Archive for October, 2008
Pity Sakes U
It’s was always a bit startling to me to hear a student from Oxford or Cambridge say, “I’m reading ancient history” or “I’m reading Victorian literature.” A statement of that kind is light years away from the basic orientation of the typical student in an American college or university. There one hears, “I’m majoring in recreation management.” (“Majoring”; another noun turned into a verb.) The image that springs to mind is that of one of those semi-professional athletes managing to take a little time away from the football field to go to the gym and practice blowing a whistle and yelling, “Hey, listen up, you guys!” I happen to know that one superstar running back, when he was at a Pennsylvania university (not Penn State; Joe Paterno still has standards, I hear), never attended a class in his four years there. The arrangement was that his profs would give him Cs, but that he would not graduate. When he arrived in the NFL he had to have tutors to help him learn the playbook.
When I began attempting to teach at what was then considered one of the three best Christian liberal arts colleges in the country, and was immediately in trouble essentially for trying to impose some academic standards in my courses, an older colleague pointed out, “This is a student-driven institution, and you’re expected to mollycoddle them.” Another colleague remarked,
“Don’t lower your standards. Just lower your expectations,” but I knew that if I followed that advice I’d give all Fs.
At the end of the academic year the vice president for academic affairs (whatever happened to “dean”?) called me to his office to explain that the tide of student opinion was running so strongly against me that he felt I should look for another position. He explained that I was a scholar, and that this was a teaching institution, so I didn’t belong there.
What was that again?
Here is the sort of thing that was happening: I was teaching second-year Spanish, and one day I called on a student to do a simple transformation during a drill. He asked, “What kind of word is that second one there?”
I answered him, “That’s an adjective. You do know what an adjective is, don’t you?” I almost felt as if it were unkind to ask such an insulting question; mollycoddling, you understand. He admitted that he didn’t know one part of speech from another because he had never studied English grammar. My head was swimming at that point, because the next topic in the textbook was “Uses of the Imperfect Subjunctive in Adverbial Clauses of Purpose and Proviso.”
When I expressed my surprise, he said, “I’ll bet almost no one in the class has studied English grammar.” I called for a show of hands, and virtually all of them 
went up. The image of a flight school for pigs sprang to mind. My job was to teach Spanish to students who had no clue about how English works. Oh, yes, and to teach Hispanic literatures to students who were barely capable of reading Dick and Jane.
On another day, an alleged student asked me what tense a verb in his sentence was in. I told him and then reminded him that he had, after all, studied that tense the previous semester. He retorted sharply that he could not be held responsible for anything presented in a previous semester. I told him to try that one on the Math Department and then come back so we could talk about it. In other words, the concept of actually learning something was foreign to him.
Back to those Oxbridge people. When they said they were “reading” in the various areas, they meant that they were expected to prepare themselves, under the guidance of their tutors, for some tough final examinations. The fundamental way to accomplish this was to do copious readings of the pertinent texts. Lectures on the various topics would be made available by professors who were first of all research-oriented scholars. In the beginning, a university was a place where scholars got
together to offer guidance to young men, and later women as well, who wanted to become educated. (And yes, I’m well aware of the wild partying that went on the Middle Ages too.)
Actually, I believe it was Socrates who said education was a student on one end of a log and a student on the other. So much for billion-dollar campuses.
Become educated? What an antiquated notion. In chapel at the above-mentioned college, one speaker asked the seniors in the front rows why they were there. To a person they answered, “To get a degree.” I was assured by a more experienced faculty member that anyone answering, “To get an education” would have been disgraced.
As a corollary, faculty members are expected to be oriented towards getting passing grades from their students in the form of evaluations. At a university where I taught, I was on the Promotion and Tenure Committee when a friend of mine came up for promotion. His student evaluations were stellar, but another professor, who had taken over a popular linguistics course of his, pointed out that his course was set up so that the students could cheat, and that he gave all A’s. Ironically, the professor who pointed that out had a course of her own that ran on a point system weighted so heavily in favor of class attendance that someone noticed that a dog could be enrolled and, if it wandered into the classroom each Monday, Wednesday and Friday, would pass the course.
I can’t confirm it, but I have read twice of a study in which it was determined that only 30% of US college graduates can even read a label and understand what it says. Surprised? Come, now; these are the future leaders of America? Or are they the present leaders? Maybe this explains why our Congress gets a satisfaction rating of 9% and some of us wonder how it got that high.
It is highly hypocritical of us even to keep calling these diploma mills “institutions of higher learning.” The reason we were instructed to 
mollycoddle those synthetic students at that student-driven institution was that if we didn’t they would go to another school where they would be mollycoddled, and take their parents’ money with them. Our school would fold and we would be out of a job. And that’s the bottom line.
