Fall Fallacies

A long list of random thoughts for a fall Friday. On a sad note Bettie Page died on Thursday after a heart attack a few days ago. A free spirit that was tormented by the puritans and exploited by the photographers of her day. This Bio book is pretty good if you are unfamiliar with her or check out this web page.
The Senate failed to Put together a bail out package for the Big 3 and now the shrub in chief is saying that the TARP will work out some sort of kick the can down the road loan. The parting shot of the free market mystics at union busting will probably give us a total cluster fuck to the bread lines. Unrestricted no strings attached money is so much better than a planned bill but hey I was against the plan anyway. I have written before about a bottom up approach to these bailouts rather than top down.
The more I read about this current financial meltdown The less sense I am able to make of it. I have more research to do but my take from readings so far leads me to think fraud is the cause more than anything else. People lying about value, capitalism in a nutshell is the root of this mess. The bond raters being paid by the bond sellers enabled a huge fraud to be perpetuated on investors. Appraisers and lending brokers getting paid on the transaction rather than the success of the transaction led to loans being made to people that had no chance to repay them. The ponzi scheme nature of our economy came tumbling down due to lying by the institutions that established the value. Putting the CDS, (credit default swaps) out of the reach of regulators by Phil Grahams Enron loopholes meant that nobody was responsible for minding the store. Greenspan robbing the poor to pay Wall street with interest rates kept the bubble building and when oil prices spiked the house of cards collapsed.
Corruption reared it’s ugly head in Illinois politics when the Gov tried to sell a senate seat. Quoting Captain Renault I am shocked , shocked to see crooked politicians in Chicago. The sad part is that it has given the right wingnutosphere the opening it needed to begin delegitimizing the Obama presidency. I do not think we are in a post partisan era, in fact the idea of a post partisan era is stupid. We are back to the Rushbo era of, “Clinton is holding America hostage” and nothing will get done. Yes I am a pessimist and the lame group of DLC and Clinton era holdovers that populate the Obama cabinet give me zero reason to question my skepticism. As I am getting a large COLA next month deflation works for me right up until the government collapses and we got to anarchy. I am way to old for that.

Shakey ideas

The other day or should I say night I was woken up twice by the shaking of earthquakes. They were small and did no damage but still it was a bit disconcerting. It got me thinking about the vagaries of life and perception. I have friends around the country that ask how I can handle the earthquake thing and they live places that have tornadoes and hurricanes almost every year. The sounds are so odd, the humming of the world on a grand scale. The rocks screaming in a low whine as opposed to the howl of the wind. The difference in energy from one to the other, quick burst or sustained violence are both emasculating in their own way. I think the shaking ground for me is less of a problem because I am good at reacting to things. The other forms of disaster come with warnings and anticipation and the buildup while earthquakes just happen and then they are done. With warning I spend too much time worrying about things and that is wasted energy.
I have been somewhat lucky from the standpoint that the big ones have happened shortly after I departed. The 89 quake that hit the bay area was about a year after I moved away north and there was another big quake in the Seattle Tacoma area about a year after I left for the south. I do not see this as having any greater meaning in the larger scope of things, just random occurrences. Or should I say they seem random. The one truly random event in the universe was the bubbling up of the big bang.
The idea that the Obama campaign is somehow transformational will lead the democrats to the same disaster that the turning of the Reagan win into a religion has done to the republican party. Look at the historic parallels. Bush has been horrible just as carter was perceived as horrible. The price of gas was through the roof we were being humiliated overseas by a bunch of religious fundies and housing prices and mutual funds were in the toilet. The country is rejecting the status quo not embracing some new idealism. The idea that we are fundamentally different is a fantasy of the left. The bigots are still defeating equal rights for gays. The idea that drilling and despoiling our natural environment is a good thing is wildly popular. We are still fighting about god and imaginary friends like they actually exist. The idea that a woman is entitled to determine her own health care is still anathema to huge segments of the population. McCain was actually winning this race until the market collapsed in spite of the fact that the incumbents had destroyed the nation.
The belief that Reaganism was changing America was the trap for the right, the result is now that their philosophy is crumbling as the dogma is disproved. Back when this cycle began the idea that a democrat could lose this election was ridiculous just as the idea that the disgraced Carter had any chance was idiotic. Stop spouting nonsense about transformation and actually govern well. Competence is the only transformation that the electorate is seeking. In closing I will remind the left that even after the humiliation of impeachment Al Gore still won the election before it was stolen
Hope everyone enjoyed All Hallow's Eve.

Glad I don't drive

I am sure that my north of the border friends are not impressed but anybody else in the U. S. paying higher prices than Eureka.