A Halloween trick from Bush

George W. never fails to amaze me how stupid he is. In a final push to finish off our once fine country, Georgie wasn't satisfied with ruining our financial system with deregulation he now appears to be setting us up for a scorched earth policy. In the final months of his failed presidency he's pushing for the deregulation of our environmental laws. We saw what a wonderful job he did to our banking and stock markets. Some 90 laws and regulations are being pushed to make our air dirtier our water less drinkable and of course this will mean more $$$ for big business. I can only hope now that the Democrats gain a supermajority that's fillibuster proof and that they can march lock step for the benefit of all Americans. If we poison the planet where will we live?

No treats only tricks

Watch out if this guy shows up at your door tonight

Hide your candy, lock up your wallet, have the kids hide in the closet, sic the dog on him and if all else fails hold up your "I voted for Obama" sign.

Friday Beaver a wet one this time

Joe the Homeless stopped by last night to say FU to all those CEOs. I'm with you on that one Joe. Rob a company and walk away with millions. Rob a bank for a few grand and get sent up for a long prison term. Who says the pen isn't mightier than the gun?

Some random things

You've heard all the hoopla about Joe the Plumber. Well we on the other side have an answer to him it's Joe the Homeless and he now has his own blog.

Meet Joe

The outright lies of Sarah Palin:

Mrs. I'm against socialism

$14 billion in one quarter is just not enough profit for Exxon Mobile so Mc$ain wants to give them $4 billion more. Yeah John that'll create more jobs for the bean counters maybe.

GDP is at -0.3% for the 3rd quarter and I wouldn't expect much of an uptick for the 4th quarter. 09 is looking like it will be a very bad year unless there is a very large bail out for main street. 70% of our economy is run by consumer spending and it is now at a 28 year low.

Governors of six states want the treasury to bail out the automakers. Hey why don't you ask Bush for the money back on the tax breaks he gave to companies that bought SUVs a few years ago.

Japan has just come out with a $275 billion bailout for their people on main street. Looks like they are taking care of their own unlike Bush/McCain.

More items later

Update:
I just heard that the banks that were bailed out with OUR money are planning to give their execs an average $625,000 bonus for this years wonderful performance (snark intended). I've got some news for them. Next month I'm pulling all of my money out of one of their "failed" banks and moving it to a credit union.
The response from congress about this " We thought they'd do the right thing".

Some cats for Obama

A little trivia

I'll bet you didn't know who these people are.

Gloria La Riva
Eugene Puryear
James Harris
Alyson Kennedy
Cynthia McKinney
Rosa Clemente

Give up? Answers in the comments

In keeping with an ongoing theme

I see the stock market it up by 889 today. Before you get out the bubbly and start singing "happy days are here again" remember this is only the start of something bad. All of the lay offs haven't happened. Retailers are not expecting hiring increases for the holidays and the foreclosures and resets are no where near begun. As I said in yesterdays post this is merely an opportunity for savvy investors to dump their bad paper. And the word from the white house is " lend damn it lend". The only problem is to who? Who wants to borrow when they're up to their eyeballs in debt, afraid of job loss and struggling to make the mortgage? Even with gas prices coming down the cost is still high and food prices are climbing.

We now have McCain calling for the head of Ted Stevens. Humm wasn't Ted one of Palin's best buds up there in Mooseland?
Then we have our local issues with a certain candidate for governor. Seems Republican Dino Rossi was directing campaign funds his way from a building industry association. This wouldn't have come up had it not been for some documents with his signature on it as being the main man in charge of directing funds. Rossi denies all of this but everything that's come out of his mouth has been proven a lie by document or video during his debate with his opponent. I just wonder if any charges can be filed when it comes out that he used over $6 million in illegal campaign funds.

I can only wonder what other surprises are in store in the next 7 days. A resignation, another sex scandal, a candidate dies of natural causes or heart attack? Only time will tell. So keep your eyes peeled but ignore the negative ads they're getting boring anyway.

Looking through the archives

I recall moving some funds awhile back to a safer place but couldn't remember exactly when until I read an old post. It was way back in October of 2006 that I saw the beginnings of the current mess we're experiencing. The easy way to do this is to check the financial gurus and look at a general consensus of what they think. You'll always have those guys that are touting that things are great and you should buy buy buy. General consensus says otherwise. This is going to be a down economy for a year to 18 months. That is because we went to high to fast and the debt that's been racked up is still not been addressed. You may or may not know that not one nickel of that $700 billion has been spent. It's only promised with no real plan in place for it's implementation.

