The Market - She Be A Down

The Market - She Be A Down

Man, it's a good thing congress was able to reach across the isle and come up with a debt ceiling raising agreement. Otherwise our economy would have gone all sorts of crazy and the market would have taken a nose dive.

Oh wait, what's that? What exactly happened to the markets yesterday? What were the numbers again:

AEX 300,85 -3,2%
AthexCompositeShare 1 086,43 -1,35%
BEL 20 Index 2 223,67 -2,9%
CAC40 3 320,35 -3,9%
DAX 30 6 414,76 -3,4%
FTSE 100 5 405,76 -3,2%
FTSE MIB 16 128,07 -5,2%
IBEX 35 8 686,50 -3,9%
OMX Copenhagen 20 389,50 -2,1%
OMX Helsinki 25 1 885,71 -5,1%
OMX Stockholm 30 939,63 -4,3%
OSEBX 375,36 -4,8%
PSI 20 6 325,27 -3,3%
SPI 4 845,24 -3,7%
TA-25 1 159,00 -1,5%
WIG20 2 487,66 -3,5%

In total this is what the markets looked like at the close of the bell.

OSLO 375,36 -4,83%
NASDAQ 2 556,39 -5,08%
DOW JONES 11 383,68 -4,31%

Wait, I know my reading audience may not be familiar with the market, so perhaps they need some sort of frame of reference on all this. The Dow ended up being down 500 points. It's the biggest single-day drop for a long time. Gold, Silver and Oil were all down. It seems to be a combo of Eurozone stuff and a lack of faith in the U.S economy.

What does all that look like in the form of an image? This:



If you aren't aware, the line should fall off a cliff like that. So if you're still wondering what happened to the markets. Well, they're dying, cloud. You must save them. No wait, there's no way to make a sort of adventure out of this. It's dead. I killed them. Me. ME!

Though you're probably thinking that the market typically falls like 500 points every couple of months anyway. But in this case, it's the type of fall that hasn't been seen since the fall of 08. And for those of you who don't recall, that was when the great recession happened.

Yeah, it's that bad. The economy is clearly now dead. Though it's been pretty dead for a few years now. The Markets are just now finally figuring it out. I don't want to get too excited because I've been waiting for this moment ever since they re-inflated the bubble and I sure as hell don't want to be disappointed if they find yet another way to prop it back up.



But hey, the good news is that even the media will probably stop saying we're in a "Recovery" now. Because, seriously. 700 points in 4 days.. HA! The depression.. tis be coming, yo.

I would feel good about this because of the whole death to Capitalism and all that, but I know that the only people who are actually going to feel adverse effects from this shit are the poor and the downtrodden already and the fuckers who are responsible will sit in their golden palaces whining about how they're slightly less rich than they already were.. or actually celebrating being much more rich. Because, isn't that just the quintessential capitalism right there

Before trading opened on Wall Street, the Labor Department announced that the number of people applying for unemployment benefits last week fell slightly from the week before. But the report, following a raft of disappointing economic data in recent days, was taken by many gloomy investors to indicate only that the stalled job market was not improving.

Some investors also were selling to protect their portfolios before Friday's monthly announcement of unemployment data.

"It’s almost a very simplistic thing here, there has just been indiscriminate selling," said Michael Purves, chief strategist at BCG Financial. "Markets work in strange and mysterious ways –- and sometimes it takes awhile for routs like this to get going."

Where's the Jobs, Obama?!? WHERE?! Who cares if it's your birthday.. In fact, Hey, Happy birthday. Love, the investors.. I'm sure Obama's reaction to that question would be to pull his pockets inside out, shrug his shoulders and makes a funny face. *Curb your enthusiasm theme plays*



President Obama calls the local pound, looking for the economy. Vice-President Biden believes he has seen the economy crossing the street the next house over.

I wonder if he's going to lose the election to theoretically unelectable republican X now? But then again, part of me really hopes that this is enough to make Obama lose. Then the realist in me sees that Obama losing won't make a difference. It's not like his replacement will be any different except maybe on abortion and gay marriage (Both of which Obama is already against, HA!)

I do love the headlines from yesterday though. "Markets in turmoil - CNBC tonight at 8!" Though you have to remember that most banks and financial institutions have CNBC on at all times in offices and trading rooms across the country.

Speaking of which... July employment numbers are released today. Oh man, I wonder what percentage of a stadium the new jobs will fill this time. Probably by the time you read this you're looking at around 9/2%, at least according to CNBC.

Oh goody. I wonder at what percentage of a stadium the new jobs will fill this time. And what with Obama cutting more than a million jobs recently, I wonder how many portfolio will look covered in blood and feces.

And those who think that only the rich, state oil investment companies and some middle class pension funds have something to worry about here with stock assets, I don't think you understand the extent to which even public employees' retirements are funded through the markets and entities like CALPERs, the Cal. State employees' pension fund, never recovered from the downswing in the 00's, which will lead to less collective bargaining and further austerity at the state and municipal levels.

Maybe the disappearing pension funds will mean people will be more radicalized, right? RIGHT?! And you would think that the price of oil going down would mean that gas prices are potentially going to go down. But it's really just a case of "bad things happens so you pay more" situation.

Then there's those poor soles who in 2008 thought that they wouldn't have to worry about all of this because they still had 4 years until they graduated and need to get a decent job to pay back those loans. It'd all be over by then, they thought.. Yeah, welp. Guess that's not going to work.

But hey, are you a student with educational loans? do you have two kidneys? And if losing an organ doesn't sound like your thing, maybe you can just sell your body as a sex worker?

A bigger question is why the hell are gold and silver going down? I guess according to some article, when major financial traders are in shit spots like this they have to pony up more hard cash. Especially since they're trading with a ton of borrowed money. So a bunch of people liquidate their gold stocks just in case.

It's not even like this is a whole double dip recession, because it never went "back up" as a double dip implies.



Apparently the Asian markets are nose diving as well. My guess is that Europe will see the US and Asian markets, look at the problems in their own back yard, and respond in kind by dropping their market like a rock. Then the US stock exchange thinks Europe is panicking and they'll fall down and go boom again today.

Europe is already fucked in the matter. So it's not like the markets will open and crash into hell, but it's sure as hell going to be a situation where it's not going to be good. Then America's market will open and plummet with it. But once the jobs reports comes out, man oh man, then Satan will walk the earth.

You should basically cash out everything you can at 9:30:01 today if you own capitalist equities because it's going to be blood in the streets. But hey, maybe if you knew what a stop loss was, you probably would have used it by now. Though it's odd of me to consider that anyone reading this actually participates in finance capital and is not a broke college student or a poor member of the underclass.

I figure this is what is going to happen. Some arbitrary stock values will go down, the fed will do a qe3, the stock values will go up. Everyone will cheer the recession is over. Then most people will still be homeless and will continue to lose wages and benefits.

Maybe you should just get a job immediately, buy a firearm and kill all possible competitors for that job. I just have one question for you... Any big plans for the recession? You know, other than death. Maybe you can go painting...

I started another burning bank painting today, this time the Chase branch in Van Nuys. I got lots of thumbs up and likes from passersby but after an hour and a half the cops showed up. They said someone called thought I might be a terrorist.

