He's back

Back in full glory. You may kiss the ring now. I think I have all the bugs worked out so it's on with the circus.

Let us stop for a moment and analyze  the analysis of the break down of the recap then we can all comment on it after the summary wash rinse and repeat. We're to the point of seeing more angles then a dodecahedron. I didn't know and don't really care about the minutest of details that only a microscope could reveal. And when all else fails which it usually does we'll just throw in some conspiracy to spice things up even though none is to be found. But they just can't leave a leaf unturned.

So we end up with 57 channels and the same things on. Must upgrade, it's now 657 channels. What's next? The grass grow channel? Watch as head gardener attempts to do battle with the elusive slugs. Will he be able to deal with the crap grass? Gripping drama so tune in or catch us on facebook.

The CES (consumer electronic show) solving problems you never knew you had. My god you only needs four or five buttons on the remote. Anything else is a waste. And next they'll have an app to remind you to pee. Older demographics and all. What's the ultimate ultra super duper bells and whistles gizmo to out do them all? Maybe a mind reading doo dad that will do some function even before you thought of it.  I can almost see the future of man now sitting there in the ultra ergonomic self adjusting comfy couch in all his obeseness waiting for the infusion of dream inducing elixir. But no waiting, for the House Nanny knows all needs. Chuck the remote and dump the reminder book. You can sit and wallow in your own juices. No need for cheat sheets, ideas will be magically injected into the gray matter as the girth of America's middle section advances. And should there be a need for labour manual there's enough foreign imports to cover that. And maybe just maybe lyposuction can be our new source of oil with an endless supply. Think about that for a moment.  

Post label: Being my snarky self

Grrrr!

Test test test. This is only a test. Had it been an actual emergency I would have ignored you while I ran for cover. CYOA as it goes. No skin off my nose.

Seriously the computer of 10+ years gave out today but you can't keep a good dog down as I have friends in low places with connections. So with a wink of an eye and a twitch of the nose this thing is back up and running but for how long is anyone's guess. The hard drive went limp and they don't make viagra for those kinds of things. So we'll see or not.  It matters not that things wear out but to have to reinstall reboot rinse and repeat will still take some time. And that's not to speak of all the passwords long forgotten (who writes those things down on paper you might lose it). I'm as lazy as the next guy and never sign out. Word verify? Pffft! So bear (or is it bare?) with me while I try and get the furniture off the roof and back in it's proper place. Thought everything would be as I left it only the cookie jar got dashed to pieces and this beast has amnesia.
Bookmarks! bookmarks! My kingdom for my bookmarks!

Ready for the big freeze round two?

Not talking about weather here. We see what's happening to Greece, Spain and Italy with their economic situations. Unable to cover their debts they were able to borrow a good chunk of change just to tread water. Those loans came at a price with strings attached like sucking the life blood out of their citizens with austerity like we've never seen it before.

Who's next on this train wreck of economic activity you may ask? Britain has been in the process of trimming its' budget on the backs of working folks as well. Just yesterday it all but eliminated a program similar to our child care credit. That's were if you have a child living with you you get a tax break if your income is at a certain level. A bit over the poverty line from what I can gather.

We must remember however that literally none of the rules of this casino game have changed since it happened in 2008. They might have come up with the Dodd - Frank bill to change the game but it has yet to be in full force. I guess when you're a bank you can tell the police to wait until your finished cleaning out the vault of all or most of the cash.

What else is happening or has happened in just the past few years to lay yet more burden on the populace? The list is long but gone mostly unnoticed as the frog is slowly boiled. Public transportation has taken a big hit. You will note that fares have doubled in just the last few years. It is now cheaper to drive a car than take a bus here and that's with parking rates that have doubled as well. You see a pattern here? All the while wages have gone down overall as laid off workers who once made a decent living are now forced to get by on half what they once made.

But this is about the pending freeze that's about to hit. From reading the tea leaves it looks like March will be a critical month. While world banks play their smoke and mirrors games the average peon is near a freeze as well. They've been stashing cash and buying gold like never before. Remember those jolly Christmas sales figures? Well they weren't so jolly after all. This is all about leverage and how damaging that can be in the long run. It's simple to understand really. You buy a house and gain some equity. You use that equity to buy an additional house and rent it out and do the same with the rental. All well and good until a tenant trashes the place or skips on the rent. Oh but you say you can sues for damages and get back your losses. Not until you've gone through the maze of the legal system which can take months. In the mean time who pays the mortgage? You get stuck with it and your nice rental empire comes crashing down. Such is the pitfalls of leverage.