I retired early.
Lenin’s corpse screaming лицемер from his Kremlin tomb
“Collective” collapses as Russia bails out wealthiest billionaires
In a place where individuals were subservient to the collective two of Russia’s wealthiest men are getting massive government bailouts says an article attributed to Associated Press and published on Newser.com.
The Russian government has agreed to loan $4.5 billion to metals magnate Oleg Deripaska to help him pay off a loan to a group of Western banks. While the state bank overseeing the bailout would not confirm the news, three newspapers have reported that Deripaska, who is considered Russia’s richest man, will receive the cash to prevent foreign banks from seizing his metals company as collateral.
The state loans to Deripaska follow yesterday’s $2 billion loan to Mikhail Fridman as the first credits extended under a $50 billion government bailout plan, which could shuffle Russia’s business elite. The Financial Times adds that the Kremlin might extract a high price for the bailout: The government may nationalize the metals company, putting Deripaska in a fight for control of his own corporation.
Also published adjacent to the story if a quote attributed by Russian Vladimir Putin, “The expansion of the government’s presence in the economy is a forced measure that is of a temporary measure.”
The whole thing must make a whirling dervish of Lenin’s corpse that on Halloween must be screaming лицемер or “hypocrites.”
Iran Navy Established “Target” On Straits of Hormuz
“…This naval base a new line of defense has been created east of the Strait of Hormuz,” Iranian Navy commander Adm. Habibollah Sayari said.
Iran has opened a major naval base East of the Straits of Hormuz and has vowed to use it to block the passage of oil tankers through the strategic waterway if necessary.
On Halloween officials said the Iranian Navy has constructed a base in the Strait of Hormuz, passage for 30 percent of global oil shipping. They said the base, located near U.S. military facilities in neighboring Oman, is meant to tighten Iran’s hold over the narrow waterway.
“With the opening of this naval base a new line of defense has been created east of the Strait of Hormuz,” Iranian Navy commander Adm. Habibollah Sayari said.
Sayari said the base was located in the Iranian port of Jask on the Sea of Oman. The admiral said the navy was capable of blocking any enemy infiltration in the region.
A US Navy source said on condition of anonymity that “It sounds like a target to me.”
Why do we vote on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November?
…not because it took Scots that long to sober up after Halloween.
In its early years Americans were predominantly church-going farming society. So law makers took that into account in setting election dates. November was perhaps the most convenient month for farmers and rural workers to be able to travel to the polls.
The fall harvest was over, (remember that spring was planting time and summer was taken up with working the fields and tending the crops). Plus in the majority of the nation the weather was still mild enough to permit travel over unimproved roads.
Since most residents of rural America had to travel a significant distance to the county seat in order to vote, Monday was not considered reasonable since many people would need to begin travel on Sunday. This would, of course, have conflicted with Church services and Sunday worship.
Why the first Tuesday after the first Monday? Lawmakers wanted to prevent election day from falling on the first of November for two reasons. First, November 1st is All Saints Day, a Holy Day of Obligation for Roman Catholics. Second, most merchants were in the habit of doing their books from the preceding month on the 1st. Apparently, Congress was worried that the economic success or failure of the previous month might prove an undue influence on the vote!
Kissinger’s 2nd China Initiative
In 1978, 30 years ago Kissinger brokered the opening of China.
According to a Shanghai (AFP) Oct 29, 2008 article former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said Wednesday Beijing and Washington should work together on solving energy problems as part of necessary changes brought about by the economic crisis.
It was thirty years ago, in 1978, Kissinger helped broker Beijing’s opening up to the world, said China, the fastest growing economy, and the United States, the world’s largest, “have a special need for each other.”
“Now we have to be creative for the next 30 years to do the same that we did in the last 30,” Kissinger told a financial services forum Wednesday. Previously, the economy was global but politics were national, Kissinger said the economic turmoil has showed that gap can no longer exist.
“We have a common interest on energy to deal with the problem that demand is growing but supply is not,” he said.
“We mustn’t be confused by the fact oil prices go down and then they go up — and then they go down,” he said. “If every time they go down, we relax our efforts and every time they go up, we become nervous, that will not work.”
Better energy policies are part of the restructuring that must be accelerated as a result of the crisis along with shifts in emphasis from speculation to industrialization in the US economy and from exports to consumption in China, he said.
“It is a difficult situation and some of it is the fault of Americans, who have consumed more than they have produced and gone too deeply into debt. That’s undoubtedly true,” he said.