What sort of terrorist would paint their plan before doing it? That's not a terrorist, that sounds more like a super villain move than anything else.

But back to the whole politics of all this. The absolute worst and best thing about all this is that all of the idiots who go on saying "install social democracy, problem solved!" and imagine that we'll somehow go back to the post-war economic boom by rewinding the metaphorical clock. Oh boy, do they have another fucking thing coming.

I don't really see a way to make social democracy and the good old social compact work within the context of an utterly financialized and internationalized capitalist economy so basically the days of trying for capitalism with a human face are going to vanish... like tears in rain.

Time... to die..

The State of the Union

The State of the Union

It's fucked. Ha! Just kidding. That's not what Obama said. Though I wish he did. But it's not like anything Obama said came as much of a surprise. You see, much earlier in the day a draft of Barack Obama's state of the union speech was leaked out and I was most excited to hear the reaction to the following proposed idea by our President...

I will impose a 5 year federal spending freeze

A spending freeze.. yeah, let's just turn that knife. Perhaps I just wanted to hear something so out of the norm by Obama. Something like

"We will create a bomb that can destroy the moon by the end of this decade, not because it is easy but because it is hard"

Then I would look at the state of the union and realize that at least things could be a lot worse. As it stand, I'm pretty sure that rising corporate profits will probably not keep millions of Americans from losing their houses. It really makes you just sort of sad to see such a reform president getting totally worked over by corporate interest.

But sure enough, he's going to try to freeze the budget.. You know, exempting military and "security" spending from the freeze, of course all in the name to satisfy the right. At the same time proposing new infrastructure spending in a hapless attempt to satisfy the left. I'm fairly certain that we'll be tired of the term "budget-neutral" by 2012.

I guess we saw it coming though. After the $700 billion bailout, the trillion-dollar stimulus, and the massive budget bill with over 9,000 earmarks that the President signed, many of you implored Washington to please stop spending money we don't have.

All throughout the speech I was waiting for Boehner to start crying. I'm surprised that his fake orange tan doesn't smear when he cries for any little thing. Though the only time it seemed like he was going to tear up was when he got a hand job from Obama at the beginning. So there went my hope that he was going tobe like a blubbering baby throughout the entire thing with tears streaming down his face.

Can I also point out that standing ovations really lose their value if you do them every minute. I'm sure everyone thinks that America should be the best place on earth, even at the expense of raping the workers for profits. CLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAP

"The entire thing was so full of shit. Why yes, let's encourage innovation.. "

*makes college steadily less affordable*

"We need to invest in research like never before!!"

*cuts funding to all science programs and cancels NASA programs*

And Facebook being mentioned in the state of the union? Really? Is Facebook the great American accomplishment?

Barack Obama > Good speech huh?

_{Joe Biden likes this
John Boehner *sob*}

Yes, clearly the Vodka bottle was not enough to get me through it. I needed more. Oh so much more.

This was all before he went on about ending corporate subsidization of oil. Yeah, that made me laugh. Here I thought all this reaching across party lines was to ensure that he got re-elected. If you're going to go after oil subsidies you're going to face the fact that you'll be a one-term president.



Then Obama got on with what seemed like the subject that took the chunk of attention in the State of the Union - Education. I'm not sure if it was because there was a bunch of school kids in the audience that were invited, but he really hammered home that kids should be encouraged to go to college and that adults who don't have a college degree should go back in order to set a good example.

Who the fuck has the money to get a university degree just to inspire their damn kids? How out of touch is this shit with 10% unemployment going on? To be fair now, America's school system is so terrible these days that finishing high school is arguably a step in the wrong direction.

Obama went so far as to suggest that we should treat science fair winners with the same enthusiasm as the winners of the Super Bowl. Yeah, how convenient that he stopped caring about football once the Chicago Bears got eliminated.

But hey, maybe now I'll be super excited for all the science fair winners to go and meet the president. Because I can tell you as a former winner of a science fair, good luck with getting anyone to give a shit. But I can't believe that he really said Superbowl and science fair in the same sentence. I mean, the only thing that I could think the Superbowl and a science fair have in common is.. The Jets aint shit.

But at what point in all this State of the Union ramblings did he cover how we're going to make jobs for the people unemployed NOW. I mean, forget the kids. The kids could wait. Focus on that 10% unemployment now!

Obama called for more teachers.. Yeah... become a teacher, and enjoy your benefits, salary ...uh... students. I hope you like making no money at all and having constant critiquing of your teaching tactics. Go right ahead and become a teacher and graduate with massive loans, find there are no jobs currently out there and die alone.

I know well enough about teaching that "race to the top" is a pretty terrible program and the applause that came about after it was mentioned was horrible.

I mean, did you hear the response on when he suggested that more people become teachers? There was a massive amount of clapping going on for the call in treating teachers with respect. These same claps are being produced by those who so easily slash education funding.

As if 100,000 new teachers with non-competitive salaries and one year contracts sounds like a good thing. I'm seriously not going to become a teacher when my city is considering cutting 9,600 school positions. But then again, who can turn down being a teacher? You make 1/10 of what you could in the private sector.

But yeah. Obama sure made a poignant statement on unemployment tonight.... oh wait. Yeeeeeaaaaaahhh..... I think the only thing that he even suggested in helping the economy in unemployment was getting China, South Korea and India to export more goods from us.



But I have an important question about that for the President. Why would any corporation hire Americans under any circumstances in a globalized world? And I don't mean set up shop. I understand that. But why would anyone Hire Americans at all?

I think the real entertainment happened after the speech. With both Paul Ryan AND Michelle Bachmann issuing rebuttals to Obama's speech. Yes, you heard that right. The right is doing TWO rebuttals.

Bachmann is doing the tea party rebuttal. As if the republicans aren't pissed enough that they're splitting the party enough. Where is the green party rebuttal or the socialist party rebuttal? How the hell is the tea party legitimate enough to have their own address. It's like congress, except instead of senators it's old fat white people in scooters purchased by medicare (Socialism!)



Apparently Bachmann literally looked at the NBC camera through the entire speech instead of the CNN camera. The NBC camera was set up for the post-speech interview. Brain Williams greeted her after on NBC by saying "Thank you for finding your way to our camera".

If this wasn't proof that Bachmann's just plain crazy and that's really what made this post speech rebuttal entertaining, then you're probably not familiar with her. If you're not familiar with her ramblings, here's Anderson Cooper, tearing her apart on her claim that the Founding Father's eliminated slavery.



I guess the real question I have is how anyone in the right is going to rebute Obama adopting their own policies. But apparently that was some sort of CNN exclusive.

To be honest, I just cannot imagine why anyone would watch CNN or any cable news channel anymore. Even if you're watching it ironically, you're seriously bat shit insane or just really like suffering. If you think MSNBC is better than Fox News you're crazy. CNN has to be arguably the worst because they've managed to convince people that it's the "neutral" station. Neutral in this country is somewhere right of Reagan.

It doesn't change the fact that after watching this spewing of political nonsense I wanted to cut to a picture of Krusty the Clown asking What the Hell was that?! My soul felt empty after dealing with that much crushing reality that the true answer to what the state of our union really is "Completely and utterly fucked"

But hey, let's take a look to what reaction to the speech by Obama was from NPR listeners..



