September 30, 2008
[fiscally irresponsible] How did we get to our current situation of credit-loving, debt-exploding crisis? Well, vote for a Republican government...
"On the day President Bush took office, the national debt stood at $5.727 trillion. The latest number from the Treasury Department shows the national debt now stands at more than $9.849 trillion. That's a 71.9 percent increase on Mr. Bush's watch."
"Buried deep in the hundred pages of bailout legislation is a provision that would raise the statutory ceiling on the national debt to $11.315 trillion."
That's right, ladies & gents -- Vote for a Republicunt, Double your Debt!
Fiscally conservative My SHINY YELLOW ASS! @ 11:03
[pullout] My officemate is HIWAWIOUS!
"They shouldn't call this a bailout, they should call this a pullout. Coz now that they've fucked us, they want to cum on our faces."
I haven't stopped laughing yet. I ♥ credit facials! @ 10:41
[distrust > fear] WaPo's excellent For Many Americans, Fear and Distrust Run High pretty much sums up how most Americans (and me) feel about this despicable Administration and its equally disgusting bailout.
The leaders of the country said: Trust us.
The people said: Not this time.
The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 in the end was a $700 billion piece of legislation that few people could truly love, and it offered citizens from across the ideological spectrum a little something to hate. Conservatives said they could not abide the government intrusion on the free market. Liberals recoiled at government checks rescuing Gucci-wearing Masters of the Universe. There were those who sniped that this was a "No Banker Left Behind" program.
"No Banker Left Behind" *giggle*
A political establishment held in higher regard might have been able to hold together some kind of coalition of the willing. But distrust of the nation's leaders, from the leaders of Congress to the president of the United States, foreclosed that possibility.
To a degree that few Americans could have appreciated just a few weeks ago, the economy runs on credit. But politics runs on a form of credit, too, generically known as trust, and trust has been a scarce commodity recently in Washington.
The bailout lacked a sympathetic character at the heart of the narrative. And many Americans simply did not believe that the government had the basic competence to do the right thing.
Quotable quotes:
"There's got to be some kind of bailout, but the bottom line is that I just don't trust these guys. Look at the Iraq war, everything this administration has touched has gone to hell."
"You've got massive public distrust and dissatisfaction, with the bailout specifically, with government in general, and George Bush and the entire political establishment."
"This vote is a reflection of a lack of political capital, not of financial capital. The bankruptcy exists in our political leadership, not on Wall Street. We need to bail out Nancy Pelosi and George Bush."
"I work hard for my money. Why should I be giving it to these big banks? Instead of having a bailout, why don't we have indictments?"
I don't think the majority of Americans, myself included, doubt that some form of bailout is necessary. We just doubt that this Administration has our best interest at heart and is willing to go to bat for us instead of protecting their posse of rich bankers.
In a gist, America's distrust of its own leaders trumps their fear that the economy will tank.
Main Street to Capitol Hill and Wall Street: Eat shit and die. @ 10:29
[terms & conditions] *giggle*
Dear Wall Street,
Hi, this is the lobbyist for a group called The Taxpayers, Debtors, and Insured People of the United States. Now that we've rejected the first bailout plan, I'm sure that in the spirit of tough, free market capitalism, and spirited negotiations, you'll consider our second offer. Here are some terms that I'm SURE you will find reasonable:
1) We are willing to loan you money at a very low, introductory rate of 8.9%. If you are even one nanosecond late on your payment, your rate will go from 8.9% to 32.9% instantly. You will have no right to appeal this. The interest rate increase will be retroactive. None of this "but I mailed it out Friday" nonsense. We must get it, and the check must clear, for your payment to count. A reminder: transactions that occur after 2pm are not credited until the next business day, so be sure to make your payments before then.
2) If you are late on any of your other payments to your other creditors, your rate will also be spiked to 32.9%. I know it has nothing to do with us, but if you are late paying someone else, then OBVIOUSLY you are a bigger credit risk to us.
3) We will send you onerous terms and conditions 148,000,000 pages long in 6 point font. Of course, those terms can change on a whim, at any time, so we'll be sending you hourly updates to the contract, which we expect you to read and keep up with. Sorry, we will be the only ones that can amend the contract; you cannot.
4) You will have a predetermined credit line, and if you go over it by even $1, your interest rate will spike to 54.9%. Sorry, it's in the contract on page 109,209,392.
5) The bankruptcy laws have now changed. If you get into a bind, I'm afraid you won't find much sympathy; no more silly excuses will be accepted. We are going to have the titles to all of your buildings and physical assets put in our name, so when the inevitable time comes and you trip up, we'll simply take everything from you. There will be no court hearing.
6) We'll be conducting a background check, driving records check, drug test, and disease risk check of all of the top executives of your firm. After all, you're a riskier loan if you have any of those afflictions, aren't you? Well, if we find ANYTHING wrong, your interest rate will skyrocket, instantly, and without notice.
7) If your business is located in a "bad neighborhood", or a "poor city", or a "hurricane zone", or "flood plane", or "terrorist targeted city", as defined by us, we can raise your interest rates at any time, to any rate we choose.
