Doom - Part Deux

It's here. Finally. Doom. Doom Part Deux, actually, as the fine folks over there at The Wall Street Journal Online have informed us that the "TARP Funds' Second Half Set For Release as Senate Signs Off on Request".

And how is that Doom, Part Deux, you ask? This is the second half of funds. (Now, "funds" is just a nicer term, one that doesn't get you all worked up into an angry and frenzied lather, for "taxpayer money". "Taxpayer money" is just a nicer term for "your money". But if the government said "your money" every time they actually said "funds", there would be an uprising amongst the villagers, torches and all, marching upon the White House, the Capitol, the Senate and even the Washington Memorial (just because people would be that angry.) So if this is the second half, what did they do with the first half? Good question. They don't really know exactly where all the money went and who did what with it. Bad answer.

Am I surprised? No, of course not, because I predicted this. Instead of focusing on the TARP bill itself, those self righteous, egotistical and self serving members of Congress held it hostage until they could have one of their little pet pork projects (the P-cubed) added into the bill. They clearly were not paying any attention to what the bill was about, as their heads were too far up their respective arses to pay attention to anything. All they wanted was to have their needs met so that they could feel good about themselves. (They really didn't need the TARP bill to do that. These guys suck and yet they act like they are doing a simply marvelous job. Well, they're not and their approval rating shows that their delusions of grandeur are not enough to persuade the majority of the country to believe them.)

There were things thrown in the TARP bill like:

• $192 million to Virgin Island and Puerto Rican rum producers
• $128 million to auto racing tracks
• $33 million for corporations that operate in American Samoa
• $10 million for small-to-medium budget film and TV productions
• $18 billion in clean-energy incentives so businesses can give benefits to employees who bike to work
• An extension of credits for businesses that employ people that live on Indian reservations
• $10,000 tax credit for training of mine rescue team members
• $6 million to the manufacturers of wooden arrows
• Reduction of import duties on some imported wool fabrics, transfers other duties to Wool Trust Fund to promote competitiveness of American wool

(Bummer. I was really hoping for some sort of a P-cubed for blogs.) Arrows? Wooden freaking arrows? THAT was your priority, you asshats? (And who knew that we needed to beef up the American wool market? I'm trying to remember the last time I wore anything made of wool. Actually, I'm trying to remember the last time I wanted to wear anything made of wool. Huh. That would be never. On both counts.) You wanted to borrow $700 billion from the taxpayers and the taxpayers relented because we're told that if this didn't happen that day the nation's economic situation would worse and we would be reading about the Great Depression and wishing that we had it so good! Not only did it take you over a week to pass the TARP bill (that's where the red flags went up for me. What happened to now? Oh, right. You have to write your wooden arrow proposal and shove it in there first. Good Lord. Could you please use one of those arrows and shoot it at me please?)

So while you guys were worried about yourselves and how self-important you could feel about everything when it was done, you seem to have overlooked one key element in this whole dealio. You didn't include anything about G-D accountability! There wasn't anything in there about how to track the money that was being given to the banks (so that they could have some cash flow and feel OK about beginning to lend more freely again). There wasn't anything in there about how the money was supposed to be used once it was given to the banks! And guess what happened?

Correct. You gave away the first half of the money (at least someone put some restraint on that plan) in your "effort" to help out banks that were having cash flow problems because they were too incompetent to not loan all of their money to people who can't afford to pay it back. And the banks took that money (who wouldn't?) but they don't seem to have done what they said they were going to do with it. Interesting. Oh, wait! That's right! There weren't any provisions on what they had to do with the money, that's right! They could have taken that money and built amusement parks that catered to child molesters, as there was nothing that said they couldn't and nothing could have been done if they had. Good plan! What's the plan for Round Two?

The same thing?!!? Are you effing kidding me?!

Basically, yes, that's the plan. This time, they are asking for the other half, the rest of the $700 billion of our money to be released so that they can use it to "spend $50 billion to $100 billion on a "sweeping" foreclosure-prevention effort." But they seem to be keeping the "how" part of that plan a secret, because I can't find any details on what they plan to do with that boatload of money. It wouldn't matter anyway, as their plan is flawed based upon that statement quoted above.