"Optimistic" "inspirin" What the hell? Did they listen to the same speech I did? I do like that Salmon is in large bold letters. I am left with the knowledge now that Salmon in water is monitored by a different government agency than water on my plate. Though I'm still not sure which agency overlooks Smoked Salmon on a cream cheese covered bagel with some sliced red onions.

Fucking Obama....

Fucking Obama.....

I mean, seriously, what the hell happened to hope and change? If you haven't been disenfranchised by now.. and I have to question your logic as to why not, this news story should really push you over the edge. Then again, I've been saying that for a while now. But sure enough, he's starting to sound like Reagan..

Toward a 21st-Century Regulatory System
by Barack Obama

For two centuries, America's free market has not only been the source of dazzling ideas and path-breaking products, it has also been the greatest force for prosperity the world has ever known. That vibrant entrepreneurialism is the key to our continued global leadership and the success of our people.

But throughout our history, one of the reasons the free market has worked is that we have sought the proper balance. We have preserved freedom of commerce while applying those rules and regulations necessary to protect the public against threats to our health and safety and to safeguard people and businesses from abuse.

From child labor laws to the Clean Air Act to our most recent strictures against hidden fees and penalties by credit card companies, we have, from time to time, embraced common sense rules of the road that strengthen our country without unduly interfering with the pursuit of progress and the growth of our economy.

Sometimes, those rules have gotten out of balance, placing unreasonable burdens on business—burdens that have stifled innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs. At other times, we have failed to meet our basic responsibility to protect the public interest, leading to disastrous consequences. Such was the case in the run-up to the financial crisis from which we are still recovering. There, a lack of proper oversight and transparency nearly led to the collapse of the financial markets and a full-scale Depression.

Over the past two years, the goal of my administration has been to strike the right balance. And today, I am signing an executive order that makes clear that this is the operating principle of our government.

This order requires that federal agencies ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth. And it orders a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive. It's a review that will help bring order to regulations that have become a patchwork of overlapping rules, the result of tinkering by administrations and legislators of both parties and the influence of special interests in Washington over decades.

Where necessary, we won't shy away from addressing obvious gaps: new safety rules for infant formula; procedures to stop preventable infections in hospitals; efforts to target chronic violators of workplace safety laws. But we are also making it our mission to root out regulations that conflict, that are not worth the cost, or that are just plain dumb.

For instance, the FDA has long considered saccharin, the artificial sweetener, safe for people to consume. Yet for years, the EPA made companies treat saccharin like other dangerous chemicals. Well, if it goes in your coffee, it is not hazardous waste. The EPA wisely eliminated this rule last month.

But creating a 21st-century regulatory system is about more than which rules to add and which rules to subtract. As the executive order I am signing makes clear, we are seeking more affordable, less intrusive means to achieve the same ends—giving careful consideration to benefits and costs. This means writing rules with more input from experts, businesses and ordinary citizens. It means using disclosure as a tool to inform consumers of their choices, rather than restricting those choices. And it means making sure the government does more of its work online, just like companies are doing.

We're also getting rid of absurd and unnecessary paperwork requirements that waste time and money. We're looking at the system as a whole to make sure we avoid excessive, inconsistent and redundant regulation. And finally, today I am directing federal agencies to do more to account for—and reduce—the burdens regulations may place on small businesses. Small firms drive growth and create most new jobs in this country. We need to make sure nothing stands in their way.

One important example of this overall approach is the fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks. When I took office, the country faced years of litigation and confusion because of conflicting rules set by Congress, federal regulators and states.

The EPA and the Department of Transportation worked with auto makers, labor unions, states like California, and environmental advocates this past spring to turn a tangle of rules into one aggressive new standard. It was a victory for car companies that wanted regulatory certainty; for consumers who will pay less at the pump; for our security, as we save 1.8 billion barrels of oil; and for the environment as we reduce pollution. Another example: Tomorrow the FDA will lay out a new effort to improve the process for approving medical devices, to keep patients safer while getting innovative and life-saving products to market faster.

Despite a lot of heated rhetoric, our efforts over the past two years to modernize our regulations have led to smarter—and in some cases tougher—rules to protect our health, safety and environment. Yet according to current estimates of their economic impact, the benefits of these regulations exceed their costs by billions of dollars.

This is the lesson of our history: Our economy is not a zero-sum game. Regulations do have costs; often, as a country, we have to make tough decisions about whether those costs are necessary. But what is clear is that we can strike the right balance. We can make our economy stronger and more competitive, while meeting our fundamental responsibilities to one another.

It's really actually perfect in every wrong way possible. The cherry on top was the fact that this was printed on the Wall Street Journal... That just sealed the deal in making this a big FUCK YOU to the nation.



Yup.. that's it. That does it. I mean, I didn't realize that there was any way for Obama to shove more throbbing corporate cock down his throat, but he managed to do so anyway. Maybe I should just start putting a bit of arsenic into my coffee every day. It'll be a much easier way to deal with the impending doom that is our nation.

The real comedy of all this is that one of the very last talking points that Obama defenders had left was that "At least he's stopping decades of republican presidents weakening of regulators" and here he is..


They got him...

He wasn't even smooth about it or even tried to make a compelling argument about why we should push for more deregulation. He basically summed it down to

"FUCK these regulations are dumb and expensive WHY THE FUCK do we even do these things?" - Barry O

What happened to the president we elected. You know, that one guy who said things like

"We're not going to use signing statements to do an end run around Congress"
- Barack Obama, 2008

It's as if he's that kid who gets bullied and then starts acting like the bullies in hopes that they'll stop bullying him... and then they still don't. Just because you don't want them to call you a socialist anymore doesn't mean that you need to adopt Reagan style president tactics.

Just face it, you'll never be conservative enough for them. You might as well stick with keeping those election promises that you made to the people. Then again, I'm mistaken to think that he was bullied into any of this. It's probably him just working for political clout so he can get re-elected in 2012 as the corporate lap dog.



It wouldn't surprise me if he allows his universal health care to just get voted out of existence by the republicans. Maybe he'll just deregulate health insurance and repeal every aspect of the reform except the purchase mandate.

Maybe in 2012 we will see the introduction of a new "citizenship licenses" which everyone making less than 250k a year will be required to buy that are on a sliding scale pegged at 60% of income. This will be in addition to taxes, and will provide nothing. You won't even get a piece of paper with your name on it.

Maybe he's just trying to improve his approval rating. I know a pretty good way to do that. He should announce his support for the republican effort to repeal that insidious communist health care shit. Once that happens then the approval rating will reach those inauguration levels.

America is really becoming a corporation and Obama is acting more in favor of this than any CEO could dream of. The only thing that needs to happen is Obama need to announce plans to decrease tax rates on top bracket to zero and make it so that all of the burden is shifted to welfare recipients.

Oh.. what am I talking about, Welfare is going to get done away with over the next year or so, but hey, we'll have a Woolly Mammoth walking around again.



