To give or not to give...

Picture courtesy of timw.com


When you see people begging for money on the side of the street, do you avoid them, walk past them or give them some change?

I have heard the same excuse, "They will only spend it on drugs or alcohol."

It might be true but how would you feel if you were in their shoes? Would you wonder how people can treat each other so badly?

If there is one thing the Great Depress....sorry....Recession has taught us it is this: the arch conservative Social Darwinists who pound their chests about "survivial of the fittest" and "only the bottom line matters" along with "I do it right the first time" are the first ones to run to Washington for a bailout when the going gets tough.

Fifty billion to Bear Sterns in March 2008. SEVEN HUNDRED and FIFTY billion dollars to Wall Street and the banking system when they screwed up in September of the same year. And who could forget the Big Three of the auto industry showing up in front of Congress with cap in hand after arriving in three luxury jets.

What is the difference between our buddy in the picture above and corporate CEOs?

Hard to think of an answer isn't it?

If you see someone begging for money on a street corner or on the side of the road, give them a buck.

At least they will say "thank you".

Shockwave coming..

"This economy is addicted to free candy from Washington..."

Think about that when you read this:

Why Rand Paul's Win Is A Horrible Sign For The Stock Market
Buzz up! 48 Print
Joe Weisenthal, On Wednesday May 19, 2010, 8:55 am EDT

Republicans are surely going to spin last night's primary elections as a huge night for the right, and a big rejection of Obamaism, but it wasn't that exactly.


The Tea Party right did very well with the victory of Rand Paul, but so did the left -- the moderate Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln is headed to a runoff against her more progressive opponent.


Basically, the night was a big rejection of the status quo, which is great! We need a shakeup, and we're actually very enthusiastic about Rand Paul, who we feel pretty sure will not be a sellout.


But let's face it: Right now this economy is addicted to free candy from Washington DC. It may not be sustainable, and an economy addicted to government money is necessarily going to be undynamic, but corporate America has loved the stimulus and its shown up in stocks.


But American austerity is coming. Well, we're not going to get a true "austerity budget" with massive chunks of spending taken off. But we are going to get a kind of austerity, whereby the here-and-there bailouts (states, teachers, jobs programs, etc.) will be a lot less forthcoming.


If you want a bailout, you better get it in the next few months.


In the past, it's been a common cliché that DC gridlock is good for stocks. That needs to be thrown out the window. We saw how stocks reacted to the momentary gridlock after Scott Brown, and we're seeing how markets are reacting to austerity in the UK and Spain (hint: not good).


We're about to get our own version of that, and it's a major risk coming for stocks.

Associated Press=American Pravda?

Can the AP seriously regard itself as an unbiased and credible news agency? Can they possibly be anymore in the tank for Obama? Since when is 42% considered "good"?

I give you this for your consideration:

Poll: Good marks for Obama on spill, more drilling

By SETH BORENSTEIN and ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writers Seth Borenstein And Alan Fram, Associated Press Writers – Thu May 13, 6:13 am ET
WASHINGTON – The Gulf of Mexico oil spill hasn't stained President Barack Obama nor dimmed the public's desire for offshore energy drilling, according to a new Associated Press-GfK Poll.

While some conservative pundits, such as Rush Limbaugh, have called this "Obama's Katrina," that's not how the public feels, the poll found. BP PLC, which owned the well that has gushed more than 4 million gallons since an Apr. 20 oil rig explosion, is getting more of the public's ire.

More people surveyed said they approved of Obama's handling of the ongoing oil spill than disapproved, but not by large margins or with unusually strong feelings. It contrasts with the public's reaction to President George W. Bush's response to another Gulf disaster, 2005's Hurricane Katrina.

The poll found that 42 percent approve of Obama's actions, 33 percent disapprove and 21 percent say they have neutral feelings about his response.

The reaction is strongly along partisan lines. Democrats lean toward favoring Obama's actions, 58 percent to 19 percent, with 17 percent expressing neither approval nor disapproval. By 47 percent to 27 percent, Republicans disapprove of Obama's reaction, with 23 percent saying neither. Independents are about evenly split between approval and disapproval.



Democrat Eduardo Martinez, 38, of West Chester, Pa., said, "I've actually been impressed; they've put pressure on the private sector."
But Republican Jeff Gerow, 52, of Boca Raton, Fla., said, "Just as I thought Bush was too slow to do anything with Katrina, even though I'm a Republican, I think he (Obama) could have done more with those folks."

For Bush after Katrina, the public was harsher in its assessment. An AP-Ipsos poll in mid-September 2005 showed Bush's approval rating somewhat lower in the weeks following the Katrina disaster than Obama's rating for handling the current crisis. Back then, 35 percent approved of Bush's handling of the disaster and 42 percent disapproved, with 25 percent expressing neither approval nor disapproval.

The telephone poll of 1,002 adults for the latest survey was conducted for The Associated Press by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media between May 7-11. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.

Even though BP got lower ratings than the president, it wasn't too bad for the company formerly known as British Petroleum. Of those polled, 49 percent disapprove of BP's actions, 32 percent approve and 15 percent express neither approval nor disapproval. But the feelings about BP were much more strong on the negative end, with 32 percent strongly disapproving of its actions compared with 6 percent who strongly approve.

The poll also found that the public still supports the idea of drilling offshore for oil and gas. By 50 percent to 38 percent, more people favor increased coastal drilling for oil and gas than oppose it.

While Republicans favor it by a 3-to-1 margin, Democrats lean toward opposing it, 52 percent to 36 percent. Independents are about evenly split. Groups giving drilling the strongest support include men, middle-aged and older people, whites and residents of rural and suburban areas.

