It's Essential You Get That Which Does Nothing

Back in January when President Barry was getting ready to take office, he had already made the members of the House and the Senate giddy with joy at the prospect of getting that Recovery Plan underway. Money, money everywhere! Because if there's one thing that makes our elected Representatives happy, it's money.

A lot of people, myself included, were not sold on the whole stimulus package idea or on the whole TARP idea. Actually, I'm rarely sold on a program that is going to cost $750 billion dollars for a problem that could have been largely avoided if the people who were proposing a solution had actually done their jobs in the first place and provided some regulation and oversight of the housing and mortgage industries. Yeah, I'm pretty much ALWAYS against throwing money at a problem when you don't even know what the problem is.

Enter Joe Biden.

Who?

You know, Joe Biden. He's the Vice President! That white haired guy that President Barry was always traveling around with during the campaign. No, now you're thinking of John McCain. Not him. John McCain was the guy who traveled around the country with Tina Fey. Joe Biden is the Vice President. He's the only one standing in the way of Nancy Pelosi becoming President if something untoward should happen to President Barry. (And if there was ever a better reason for a Vice President, I haven't heard of one, that's for sure.)

Joe Biden goes on a show called "This Week" on ABC and he's being interviewed by George Stephanopoulos and he says, "The figures we worked off of in January were the consensus figures and most of the blue chip indexes out there. We misread how bad the economy was, but we are now only about 120 days into the recovery package." This according to The Huffington Post. Um, OK. Sooooo.....what are you saying, exactly?

Biden said that "...the 9.5 percent unemployment rate is much too high." The administration had predicted unemployment would stay below 8 percent with its stimulus plan. Wait!

The prediction! I remember the prediction! They had a graph to show their prediction! And if I recall correctly (and I do because...well, I know how this is going to turn out), the graph of THEIR PREDICTION showed what the unemployment rate would look like with a stimulus package and what it would look like without a stimulus package. And the graph showed these differences between now and the first quarter of 2014. I clearly remember this because in the end, with or without spending the gazillion dollars, the unemployment rate would be the SAME in 2014 if there WAS a stimulus package or if there was NOT a stimulus package. Behold!

At the time of this lovely graph, I distinctly remember saying that perhaps we should just NOT spend the $747 billion dollars and see how things work out on their own. Because the way that economies have traditionally worked throughout history, they correct themselves. Why must we be in such an expensive hurry?

And lo and behold (brother and sister of flora and fauna), not only has the stimulus package failed to do anything other than stimulate the diabolical minds of members of Congress as they try to figure out how to get their hands on some of this free flowing cash, but unemployment is now only slightly worse than it would have been if the stimulus plan had not been enacted. Oh, and when I say "enacted" I mean "paid for through higher taxes paid by you and me". Nice.

But wait! Again, according to The Huffington Post "Biden noted that the plan was set up to spend the money over 18 months. Major programs will take effect in September, including $7.5 billion for broadband Internet service, plus new money for high-speed rail and the nation's electrical grid." Um, wait. What?

Internet service? Because having everyone in the country being able to access free porn on a moment's notice (or urge) is going to help the unemployment rate? Free porn contributes to the unemployment rate. Why do you think so many people are content with being unemployed? That's right! Home all day with free porn! Fire me! Fire me next!

And if I have to hear one more damn thing about a high speed rail system, I'm going to lose it. Sure, that would be just grand if a) we were the Jetsons and b) if there was a need for it. Seriously. Do you know how long these yo-yos in California have been talking about a bullet train that goes from here in the Bay Area to Los Angeles in something like 2 hours? For years! Do you know how many times voters have approved funding to study the damn thing? A gazillion! Has there even been one ounce of dirt moved in order to make this thing happen? Hell no! The thing is, they study everything about this project except for the most important factor and that is how many freaking people do you think are in the Bay Area that need to go to Los Angeles? RIGHT NOW! Not enough to warrant their little bullet train dealio. And all of the folks like Joe Biden who are advocating transportation like that are so enamored with the idea of it all that they conveniently forget that we DON'T NEED IT! Gadzooks, what is wrong with you people?

But what do other members of Congress have to say about this? Oh, just wait. Here's my favorite line. It comes to us courtesy of a one Steny Hoyer, D-MD, who is the House Majority Leader. He said "...no one is satisfied with the results of the stimulus so far...." Good. Way to go there, Steny! You tell them! "...but we believe the stimulus was absolutely essential." Wait. What now?

You believe it was absolutely essential?! Essential for WHAT?! It hasn't DONE anything! It hasn't even come CLOSE to DOING anything! Unemployment hasn't even gone down a LITTLE bit! No, it's gone UP! What was it "essential" for? You sir, seem like a maroon when you make statements like that.

