Post Scripts

by Jack Lee

Rewarding failure and punishing success, it’s the new American way, get with it. For example, if you happen to have no savings because you live on the edge with a pile credit cards and now you can’t make your house payment…don’t worry, enter the Homeowners Protection Act!

President Obama is taking from those of you who still pay taxes, then borrowing on your future earnings for the next 30 years and those billions raised will go to reduce the mortgage for some flake! And the government expects he will suddenly reform his ways that got him into financial trouble in the first place.

Being a flake will qualify you for government help!

But, here’s how you won’t qualify: Imagine that you have scrimped and saved your whole life, that you ate Top Ramen for lunch for years, that you only went to matinee’s at the theater and you skipped the $6 popcorn and the $4 soda. Imagine, that you held down two jobs because you had a plan to buy a home of your own some and then one day you actually did, but by then home prices had gone up 300% in the last 24 months! Ok, so you bought a smaller, older home than you wanted, but even then you could barely meet the payment. Thanks to your lifestyle choices and working 60 hours a week, you got by, but it wasn’t easy.

Now thanks to crooks on Wall Street and incompetent fools in government (these are interchangeable) your home value has plummeted and it’s worth $100,000 less than your mortgage. You could buy a newer, bigger home for less than what you owe on this one, but your integrity says you will stay put, you will cling to the hope that in another 10-15 years your home value will eventually catch up with your heavy mortgage. If you are that guy, the backbone of America…you’re screwed.

Welcome to the new America, where everybody is subject to layoffs, except government employees and welfare recipients and both of those classes are growing exponentially.

Continue reading “THE NEW raw DEAL” »

by Dan B.

The State of Jefferson sounds great. I want in, but I don’t live in Butte County. How about making it a diffused state all across the USA? It would be more like a state of mind. If you believe in the Jeffersonian ideals, you are in it by self proclamation. And make it a true state, with its own laws and loyalties. Such states do exist right now, you know.

There are completely sovereign nations existing within our main nation. They are perfectly legal and can even receive foreign aid from the US government. I’ve often heard it said that there is no such thing as legal dual citizenship within the USA, but there is. There are people living in these sovereign nations who have their own boundaries, their own laws, their own government, their own constitutions, their own budget, their own flag, their own armed militias, and so on.

At the same time, they are also US citizens, and they can choose allegiance to whichever government they like or switch back and forth between them whenever it is convenient. They can travel freely across their own proclaimed borders, enjoy the benefits of of the US on one side, then cross back and be free from US laws once inside their lines. If they happen to crash into your car on the way back from Wal-Mart, you can’t sue them. You can’t even get the police to confront them once they are back inside their borders.

I’m not talking about illegal aliens from Mexico. Remember, I said legal, sovereign, dual citizens. Who are they? Think about it the next time you go gambling at an Indian casino.

The Socialist Presidential candidate, Norman Thomas said this in a 1944 speech:

“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of “Liberalism”, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.” He went on to say: “I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform.”

I may not like his brand of politics, but he sure predicted the future 60 some years later.

The more reasonable and ethical CEOs are emerging…

GE CEO Immelt won’t get bonus in 2008, by Steve Goldstein – Marketwatch

** Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt won’t get a bonus in 2008, and he is declining the entire $11.7 million earned under his long-term performance award, the industrial bellwether said in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission. GE’s Management Development and Compensation Committee “accepted Mr. Immelt’s proposal as appropriate recognizing that, although the company delivered a strong operational performance in 2008, this performance was not reflected in GE’s stock price.” **

This will help to place a spotlight on the weenies! May a landslide follow.

Posted by Tina

I couldn’t believe my eyes when the fax machine spit this out just moments ago:

These once proud animals were, as the fax indicated, “formerly self sufficient (but) are now showing signs of belonging to the Democrat Party…as they have apparently learned to just sit and wait for the government to step in and provide for their care and sustenance as if possessed by evil spirits”

It’s a sad day in the forrest ladies and gentlemen…a sure threat to the ecosystem. In the spring berries will rot on the vines…slugs will multiply at alarming rates…and the cubs…oh the cubs! They’ll start turning to garbage cans outside of bars to rebel and express the angst of youth…this is serious. But PETA will applaud!

The fax indicated that “this photo is of a Democrat black bear in Montana nicknamed Bearack Obearmination”.

Note: “no trees were killed in the sending of this message…but a large number of electons were terribly inconvenienced”

Hat Tip to Mark Sorenson

The Decline of California – They still think they can tax their way out of this one. WSJ

** If you thought Washington’s stimulus debate was depressing, take a look at the long-running budget spectacle in California. The Golden State’s deficit has reached $42 billion, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is threatening to furlough 20,000 state workers (go ahead, make our day), and as we went to press yesterday Democrats who control the legislature had blocked lawmakers from leaving until they finally get a deal. **

Continue reading “California Not Exactly Safe and Warm on a Winters Day” »

Posted by Tina

Did Feinstein Reveal War Secrets? – Washington Times Editorial

** When reporters asked President Franklin Roosevelt where Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle’s raiders launched their daring 1942 raid on the Japanese mainland, he puckishly answered, from our new secret base at Shangri-La. *** Contrast Roosevelt’s slyness with Sen. Diane Feinstein’s recent comment regarding the secret location of the launch sites for Predator hunter/killer drones As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base. *** Sen. Feinstein’s defense for discussing this highly sensitive information, that she was only repeating what she read in the papers, is greatly unconvincing. *** It is true that The Washington Post first reported Predators operating out of bases in Pakistan, and the senator’s flak catcher Philip J. LaVelle says that this report was what she was referring to. But there is a difference between making an allegation in a local paper and having the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence confirm it. After all, her remark was as I understand it, not according to the papers. *** Presumably Sen. Feinstein knows the truth of the matter. Will she go on the record saying the reporting was wrong? The CIA will not, and the Pentagon has no comment. **

by Jack Lee

Every State level politician is probably guilty of a “cozy dance” with someone with big money to give. This is a huge problem today for the voters and no matter what party you belong too, everyone is being shafted and denied free, fair and open elections. Make no mistake, politicians need huge amounts of money to run campaigns only because they have been one upping each other for years, not because the price of ink has gone up!

Continue reading “Shall we Dance? (Part II)” »

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — General Motors and Chrysler LLC said Tuesday they could need an additional $21.6 billion in federal loans between them because of worsening demand for their cars and trucks.

Hmmm…so does this mean the CEO’s get their pay cut to $500,000 if they get the money under the new terms?

by Jack Lee

I was surfing the web, looking for financial good news for a change. Not a lot out there I hate to say, but I did find something worth reading. It’s by a couple Standford economists and they are saying the recession will be over sooner than we think. I think it won’t be over until mid to late 2010, they are thinking mid 2009. If they’re right it will come as a big relief to a lot of readers. This site comes with a lot of nifty charts to back up what they are saying.
Click on the link to see an upbeat story on the market.

Here’s a hint at what they are saying…”Good news: Great Depression II avoided and growth resumes mid-2009
Much like today, the Great Depression began with a stock-market crash and a melt-down of the financial system. Banks withdrew credit lines and the inter bank lending market froze-up. What turned this from a financial crisis into an economic disaster, however, was the compounding effect of terrible policy. The infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 was introduced by desperate US policymakers as a way of blocking imports to protect domestic jobs. Instead of helping workers, this worsened the situation by freezing world trade.”