The country is split about evenly over which priority is more important in considering drilling, with 49 percent choosing the need for the U.S. to provide its own energy and 47 percent picking protection of the environment.

Democrats prefer environmental protection by 62 percent to 35 percent. Republicans lean the other way, favoring the need for U.S. energy independence by 68 percent to 28 percent. Independents are about evenly split.

"We need to drill here, our economy needs it, but we also need to save the environment," said Ryan Hart, 42, of Auburn, Maine, who considers himself politically independent.

Before the April 20 rig accident that triggered the spill, efforts to increase drilling offshore — which had used the slogan "drill, baby, drill" — had a major victory when the Democratic president partly lifted bans on drilling off many coastal areas. A Pew Research Center poll in April 2009 found that by 68 percent to 27 percent, people favored "more offshore oil and gas drilling in U.S. waters." That polling did not have the same questions as this one.

___

Associated Press Polling Director Trevor Tompson, AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius and AP writer Christine Simmons contributed to this report.

The latest Supreme Court goofball...

Just get rid of it.

Really. Just dump it off in the Potomac.

Who needs the Supreme Court? Lifetime appointments to argue about how many angels are on the head of a pin, deliver cryptic long winded many volumed decisions that would confuse the Delphic Oracle, and legislate from the bench, a practice that is unconstitutional in itself and the unfailing ability to screw things up...ie Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson. Lets not forget the 2000 election, Gratz Decision and Kelso v. New London.

Please, just shed this institution like snakeskin.

It does more harm than good.

First Obama appoints an obvious racist to the bench and now he wants to put someone who has no judicial experience on the highest court in the land.

If this is how he thinks this is the proper background of a Supreme Court justice, we ought to just retire everyone.

Ninety-five percent of the people you see have more judicial experience than Elean Kagan. Dean of the Harvard Law School is impressive but there is a difference between the classroom and the real world.

Too many people in government, both parties and this administration cannot grasp this concept.

Not only is it time to ignore the Supreme Court, it is time to ignore the federal government all together.

You cannot arrest 300 million people.

If anyone tries, well, I will just posit these two words: "Second Amendment."

You do the math.

Riots in Greece

This is what happens when you spend money you don't have...

Take notes America because this is what is coming to our shores. $1.56 TRILLION budget deficit and widespread hostility towards an increasingly totalitarian government and this is what you get. I hope we can back away from the cliff but the numbers involved are beginning to lose meaning.

However, there are signs we might be getting our stuff in order. The budget for the year after is "only" $1.46 trillion but at least it is lower so its a step in the right direction. The Wall Street free fall over the last two days is the beginning of a market correction (pulling back from overextending) and oil has fallen $12 over the last three days.

There is a lot of work ahead of us though.

Roll up your sleeves.

First step would be cutting Congressional salaries in half. Call your Rep and Senator and see how that goes :-)

Back on the other side of the Pond, this crisis is raising serious questions about the viability of the European Union as anything but a trade association. Any delusions about the EU becoming a "superstate" seem to be just that. Individual countries, Germany in particular, are acting in their own interests rather than being European team players. That is because they do not want to be stuck opening their wallets for annual bailouts. This one, if it happens, will be something in the neighborhood of $145 billion dollars.

And Portugal is showing signs of economic collapse

And so is Spain. And Ireland. And Britain's budget deficit is growing to the point its alarming people over here.

They should go back to the Common Market. European Union sounds too much like Soviet Union...complete with a lack of popular representation, high taxes and a moribund economy.

Yet for some reason that appeals to the idiots in Washington DC.

It did not work in Russia, it is not working in Europe and it won't work here.

What does work?

Lower taxes, don't spend what you don't have and let the people keep their money.

Its called Capitalism 101, America.

"These idiots are going to push us back to the Nineteenth Century..."

The price of oil fell $3.45 today yet I saw stations hiking the price up as much as ten cents. They are determined to get it to three dollars, using "spring additives" as an excuse or maybe Memorial Day and there is always the Fourth of July "driving season."

Meanwhile, Mr "Hope and Change" in the White House has not done anything. Granted, he is trying to push a Wall Street reform package through Congress but what he needs to look at is reinstutuing regulations on commodoties markets.

Because any economic recovery you think you see is going to be short circuited by gas prices.

That is what happened back in 2008 when out of control oil speculators (not OPEC for once) pushed the price of oil to $147 a barrel and gas was $4.17 a gallon on average across the nation and higher, of course, on the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii. I also remembering seeing people starting to grow vegatables in their back yard and hearing about police patrols getting cut back due to high fuel prices. While the economy tumbled into melt down, Fearless Leader Bush refused to do anything about regulating oil markets, even threatening to veto any legislation on the matter that reached his desk.

Meanwhile, I saw people walking and riding bikes to work (not a bad thing since many of them really needed the excercise...) but then I heard about soup kitchens shutting down and saw empty shelves appearing in grocery stores because they could no longer pay for shipping on items. Fuel costs were the culprit.

The clincher was a day in July when some guy came into my store and tried to sell me his tool belt for $40 because he needed gas to get to work on some construction site. How long was that going to last in a time of $4+ gas?

The bubble burst and gas sank to $1.59. Since Hope and Change came to America in January 2009, the price is on the edge of $3 again.

Looking like Summer 2008 again...

...if that does happen, our pal from Chicago better get used to seeing "one term president" in front of his name.

Because the guy before him is already the Second Coming...

...of Herbert Hoover.