How Are Your Investments Doing?

I have no money in the stock market.  All my stock holdings were wiped out during the dot-com bust.  But, thanks to the leader of the House, not all is lost.  She talks about our investments as if we all share in whatever this greater good is.  In fact, the investments are payments to various sectors of the economy to insure that segment of the economy keeps paying to re-elect the Speaker and her cronies.

If I happen to live near a road being built or rebuilt, perhaps I benefit in some way.  But the true beneficiaries are likely to be the unions that got to build the roads and drive the turcks over those roads in the future.  I would love to be a truck driver, but I'm not.

Quite frankly, I don't know what kind of investments the House Speaker might make for me where I might benefit.  I doubt she knows or cares.  She just wants to hand out the pork to protect her job and the job of her fellow socialist politicians.  

But, we are in a pickle these days.  The Republicans have become even bigger spenders than the Democrats.  

The facts are that jobs are too few and skills required are either too few or too many.  In the case of "too few" we have the problem of being a Wal-Mart society.  In the case of "too many", companies can only afford to hire for one position when in fact they need the skillsets of two or three people.  There is no middle ground.

So, I don't know what investments the Speaker of the House will make for me.  I just wish her good luck because I have no money to invest for myself.   

A Sad Day for the USA

Today is a sad day for our capitalistic system.  The Senate, a couple days ago, the House, today, and the President, today, moved us another step closer to a socialistic system.  

Just think about it for one moment.  The Treasury secretary will now be buying paper that represents home and small business property ownership that were formerly held by banks and other financial institutions.   If that happens to your property, then just look out your window and around your neighborhood.  Everyone there is a taxpayer, or not, and they would then own part of your property.

What's next?  It looks like Osama is going to get elected and you know he wants the doctor looking at you to be paid by the government.  

Everyone, Republicans and Democrats, that voted for this Wall Street bailout bill needs to be voted out of office.  Unfortunately one of those guys will end up being President.  We need a capitalist as President not a socialist.  Guess we will have to wait four more years.

McCain Kills His Presidential Chances

With McCain's vote on the bailout bill in the U.S. Senate he killed his chances of becoming President. Now it really does not matter whether the inexperienced Osama or inexperienced Palin gets to the party. The most experienced McCain has indicated by his vote, his lack of understanding of the justified anger across this country.

It does not matter whether it is a flood, a hurricane, a tornado, a dot-com bust, or a Paulson sky is falling don't run with the scissors tactic, the American taxpayer gets screwed. And, the Wall Street and other financial types get protected.

Just last week there was a kid banker visiting my son a music producer. The kid banker was talking about his next move up the corporate ladder. My son was talking about the getting worse hat-in-hand nature of his clientele. The banker is a great kid but his school record was far less than that of most of my son's peers. But the banking industry was happy with his work. What was happening in the financial industry seemed to have no impact on his upward movement plans.

On main street with the music business the exact opposite is the case. The Moms and Dads and Kids are cutting back. They are scared.

Then the U.S. Senate comes out with their Christmas tree bailout bill and makes them even more scared. Borrowing another $5,000 to $10,000 from the taxpayers to bail out the bankers makes no sense at all! If those banker folks could have the same experience of the rest of the population, then perhaps those bankers and the politicians that work for those bankers might better understand the problems in this country.

Number one is we need to go to a National Sales tax and away from the Federal Income Tax that eats away from our very fabric. People that can afford to buy new aircraft can afford to pay a 30% national sales tax. I can afford to pay a 30% national sales tax on a soda-pop if I choose to do so.

What many people can not usually afford around April 15th is to pay all their remaining income taxes because in the prior months it was more important to feed, cloth and house their family. Sure, if they could get enough work, paying all the income tax on time would not be a problem. But, in recent years that does not seem to happen. It's only getting worse. And, Congress made it even worse with the bankruptcy law changes.

What is Congress thinking? Why does Congress insist upon throwing more and more people in jail? Why does Congress insist upon creating situation where more and more people are considered to be some level of BAD because they CAN NOT meet the rules. If you do not have an adequate job you can not meet the rules, especially the rules that keep changing.