So with banks being tight fisted, they want to know the last time you scratched your butt in order to get a mortgage, consumers not spending, and business barely hiring or spending, we have a government who won't spend in areas that might help without draconian cuts to other programs. All of this is happening on a global scale. Taxes may not go up but the fees and cuts to the poor and middle class just keep coming.

The economic turmoil that started in the U.S. in 2008 spread like a wave to the European markets. We as well as the European Central Bank pumped trillions of imaginary money into the system in order to keep the game going. And like the renters in the example we (those at the bottom) have no way to pay it all back or even make payments. The can here has been kicked to March. It's also a time for payments on debts in other countries. So you can see clearly what will happen. The bad paper that was sold before 2008 is still being sold. The hedges against losses are still being bought. And the insurance for those losses is still underfunded. You get the picture now? And a rather chilly one at that.        

Bits and pieces news you can't use

This is the great white north - Canada  brrrrrr!

 Truly odd world weather we're having. In China they've had the coldest average weather in 28 years and one region broke a 43 year record with temperatures at -40 F. And here's an odd little fact -40 F. is also -40 C.

And while the folks in China are freezing their gongs off the folks down in the Tasmania area of Australia are in the frying pan with temperatures of 105 F and are fighting fires.

Over on this side of the world Atlantic Canada got hit with about 18 inches of snow a week ago (photo above). For us on the northern U.S. west coast it's been rain rain and more rain with a cold sunny day thrown in here and there. We're ahead of the average by 11 inches, lucky us. As we say, " at least you don't have to shovel it".

A bank in Switzerland had to fold after getting a rather large fine from the U.S. government over tax evasion (Hope Mitt moved his money before this broke). Wegelin bank was fined $57.8 million for its' misdeeds. But the IRS is looking into others as well. Their biggest catch may be Credit Swiss which has some $2 trillion in holdings. Now if we could just catch those mortgage fraudsters who tanked our economy... Oh that's right their the same people with the Swiss accounts soon to be Cayman accounts.

Lastly we have the wonderful "clean up" job at Fukushima. The above photo shows a supervisor kicking contaminated leaves into a creek. The companies doing the clean up were told to take readings before and after their work by the state environmental office according to the contract. Nothing like sweeping things under the rug or in this case down the river. I did some research and there actually is a way to neutralize these contaminants but it involves quit a bit of work. Guess profits come before human life as always. Can somebody lend me a paddle? Oh never mind I don't have a boat.

Friday pussy mish mash

Mish mash. Just as I figured there's a group by that name. At any rate in my attempt to at world domination of friday beavers and pussies I now discover that I have slipped to third place with the beavers and not even placed with the pussies. Oh well such is life. Maybe I'll have to shift to boobies next although a certain Pygalgia has a corner on that market (see right hand links column).

Oil rigs. Dangerous places to work under the best of conditions. And now they want to drill in the arctic under the harshest of conditions. They say the rig that went aground can withstand gale force winds blah blah blah. I say horse hockey. Unless they build it like the great pyramids it's going to break. Reports are that the fuel tanks on this rig are "sucking and blowing" what every that is supposed to mean. Sounds to me like it already has a leak. And nothing smarter than trying to move a rig in December. But fear not they're practicing their excuses as we speak. Now who to blame it on?

Glad to report that I helped a gal get into college yesterday. She was having trouble with her financial aid so I told her to get in touch with the college ombudsman. (Ha! I always though that was the guy in charge of beer). It turned out that that position was vacant at the moment (figures) but I was able to track down the right person who could help her. She called and they got everything straightened out. Amazing what you can do on the web. She lives in Montana and I'm in Washington state.

Speaking of my own situation I may have something lined up employment wise (fingers crossed) for the new year. I sure have enough qualifications. I could fill an entire binder (oops did I say that?) with what I know. Now if I could just remember it all.

