All new for 2012, the Pelosi GTxi SS/Rt Sport Edition is now the mandatory American car. It is so advanced, it is a bargain considering the $100 billion an entire Congress spent to design it. Congress started with the reliable 7-way hybrid ethanol-biodiesel-electric-clean coal-wind-solar-pedal power plant behind the original base model Pelosi, but packed it with extra oomph and the sassy styling pizzazz that tells the entire world that 1974 Detroit is back again -- this time with a vengeance.

Congress has subsidized the features you’ve always wanted and taxed away the rest. With its advanced Al Gore-Reid throat V-3 design under the hood pumping out 22 huge thumping, carbon-neutral ponies of Detroit cartilage, you'll never be late again for the Disco or free lunch at the Day Labor Shelter.

Options include your ability to easily engage the pedal drive, or to strap on the optional jumbo mizzenmast, and the GTxi SS/Rt Sport Edition easily exceeds 2016 CAFE mileage standards. At an estimated 268 MPG, that's a savings of nearly $1800 per week in fuel cost over any prior McCain-Lieberman carbon-neutral design.

Even with such remarkably increased performance, Congress didn't skimp on safety. With an 11-point driver and passenger racing harnesses, 15-way airbags, and mandatory hockey ignition-interlock safety helmet, you'll have the security of knowing that you could survive a 45 MPH collision - even if the GTxi SS/Rt were capable of that kind of downhill speed.

But the changes don't stop there. Sporty easy-theft hubcaps, wheels and axles, and an all-new aggressive watermelon-shape design by CM's Chief Stylist Ted Kennedy, the GTxi SS/Rt slices through the wind like a ‘Big Dig’ omnibus spending bill. It even features the latest version of an airtight Kopechne undercarriage designed to keep you and one passenger dry, either in a car wash, or afloat up to 15 minutes in the choppy waters off Nantucket Island or Martha’s Vineyard.

Best of all, the Pelosi GTxi SS/Rt will be available in a rainbow of color choices to match any wardrobe, from Harvest Avocado to French Mustard, a favorite of Michelle Obama. A special high capacity hatchback model holds up to 300 aluminum cans and 64 kilos, not to mention millions of dollars of frozen cash. This means fewer trips by liberals to the Guantanamo-style right-wing interrogation centers. And with the standard 3-speaker Fairness ActoPhonic single-channel FM low-band sound system, you'll never miss a segment of NPR again.

Most importantly, the Pelosi GTxi SS/Rt is assembled right here in the USA from New York Times-leaked Yugo design documents by fully card-checked unionized workers and a cadre of Detroit's famous visionary jet-set CEO’s. Even if you don't own one of these remarkable biodegradable rust-enhancing paperweights, you can enjoy the patriotic satisfaction of supporting the astronomical wages, unlimited benefits, rock-star work hours and NFL-style retirement, open-ballot union elections and Chicago-style political donations that are sure to make the American car industry once again the envy of the world.

Why not buy one!? With an MSRP starting at only $129,999 before taxes or $629,000 out the door, it's a steal (from taxpayers). Don't forget to ask about dealer incentives and manufacturer’s rebates, government tax credits, gender incentives, racial allowances, and wealth redistribution plans applicable to many Shariah-compliant special-interest groups. Easy-pay financing programs are available from the newly reincarnated and taxpayer-funded 2nd iteration of Barnie’s Fannie Mae and Freddie’s Big Mac.

So take the bus you’ve been owed for centuries to your local Congressional Motors dealer today and find out why the Pelosi GTxi SS/Rt Sport Edition is the only car endorsed (for you) by California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Only one test drive will convince you that you would have chosen a Ford or GM if you had been given a choice.

« Close It

American Express manages to get approval (from the Federal Reserve) to become a bank holding company in the blink of an eye. This kind of thing usually takes weeks or even months. And within 24 hours, the reason they did so leaks — they want to reach into your wallet and pull out some bailout money, too! Amex is reportedly seeking $3.5 billion in taxpayer funds.