It is important to note that the 85-year-old former diplomat, who fled Nazi-Germany for the United States with his family in the 1930s, played down comparisons to the Great Depression.”I know what what the Great Depression was like,” he said. “It was very hard to find a job and we’re not anywhere near what conditions were like in the 1930s.”
China’s economy continues to rocket ahead as it builds a new coal power plant every week to try to quench it seemingly insatiable appetite for electricity. Ironically the US has the largest coal deposits on Earth. Hypocritically China has the worst air pollution of any country as the recent Beijing Olympics demonstrated. So far China has shown little interest in cleaning up its problems with almost a weekly consumer product scandal.
If You Ever Wanted To Go To Yale — You Can Do It Free.
There is nothing hypocritical about this — it is just a damned fine idea.
Thanks to a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. eight new courses in history, economics, literature and biomedical engineering taught by leading faculty have been added to “Open Yale Courses,” the University’s free online education initiative. Anyone may download the video or audio files of Open Yale Courses or watch and listen to them streamed on the web at their convenience. There is no registration required and the courses are not for credit. Open Yale Courses is one of the most frequently visited Yale websites, with more than half a million unique visitors from 187 countries having accessed the site since its debut.
The offerings are diverse history courses include The Civil War and Reconstruction 1845-1877; France Since 1871. Others subject include: Astronomy; Biomedical Engineering; Classics; Economics; English; Philosophy, Physics; Political Science; Psychology and Religious Studies.
Yale University comprises three major academic components: Yale College (the undergraduate program), the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the professional schools. In addition, Yale encompasses a wide array of centers and programs, libraries, museums, and administrative support offices. Approximately 11,250 students attend Yale.
Yale is older than the United States itself. Yale’s roots can be traced back to the 1640s, when colonial clergymen led an effort to establish a college in New Haven to preserve the tradition of European liberal education in the New World. This vision was fulfilled in 1701, when the charter was granted for a school
LA Prepares For Major Earthquake
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Eighteen “Monster” 7.8 Richter Scale Occur Someplace Annually - Mostly Under An Ocean.
According to UPI the U.S. Geological Survey is preparing for the largest earthquake drill in the nation’s history — the Great Southern California ShakeOut. The 10 a.m. PST on Nov. 13 the drill will simulate the results of a 7.8 earthquake on the U.S. West Coast. The exercise is based on a USGS scenario created with emergency responders, power, water and transportation departments, social scientists, engineers and others.
In the scenario, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake — about the same magnitude as earthquakes that struck California in 1857 and 1906 — occurs on the San Andreas Fault, affecting much of Southern California.
“A big San Andreas earthquake is inevitable, and it’s something every Southern Californian should be ready for,” said Jones. She said the earthquake in the drill scenario would lead to 1,800 deaths and more than $200 billion in losses. On January 17, 1994 a 6.7 earthquake hit Reseda 20 miles north of LA killing 57 and injuring 9,000 causing $20 billion in damages.
In 1935 Charles Richter introduced his Richter magnitude scale to measure earthquakes with each order of magnitude being ten fold more powerful. There are about 8,000 earthquakes someplace on earth per day about 1,000 are strong enough to be recorded but not felt; about 49,000 are in the 3,0 to 3.9 range and considered minor; 6,200 times a year a 4.0-4.9 occurs with noticabe shaking; so-called moderate 5.0-5.9 quakes occur causing major damage to poorly designed buildings, and 6.0 to 6.9 quakes (like the 1994 quake) are considered strong hppening 120 times a year. 7.0 to 7.9 magnitude quakes, like the one being planned for in LA happen 18 times a year and are devastatingly strong. The Richter “scale” goes up to force ten but none have ever been recorded with that magnitude.
The USGS said nearly five million people have already registered to take part in the ShakeOut drill. More information is available at www.shakeout.org.
The Dollar’s Last Gasp ?
Nobody I know really understands the vastness or the complexity of the Derivatives Market. But the evidence appears to be that the dollar, amidst much reverse spin from the US government corridors, is squirming and hurting bad. But how is this possible with the dollar so strong now ? Read the following explanation from the financialsense.com website, and watch the clock carefully - something nasty is coming.
