Capitalism - The Great Ponzi Scheme

Capitalism - The Great Ponzi Scheme

A couple of days ago I told you about how the SEC is investigating Goldman Sachs for fraud charges, well guess who is reporting a record first quarter profit...

Goldman earns $3.3B in 1Q as fraud case looms

NEW YORK – Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Tuesday its first-quarter earnings almost doubled to $3.3 billion as its trading business again surpassed the rest of the financial industry.

Heh, Capitalism... I'm sure that 1 million dollar fine from the SEC will sure teach them not to ever defraud the public again!

I guess I should be looking at the bright side. Think of all the jobs they can make now. Oh yeah. the wealth is trickling down on me... it's all over my face!!! Look at that - 90% increase in profits. Then again, it's easy to make a profit when you're selling dud stocks and loans that you're betting against.



Oh man, 3.3 billion dollars by making stuff up. The value of this item is based off the value of this other item which I just made up. I know, I know. Slow down there, can you have somebody's neighbor's kid making hundreds of thousands of dollars put this in Excel or Powerpoint form? Hmm, nah. Actually it's more like stealing. But hey, if you believe Goldman, do I have a bridge in Brooklyn, would you like to buy it? It's quite large.

Give me your money, I promise I'll be good with it! You may think that what goldman sachs does is absolutely vital to the American economy, but I think it's mainly just rampant corruption. The bestest is when you hear someone mention they've bought shares of goldman sachs because "those guys are the best". In fact, if you own any goldman sachs stock you are a thief and a murderer.

I like NYC but burn the place to the ground already just to ger rid of old mans sacks. Burn NYC down... Oh god, imaginary feds, please don't hurt me. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean that as a threat! Please Feds, there is nothing that I love more than the United States of America.



But it does make you question the whole rationality of the president elect chair and the choices made behind the scenes. Take for example the last democrat there. The last democrat, Clinton, was known for having a lot of Hollywood types to sleep overnight in the Lincoln Bedroom; Obama's very first overnight guest at the white house was not a movie star or a sports celebrity, instead, it was Lloyd Blankfein CEO of Goldman Sachs. Yep.

So its no wonder that you see these guys get away with what is attributed with worse than murder. Betting against your own hedge funds and literally stealing billions of it is Vital for the American Economy after all, isn't it?

This all leads to some interesting questions. Can someone tell me why Capitalism isn't just one really big Ponzi Scheme? Take banks, for example. If everyone pulled their money out at once, there wouldn't be enough capital to cover it.



Corporations - if every investor sold all at once, there wouldn't be enough company assets for them to cash out. All of capitalism exists on the assumption that all the investors don't pull out at once - and that is a ponzi schem, right? Just because everybody knows it doesn't make it any less of one. Many of Madoff's investors knew something was up, but did and said nothing. It just makes me wonder why hasn't anyone come up with a better system yet.

Our financial system really is a ponzi scheme though.. What banks do is called counterfeiting, there may be a subtle difference, but still, calling our financial system a ponzi scheme is kind of an insult to ponzi. All I know is that this blog post is now too big to fail.

Penny For Your Thoughts?

Penny For Your Thoughts?

I used to think that phrase was so insulting. What do you mean a penny for my thoughts? How cheap do you think my thoughts would be. Some of my writings have been on TV. Yup, Television. If you haven't been on it, than you're no one. Pretty proud of being on it. It's reeeal cool. You mean to tell me that my TV approved ideas are only worth a penny? Have you've seen how much prime time television advertisement runs these days? Yeah, a little more than a penny my friends.

But still, this worthless coin

You may not be aware of this because only MSN is actually reporting this, but the Penny is going to go under a cosmetic change.

Those of you who still use the penny as currency (rather than as a screwdriver or for scratching off lottery tickets) may soon notice America’s 1-cent coin has gotten a facelift. The U.S. Mint has changed the design for the reverse -- or “tails” -- side of the 2010 Lincoln Cent, which entered circulation on Feb. 11 (everywhere but Puerto Rico, which received the new penny in late January). Michael White from the U.S. Mint says penny inventory is very high, however, so you may not see a new penny right away.

The U.S. Mint kicked off the release of the new penny during a ceremony at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill. The design was chosen out of 18 candidates. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner made the final call.