I can see Obama just say fuck it with any sort of act and go full on with something like this:

"For two centuries, America's free market has not only been the source of dazzling ideas and path-breaking products, it has also been the greatest force for prosperity the world has ever known."
-Barack "Hussein" Obama, the Socialest

Just you wait, it's going to to get far worse. Look at how the FDA bowed to corporate needs. For as long as we known, the FDA considered saccharin, the artificial sweetener, safe for people to consume. Yet for years, the EPA made companies treat saccharin like other dangerous chemicals. Well, if it goes in your coffee, it's not hazardous waste. The EPA wisely eliminated this rule last month. I wonder how much was used to grease those pockets.

But hey, I'm pretty sure we could refuce everything to a single regulation.....

State ownership.

Obama, I Don't Know What To Do About You Anymore

Obama, I Don't Know What To Do About You Anymore

By this point I really shouldn't be surprised by how little change and hope Obama has delivered on. I mean yes, he is faced with a lot of hardships and a bill from the last 8 years of fucked up shit Bush has left behind for him, but it's pretty clear that a certain someone really wants to lose in 2012....

Bush Tax-Cut Deal With Jobless Aid Said to Be Near
Published: December 5, 2010

WASHINGTON — White House officials and Congressional Republicans said Sunday they were closing in on a deal to temporarily continue the Bush-era tax cuts at all income levels, while bitterly frustrated Democratic Congressional leaders began exploring whether they would have the votes for such a package.

A day after the Senate rejected President Obama’s preferred tax plan, officials said the broad contours of a compromise were in focus.

Rather than extending the tax rates only on income described by Democrats as middle class — up to $250,000 a year for couples and $200,000 for individuals — the deal would also keep the rates for higher earners, probably for two years. In return, Republicans said they would probably agree to extend jobless aid for the long-term unemployed.]

Senior Democrats on Sunday said that they were resigned to defeat in the highly charged tax debate, and they voiced dismay.

“We’re moving in that direction,” Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat said dejectedly when Bob Schieffer, host of “Face the Nation” on CBS, asked him if the 2001 and 2003 tax rates would be extended even for the wealthy. “And we’re only moving there against my judgment,” Mr. Durbin added.

In meetings with administration officials after the Senate votes, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and many other House and Senate Democrats voiced deep unhappiness at the prospect of extending all the tax cuts and also expressed their belief that the White House did not appear to be getting enough for such a big concession, officials said.

That sort of anger raised the likelihood that Republicans would have to generate large numbers of votes to advance any deal in Congress, much as they did to help approve the big financial system bailout at President George W. Bush’s request in 2008.

White House officials, meanwhile, expressed hope of sealing a deal swiftly, perhaps by midweek, and clearing the Congressional calendar for a long list of other priorities that they aim to accomplish by the end of the year, including ratification of the New Start arms treaty with Russia and the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for gay service members as part of a wider Pentagon policy bill.

Administration officials said the negotiations were focused on the question of extending the tax rates for one or two years, with a three-year extension highly unlikely, even though that time frame would probably eliminate the tax fight as an urgent issue in the 2012 elections.

Well shit, who the fuck didn't see this ass fucking coming. I'm sorry for the harsh language but I mean, come on. He isn't even trying anymore. Yeah, I guess the silver lining in all this is that they're extending unemployment, so at least there's some positive....

Oh wait, the key word in talks was probably extending unemployment benefits.... That's the same way I'll probably win a million dollars tomorrow and then be able to take advantage of the republican tax cut.

I really worry that if the tax cut and unemployment extension aren't part of one bill, then they'll just take the tax cuts and when it comes time for the vote for the unemployment benefits... hee, yeah, the Dems will be in for a surprise.

Here's what I don't get - You trade in a few weeks of fiscal soundness for years to come of death and uncertainty. When it's time to renew the unemployment benefits we won't have anything to pay for it because we'll still be knees deep in a massive tax cut. It's not difficult to realize that the money needs to come from somewhere.

But hey, at least with these new massive tax cuts, they'll be able to hire more people... right? Right?! Ha, yeah... I'm sure once they get their tax cuts they will just bitch about how there's no money for any of that. Let's not forget that cutting taxes on the rich was found to be the worse method to stimulate the economy.



What a bunch of worthless cowards, they didn't try for one second to spin this against the republicans for holding the unemployment benefits/relief ransom in exchange for the tax cuts to be kept by the wealthy.

For someone who constantly said "We have some hard decisions to make", he sure as fuck finds every possible easy way out of everything without even pretending to think about doing anything remotely close to being unpopular.

The worse aspect of this is that 2% payroll tax. Isn't that going towards Social Security and Medicare? Man, I really think that those social services are in for some serious problems down the line. For a socialist, he sure doesn't like to do anything to help social services.

But back to the 2% payroll tax cut, which is really a 1/6 cut for social security. It really shouldn't go unnoticed in all this. Social security is about a 12% tax on your paycheck, up to a maximum or so. Yeah, it's a flat tax with extra regressive flavor. If you're employed, your employer pays half of that, so both you and the capitalist scum directly oppressing you pay a 6% of your paycheck.



So by cutting the social security tax by 2%, you're hacking out 16% of its income with literally no planning or reasoning or even anything close to a budgetary reason for doing so other than because the republicans said so. This really a big deal when you think that their defense for not doing the unemployment benefits was to not put a hardship on the deficit and not pass the bill to our future generations. But what you're doing by cutting this is making sure that social security doesn't have anything left in it down the line.

I'm sure many of you are already operating on the assumption that you wont ever see a dime of what you're paying into social security, so fuck it, right? You also shouldn't forget that you're also allowing businesses to write off all their capital investments for tax purposes during 2011.



But also this quick band-aid on the problem does nothing to help the issue of who gets coverage on this unemployment benefits. This deal only extends the 99 week window for unemployment. It doesn't actually increase it beyond that initial 99 weeks. So if you were going to run out of unemployment benefits, you're still faced with that harsh reality under this new deal.

Why would you need to be on unemployment for 99 weeks? You know, the time span of two years? Well, you could be an American living in 2010. While there would be people who just label those without a job for two years as bums, there's a harsh reality mixed in there.

The inability to find a job in your field and at an income level equal to or promising to soon be equal to what you were getting on unemployment is a real motivator. You really can't blame people for refusing to get a shit job for a shitty hourly wage when they are well qualified professionals with lots of lie expenses and experience. You shouldn't expect them to take a job at McDonalds that will pay the same, if not a little less than unemployment benefits.

These jobs don't even remotely pay a living wage. It's not even a matter of "not paying the same" factoring into it. Most of these places don't even offer that many hours. And have you've worked retail lately? They'll do anything possible to make sure you don't go over the hours that would require them giving you any sort of benefits.



They want to make sure you're under 34 hours a week so you can avoid ever being a "full-time employee". In much of the rural south and mid-south, Walmart gets away with paying new hires minimum wage and leaving them there until they quit or die. How else do you think you're goods are so cheap? There are literally no other jobs around, so you take it or you starve.

With federal min. being $7.25, after social security and medicare withholding, you will be taking home $428.52 every two weeks... or a grand total of $11k a year. There's really no reason why you should lower yourself to doing this work if unemployment is willing to give you close to that without having to deal with stupid Walmart customers.

Let's not forget, these people already put into the unemployment insurance, you saying they shouldn't take advantage of them is like telling someone who got into a car accident that they shouldn't use the insurance they pay monthly to fix the car.

At least one person isn't laying down as easy as the President. Bernie Sanders is threatening to bust out the filibuster.