In the cited article, Kirby wrote: “What folks need to understand is that the global OTC derivatives market, measured in tens or hundreds of Trillions, is virtually all US Dollar denominated. Its SYSTEMIC failure, which is now occurring, requires US Dollar balances to clear (settle) the trades (bets). This has created the paradoxical global demand for US Dollars, the currency of a country that is fundamentally bankrupt. By rationing credit to hedge funds that were naturally levered and ‘long commodities’ (institutions like JP Morgan routinely took the other sides of their customers commodities bets, ruining institutions like natural gas player Amaranth), and propping up the balance sheets of those who were short commodities [such as] the Banks. The Federal Reserve led cabal of Central Bankers have ENGINEERED the collapse in commodities prices while creating the illusion (of a perverse USDollar rally). The engineered collapse of the commodities complex became necessary in the eyes of monetary elites because the rush for tangibles and corresponding repudiation of fiat money was becoming manic, as so CLEARLY evidenced by the emerging shortages of precious metals, gold and silver bullion.” My rejoinder is that the crude oil price, and many commodity prices, have come down right before the election, just like in autumn 2006, a perception we share.
Kirby went on to conclude that “We are CLEARLY going to HYPERINFLATE!!!!” He steadfastly contradicts shallow assertions that deflation will dominate the scene. Anyone observing the money supply acceleration in recent weeks can easily see this, yet deflationists seem unable to observe the human response in desperation. We two have frequent debates between ourselves, whether USTreasury Bond default will occur or else a big Reflation Episode. It is possible both will occur. These exchanges will contribute toward a key section in the upcoming November Hat Trick Letter on the weekend of November 9. A topic raging lately between us has been the failures to deliver USTreasurys. This extraordinary phenomenon highlights the extreme mountain of toxic bond (in)securities spewed worldwide by the corrupted US financial sector, but it also highlights the questionable legitimacy of USTreasury Bonds. One should remember that over $2000 billion in counterfeit USTreasury Bonds was probably buried under the World Trade Tower rubble one dark September day in 2001. The traded volume of USTBonds was recorded to be over $2 trillion above official issuance in USTBonds. So maybe we are seeing a redux of counterfeit issuance of USTBonds in order to satisfy unprecedented demand. By the way, USTreasury management is done, and accounting is done, almost like a money laundering operation, handled by JPMorgan. The rise, burial, and revival of supply are all conducted under the convenient accounting rules permitted by national security agencies.
Could the failures to deliver USTreasurys, as shown in the alarming graphic below, be a precursor to actual default? We will see. Kirby maintains a period of tremendous hyper-inflation is coming. My forecast is for a possible USTreasury default, as conditions grow out of control, and economic disintegration catches the nation by surprise. The collapse of General Motors could trigger a profound change in perception concerning the effective implementation of USGovt and Wall Street bailouts and rescues. Either way, disruptions like never seen before are on the horizon. The settlement failures bring into question the integrity of the USTreasurys as a legitimate market. Their counterfeit from more supply than issuance is well documented, and rings like a loud echo to the naked stock shorting chapter of US financial markets.
Maybe Its Methane Says MIT But Not Bossy’s Fault
Absurd Proposal to Attached DEPENDS-LIKE Gadget to Cow’s Rearend To Stop Global Warming
In the 1960s flatulent cows were accused of causing what was then predicted global warming because methane is such an effective greenhouse gas. The world would soon be a vast desert. Predictably bureaucrats and hysterical scientists proposed attaching methane collectors and filters to the offending end of cows and all livestock. Sensing that something smelled the assembled farmers laughed the officials out of the Grange Meeting to disappear with their Depends-like gadgets into a stormy Ohio night.
Nobody there argued that cows can be insensitive about their copious gaseous emission and walking behind one is a good way to have your eyes burning in addition to a soaked leg. “Watch it when she raises that tail” is an admonition given every farm boy or otherwise learned the hard way.
Now MIT scientist say methane is on the rise again worldwide and simultaneously and they believe this may be part of a natural cycle in Mother Nature, not bossy or other human causes.
The two lead authors of a paper published in this week’s Geophysical Review Letters, Matthew Rigby and Ronald Prinn, the TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry in MIT’s Department
of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science, state that as a result of the increase, several million tons of new methane is present in the atmosphere and it is five times more effective a greenhouse gas that carbon dioxide.
It is clear it isn’t bossy’s fault but I’d still watch that tail if I were you.
Did Abraham Lincoln Really Say This?
* You cannot help the poor, by destroying the rich.
* You cannot strengthen the weak,
by weakening the strong.
* You cannot bring about prosperity,
by discouraging thrift.
* You cannot lift the wage earner up,
by pulling the wage payer down.
* You cannot further the brotherhood of man,
by inciting class hatred.
* You cannot build character and courage,
by taking away men’s initiative and independence.
* You cannot help men permanently,
by doing for them what they could and should, do for themselves.
The Author
Abraham Lincoln
There are many ways for men to get a fight started.
