Dubya comes on the television and says in order to save the free market the government has to use taxpayer money to buy shares in private banks. So … we need socialism to preserve the free market? We have to partially nationalize private banks in order to save them? We had to burn down the village in order to save it?

We got into this mess by people living beyond their means, and people banking – literally – on the fact that people were doing this. So, we have to use taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street so banks will extend credit again – so the same people whose tax money is being used for the bail out can continue to live beyond their means, and investment bankers can continue to get rich off of them. And the best part of it is, the people in charge of implementing this bailout were, up until a few years ago, investment bankers at Goldman Sachs, making money hand over fist from sub-prime mortages – in other words, some of the same folk that got us into this mess have been tasked with getting us out of it.

What? ROTFLOL.

I’ve been doing my best to avoid the news lately, but I couldn’t help myself when it came to news reports about my fellow Ohians shouting that Obama should be killed. I don’t think he should be president – neither should McCain – but cutting off his head seems a bit extreme. Last I heard, lynching went out with the Civil Rights Act.

I realize that being a white WASP American male I’m hardly an expert on prejudice, but I have to say, I’m rather surprised by all the surprise in the media and in general about the ugly spectre of racism that has reared its ugly head as the presidential election nears. Maybe it’s because I’ve been lucky and been able to live in a number of different places within America as an adult, but from my perspective, the racism that’s been put on display lately in connection with the respective presidential campaign is anything but surprising. Ignorance and the fear it breeds is still the rule rather than the exception.

Speaking of ignorance, there was a photo from one of the McCain/Palin rallies here in Ohio that showed some clown with a sign that implied that an Obama presidency would equal socialism. I got news for ya champ: we’re already getting socialism. And both McCain and Obama encouraged it, and it’s being put into place by our current “conservative” Republican government. Heck, McCain is so desparate he’s even offered up more extreme solutions to the economic crisis that smack of socialism.

Again, ROFL. It’s gotten laughably Absurd; clearly the inmates are running the asylum – the assylum of asses. Of course, that means there is no meaning to the world than what I give it, so I suppose there is some comfort in that. It does make it easier to laugh, as opposed to crying in dismay or screaming in anger.

I almost got angry again when both presidential candidates latched onto this Joe the Plumber guy. Joe is complaining that Obama’s plan would increase taxes on people making more than $250,000 a year. You know what Joe? The majority of Americans don’t make anywhere near that (God knows I don’t and never will – what was my degree for, again?). But he’s being held up by both campaigns as some sort of Joe Everyman … Sarah Palin’s Joe Sixpack. And, of course, all the presidential and vice presidential candidates are millionaires – actually, not sure about Biden, but the others are worth a million or more.

So, Joe? I’ve got one thing to say: waaah. My taxes have mostly gone up over the last eight years, even though I make nowhere near six figures, much less $250,000. And, in fact, I just got a notice from the IRS two weeks saying that I owed more money from 2006, because of a 401K that rolled over to an IRA when I got laid off from job after six years. I didn’t report this at the time, because I didn’t even realize it was considered taxable income, since I can’t touch it until I’m 67, or some such age. Heck, I wasn’t even aware I was participating in the 401K program until I got my pink slip – just can’t seem to ever get worked up about that stuff. Ironically, this IRA is worth … oh, let’s just say considerably less than it used to be worth; it’s slightly north of diddley squat at the moment. And like Social Security, I’m not really depending on that money being their when I’m 65 or whenever.

Life just gets crazier by the day. I think author William Gibson has said it best:

Joe the Plumber. (They might want to consider calling it the Palin/Plumber campaign, actually.)

It just makes so much sense, on so many levels, and actually manages to up the national fuckedness factor from where I judge it to stand today. Which is more of a stretch than ever, really.

If this dream ticket seems hopelessly far-fetched, to you, just remember that Karl Rove and I are both huge Borges fans.

I have to agree: just when you think it can’t get any worse, the national fuckedness factor rises some more. In this context, it even makes sense. For anyone stumbling across this, and the one or two friends that read this, Gibson is a popular science fiction author who has set his last couple of novels in the present day, because, as he puts it, the present has gotten weirder than any future we can imagine.

Indeed, it’s like America and perhaps much of the world is waiting for Godot.

But don’t let it get you down. If you’re a tabletop gaming nerd – if D&D makes you think of graph paper instead of large breasts, then I present to you the most brilliant political commentary of the entire 2008 presidential race, from somehedgehog:

GM: OK, the bugbear attacks you. What do you do?