For the last quarter century or so, you've imposed these terms, or some variation of them on us, when loaning us money or insuring us... arguing every single time that it's "necessary" and that these sorts of changes "will result in more profitable companies that will pass the savings along to consumers". Well, now that we're in the role of lender, and you're in the role of borrower, we're sure that you'll find these same terms fair.
Wall Street, prove the cynics wrong and accept our new plan. Prove to everyone that you're not the hypocrites that everyone thinks you are.
Best regards,
THE TAXPAYERS, DEBTORS, AND INSURED PEOPLES OF THE USA
Offer not valid in all 50 states. Terms, conditions, and interest rates subject to change at any time without notice. Borrower subject to intrusive credit, background, education, and criminal checks before issuance of loan. Upon any dispute, arbitration will be decided by someone tilted to rule in favor of taxpayers, and not by any indepedant or otherwise objective authority.
Priceless! @ 10:17
September 29, 2008
[no deal] In a classic case of be careful what you wish for...
The final two hours of trading on Wall Street matched the suspense, shock, fear and frenzy on the House floor as the US House of Representatives voted narrowly (228-205) against the Fed's $700 financial bailout plan, 'scuse me, the "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008" -- the most sweeping government intervention into the nation's financial markets since the Great Depression.
Republicans voted against the bill by a 2-1 margin (133-65) while 95 Democrats joined the 133 Republicans in opposition. 140 Democrats (60%) voted for the bill.
Just 11 days ago, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson (former CEO of Goldman Sachs) marched up to Capitol Hill and demanded a carte blanche -- in the form of a three-page economic rescue plan -- to spend $700 billion of American taxpayers' money to bail out the financial companies and their richest executives (who dragged us all into this mess in the first place) withOUT federal or judicial review.
The nation balked and reacted with collective fury; myself included.
By yesterday, the bill had grown to 110 pages, many of them devoted to the creation of oversight agencies, including an independent inspector general. Yay. More importantly, the money for the "Office of Financial Stability" would be released in segments, with the Treasury Secretary receiving $250 billion immediately (and spent over 5 months) to buy up toxic mortgage-related assets in troubled banks in hopes of easing the flow of credit and reviving the moribund housing market. The President would be allowed to authorize $100 billion more, but the plan gives Congress a veto power over purchases above that limit and sets a ceiling for all purchases of 700 billion dollars. So it may not even cost that much in the end; the size of the bailout package itself would act as insurance against a further seizing up of the credit markets and the free-fall on Wall Street.
Also, in order to protect taxpayers, participating firms would have been required to give the government warrants to buy stock so taxpayers could benefit if they returned to profitability. If the government did not regain all of its money after five years, the president would have been required to submit a plan for recovering the money "from entities benefiting from the program." Awesome.
Other details include operational oversight by a board including the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury secretary and the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. And finally, it prohibits "golden parachutes" for CEOs or other executives who lose or leave their jobs at companies participating in the plan as long as the Treasury holds equity in those firms.
All in all, it looked like a great bill in the end. All of my concerns, at least, were addressed.
Congress said "no deal" (stupid Republicans), and Wall Street is in tatters as stunned investors crushed the stockmarkets with the Dow posting its worst single-day point loss ever of 777.68 points. The previous record was the 684.81 point drop on 9/17/01 when the markets reopened afetr 9/11. However, the 7% decline does not rank among the top 10 percentage declines. The S&P plunged 8.7% and the Nasdaq plummeted 9.1%.
Earlier in the day, crippled Wachovia was bought by Citigroup. The Benelux, British and German authorities nationalized a slew of financial companies in their territories -- Fortis, Bradford & Bingley, Hypo, etc.
A shocking day full of shocking turn of events. The global financial system is at the brink. The credit markets are in deep freeze with banks hoarding cash and fearful of lending. After already receiving one of their worst poundings on record on Monday, Asian financial markets open in a few hours and Europe will follow chasing the sun across the globe. There is more grim news ahead as Congress is in recess until Thursday.
What's next? @ 16:50
September 26, 2008
[another one...] ...bites the dust.
Maybe it's because everybody thinks (or knows) the insanely huge and heinous federal bailout of our financial system is pretty much a done deal, partisan sniping notwithstanding...
... but the fact that the biggest bank failure in history barely made the front page news today is a little unsettling.
JPMorgan Chase (I have their United Visa card!) -- who "rescued" Bear Stearns back in March -- bought Washington Mutual yesterday for $1.9 billion. Sounds a lot? WaMu has $307 billion in assets and $188 billion in deposits. But because the company made such horrendously bad decisions and subsequently piled on so much in losses and debt, it is now close to worthless.
WaMu is almost EIGHT times bigger than the previous biggest bank failure -- Continental Illinois which had about $40 billion in assets when it failed in May 1984 during the Savings & Loan crisis which lasted throughout much of the 80s and 90s.
If WaMu's big belly flop had happened las month, it would've been earth-shattering news. But when viewed within the context of the financial tsunami of the past few weeks, it barely even rattled Wall Street.
Shocking.
On to the debate! @ 16:40
[heart pummels mccain] Funny as shit.
:-D @ 13:51
[old bible] OMB.