The penny’s new reverse side features a union shield with 13 vertical stripes and a scroll draped across reading “One Cent.” (Check your nearest couch cushion and you’ll see the old penny portrays the Lincoln Memorial.) The Web site of the U.S. Mint explains that the stripes represent the 13 original states and the banner signifies “a single union in support of the federal government.” The new penny’s front face will continue to illustrate President Lincoln, designed by American sculptor Victor David Brenner back in 1909.

The 2010 penny follows the four different reverse designs, each one depicting a stage of Lincoln’s life, used on the 2009 Lincoln pennies. The special pennies were produced last year to commemorate the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth and the 100th anniversary of the Lincoln Cent.

A penny for your thoughts
Not everyone is excited about the prospect of a new penny. Some would rather see the coin disappear altogether. The anti-penny group Citizens for Retiring the Penny explains on its Web site why it believes the penny is a waste of time and money.
The half penny was eliminated in 1858, when it was worth over 10 times what the penny is worth today. Assuming that the timing was correct before, this means that we should have eliminated the penny 50 years ago.

Some Americans won’t even accept the penny as currency. Alko Office Supply, owned by Gary Shows in downtown Berkeley, Calif., has a sign hanging over the cash register that reads, "We are a penny free store,” reports NPR.org in a story debating the worth of the penny.

Even President Obama seems to think the penny has overstayed its welcome. “We have been trying to eliminate the penny for quite some time -- it always comes back,” he said at a press conferience in 2008, according to a blog post on Politico.com. (Although in 2005 when Obama was a senator from Illinois, he co-sponsored the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial One-Cent Coin Redesign Act, which required the new penny designs in 2009 and 2010.)

A penny actually costs more to make than it's worth. In 2009, the unit cost to produce the penny was 1.62 cents, according to the U.S. Mint.

Find a penny, pick it up
The penny still has many fans. Pro-penny group Americans for Common Cents "aims to inform and educate policymakers, consumers and the media about the penny’s economic, cultural and historical significance." The group also emphasizes the penny’s importance for charity through organizations such as Penny Lovers of America and Habitat for Humanity’s Parade of Pennies.

A poll conducted by Coinstar in 2006 found that only 27% of Americans want to get rid of the penny. Four out of five Americans will still pick up a penny on the ground.

First off, thank god the government is tackling the tough issues in this current economic crisis as well as a heated health care debate. Oh man. I know I'm sure going to miss that little Lincoln in the monument that you have to look really close for...

I wonder if the people who decided to name the group Americans for Common Cents feel that their name is clever enough to compensate for the fact that their group's purpose is to give a shit about pennies.

I bet they do. I know if I was in that group I would kill myself in realizing how useless the cause I'm fighting for actually is.



Wait, why the fuck is Captain America's shield on it? No one should be encouraged to use pennies. Why the fuck do we still have this shit and how is it that the vending machine lobby is so powerful it prevents us from having a real dollar coin?

It's old people. That's who.

What happened to the Sacagawea coins? They put the Indian on a coin that was nearly useless and that no one wanted. Sort of symbolic, wouldn't you say? I guess it wasn't white so no one cared. At least that's my guess. Back to the old people.. and collectors. They're the real reason why we don't have a usable dollar coin.

Everyone thought they were collector's item and hoarded them. I have the impression that old people saved them and gave them to their grandchildren because "Hold onto this, sonny. It's going to be really rare some day." All the coin collectors just grab them up and not use them at all. I know my friend's grandmother went to the bank and got $100 worth of those coins because they would be worth something one day!



Thought it's not limited to the coin, how many of you keep getting $2 dollar bills and they act as if they're giving you a copy of Detective Comics or Action Comics. Don't get me wrong. $2 bills are great for Vegas and tipping, but for anything else they're pretty useless.

Another mistake they made with the dollar coin is that they made a bad decision in making them roughly around the same size as quarters. Sure they have a smooth-edge and are bright gold. This automatically makes the cashier do a double take on if you're trying to rip them off when you give them these.

Perhaps it's that the government is dumb when it comes to releasing dollar coins. They produce a few and everyone collects them as a novelty. The government sees that no one is using them and cuts production, when what they need to do is to keep minting them until they lose their novelty and people start treating them like regular money. But no, instead the government release a series where they have different presidents on them, which just encourages people to collect more.