!. When I got home last night, my wife asked me to take her someplace expensive…so I took her to a gas station…and that is how that fight started.
2. I tried to talk my wife into buying a case of Miller Light for $14.95. Instead, she bought a jar of cold cream
for $7.95. I told her the beer would make her look better at night than the cold cream. And that’s how that fight started…
3: After retiring, I went to the Social Security office to apply for Social Security. The woman behind the counter asked me for my driver’s license to verify my age. I looked in my pockets and realized I had left my wallet at home. I told the woman that I was very sorry, but I would have to go home and come back later. The woman said, ‘Unbutton your shirt’. So I opened my shirt revealing my curly silver hair. She said, ‘That silver hair on your chest is proof enough for me’ and she processed my Social Security application. When I got home, I excitedly told my wife about my experience at the Social Security office. She said, ‘You should have dropped your pants. You might have gotten disability, too’. And that’s how that fight started…..
4: My wife and I were sitting at a table at my high school reunion, and I kept staring at a drunken lady swigging her drink as she sat alone at a nearby table. My wife asked, ‘Do you know her?’ ‘Yes,’ I sighed, ‘She’s my old girlfriend. I understand she took to drinking right after we split up those many years ago, and I hear she hasn’t been sober since.’ ‘My God!’ says my wife, ‘Who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?’ And that’s how the fight started…..
5: I rear-ended a car this morning. So, there we were alongside the road and slowly the other driver got out of his car. You know how sometimes you just get soooo stressed and little things just seem funny? Yeah, well I couldn’t believe it…. he was a DWARF!!! He stormed over to my car, looked up at me, and shouted, ‘I AM NOT HAPPY!!!’ So, I looked down at him, and in my cutsie voice said, ‘Well, then which one are you?’ And that’s how the fight
started…..
6: I took my wife to a restaurant. The waiter, for some reason, took my order first. ‘I’ll have the strip steak,
medium rare, please.’ He said, ‘Aren’t you worried about the mad cow?’ ‘Nah, she can order for herself.’ And that’s how the fight started…..
Final Weekend Polls Favor Obama - 70% Expect His Win
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aturday was the 37th consecutive day that Obama got over 50% of the vote while McCain has been below 45% according to Rasmussen… Nearly one third say they have already voted and Obama leads by 9% among those early and absentee voters according to Rasmussen polling. Gallup puts the “already voted number” at 24%. ZOGBY’s 3-day tolling average has the race 49% to 44% with McCain outpolling Obama on Friday 48% to 47%. Gallup continues to have Obama ahead in the contest 51% to 43%. Gallup is weighting the black vote more heavily than other polls predicting record turnout. Obama is attracting 95% of black voters and 72% of Hispanics. No one is projecting a record youth vote despite early optimism to the contrary.
GALLUP continues to contradict others saying Obama leads McCain on taxes. 73% say corporations do not pay their fair share in taxes and 63% say high income people do not either. 51% of lower income people say they pay too much although most 62% pay no income taxes conversely 50% of middle income earners say the pay a fair share. 59% say the income tax system needs complete or a major overall and a plurality say Obama would do a better job for them personally and 53% say McCain would help the wealthy most.
Electoral College totals continue to be lopsided favoring Obama 260 to 160 in Rasmussen and similarly among other pollsters. Seven in ten expect Obama to win. Friday McCain’s chief pollster said, "All signs say we are headed to an election that may easily be too close to call by next Tuesday." Cynics are already calling it “the Lawyers Relief Act of 2008” predicting heaps of lawsuits.
Saudi Draws Oil Price Line in Sand
Won’t allow oil below $50 a barrel — analyst say it’s headed lower.
Saudi Arabia has drawn a line in the sand on oil prices – and it has plenty of both – saying it will significantly reduce crude oil production to prevent prices from dropping below $50 per barrel equal to an inflation adjusted 1977 price. Thursday crude oil fell to under $65 per barrel despite OPEC announcing a cut of 1.5 million barrels effective November 1st.
Industry sources said Riyad has budgeted its military procurement and energy infrastructure program on expectation that the price of oil would remain over $50 through 2010. The sources said the Gulf Arab kingdom would encounter a deficit should prices drop below $50.
Riyad has an enormous appetite for cash to feed some 26,000 Saud princes, pay for more than 15,000 clergy, and a giant welfare system the royal family needs to stay in power.
“If it goes below that level we would start seeing a fiscal account deficit,” International Monetary Fund director Mohsin Khan said.