Sarah Palin = Bible Spice
I just shat my pants laughing!
p.s. McCain = Old Spice @ 11:40
[1977?!] I got carded at Apex last night (College Night, der) and the lady who carded me was like:
"OMG! I was, like, early 80s, tops... but NINE-TEEN SE-VEN-TY SE-VEN??? Oh. My. Gah!"
Um, (a) thanks; and
(b) it's Beyonce, not God 8-/ *snap*
p.s. Apparently I'm not too old for College Night. Yet.
pp.s. College Night = OMBTKS! (OMB That Kiat is Shameless!) @ 09:41
September 25, 2008
[no bailout III] Robert Kuttner for the American Prospect:
"For a lot less than $700 billion, we could refinance every mortgage in America that is at risk of foreclosure. Along the way, we could keep people in their homes and shore up the collapse in housing prices. Paulson's plan does neither. Markets would begin loosening up, as in Paulson's plan, but the route would be bottom-up rather than top-down. Homeowners would be the primary beneficiaries rather than the incidental ones. With Paulson's approach, the wave of foreclosures continues, reducing the likelihood that the government gets its money back."
Why haven't the alternatives been explored?
The bailout is an absolute outrage. @ 14:00
[exceptionalism] NYT's Roger Cohen today about American exceptionalism:
From an inspirational notion, however flawed in execution, that has buttressed the global spread of liberty, American exceptionalism has morphed into the fortress of those who see themselves threatened by "one-worlders" (read Barack Obama) and who believe it's more important to know how to dress moose than find Mumbai.
That's Palinism, a philosophy delivered without a passport and with a view (on a clear day) of Russia.
Behind Palinism lies anger. It’s been growing as America's relative decline has become more manifest in falling incomes, imploding markets, massive debt and rising new centers of wealth and power from Shanghai to Dubai.
The damn-the-world, God-chose-us rage of that America has sharpened as U.S. exceptionalism has become harder to square with the 21st-century world’s interconnectedness. How exceptional can you be when every major problem you face, from terrorism to nuclear proliferation to gas prices, requires joint action?
America is distinct. Its habits and attitudes with respect to religion, patriotism, voting and the death penalty, for example, differ from much of the rest of the developed world. It is more ideological than other countries, believing still in its manifest destiny. At its noblest, it inspires still.
But, let’s face it, from Baghdad to Bear Stearns the last eight years have been a lesson in the price of exceptionalism run amok.
To persist with a philosophy grounded in America’s separateness, rather than its connectedness, would be devastating at a time when the country faces two wars, a financial collapse unseen since 1929, commodity inflation, a huge transfer of resources to the Middle East, and the imperative to develop new sources of energy.
Enough is enough.
The basic shift from the cold war to the new world is from MAD (mutual assured destruction) to MAC (mutual assured connectedness). Technology trumps politics. Still, Bush and Cheney have demonstrated that politics still matter.
Which brings us to the first debate — still scheduled for Friday — between Obama and McCain on foreign policy. It will pit the former’s universalism against the latter’s exceptionalism.
I'm going to try to make this simple. On the Democratic side you have a guy whose campaign has been based on the Internet, who believes America may have something to learn from other countries (like universal health care) and who’s unafraid in 2008 to say he’s a "proud citizen of the United States and a fellow citizen of the world."
On the Republican side, you have a guy who, in 2008, is just discovering the Net and Google and whose No. 2 is a woman who got a passport last year and believes she understands Russia because Alaska is closer to Siberia than Alabama.
If I were Obama, I'd put it this way: "Senator McCain, the world you claim to understand is the world of yesterday. A new century demands new thinking. Our country cannot be made fundamentally secure by a man who thought our economy was fundamentally sound."
American exceptionalism, taken to extremes, leaves you without the allies you need (Iraq), without the influence you want (Iran) and without any notion of risk (Wall Street). The only exceptionalism that resonates, as Obama put it to me last year, is one "based on our Constitution, our principles, our values and our ideals."
As with everything else in life, we are in this together so quit with the "them vs us" mentality! @ 13:50
September 24, 2008
[w is for wrong] TIME:
"...having heard doom and gloom from the Bush administration to justify everything from the Iraq war to the Patriot Act, rank-and-file Republicans and Democrats remain very skeptical about the rescue plan. In many legislators' minds, President Bush has cried wolf one too many times. 'This is eerily similar to the rush to war in Iraq,' Rep. Mike McNulty, Democrat of New York, said. 'We have been told repeatedly by this administration that the economy is fundamentally sound, and then all of the sudden they say the economy is going to collapse.'"
Exactly.
USA Today Editorial (who I usually have nothing in common with):
"For members of Congress, the choice should be clear: Come to the rescue, but get something in return. Banks don't lend out of pure altruism. Neither should taxpayers."
Amen!
WaPo's "The Bush Who Cried Wolf":
"So this is what happens when the president of the United States has virtually no credibility left."
"The nation is facing a serious financial crisis. But neither the public nor Congress have confidence in the solutions being put forth by President Bush's appointed economic leads."
"Americans have learned what questions to ask when the Bush team starts to make threats. Is the situation as bad as they say? Do we have to respond the way they say? Are there any better alternatives? Do we have to act as fast as they say? And is it possible they don't know what they're doing?"