We're so doomed. It hasn't done anything, but we needed it? If that is the general consensus among the collective House and Senate, we're totally doomed. Do I need to point out that if something hasn't done anything then clearly we did NOT need it? ::: sigh ::: Apparently, I do.

Hey, Joe Biden. I don't give a fat rat's arse if you "misread" the economy. (What the hell is a "blue chip index" anyway? Are they corn or tortilla?) Now that you've admitted that you've made a mistake, are you going to fix it? Are you going to re-do your figures and your calculations and figure out what the impact of your all mighty stimulus package is going to be now? Because so far, you've spent tons of money and I've spent zero money and we've both achieved the same not-so-stellar results, economy-wise that is.

I'll tell you what. I dare you to stop spending money and to stop trying to artificially fix this thing. Come on! It'll be like an experiment! It'll be fun! What's the worst that could happen? Really? From what I can tell, the worst that could happen is that no money would be spent and the economy would do what it's going to do anyway, regardless of the stimulus money. But I see what's coming.

You're going to pump all of MY money into a bunch of pet projects for a bunch of blowhard Congressmen and Congresswomen and THEN when the economy begins to recover AS IT WOULD HAVE WITHOUT THE MONEY you're going to take the credit for it being your glorious stimulus package that is responsible for it all! Arent' you? Of course you are! We are so doomed.

I'll give Joe Biden this much: At least he said that they "misread" whatever it was that they did. I would have preferred a "we effed up", but I'll take "misread" for now. However, I'll only take "misread" once. If I have to hear in a couple of months about how something else was "misread", I won't be quite so impressed.

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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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Out of Touch and Overstimulated

Can we please get one, just one, one politician in Washington who can actually hear what it is that they're saying so that they can realize how ridiculous it sounds and how ineffective their plan is going to be? Perhaps it is so hard for them to hear what they're saying because they all seem to have their head so far up their arse that it would be difficult to hear anything, really. (It would be very muffled.) OR, perhaps they've just morons. Either one is not exactly a glowing letter of recommendation, nor an affirmation of any degree of faith in them to do their jobs effectively. Yeah, hardly either one of those.

I shall begin with the plans for 'fixing' the economy as laid out by Barry Obama and his crew. First of all, remember that stimulus package that was approved last year and everyone got sent a nice check that they were supposed to go out and spend so that the economy would be 'stimulated'? That didn't work so well. In fact, it was less than stimulating at best. But now they're ready to throw more money into the economy in a similar fashion. Wait! Wait! Has anyone looked at WHY that didn't work before? Because if you're going to do the same thing again and hope for a different result, isn't that kind of implying that it was just bad timing? Oh, wait, that sounds silly! That's because it is silly to think that. But what's even sillier is not figuring out why it didn't work the first time before doing it again.

Then there's Barry's magical creation of millions of jobs plan! You may or may not recall (perhaps because you were too busy swooning at the sound of Barry's voice and the thrill of witnessing the next Messiah to actually hear anything he was actually saying) that while he was campaigning, Barry said he was going to create a million jobs. A. Million. As in 'one'. One million. (Actually, what he ended up saying was he would create OR save a million jobs. He finally had to clarify that when pressed on the issue by people who wouldn't let up or fall for that freakishly infectious smile that he flashes when he's cornered.) Then a couple of weeks ago that number climbed to three million jobs created or saved. NOW the number is at 4.1 million jobs created or saved with no, I mean NONE, no indication as to where that number comes from, how that will be achieved or when/if it can even be achieved. Creating and/or saving a million jobs is a pretty impressive thing to be able to claim that you can do. But then to up that number by 3.1 million jobs over a span of just a couple of weeks? That's amazing! He IS our Savior!! Ugh.

Now, Barry's camp has posted online their 14-page analysis of their wishful thinking as to how this could turn out. Or not. I share with you my favorite page, Page Four! Behold!

By looking at Page Four, you will notice that, by the year 2014, after dumping billions and billions of dollars into fixing this problem, the result is (wait for it) ....... exactly the same as if billions and billions of dollars had not been dumped into fixing this problem! Well, hey now, that's interesting. Yes, I realize that by putting the billions in there it would seem to alleviate what could be a really, really crappy 2010. But I also realize that I've been saying that a recession is a natural occurrence in a market on occasion. They do happen. (Depressions, by the way, seem to be the result of bad government and governing. Thus, if people know what they're doing and dealing with, when recession comes along, as it will, then it can be prevented from spiraling into a depression if proper management is applied. And if you didn't get it before, now do you see why I'm flippin' out?! Because the people in charge are clueless, that is correct. We'll all be in line at the barrel store by next Wednesday if they keep this up.) And a natural occurrence would seem, by definition, to come and go on its own, as illustrated by Barry's chart. So why is it that it is so important to put a bunch of money into something that's going to fix itself? I don't know. Maybe one of Barry's folks could tell me, because no one else has even brought this up. (Leave it to me, yeah, I know.)

