Here's a simpler TARP plan

So we're not actually using the $700 billion set aside for buying bad mortgages to buy bad mortgages? Interesting. What are we using it for? Whatever Hank Paulson wants to do with it.

This will make government budgeting so much easier. You just hand the money to appropriate secretary and let him spend it however he wants.

Anyway, I see they've appropriately name this the Tarp program. Because once these Bush clowns are through with us, they'll buy us all big blue tarps to set up as shelters in the homeless camps.

No bailouts for Main Street!

I have to say all this talk about letting the automakers go bankrupt is getting on my nerves.

We're hearing all the usual junk from the right about socialism, our tax dollars, overpaid workers, free-market principles and such things as the GOP seems to view this as a chance to regroup. Even Glenn Beck, who claims to be a populist and who shills for Chevy, is on the case.

But c'mon. Didn't this stuff about socialism go out the window when we voted to hand the banking industry $700 billion? Ditto for free market principles; the market capitalists of Wall Street wasted no time in coming to beg for our money. They gave it up.

As to the idea of blowing 'our tax dollars,' that cat's out of the bag, too. We're $10 trillion in debt as a nation; we're in the hole a trillion for just this year. Tack $25 billion on to the end, and no one alive today will be repaying it. (Hell, if GM can escape its debt by declaring bankruptcy, maybe the country should try it.)

The other thing they're doing is trying to make us hate auto workers, because they have good retirement plans, health care and can't be laid off easily. Hey folks; maybe instead of asking why they have this stuff, more people should ask why more of us don't.

See, what we're talking here is perhaps 3 million jobs. Maybe more; they say one in 10 american workers, all told, are supported by the auto industry. We're talking about shutting down a good part of what little industry America still has. If this goes, we're a nation that manufactures little more than the caps for tubes of toothpaste and the thong part of things (the soles come from Korea.)

Besides, think about it this way. We can pay $25 billion, demand concessions and try to save 3 million jobs. Or we can let Obama try to use the government to create 3 million high paying jobs to replace them. How much do you think that will cost?

Going, Going ...

Reading my colleague's post below, I am moved to ask the question:

What is this "Ford" thing I hear about occasionally?

Seriously, walking the dogs last night, I counted 20 vehicles parked on my street. One was a Saturn, one a Mercury Topaz (with a Power Forward Toyota license plate frame, so it had been traded in for a Toyota), and two were American pickups at least 20 years old.

So 80 percent of the cars were non-American.

Blaming the American auto industry's problems on union members and labor costs doesn't address the biggest problem any manufacturer can have - no one wants to buy the shit they're producing.

You, me and AIG

We've always known Americans are generous to a fault. But at least the bastards on Wall Street could ask.

This morning it was just Treasury chief Hank Paulson and Fed chief Ben Bernanke, the bailout boppsy twins, tearing up that $123 billion bailout for AIG and replacing it with a $150 billion plan. Sort of like buying a Ford Focus and the dealer handing you the keys to a BMW at the same price.

I think we the taxpayers get a little bigger piece of the insurance giant, which is throat-deep in bad paper from underwriting all the mortgage derivatives that are causing so much trouble. But at this point, no smart investor would want to own any piece of AIG.

After all, this crisis couldn't have happened without the good folks at AIG.

Why will $150 billion work when $123 billion wouldn't? Don't ask, because the twins are just guessing. There are endless trillions of derivatives in play, and most of them have ties to AIG.

When the bailout was approved, the hope certainly was that banks would realize the party was over and start behaving responsibly. They haven't -- witness the stories about bailout funds going for big bonuses and to lobby Congress. It's still business as usual.

I certainly expect the next administration to lay down the law to these clowns. But there's no telling how much more good money the twins will throw after bad by the time these Bush clowns get shown the door.

Followup

I asked my wife who she would have voted for, McCain or the Sleestak. She hestitated, and asked, "Who would McCain's running mate be?"

"The same as the ticket he had, Palin," I answered.

"Then I'd have had to go with the Sleestak," she said.

