The Next Card

I have deep respect for Warren Buffett. I like it when a billionaire lives in his small house in Omaha, drives a domestic sedan with a license plate ‘thrifty’, and denounces the tax havens the rich enjoy.

But he’s lost it.

Moody recently downgraded MBIA from AAA+ to AAA+ (negative outlook). Critics argue that Moody is being easy on them in an effort to not be blamed if things fall apart. The same crooks who packaged the mortgage bundles are the same crooks who perform ‘due diligence’ on municipal bonds.

A case I’m familiar with involves an entering argument of, say, the revenue from seventy building permits per year, when the actual number in 2007 was 2. The same study never considered the possibility that real estate prices, and subsequent revenues, could go…down.

Municipal bonds are headed for a fall. Buffett’s out to insure them:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12292007/business/bond_rescue_plan_713208.htm

Bush Veto

President Bush vetoed a measure that would allow Americans to sue Iraq. The reason is that, if the measure were to pass, tens of billions of Iraqi hard dollars would be pulled from American banks, making the banking crisis worse.

Go Patriots

And what a maneuver by the NFL. Pressure cable to pay through the nose. Cable resists, NFL keeps the rights to the good games. Good game coming up which most people won’t be able to view. Congressional action pending (free advertising). Crisis commentary on the talking head shows (free advertising). People, including me, are pissed.

And now the good guys to the rescue! The NFL has sold the rights to the good game to more than one network. God knows how many tens of millions of dollars they got for what is now the most hyped regular-season football game of all time. The minds that orchestrated this are the minds that should be running America.

Come to think of it, they probably are. I only wish I could afford that level of representation.

Here’s to a good game in any case.

p.s. A search indicates that Goodell is a true ‘Senator’s son’.

Winston Churchill, 1899

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!

Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.

The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.

No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome."

-Sir Winston Churchill (The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).

More Paulson

The plot thickens. Goldman Sachs reportedly originated a large number of the investment vehicles it wasn’t holding when things went pop. Right around pop time, Paulson becomes Treasury Secretary. Now why would a billionaire want a low six-figure civil service job? Maybe it’s the free health care.

The investment vehicles reportedly have a ‘buy back at face value in the case of fraud’ clause. Them are the big boys who were buying the investment vehicles and the big boys do not like to lose money. They could take it to court and target A#1 would be the Treasury Secretary of the United States of America. There could be prison involved for a whole slew of these smart guys. And smart guys facing prison would sing like canaries.

Which may explain why my government is about to pledge my tax dollars to insure a bunch of bad mortgages. The game ends when the credit rating goes away. Hard to predict what happens after that.

Bob J. Nash

Bob J. Nash, Deputy Campaign Manager for the Clinton Campaign:

From: Bob Nash
To:
Sent: Sun Dec 09
Subject: BARACK
HOW ARE YOU ?? I AM FIGHTING HARD >
SECOND ARE YOU PEERSONALLYAWARE OF TH EWORK BARACK DID ON THE SOUTH
SIDE WITH COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION S , ETC ./. BOB
WHAT DI DHE DO AFORE HOW LONG AND WITH WHO ??
PLS TELL BOB HELLO BOB
Bob J Nash
Deputy Campaign Manager
Hillary Clinton for President Exploratory Committee
4420 N. Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22203

Church Shooting

The police did nothing but prepare to enter a building. Homeland Security did nothing. The woman who shot the church shooter dead reportedly charged him. She didn’t cost the taxpayer a penny. In a sane world, President Bush would award her a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Talk Shows

After skewering him on Kerik, girlfriend security, etc., etc., etc.

Russert: Do you agree with Huckabee’s views of homosexuality?
Giuliani: No, my views on homosexuality are based on the Catholic church.

That was bloodiest interview I’ve ever seen.

Our system of government is essentially broken. But it still is entertaining.

Mortgage Rescue

Ethics, compassion, and math.

The banks made a bunch of bad loans, which, if they default, will cost the banks six figures each. Knocking 3% off of a $200,000 mortgage for five years costs the banks $30,000. So the banks must have projected that one-third of the ‘at-risk’ loans would have gone into default.

This is not about compassion for the little guy. The best thing for many struggling families, who are upside down on their homes, is to walk away and rent an apartment.