Bank fails later as usual...

What an A hole

Boner and the rest of his clown circus must have been too busy getting over the New Years' hangovers to bother with the little people up in New York and New Jersey. Thank god they aren't firemen or grandma, the kids and they family cat would be burned to a crisp by now. I don't have all the stats but several thousand homes and the same amount of businesses were wiped out in this storm Sandy. People have no place to go and can't even begin to rebuild until federal backing is put in place. Guess Johnnie boy is too busy finishing another bottle of Merlot to be bothered.

 I was talking to the folks up there the other day when the Occupy movement (remember them) was doing a neighborhood walk about and interviewing the victims of this storm. Here's the low down that lame stream media isn't reporting. After repeated calls begging for help, any kind of help, a homeowner was told that they will receive a whopping $31,000 to rebuild or repair their home. They showed us the interiors of their homes which if they're still standing have been gutted by volunteers. Basically they are empty shells with no furniture walls ceilings and in some cases floors. I've been in the construction field for quit a few years and I can tell you that $31K wouldn't begin to cover that kind of loss especially in New York. Many of the homes have what's considered a basement on the first floor with an adjoining garage and that area is not covered by insurance. Some folks were lucky enough to get $1200 for temporary housing to cover two months rent. Except that rents there for one month are well beyond that. Most have moved in with relatives sleeping on couches if they're lucky enough to have them nearby. And remember it's been 61 days already since this storm hit so now what do they do?

No biggy though Bonehead has set a congressional vote on the issue for tomorrow that is if his own party doesn't filibuster it which is a possibility. That's how crazy the Tea Baggers are you know. You can just about bet how this will work out. The adjusters, inspectors, and insurance companies will make off with a lions' share of the billions promised. Enough homeowners will get so fed up that they'll give up. Facing foreclosure (remember the mortgages still have to be paid) they'll file for bankruptcy and the bank will take the property. And unless the city has laws about abandoned structures the bank will let the piles of wrecked homes sit there becoming a rats nest. Eventually developers will buy the land and throw up over priced condominiums, but not until the other vultures of finance have picked the bones clean.

Can meet foot

It's amazing how much money we waste in this country. We think of what's truly important then go ahead and ignore it to focus on the trivial. Two things come to mind when we throw money down the black hole of the unneeded, the hour or so of visual entertainment they call the "Rose Parade". Months are spent planning and gathering just the right materials and man power to produce a rolling gawdy  mobile complete with driver, engine, lights, bells and whistles for a trip down Pasadena's boulevards to be seen for a whopping thirty seconds at best. Last I heard one float can run $50,000 to $300,000 and multiply that by the dozens. And can you recall what any of these floats were promoting? Thought not.

The other worthless expenditure might be pet toys and specialty diets for Fido. There, over a billion dollars is flushed so that pooch can wear a fur trimmed sweater this winter or eat only the finest of cuisines all the while a war vet is eating out of a dumpster. Gad do we have our priorities screwed up or what?!  And then there's things like "Honey Boo Boo". They got the last part of that right. A family scrapes by scrounges and saves so that some bratty kid can look like a star. "Enjoy that one while it lasts momma because in just a few years your "baby" will be tipping the scales just like you if she doesn't break them first. "

And what about our lazy congress? Did it act in a sensible manner laboriously forging out a plan to "fix" our economy? It did not. Instead like a school kid who's term paper was due Monday morning it waited until the midnight hour to slap together something anything to appease a waiting teacher. Even while America waited with baited breath these guys were busy passing other less important legislation. They passed two conformations as well as naming a post office before the really important issue came up. Nothing like playing a few rounds of Nantendo before getting down to the real work eh?

Did they tackle the heart of our current problems? Of course they didn't. Like the school kid they told the teacher Fido ate part of the assignment and they'd need another two months to complete it. Even then this is going to be an ugly piece of work. This is about a battle between austerity and doing what's right. We can no more pay off the national debt in a few short years than anyone could pay off their mortgage. You can't cut off your nose to spite your face. While the middle and lower class might not pay much in taxes individually they are the backbone of the economy. Without their spending we would have very little economic activity. 

Pat yourselves on the back for now senators and house members but two months is a very short time and the can won't hold up forever.