Do we really need FIVE new designs in two years for the most useless coin we have? I look forward to throwing this penny in the trash like I do with all the others. I say death to the penny. Bring back the Kennedy half dollar.

Pennies are just shit. Americans need to get and use dollar coins like every other goddamn country instead of making a few and then having people look at you like it's a goddamn 1000 yen bill or something you try to buy shit with it.

When I told my girlfriend about this new penny she was curious as to why they would do this. And she also was surprised to hear that they still make $2 bills. But it's true. $2 bills are still being printed and circulated. At this point I can guess their only uses are at dog tracks, horse tracks and strip clubs. Oh, and cheapskate grandparents who give their grandkids(and also to spend at the dog tracks, horse tracks and strip clubs)



So what's the cons for coins? Well, I guess it would mean that everyone will have to get a giant velvet purse to hang from your belt and a cutpurse will become a real thing again. You also can't jam a coin in a girl's g-string and I'll be damned if I give them more than a dollar at a time. Maybe they'd start producing g-strings with internal coin pockets. By the end of the night all the girls look like they're smuggling sausage.

I guess there's one thing that pennies are good for... Paying for speeding tickets and other fines. Delivered in a few dirty socks. Let's just face it, who among us doesn't throw pennies and nickels in the trash? I personally throw everything up to a dime at poor people, it's good sport. They really should get rid of the penny all together as it cost more to make them then they are worth, but hey.. that's a cool design, right?

Though, if they did get rid of pennies then they would become a collectors items and poor people would cash in. Oh man, it comes full circle.



Seriously folks, Canadian satisfaction with the Loonie/Toonie is something like 97%. Americans are stupid as all hell. Reaching into your pocket and feeling out a Toonie/Loonie to pay for shit is 10 times faster than taking out your wallet for a bill. I may not always agree with Canada, unless it's Molson and Hockey, eh? but Loonie/Toonie supremacy forever.

Maybe there is no such thing as a Vending Machine lobby.. and perhaps the idea that the Billfold and money clip lobby and The Smaller weaker coin purse lobby exist is silly, but that doesn't change the fact that someone is behind the existence of still keeping such a useless coin in circulation.



You're probably wondering which group profits off the penny still being in use. It's the metal workers, of course. Pennies are made with the help from zinc and copper mining companies. So you get rid of them and their futures stock goes down a great deal. Worse yet zinc processing literally turns the surrounding environment into a nightmarish, sulfuric acid coated dystopia. But hey, well worth it for the invaluable Penny, right?

I have a good question; Would the US sooner see the dollar bill replaced with a coin or switch over to the metric system? The answer is neither. US citizens will cling to "tradition" and "the old ways" even when it's idiotic to do so. Just the fact that people freak the fuck out if Facebook slightly alters its layout should be enough to tell you that we'll never successfully change our ways no matter how much sense it makes.

In fact, I think the only positive thing that ever came out of the penny was the Pee-Wee's playhouse character Penny. But even her stories were pretty fucking pointless. Which is much like this blog. Full of pointless and rambling on stories. Shit, I just realized that Pee-Wee could sue my ass just for taking Penny's spill. Perhaps it would be good to end it with a Penny cartoon



Still.. FUCK PENNIES!

Change We Can Believe In

Change We Can Believe In



Put your hand in your pockets and feel around. What's in there? More than likely loose change. Chances are you've carried those pennies in there for a while. Too lazy to make exact change when buying and sitting in your cup holders, ash trays or in those stupid leave a penny/pick a penny place holders. Well, they've decided in the interest of spicing up pennies, they're going to make them pretty.

Next year, the penny will be getting not just one new look but four of them, the first changes to the 1-cent coin in 50 years. The U.S. Mint unveiled the new designs during a ceremony Monday at the Lincoln Memorial. The coin changes are part of the government's commemoration next year of the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth.

Lincoln's profile will reman on one side of the coin but the Lincoln Memorial will be replaced on the other side by the new images, with a different one being introduced every three months...

The change in your pocket that you currently don't care about is going to be prettier. If you have been living under a rock for the last couple of years, they've been doing this with quarters. Putting a single image that represents a state on them. Only quarters aren't useless. You can get a newspaper with them, you can go to the arcade (if it's not one of those faggot ones that takes tokens only), you can flip it to make choices. It's an endless wonder what you can do with them. Pennies are only good to stuff socks with when you're hoping to knock someone out in a fight.