Absolutely Pathetic.
W is for Warmonger. W is for Wretched. W is for DEAD FUCKING WRONG! @ 17:12
[celeb pride] Ehhhhh-veryone is comin' out in Ho-wood.
LiLo is a lezzie and Clay Gayken is a homo.
Um, DER.
It's like the gayest day in Hollywood since, well, yesterday.
It's Celeb Pride Day! @ 11:24
September 23, 2008
[no bailout II] My opposition to this nonsensical and farcical bailout is growing by the day.
I am seething just thinking about how this incompetent Administration that has failed time and again at war (Iraq), disaster relief (New Orleans), etc is now scaring the bejeesus out of the American public to swallow this preposterously large bailout package for the rich that could have only been concocted by megalomaniacs.
This bailout puts most or all of the risk on taxpayers and almost none on the institutions that made an avalanche of incredibly stupid, reckless and greedy financial decisions. What is this, a disguise for a mass transfer of wealth from the average Joe to the super-rich? Is this a bailout for the ordinary American or for Mr Bush's friends in the financial industry?
Devastating.
Why is it that all of Bush's failures -- Iraq, N'Awlins, Wall St -- have 12-digit price tags??
NYT Editorial:
The nation's financial mess was caused to a great degree by a culture of lax regulation and even less oversight, in which ordinary Americans were told to trust the government and Wall Street to do the right thing.
President Bush's proposed solution, which he wants Congress to authorize immediately, tells taxpayers to write a check for $700 billion and trust the government and Wall Street to do the right thing -- with inadequate regulation and virtually no oversight.
To protect the American taxpayer, Congress must ensure that the bailout comes with clear ground rules and vigilant oversight. In an appalling, though familiar fashion, the ground rules proposed by the Bush administration are wholly unacceptable — as are its tactics.
The proposal, which is now being negotiated with Congressional leaders, would give the Treasury secretary the authority to buy any assets from any financial institution at any price that he deemed necessary to provide stability to the financial markets. And it asserts that neither the courts nor any administrative agency would be allowed to question or review those decisions.
We've seen this kind of over-reaching from the Bush administration before. It has usurped far too many powers under a banner of urgency -- think wiretapping -- and abused those powers. Now, Congress and the American people are being told that unless they quickly approve sweeping executive powers for the bailout, capitalism may collapse. Even if this administration weren’t so untrustworthy, rushing ahead would be a bad idea.
NO BAILOUT!!! @ 17:12
[g-cool] OK, I have to say... the T-Mobile G1 online ad is pretty damn cool.
One-tap Google search? Wicked!
I was a little excited (nope, no pee) about Google's first mobile phone and just a bit more excited that it will be launched exclusively on T-Mobile (coz, y'know, T-Mo and LoBlo aka me are tight like that). But I've always been lukewarm about these so-called smartphones coz the camera is, like, an afterthought. I mean, hi, I'm Asian and me wurv to take lots of pictures!
The G1 has a 3MP camera. Decent, but not amazing (SE and Samsung are up to 8MP already, der). But it's all downhill from there. No zoom (*gasp*), no video recording (*jaw-drops*) and, get this, NO FLASH!!! (*clutches pearls and faints*)
Double-U. Tee. Eff.
Plus, I can't stand full keyboards on mobile phones. *channels Heidi Klum* Either you T9, or you're out!
And the reason for that is the G1 is a monster! 4.6" x 2.16" x 0.62" x 5.6 oz. My current phone (SE K850i) is 4" x 1.9" x 0.7" x 4.2oz. The 8.1MP SE C905 phone that I'm coveting (release date -- 2 weeks!) is about the same dimensions as the K850i but heavier (4.8oz). When it comes to mobile phones, (smaller) size matters!
Finally, there's this minor problem called 3G. Um, T-Mobile doesn't offer 3G in DC! And they won't even have it ready when the G1 launches in a month's time. I know, I know, it'll come eventually. But I'm Mr Right Now and instant gratification is de rigeur *snap*.
The good somewhat outweights the bad though. The Android store has the potential to consume all of my time tapping on my mobile phone. Lethal. The G1 also works internationally (yay), supporting all four GSM 2G bands AND, more importantly, the 2100MHz UMTS/3G network in use all over the world. Fetch.
The C905 supports every single 2G and 3G band in the world... *except* for T-Mobile's new 1700MHz 3G. ARGH.
So the $179 question is: will I get the G1? Umm... @ 16:39
September 22, 2008
[republicans are traitors] I am still beyond livid (and getting more so) about this proposed bailout.
For one, why have we let this despicable Administration bully us into "bailing out" the Iraq War and Wall Street -- enriching oil executives, the Pentagon, and CEOs/investment bankers -- by crying "emergency", when Bush can't even bring himself to spend $7 billion for children's health insurance??
Why should we trust this miserable failure of an Administration with $700 billion (or more) of taxpayer's money when they have squandered about as much money on a war for nothing?
Why do we still believe them about anything when they have laid to waste the world's confidence in our military intelligence and, now, our system of free-market capitalism?
And the Republicunts want the country to give them 4 more years of this pathetic bullshit?