Everyone seems to be acting as if those who are being "foreclosed upon" and are "going to lose their home" are those who have been victims of these terrible economic times. They act as if every single foreclosure that is occurring is happening to someone who was perfectly capable and able and willing to pay for their mortgage and did...right up until the s-storm hit the financial sector. They act as if no one took out loans that they couldn't afford to pay back and now their home is in foreclosure. They act as if no one bought several houses with the intention of flipping them and making a profit and, unfortunately, did so right as everything finally started to fall apart and now they're stuck with a bunch of houses that they can't sell. They act as if no one bought houses with falsely (yet unknown at the time) inflated prices and when the price of the home dropped, they were then upside-down on their mortgage and decided to just walk away from it. All of those things are happening more often than people who are just hit with "troubled economic times".

You can't lump all of those situations into just one big pile and call it "the foreclosure problem" and then throw money at it to try to fix it. Do any of these Senators, Congressmen, Representatives have any sort of background or history in economics? Do any of them have any sort of economic education? Economic degrees? Anything at all relating to how the economy works? The answer is approximately 15%. That's not enough.

But you know what would be even better than those guys having any sort of knowledge about how the economy works and how banking systems work? What would be better is if any of them had the slightest hint of what reality looks like. If any of them could just come back down to earth for a while and see what's really going on, they might be able to craft a better solution than to simply bellow out, "More money, please!" (I picture them doing so dressed like kings, with a big turkey leg in one hand and a goblet of grog. Wait, grog was for pirates, right? What did kings drink? Ah, we'll pretend they captured the pirates and stole their grog.)

"The Obama team hasn't detailed where it will direct the next $350 billion beyond foreclosure efforts. It is expected to continue purchasing equity in financial institutions and might also buy troubled assets clogging the financial system." But wait. They already did that! That didn't work! Why are you going to keep doing it?! This doesn't sound very much like "change", Barry! I distinctly remember being promised "change"!

In case you have been too busy swooning over Barry to realize this, let me point out that he makes more statements that say absolutely nothing, yet you think that he's said something! And not only that, you think that he's said something brilliant and important! But in reality, he's just given you a bread sandwich. Two pieces of bread, a little bread sauce, bread in the middle, that's it. Nothing to it.

You want to have the American people have "faith" in you, Barry? You need to first figure out WHY the economy is the way it is BEFORE you throw more money at it. You also need to figure out WHY the first half of the TARP money didn't do any good. While you're at it, figure out where that first half of the TARP money went. Then, before any more perfectly good cash gets thrown out the window, start holding people accountable. Start putting provisions in place so that this won't happen again. This pile-o'-crap that the country is in right now didn't just blow in like Hurricane Katrina. This was man-made. Greed made this s-storm happen. But has anyone been held accountable? No. No one. If there aren't any consequences, what's to stop this from happening all over again? Nothing. Which, coincidentally, is exactly what we will all have left by the time you're done spending all of that money without knowing what in the world you're doing.

Doomed. Our doom-ation is upon us. I'm serious. This will not end well. Take those wooden arrows and shoot me with them. Dip them in poison, set them on fire and shoot me with them. The agony from that will be a lot less painful than how this TARP thing is going to turn out.

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Got Pork?

OK, I do believe I've calmed my ass down enough to continue ranting about this TARP bill that is supposed to save us all from a financial implosion that was, by all accounts, was to have happened about a week ago if nothing was done. Well, here we are, a week later, with nothing having been done and that would include the financial implosion. Oh, sure, stocks are in the tank, credit is tight and everyone is panicking, but it's not so bad that those guys in the House can't take a couple of days off in observance of Rosh Hashanah, right? Sure. The "financial 9/11" can wait a day or two. Why not?

By the way, you know what a tarp is right? Yep, it's a big plastic sheet, the purpose of which is to use it to cover something up. Oh, the thing is still there, but you just can't see it because it's covered with the tarp. Methinks they could have chosen a different acronym for this thing.

OK, so the Senate passed the bill while the House was off Rosh Hashanah-ing. This is the bill that is supposed to set the guidelines for infusing about $700 billion dollars into the financial arena by buying up bad assets from banks that made loans that they had no business making in the first place. The bill was originally 2 pages. Then it was 137. It is now 451 pages long. Correct. 451 pages. And what those pages contain will do either one of two things. It will either a) shock you or b) really, really piss you off. Let's find out which one it is, shall we?