They are so worthless that people throw them away rather than go through the effort of merely carrying them in their pockets. They cost more to make than they are worth and is irresponsible for us to use copper on something we keep around to simply through in fountains in an effort to make a wish. But the biggest problem faced with ever even thinking about ridding ourselves of this waste of metal is the zinc providers.

The nation's sole supplier of zinc "penny blanks," Jarden Zinc Products, is lobbying the federal government to protect its interests.

The subsidiary of Rye, N.Y.-based Jarden Corp., paid Baker & Daniels LLP $180,000 in 2006 to fight legislation that would have allowed retailers to round off cash transactions to the nearest nickel, effectively creating a penniless society.
...
Jarden's lobbyist in Washington, Mark Weller of the law firm Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP, said House staffers recently assured him the latest bills won't open the door to another effort to rid the penny. "We're satisfied, but we need to stay on top of that," Weller said.

A federal disclosure form filed Tuesday shows that Jarden spent up to $10,000 in the first half of 2007 on lobbying expenses.

Fuck them. This is capitalism at its finest. If you can't find a better use for zinc, then you should go out of business. And yes, before you ask I do remember that Simpsons 1950's educational video "A World Without Zinc". I don't care. If they can't survive in the free market they deserve to go under.

I know what I'm asking. To get rid of the penny would mean that all the prices will be rounded up. So all you morons out there that round down that $4.99 and say it's only $4 instead of $5 will not be happy. What ever will become of the .99 cent menu? I'm sure people will survive by seeing that items cost a buck instead. How about we simply round. You know those nickel things we use? It's no problem to round to the next 5 or 0. Simple as that.


A penny I don't mind.

While we're on the subject, let me prove Sarah Palin's point in which I'm from a big city and not a "pro-American." Presidents shouldn't be on money either, worshiping long-dead plutocrats is creepy. Why is andrew jackson's face on money? He doesn't deserve to be printed on toilet paper let alone official american legal tender. He's a racist who ignored the rulings of the supreme court and brought about the trail of tears.

Sure he had a lead ball stuck in his chest all his adult life. But fuck that. If that's all it takes to get your face on money then there's a whole lot of rappers out there that need to be on money. Where's my 50 cent image plastered on two quarters so it makes a profile shot when put together?


Another Penny I don't mind

Also, what's up with America flipping the bird to blind people. Well, I guess that's not that bad since they're blind and they can't see. But what the fuck. We make all of our notes the same size. After the 'beties kicks in, I want to still be able to use money without having some stupid folding corner system.



I'm sure I sound like Andy Rooney and I should be getting some sleep between my episode of Matlock, but shit, even he complained about this.

Like just about everyone else, I save my change. At night, I empty my pockets and then I hang my pants by closing the dresser drawer on the cuffs. In the morning, I take a few quarters, but I dump the rest of the change in coffee cans.

I just came from the bank, and I feel great. These cans are all empty now.

There is nothing more annoying than going to the checkout counter in a store and getting four pennies change from a dollar for something that costs 96 cents.

The U.S. Mint ought to stop making pennies. Last year, they made almost 7 billion of them. For what? You can’t buy anything with a penny, and they’re a pain in the pocket.

This week, I took cans filled with change to the Commerce Bank in New York. Commerce was the only bank I found that has a machine that converts change into real money free.

Some companies charge almost nine cents for every dollar of change you convert to paper. Seems like a rip-off.

The change-counting machine was cuter than necessary: "You win. Press button to make your selection."

It did the job in a hurry, though. And it took me about 10 minutes to feed in the seven cans of change.

There were a few glitches: one metal washer in a batch. When I finished, the machine spit back a handful of coins, too. It turns out it doesn’t like French francs, English pence or Euros.

The machine then gives you a receipt. I had six silver dollars, just one 50-cent piece, 171 quarters, 1,745 dimes, 1,010 nickels, and 3,594 pennies. It came to $310.19.

I took that receipt to the cashier and she gave me the cash with four pennies change. Anyway, it was the best money I’ve made all year -- and no deductions. Now, if the Mint would just stop making those useless damn pennies. I’d only need about two of these cans for change.


By Andy Rooney © MMV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

So join me in my attempt to stomp out the penny.

