Realitology

“The Study of Reality”

Warning! This Blog Contains Social Commentary, Brilliant Observations, Dry Wit, and Rampant Sarcasm. Use At Your Own Risk.

Night Night Bitch. Leona Helmsley “Checks Out”
Posted Business on Monday, August 20th, 2007.

Comments(2)

On a postive note…

‘Queen of Mean’ Hotelier Leona "Only the little people pay taxes.”Helmsley Dies

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6863372,00.html

Goodbye to one of the 80’s greed queens. I wonder if she was able to "take it with her?"

But seriously, death is a sad thing and I’m sure her family and friends (if she had any) are sad to see her go. I really feel sorry for people like that. So empty inside, so shallow and mean. You have to feel sorry for someone like that on a human level.

She did give millions of dollars to medical research so she may have had a heart in there somewhere. Although you have to wonder if that was done out of concern and kindness, or to try to put a positive spin on her legacy.

Technorati Tags: Business, death, leona helmsley, only the little people pay taxes

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You Hear The One About The Banks Going Broke And The American Taxpayer Bailing Them Out?
Posted Economics, Consumerism, Business, Politics on Saturday, August 18th, 2007.

Comments(8)

Add Countrywide Bank to the Corporate-Greed-Induced Fuck-Up of the American Economy.

Or As I like to Call It…Savings and Loan Crisis - Folie à deux

Californians rush to pull money from Countrywide Bank
Parent of home loan company assures that bank is stable

The rush to withdraw money — by depositors that included a former Los Angeles Kings star hockey player and an executive of a rival home-loan company — came a day after fears arose that Countrywide Financial could file for bankruptcy protection because of a worsening credit crunch stemming from the sub-prime mortgage meltdown.

The parent firm borrowed $11.5 billion Thursday by using up an existing line of credit from 40 banks, saying the money would help the lender meet its funding needs and continue to grow. But stock investors, apparently alarmed that the company felt compelled to use the credit line, sent Countrywide’s already battered stock down an additional 11 percent.

Full story

They borrowed $11.5 BILLION <gasp> in one day but don’t worry kids. They’re stable. There’s nothing to worry about here.

Who could have forseen this coming? It’s such an anomaly. I mean come on, who could have predicted that loaning money to people who couldn’t afford to pay it back would somehow not be fiscally sound? I mean you certainly can’t blame CEO Angelo R. Mozilo can you? How was he to know? I mean it’s not like he’s been a banker for 38 year or anything. Geeze, what do you expect for a paltry $141.98 MILLION A YEAR?

Of course everyone knows that the real problem with the economy is the welfare cheats and the labor unions and the over-regulation of the benevolent corporations who are looking out for all of us. Shoot, just read Jerry Bowyer’s column in the National Review and you’ll see it’s true.

Here’s where the problem isn’t: household wealth. Right now, household wealth is the strongest it has been in this nation’s history. Corporate profits are as strong as ever, too. Business has plenty of cash on hand.

It’s also not a borrower problem. Mortgage applications are up, not down. Personal income is up, not down. Mortgage interest rates are still relatively low. Default rates are up slightly, but still quite small.

It’s also not a sub-prime problem.

Hmmm. Interesting. See you silly people, household wealth is the strongest it has been in this nation’s history. Although I do recall something about American’s having a negative savings rate these days and real wages being lower than they were 30 years ago. I guess that’s some quirk of economics that I don’t understand. But I do know that when corporate profits are the highest they’ve ever been that’s got to be good for the average America Citizens right?

But don’t worry, Jerry has the answer for us…

And who has the standing to bring together these diverse parties — the regulators and the Fed — and get them talking to each other? There’s only one man who can do that: George W. Bush.

I’m not talking about a bail-out. And I’m not talking about further regulation. To the contrary, I suspect that when we find what’s blocking the credit hose, we’re also going to find a regulator standing on top of it. We need to find out for sure, though. And there’s only one person who can get all the right people in the same room at the same time.

I’ve always been glad that we have an MBA president. It’s time for him to step up.

Damn straight! I’ve always been glad that we have an MBA for president too. He’s done wonders for our country so far. And I think you’re correct Jerry, the problem with the economy is over-regulation. If only we hadn’t over-regulated Enron and Worldcom, I’m sure they’d still be around and powering our super economic engine.

Maybe Mr. Mozilo of Countrywide would like to have a little get together with Charles Keating and Neil Bush. And heck, Jeb and George Bush oughta be there too to because they know a little sumpin’ sumpin’ about that ole’ savings and loan crisis in the 80’s. Shoot, that little mishap only cost the American taxpayers $123.8 BILLION. And what’s a few hundred Billion between politicians and corporations?

