Atty. General Eric Holder Calls US a "Nation of Cowards".

I don't need to link any articles. Just google it and you will find it. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in a speech he presented to Justice Department employees to commemorate Black History month, stated:

"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards,"

This man, an African American by heritage, is the beneficiary of more than 100 years of progress in this country to make our nation color-blind. The United States electorate historically elected a man with significant African American heritage to the highest office of this land. Persons of "color" are appointed or elected to high offices at all levels of government. Witness Governor Patterson of New York, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, former Chairman of the JCS Colin Powell, former Secretary of State Condy Rice, Senator Roland Burris (although that may be problematic in the near future).

If you look at many of the photographs of the civil-rights era (1950's and 1960's) you will see many persons of "non color", some actively supporting people like Dr. Martin Luther King or the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Make no mistake, there are racists living in our nation. In the same photos alluded to above, you will also see many persons of "non color" who are actively opposing the progress of racial equality in our land. These are fewer today than in 1950. CNN's Roland Martin pointed out that while our professional lives are pretty integrated, we as a people still tend to "self-segregate"ourselves on "Saturdays and Sundays". There are still inequities in our culture that need to be addressed.

But to call us "essentially a nation of cowards" is an insult to the hundreds of thousands of brave Americans of all colors who have struggled for, fought for, and in some cases died for the advances that we have made in race relations.

What Should Our Expectations for the US Financial Future Really Be?

From the end of World War II through the end of the century, the United States economy enjoyed what can only be described as one of the longest cycles of expansion ever experienced. Sadly, during that period of time something went wrong. We used to save money for things we wanted. When we bought on credit, lenders expected us to put something "down" in order force the borrower to share the risk of loan default. Lenders also expected that the borrower show proof that they would have the means to repay their loans.

However, we turned into a nation of people who were not satisfied to wait to buy what we wanted. Credit companies were happy to feed our addiction to buy whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted, at an APR from 8.99% to 29.99%. Banks and mortgage lenders, desiring to get in on the action, decided that it was OK to approve a loan for 100% or more of the value of a house. Worse still, they also decided that those mean-old tests for determining if the borrower actually had the capacity to repay what they borrowed.

With the glut of easy credit and what apparently seemed to be little or no threat of financial danger, Americans gladly spent like drunken sailors on shore-leave. What was there to worry about when the home bought last year for $200,000 was now worth $225,000?

The danger was always there. With all that easy credit around, our voracious appetite for consumer goods superheated the manufacturing sector. To provide all the stuff we wanted, those companies had to expand at unreasonable rates. They had to hire people, build plants, expand lines of supply and distribution. And Americans were perfectly happy to buy homes and goods they couldn't really afford at a percentage of their income that left no room for saving.

Simply put, we built an economy that could not survive through any kind of slowdown. Our demand for instant gratification left us with providers of goods and services who could not afford even the slightest contraction of growth.

I believe that the following things are going to happen:
1) Housing values are going to continue to drop until they are once again in line with the Gross Domestic Product. I do not believe there is anything the federal government can do to prevent that. I further believe that TARP, AR&RA and further stimulus will only prolong the pain by attempting at great cost to our descendants to stop the unstoppable.
2) Americans are not likely going to forget what they are living through right now. Saving money is going to again become a priority. Debt will again be seen as a bad thing, not something to be accepted in order to have the bigger house or Beemer in the driveway.
3) Unscrupulous lenders who followed imprudent business practices are gone or they are being propped up by TARP money and now subservient to the American taxpayer through the federal government. Lenders who were more prudent have watched and learned . The have already begun tightening the requirements they will hold borrowers to.

And what that means is that this will take time. As a society it will take time for us to become credit-worthy to borrow. We will have to buy smaller. We will have to save, because we will be required to put money down on goods we buy with other people's money. House values will increase slowly only as the huge surplus of foreclosed homes are sold off at values that are only a fraction of what they once sold at. Our recovery must come with the expectation that our society will look different than it did before 2007/2008. We will spend less of our discretionary income on consumer goods. We will apply for less credit either because we as a people recognize that this is the correct thing to do or because we simply will not qualify for credit under stricter lending guidelines. And after all is said and done, we will have one heckuva whopper bill that we will have to pay. At MY last count, we are talking about two-thousand two-hundred MILLION dollars of debt that our future generations will have to repay.

Oh yeah. Government will have to spend less too. I'll talk about that sometime in the future.

Jury Finds in Favor of AZ Rancher.