An Unresearched Guide to the Upcoming Economic Holocaust

In case you haven't been paying attention to the news, we're fucked. But it's not your fault--unless you're a multi-billion dollar bank or investment firm who can't get their shit together. If so, then congrats, you Jugheads of the modern business world; you're single-handedly responsible for ensuring that future generations of Americans will spend the entirety of their lives strapped to Chinese farming equipment.

I know I'm not one to talk--I've mortgaged my future via student loans to the point where this grilled cheese sandwich I'm eating right now will eventually end up costing me several hundred dollars. But my decisions hurt no one except me and my neighbors, who I wake up every night with my screaming night terrors infested with visions of future abject poverty. Maybe if I had enough economical sway, I could talk the government into paying my credit card bill or get them to force my landlord into destroying the massive colony of wasps that makes my front wall the loudest in the county. I was given a trophy, but even the wasps don't respect that.

Boredom: a common symptom of Great Depressions.

The government can only bail out so many businesses, which is why it won't be long before Predatory Lending Fuckups, Inc. comes running for help, only to be met with a stern look and horizontal shake of the head by a man dressed as Uncle Sam (this is how the economy works); then, this same man will get on a loudspeaker and say "The economy's over. Shut her down, boys." Following this, a gigantic lever will be pulled, causing everyone but the highest tax bracket to walk around with their pockets turned out and faces covered in soot. When the next Depression hits, don't be surprised if your 19th-Century bootblack Halloween costume comes back into fashion because you will never be rich. But there's no need to feel sorry for yourself as you sit wondering which of your neighborhood cats is the tastiest; with the following tips, you'll ride out the next Great Depression in style.

Learn the Art of Hobology

If you think I'm about to make some hobo jokes, then you can go right to hell. Everyone knows that any humor even tangentially related to the hobo has been sucked dry by the Internet over the past few years--and this is exactly where you will prosper in our newfound economic hellscape. Since you will undoubtedly be homeless, take advantage of the world's unquenchable thirst for irony and--with a little makeup and bindle-crafting--transform yourself into the modern-day hobo. This way, when you raid shantytowns for food and supplies, you will be welcomed with cries of, "A hobo? How random! You remember that Simpsons episode?" instead of getting murdered on the spot. While they're laughing like dopes, you'll be snatching handfuls of chicken bones as well as the prettiest child to sell to passing hordes of white slavers.

Ohhh shit, bro. I seen that one!

Invest in Wii Points

With the value of the dollar dropping like a rock, it won't be long until Americans are wiping themselves with one-dollar bills instead of the standard novelty Osama Bin Laden toilet paper. Many are looking forward to this; after all, who wouldn't want fine pressed linen rubbing up against their tender parts? But on the practical side of things, when all of your money is worthless, you will be, too. My solution: drop all of your funds into an unchanging commodity, Wii Points. Do you know how many Wii Points Donkey Kong cost in 2006? 500. Do you know how many Wii Points this same game costs today? 500. You'll find that payment via Virtual Console games, while much more complicated than your standard cash or credit card transactions, is the only real way to keep your savings intact.

All of your wildest dreams JUST CAME TRUE

Let's say you want to get some McDonald's; all you have to do is exchange your friend code with that of the friendly clerk, then promise to send them a Virtual Console game of equivalent value to the disgusting food you're about to eat. Once the paperwork is signed, consider yourself the mayor of McDonaldland!

Note: the complete, nationwide lack of electricity might be a problem.

Living With Dust

A common problem that plagued the Great Depression were the frequent dust clouds caused by dirt and grime being lifted off of poor people and carried into fierce trade winds. These amorphous blobs of filth would travel across the nation, interrupting American citizens as they went on with their busy lives of despair and being hungry. It wasn't until one of these dust clouds enveloped a very important Presidential picnic in a nightmare of shade that Herbert Hoover decided something had to be done. The picnic was quickly moved to a different hill, and Mrs. Hoover's famous deviled eggs went untouched by the plight of our nation's poor.

Warning: vagrants have been known to hide in dust clouds in order to stage their secret, underground fighting tournaments.