I really can't stress how much I want to see Bernie up there holding the floor all day and night like a democrat during the civil rights struggle. Of course, we haven't had a democrat like that for a long time and I find it hard to dig up enough hope to ever see something like that again.

In my view, it is a moral outrage that at a time when this country has a $13.8 trillion national debt, a collapsing middle class and a growing gap between the very rich and everybody else that the Republicans would deny extended unemployment benefits to 2 million workers who are desperately struggling to pay their bills and maintain their dignity. It is also beyond comprehension that the Republicans would hold hostage the entire middle class of this country so that millionaires and billionaires would receive huge tax breaks. In my view, that is not what this country is about and it is not what the American people want to see. Our job is to save the disappearing middle class, not lower taxes for people who are already extraordinarily wealthy and increase the national debt that our children and grandchildren would have to pay.

It's pretty sad when "middle class" is used instead of pointing out that there's people literally starving because of the gap between the rich and those even considered "middle class".

Still, even with this lone spark in an otherwise dark room, I'm all done getting my hopes up for any sort of logic or common sense... or anything but corruption in our government. Maybe a few of you haven't had your heart blackened all the way yet.

I'm sure many of you are thinking that everyone should be in favor of this tax cut. After all, who in America likes to pay taxes? There shouldn't be a reason to give your money to the U.S. Government, am I right, guys?

Only, that's not the point nor is it how money works. I'd much rather have some new roads, maintained pot holes and unemployment for the poor than our capital overlords seeing an extra 9 figure bonus in their paycheck because they re-invested their tax breaks into some untouchable bond.



You know, Nixon was considering the guaranteed minimum income for all Americans. He was seriously the most socialist president we would ever have. Just looking at that Obama clip has me mad. He keeps on talking about all the many campaign promises, how about mentioning the ones he already broken?

Maybe I'm too hard on him. I don't realize how hard it must have been for him to give in to the thieves on the GOP side who would prefer to protect the upper 2% with a bailout instead of delivering $700 billion over ten years to pay for the deficit that the GOP constantly brings up as the reason we can't afford social services.

Did you know that the US treasury lost out on $16 billion from simply 4 people dying during a year with a 0% estate tax? One of those fuckers was Steinbrenner. How about the reminder that last quarter American businesses recorded the highest ever profits since records have been kept. Seven consecutive quarters at some of the highest growth rates in history and yet they can't create jobs without some tax breaks and more subsidies.

Yup, fuck this gay world.

So What's So Wrong With Wikileaking All Over The Place?

So What's So Wrong With Wikileaking All Over The Place?

Over the weekend WikiLeaks must have really stepped on some serious toes. They got a seriously large attack on their server carried out, forcing their host to drop them. I guess they got a lot of pressure from the U.S. folks attempting to block the release of more documents. It's a good thing that the Swiss host isn't caving on dropping them.

But the BBC said Paypal caved and kicked Wikileaks out for policy violations, pretty much the same excuse that Amazon used for dropping them. Whatever it is that are in these unreleased cables must really be something dire.

Yup, the pretty obvious next WikiLeak will be pretty big.. No wait, it'll be the blood pouring out of the crater left in his head by a CIA bullet.

I have to ask, what's the big deal with transparency? I mean, Obama promised us unprecedented transparency as part of that Change we could believe in. I mean, just listen to his own words...



I guess he just didn't expect it to happen like this.

It leads one to wonder if it's only a matter of time before Julian is hauled off to jail. Good thing he's taking matters to make sure that even if he's dead or arrested, Wikileaks still goes on. You see, Julian has been circulating encrypted cache of uncensored documents suspected of including files on BP and Guantanamo Bay.

An encrypted cache of uncensored documents that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has circulated across the Internet may ensure that a huge array of secrets will be revealed even if the website is shut down or Assange is arrested.

Tens of thousands of supporters have downloaded the "insurance" file, which has been available since July, and it includes files on BP and Guantanamo Bay, The Sunday Times reported.

So at least he has some heads up on where he's potentially going if our law makers have any say in it. Oh yeah, they do.



It's pretty clear that our senators are just laying the public relation groundwork for revising the espionage act so that they can haul Julian's ass to Gitmo and charge him to death for telling the truth. This could be a really slippery slope that leads us to a massive free speech restriction. If you think the TSA stuff is insane, you really don't want to see what's around the corner. I mean, just look at this news from our law makers.

Top US Senator open to tighter leak controls

(AFP) – 23 hours ago

WASHINGTON — US Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein said Friday she was open to modifying a US law aimed at punishing spies to make it easier to target WikiLeaks and its founder.

"I would have no problem with this. If we need to do it, we should do it," she said when asked about a push by four other senators to amend the Espionage Act to make it a crime to publish the names of informants serving US forces.

Feinstein, a Democrat from California, told reporters she planned to introduce legislation herself to ensure that the law covers contractors who have played a vast role in the US war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I know we have to extend this for contractors, and we have a draft that does it," added Feinstein, who called in a letter released Thursday for the prosecution of Julian Assange, the self-described whistleblowing site's founder.

Feinstein said her office was preparing an article for publication recalling past comments by Assange that suggest he intended the release of secret war and diplomatic documents as "a clear strike at the government."

This whole WikiLeaks stuff is going to be comedy when next year's WikiLeaks publishes the cables between Washington and London ordering the UK to ship Assange out to Cuba.

But even with all that it's pretty clear that WikiLeaks will never die. I mean, seriously, it will never die.



But while it can never die, talking about it, like I'm doing in this very blog post, can be pretty much cancer for any potential career I had, or you had in working for the government.

Talking about WikiLeaks on Facebook or Twitter could endanger your job prospects, a State Department official warned students at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs this week.

An email from SIPA's Office of Career Services went out Tuesday afternoon with a caution from the official, an alumnus of the school. Students who will be applying for jobs in the federal government could jeopardize their prospects by posting links to WikiLeaks online, or even by discussing the leaked documents on social networking sites, the official was quoted as saying.

"[The alumnus] recommends that you DO NOT post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter," the Office of Career Services advised students. "Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government.
Heaven forbid I'll never be able to obtain a government job.

Yes, heaven forbid that you'll ever want to obtain a government job, what with their nice retirement plans and proper pensions. So if you're reading this and you want to keep your security clearance, perhaps you better hit back on your browser and delete your cookies.

It's good to know that our government doesn't want anyone in the central intelligence agency that has enough intelligence to read secret documents. Wait, no. That makes no sense.

But hey, at least they're not considered a terrorist group.... oh wait.. Congress is on that right now

"The incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), asked the Obama administration today to "determine whether WikiLeaks could be designated a foreign terrorist organization...I think if we're going to live in this--in this world--in this technological world where information can be disseminated so quickly, we have to be serious and take firm, strong action against those who are putting American lives at risk. Because this will put people's lives at risk."

The calls for an all-out campaign against WikiLeaks are growing more shrill. Tony Shaffer of the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer, told Fox News that he would like to see military action against Assange: "I would look at this very much as a military issue. With potentially military action against him and his organization."

Well now, this shit is just stupid. It can be all boiled down into "We don't want people talking about it when we fuck up and we will re-write the laws to legally kill anyone who mentions it." So your freedom of speech is always a subject of being held against you if it does not favor the government. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by any of this, but somehow I still am.