So, we get to the point where house prices keep falling and people lose their homes. Now, those people can afford even less. The house they rent, if they still have a job and can afford rent, will likely have a rent increase as soon as the market gets stable. But, these people have now lost everything. All the equity in their homes, however, little of it there was has been lost. In some cases tens of thousands are lost. Also lost are sales commissions that no one wanted to pay in the first place.

This whole thing has to stop. Rewarding those in the financial community is definitely not the way to solve this problem.

If we need to do anything, my solution is to give $5,000 CDs to each of the 140,000,000 taxpayers. Those CDs would mature randomly from 3 to 7 years. They could not be used in any way shape or form by the taxpayer until the maturity date. They would just be sitting there improving the balance sheet of the taxpayer. Meanwhile the banks would have all the money to grease the skids of the financial community. All the other financial folks would be subject to losing their jobs as they might. That's OK. Lots of folks need to change jobs - especially those that have benefited so long on our misery.

My solution is intended to do something positive for the taxpayer. But, that is just the start. Congress then needs to come back and pass the National Sales Tax, wipe out the IRS as we know it and revisit all the laws that can easily cause financial ruin when disaster strikes.

Paulson himself needs to refund all the money lost to the elderly due to his panic dance. You do not wake up one morning and discover the problem. This problem has been building. Congress would have recognized it when enough folks on main street complained. Until then, the need was simply to protect those in the financial industry. The need was only to protect those that created this mess in the first place with easy credit. They should be allowed to go out of business here and around the world. There is nothing they can or will do for me. ZERO!

And, McCain failed to recognize this as the major problem. He is no better than the now failed Bush. I really do not care who wins the Presidential election. Neither candidate is capable of handling the job.

70+ Senators to be Voted Out In Their Next Election

It is now up to We The People to identify the 70 some U. S. Senators and remember to vote them out of office at their next election.  We can only hope the House members provide the necessary representation of the people that the U. S. Senators failed to provide.  Too bad one of them will be our President.  Whomever it is, he should be a one-term President.

A far better plan if anything were to be needed would be to reward the U. S. Citizen rather than rewarding the bankers, mortgage brokers and other so-called financial experts that failed in their fiduciary responsibilities.  With 140,000,000 taxpayers and still using the supposed 700 billion dollar solution, Congress could distribute $5,000 bank CDs to each taxpayer.  Those CDs could randomly mature in 3 to 7 years during which they could not be cashed.

The result would be immediate.  Banks would have a massive infusion of fresh capital.  And, taxpayers would each have a stronger balance sheet. 

Instead, we are going to have massive government ownership of private property.  I simply can not believe all this is happening.  Especially I can not believe this is happening under a Republican administration.  If this does get passed by the House, that will make the most sense since Democrats are supposed to be the most socialistic by past definition.

But, I guess now everyone will have to look a little at recent history.  Recent history says that Republicans bury us in debt.  If Democrats would just stay away from their attempts to destroy the healthcare system, this country might just destroy the Republican party beyond repair.

Let The People Fix The Problem

OK, so let us assume for the moment that $700,000,000,000 (hopefully that is 700-billion) and we have approximately 140,000,000 (140-million) taxpayers. So that is approximately $5,000 per taxpayer.

You say that financial institutions need to be able to borrow money to grease the system.

So, what the government does is ask each taxpayer where the government should deposit the taxpayers $5,000 "loan". Of course, since this is the taxpayers money anyway (at least it came off a USA printing press), after about five years or so of being locked away in a safe place such as a bank CD or savings account or wherever is considered safe these days - the taxpayer may then use the money as they see fit.

Past the "benefit" of greasing the skids, the $5,000 will look good on the balance sheets of all American Taxpayers. And, for an illegal immigrant that is a taxpayer, after five years the $5,000 may actually be money that could be used for education or whatever is necessary to become a legal citizen.

Wall Street Will Make Money - $65 Cans of Coke

Stocks jump a day after biggest sell-off in years was the headline on an an MSNBC article mid-day Tuesday 9/30/08.

You see, it really does matter to Wall Street whether the bailout legislation gets passed or not. The only thing the politicians have done is scare main street. Likely many old folks called their broker yesterday and told that broker to get out of the market. It is likely those old folks are much worse off today than they were yesterday.