Since July 2008, the price of crude oil dropped from a high of $147 to Industry sources said the global credit crisis would plunge prices at least another $20 over the next two months raising angst in Saudi Arabia and among other oil producing states. If that happens it would trigger Saudi cuts. It is ironic that when producers cut they loose every penny effectively making the per barrel price zero.
Sixty years ago, in 1948 a barrel of oil sold for $2.77; in 1958 it was $3; 1968 $3.13. In 1973, before the oil embargo it sold for $3.60 and one year later it had jumped to $9.35 or slightly more than $40 per barrel in inflation adjusted dollars.
Response To How Tax Policy Works, Misattributed to David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Hypocrisy indeed. I prefer this explanation: (To How Tax Policy Works
Misattributed to Dr Kamerschen)
In the US and throughout most of the rest of the world, the tenth man would have paid off a politician for $10 to get a beer subsidy of $30 per night(to create jobs for the bartender). Of this $30, $10 of course would have covered the lobbying expense, $10 would go in his own pocket, $1 would go to the bartender to keep his mouth shut, and $9 would go to the bar.
The Bar would give him a kickback of $10 each night for bringing in his 9 buddies to make them into alcoholics, repeat customers for life.
The Bar would then raise their prices to $130 citing inflation and higher taxes.
The tenth richest man would then secure his finances in a Dutch Holding Company managed by a trust in Ireland which invests in Chase and Bank of America. He would then explain to his buddies that he is as poor as the rest of them and can’t afford to pay himself as he cries into his beer that night citing his latest financial report which shows him to be broke on paper so that he doesn’t have to pay taxes in the United States ever again.
Citing his former generosity, the other nine men would agree that the tenth man can now pay nothing like the 4 poorest.
The others would then be faced with an adjusted amount of
* The fifth would pay $3.
* The sixth would pay $10.
* The seventh would pay $22.
* The eighth would pay $38.
* The ninth would pay $57.
Now the group would recognize that this is not fair and so would lobby the Government for an Earned Drinking Credit for the Poorest men. The government would oblige and give the four poorest men $2 each, but they would tax the 5th - 9th men $2 each as well.
* 4 men receive a total of $8 and 5 men pay $10.
The adjusted amounts would then look like this for all 10
* First Receives $2 pays $2 | Net 0
* Second Receives $2 pays $2 | Net 0
* Third Receives $2 pays $2 | Net 0
* Fourth Receives $2 pays $2 | Net 0
* Fifth Pay $1 to bar pays $2 to tax | net paid $3
* Sixth Pay $8 to bar; pays $2 to tax | net paid $10
* Seventh Pay $20 to bar; pays $2 to tax | net paid $22
* Eighth Pay $36 to bar pays $2 to tax | net paid $38
* Ninth Pay $55 to bar; pays $2 to tax | net paid $57
* Tenth Man: Tax Credit Received: $30 ;
Pays $10 to politician;
$1 to bartender;
Receives $10 from Bar
Net RECEIVED $29 per night and free beer
Of course this can not go on forever as the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth men can’t afford to pay those rates forever. So they start paying with their credit cards held by Bank of America and Chase.
The tenth man would start demanding a higher Return on Investment from his investment managers, who would be hearing similar requests from all of their other investors. They would then expand their holdings into mortgaged back securities where a good deal more profit could be made.
Meanwhile the Fifth through ninth men are racking up debt on their credit cards from drinking every night, their health care costs are increasing as their liver fails, and they are also spending more on gasoline as they drink and drive as they can no longer afford to cab it.
Ultimately, they end up refinancing their credit cards into their house where they have equity. The mortgage broker promises them a 4.9% interest rate on the refinance which sounds good as their credit card interest rate is up to 21%. The broker promises them that they will not have to verify their income, provide W2’s nor copies of their tax paper work.
Their mortgage broker doesn’t tell them, but lies about the value of their house in order to refinance their credit and help them avoid paying private mortgage insurance. At their current income levels, and without verifying their income, their mortgage would be classified as Sub Prime and the interest rate would be 10.9%
The mortgage officer lies about their income levels as well to boost the internal credit scoring mechanism and get them financed, not at 4.9% but 5.9%, which is better than 10.9% and happens to pay the mortgage broker a higher commission than a loan at 4.9% that is not sub prime.
The mortgage broker also promises them a payment of $900 per month, but fails to mention the balloon payment of $50,000 in the 5th year and doesn’t mention the adjustable rates in year 3.
The men separately show up with a hangover and sun glasses on the date of their close for their new mortgages. They trust their broker and do not read the paperwork in detail flipping and signing almost as fast as they could raise a beer bottle to their lips.
The loan closes, the mortgage broker gets a fat commission, the bank securitizes the mortgages by selling them to an Irish Hedge Fund and pockets collectively a billion dollars in profits that year.