OBAMA: I send one of my 672 henchmen after it.

MCCAIN: OK, seriously. Why does he have so many henchmen? I’m a level 72 ranger and he’s only a level 8 paladin.

OBAMA: Well, if you’d bought the Grassroots Organizing and Oratory/Colgate Smile proficiencies you could min max it so that you…

MCCAIN: Why is he even IN this campaign? I thought this was supposed to be a high level party.

OBAMA: Well, maybe some people got tired of the grim and squinty “Matterhorn, son of Marathon” shtick you keep doing. Dude, could you be any less original?

MCCAIN: Oh my god, I did not leave my left nut in a tiger cage in the Tomb of Horrors to spend my Friday nights mopping up after the new kid.

For the whole thing, go here to somehedgehog’s Livejournal entry. Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

Technorati Tags: election, bailout, Absurd, Sartre, Camus, Beckett, racism, presidential campaign, McCain, Obama, socialism, Joe the Plumber guy

And on the other hand, it’s even worse — as it puts the government even more in debt. It’s not even borrowing Peter to pay Paul; it’s asking permission to get more in debt (with tax cuts) to buy debt. And this makes sense how? I’m still pig-biting mad.

But all is right with the world — even as it burns — because The Fabulous Stains has been reissued on DVD by Rhino. Hellz yeah!

I loved The Fabulous Stains when I first saw it as a kid; the USA cable station used to run it about every three hours, I think, back in the mid ’80s. I’ll be curious to see if it has stood the test of time and is as cool as it was to the angry-young-man teenager that I was in the process of becoming in the craptacular 1980s (as opposed to the angry-middle-aged-man I am today). OK, there were a few good things to come out of the 80s — the Cure’s best albums, Joy Division, death metal, Siouxsie, personal computers, this movie — but not much.

P.S. Turns out there’s some serious pork in the bailout bill. Not like it’s a surprise, but geez. Just when you thought Congress couldn’t get any more pathetic than it already is. …

Technorati Tags: bailout, The Fabulous Stains, 1980s

I never really stopped to think about this; perhaps that’s the problem — why, that as I close in on age 40, I still feel like Holden Caufield. I reread Catcher in the Rye for the umpteenth time last week. I remember reading it as a youth, and having one of those epiphanies that only someone filled with the self righteousness of youth can experience: here is someone who “understands,” I thought; here is someone who “gets it.” The who being J.D. Salinger, of course. I thought the same thing when I read Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. I suppose I should be embarrassed to admit that now, but I’m not — I’m also astonished to have found it among my mother’s books shortly after her death, but that’s another topic for another time.

I guess I had some vague notion or expectation that by now I wouldn’t still feel alienated from the world around me. I’m not really surprised that I’m not, I suppose; but I think if anything I’m even more restless and mystified by the world today — even pissed off — then I was as a youth. I guess the upcoming election coupled with the current financial debacle have exacerbated these feelings. Or maybe I’m just not as self absorbed as I was as a youth.

But I just can’t believe that most people actually think that either Obama or McCain are good choices for president. I can’t get my brain around this that the majority find one or the other acceptable. I could provide reasons a mile long against both, but the one that astonishes me the most, I’ve already written about, and that’s their support for FISA. Good God, both candidates for president voted to abridge our civil rights, rights upon which this country supposedly was founded, rights which supposedly men and women have died to protect — are dieing even today. At least in theory, this is why they are dieing; I’m not so sure, and that is what is so terrible about that.

But the thing is, I bring this up with people, even people that I used to think were rational thinkers, and they just shrug their shoulders. “Well, would you rather have Obama/McCain?” they ask, depending on which side of the political spectrum they lie. No I wouldn’t. I would rather have someone who isn’t a career politician, i.e., I’d rather have someone who is not a sellout crook. I’d rather have a candidate who hasn’t wiped his butt with the constitution like these two have as sitting U.S. senators; they are no different than the sellout crooks in the current administration.

Pete Townsend was right: meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Then there is the financial debacle.

So, as of today, it looks like Congress may pass that $700-OMFG-billion bailout. Oh, they threw in a few caveats so they can brag about how they protected the “little guy,” or as Obama likes to say, “Main Street.” The hope is, of course, that the government will by huge amounts of devaluaed assets — essentially bying bad debt — with the idea that with this bad debt taken off their hands, banks and financial firms will be more willing to — wait for it … wait for it — extend more credit. To make more loans to create more debt. Ostensibly “good” debt, but debt nonetheless. As the Associated Press put it, the bailout “would pump as much as $700 billion into beleaguered financial firms that are starving for cash, taking over huge amounts of devalued assets from the companies in the hopes of unlocking frozen credit.”