Feb 2007

That promise of big bucks was enough to make the markets rise enough so that those who were stuck with shorts could dump them before the toilet flushed and they'd be stuck with worthless paper. It worked and while the MSM gurus were telling everybody to hang on and wait out the storm, the guys with the shorts were making a killing. An estimated $2 trillion dollars was sucked out of the market and retirement savings when this happened. Sadly there will be more foreclosures, lay offs, and market losses in the coming year. Then there'll be the issue of inflation but I won't go there just yet.

The Bush depression

Depressions are well, depressing. I don't make this stuff up folks I just report it as it comes in. The speculators were kind enough not to let us see $200 a barrel oil, but we're just at the beginning of the economic mess. Our dear leader Mr. "I never saw a free unregulated market I didn't like" and his cronies have really done a number on us. And even now the rally cry from the right is cut taxes for the rich it will create more jobs. Well I'm here to tell you that will not work. It didn't work for Raygun and it truely won't work now. As I've said before inbalances are the cause of all problems, but our present situation is mulit - fold. With the lack of regulation (Thank you Mr. Bush and friends) greed went rampant ignoring the facts and fundamentals of the markets. Now the piper must be paid and the bill is a heafty one. In just one year the market has dropped 6000 points and we're just at the start of the nightmare. The scarey part is yet to come. We saw how well the bail out of wall street is working. That only got them partially liquid. There's still a ton of bad paper out there with little to no value that's been spread world wide. So what's next you ask?

Corporations having losses will lay off workers which in turn will create more losses as nobody buys and the cycle will continue. But that's not the really scarey part. You might want to hide your eyes for this. As farmers don't make enough money for their crops (remember commodities have dropped like a stone over the last few months) they'll be unable to pay their bills. Unfortunately this time around Willie Nelson won't be able to Farm Aid them out of it because the middle class is strapped for cash and loosing their homes as well. Fewer farms equals less food and higher prices (you recall supply and demand). But the real victims in the grand scheme of this will be people in other countries surviving on $2.50 a day and countries like Mexico where the average is $5 a day.

Starvation

It's estimated that some 8 million people died during the years following 1929.

How do we get out of this mess? We only have two options. Either we let the whole thing collapse and start over. I doubt that will happen as the rich will do anything to protect what they have or we start some major aid programs like FDR and rebuild this nation. I'd say start with farming and work our way from there. You can't work on an empty stomach.

Nothing like shooting yourself in both feet

A little foot in mouth problem Michele?

The tactic of divide and conquer has worked for thousands of years with great results. The only problem? It doesn't work when you're trying to run for office and trying to get everybody on board to your way of thinking. To ramble on about how one group is somehow worst than another will sneak up on you and bite you... well you know. That's exactly what's happened in case of Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann who went on a rant calling some "anti American". Does this woman have a clue as to how to win friends and influence people? Oops I was tempted to throw in a blonde joke there but that wouldn't be right. The result of Ms. Bachmann's blathering was her opponent raising over $1 million in just a few days. Too late now Michele the damage has been done no muligans here. The us against them mentality is slowly loosing favor even though it's being used on a grand scale in state and local elections. While we're on the subject of elections let me add some important information here.
Diebold is at it again. Remember those wonderful voting machines that could easily be hacked in the last two elections. In spite of spending millions to try and fix the problem the machines in W.Va are registering votes for McCain when the Obama button is touched. When challenged about the vote voters were told too bad the vote is in the machine and there's no way to check it.
If I've said this once this election season I'll say it a million times or more, ask for a paper ballot! It is your right. And if there is any doubt about the outcome of the election demand a hand recount. With all the BS the republicans and their cronies have given us the last eight years it's time to stand up and put and end to it. They stole two elections already. Let's not let them steal a third.