Their systematic destruction of our country's ideals and institutions are traitorous and they should all be cowered into eternal shame.
NO to McSame! @ 18:05
[wild ride] The week that crushed Wall Street:
SEP 14 -- TROUBLE
158-yo investment bank Lehman Brothers spent the weekend on the brink of collapse and scrambling for buyers. There were no suitors and by midnight, the firm filed for Chapter 11. Bank of America paid $50 billion to buy Merrill Lynch. The credit crisis grew increasingly dire even though the gov't had already pledged to backstop Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac up to $200 billion just last week, and months earlier engineered JP Morgan's purchase of Bear Stearns with a $29 billion guarantee. The Fed, with 10 banks, announced a $70 billion pool of funds to aid troubled financial firms.
SEP 15 -- COLLAPSE
The Dow lost 504 points, its biggest one-day decline on a point basis since 9/17/01 when the market reopened for trading after having been closed in the aftermath of 9/11. On a percentage basis, it was the biggest decline (4.4%) since 7/19/02. Lehman collapsed, Merrill is bought, what next? AIG, with $1.1 trillion in assets and 74 million clients in 130 countries, was hit with a downgrade. The nation's largest savings bank, Washington Mutual, was in search of a buyer.
SEP 16 -- RESCUE
Rock-solid money market funds began to falter, dipping below the $1 per share benchmark. The Fed decided to hold rates steady at 2%. Stocks cheered that less-than-bearish decision and the Dow jumped 140 points at the close.
SEP 17 -- FREE-FALL
AIG was bailed out by the Feds to the tune of $85 billion. The bailout amplified fears about the stability of financial markets and the Dow was crushed, falling 449 points -- its second worst session of the year.
SEP 18 -- BAILOUT
To stop the bleeding, the Fed and five other central banks around the world injected $180 billion into the global financial markets. The Dow, along with financial stocks, soared 410 points on rumors that a huge federal bailout of the banking industry was in the making.
SEP 19 -- CONFIDENCE
The SEC took emergency action and temporarily banned investors from short-selling 799 financial companies. The Treasury would insure up to $50 billion in struggling money market fund investments, guaranteeing that the funds' value will not fall below the standard $1 a share. The Dow ended the week down less than 34 points after a spectacular two-day 779-point run, the biggest since March 2000.
SEP 20 -- THE PLAN
A huge $700 billion bailout was unveiled by Treasury Secretary Paulson to buy troubled mortgage assets and get the financial system flowing again.
SEP 21 -- THE END
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the two remaining independent Wall Street investment banks, would be converted into traditional bank holding companies, which will increase their regulation by the federal government. This marked the end of the Wall Street investment bank, a storied institution that traded stocks and bonds, advised mergers and showered lavish bonuses on its executives.
Seven years after 9/11, downtown New York is, once again, under attack. @ 17:47
[united states of france] TIME.
This is the state of our great republic: We've nationalized the financial system, taking control from Wall Street bankers we no longer trust. We're about to quasi-nationalize the Detroit auto companies via massive loans because they're a source of American pride, and too many jobs — and votes — are at stake. Our Social Security system is going broke as we head for a future where too many retirees will be supported by too few workers. How long before we have national healthcare? Put it all together, and the America that emerges is a cartoonish version of the country most despised by red-meat red-state patriots: France. Only with worse food.
Admit it, mes amis, the rugged individualism and cutthroat capitalism that made America the land of unlimited opportunity has been shrink-wrapped by a half dozen short sellers in Greenwich, Conn. and FedExed to Washington D.C. to be spoon-fed back to life by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.
The average American is working two and half jobs, gets two weeks off, and has all the employment security of a one-armed trapeze artist. The Bush Administration has preached the "ownership society" to America: own your house, own your retirement account; you don't need the government in your way. So Americans mortgaged themselves to the hilt to buy overpriced houses they can no longer afford and signed up for 401k programs that put money where, exactly? In the stock market! Where rich Republicans fleeced them.
Now our laissez-faire (hey, a French word) regulation-averse Administration has made France's only Socialist president, Francois Mitterand, look like Adam Smith by comparison. All Mitterrand did was nationalize France's big banks and insurance companies in 1982; he didn't have to deal with bankers who didn't want to lend money, as Paulson does. When the state runs the banks, they are merely cows to be milked in the service of la patrie. France doesn't have the mortgage crisis that we do, either. In bailing out mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, our government has basically turned America into the largest subsidized housing project in the world.
Brilliant stuff!
Except when you realize it's less than funny that we in America are so tax-averse that we have no safety net unlike the tax-happy French, and nothing to show for the unbridled and rampant capitalism that we are so famous for.
Bull or bear market? It's more like the bullshit market. @ 17:09
[no bailout] I have been noticeably silent about the financial tsunami that started with a seismic shift on Wall Street and swept across the globe, wiping out trillion of dollars in assets in just the past 7 days.
Why? Coz, well, as much as y'all think I'm a commie, I'm actually a rampant capitalist with a strong belief in the free market (and free trade AND globalization... OK, don't hit me) and admiration of its principles.
And to a certain extent, I still am. Yes, the standalone investment banks have all been wiped out, but they are the casualties of a free market economy that rights itself when things go (very horrendously) wrong.