But, the folks on Wall Street made money today. They didn't make money back for those old folks. They did make money for more sophisticated folks. The did make money for themselves. But, the President, the President's advisors and Congress scared the people on main street. They did this all to protect the little shell game banks play among themselves - borrowing among themselves.

We deserve better. We The People need to vote out all the Congress members that voted for the bailout. We deserve better.

Legislation is however needed. We need legislation that will prevent the continued existence of companies "too big to fail". We need to establish legislation immediately to prevent future companies from going hat in hand to the Treasury secretary and saying we need help. We need all companies to understand that they play by the rules of everyone else in our capitalistic society.

We further need legislation that directs the President to create watch lists of companies considered "too big to fail". As soon as a single company goes on that list, they should have but a few months to fix the problem before Congress gets to fix the problem for them. You only need to look at the story of Ma Bell (former, not current) to see the benefit of a breakup. Competition is GOOD!

In the banking industry you can just keep getting bigger and as you do so you begin to dictate terms that others follow. Look at the situation of $30, $35 or more dollar bounce check charges. These charges occur very often simply because someone buys a dollar bottle of water without realizing their balance is too low. Every bank I've used refuses to provide me the option of rejecting acceptance of an overdraft. It is part of their business plan to get paid those overdraft fees. Within the last two months I had to pay over $130 for two cans of Coke. I mean, a Coke is good now and then, but a Coke is not worth $65 a can!

If there was competition in the banking industry, consumers could easily find a bank that would allow them the option of specifying handling over overdrafts. I would immediately change to that bank and request rejection of any purchase I tried to make if insufficient funds were in my bank account.

In summary, we need legislation that costs main street nothing. We need legislation that causes companies not to get "too big to fail" and we need legislation that causes competition to return to the banking industry. Competition is good for our capitalistic system. We need it now more than ever.

My President Bush - NOT!

I was happy Bush was elected and then re-elected. But, Bush has become one of the worst Presidents in modern history. Perhaps only Carter was worse.

If the man had one thing to do it was hunt down the individual Clinton failed to hunt down when he had a chance. As far as we know Bin Laden is still out there. But, the worst aspect of Bush is the great expansion of debt this country has taken on. One would have hoped for a balanced budget occasionally.

Now, the country is in an even greater partisan divide. Yet somehow Congress keeps giving him a ride.

Bush is an oil man. Bush does not understand that the oil industry will be a blip in the history books and then perhaps fade from the history books. Maybe the history books will need to reference a dictionary definition to describe oil. Energy from the Sun will always be there - or we have far bigger problems to worry about. Not once did our leader go out of his way to explain that truth to the public. Not once did our leader explain that to members of Congress when asking for legislation.

I sold gas when I was young at 25 to 31 cents per gallon. Even then I knew about energy from the Sun, but I never connected the fact that energy could be captured from the Sun. All I knew was that the Sun made me hot during the summer. And, I got colder during the winter after the Sun went down.

But, I sold a lot of gasoline. My grandfather's old country store was it for miles around. We even had a few robberies where my grandfather sent me to the backroom to hide. I could see events unfold through a little peep hole. I loved my grandfather more than anyone in the world.

So, Bush comes along and he's an oil man. That's fine by me. But, Bush is no great American. Bush is an oil man. Bush should have seen the writing on the Wall. I guess he was just not smart enough. Or, perhaps he was just too beholding to oil interests for campaign contributions? Regardless the reason, we need to move as quickly as possible away from subsidized oil.

Bush has gotten us deeper in debt. Bush has not gotten the key character of 9/11. Bush has not altered our energy picture one bit. Bush has congratulated one of the meanest, heartless leaders of the House of Representatives I've ever heard just because she became the leader. Bush has valued the life of cells that are not viable humans over the long fragile lives of the elderly that could substantially be improved when cell research is more successful. Losing over 4,000 young lives in war is tragic. However, losing MILLIONS OF LIVES one day sooner than necessary is little less than murder many times over.

Bush is no longer representative of anything I respect.

So, when Bush says that the bailout is necessary, I seriously doubt Bush is speaking for the American People. Bush is speaking for Wall Street and bankers that might lose their business. We need smaller banks closer to the local economies. We need legislation that prevents any financial institution from being considered "too big to fail". I see none of that legislation from Congress.