The hedge fund holds the investment for a year, shows a 35% gain on paper and starts selling shares to retirement funds and 401ks in the US that the Sixth through 9th men just happen to have the rest of their life savings sitting in.
The tenth man sees the writing on the wall, literally magic marker on a stall in the restroom of the bar.
“The end is Nigh”
He pulls his money out of the Irish Hedge fund invested in real estate and invests in Gold at $600 a troy ounce.
Meanwhile, he lobbies congress to tighten bankruptcy laws for credit cards which he still has a sizable investment in. Congress tightens bankruptcy laws and makes it impossible to absolve credit card debt, forcing people into chapter 13 where they must pay off the debt within 3 years or go to debtors prison where they can work it off in 7 years.
Gas prices are still going up so the President ignores a minor terrorist threat, allows the terrorists to blow up a major building and then goes to war with the terrorists home country where there is no oil, and simultaneously with a country that sits on 10% of the worlds oil reserves that has a decimated military infrastructure.
Oil prices shoot through the roof with Gold following close behind. The President whose family comes from oil barons make a fortune and become famous at their skull and bones country club outside of Yale.
Meanwhile our famous 10 guys, start paying even more money at the pump. The first 4 guys end up taking second jobs working at Wal-Mart and have to give up drinking at the bar so that they can try and beat their teenage kids out of a promotion.
The fifth and sixth guys get foreclosed upon. They were forced to stop paying their mortgage payments so that they could pay their mandatory credit card payments as required by the new bankruptcy law.
The seventh, eighth and ninth men all previously traded up their homes for McMansions that they can not afford with interest only payments of $2300 a month. When foreclosures start happening their plans on flipping their McMansions and cashing in on the equity slips through their fingers.
To make matters worse seven and eight get laid off from the companies they work for when their jobs get outsourced to China. The ninth man keeps his job at a law firm, but fails to notice that his 401k fund is slipping and has lost 10% in the last year. Things are looking up as his law firm seems on the edge of landing a big contract with Merrill Lynch.
Then the real estate crash and sub prime mortgage scandal erupt. Banks start dropping like flies to be saved not by the cash strapped government that can barely afford the war for oil any longer, but by China. Oil and Gold soar, Gold hits $900 a troy ounce and Oil hits $130 a barrel (about the same amount for 10 rounds of beer prior to the crash). Beer prices hold steady for the first few months, but then start to edge up as gas prices for delivery creep into the bar owners expenses.
Then the first four men one night remember their favorite bar. They sneak around back around 4:30 am and steal 50 empty kegs that just happen to be made of pure aluminum. Those kegs are now worth about half the value of a keg that is full in scrap metal prices or about $80.
They are not stupid and don’t want to get caught turning the kegs in at the dump where the police are already looking for keg thieves. So they head out to the closed down manufacturing plant where they used to work. They start a big fire, and melt down the aluminum into big messy aluminum splashes on the cement.
They turn in the aluminum for cash and get caught up on their back alimony and child support before heading back to work at Wal-mart where they now work for their teen age kids that beat them out for that promotion earlier in the month because their job skills weren’t as good as recent high school graduates. They then begin dreaming of new ways to find aluminum alimony allowances.
Meanwhile, the banks and mortgage companies lobby congress spending about $10,000 a head in an election year to bail out the economy. Congress provides the major banks with government backed loans to refinance the bad sub prime loans so that the government can personally guarantee those bad loans. They also put $100 billion of actual cash into the hands of Americans hoping to stimulate the economy.
Americans however, are all in debt up to their eye balls and use the extra $1200 they receive to make 2-3 credit card payments. They take the $300 for each kid and buy groceries for the month and then they start worrying about next month.
The banks get away free as they have Chinese financing now and no bad loans as they have refinanced them over to the US Government. The US government had to print more money to pay for all of these actions and so Gold goes up to $1500 a troy ounce.
The tenth man is now worth Billions and moves to Costa Rica to retire taking the new trophy wife that used to be the bartenders girl friend with him.
The first four men end up going to county prison for 3 months for stealing aluminum dog crap receptacles after running out of kegs to steal.
The fifth and sixth men end up living in an apartment and then homeless after they lose their jobs at Wal-Mart.
The seventh and eighth men whom we previously left hanging in our story after they lost their jobs and ability to pay for their homes, end up losing their homes, and their kids. They and their spouses are each convicted of mortgage fraud by the FBI in a major sting operation after it is revealed that they lied on their mortgage applications. Their mortgage brokers who actually did the paper work cop a plea agreement in exchange for immunity with the Feds and rat out each of their unsuspecting customers.