The mess we're in

Just thinking about a way out of the current financial situation. They've thrown a small ton of money at the banks to try and prop them up. This seems to have only prevented more runs on banks. We've seen investors move a lot of money from stocks to bonds and cds. If you didn't do that last year or at least this past spring then you missed the boat it's too late now. They still aren't even beginning to undue the mortgage mess. I'm only now seeing banks start to offer refinancing but from what I hear people with good credit are being turned down. And of course we now have the late night get rich quick in real estate gurus crawling out from every rock. Then there's the "we can get your debt erased" scams out there.
Okay I did a little research. On refinancing go to your bank and see if they will make you a deal. If they can't help try a credit union. If the credit union can't help you're probably out of luck. If you're facing bankruptcy go find a lawyer who deals with that. It will save you many headaches in the long run. I was also looking at the prices of foreclosures. The prices aren't pennies on the dollar like some would have you believe. The cheapest one I could find was listed to go for a minimum bid of $65K and you'd only need to put a couple of hundred thousand to get it up to livable.
It's interesting to note that back in the eighties a two bedroom apartment in downtown Tokyo went for $2 million. After their bubble burst it took about ten years to get back to realistic prices. As I see it we have a very small window to really change things before other factors start to kick in that will make the present situation look like a party. That would be the Ponzi scheme called Social Security for one and Medicare.
So what to do? A New New Deal to start rebuilding the infrastructure, fix healthcare, retirement and changes in education. A large push for renewable energy would do wonders for the bottom line and the pay off would be fairly short. I realize this will cost in the tens of trillions of dollars but consider the alternative. And for those who say this is socialist and all that, I say who cares? The results would be the same no matter what name you put on it and it would benefit everybody. Remember when we had one phone company and it actually worked quite well and it was cheap too?

Yahoo

Yahoo it appears has shot themselves in both feet. In an attempt to jazz up their site and make it more like a dashboard they totally botched it. If you're lucky enough to even have their front page load without that annoying can not contact the server message you can click on the news link and wait and wait. When the page finally comes up you'll notice that the photos didn't load and the information is spread across the screen. I've tried this on both Mac and Windows machines with the same results. What was once easy to scan article headlines have been spread out and the numbers cut. Going to the feedback at the bottom of the page it was reported that more than 10,000 complaints have been filed. If I didn't know better I'd say Yahoo was trying to poison themselves to avoid a Microsoft take over. All I know is they better get busy and fix things or they won't have any revenue stream.

Friday beaver delayed their getting ready for winter you know

Not much to post lately. The election here is turning into a three ring circus with back to back to back campaign ads. There's so much mud being flung here we could hold dirt bike races on the main highways. Our governor is being blamed for everything from the national budget to dead puppies in the road. Her challenger however has done some not so nice things in the past like lowering unemployment benefits that didn't even make it into the ads. This as$%#@ wants to lower the minimum wage. He said so in the debate and now says he never said it. Sorry Dino you're a lying thieving cheating piece of %#$@ .
So here we sit like expectant parents waiting for the rebirth of democracy while our country goes up in flames. And out of the ashes will emerge a new nation. I expect a cross between capitalism and socialism to rise out of this mess. For those of you who don't like the idea I'm sure Harmid Karzi would more than welcome you to help him start a new country with slave wages and an opressive theocracy. You'll just have to convert them when you get there. Think of the opportunities. You could corner the market on concrete and opium production.

So like they say in the south y'all have a good day now.

McCain thinks he won

Intrade numbers

Obama 83.9

McCain 16.3

Intrade numbers are shares in the candidates that are bought and sold on an open market. Want to check the latest?

Intrade

Sorry John it's over. Wake up and have Cindy take you home.

Layoffs

I was looking at the employment picture last night and I have to say it's not looking good. Between housing and spending that is cutting into state and city revenues I'm seeing layoffs of 20, 30 and up to 190 at the city and state level. With corporations it's far worse. Auto plants shutting, airlines cutting back and of course construction that was the first to evaporate jobs months ago. The only bright spot was energy but with the lack of demand it is slipping as well. Mining another bright area is slipping as commodity prices fell.
Around here (Washington state) things aren't looking too well either. Usually the washington economy is the last in on a recession and the last out. Factors changed this time around. Boeing went on strike which affected the local economy. It's estimated that at least two jobs here are tied to each Boeing worker. Starbucks located here has been laying off and closing stores although I can't understand their business model as we have something like six of their stands or stores in a two mile stretch of road. That's on top of five or six other brands of latte stands.
So what's going to happen. There's no way this is going to turn around any time soon. As companies face lowered earnings they will continue their layoffs which in turn will lower spending and as we know 70% of our economy is made up of consumer spending. Expect even more layoffs next year and companies and banks to go under. What about the BIG bailout you say? That didn't put dent in the fundamentals of the problem. Look for big mergers as companies try to survive. We will need a new New Deal to get us out of this mess and it will be far more costly than what FDR came up with but consider the alternative. It will be a great opportunity to fix many of the problems facing this nation. An infrastructure that's fallen apart just look at our bridges, roads and power supply systems to get an idea.

