make it easier for the upper class to maintain their status and wealth accumulation at the expense of the average American citizen.  All while purporting to be a real news agency and being “fair and balanced”.  Fair and balanced is so far from the truth but it’s outright laughable when they say it with a straight face seconds after referring to the Republican party as “we” and “us”.  They don’t even hide their bias that well.

So, is any “news” organization that has a strong political agenda really a valid source for news?  I mean, after all do we American citizens want to be able to make up our own minds on issues and how this country should be run or do we want to be pawns for a for a few people’s game of have’s vs. have-not’s?

Now you may ask, why do I think Fox news is the one with an agenda and not “the other guys”?  Well, we’ve all heard the saying “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” and that’s generally true.  So if Fox News is always claiming that “the other guys” are just “liberal mainstream media” but 95% of the world is saying that Fox News is just trying to promote their political agenda, who would you tend to believe?  Unless the other 95% of the world is in collusion against Fox News, then there is something seriously wrong with the claims by Fox.  And I have never witnessed a group of news personalities so overtly make known their political agenda as the Fox News guys.   So clearly not unbiased.  So for me, I’ll get my news from multiple other sources and if any of them seem to be underhandedly promoting a self-serving agenda then I will not be tuning in, and nor should you.

Links worth visiting:

Fox News reports knowingly wrong information

Fox News "news" lies and deceit revealed

Insight from a Fox employee

How to solve the mortgage mess

What is the best solution to the "mortgage crisis" and "credit freeze"

My solution to this mess? The government should buy these mortgages for 70% of their current outstanding principle balance (the bank will resume the loan at a later time to be able to recover the remaining 30%. The details will be discussed later in a document I’m writing), rework the terms if it’s possible for the current owner to pay back the full amount. If the owner is unable to afford the re-worked terms, foreclose on them and sell the house at its 2002 valuations. The government would then force the ex-owner to pay back any uncovered debt over a period of 10-12 years. The 30% that the bank lost can either be taken as a write-off, with the ex-owner paying capital gains taxes on that, or the bank can set repayment terms with the ex-owner. This way, the responsible taxpayers are not footing the bill and those that played the game and lost will have learned a lesson. And home prices will return to normal quicker due to the new “comps” that are selling for 2002 prices.

The effect of this will be that:

• The banks will have new liquidity to start lending responsibly this time.
• The “homeowners” who really can’t afford their homes will return to renting while the renters waiting on the sidelines will start buying all the homes that have been foreclosed on because they will be at levels that they are expecting home prices to return to. This includes many homes which are now leaving neighborhoods in shambles.
• Realtors will start working again showing the homes that are available at reasonable prices.
• The home prices will stabilize much faster than by bailing people out.
• The government will get all their money back with interest.
• The government will not be rewarding the ones that were fiscally irresponsible by punishing those who were, which is what they want to do now.

National debt so high, clock can’t keep up!

Bill Clinton speaking about the economy then and now

The Great Schlep

See more Sarah Silverman videos at Funny or Die

Middle class is evaporating.

Everyone knows the middle class is being squeezed.  It's been all over the news for years, but what does it really mean?  It means that the middle class, the people that work hard to provide a decent way of living for themselves and their families, are going in the opposite direction from the way it historically has gone due to the depreciation in the value of their incomes.  The middle class does not make enough to overcome the rising living costs which just causes a slow decline into the “working poor” pool.

Remember the times when a head of a single income household, working an average full time job ,could afford to buy a house, have health insurance, go on vacations, pay for kids college, and still save for retirement?  What happened?  I think it can be traced to the easier access to more and more credit so that the “middle class” could live farther and farther beyond their means, resulting in too much inflation and more of their paychecks going into paying interest to the wealthy that were giving out these loans.  Essentially, a slow decline in real expendable income of the average working American and at the same time a massive transfer of assets from the middle class to the wealthy.  People need to start living off their earnings instead of off credit.  It looks like with the current economy their not really going to have much choice about it.

The gap between average folk and super wealthy is at an all time high in America, and it will continue to grow if allowed.  And this can't be at all good for America.  Of course not, how can it?

Republicans cause a skyrocketing national debt!

Take a look at this graph,

• It shows that from 1944 to 1981, the national debt stayed at around 1.8 trillion dollars.
• When Regan took office, it immediately started to go up.  In fact, it more than doubled by the time he left office to 4 trillion.
• Then Bush Sr. continued what Regan started and added another 1.3 trillion to the debt.  So between Regan and Bush senior, they almost tripled the debt in just 12 years.  A debt that had remained pretty constant for the past 40 years.
• Then Clinton came into office, and you immediately see the spending spree slow down and actually start seeing our debt declining.
• Then Bush Jr. comes along and continues the Regan/Bush Sr. debt increase.  One that will stand at around 11.5 trillion dollars before he is done.  That means in 8 years he will have increased the national debt by 6 trillion dollars on his own.  That's more than 3 times the debt we had all the way up until Regan took office.
• Between Regan, Bush Sr, and Bush Jr, the debt will have gone from under 2 trillion to 11.5 trillion in a total of 20 years they controlled the White House.  Do we want to continue this?

Keep in mind this is REAL increase.  The numbers have been adjusted for inflation so while there was really a little less than $1 Trillion, in today’s dollar that equals about $2 Billion.

In 1980, each American man, woman, and child would be liable for around $6,000 of the national debt (in today’s dollars).  But today, each of us is liable for over $32,000.  A family of four owes over $128,000 and this is on top of any personal debt.  By the time Bush “W” leaves office, that number will be $38,000 and $152,000 respectively.

The irony is, that the Republicans are the ones that say they want a smaller government, yet their spending goes up and the government services go down (i.e. healthcare, education funds, regulatory oversight).  Where does this money go if not to government provided services?  To their rich friends of course.  And where does the money come from and who pays for it?  Right.

Visit the U.S. National Debt Clock

Who’s in charge of this mess??

$700,000,000,000.00 of play money.

The same people who denied there were problems until just recently and the same ones that have recommended the past few failed attempts at halting this downward economic spiral are now asking for $700 Billion to try again.  They were initially saying there was not a problem (when it was obvious to most that there was), then that the problem was just limited to the sub-prime mortgage sector, then after they have to bail out Bear Stearns they proclaim that they will not have to use any more taxpayer money for anything else, and now they are finally saying that we had serious issues with the architecture of the whole thing and want some money to throw at they think is the problem to see if they can change it's course, this time.

By a ratio of 100 to 1, the American people do not want this bailout to take place.  But that does not matter, it’s not about what the American people want, it’s about what the other side wants.

Illiquid Assets explained - Watch the video

What does $700,000,000,000.00 look like anyways?  Lets see.

Remember when 25 Billion used to be a lot of money

Well, a few weeks ago it still was.  Until our government decided it wants the taxpayers to play Santa for all these big corporations.  Look at this, the "Big 3" automakers were looking for a 6 Billion dollar loan but since they see their rich uncle opening the wallet so much, they are now asking for 25 Billion... and getting it.  And now they want another 25 Billion next year too.  It went from asking for 6 Billion to at least 50 Billion.. almost 10x what they originally wanted.

And 1 of those companies is not even a public.  Chrysler is a private company, yet is going to get upwards of 10 Billion of taxpayer money!

Oh, and of course, unlike the 1.5 Billion dollar bailout the government gave Chrysler in 1980, then a public company, these new bailouts come with basically no conditions other than to start paying back in 5 years if we are lucky.

America has somehow become the land of billionaires in the past couple months.

$25 Billion to Help GM, Ford, and Chrysler