The ninth man ends up losing his entire retirement fund which took a big hit as the dollar rapidly plummeted into free fall. He ends up refinancing his own house under a government backed loan for $650,000. Unfortunately, a tornado comes through that winter in a freak coincidence and levels the home. FEMA promises to provide assistance but never shows up and the ninth man freezes to death attempting to salvage the shreds of his belongings. His home insurance policy refuses to pay as they claim that his house was over valued and then they prove it with comparables studies from his own mortgage brokers database.
The tenth man ends up dumping his new bride a year later, moving back to the states a year after that when the US appears to have hit rock bottom and he leads up a Chinese real estate investment initiative in the states. He makes another $10 billion in ten years, but is then executed in Beijing for espionage.
Meanwhile, the bar tender goes on to win American Idol and sleep with Paula Abdul. They are now blissfully happy, doped up on anti-psychotics, and the biggest two idiots the world has ever seen.
E. T. Phone Home But, Don’t Call Collect — The Long Distance Charges Are Killers
Another Earth may be orbiting the star next door.
“Another Earth may be orbiting the star next door,” says an article in the February, 2008 New Scientist. That closest star is Alpha Centauri B 4.5 light years distant. It is a good candidate because it is a relatively calm orange-red dwarf.
Scientists at Cal Tech suggested there could be a plant of about earth size within the “habitable” zone where liquid water could exist on the planet’s surface. Such liquid water is, by consensus, a requirement for life but by no means assures life. But, wherever it exists on Earth it teams with life. So, scientists are making long term observations trying to detect a “wobble” that would mean something is orbiting the star as a further step.
That “wobble” method has found the 228 exoplanets we “see” orbiting other stars. Almost all of those are giants like Jupiter because it takes such mass to make a star wobble enough to observe it at the enormous distances involved. So, because Alpha Centauri B is relatively close such a smaller mass planet, if its there, could be detected.
Scientists from the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh say, “judging by the chemical composition of stars in the Milky Way, our galaxy could contain anywhere between 300 and 38,000 highly developed extraterrestrial civilizations potentially capable of contacting Planet Earth.” Because of the boggling lengths of time life and intelligent life could have come and gone elsewhere many times. So, odds of life on a plant next door are well astronomical.
The Milky Way galaxy contains 300 billion stars; scattered around its 100,000 light year diameter, and since one light year is about 6 trillion miles it is unlikely—even if somebody is here– that anybody will be stopping by or that we will driving over for coffee anytime soon.
Moore Movie Shoots To Top In Miami Debut
Nationalized health care is playing a big part in next weeks Presidential election
SHOOTING MICHAEL MOORE , the documentary that turned the tables and camera on Michael Moore for misrepesentations in his SICKO film, and looks into the often fetid bowels of Cuba’s and the UK’s “nationalized” health care system was the highest grossing film on it’s third day at AMC in Mall of America in Miami last week. Despite little advertising, and inadvertently, none by the theater on the internet or in the newspapers, word of mouth from interviews on local radio stations, made it the top film for a day in a largely Cuban expatriate neighborhood.
The film is timely because health care is playing a big part in next weeks Presidential election.
So successful was the quiet roll out of the privately produced film that ad dollars are being solicited for more markets and it’s run has been extended at least one week at the current theater as it is being considered for wider screening in the Miami area and other markets including New York and Los Angeles.
Although the film has no direct connection with the David Zucker directed film AN AMERICA CAROL that premiered nationwide October 3rd both mock Moore . AN AMERICAN CAROL was done in Zucker’s spoof style and Shooting Michael Moore by Kevin Leffler, a classmate of Michael Moore, is done in a lighthearted, funny way and is chock full of facts about Michael Moore that would embarrass anyone with any sense of shame.
Fearing Abandonment By New US President Czechs Delay Missile Shield
US allies reassessing… Israel has already declared “strategic independence.” UK points to catastrophic consequences of self absorbed US in pre-World War II times.
Wednesday the Czech government delayed a final vote on two agreements with Washington to deploy part of a missile shield system on Czech soil until it can “judge the attitude” of a new US president. Their trepidation is primarily over questions raised by an Obama administration but they also want assurances from McCain if he is elected.
Russia and leftist members of the Czech parliament oppose the installation.
Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said his government will delay the ratification process by six more weeks so that the final vote on the agreements, which must be ratified by both houses of parliament, would take place after the inauguration of US President George W. Bush’s successor in late January.
Initially, the Czechs were planning to ratify the missile shield agreements without waiting for the US presidential election results. But,