General Motors operates for years churning out gas-guzzling SUVs and Hummers. Ford also stakes its future on big trucks like the F-150 — instead of choosing the same prudent path as competitors like Honda and Toyota, who focus on fuel-conscious sedans and compacts. GM (via its financing arm GMAC) even goes a step further. Not content to stick to car loans, it decides to branch out and make billions and billions of dollars of crappy mortgage loans. Then, when the utterly predictable consequences of this foolish corporate strategy come home to roost, GM and the other automakers come back to the trough like pigs looking for slop. Only in this case, we're talking real money - $25 billion or more.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chief Ben Bernanke urge Congress to create the Troubled Asset Relief Program - with as little debate and oversight as possible and a price tag of $700 billion. They warn of financial cataclysm if the government doesn't start buying up mortgages and mortgage related assets from banks. Yet just a few short weeks later, they totally change course. They say "Never mind - we're not going to buy up assets after all. We're going to buy up stakes in small banks, big banks, insurers, and God knows who else, with the money. We know the last 20 or so 'solutions' to the credit crunch didn't work. But this one will. Really. We mean it."

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac make a huge deal about a new program to modify more mortgages. We get the mid-afternoon press conference, the intraday ramp in the stock market, the usual stuff.

Citigroup, JPMorgan and other lenders get in on the action too, issuing glowing press releases about foreclosure moratoriums and other plans to keep borrowers in their homes.

But in reality, many lenders and mortgage servicers have ALREADY been trying all kinds of loss mitigation strategies and loan modifications (loan term extensions, temporary interest rate reductions, and so on).

Yet ... they haven't managed to stop the nation's foreclosure rate from rising.

Why? It's Simple ...

1. All those modification efforts can't overcome the negative impact of surging unemployment.
2. Many borrowers lied about their income and their assets in the first place, meaning they can't even make the reduced payments their lenders are offering.
3. Others were speculators and second-home owners, who don't qualify for relief.
4. Home prices are falling so far, so fast, that millions of borrowers are underwater, owing $20,000, $50,000, even $100,000 more than their homes are worth. They have little financial incentive to stay in their houses, even at a lower monthly payment, because they know they won't breakeven for years, if ever. And many of them know darn well they can rent for less ... sometimes much less ... at a house or apartment down the street or across town.
5. Still others have loans that were ultimately sliced, diced, and repackaged into complex securities, now owned by various Ferrari-driving hedge fund managers who leveraged up to buy junky paper just a few months after they got out of B-school.
6. Because of the "miracle" of this financial alchemy ... which made Wall Street rich beyond measure ... these borrowers are stuck. Their loan "servicers" WON'T modify their loans because they're afraid of getting their pants sued off by the investors who own securities derived from those underlying loans, securities that in some cases can lose value if the loan terms are changed.

The Hole Keeps Getting Deeper ... And Deeper ... and DEEPER ...

How about the bottomless pit known as AIG? The company made a bunch of stupid decisions to insure crummy mortgage-related securities against default. It clearly had no idea what the heck it was doing, and managed to lose a whopping $24.5 billion in the most recent quarter. But instead of going broke, they get thrown a helping hand courtesy of, well, you and me. The tab for that bailout keeps on rising - approximately $150 billion at last count!

Then there's Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They take on hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars of mortgage and interest rate risk. They pile headlong into the derivatives market, dig deeper into the riskier subprime and Alt-A part of the mortgage business, and continually operate on relatively small capital cushions.

Furthermore, they keep carrying billions and billions of dollars of dubious tax-related "assets" on their balance sheets and claim that means they're in decent shape. But soon after, the two companies are essentially nationalized. And those tax assets? Fannie Mae just slashed their value by 78% to $4.6 billion.

Why can't the government just cut the crap and level with us?

Sometimes I just can't help but ask myself that question. I mean, I know it makes for bad politics. But like the old saying goes, honesty is the best policy. And we're just not getting it from Washington and Wall Street.

Instead, policymakers and industry officials have been offering up a steady diet of B.S. about this credit crisis and the housing bust for the greater part of two years now ...

• "It's just a subprime mortgage problem."
• "There's nothing to worry about, the problem is 'well-contained'."
• "Major banks and brokers will never fail. It'll just be a few small institutions."
• "Home prices never go down."
• "It's a great time to buy or sell a house."

That's what you've been told by officialdom. And all of it - every last bit of it - has proven to be dead wrong.

On the other hand, we've been doing our best to give it to you straight the entire time, no matter the consequences. This morning, I'm going to do it again ... I'm going to tell you the brutal truth you won't hear from Washington or Wall Street. You can't just wave a magic wand in Washington and wish all this stuff away. You can't reverse years and years of reckless overspending, over-borrowing, and over-lending - even with hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money.

You can't keep borrowers in homes they should have never bought in the first place.