Sarah Palin said Julian should be hunted down like Osama Bin Laden.. So I guess that means he'll be safe and uncaptured for at least a decade. I mean, yeah. You can go out and hunt him with every made up law and skewed definition of terrorism if you want, but you know what happens when you put an animal in the corner.. They can often just use everything they have to fight back...

WikiLeaks founder threatens to release entire cache of unfiltered files

At the centre of a tightening web of death threats, sex-crime accusations and high-level demands for a treason trial, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange threatened to unleash a “thermonuclear device” of completely unexpurgated government files if he is forced to appear before authorities.

Mr. Assange, the 39-year-old Australian Internet activist whose online document-leaking service has embarrassed the United States and other countries by publishing hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic and military documents, has referred to the huge, unfiltered document as his “insurance policy.”

The 1.3-gigabyte file, distributed through file-sharing services this summer and protected with an unbreakable 256-bit encryption key, contains full versions of all the U.S. documents received by WikiLeaks to date – including those that have been withheld from publication or have had names and details removed in order to protect the lives of spies, sources and soldiers.

Mr. Assange’s lawyer Mark Stephens warned that if Mr. Assange were to be brought to trial on rape accusations he faces in Sweden, or for treason charges that have been suggested by U.S. politicians, he would release the encryption key. The tens of thousands of people who have downloaded the file would instantly have access to the names, addresses and details contained in the file.

I seriously wonder why the US literally did everything wrong with their reaction to this situation. This would have caused some waves on its own, but the public reaction to it is really driving its visibility. It's like the record companies and the move to sue the kids downloading songs.

Either way, I suppose I should be happy that this is going down and it'll probably start World War III, thus killing all of humanity in a puff of nuclear smoke.

No New Tax Cuts!

No New Tax Cuts!

That's right. They're not by any means new. It's all the old tax cuts. Remember all that talk about Change and Hope. The kind that you could believe in? Yeah.... about that, don't expect it anytime soon cause Obama extends Bush Tax Cuts.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's top adviser suggested to The Huffington Post late Wednesday that the administration is ready to accept an across-the-board, temporary continuation of steep Bush-era tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest taxpayers.

That appears to be the only way, said David Axelrod, that middle-class taxpayers can keep their tax cuts, given the legislative and political realities facing Obama in the aftermath of last week's electoral defeat.

Gee, I'm sure glad you folks decided to vote against the incumbents to get new blood in there. Cause they're sure on the right track to getting our shit together. Though I guess this isn't coming as much of a shock. I think I figured out the quote for the DNC to use on their banners.

"If we think we're going to lose, why bother fighting?"
-The DNC's Call to Arms

Boy Howdy, am I glad I voted for Obama. He's everything I thought he would be! Bring on that hope and change...



This is pretty sad for the sole reason that this was probably all I had hope for left with him. But I guess I should have known better and just given up on Hope long ago. If there was any justice in the world, or at the very least any clear cut backing on others words about trying to reach a compromise, it's just tossed out.

An actual compromise would have been to keep in place the middle class tax cuts while letting the wealthy tax cuts expire at the end of next year. But nope, that shit isn't happening and our nation will be in a state of stasis for the next two years. Then in four years we can cut them again. It's a pretty vicious cycle. Obama's idea of compromise is to just give into any of the republicans demands on whatever they want. Grow some balls, man.

The whole appeal of Obama was that he wouldn't be as bad as Clinton. But he's so much worse as of now. In spite of all the neo-liberal reforms Clinton enacted, he at least had some form of commitment to mildly progressive taxation whereas Obama obviously doesn't give a fuck about any of that.

And if you thought this allowing the tax cuts to expire was a long shot, just wait till we get to the estate tax. That shit is dead in the water. Just look at the potential for the federal estate tax...

Q: In reading about what will happen to the Bush tax cuts in 2011, the federal estate tax is never mentioned, in my experience. Why so, and what should we expect?
—N.M., Santa Cruz, Calif.

A: The strange saga of the federal estate tax, dubbed the "death tax" by its foes, has drawn growing attention lately. Nobody knows what will happen -- even though the midterm elections now are history. But there is a chance that Congress finally will take action in coming weeks when lawmakers return for a lame-duck session.

Naturally, you can't rule out the possibility that Congress will do nothing. Gridlock seems like Washington's natural state these days. But there is a compelling reason to expect some action: If Congress does nothing, the nation will face a bizarre set of circumstances.

This year, the federal estate tax is zero. If Congress takes no action, the tax will return on Jan. 1, 2011, with a basic exemption of $1 million and a top rate on the largest estates of 55%. Most lawmakers have indicated they don't want this to happen.

That would ensnare far more people than the estate tax did in 2009, when the basic exemption was $3.5 million with a top rate of 45%. (Transfers from one spouse to another typically were tax-free, however.) Furthermore, it would be odd to have a system with a zero estate tax this year followed by a very high estate tax next year.

"I can't believe Congress would let this happen," says Nadine Gordon Lee, president of Prosper Advisors, a wealth-management firm.

"The most likely option for a lame-duck session compromise seems to be restoration of the 2009 rules," says Tim Hanford, a consultant in Bethesda, Md., and a former tax staffer on the House Ways and Means Committee. "However, many members of Congress would like to provide even more estate-tax relief."

Much of the speculation focuses on setting the basic estate-tax exemption level somewhere between $3.5 million and $5 million and cutting the top rate to somewhere between 35% and 45%.

So basically the best tax, the one made excuslively for dead rich people, is going to be gutted or completely reworked within the next two years. No way will the rich in power allow for this shit. I mean, why would you let the US collect $14.8 billion from the elite for simply dying and passing on their mega bucks to the next elite family name? So you know that those effected aren't going to stand for a $15 billion dollar taxation on such a limited population

An easy route for this anger against it would be to simply call it a "Death Tax". It seems like putting Death in front of things works. Death Panels. But this tactic will surely gather the red state true patriots to gather around in their tea parties and proclaim that while the only two certainties in life are death and taxes, they shouldn't be combined.

Not like they'll have a tough competition for this. Who the hell is going to defend the estate taxes publicly? One, it's viewed as taking from your recently departed loved one. But it also creates a stupid mess of confusion between states who the relative may have lived in or kept money in.

Take Bank of America. What if they kept your assets in bank crossing state lines, will the state that it's in keep the taxes or will the place where the dead guy be it? What will be the tax rate for them? It's bad enough that the secret life goal of Americans is to discover that they had a rich estranged uncle money bags who just wanted to give them his vast fortunate they never knew about. So they won't dare even consider the possibility of taxing this mythical golden goose.

But then you have to factor that death taxes may not make a whole lot of sense. Everything the person earns is already taxed when they're alive. So you're going to tax it again when they die? Why should kids be punished for their parents success? Then again, any rich fucker worth their weight in expensive sea salt probably already set up some living trust to spirit the money away to the heirs.

As much as they want to support their troops, most of Americans don't want their inheritance to go towards funding a bunch of murderous tyrants. I guess the only good reason to oppose this would be to actually starve our hungry War State.