It's hard to say why the House couldn't pass the bill the first time around. No one was really giving any concrete reasoning for voting against it. One has to think, however, that the fact that the entire House is up for re-election in November has something to do with it. Anyway, this bill that the Senate cobbled together includes what they are calling "incentives" and "sweeteners". It includes what I'm calling "pork", "BS" and "bribery".

One minute, we're all freaking out that it's going to be $700 billion. The next minute, these Senators are adding things to it left and right, making the total cost even MORE. Hey, Senate! The reason we were freaking out over the $700 billion dollar price tag was not, I repeat, was NOT because we didn't think it was high enough! It was because that is a ridiculous amount of money! And how do YOU, the Senators, react to a $700 billion dollar price tag? YOU decide this is the perfect time to throw in your pet projects that you've wanted to get done for a long time so that they will HAVE to pass because, as you may have heard, the financial world is coming to an end. Good thing that doomsday was able to wait until you padded this bill full of your own personal agendas.

Now, I'll admit, there are a couple of things that they threw in the bill that I totally agree with. Some of them even have to do directly with the bill itself! But regardless as to whether or not the things that I agree with are a good idea or not, the point is that they have no business being attached to this bill. It's not about that! It's not about an opportunity for legislation that hasn't made it through to suddenly be shoved through by default! How am I and the rest of the public supposed to believe that you even understand the complexity of the financial mess when you're too busy crafting your own sections of the bill that have nothing, repeat, NOTHING to do with the economic crisis. How can you even justify that sort of behavior? Why are you not spending your time trying to figure out if the current plan for helping the distressed banks is going to work or not? Isn't that what you're supposed to be doing and not tending to your own personal projects?

I'll hit some of the finer additions of the now 451 page document that may or may not save our economic ass.

• The limit on the amount of deposits that would be FDIC insured was raised from $100,000 to $250,000. That is an excellent idea and should quell a lot of hyper anxiety. No problems with this AND it's directly related to the original purpose of the bill. Nice choice.
  
  
• They are providing an extension of protections for those millions of middle class families who find themselves getting screwed by the AMT (alternative minimum tax). While this is a good idea, they were supposed to have BEEN doing this for at LEAST the past two years, most likely longer. The fact that they're throwing it in now when it shouldn't even be an issue (because it should already be done) annoys me. Still shouldn't be there.
  
  
• They're including $3.3 billion for rural school aid over the next five years. Right. Because regular public schools, they don't need any aid. They're fine, right? It's the rural ones that need help. You jackasses. Nothing to do with the bill. Shouldn't even be in there.
  
  
• The bill provides $8 billion in tax relief for people in the Midwest, Louisiana and Texas who have been hit by natural disasters. No, you morons! Not the "natural" disasters! The "financial" disaster! We're talking about the financial disaster! And you go and throw this into the....ah, crap. Never mind. It doesn't belong in there.
  
  
• They also felt the need to extend being able to deduct state and local taxes in those states without income taxes (Florida, Texas, etc.). What does this have to do with the banking system? Oh, that's right. Nothing. Shouldn't be in there.
  
  
• They've added the extension of a tax break for homeowners who do not itemize their tax returns. How does someone own a home and not itemize their deductions? Hello? Mortgage interest? That's a HUGE deduction right there. How about instead of a tax break, you just tell them to itemize? How is that my problem? And what the hell is it doing in this bill?

Annoyed yet? Hung yourself? Knotting the rope at least? That wasn't even all of them! AND we're just getting to the good part! Welcome to Title V, otherwise known (by me) as Title WTF. You might want to don a helmet for this section, as you could easily find yourself beating your head upon the nearest solid surface.

• Provisions related to film and television productions. Allows up to $15 MILLION in deductions per film. It's supposed to (get this) "spur domestic production." Spur domestic production of the gazillion dollar film industry in this country!?!? Are you kidding me?!?! (This provision is actually two tax breaks and combined they are worth $478 million over the next ten years. To spur domestic production, mind you. Because if there's one thing we don't do enough of in this country, it's make movies.)
  
  
• My personal favorite: Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children. Wait. Wait. I said WAIT!!! WHAT?! Yep. According to NPR, it's there to "help Rose City Archery Inc. in Oregon. It will save the company 39 cents per arrow." Is it the Civil War again? Do we NEED arrows in bulk?
  