Jury finds for rancher sued by illegal immigrants

February 17th, 2009 @ 1:27pm

by Associated Press

A jury in Tucson has found that a southern Arizona rancher didn't violate the civil rights of a group of illegal immigrants who claimed he detained them at gunpoint in 2004.

The federal jury also found Roger Barnett wasn't liable on claims of battery and false imprisonment.

But the jury did find him liable Tuesday on four claims of assault and four claims of infliction of emotional distress.

The jurors ordered Barnett to pay nearly $78,000 in damages. The bulk of that is punitive.

Barnett's lawyer said he feels good about the outcome.

2nd Stimulus Package...

The current administration is simply on a spending spree. After ramming the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment act into law, which contains billions and billions of dollars that have nothing to do with stimulus and everything to do with perpetuating government control into our lives or to continue using federal taxpayer funds to pay for social engineering programs, we hear today that President Obama is investigating the possibility of a second stimulus package.

What the heck for? What do we need a 2nd stimulus for that isn't covered by the AR&R act? This is EXACTLY why House and Senate Republicans were trying to put the brakes on this act. Why? Because we wanted to make sure that THIS act would be sufficient for our needs, or that it fit into an overall larger, coordinated effort.

I would suggest that any American taxpayer that is alarmed by the amount of money our government is printing, the amount of credit our government is borrowing from foreign investers, especially China and the Middle-east, that you should immediately contact your Senators and House Representative and tell them that a second stimulus package will only be passed over your strongest objection.

"Little Tiny, Yes, Porky Amendments"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEfICUoWKBw

Don't read further until you watch the YouTube video above.

You've watched it. Good. Now, is this the "change" that the American people voted for in 2008? The Democratic Party now controls the Presidency and the House of Representatives, and if Norm Coleman's challenge in the Minnesota Senate race fails, they will also control the U.S. Senate.

This video shows Senator Charles Shumer, D-NY telling the Senate Chamber that the American people "really don't care" about the "little, tiny, yes, porky amendments" in the stimulus act. Are you kidding, Senator? How can you describe these amendments as "little" or "tiny"? Like 88 MILLION dollars for a new Coast Guard vessel design? Like a 246 MILLION tax break for Hollywood movie producers? Like 650 MILLION dollars for digital TV converter box coupons? Like 6 BILLION dollars to make federal buildings "green"?!?

In terms of the whole 800+ BILLION dollar stimulus package, on top of the existing 750 BILLION dollar TARP program from last year, hundreds of millions of dollars for individual programs may seem like "little" or "tiny" but in terms of the amount of money that must be collected from all revenue sources like personal income taxes, corporate income taxes, tarriffs, bonds, and the like, this is still a LOT OF MONEY. More importantly I think that somebody needs to remind the Honorable Mr. Shumer that this isn't HIS money. It's not the Federal government's money. It's MY money, YOUR money. It's OUR MONEY!!!!

Is there some reason why the American people can't get a funding package from our ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES that doesn't have a bunch of earmarked special pet-project funding? Is that really too >expletive delete< much to ask?

Real Stimulus.

You want to put people to work right now?

Fact: As of 2003, 27.1% of the nation's 590,750 bridges were deemed structionally deficient of functionally obsolete. Estimated cost to repair: $9.4 billion per year for 20 years.

Fact: As of 2003, 33% of the nation's dams, or around 3,500 of them are deemed "unsafe", with the number of dams on the "unsafe" list growing faster than the rate we are repairing/retrofitting them. Estimated cost to repair: $10.1 billion over the next 12 years to address all critical non-federal dams. Critical being deemed as posing a direct threat to human life in case of failure.

Fact: As of 2005, the nation is dealing with an $11 billion shortfall annually to replace aging facilities or bring them into compliance with Federal regulations.

Fact: Maintenance expenditures for the U.S. power grid has fallen at a rate of 1% per year since 1992. Existing transmission systems were not designed to handle the current level of demand. Estimated cost: We don't even know.

Fact: We still have 1,237 contaminated sites on the National Priorities "Superfund" list for hazardous waste. There is a potential listing of 10,154 sites that were identified as of 2003. Cleanup and redevelopment of these sites could generate nearly one-half million new jobs and generate $1.9 billion for the national economy.

Fact: We have 12,000 miles of navigable inland waterways managed primarily by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nearly 50% of the 257 locks are functionally obsolete. The current estimate is that this number will increase to 80% by 2020. The cost to repair or replace the present system of locks: $125 billion.

Fact: Our national public parks and recreation system is slowly falling apart, with most of the initial construction or roads, bridges and utilities completed over 50 years ago. It is estimated that the maintenance backlog needs $6.1 billion in investment. This does NOT include money needed for state park and public recreation sites.