But I’m sure Jerry Bowyer and the supply-siders are probably right. The problem is over-regulation not under-regulation.

When are we American’s gonna learn that you can always trust a corporation to do the right thing? All we have to do is spend our way out of this crisis. I’m sure we must be getting close by now…

The Gross National Debt

Technorati Tags: american economy, angelo mozilo, Business, charles keating, Consumerism, corporate bailout, corporate finance, corporate greed, countrywide bank, countrywide mortgages, Economics, enron, george bush, interest rates, jeb bush, jerry bowyer, keating five, national debt, national review, neil bush, Politics, savings and loan crisis, savings and loan scandal, subprime mortgage, supply side economics, worldcom

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The economy’s great and here drink this kool-aid
Posted Economics, American Dream, Consumerism, Business, Society, Politics on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007.

Comments(10)

The other day the prez came on TV to reassure everyone that the economy’s great and that people should keep on spending themselves into a debt blackhole because it’s good for the economy. The first thing I thought was "This guy’s on crack!" But then I remembered that he’s detached from reality and a fucking moron. Then it made a lot more sense.

Then he started with the standard scare tactics straight outta "dictator 101"…"The evil democrats are gonna raise your taxes so watch out." Gee maybe it’s because they have to pay for your fuck-up in Iraq. ($452 BILLION and counting!) Or how about the $1.2 TRILLION for your unfunded prescription drug benefit. Or how about the wasted BILLIONS from your failed no child left behind policy. I guess the Bush policy is "promise it but don’t pay for it". Any self-respecting republican and/or conservative has got to hate Bush for all of this crap.

Even if we didn’t have to eventually pay for the president’s fucked up decisions, we still have the problem of our "house of cards" economy that’s been growing out of control for years. (Personally I blame the 80’s and the selfish yuppie fucks that Reagan spawned for starting it all. Although I guess you should properly go back to Nixon and taking us off the gold standard. Causing the dollar to devalue by 75% so far. Yea!) The economy is totally screwed and we’re all living on borrowed time. Buy, buy, buy, and never thinking of having to ever pay it back. The credit card economy. The selfish and short-sided "I want it now (and cheap from China)" mentality. (Remember what happened to Veruca Salt when she tried to have it all NOW!)

Of course the prez’s speech was prompted by the stock market tanking because of the collapse of the sub-prime lending market. (Economy.com [Moody’s] says: "the nation’s housing market will slip like it hasn’t slipped since the Great Depression.") Damn, that’s gotta hurt!

(God I hope we don’t have another savings and loan collapse/bailout type debacle.) For once and for all, regardless of what the politicians and TV news reporters want you to think, THE STOCK MARKET IS NOT THE ECONOMY! REPEAT—THE STOCK MARKET IS NOT THE ECONOMY!

Let me put it plainly—in rough numbers and in real dollars, the average American worker is making less now than they were in the late 1960’s and prices have increased by dozens or hundreds of percent (depending on the product/market). Meanwhile the average CEO is making 600x more than they were in the late 1960’s. Does anyone see a bit of a disparity? I know you don’t mr. prez, but do any of you regular folks see anything fucked up about this? And people wonder why mom and dad both have to work now and still can’t pay the bills. That and they’ve fallen for the buy, buy, buy mentality.

Of course I could go on and tie this short-sided, childish, and selfish economic mind-set into the recently "discovered" infrastructure problems, but I don’t want to write that much today. Suffice it to say, we live in a "plastic surgery" world, where if it looks good then it must be good. Don’t look behind the curtain or behind the boob-job because it ain’t pretty.

I’ll just leave you some fun facts here from Will Marre’s latest blog post.

     * We live in a country of 300 million people in which the richest 3 million own more than the bottom 256 million. 1% owns more than 90% of us put together!

    * Profits are at a 40 year high for Fortune 500 companies ($705 billion) nearly 2X previous high, and worker productivity is up 48% between 2000-2006, but average wages are only up 1% (inflation adjusted) (Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)).

    * Median personal income is actually down, below 2000 levels (BLS), and also below 1977 levels in real dollars! (The real median income in 1977 was $51,223 (inflation adjusted). In 2006 it was $50,700.) (National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)).

    * Prices in real terms of housing, college education, and health care have risen nearly 300% more in the past 30 years, while individual incomes are stagnant. (College Board and U.S. Census Bureau).

    * The amount of monthly income it takes to buy a house today is nearly 23% vs. 17% in 1970. People who pay 50% of their income for rent or mortgage payments are at an all time high.