Just think, in a good 10 years time, each and every state is going to have no money and no infrastructure. The entirety of the next decade or two looks like it's going to be awful. I just wonder how Fox News will spin this whole story about Obama giving up on the fight against Bush era tax cuts.

It seems to be the mantra of every American to suggest that we should raise the taxes of everyone else but themselves. We can't get very far on that mindset. Especially not in California where it's far easier to pass something to spend money than it is to actually allow ourselves the ability to collect that money for the proposed item.

It leads one to think about how California has to already borrow a lot to meet its unemployment obligations and maybe things would get bad enough to bring people out of their holes and call a state constitutional convention. But that isn't going to happen either.

Even if it did happen, there's nothing that can happen in the US political circle anymore without being co-opted to benefit the rich in some way or another. We literally have sold our nation to the captains of enterprise. Capitalism has worked in making some rich off the back breaking work and sweat of those below them.

Looking at the Dailykos and Huffpost, you'd think that the democrats finally cracked. The Huffpost is tearing into Obama pretty badly over this and all the Obama supporters are so desperate that they're criticizing huffington post as being "anti-Obama". Really? REALLY?

There's a lot worse shit Obama has done, as you can see in this counter to that Democratic sponsored praise for what Obama has done.. highlighting what exactly he's done that isn't too nice. So yeah, this is far from the worst thing Obama has done but it may be the final straw to many.



I don't mean to sound crazy, but it would really not surprise me if both parties are so filled with so much separation that we get a 2012 election that has actual viable third and fourth party votes.... Okay, who the fuck am I kidding, that shit wont ever happen. But at least I'm throwing it out there.

Okay, that shit is for sure never happening. At best this just means that we'll have the lowest voter turnout ever.

What else can you expect when you follow up a "YES WE CAN!" chant with the act of squandering the democratic majority and doing almost nothing to fix anything slightly before the republicans take back the house. You're just saying that it didn't work out like you hyped everyone up for and you want to get placed back into office? Yeah.. probably not the best idea.

You might as well make the tax rate over 250k just 0%. No one cares about a ship that sinks slowly, but everyone remembers a ship that hits an ice berg and cracks in half as it sinks. Even if a slowly sinking ship allows for the running around of passengers while giving the rich people enough time to get into the life rafts with all their belongings.

When it comes down to it, it's hard to get behind a tax cut and I really don't want to give my money to a government that steadily cuts every form of social spending and welfare while increasing taxes to those who can not afford them to begin with.

Obama - What Have You've Done For Me Lately?

Obama - What Have You've Done For Me Lately?

The democratic party really needs to fire their PR company. I mean, do you seriously want to highlight the fact that Obama has done things with a "What have you've done for me lately" mentality? You're not even giving those disenfranchised Obama voters the benefit of the doubt that they have an attention span of a gnat

But sure enough, while the tea party has been out there converting the standard sheeple disenfranchised GOP right wingers, the democratic left has created this:

What The Fuck Has Obama Done So Far?

This shit is fucking terrible and it's nothing really to be proud of. Especially if you're a democrat, there's no reason to be proud of your party for coming up with this witty and yet 'In-you-face' promotion to show those republiCANTs that Obama actually has done a lot of shit. But you see, I have a bit of a problem with this whole concept. It just doesn't cover everything.

I kept clicking to see if "Won Nobel Peace Prize and then Bombed the shit out of Pakistan and Yemen" would come up, but no luck on that one so far.

I'm also wondering why "Increased military spending when he suggested he would decrease it" didn't make the list. Though maybe it's just a problem with their random generator as it's a fairly important Obama achievement to not highlight.

How about Issuing an executive order to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay... Whoooops! That one's on the to-do list.

"Ended Bush administration's CIA program of 'enhanced interrogations methods' by requiring that the Army field manual be used as a guide for terrorism interrogations"

How awesome and progressive. So now we're just torturing them under different standards! Oh wait, no. We just started letting the Iraqi and Syrian soldiers torture and do all of the heavy lifting while we turn a blind eye on all that we taught them.

Increased average fuel economy standards from 27.5mpg to 35.5mpg, starting in 2016.. Though by then the newly elected republican President will take the credit for that.

Significantly increasing funding for the Violence Against Women Act. is something that only 51% of the population will care about. But still, it's good none the less.

I'm a little unsure on what "Increased minority access to capital" means though. He did also appoint more openly gay officials than any other president in US history. And in case you're wondering, yes this does include Kagan.

But again, it's only been two fucking years. I like to think that we, as a people, would be a little more patient in how much one man can do in two years to make up for 8 years of total shit getting tossed in the fan. But as we can see from the mid-term elections, the American public is fucking idiots.

Though, I'm not going to be surprised in two years when the republicans are scrapping together their own "What the fuck have the republicans done so far?" in attempt to overlook the fact that two years of back and forth circles with Obama did nothing to help the country. All this hope and change sure hasn't amounted for much.

So the answer to what the fuck has Obama done so far? Not even a fraction of what the American public hoped for in some sort of miracle turn around and in some instances, some seriously fucked up shit - Which I guess just goes to show you that once you become President, you're let inside the circle of knowledge of some seriously fucked up shit that keeps you doing the status quo.

Obama Does A Thing...

Obama Does A Thing Towards American Recovery

On Monday we celebrated a holiday created by Unions during a time in America where the job market is only made up with 7% union jobs. So it came to a surprise when Obama decided to announce something huge. I mean, really huge..

WASHINGTON, Sept 6 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama will announce on Monday a six-year plan to revamp the United States' road, railways and runways with a $50 billion up-front investment to jump-start job creation, the White House said.

The plan is one of several several economic initiatives that Obama is due to unveil this week aimed at generating some desperately needed U.S. job growth and limiting predicted Democratic losses in Nov. 2 congressional elections.

Struggling to persuade Americans that his economic policies are working, Obama will use appearances in Milwaukee and Cleveland this week to set the tone for the fall campaign.

The argument he will make on the trips and a rare White House news conference is this: Democratic policies have stopped the bleeding and produced some economic growth. Yes, more needs to be done, but Republicans would bring back ideas, he will argue, that propelled the country into the deepest recession in 70 years.

Obama is to make his case with a speech in Milwaukee to a labor rally on Monday, the Labor Day holiday that marks the informal start of the election campaign season.

The White House did not say how it proposed to pay for the infrastructure plan, but an official said one option under consideration was to close tax breaks for oil and gas companies.

The official said Obama was committed to working with Congress to fully pay for the plan.

Under the six-year plan, Obama is proposing to: - Rebuild 150,000 miles (240,00 km) of roads; - Construct and maintain 4,000 miles (6,400 km) of rail; - Rehabilitate or reconstruct 150 miles (240 km) of runway and modernize the air traffic control system and; - Set up an infrastructure bank to leverage private, state and local capital to invest in projects.

The White House said the bank would end the existing system of spending on infrastructure projects that was based more on "geography and politics than demonstrated value."

So the real question you must have right now is how I'm going to shit on this one.... Look, It's not like I'm trying to shit on things Obama does. I like the dude, I voted for him. But you have to admit that his solutions so far have more than often over looked the real issue and his HOPE and CHANGE has been nothing but more of the same.