You can give banks and consumers billions and billions of dollars ... but you can't make them lend and spend it. If they know the economy stinks, they're going to lose their jobs, or that there's just too much risk out there, they aren't going to do what you want them to do. Instead, they'll do what is PRUDENT - repair their balance sheets, hunker down, and rebuild their capital base over time.

The harsh reality is that the economy is cyclical. Busts follow booms. They have for hundreds of years. And those busts are healthy over the longer term, even if they're painful in the short-term. They set the stage for healthy, productive growth.

Unfortunately, the Fed has consistently gotten in the way of that curative process in recent years.

It went totally overboard under Alan Greenspan after the dot-com bust, driving the cost of money into the gutter. Thanks to that reckless monetary policy, and the reckless disregard for prudence throughout the lending industry, we experienced the biggest housing and mortgage bubble in the history of the U.S. We also saw too much dumb lending and asset inflation in the leveraged buyout business, in the commercial real estate arena, and in the emerging markets.

Now, we have to suffer the consequences. They're baked in the cake.

The government can try to ease the pain of that process. That's what all these bailouts are about. But in case you haven't noticed, they really haven't worked. We've gotten brief bounces in stocks, brief periods of economic expansion, temporary improvements in the credit markets. But they don't stick. They fail.

What to Do Now? I know this is a sobering big-picture view. But it has the added benefit of being true - unlike a lot of the garbage you're hearing from your elected and unelected leaders.

Someday, we'll see the depths of the recession's eyes. Someday, we'll get to the point where enough companies have failed, enough homes have fallen into foreclosure, enough lenders have gone under, and enough debt has been crunched to get a real bottom in the markets and the economy. Then we'll be ready for our country to grow in a healthy, sustainable fashion for the long term.

But we're not there yet. And judging from what I'm seeing, my outrage list appears doomed to grow.

by Mike Larson
November 14, 2008

http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/my-outrage-list-keeps-getting-longer-and-longer-28009

« Close It

Twenty years later, Mbembe was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenage son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked to where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe, lifted its front foot off the ground, and then put it down. The elephant did that several times and then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Mbembe's legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly. It is probably safe to conclude it wasn't the same elephant....

The lesson we can take away from this interesting and heartwarming story is one of statistical probability, bordering on certainty. A similar sequence of events will likely occur as the current crop of political candidates seek to befriend a nation of injured conservative elephants, many of whose youth have been sacrificed to open borders, drugs and Islamic terrorists. The election outcome experienced by incumbent Republicans and Democrats in the 2008 election at the hands of voters is likely to be painfully similar to Mbembe. At least I hope it is.

Red State Patriot

Comments are welcome at redstatepatriot@hughes.net. Please include the title of the article as your subject line. Selected responses, in whole or part, may be published (appended to the article).

« Close It

The burglar had to be one of the following because every other Congressman had an ironclad alibi:

Bennett (R-UT)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Bond (R-MO)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brownback (R-KS)
Burr (R-NC)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins (R-ME)
Craig (R-ID)
Domenici (R-NM)
Ensign (R-NV)
Gregg (R-NH)
Kyl (R-AZ), who also voted for the border fence before voting not to fund it.
Lott (R-MS)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Pryor (D-AR)
Snowe (R-ME)
Stevens (R-AK)
Warner (R-VA)
Webb (D-VA)

The Congressman nearly jumped out of his skin, clicked his flashlight off, and froze. He quickly made a call on his cell phone to someone named Harry saying something about holding off on the “Bill.” When he heard nothing more after a bit, and thought the commotion had ended, he spoke briefly again into the cell phone saying, "Harry, it's safe, go ahead.”

After hanging up, the Congressman shook his head, momentarily a little unnerved, and promised himself a long taxpayer-funded vacation after the next big campaign contribution. He clicked the flashlight on again and began searching for more valuables to redistribute to the Mexican. Just as he pulled the home owner’s Health Care Insurance Card from a drawer and was reaching for their children’s Student ID card, clear as a bell he thought he heard the voices again, millions of people saying, “Jesus is watching you.”

Freaked out (speaking in the vernacular), the Congressman shone his flashlight around frantically, looking for the source of the voices. The Mexican never flinched and continued to ransack the house. Finally, in the corner of the room, the Congressman’s flashlight beam came to rest on a parrot.

Did you say that?" the Congressman hissed in a half-whisper at the parrot.

"Yep," the parrot confessed, then squawked, "I'm just trying to warn you."

The Congressman relaxed. "Warn me, huh? Who in the world do you think you are?"

"Moses," replied the parrot.