That is until I heard of the bailout last Friday. Not just any bailout -- Bear Stearns on 3/14, Fannie/Freddie on 9/7 and AIG on 9/16 all made me cringe -- but THE mother of all bailouts.
This proposed $700 BILLION bailout -- exceeding the cost of the Iraq war in one fell swoop -- stinks of the past 8 years of Bush Republicunt rule: spectacularly expensive, primarily benefits the very rich, and grants the executive branch unlimited power with no transparency or accountability.
The gall.
Why does every one of Bush's failures -- Iraq, New Orleans, Wall Street -- cost hundreds of billions of dollars?
The press is excoriating this heinous bailout, and rightfully so:
WaPo [Sebastian Mallaby] "With truly extraordinary speed, opinion has swung behind the radical idea that the government should commit hundreds of billions in taxpayer money to purchasing dud loans from banks that aren't actually insolvent. As recently as a week ago, no public official had even mentioned this option. Now the Treasury, the Fed and congressional leaders are promising its enactment within days. The scheme has gone from invisibility to inevitability in the blink of an eye. This is extremely dangerous."
NYT [Paul Krugman] "...the federal government hugely overpays for the assets it buys, giving financial firms — and their stockholders and executives — a giant windfall at taxpayer expense... if the government is going to provide capital to financial firms, it should get what people who provide capital are entitled to — a share in ownership, so that all the gains if the rescue plan works don’t go to the people who made the mess in the first place."
Nation [William Greider] "If Wall Street gets away with this, it will represent an historic swindle of the American public -- all sugar for the villains, lasting pain and damage for the victims. My advice to Washington politicians: Stop, take a deep breath and examine what you are being told to do by so-called 'responsible opinion.' If this deal succeeds, I predict it will become a transforming event in American politics -- exposing the deep deformities in our democracy and launching a tidal wave of righteous anger and popular rebellion."
Salon [Glenn Greenwald] "What is more intrinsically corrupt than allowing people to engage in high-reward/no-risk capitalism -- where they reap tens of millions of dollars and more every year while their reckless gambles are paying off only to then have the Government shift their losses to the citizenry at large once their schemes collapse? We've retroactively created a win-only system where the wealthiest corporations and their shareholders are free to gamble for as long as they win and then force others who have no upside to pay for their losses... If there is any 'pitchfork moment' -- an episode that understandably would send people into the streets in mass outrage -- it would be this."
Politico [Glenn Thrush] "Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) says he's seen this movie before: The Bush administration, citing an unprecedented national threat, puts the hammer on Congress to ram through gargantuan legislation with a minimum of review -- and the murkiest of repercussions. "'We will do something this week -- but if we learned anything from right after 9/11, it's that the biggest mistake is to pass anything they ask for just because it's an emergency,' Leahy says."
Thinkprogress.org [Ali Frick] "Given Bush's history of gross fiscal mismanagement -- including an unprecedented number of no-bid contracts and Bush's resistance to closing fraud loopholes or increasing oversight of contracts -- why should Americans trust another $700 billion to his care?"
Guardian [Richard Adams] "No one should be surprised. This is the Bush administration we're talking about, upon whose tombstone history will write three place-names: Iraq, New Orleans, and now Wall Street. In each of these three events we can pick out the same pattern -- initial incomprehension, a long period of stasis during which conditions got worse, an inability to adopt appropriate policies because of objections based on ideology, until finally, at vast expense, a resolution of some sort is stumbled upon. And in none of these instances has answering questions about the administration's conduct been a strong point."
Jack Balkin "The country is currently enmeshed in a very serious financial crisis, one of the most serious since the Great Depression. The causes of this crisis are many, but one of the most important is the deregulatory philosophy that has suffused this Administration. This philosophy has proved intellectually bankrupt and now threatens to bankrupt the country as well. Had the Administration been willing to rein in the financial excesses of the past seven years, the crisis might have been avoided with far less cost to the country.
"In response to the crisis created in part by its own incompetence and ideological blinders, the Administration now asks for enormous new powers to run the economy. . . .
"Oversight and regulations of public contracts are designed to prevent malfeasance, corruption, self-dealing and conflicts of interest in the distribution of federal monies. . . . The Administration wishes to dispense with all of these restraints and precautions, just as it sought to run the Iraq war on no-bid contracts. That was bad enough, but here the dangers of bad deals and conflicts of interest are staggering. . . .
"The modus operandi of the Bush Administration has been to use crisis to seize unreviewable power for the executive. Have we learned nothing from the last seven years?"
Have we learned nothing from the last seven years? When will the public rebel and say, "enough is enough!"?
No Bailout! @ 16:34
[president bartlet!] OMB, fantastic stuff from NYT's Maureen Dowd re: a fictional conversation between "West Wing" President, Jed Bartlet, and (future President) Barack Obama...
BARTLET:: ...if you had a black daughter -
OBAMA:: I have two.
BARTLET:: - who was 17 and pregnant and unmarried and the father was a teenager hoping to launch a rap career with "Thug Life" inked across his chest, you'd come in fifth behind Bob Barr, Ralph Nader and a ficus.
ROTFLMAO!