Could. It could be really crappy. It could not be really crappy also. That's because they don't know. They really don't. They say so on my second favorite page, Page Three. "....It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant margins of error. Our estimates of economic relationships and rules of thumb are derived from historical experience and so will not apply exactly in any given episode. Furthermore, the uncertainty is surely higher than normal now because the current recession is unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity." (Translation: This COULD be how it turns out. This also could NOT be how it turns out. We'll have to wait and see.)

But it's not just Barry's team that isn't making a lot of sense, yet still plowing straight ahead without looking back. It's everywhere! As we look at the situation surround the TARP dealio. TARP (which should have stood for Tossing Aside Reasonable Processes) was the $750 billion that you and I oh-so-graciously loaned the government to infuse into the "cash-strapped" banks so that they could resume lending to people who were actually qualified to borrow the money that they needed in the first place. (The problem was that the banks weren't so keen on lending their money any more, having already loaned it out to people who could never pay it back (and didn't) and then losing their shirts. The United States Banking Industry, ladies and gentlemen! Try the veal! Tip your servers! They'll be here all week!)

The thing about the "loaning" of the first half of the $750 billion is that there wasn't any real way to track what the banks were doing with it. Correct. The government is doling out billions of dollars and has no way to see where it's going or what's been done with it. Nice. But NOW Barney Frank wants to add some "strings" to the second half of that $750 billion. "Strings" like banning some bonuses and "strings" like the relinquishing of private jets. (Some bonuses? Not all bonuses? What's the point then? Who, exactly, is it that needs a gazillion dollar bonus for the fledgling company? No one, that is correct. Onward. Onward to doom!) And according to the AP, "The new conditions also would include a better method for the government to track whether banks are using the money to boost lending." Barney Frank: "We will trust but verify." A "better method"? Shouldn't that be "A method", since they didn't have one before?! What is wrong with these people?

They're going to "trust but verify"? Oh, I see. Because trust has gotten them SO far up to this point, might as well keep going with it, yes? NO! Are they crazy?! They HAVE to put in there that there's no private planes and no bonuses. Why? Because if they didn't, they'd be flying around on their private planes rolling around naked in their piles of money that they received for their bonuses like some sort of porn laden Scrooge McDuck, that's why! How about instead of "trust but verify", you have the banks give you an itemized list of what they need the money for and then you actually read the document and then you dole out money where it is supposed to go on the behalf of the banks? How about that plan instead of your "trust but verify" disaster over there? No? Disaster instead? Disaster it is then.

Hey, wait a minute! No, that's not OK! And it's not OK for two reasons! One is that I'm not real big on disaster overall. And two because that's MY money! All of this money that's being tossed around by the boatload is taxpayer money! Yo! Taxpayer here!! And here's what no one seems to understand: Every dollar that you put into the economy to stimulate it is a dollar that has to come out of the economy! Wait. What?

YES! It comes OUT of the economy to go back INTO the economy. All of that money that's being tossed around? That money is borrowed. It's not magic money! It has to come from somewhere! Look at it like this: The money that is borrowed has to get paid back. You and I pay it back in the from of tax dollars that, had we not had to pay back that money, could have gone into the economy. But now those dollars don't go into the economy, they stay OUT of the economy by paying back the loan for the money that was borrowed. (OK, maybe don't look at it exactly like that, because that explanation still might be a little confusing, but trust me. We're getting screwed.)

But we're back to Square One here. Why didn't the first stimulus package work? Well, I'd have to guess that people who are concerned about losing their job, paying their bills, etc., are not going to go out and spend any money that is given to them and that keeps that money out of the economy. That would be my guess and if I'm right then I would expect the same thing to happen if another economic stimulus package was passed through. Only this time, since things are economically worse than before, I would expect the amount of cash infused back into the economy to be less than before, making it an even worse idea than before.

What's really unfortunate is that so many people have been living beyond their means for so long that it isn't really that feasible to just ride this thing out. When you don't have anything saved up to live on for just such an occasion, you're kind of screwed when you need cash. So I understand the want/need to fix this mess, but can someone please, for the love of God, please do something that makes sense? Show us your plan that you can explain what it does and why you think it will work. Show us your plan that has a system in place for accountability and consequences. Then do it and follow through. If you did it that way from the beginning, you might have only had to do this once!

::::sigh::::: Good luck, Barry. I certainly hope there are some Economics 101 books lying around the White House somewhere.

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