    * The average home price adjusted for inflation in 1970 was $115,000. Today it’s 2X as much in real dollars ($219,000). (Fetterman, Mindy. (2006, Nov. 19). Young people struggle to deal with kiss of debt. USA Today.) In many markets it’s 4X more (475,000+).

    * The average debt of a college graduate is nearly $20,000+ (College Board).

    * 47 million are medically uninsured. Most are in families with at least one full time worker.

    * In many communities, teachers, policemen, and firefighters cannot afford housing.

    * Medical Insurance Premiums of an average American family exceed $1000 per month.

    * Loan defaults and foreclosures are doubling monthly in many parts of the country.

    * In Cleveland, Ohio nearly 10% of the homes are vacant and abandoned due to foreclosure caused by job loss.

    * Retail sales are declining due to increase costs of gasoline, insurance, and housing.

    * The savings rate for the average American 30 years ago was 9%. Today it is at zero.

    * America has fewer manufacturing jobs (14.3 million) than it did in 1950 with 2 times the population. SOURCE

    * Since 1977, inflation-adjusted medium income for U.S. males has declined 7.5%.

    * U.S. productivity in terms of output ranks 8th behind Norway, Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Austria, and Germany (OCED).

    * U.S household debt exceeds $12 trillion.

    * U.S. Federal Deficit is $8.8 trillion!

Please read Will’s post. He’s always got something great to say.

To be fair, to the current prez, it’s not all his fault although he’s made things much worse. Most politicians are weak spined and won’t make the hard and necessary choices, because they’re scared of the people not reelecting them. Whatever happened to "leadership"? The pols and the people all need to pull their heads out of the sand and start fixing things. It’s selfish and irresponsible to keep pushing this disaster upon later generations. People say they care about others, and their children, but they don’t act like it.

Excuse me now. I’m gonna go bang my head against the wall…

Technorati Tags: american dream, american dream project, american economy, american politics, american workers, bad economy, bankruptcy, brainwash, breton woods, bullshit artists, Business, ceo pay, commercilization, Consumerism, corporations, corruption, deficit, democracy, economic collapse, Economics, george bush, gold standard, government, government corruption, house of cards, iraq war, no child left behind, Politics, prescription drug benefit, president Bush, ronald reagan, Society, stock market, sub prime market, us debt, will marre, yuppies

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Ding Dong Karl Rove Is Dead
Posted Politics on Tuesday, August 14th, 2007.

Comments(4)

Yes, Karl "Mr. Divisive" Rove announced his resignation yesterday. But I’m sure rumors of his death have been greatly exaggerated.

When I heard this on the news yesterday the first thing that I thought was that he’s quitting the Bush team so that he can go work for whoever the republican front-runner turns out to be. I’d give even odds that happens.

Or it could be that he and the Bush team split up because it’s become obvious that his "divide and conquer" strategy is a victim of its own success. (Read:Failure.) They’ve divided people and turned them against each other so well that now they’re left with a whole lot of separate pissed-off groups of people and not a united party. Whoops!

You really have to pity poor Karl—a fat, Mr. Potato Head, weeble-lookin’, dweeb. You know he didn’t have any friends as a kid, and like so many powerless, and friendless kids like that, once they do get some power, watch out! It’s the mall rent-a-cop power-trip situation on steroids. No but seriously, as a human being I do pity Karl. Just look at him. Every time I see him I think of those creepy dancing baby videos. What a sad and lonely life he must have had. You know the only time he’s gettin’ any is when he pays for it. (Not that there’s anything wrong with payin for it.) There’s no doubt that growing up like that would have a tendency to make you hate people. (See antisocial personality disorder) It’s scary when those people get into power. Right Ken Lay?

But anywho..I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of ole’ Karl-baby. I’m sure his diabolical mind will soon inhabit the cranial cavity of another unsuspecting republican stooge. Or heck, maybe even a democratic one. Hey maybe he and James Carville could team up together. The freaky and ugly show. On Tour! (I’ll let you decide which one’s freaky and which one’s ugly.)

Technorati Tags: antisocial personality disorder, creepy, dancing baby, divide and conquer, freaky, george bush, james carville, karl rove, karl rove is evil, ken lay, mr potato head, paying for sex, Politics, sad, ugly, weebles

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The paint by numbers way of life
Posted Psychology, Music on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007.

Comments(5)

Reading this post about a guitar solo got me thinking about how people interact with the world. Seems like a stretch doesn’t it? The guitarist in the video is technically very good. There’s no doubt about it. However to me he’s also quite soulless—kind of like an animitron. His playing reminded me of a couple of things that I’ve seen lately.

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