McCain - Wrong again

To call John McCain a maverick is about as far from the truth as one can get. For those who compare him to Bush here's proof positive John is following exactly in Georgie's foot steps. McCain wants to cut the rates on retirement withdrawls that would affect mainly about 3% of seniors. He wants to give capital gains cuts. Hmmm anybody seen any gains lately? McCain is back to the trickle down policys of Reagan combined with the corporate welfare of Bush. This is the same trickle down policy Reagan tried in the early 80s. The going joke then was that money trickled down from the Gettys to the Rockefellers. In todays terms that would be from the Gates to the Buffets. I see no difference in what Reagan did then to what McCain wants to do now. It's just more money to the rich and it didn't work then and it won't work now. So let's send John back to the retirement home in Arizona give him some warm milk and put him to bed. It's time to rebuild this country we don't need any more of these failed ideas.

McCain's economic plan

Hold on a minute

Before you pop the cork on that bottle of Dom stop to remember that the fundamentals have not changed one iota. We're still in debt up to our eyeballs and nothing has changed other than world leaders pulling out the credit card and saying help yourself. I've said it once and I'll keep saying it until somebody starts listening " you can not borrow your way out of debt".
Like a teenager in debt who's finally hit the magic drinking age goes out with his first credit card forgets his debts and spends like there's no tomorrow. Then that statement comes and with bleary eyes and a screaming headache Jr. opens the bill and realizes he'll have to work thirty years or more to pay this back if he's lucky.
I've heard nothing of the details on the international bail out other than nations will buy shares of banks and try to back deposits. Sounds like they're just trying to cover their own asses on this. Nothing in the bail out says anything about the bad debt or mortgages both here or abroad. Sadly in the long run we'll just have to eat it. Like a hundred bucks you lent to the drunk teenager just kiss it goodbye.

Friday news dump 10/10/08

A lot of stuff going on trying to go unnoticed at the end of the week. Helicopter Ben is dumping money into the economy like we were Haliburton in Iraq. While corporations are praying we spend money we don't have this holiday season, uncle Ben has been trying to grease the wheels of the banking sector. His rally cry "Lend damn it lend!!" Had the wall street swat team not stepped in at the end of trading Friday the market would have been down 1000 points at the end of trading. Geez do these guys ever run out of money? Banks seem to be playing a big game of musical chairs only some of the chairs are wired with C4.

John McCain has to back peddle after working his followers into such a frenzy that they shout "Kill Obama". Wonderful and civilized base you've got there John. Now the secret service has to work overtime. Can we send you the bill?

Caribou Barbie gets caught in her lies so what does she do? Issues a statement saying it's all lies. Sorry babe this was a bipartisan panel of the legislature that came to the conclusion. Gee you really must have pissed off your own party on this one. Oh that's right you do all those "mavericky" things I forgot.

GM is in talks to take over Chrysler. You know what that means? More lay offs and an even larger company to bail out later. How are those electric cars that nobody will be able to afford coming along? Anybody seen Lee?

Anybody want to buy a country real cheap? I hear Iceland's for sale. And at the rate America is going we can change our name to the United Socialist States of America. That's got a ring to it USSA like it USSA to be a capitalist country. Welcome to the new era comrade. Gee weren't commies blackballed? What a difference 50 years makes. Hey maybe we could get this socialism thing right. Naaah that's just wishful thinking.

N Korea is now being taken off the axis of evil list and the US will be talking to them. What happened to "we don't negotiate or talk to terrrrists"? My guess. They now have enough nukes to do some serious damage to this country so we better get friendly with them.

Oh darn I missed my Friday beaver spot. There's a beaver shortage out there you know. Save the beavers and the boobies too. Which leads me to:

Last but not least our government is now officially spying on all citizens, intercepting all phone calls. So be careful what you say. They especially love those sexy phone calls. So if you want an instant audience just talk dirty. Hey quit listening in ya perverts!

A republican plan for the current economic mess

Buy Damn it Buy!!!



Hat tip to Frankodelic

Beware of voter registration tricks

My BS meter is starting to run on high. Six states have purged voters from their rolls even though this may be illegal. Several states require that purging can not be done less than 90 days before an election. We saw that happen here in our state after the last election. The only problem with that one was that the rethuglicans purged many of their own legally registered voters.