Two-Way Wall

"Born and trained at Denmark's expense, but working - and paying lower taxes - elsewhere in Europe, Sorensen is the stuff of nightmares for Danish companies and politicians searching for solutions to an increasingly desperate labor shortage."
[…]
"Young Danes, often schooled abroad and inevitably fluent in English, are primed to quit Denmark for greener pastures. One reason is the income tax rate, which can reach 63 percent."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/05/business/labor.php?page=1

This trend is just getting started. One of the hallmarks of the 21st Century will be taxes redistributing productive populations. 200,000 skilled Brits emigrate every year and are replaced with 500,000 largely unskilled immigrants.

Dubai is able to attract Western human capital because it’s oil wealth eliminates the need for taxes (bad long-term investment though, Allah doesn’t like Infidels or shiny things). Watch Panama, Costa Rica, and Belize thrive as Americans and bad British canoers flock to the low-tax, stable Central American countries.

Which begs the question, what happens to the old, liberal democracies when a larger and larger percentage of the tax base gets chased out by rising tax rates, being replaced with immigrants expecting to be taken care of by social services?

I really don’t know. Maybe a two-way wall.

Joe Horn

Joe Horn will cause an uproar if he is not charged. Joe Horn will cause an inferno if he is charged. Because no Texas jury will find him guilty.

Taxing Merit

Single mother of four celebrates first grandchild at 29 years of age.

These women make no contribution to our society. They are a tremendous burden. Sixty-five percent of the Federal budget goes to entitlement programs for people unable or unwilling to provide for themselves. Local governments are strapped. Hospitals are taking it in the gut. That money will run out within ten years. Portions of our society will just collapse. It’s just math.

The brilliance of the Globalists is that they have fractured the Proletariat. A European-style uprising is now impossible. Mexicans and Blacks are competing for the same dollars and will be at odds. They resent each other. Working class whites will default ethnocentric. Motorcycle gangs (ones with Swastikas on the leather) at the bar I occasion mandate that members own handguns. I learned this last month.

The Spartans did something similar to subjugate the 90% of the population that was non-Spartan. It worked for hundreds of years.

The Spartans died off from 10,000 card carriers to 1,000 card carriers and were then conquered by the Romans. But then again the Spartans did not have the ability to implant Spartan embryos in Helots.

Orwell predicted the state-inspired patriotic act of goodsex. He didn’t envision the ability to mass-produce Tom Bradys.

“Will carry Spartan embryo to term for food”.

The Spartans would be in power today if they had had that ability. It will eventually happen because it is logical from a civilizational standpoint, just a question of who and when.

Update: The Natives are getting restless:

http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2007/12/02/news/local/doc47523ffc749ce944955510.txt?showComments=true

Henry Paulson

"Nothing is worse than doing nothing."

I don’t trust this guy, I think he’s putting his banking friends ahead of John Q. Public.

If a struggling young family bought at the peak and is now $70,000 in the hole, the best thing for the young family to do is walk away from the house and rent an apartment. It does not serve the family’s interest to pay the bank back more than the value of the house, even if the interest rates are kept lower than market rates.

If a stupid bank loaned money too much money to a young family at the peak and is now nervous that the young family will walk away, the last thing the bank wants is $70,000 in negative equity, $30,000 in attorney’s fees, and another $30,000 in processing fees.

Qualification: Unless the banks are in worse shape than we think, in which case he may be looking out for the American people.

Boring Numbers

There has never, ever been anything too big to fail. This is a pretty good article except that it buys the cash accounting figure that would land any CFO in jail. The real debt is $70 trillion (accrual accounting). Ron Paul would ease the pain by putting us back on the gold standard, but he’s unelectable. My vote is for Obama, who will accelerate the inevitable.

Even if you've escaped the recent housing and credit crunches and are coping with rising fuel prices, you may still be headed for economic misery, along with the rest of the country. That's because the government is fast straining resources needed to meet interest payments on the national debt, which stands at a mind-numbing $9.13 trillion.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071203/ap_on_go_ot/nation_in_debt_4

I Have Looked into His Heart

The Bush administration Sunday called on Russia to investigate claims the vote was manipulated.

From: President Putin, The Russian Republic
To: President Bush, United States of America
Subject: Voting Irregularities Investigation

Date: 02DEC07; 8:34pm

Dear George;

Thank you for your interest in democracy and fair elections. I have tasked my top assistant to look into your concerns. He has completed an investigation and has reported to me that the elections were, in fact, fair.

Your friend with the good heart;
Vlad

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071203/D8T9LR000.html