  
• Income averaging for amounts received in connection with the Exxon Valdez litigation. The Exxon Valdez? That was in...1989? 19 years later and they're doing what? Never mind. I don't think my head can take it without exploding.
  


• Sec. 505. Certain farming business machinery and equipment treated as 5-year property. Oh, but only "certain" farming business machinery. Well, good, at least they were using their head here, because if they didn't specify, well, then it would just be wrong.
  
  
• Sec. 506. Modification of penalty on understatement of taxpayer’s liability by tax return preparer. So, if you're a weaselly tax preparer and you go low with what the taxpayer has to pay, you now pay...let me guess...less?
  

Seriously, at this point, if I continue, my head will literally explode. Besides the fact that it's asinine, it's insulting. What a bunch of self serving, self righteous, opportunistic weasels. You see disaster for the country as opportunity for yourselves. That's nice. Thanks for having my best interest in mind when you're voting on this bill.

Hey, Senate! Do you even know HOW the bill helps the banking industry? Do you even know IF the bill helps the banking industry? Do you?! I bet you don't! No, I KNOW you don't! That's because you're too worried about your damn arrow tax and your 2 decade old oil spill and your tractor tax! I want to know who was behind the wooden arrow provision and I want them...mmmm....either hung or shot. I don't know which. But whichever one it is, I want it done publicly. You know, town square, villagers with pitchforks and torches, the whole bit. I'm sure that this is going to sound like the musing of some old geezer, but they have a lot of nerve. A lot of freaking nerve. (There. The 'freaking' part makes it sound less geezer-ish.)

Oh, here we go. Oregon senators Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith are the geniuses behind the wooden arrow provision of this bill. Hand me my pitchfork.

Now, listen, all eight of you who read this, you know me. You know I'm not a political individual, but this isn't about politics. This is about a bunch of people who, during a time of what THEY deemed to be a "national crisis" are running around trying to get things that have nothing to do with the issue at hand done to appease their own self serving egos. It's as if the Senate is really the Reptile House at the zoo. I'm pretty sure that they all have forked tongues (which they can smell with) and they warm themselves by stretching out on a rock in the sun. Snakes. All of them.

Again, I am totally advocating voting for every single challenger for every single seat in the House come November. How bad could it be to have a bunch of new people in there? Worse than this? I cannot imagine that is possible, given this showing by these maroons. See, the thing about starting from scratch is that no one, NO ONE will have any immediate personal agendas. They can all just deal with the issues at hand FIRST and we'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, below are all of the additional tax relief that was included in the TARP bill and all of the other tax provisions and breaks that were included. If you are not seething with anger and the end of the list, then you read it wrong. Just remember, a week ago, this document was TWO pages and NONE of these things even existed. NOW, there are 451 pages, everything below is included and you, you my friend (who am I? John McCain?), you get to pay for them.

• Tax breaks for those impacted by natural disasters
  
• A mental health parity provision providing insurance for mental illness
  
• A Two-year extension of the research-and-development tax credit

TITLE III—EXTENSION OF BUSINESS TAX PROVISIONS

• Sec. 308. Increase in limit on cover over of rum excise tax to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
• Sec. 309. Extension of economic development credit for American Samoa.
• Sec. 310. Extension of mine rescue team training credit.
• Sec. 311. Extension of election to expense advanced mine safety equipment.
• Sec. 312 Deduction allowable with respect to income attributable to domestic production activities in Puerto Rico.
• Sec. 314. Indian employment credit.
• Sec. 315. Accelerated depreciation for business property on Indian reservations. (Casinos)
• Sec. 316. Railroad track maintenance.
• Sec. 317. Seven-year cost recovery period for motor sports racing track facility (This will save NASCAR track builders $109 million this year. Because it's very important to have tracks for a bunch of people turning left.)
• Sec. 318. Expensing of environmental remediation costs.
• Sec. 321. Enhanced deduction for qualified computer contributions.
• Sec. 322. Tax incentives for investment in the District of Columbia.
• Sec. 325. Extension and modification of duty suspension on wool products; wool research fund; wool duty refunds. (Sheep fur! SHEEP FUR! They're worried about SHEEP FUR! In other news, there is a wool research fund.)

Your tax dollars hard at work. All $700 billion plus of them.