Voter purge

It's all a matter of balance

Another lesson in the way nature works and affects our lives. Some call it nature some spirit some god it doesn't matter the results are exactly the same. Nature is always slightly out of balance. That's what causes anything to get done. People are hungry they seek food. They want shelter they build or buy a house or rent. As I've pointed out before when the balance gets too far out of wack problems result. Now I can't wave a magic wand and have all your financial problems go away but I can tell you some of the rules of thumb that have been used for the last 60 years that got our parents and grandparents through life. It's all based on averages and percentages. Once you know these facts you'll have a very good idea of where you stand financially at any given time.

How much can I spend on:

The most important expense before you spend on nickle on a budget is savings 10% minimum 15% or more if you can afford it.
1. Rent/housing 25 -30% of gross monthly income - Some financial books say up to 50%. I find that too high. I like to think of using 25% of your monthly take home pay or about a weeks pay.
2. Food 10 - 14% weekly net
3.Transportation 20%
4. Electricity 7%
5. Entertainment 5%
6. Misc 3%

It's very important if you have a job in which your income changes on a regular basis to start a savings even if you don't plan to invest it as it grows. Call this additude money and don't touch it. As it grows you can borrow against it giving you a lower interest rate and a better credit score.
When you borrow money try to get the shortest payback period you possibly can. A car loan at five or six years will kill you in the long run. First the car looses 10% in value when you drive it off the lot. Second as you continue paying for it the value continues to drop until you land upside down in the loan. That means you'll owe far more than you could ever hope to get for the car if you had to sell it. Leases are definitely not the way to go either even though the up front costs might seem great. You land up going over the set milage and have to pay some times .25 cents a mile plus a residual (that's what the dealer considers the remainder of the value of the car) when you go to turn in the car at the end of the lease. Leases have become such money loosers with both the dealer and the consumer that most car companies are dropping them all together.
I try to pay off all things like TVs, appliances, and small items like that within three months. I never take an extended warranty on any of this. Most appliances break down if they weren't made right in the first 90 days and most come with a 90 day warranty. Most extended waranties are a rip off anyway. They always seem to have a way out of paying for repairs at a cost of nearly the price of what you've bought. Always check out product reviews by regular people. You'll find out what to look out for before making a purchasing mistake. As far as appliances go simplier is better. Less to go wrong. I bought a coffee maker once with a lot of bells and whistles only to find out by reading the reviews that it would crap out and it did in one year. So I bought a simpler one that I've had for five years with no problems. I have a microwave that's over 10 years old now and wasn't suposed to last 5 or 6 and it was fairly cheap.

So I guess the basics of this economics lesson is to spend less than you make and to do that, save first, pay bills after.

Now let's sit back and watch the empire collapse.

I told you so

First I'd like to thank Tengrain and Utah Savage for stopping by. I'll add you to the side bar when I get the chance.

I hate to say this but the Monkeyfister and I had predicted the current mess last fall. The Monk was smart enough to plant food in a fairly large garden over the spring and summer. I only wish I could have done the same but was limited by space time and a replacement job to a back deck. All I could do is try and save as much as I could in preperation and of course pay off all the bills. It hasn't been easy in that what I do is tied to housing and construction. I've been out for 10 months now with no real prospects, but since I knew this was going to happen I was better prepared mentally to deal with the situation. I'd say that if there isn't some type of major New Deal coming soon that the present situation will continue for well over a year or more. It's a vicious cycle. Companies won't be making money hence will be laying off workers which will cause people to spend less and the cycle will continue. I saw this in the 80s but that situation was a bit different. Back then taxes were cut but so was spending so there wasn't a massive $11+ trillion in debt hanging over our heads so the recession didn't last as long. Back then there were safety nets, fairly full food banks and Community action programs. Now food banks are nearly empty and the CAPs are gone. You might get help from the electric co. but that seems to be about all.
So what do we do now? All we can do is wait and see what happens, keep an eye out for any job opportunity, and of course cut back on spending. Welcome to the Bush depression of 08.

Excesses bubbles and busts

Nature prevails in all that we do it's just that many times we're too stupid or blind to see it. A few examples: If there's too much rain we get floods. Too much sun we get draught. Too many people rushing to start a business on the internet we get a dot com bust. Too many people flipping houses and people buying what they can't afford we get a housing bust. Too much borrowed money we get bankruptcy.
What goes around comes around and the higher the stakes the harder the fall. With grandiose plans the mukey mucks in Dubai built the next wonder of the world. A multi island oasis with homes only the top of industry could afford all financed with petro dollars from around the world. But the plan hit it's zenith it's tipping point when fuel prices and home values in other countries hit there max and the money could not be paid back and the fuel prices ate into budgets. Nature is taking her revenge and what was once a party atmosphere of excesses will soon shift to the other extreme. It's all a matter of balance you know. Too much power, wealth, money or food at one time never works in the long run. Nature will always win.