But when it came to this announcement I... I was very confused. I really didn't know how to react emotionally to a good thing. It has been as if I was an abused housewife for so long that the gut reaction to lift my arm up to block the hit wasn't even needed. I mean, I know the chances of this being executed in anything remotely sane is a pipe dream, but god bless him for even putting it down on paper. It's more than I was ever hoping for.



In saying all that, I have to ask - Isn't $50 billion a laughable trivial amount of money? Yeah, it's 50 billion more than anyone ever expected us to invest in our infrastructure, but $50 billion is the amount that we blew for "emergency" spending on the Afghan War a few months back, like a week before a similarly-priced bill for unemployment benefits was slashed.

Just a friendly reminder that the Defense budget is still 15 times the size of this proposed idea. This bill would also need to be 10x's this amount to have any meaningful impact on the economy. Even then it's probably way too small.. just saying.

It's a good gesture but I guess the next question to come to mind is why are construction jobs, or jobs peripherally related to construction, the only thing getting attention? I guess they're the focus because they have the added benefit of maintaining and producing badly needed infrastructure in this country. It may not be a specialized skill, but anyone can learn how to pour concrete.

Construction jobs tend to be heavily hit in recessions and because infrastructure is one of the better ways to implement a stimulus package since you're actually getting something out at the end rather than just moving money around to move more money around.

But while I understand the value of infrastructure, I feel like it should attempt to be more comprehensive. But then again, what am I talking about? We'd be lucky if this shit goes anywhere at all.



I do have to say that it's like the coolest possible Alpha Centauri faction logo going on there. Which it better be, because they probably spent a ton of taxpayer money for somebody to design that logo that most people will never see.

It really is lucky that Obama's name starts with an O, he really does incorporate it in a lot of things. Maybe he should start incorporating overt fascist communist and Islamic symbols in his propaganda because he's only a few steps shy of actually doing so. Just imagine W in place as the symbol of programs the government runs, that'll be criticized a lot more than we seem to do for Obama's O's.

I'm wondering how badly the rights going to spin this to make the people it's directly aiding think it's going to kill America with Obama's socialist views.

So it's not tough to see how they'll spin this one as a bad thing. The classic "We can't afford to spend money when we could be giving tax breaks to businesses." route is a default. Republicans always do that. "50 billion dollars on infrastructure?! Wasteful spending. Now, onto the multi-billion dollar bill for the investigation as to whether or not Obamape was born in Kenya."

Don't you see what he's doing? Obama is trying to take your potholes away. Doesn't this remind you of anything?! Like maybe something that happened in GERMAN 1933?!?!?! WAKE UP BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE, AMERICA!



The real question is, what do you do when you're facing financial hardship? When you've got debt piled up and you sit at the dinner table and discuss finances. Do you decide to go spend lots more money that you don't have and dig yourself into bigger debt? Nope. You stop spending money, fix your debt, and then tighten up your belt. The American people get this, they have to do this, why doesn't the Government get it also?

Though I would be all up for expanding our ailing electrical grid and improving network infrastructures so I could game faster with no worries of rolling black outs. I do love that the consideration for where the money will come from is to close tax breaks for oil and gas companies. See, that glimmer of hope in my eye again? Yes, that's an awesome idea and reminds me why I voted for him.

Even if the process of making and setting of concrete is the worst greenhouse gas polluter. Not to mention that all this infrastructure improvement is going toward enabling more motor-vehicle traffic, directly or indirectly. So hey, we're creating more waste but at least we're improving our roads, creating jobs that are better and more useful than census workers and probably will be longer in time span than those as well. So hey, Obama did a thing, a thing that will better tomorrow... either that or just bankrupt us more into China's pocket.

BP is actively Poisoning The Clean Up Crews

BP is actively Poisoning The Clean Up Crews

Remember how I told you that they didn't care about who they poison in the clean up crew. Inmates or anyone else. Well, here's another heart warming story about BP and the clean up crew.

Fishermen hired by BP to help with the oil spill cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico are coming down sick with “severe headaches, dizziness, nausea and difficulty breathing” after working long hours in oil- and dispersant-contaminated waters, according to the Los Angeles Times.

This follows a report we flagged on Tuesday about fishermen coming down sick. This one, done by a New Orleans TV station, told a similar story—fishermen reported feeling “drugged and disoriented,” “coughing up stuff,” and feeling “weak.”

Cleanup workers told the Times that they were not given protective equipment—no gloves, no respirators. Here’s BP’s response on the issue, from the Times piece:

BP spokesman Graham McEwen said Tuesday he was unaware of any health complaints among cleanup workers, noting that the company had taken hundreds of samples of so-called volatile organic carbons, such as benzene, and all the levels were well within federal safety standards.

McEwen said the fishermen the company is training are not being deployed into areas that require respirators or breathing apparatus. Those who are working for BP laying booms or skimming oil are issued protective coveralls and gloves, he said.

Note that in that excerpt, BP said it took samples of the possible health risks to cleanup workers.

It has. But as we’ve pointed out, BP’s not releasing that data to the public, and has shared it only with “legitimate interested parties,” including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. And when OSHA, a federal agency, was asked by McClatchy about releasing the data, it said the data was BP’s, and “not ours to publish.”

Ha! Take that, you poor fucking seamen! What's sandy, smells of death, and is full of dead seaman? The Gulf Coast.

It's adding insult to injury that not only did BP kill the fisherman's way of life, but they are actively trying to kill the fishermen themselves. They were interviewing a bunch of Cajuns on All Things Considered not too long ago and they've basically have resigned themselves to the fact that their lives are completely over.



BP should have acknowledged and alerted those workers that the large amounts of Benzene released by the oil and how it can seriously fuck you up before getting the fishermen to sign a contract to work in cleaning up their mess.

"Those who are working for BP laying booms or skimming oil are issued protective coveralls and gloves, he said."

Ha! What the fuck is this? They might as well advise all their contractors to hold their breath as long as possible in this situation. How much do you want to bet that the contract they signed in a hurry to get even a semblance of their life back and make some money is filled with a lot of small print that prevents them from suing BP.

This whole event is like the radioactive deaths at Chernobyl, but from easily preventable causes of $20 dollar facemasks. And even then, the workers that BP is actively giving respiratory diseases to aren't actually doing anything significant to help in the cleanup anyway. Raking some oil off a beach isn't going to do much and also the booming they're doing is absolutely worthless because they don't know how to fucking boom. It's all just a farce to save face and look good in front of a camera.



Crude oil is full of Benzene and PAHs which are both very bad for your health if you don't want cancer! not to mention whatever the fuck chemicals (it's a secret) are in the Corexit dispersant that BP has pumped the Gulf full of. So basically, Louisiana is like that L4D2 level now. Though one would wonder if it was like that long before the spill.

How do you like these bananas. During the 2008 election cycle, individuals and political action committees associated with BP - a Center for responsive politics' "heavy hitter" - contribute half a million dollars to federal candidates. About 40 percent of these donations went to Democrats. The top recipient of BP-related donations during the 2008 cycle was President Barack Obama himself, who collected $71,000. So in a sense, third world leaders get bought out for far more than our nations leader.

The whole idea that we have any cap limit on damages is also stupid as fuck. It is absolutely absurd for compensatory damages to ever be capped. Punitive damages, fine. But compensatory damages is just paying to clean up the mess you actually made. How fucking hard is that?