Fact: Rail freight tonnage is expected to increase by 50% by 2020. As of 2005 limited rail capacity has already created either chokepoints or downright delays. Additionally many municipalities are leveraging existing railbeds for expansion of commuter rail in an attempt to get people out of their cars. The freight railroad industry needs to spend $180 billion over the next 20 years to maintain existing infrastructure and to accomodate expanding freight tonnage. Expansion to develop intercity corrider passenger rail service is estimated to cost nearly $60 billion for the next 20 years. All told, estimated annual cost would be $12-$13 billion.

Fact: The U.S. Highway and road system is deteriorating at an alarming rate. Poor roads are believed to have cost U.S. motorists nearly $54 billion a year in repairs and additional operating costs, or $275 per motorist. As of 2005, current spending levels of $59.4 billion annually is well below the $94 billion estimated to be needed annually to improve the transportation structure.

Fact: U.S. school system has not been assessed since 1999, but it was estimated THEN that $127 billion to bring all facilities to good condition. This is believed to be a LOW estimate.

Fact: The U.S. currently recycles only about 25% of the 396 million TONS of solid wate of all types produced annually.

Fact: The U.S. wastewater system is discharging billions of gallons of untreated sewage into U.S. surface waters each year. The EPA estimates that the nation must invent nearly $400 billion over the next 20 years or $20 billion annually to replace existing system and also to expand the system to handle anticipated new demand. However, in 2005 the Federal Congress cut funding.

This information was liberally copied from the following website: http://www.asce.org/reportcard/2005/page.cfm?id=103. This website is operted by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The ASCE estimates that to bring the U.S. infrastructure into compliance with Federal regulations as well as to efficiently handle expected increased demand over the next quarter century, the total cost would be nearly $1.6 trillion dollars.

My point: These all sound like projects that would 1) create jobs and more importantly create jobs in heavy industries that typically pay much better than service/agriculture; 2) dramatically improve the real infrastructure in our country. Much more so than the 890 billion Porkulus package just passed by the U.S. Congress.

Stimulus or Big Brother?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_mccaughey&sid=aLzfDxfbwhzs

Quoted from the linked article from Bloomberg.com:

The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Are you freaking kidding me?! "...will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective." So during the entire post 9/11 Bush presidency, we were being warned by the Democrats who were supposedly representing their liberal and progressive constituency that the government was becoming a "fascist" oppressive tool of the administration. I won't deny that there are provisions in the Patriot Act that concern me, that seem to erode our freedoms.

But now we have a provision in the "Stimulus" bill just passed by the United States Senate that basically says that the very same Federal government will have the power to determine whether the treatments being performed by your doctor are "appropriate" and "effective".

OK, so first, what's the explanation from our liberal/progressive friends that all of a sudden Federal government intrusion into our private health care choices is a good idea but government intrusion into our mail/phone calls/email system for the security of the same people is a bad idea? What's the freakin' difference??? It's still "Big Brother"!

Second, this will stimulate the economy ... HOW?

Welcome to 1984, it just came 25 years later than expected.

The Dangerous Game the Rich and Powerful are Playing.

After reading the accounts on CNN.com and listening to blowtorch radio talk-show hosts like Glenn Beck and local hosts like Darrel Ankarlo (Phoenix) or Mac & Gatos (Phoenix), it is becoming apparent that something very ugly and dangerous is beginning to fester in the national consciousness.

This is the bitter feeling by the majority of U.S. citizens that the rich and/or powerful do not pay taxes.

Now, if you look at the data contained in the IRS's own spreadsheet (http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/04in06tr.xls), you will see that the rich pay MOST of the taxes in the United States. In fact, the top 5% of wage earners pay 54.36%; the top 10% pay 65.84% and the top 50% pay 96.54%. So the disgruntled middle-class probably needs to consider this when they are sharpening their pitchforks and lighting their torches.

But these statistics notwithstanding three of President Obama's cabinet picks (Tim Geithner, Treasury Secretary; Tom Daschle, Health & Human Services Secretary appointee; and Michelle Killefer, "Chief Performance Officer" appointee) were revealed to have had significant tax payment violations in the relatively recent past. The American people get the distinct impression that what our elected and appointed officials are telling us is to "to do as we say, not as we do". I'm distinctly reminded of the uber-witch real-estate magnate Leona Helmsley who famously declared that "... only little people pay taxes".