Dubai

We interupt this friday beaver for the following

Bahahahahaha you fell for it again! Why da ya think they call it CONgress?

Somebody's lying to us

I did a little research. First I checked out our (U.S.) money supply. This is listed as M1, M2, and M3 which is a listings of money like cash in the bank, savings, certificates and other combinations of monitary assets. I noticed that there has been an increase in the supply of money nearly every month for the last year and a half. But I was really wondering how much money that the Fed was pumping into our economy.
I came across some basic articles

Slate

Last week our government pumped over $600 billion into the foreign markets in an effort to stabalize their situation. Remember they financed a bunch of this toxic paper and are stuck with it as well.

$600 billion

The Fed last summer pumped some $62 billion into our economy in order to keep things going. This move was before the emergency weekend rate cut. This whole economy for quite some time has been running on borrowed money only the money is running out. The markets are awash in money but the problem is that no bank or investment house wants to lend because they are as afraid like you would be to lend to a deadbeat relative. Nobody wants to be stuck in the event the borrowing bank pulls a Bear Sterns or WaMu.

Now we have the bailout or should I say the greatest theft in U.S. history. I haven't read the full text yet but if these were better times I'd say this thing would look like a christmas tree to surpass "It's a Wonderful Life" now standing tall at $850 billion. And this is only a spit in a bucket in terms of the extent of the entire problem. I'm sorry but at some point you have to let it go or like a junker car you were hoping to fix we're just throwing good borrowed money after bad. And there's no way this money could ever be paid back. How's that stimulous check working for you? I hope you saved it because the government wants it back and then some.

Update: Looks like our congress critters like druggies that they are are getting another fix of cash of our money. This however won't satisfy their need for more later. This is crisis management at its worst and it won't get better anytime soon because like oil nobody seems to want to change the addiction or the addicts.

Where do we go from here

Trying to get a handle on the economic situation I came upon this article that gives a look into the future. It's my position that this problem is so big that it's going to take some time before things turn around. Somebody had the foresight to check out the safe business and discovered that home safes are selling in record numbers in spite of assurances about FDIC.

What now

Hat tip to clusterstock

P.S. The whores of wall street will be lining up shortly to give payback for the fun night they had with congress at our expense. Now if we could just figure out such a scam we could all retire early.

Here's a thought

What if we actually had to go to a bank to get this $700 billion loan. What do you think they'd say?

Congress: We'd like to see a loan officer.
Teller: Okay step over to that desk over there.
Congress: Hi, we're representing George W. Bush and he wants to borrow some money.
Loan officer: Okay, what's the size of the loan and for how long?
Congress: Well he's not exactly sure about the amount. He thought about starting with $700 billion and then see if he needs more.
Loan officer: Let me pull up his credit file and see what we can do.
(Loan officer typing on computer)
Loan officer: Well this doesn't look very good. It says he already has outstanding debts of over $9 trillion and by the looks of it last week he took out a loan for over $600 billion. And it says here he's spending $10 billion a month in Iraq. Does he have much in the way of income or assets?
Congress: He does have income from GDP.
Loan officer: And how much would that be?
Congress: Around $9 trillion.
Loan officer: How about assets?
Congress: Well he has these notes but he's not really sure what they're worth because their value has dropped.
Loan officer: Let me have a look. Well it looks like George has a bit of a problem here. You see these notes have already been borrowed against and since their value has dropped they aren't really assets. In fact from what I see they'd be called liabilities.
(Congress looking red faced)
Loan officer: So what was he expecting for the term of this loan. How long did he need it for.
Congress (even more red faced) Well he was figuring that we could make the payments real small by extending it out to say two or three generations.
Loan officer: I'm sorry gentlemen but from what I see here there no way I could present this to the loan board for approval. You might want to try that Chinese finance company down the street. Or you could try the payday loan company around the corner.

Ohio voters ALERT

Anybody out there from Ohio needs to be aware that the rethuglicans have been purging the voter rolls in many states. This tactic is ment to eliminate voters who might vote for Obama. If you suspect this may happen to you, usually when you go to the polls and they don't find your name on the list of registered voters. Ask for a provisional ballot and contact the election officials usually the county auditor. You can expect this and other dirty tactics this time around again.