"Moses?" the Congressman laughed. "What kind of voter would name a bird Moses?"

"The kind of voter that would name a Rottweiler, ‘Jesus.’"

« Close It

The average old guy, on the other hand, has consumed 126,000 gallons of beer, and a jaunt through the desert in the heat with a beer with an M-60 would do wonders for his beer belly. (Note there are 24 hours in a day and 24 bottles in a case...another convenient way old guys use to measure time!). An 18-year-old doesn't like to get up before 10 a.m. Old guys always get up early to pee.

If captured we couldn't spill the beans because we'd forget where we put them. In fact, name, rank, and serial number would be a real brainteaser. Even boot camp would be far easier for old guys. We're used to getting screamed and yelled at and we like soft food. We've also developed an appreciation for guns. We like them almost better than naps.

They could lighten up on the obstacle course however. Nobody that has ever been in combat has seen a 20-foot wall with rope hanging over the side, nor does anybody do pushups after completing basic training. Can you hear the Drill Sergeant for the first “Antique Military Brigade” now, "Get down and give me ... er ... one?" Actually, let’s be realistic. The running part of physical fitness is kind of a waste of energy anyway. No one outruns a bullet, particularly a terrorist. Old guys also have the distinct advantage of patience. They would make incredible snipers without having to remember why or who.

An 18-year-old has the whole world ahead of him. He's still learning to shave, and if his behavior is exemplary, maybe someone will give him the cord to his electric shaver as a Christmas present. An 18-year old has difficulty carrying on a conversation, let alone wearing pants without the top of his butt crack showing and his shorts sticking out. He's hasn't figured out that a pierced tongue catches food particles, and that a 400-watt speaker in the back seat of a Honda can rupture an eardrum, or that a baseball cap has a brim designed to shade his eyes, not the back of his head.

These are all good reasons to keep our kids at home to learn a little more about life before sending them into harm's way.

But now, we old guys are a different story. We can track down those dirty rotten cowards who attacked us on September 11th. The last thing an enemy would want to see is a couple of million old farts with attitudes. Even after 30 years of military service, please let me be the first to reenlist and go to Iraq. Then all we ask is to get the liberals out of our way! Winning would be measured in days, not years.

While were at it, us old farts are proposing a new medal to be awarded to deserving members of all branches of the Armed Forces and National Guard. We’ve decided to call it the “Jimmy Carter Freedom Medal.” It is to be awarded to those who have been sent into action with explicit directions to not fight, who follow orders to throw down their weapons and flee upon contact with the enemy or an illegal alien, without firing a single forbidden shot. The design is a bright brass disk with a bas-relief image of the hindquarters of a rabbit, suspended from a yellow ribbon.

They ought to take us old guys.

Red State Patriot

« Close It

"Really, I've already made up my mind. I want to be in Heaven," said the Senator.

"I'm sorry, but we have our rules."

And with that, St. Peter escorted the Senator to the elevator and down he went, down to hell. The doors opened and he found himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance was a clubhouse and standing in front of it were all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him. Everyone appeared to be very happy and everyone wore evening dress. They ran to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people. They played a friendly game of golf and then dined on lobster, caviar and imbibed the finest champagne.

Also present was the Devil, who was a really friendly guy, and who had a good time dancing and telling jokes. They were all having such a good time that before he realized it, it was time to go. Everyone gave him a hearty farewell and waved while the elevator rose into the distance. The elevator went up, up, up and the door reopened in heaven where St. Peter was waiting for him.

"Now it's time to visit heaven."

Twenty four hours passed with the senator joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They had a good time and before he realized it, the twenty four hours was gone and St. Peter returned.

"Well, then, you've spent a day in Hell and another in Heaven. Now you have to choose your eternity."

The Senator reflected briefly, then answered: "Well, I would never have said it before, and I don’t want to offend you, I mean Heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in Hell."

So St. Peter escorted him to the elevator and back down, down, down to Hell he went. The doors of the elevator opened and the Senator found himself in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage. He saw all his friends, dressed in rags, arguing among themselves, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more garbage fell from above

The Devil eventually came over to him and put his arm around the Senator’s shoulders.

"I don't understand," stammered the Senator. "Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and a beautiful clubhouse. We ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there's only a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable. This isn’t what I wanted. What happened?"

The devil looked at him, smiled and said, "Yesterday we were campaigning which is a lot different than reality. You saw what you wanted to see and heard what you wanted to hear. Today you voted.”

Red State Patriot

« Close It