Post-Mortem

- On the day when a black man reaped the ultimate benefit of the nation extending constitutional to people of all races, blacks in the "liberal" state of California voted overwhelmingly to take away the constitutional rights of a different subculture. I understand the historical and socio-political context of the black vote on Prop. 8. It doesn't excuse the behavior. It is shameful, and should cause a thorough soul-searching in the hearts of black voters everywhere. The politics of hate and division still work, and they can work with anyone, anytime.

- Since we're talking about race ... much has been said about the election of Obama to the White House. But really, given the mood of the nation, and given how badly the Republicans had thoroughly and comprehensively fucked up our foreign policy, our economy, and given what McCain was offering (Palin? Come on! And a tax credit to purchase individual health care? If you're losing your house, that meant absolutely nothing at all!) one has to wonder how well an eight-foot-tall Sleestak from the Land of The Lost running against McCain would have done. Americans are scared right now, as scared as I can remember them being. I'd suggest that the election result was as much a vote against McCain (and Bush) as it was a vote for Obama.

UPDATE: As usual, the Onion says it more eloquently than I:


http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nation_finally_shitty_enough_to

- Speaking of Palin, did anyone note the body language on stage at McCain's concession speech? Here's how they lined up to wave once more before walking off the stage: Palin, her husband, McCain's wife, McCain. The candidate and his running mate were as far apart as possible, with two people in between. Speaks volumes.

gop, let's go with Palin/Bachman '12!

I'd like to offer conservatives some support today. this election should be a lesson against the wisdom of going with moderates.

So you should think about going with the woman who fired up the base (even though she turned off everyone else) and the woman with the good sense to call for another unAmerican activities commission. Which can't start too soon. A majority of Americans are now unamerican.

Palin/Bachman 2012. Get going.

Go Ahead And Cry, Dad

I called my father tonight, and he told me that he's been crying most of the night. Every time he stops, he said, "The tears just come again."

You might think that he's emotional because he's black. Not only black, but a black man who grew up in the South, where he wasn't allowed to drink from certain faucets, wasn't allowed to sit next to his white friends at the movie theaters, a man who grew up with a bitterness toward America's mainstream that only the truly oppressed will ever know.

One of the most important things my father ever did was to allow his children to grow up without passing along the scars from the slings and arrows hurled at him in his lifetime. And while his bitterness and anger toward the mainstream mellowed over the years, his cynicism remained.

So you might think my father's tears were because he felt past injustices had been righted, that the vote somehow validated his perseverence in the face of adversity.

Not so.

He was looking toward the future.

"Mike - Michael (he never gets that right, but I never correct him, and tonight, he really wanted to get his words right) I have always wondered when this country would get smarter, grow up, mature," he said.

"Tonight, we've grown up."

I couldn't think of anything to say. The best I could come up with was, "Go ahead and cry your fuckin' eyes out, Dad."

Voting matters

I voted today. It mattered. The country is different tomorrow. Any kid really can grow up to be president.

Obama has a lot to do in the next four years. But just with today's election, nothing will ever be the same.

You don't get to say that very often.

McCain camp classless to the end

Well, we're winding to a close and on the final weekend, McCain and his supporters once again found a way to reach a new low.

There was the 529 group running ads from crazy preacher Wright -- whose 'god will judge america' rants were shameful but no different from the rants of preachers like Jim Hagee that McCain has aligned himself with.

Well, different in a couple of ways -- he's black, and the others were white, and the idea of a fat bald white preacher ranting isn't nearly as scary to voters. And Wright was saying we'd be judged for historical racism, not gays and liberalism. Wright makes us uncomfortable.

(Of course, Libby Dole's shameful ad aimed at her "godless" opponent shows the right will use this tool against white democrats, too. and that it turns off a lot of people.)

Then there was this sudden discovery by Fox News and Drudge and others that a San Francisco newspaper was 'hiding' a tape (on the world wide web, of all secret places!) that has Obama wanting to kill coal with a cap and trade plan. Fair issue, I supposed, though they and Sarah Palin don't mention that McCain supports the same.

And then there were attacks on Obama's aunt, who he barely knows, but an illegal immigrant. I guess it's only unfair to drag Palin's family into the campaign.

So it goes. It's never been clear that McCain appreciates the stuff done in his name, but that doesn't let him off the hook. Here's hoping the GOP is routed and he never lives down the shame.