Since all of President Obama's appointees have been relatively high on the earnings scale, there is an opinion festering that there is no such thing as an "honest politician", which is especially bad when President Obama campaigned on honesty and transparency. The influential don't pay all their taxes and the American taxpayer (who believe that they DO pay all their taxes) are being asked for nearly one trillion dollars (that's one thousand billion dollars, ladies and gentlemen) for stimulus. All the while, they are paying themselves huge bonuses.

The rapidly shrinking middle-class is the primary buffer between the rich and the destitute that keeps the lower classes from simply deciding that they have nothing to lose and begin to take what they want by force. We are, in my opinion, very close to the boiling point right now. Senate and House telephone lines that typically receive very little inbound traffic from the typical American are burning down right now with the call volumes about the stimulus bill. The typical American does not understand why their tax-moneys are being used to prop up fantastically large and wealthy corporations, investment banks and financial institutions that continue to pay their executives large performance bonuses even though many of them have no growth or negative growth in 2007, 2008 and probably going into 2009.

The American aristocracy which includes the intellectual elite, the super-wealthy and the professional political class is very much in danger of finding themselves facing a revolution not entirely dissimilar from the French Revolution in both terms of it's causitive factors as well as the potential outcome. People who have nothing left to lose also have absolutely everything to gain in a violent upheaval of the status-quo. As the IRS own stats show, the bottom 50% of wage earners in the U.S. paid only 3.26% of the taxes. This means that the median wage earner is just barely above the acknowledged poverty level.

While I do not condone socialism, facism or any other -ism that gives the state broad power to either nationalize private industry or to transfer vast amounts of wealth for "social programs", I think that the extremely wealthy segments of our society needs to do some soul-searching with regards to their obligation to our government, to the laborers whom without they would not be able to achieve the fantastic financial heights that they have reached and to those who are unable to help themselves. A continued attitude of "me, me, me" by these captains of finance, industry and government are going to find themselves looking at the business end of a lot of pointy pitchforks held by very angry common citizens.

The Old Joke... It's a Recession when...

Yup. Hard times have arrived.

You've heard the old aphorism: "When your friend loses his job you know you are in a recession. When YOU lose YOUR job, you know you are in a depression."

Yesterday I was notified that my company laid off about 20 people, nine of whom I knew personally. I'm quite sure that the company took this action only after no other options were available, because I know the executive management personally. That doesn't make it any easier.

On the same day, Jennifer called me to tell me that they had closed down her division and that she was laid off.

Today, my friends Jeff and M.J. called to tell me that they had been laid off as well.

3 companies, 2 days, 23 people added to the unemployment rolls.

It's not funny, but I guess I'm glad that I'm only experiencing a recession.

The Success of Failure.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/worklife/02/05/starbucks.saved.my.life/index.html

Michael Gates Gill was earning a six-figure salary as a successful advertising executive who had companies like Ford and Christian Dior as his clients. Five years ago, the company decided that after 26 years it was time to part ways. He was invited to breakfast where he was told that he made too much money and that someone younger would be willing to work for less.

He left in a state of shock, literally crying as he exited the building. All of his future dreams lay shattered. His consulting company would fail a year later. His wife would divorce him. He was even diagnosed with a brain tumor.

One day on a trip to get his daily dose of caffeine at a Starbucks, he was approached by a manager who asked Michael if he'd consider working for them. He automatically said "Yes". Several years later, he still has a part-time job but he's busy trying to lift himself up. He lives in an attic apartment instead high-rise condo or McMansion. But his take? "When I lost my job I thought my life was over. I didn't realize that it was just the beginning." He adds "I may have a part-time job but I have a full-time life."

I consider this to be profound. I also remember something that Bill Gates once said. "A job at McDonald's is an opportunity."

Michael has written a book, "How Starbucks Saved My Life", which is now a New York Times bestseller. Tom Hanks wants to produce and star in a movie based on the book. Gus Van Sant has already signed on to direct.

Now all of this you could have gotten out of the article I hotlinked at the top of this rant. So how does this apply to us in America?

First: Michael is not living on government assistance. He may be receiving assistance, but he is working his way out of it. Between his book, the movie and his plans of hitting the lecture circuit as a motivational speaker, it looks like he will once again be able to afford that Ferrari and be off of government assistance.

Second: Michael never gave up. While that breakfast 5 years ago marked the end of his career as an advertising executive, it did not mark the end of his life. It did require a major adjustment to his life. Although not documented, I'm quite sure he had to sell his expensive home, his luxury car and many if not all of the finer material things of life. As J.R.R. Tolkien once wrote in Lord of the Rings, "One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters."

Third: He looked at Starbucks as an opportunity, not an embarrassment. More Americans need to look at life this way.