We need to wait until good legislation appears that addresses the real problems. We do not need a free hand to buy bad-debt. Would you go out and buy bad debt? Perhaps you should go try! Go see if a bank will sell you debt at 50-cents on the dollar. Come back and give us a report.

Bush can go eat dirt. Hopefully, McCain, or even the most liberal member of Congress (Obama) will be far better. They could not be much worse.

Stock Market Says - It's OK!

Everyone knew the stock market was going to go down if their Wall Street bailout legislation did not pass. But even I was surprised by the SHALLOW nature of the decline. As is typical, only the speculators seem to be having a ball.

While a 777 point decline was nearly a 7% decline, this was only the 17th largest percentage drop. And, unlike the dot-com bust where telecom, software companies and other tech companies simply went out of business and caused individuals to lose their life savings - none of that happened. While the drop was an event, gaining and losing $1.2 trillion dollars in asset value happens these days. Usually it happens over weeks, months or a year, but it happens.

And, while I personally will never forget the dot-com bust and the damage it caused to millions, Congress did nothing to correct that problem. They should do nothing to bailout the bankers, mortgage lenders and Wall Street folks that caused the problems then or now. Let them fix their own problems.

This talk about small businesses missing payroll is simply bogus. The small businesses of this country can adjust to the problem. It is an opportunity for them to layoff their lazy and unproductive cousin who only works there because of family. It is an opportunity to increase the pay to productive workers that must pick up the slack of departed employees. It is an opportunity to bring in additional non-bank capital from private investors looking for a local opportunity. And, it is an opportunity for the financial world to tell certain small businesses that they are not viable.

We live in a capitalistic society and productive workers will be rewarded. "Missing payroll" sounds more like just being able to pay workers because they exist. If the business is viable, the business owner and his customers will be able to work through the problem. If not, there will always be more businesses to fill the void.

Do you really think that anyone on main street gives a crap about banks not wanting to lend to banks? Not one bit! We likely need more smaller community banks and less large banks that have no connection to their community.

Congress - GO HOME! You do not need to pass bailout legislation. Whomever votes for this bailout legislation should go down to defeat at their next election.

The Vote - A Return to Bipartisan Rule?

The best thing that happened in the bailout rejection was the NO vote result. However, looking over the votes in the various states the remarkable thing is that members of the House were actually voting on what they believed and not along some party line. Could this be a return to bipartisan legislation? Probably not, but at least it could be a start.

The leader of the House in some bizarre and insane thought process wanted to poison the air for whatever reason. Here we have an historic election coming and here we have the supposed need of historic legislation. Yet here we have the leader of the House showing a great lack of leadership by attacking the very people she needed. If that is not bizarre I don't know what is!

But as far as I am concerned, Thank You House Speaker! Getting the bailout rejected is the right thing to do.

Voters across America are tired of their leaders on both sides of the House and both sides of the Senate. The proposed legislation seems to always be poorly written and written to insure that lopsided votes split along party lines will occur. All the public sees is a long series of re-dos. They see nothing that looks like well-considered legislation. Then we hear speeches at the end that blame one side or the other for legislation that in their mind will do more harm than good. What is the voting public to think?

While the result of the vote was still too partisan, scanning the individual state results it became clear that the vote was more about individual beliefs rather than party.

What is clear to me is the need for the Democrats to elect a new Speaker of the House. The current speaker simply has more experience being divisive rather than uniting.

Congress, are Bank of America, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs "Too Big To Fail"?

So, the question to ask now is, are Bank of America, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs "Too Big To Fail"?

If they are not - fine. Hopefully they won't fail. But, . . .

If they are "too big to fail", then what does Congress intend to do about this situation in the near future? We should never have had and we should definitely not have in the future, companies in our capitalistic system that are "too big to fail". By definition, they would not be part of our capitalistic system.

I think before any bailout happens that simple question, with likely no simple answer, must be answered. The taxpayer, the small investor, the homeowner and everyone else on main street needs to understand that Congress understands the serious nature of the problem. Congress has allowed this to happen. Congress did not want to do the hard thing and tell folks what could not happen. Congress simply wanted to hand out the cookie jar and candy bowl. Congress has had no backbone for decades.