Funny, but then it becomes sobering:
OBAMA:: The problem is we can't appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?
BARTLET:: Well ... let me think. ...We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family's less safe than it was eight years ago, we've lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know ... I'm a little angry.
OBAMA:: What would you do?
BARTLET:: GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that's what they are. Sarah Palin didn't say "thanks but no thanks" to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said "Thanks." You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I'd ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you're at it, I want the word "patriot" back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn't know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can't do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn't their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they've earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It's not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she's forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn't have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist's baby too? I don't know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!
"I don't know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one."
ROTFLMAO again!
Aww, I miss the West Wing. And I fucking hate Republicunts!
On November 4th, send McPalin this message: "Thanks, but no thanks!" @ 16:07
September 19, 2008
[keep up, 21] So my ass almost fell out when I learnt that Obama Pride is having a reception with Sarah Jessica Parker (*SQUEAL*) at Vida on 15th/P next Friday ($250 though, ugh).
Blake:: You are going to pay $250 to meet Sarah Jessica Parker?
Me:: I haven't decided yet but I really, really want to giggle
Blake:: ...why?
Me:: Coz! She empowered my generation even if you're far too twinky to see/understand that :-p
Blake:: Oh lol I mean.. I don't really know who she is, besides being an actress.
Me:: Sex and the City??? *faints*
Blake:: Who does she play?
Me:: OMB, shut. You're dead to me
As Sharon so famously said to Blake on the rooftop of Nellie's last Saturday: "Keep up, 21!"
I need to find me some older friends, LOL! @ 15:25
September 18, 2008
[you're too small] Another harrowing day at work, sigh. If I pull out one hair for every stressful day at work, I'm gonna be bald by election day (Gobama!).
So... they installed a new revolving security glass door system here at work. They are, apparently, "simple to operate".
Unless you're me.
The gist: You badge in, step into the static revolving doors, the sensors detect you, the doors rotate by themselves and, voila, you're through to the other side.
Well, they didn't quite work for me. I literally had to play hopscotch in the revolving door area to get the sensors to detect me before it would start rotating and let me through. I was like, WTF? Shit is broken, right? So, naturally, I notified the security guard at the front entrance about the malfunctioning door.
Me:: I think that one's not working correctly [points to faulty set of doors]
Guard:: Huh? [yes, they are minimum wage workers]
Me:: When I step in, it doesn't revolve. I have to, like, jump around like a monkey.
Guard:: That's coz you're too small.
Me:: :-o
Guard:: You have to be big like the other people here [hand gestures a big belly]. Just step closer to the glass and the sensors will pick you up.
Right at that point, one of my (slightly bigger) co-workers walks out the same set of revolving doors I just had trouble with and when I asked him if he had the same issue, he was like, "I had no problems".
*giggle*
Apparently, the overhead sensor system recognizes shape, size and volume in three dimensions. And it decided I was too thin (not even!) and I was too tiny to be a person i.e. Asian (not penis size, you dumbass :-p).
Mmm-hmm, even our security door knows I'm Asian. I'm gonna use that to justify me eating like I escaped from fat camp.
p.s. Met Tipper Gore last night at a book launch party at Mitchell Gold. F-I-E-R-C-E dress! Love her. Wish she had been my First Lady for the past 8 years. Sigh. @ 16:31
September 14, 2008
[tranasaurus] OMB.
Blake:: Oh my god. I had a flashback to last night when I was chasing down a drag queen. Tranny that was bad.
Me:: Huh? Where was I lol
Blake:: You were the one who stopped me from chasing her! I have got to start remembering less
Me:: OMB. i have no recollection of that at all. I love hot drunken tranny mess evenings at Town!
Blake:: Hahaha. Do you remember me biting Casie's ass?
Me:: Yes! I saw the mark and all's I have to say is your teeth ain't coming close to my body. Ever. LOL
Blake:: Omg I left bite marks??? Teehee :-) I did not mean to clamp down that hard at all
Me:: I'm gonna start calling you T-Rex
Blake:: Does the T stand for Top?
Me:: It stands for Tranny!
Blake:: I'm the tranasaurus!
*giggle*
Been laying low lately (der, can you tell?). Had a horrendous week at work, but things will get better (it can't get any worse!). Worked 8am-6pm yesterday (!) and got called for 2 hours today, ugh. So not fetch. It didn't help that Blake and I stormed JR's on Friday night till 1:30am, and Nellie's/Town last night till 4am! We got so wasted at Town with Aaron and his lessies, he had to stay over *giggles again*. I've had about 10 hours of sleep in the past two nights coz of morning work calls, UGH.
Whatever it is, work never gets in the way of my partying!
Not looking forward to the start of the workweek, sigh... @ 23:43
September 5, 2008
[loblo] Blake and I are like 12 yo girls... only geeky.
Me:: Aww, mature tranny party of one... your parade float is ready :-)
Blake:: Yay I am going to ride it into work to deal with the problem I caused yesterday :-)
You ready to teach a load balancer how to do its job?
Me:: I'm gonna show it how to blow and explode properly, and fuck everyone all at once. Fierce
So... My co-workers started calling me lotus Blossom... Go figure. They nicknamed me LoBlo.