Don't expect the same kind of executive action from the Obama/McCain/Palin administration; when complete darkness intermittently blocks out the sun for the rest of eternity, no amount of bumper stickers or "I Voted Today" pins is going to get any of the candidates to send FEMA down to help you--mainly because the funding for FEMA will soon be funneled into the new Congressional Fantasy Football League. So why not get ahead of the curve and gouge your eyes out right now? Not only will you be able to adapt yourself to a world of blindness; you'll also feel a wave of superiority wash over you as panicked neighbors scream, "What's happening!? I can't see!" To this you will reply, "Advantage: me." Ignore the tears sputtering from your empty sockets like hose water from a broken lawn sprinkler.

Lower Your Standards for Entertainment

"I'll see you in your nightmares!" - Al Jolson

If there's one thing a Great Depression is good for, it's making the most insulting entertainment a worthwhile escape from the desolate ruin that is your life. This explains director Howard Hawks' blockbuster hits, 1932's Man Punches a Horse, as well as 1933's Man Punches a Horse 2: Also Cows. Here was a time period when people would regularly pay to watch Al Jolson smear his face with shoe polish to imitate a black man on the silver screen--and it would have been somewhat of a novelty if racism wasn't mandatory, or if blackface wasn't once an accepted way to break the ice at high-society dinner parties and lighthearted lynchings.

So if you don't like Ben Stiller now, you'd best start; his comical misadventures with women and novelty pets will be pure euphoria to anyone who subsists purely on a broth made from boiled shoes and scented laundry detergent (AKA laundry water).

As far as I'm concerned, a world of post-economic rape will only serve to make me much, much funnier in the terms of relativity, and frankly, I see no problem with the changes necessary to make this happen. Get ready to laugh again, America!

"Yay."

American Economics Recession 101

Okay, I know what you're all thinking. Why would I write an article on the economy and the recession? What do I have to offer that isn't simply CNN's Business section poorly paraphrased, with curse words and meme references peppered throughout? If you came here expecting that, you'd be exactly right. But I know more about economic downturns than one might expect.

When I was a kid my grandpa used to tell us about how he lived through the Great Depression. It was a time of financial prosperity. My grandfather lived in a three story mansion and sampled the finest delicacies from all over the world. Of course, my grandpa was a noose salesman and the thirties were a boon for his industry. Sure, you could build your own noose, but nothing hangs 'em like a genuine Johnson Noose, 100% guaranteed to hold firm or your money back.

These things got our family through some tough times.

The feelings of that era linger above us once again as a recession rears its ugly head. I'm not worried since I've inherited my family's line of rope, toaster, and 20th story window manufacturing plants. But for others the prospect of a recession means that the era of living beyond your means is at an end. For the first time in a long time Americans will simply have to live at their means.

Okay, so a recession isn't as bad as a Grape Depression, sure, but what is a recession? Has it started yet? Luckily for you I took exactly one economics course and suddenly I know everything there is to know about the economy.

But I didn't take microeconomics. That's small-time economics for losers. That's balance-your-checkbook-and-see-how-you-did-in-the-class-faux-stock-market-game shit. Ooo, you made a 23% return on your monopoly money, you get an A+! I took macroeconomics, where the big boys play. We're talking international currency supply and demand stock market shit. Ever hear of something called a Euro? Heh, I thought not.

With my superior knowledge of all things finance I have amassed a vast fortune of pogs and Pokemon cards. My brilliant investing and Dragon Ball hedge funds ensure that I never have to work another day in my life. Never bet against Goku. His charged spirit ball exploded in a blast of dividends and defeated the fiscally conservative Vegeta once and for all. That was the day I made my first million, but I threw half of it away on Gohan municipal bonds. Gohan sucks and was never as powerful as Goku. Never.

If you ask a bunch of economists whether or not we're in a recession they'll all have the same answer, "Get the hell off my property." The fact is that no one is really sure whether there is a recession or not. There may be signs of a recession. It may feel like the right kind of weather for a recession. But no one really knows for sure because while everybody on Wall St. talks big, very few of these guys are in it to win it.

There is nothing you can say in a political cartoon that you can't say in an unreadable 1,000+ word blog update.

The man who paid the cost to be the boss is Ben Bernanke, the King of the Federal Reserve. Let me tell you about this guy. This Bernanke is watched like a hawk and anything he says or does can influence the market in wild ways.

If Bernanke takes a dump in the morning and it smells a little worse than usual and has peanuts in it, the DOW will drop 300 points in a day. In fact, it did just that on Monday. Shouldn't have had PF Chang's over the weekend. If his dump clogs the toilet and he has to grab a fork to break it up so it'll go down the toilet the S&P 500 might land on the whammy spot. If Bernanke emerges from his nest and sees his shadow we might have eight more weeks of winter. Who the hell knows?