Kennedy and Reagan were not our two greatest Presidents in modern times because they were great on the economic front.

Kennedy was great because he pushed us to be better. He moved us into the final frontier. Too bad following Presidents did not understand that was just the beginning baby steps.

Reagan was great because the cold war ended on his watch and he played a key part in understanding the history and getting movement that had formerly eaten such a substantial amount of our resources.

We had hoped that the Bush folks understood. They did not. We had hoped that Clinton understood and all he did was preside over the dot-com bust that wrecked so many lives. Bill Gates and Ted Turner may have lost $35 billion and $8 billion on paper respectively, but millions lost their future and their future retirement.

We have no safe place to invest. Fortunately for me - I have nothing to invest. So all I can really do is lose my only asset that remains - my home.

So the question remains, the monsters we have now allowed to get big (Bank of America, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs), are they "Too Big To Fail"?

If so Congress, what are you going to do about it?

McCain, How Disappointing!

I was expecting better from John McCain. Until today, I was hoping and expecting John McCain to win the election. Now, it matters not who wins the Presidential election.

It does matter who wins in Congress. Any of the Representatives and Senators from either party that voted for the bailout bill should be voted out of Congress at their next election whether this November or in future years.

John McCain should have said, "Congress has spoken." John McCain should have said, "our capitalistic system, the best economic system in the world, is about to repaint the landscape across the United States. Many business large and small will fail. Many jobs will be lost. Times will be hard. But, the United States is the most resilient, resourceful and successful nation in the history of mankind. We will recover. We will grow stronger. We will come back with the shackles of $35 bounced check charges, 25% credit cards, home prices out of reach and energy costs unsustainable, all a part of history.

Banks will once again compete for your business rather than dictate that you must allow the computer pay for items when your account has insufficient funds. Mortgage companies will tell you NO, when they know you likely will get in trouble in paying your mortgage. Subsidies will be provided for all energy sources equally rather than favoring oil and government entrenched socialistic electrification companies.

Once we have recovered, our great nation will become the leaders once again in the use of our intellectual powers. We will be the leaders in science and math rather than simply be the political pawns of those that can talk the talk but fail to deliver. The United States will unlock trillions of dollars in the solar system that will dwarf the trillions dollars of debt we are now facing. As your next President, I will lead us on this struggle to recover and recover we will."

But, he failed. Now who gets elected does not matter. Either candidate will likely preside over a long economic recovery his entire four years in office. Whomever is elected will likely be a one-term President; we don't keep Presidents when the economy is not going well.

Credit Cards

I have two small credit cards with a balance around $100. That is it! I just put the $100 on the card to complete paying the mortgage for the month. The total borrowing amount on those two cards is only $1,000.

I used to have lots of credit cards. I probably had $40,000 of credit outstanding at one time. Now, I have one major credit drain - my house.

What we need to do is get different credit cards. Start you own plan. I read where the best thing to do is pay off your highest interest cards first. Perhaps? But, if you are really hurting perhaps the best thing is to pay off your lowest balance card first. Once it is paid off, freeze it in the freezer in your kitchen. Keep it but make it impossible to use.

If you're still OK, then start paying off the highest interest card. If possible, also pay off another low-balance card and freeze it too. But, if you are simply over your head, call your local CCCS and have them setup a plan with all your credit card companies. Let them negotiate with all the companies. Except, they won't need to negotiate with any of the companies whose cards are in your freezer - they are paid in full already! They are the key to rebuilding your credit.

It is amazing how little you need to get by. For two dollars a day per person you can breakfast, lunch and dinner. Or, you can continue to spend $10 a day per person. The difference for a family of four is close to $1,000 a month! You can do that a few months and those dollars will make a major difference in paying off your credit cards.

The whole goal is to get rid of the balances on your credit cards. The whole goal of the bailout in Congress is to make it easier for credit companies to keep you hooked on their "capital drug". Just tell them NO! Vote Out All Old Members of Congress! Vote Them Out NOW!

