Ahrcanum

I want more candy in the trick or treat bag this October, a fatter turkey in November and more toys for Christmas.  I like my martini’s shaken, not the economy.  Our US Government elected officials and the US citizens want it all too and are stirring things up so much that my martini is starting to look like a Jim Jones koolaid drink.  Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it. 

Our $700 Billion Dollar Bailout is increasing as fast as Muhammad Ali once said, ” I’m so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my bedroom and was in bed before the room was dark.”  The lights are certainly dimming on financial markets as the bailout plan looks for ratification.  People looking for proof that we need this will get it in the next 6 months or so when we will again be wondering what the hell happenednd.

Ideology has to be set aside and bi-partisan solutions must be found. Yadda, yadda, yadda.  Is this bailout the right thing and is it the right time?  Had Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acted on bailing out Lehman Brothers in the first place we might not be seeing this ginormous chain reaction in the financial markets.  Maybe he knew that there was no stopping the spiral downward in the credit markets and figured that a bailout was going to be the only way to restore corrections in the marketplace, and at a speed that would help limit a recession and guide our economy towards growth and justice.  Justice?  Indeed it is unjustifiable, the skirting of laws that were meant to avoid this situation in the first place.  If a tree falls in the woods…does it make any noise?

This F’ed up system has run amok and I am wary to give billions back to the same incompetents that got us here in the first place.  I am also wary not to.  Ben Bernake, The Federal Reserve chairman is not an idiot.  He received a PHD in economics from MIT and thankfully has held his ground on limiting the amount of political persuasion that often permeates our government.  He has studied The Great Depression and the woes of Japan’s banking failures and failure to act in a responsive way.   The main stock index in Japan, nearly 20 years later is still less than one third of its level.  I don’t want to be broke and dead by the time the US Market sees a correction.

Wall Street is asking Main Street to foot the bill on the same kind of pork that got us here. The current bill endorses a not $700 but an $850+ billion bailout plan plus it has another $150 billion in tax breaksfor individuals and businesses.  Add in the $85 billion for AIG last week and we as well round up and call it a ONE TRILLION DOLLAR BAILOUT.  It seems totally dysfunctional to have money in the bill that has tax relief for things like Wooden Arrows,  Motor sports racing track facilities, Investors on Indian Reservations, Renovating restaurants, Rum producers in the Virgin Islands, etc,.    I must be missing something in that this bailout was originally intended to help out with the sub-prime mortgage and credit problems. Over at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=28851 there is a whole list of maddening programs that includes 3.2 Billion for …”the “Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Program,” over six years and to be used not just for schools but also to “implement stewardship objectives that enhance forest ecosystems,” support programs which “control noxious and exotic weeds” and enhance “soil productivity” or “improve cooperative relationships among the people that use and care for Federal land and the agencies that manage the Federal land.”  Yes siree, that $3.2 billion is certainly going to help get us out of this immediate financial mess.  SHAME, SHAME on you. (and me)

In some great manner of a brain fart, the bailout bill also raises FDIC insurance to $250,000.  The FDIC already covers 250k for retirement accounts anyways.  Seeing as a lot of the little guys on Main Street have actually managed to save and invest, this seems like a no brainer–thanks for throwing us a bone.  Who is to say that the estimated $50 Billion in the FDIC is enough to cover the little man’s losses?  What we have here ladies and gentleman is a giant accounting convention and we the taxpayers are only invited to the after party having footed the bill.  Couldn’t our elected officials just attempt to fix the immediate financial markets and leave the rest of the bullshit blundering pork spending for later.  I am reserching for the funds to continue to pay for the $1000 toilet seats as referred to in the movie, Independence Day.

The next big event is going to be for the Social Security Trust Fund-mark my words, as we have been warned for years that there is more money going out of the system than is coming in.  One does not need to have a doctorate in economy to figure out that those of us in our 40’s are going to get nada, nothing, el zippo.  Oh right- we were all encouraged to invest in the stock market in the first place, to invest for our retirements so we wouldn’t have to rely on the Social Security Trust Fund.   What about the likes of Ameritrade, ETrade, Scotttrade and Forex?  Are these mainstream Internet financial behemouths just as equally liable for this disaster in making it so easy for investors to hit the buy and sell button faster than a fly lands on a camels ass? 

I like my martini shaken, not our economy which is shaken and stirred up to the core.