I make sure to watch all the financial channels like CNBC and Bloomberg so I know what's going on, during the commercials of Scooby Doo and Small Wonder of course. One thing I'm sick of is all the hyperbole spewed about this massive, devastating recession that will end civilization as we know it. "IT WAS A BLOODY DAY ON WALL ST. TODAY", I heard on one channel. You'd think they were holding cockfights in there or something.

I watch this show called Jim Cramer's Mad Money, the finance guy who is infinitely smarter than every other finance guy because he had the good sense to develop a gimmick, always give financial advice as if you're my dad. I swear to God I can't watch that show sometimes because I feel like he's going to jump out of the screen and slap the shit out of me and I get flashbacks to when I was a kid and I start seizuring in front of the television.

But anyway, Jim Cramer is so good at trading that they don't let him own stock. He has pretty much figured out the stock market. He's like that guy from Press Your Luck who figured out the sequence of the board and if he were allowed to trade he would singlehandedly bankrupt the country. At least that's what my friend Jimmy tells me. His dad is an economist and doesn't let me come over his house when he's home but I go over there anyway. His dad hates Jim Cramer and wants to beat him up so bad haha.

There are several factors that caused a recession, but it's mostly this subprime lending thing. Basically it went like this based on what I could piece together from Wikipedia and comical YOUTUBE videos.

Home Buyer: So you're saying I can own a home?
Mortgage Guy: Well, yes, but the rate can go up at any time so-
Home Buyer: HEY FRANCINE, WHERE YOU THINK WE SHOULD PUT THE PLASMA TV???

But it's kind of hard to lecture people while they are being evicted, so much of the blame falls on lenders with predatory business practices. I mean, yeah, they're predators, but that's their job. And it's not like these people couldn't read the fine print on the toilet.

I can't fault somebody for not reading the license agreement before they install World of Warcraft, Steam or sign up for a BangBros account, but we're talking about buying a house for Christ's sake, a purchase one should spend more than six minutes thinking about. But we'll finally be able to get a dog, honey! And a backyard, oh... it's our dream come true!

Here's some generic clipart for some generic content.

The presidential candidates won't blame home buyers who took loans they knew they couldn't repay. They got votes to harvest, damnitt. "Yes, yes it's those damn lenders, like cougars they are, stalking their prey, THE AMERICAN HOME BUYER. I propose a ban on taking advantage of dumb middle-class Americans." So that's that...

The only real way to know if a recession is here is to look at your portfolio and if there's no money left there is a recession and it stole all your cash. Make sure you look at your financial portfolio and not your art portfolio that every studio rejected before you gave up on your dreams and became an accountant and women won't even talk to you so you read The Game to try and become a pick up artist but when you tried to pick up on some chick she went home with the sensitive artist instead and you contemplated taking your own life. All accountants have gone through this and there are no exceptions.

There are other guidelines that help you determine whether or not a recession is here. For example, if you're climbing up a ladder and you hear something splatter, recession, recession. Another good sign is if you're walking down a hall and you feel something fall, recession, recession.

You can usually see signs of a recession all around you. When my accountant was driving in his Chevy and he felt something heavy, recession, recession. The other day the recession hit me while I was climbing a tree and it dribbled down my knee. Yeah... I love grade school rhymes about poop, you know it.

What's the best way to ride out the recession? Burn your money of course. If you can't have it, no one will. You could also send it all to me and I will invest it properly. Most traders talk about diversity, diversity, diversity, but my portfolio isn't a mixed-race marriage for God's sake. I want action, and there is nothing better than putting it all on red, or good and honest white-owned corporations like AIG and Lehman Brothers... oh wait. And once you do that you let it ride. I'm telling you, the best financial advice comes from Stormfront.org.

Don't worry, the government has cooked up an economic plan that rivals that of the death star. The goal is to take out 700 billion dollars and bail everyone out. So while you might have been smart enough not to get that loan, you will be paying for those who weren't in the form of taxes. You better get out there and try to apply for loan real quick, it's like free money. Here's to hoping they do what they do best, spend it on stupid shit. And by throwing money at the situation we're gonna fuck, that, recession, up!

God bless America.