Blake:: Bwahahahahaha
Me:: *pushes you off the float*
Blake:: *giggles and falls*
Me:: *sticks heels in your tiara and smashes it... and giggles*
Blake:: bitch diamonds are forever
Maybe you can tell it how to not be intimidated when big things enter small holes on the firewall?
Me:: Lol! You sound like you want to pound my, um, Check Point ;-)
Blake:: root@LoadBalancer01# Modprobe -tranny && finger localhost
Me:: Wow. I think you just pierced through
Blake:: I just SQL injected all over your database
Me:: Eww, virus
Blake:: It's okay, you scrubbed my input so nothing got in
Me:: It figures that your trojan horse is tiny in size and undetectable
Blake:: # whoami Daddy *w000000t*
But then he goes and calls me Daddy coz I'm one decade older.
Rude. @ 18:12
[hurricane tranna] Wow.
National Weather upgraded the Tropical Storm Watch to a Warning for early Saturday morning through Saturday afternoon. Expecting; 4 to 8 inches of rain and wind gust 40 mph for the Metropolitan Area, Including the District of Columbia.
4-8" of rain?? Eep!
I have been so totes busy with a crisis at work -- that began inauspiciously with a 5-hour workday on Labor Day... ONSITE! -- that I totes missed the big bad Tropical Storm Hanna churning up the Eastern Seaboard hot on the heels of Hurricane Gustav which evacuated 2mn ppl from the entire city of New Orleans -- only 3 years after Katrina -- and much of the Gulf Coast for almost a week!
Hanna is projected to come closer to DC than Isabel which slammed into NC 5 years ago (to the month!) as a Category 2 Hurricane and brought 71 mph gusts, record storm surges (10-12 feet) and knocked out power for 1.24 million people in the DC area, but with far less rain (2") than is predicted with Hanna.
This blog pays homage to Hurricane Trannabel because it happened 3 weeks after this blog was started :-)
L'David:: Are you ready for Hurricane Tranna?
Kiat:: Lol! I've got tranny-glue applied on my wig and tranny-resistant makeup
L'David:: The slut! There's a 3some out there right now, and she initiated it.
Kiat:: She's on top of Ike who's on top of Josephine. Sounds like a bad porn movie
L'David:: Hahaha! There's a FB group for Hanna. I dare you to become a fan.
Kiat:: Is that a tranny dare?
L'David:: Triple tranny dare!
Hanna is a Tranny Ferosha. Let the Hurricane Party weekend commence! @ 16:49
September 2, 2008
[chrome schmrome] I guess I got a little caught up in the whole "Google can do no wrong" Kool-Aid drunkenness coz I was giddy enough about the sudden announcement and the super quick availability of Google's new browser -- Chrome -- that I actually downloaded it a few minutes after it became available at 12pm PDT today (I know, I can be SUCH a geek!).
To my dismay, I couldn't use it at work coz of some PC firewall issues so I was very eager to use it when I got home.
Well, I've used it for a few now and the verdict is ambivalent. Let's just say I have no idea what the fuss is all about. Yes, it's got a cool name (so does Firefox... IE = Dumb). Yes, it looks neat and simple and streamlined, and it loads fast I agree... but I can't imagine ditching Firefox for this new Chrome thingie.
Two major drawbacks that I can think of right off the top of my head -- Java and Add-ons (thank you, Firefox, for getting us addicted to those little widgets). Java barely works in Chrome on some sites. I know this is easily fixed but still, very annoying.
Firefox launched with a slew of add-ons. Chrome could've followed suit but they didn't probably coz they were outed before they were ready. Whatev. Poor excuse. I absolutely cannot live without my weather add-on (1-ClickWeather) in Firefox. In the status bar. Which does not exist in Chrome. 'Nuff said.
At least kiat.net loads perfectly in Chrome, unlike the many HTML code tweaks I had to make in order to get it to display properly in IE (stupid Microsoft). And I do have to admit some stuff is pretty cool in Chrome, like the combined Search/Address bar (very very cool). And I think I could live without the status bar just as I think it's neat that the Windows-like menu bar is no longer there.
That said, I probably won't be giving up on Firefox anytime soon. Maybe when Chrome is more mature and has a few more add-ons... One thing's for sure though, I am NEVER going back to IE. Ever. I only use it at work coz I have to for some sites. Otherwise, Microsoft is so done in my book.
Kick it up a notch, Chrome! @ 20:34
[vpilf] Who wants to fuck a Republicunt klondyke?
I love America. @ 15:20
30 :: fiscally irresponsible
30 :: pullout
30 :: distrust > fear
30 :: terms & conditions
29 :: no deal
26 :: another one...
26 :: heart pummels mccain
26 :: old bible
26 :: 1977?!
25 :: no bailout III
25 :: exceptionalism
24 :: w is for wrong
24 :: celeb pride
23 :: no bailout II
23 :: g-cool
22 :: republicans are traitors
22 :: wild ride
22 :: united states of france
22 :: no bailout
22 :: president bartlet
19 :: keep up, 21
18 :: you're too small
14 :: tranasaurus
05 :: loblo
05 :: hurricane tranna
02 :: chrome schmrome
02 :: vpilf