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We Need a Number....A Really BIG Number

I can't decide whether I really like it or I really hate it when these burning questions that I have finally get answered. (Questions about anything, really. I've been told I'm fairly inquisitive. That loosely translates into "fixated on day to day minutiae.") I'm pretty sure that it's a little bit of both, but neither one makes me feel any better than I did when I didn't know an answer to a question. And frankly, I don't think it's supposed to work that way, yet it often does. And you know I'm going to provide an example of just such a conundrum.

As the financial infrastructure of this fine (but dumb) country teeters on the brink of collapse, lawmakers are trying to reach an agreement for terms of providing a bit of financial assistance to the banking industries. It's an agreement that has been shopped to the American people as a "bailout". Personally, I don't know how they expect any taxpayer to get behind and be in favor of a "bailout". The term "bailout" is never a good thing, unless you're in a boat that's taking in water. Then it's a fabulous idea. Bailing out those who were unregulated, irresponsible and borderline retarded never sounds like a good idea, but sometimes you have to things in order to avoid something worse. In this case, it's either help out the failing and faltering banks or watch our economy shatter and set off a nationwide depression which will result in a sort of Blade Runner type of society with cannibalism. And no one wants that. Ever. In a boat taking on water or not.

In order to help out these banks that are in danger of going under, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke came up with a plan to dole out a bunch of cash to these banks. When I say "a bunch" I mean "a hell of a lot of cash". We're talking $700 billion dollars. Billion. With a 'B'. 'B' as in "Boy howdy, Slim. That's a buttload of money." And while I do trust Henry Paulson and while I do think that Ben Bernanke is capable of doing his job competently and well (though I'd kind of like Alan Greenspan's thoughts on this whole ordeal. It's not that I'm a Greenspan fan, but he was around for a while and that which is familiar makes me more comfortable.), I was having a hard time figuring out where that $700 billion figure came from.

Good thing that there's Forbes Magazine to help out with these things. They wanted to know where that figure came from as well, so they asked the Treasury Department about it. They got a response. And this is where I can't tell if I'm glad to have the answer or if I'm angry that I have the answer. If it's just one of those, I still don't know which one. But if it's a little bit of both of those, that would make sense, though I don't know how often I would fluctuate between being content and wanting to kick someone in the kneecaps. Really hard.

According to Forbes, a Treasury spokeswoman said, "It's not based on any particular data point. We just wanted to choose a really large number." Oh, I see. Well, thanks for clearing that uuuu....hey. Wait. Wait a minute. What? WTF?!?

It's not based on any particular data point? Are you kidding me? Shouldn't it be based on at least ONE particular data point? Like the point that shows you how much money you actually need to do this? Wouldn't that be a "particular data point" that you would want to know? Apparently, if you are the Treasury Department, no it is not something that they want to know. HOW is that possible? Isn't that how problems like this usually get started in the first place? By not basing anything on anything and just pulling a very large number straight out of thin air? Isn't that how all of the shady bastards in the real estate industry were pricing houses for a while there? Yeah, that's what I thought. Hmmm.

So the Treasury Department, in it's efforts to save the country from plunging into economic despair not seen since 1929, has decided to implement the PNOOOA strategy. PNOOOA is an acronym which stands for the Pulling Numbers Out Of Our Asses strategy. Well, I'm SO glad that the Treasury Department is around to help the country get out of this mess. I feel better already. Wait. No, I don't! Isn't taking out too much money the basis of the problem in the first place? And now these guys want to take out $700 billion because they "wanted a large number"? (Yeah, I wanted a really large number to be the limit on my first credit card, too. But that didn't happen and for good reason. The bank wasn't going to give me a really large number for my credit limit because I hadn't shown them that I was capable of managing less than a really large number yet. If I could show them that I was capable of that, then we could talk about my being allowed to manage more. But they weren't going to just let me go around spending money right and left and hope for the best that I'd make it all turn out pretty good in the end. Shocking, I know.)

That one statement from the Treasury Department spokeswoman tells me that the American public doesn't really know how big this thing is and, if $700 billion is just a "really large number" that they wanted, the cost of the entire dealio might not be that high. Of course, they don't explain why that is in the Forbes article. I guess that's because it's supposed to be a good enough answer for us. And while it really isn't, at least it gives me some vital information about what's going on over there. It definitely tells me that there are a whole bunch of Legislators with their heads up their asses who are trying to work out some sort of a deal to do something. Reassured, I am not.

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