Jobs

Since the dot-com bust the computer business has changed drastically. Jobs in the computer business are no longer the place to be. Kids that are being sold on that career path are being lead down a false path. Kids are being fooled by the politicians that preach Science and Math. While intellectually that is the way to go, the jobs are simply not there. We live instead in a Wal-Mart society.

What we need are politicians that understand the difference between science and science-fiction. Few in Congress get it. Few understand the importance of both. Members of Congress care about bailing out the drug-lords of capital. Those folks are little better than the mary-jane drug dealers that have dotted our landscape in the past. They want to get you hooked on their capital. They make money by getting you hooked on their capital. They especially make money when you are a marginal credit-risk. They know that marginal credit risks are hard-working people that will keep themselves on the edge of paying.

Instead what they need to do is make it easy and worthwhile to save. Let the bankers figure out how to make money rather than how to take money.

How many times do the bankers take $30 or $35 of your hard-earned money? Often a days pay for those that can least afford it. Those people do not need to life a finger to get that overdrawn amount taken by the banker. It would be so easy for the computer to just say no to a charge rather than saying yes to taking an extra $35 for themselves. Over the last six months its happened to me twice. For the lack of knowing exactly how much I had in my checking account, two separate purchases of $1 each cost me $35 each. That is highway robbery!

But do you hear anyone in Congress that is willing to standup and say this is wrong?

Vote Them All Out! Vote Them All Out NOW!

Oh, and please contribute to my mortgage payment. Thanks!

Politicians Failing Us. Vote Them Out NOW!

The politicians are failing us. Party simply does not matter. We need the Senators of old. Many cared about what the voters back home wanted. Many cared about what they personally thought was best. Few cared more about party than about what they felt was best for the country.

Anytime you see such lopsided party-line votes as we have seen over the last 30 years, you have seen members of Congress that put party above what is best for the country.

We need to vote them all out. We need to vote them all out this election. We need to just say NO to the status quo. Id they are an incumbent of more than 2 terms we need to tell them their services are no longer needed.

Then, we need to monitor their subsequent activities. You simply know that when they are voted out they will end up getting paid by former supporters for hiding stuff in the tax code.

Meanwhile keep those donations coming in! I doubt the Internet is capable of paying my mortgage, but, I've been known to be wrong more than once. Heck, even I could be in Congress. Oh, you mean I have to be wrong multiple times a day? Well then, I guess I wouldn't want to be in Congress!

Too Big To Fail? Not in A Capitalistic System!

Since we live in a capitalistic system, we should expect all businesses to play by those rules as well. This bailout the administration proposed and the Democratic leadership claims as the best they can do - sucks!

Basically, if a company is considered "too big to fail" then they are not playing within the rules of our capitalistic system. Either the leadership of this country failed to understand there were companies playing outside the rules of our capitalistic system or they failed to do anything about it.

Either way, they failed. And, I see nothing in the bailout bill that addresses the issue. I just see the Democratic leadership slapping themselves on the back for getting something done. But what did they get done? Nothing good!

They created another layer of government rather than addressing the major issue. The major issue is to never allow a single company in our capitalistic system to ever exist again that is "too big to fail". Instead what Congress is getting ready to pass and what the President is getting ready to sign is a bill that allows those very same hard-hearted companies that don't give a crap about anything except getting borrowers hooked on their capital drugs to continue.

Instead Congress needs to say, "you screwed up, now you need to pay the price". Those companies need to layoff half the folks that work for them. Those folks need to work in the real world for awhile. Our education system certainly did not prepare them for the real world. Perhaps some of them are suitable to go back to college and get a teaching degree. We really need good teachers. We're failing badly in education.

Other of those companies simply need to fail. We need a good shake-out in the financial business. What we don't need are credit card companies handing out cards to folks that can't pay their mortgages. What we don't need are mortgage companies that hand-out mortgages to people having trouble paying their car payments.

I personally am having trouble paying for my mortgage. I may even lose my home over this mess. Business has been tough since the dot-com bust on the stock market. This is just another version of the same issue. People get in trouble because credit is too easy, not because it is too tight. Banks have more control over peoples lives - and then when banks get in trouble they get bailed out! It makes no sense!

Now, if I could only get 300 people to send me five-dollars via PayPal, I could make my next mortgage payment.

vote_them_out@fastpitchcentral.com