WTF?

According to the AP report, the government will insure some bad home loans rather than buy them outright, ostensibly to limit the amount of tax payer money used in the bailout. It also seems that financial executives who got us into this mess “would see their pay packages limited,” and won’t receive “golden parachutes. Something tells me their limited pay packages will still be more than I make in total for several years.

The AP also reports that the government would receive stock in the companies it bails out, ostensibly giving it, and by proxy us, a chance to recoup some of the bailout through future profits these companies would make. So we’re betting on these companies that are all about to fail that someday they’ll make money again. This sounds a little too close to the logic of “too big to fail.”

And last, and seemingly least in the eyes of the government, the litte guy on Main Street: the plan would require the government to try renegotiating the bad mortgage debt it acquires with the goal of lowering borrowers’ monthly payments so they can keep their homes.

Again, WTF?

OK, if you don’t want to read the angry, self-righteous rant we all know is coming, stop here. Bad words trouble you? Please go to http://www.fluffyboxofkittens.com and tell ‘em I sent ya.

<angry rant>

So, essentially the government is going to fuck us hard yet again, but at least is giving us a momentary reach around before heading out the door without so much as a “thank you ma’am” (that will come later in a soundbite for the evening news that we’ll see on the fuzzy TV in our sordid little roach motel room). Sorry for the graphic analogy (not really) but I’m very, very angry by all this, not to mention mystified as to how anyone can think this is a good idea.

Our country is already $9.8 billion in the hole (yes, all the sordid details can be found here), between debt carried by the U.S. public and that carried by the government The total debt has increased more than $500 billion each year since since 2003; the annual budget deficit declined from $318 billion in 2005 to $162 billion in 2007, but is estimated to increase to $410 billion in 2008. Budget deficits add to the debt, of course, because the government borrows to make up the slack.

So, a government that lives beyond its means is going to borrow even more money to bail out individuals and corporations living beyond their means.

Seriously, in what the fuck world does this make sense? Please tell me, as I’d like to join the rest of you there, but apparently I was in the bathroom when they handed out the blue pills.

I’ll go ahead and state the obvious here, because obviously it needs to be said. But in all seriousness, isn’t this just the sort of thing that caused the current problem in the first place? On one hand, we’ve got milions of people living beyond their means through credit. Maxing out their multiple credit cards and getting a mortgage they have no realistic means of paying off in the long run, living in debt up to their eyeballs — all in pursuit of the so-called American dream. On the other hand, there’s the thousands of greedy bastards willing to extend all that questionable credit. As if that weren’t enough money, even greedier bastards are buying and selling that debt.

So now that this is all crashing and burning, both sides are clamoring for the government, which is broke to begin with, to bail them out. And that means, of course, us taxpayers. Well, maybe if you’re one of those people living impossibly beyond your means, or one of those greedy bastards making money off of those fools, you think this is a good idea.

As someone who has largely stayed out of debt for most of his adult life — caveat to Mom and Dad for paying off the college loans — who pays his taxes (taxes which have gone up under Dubya, I might add), who lives simply and not beyond his means, who drives a ‘92 Subaru that’s paid for (what a novel concept), I have to disagree. I don’t think my tax dollars should be used to bail out anyone on either side.

Fuck you; you made your bed, now you should have to lie in it. Why should people like me help foot the bill and be punished while others get bailed out — in other words, rewarded — for being at best foolish and ignorant and at worst a greedy, opportunist asshole? When do I get to stop feeling like Holden Caufield, and that there is actually some rationality in the human world? What about my American dream?

I think that’s about to drown in a $700 billion flush down the toilet; Obaman or McCain will have the priviledge of jiggling the handle.

Oh, but what about the “painful recession” Dubya warned us about if this doesn’t come to pass? Well, what about it? I would have thought unending war, gas shortages, and a price more than $4 dollars a gallon would be enough to wake people up, but it hasn’t; it just produced more should shrugs. Maybe this would be enough to make the blue pill wear off.

</rant>

Ah, I feel much better now. I still feel like Holden Caufield, but I’ll stick with the red pill.

Technorati Tags: Holden Caufield, Salinger, Ayn Rand, Obama, McCain, bailout