The Good Sleazebag or Bad Sleazebag

So tomorrow's the election. It's looking gloomy for everyone. The choice, apparently, is between good and evil. Unfortunately who is good and who is evil is a little unclear. In my view the bad guy, according to popular wisdom (i.e., the media), is actually the good guy whereas Joe Biden is sleazier than a used car salesman (sorry used car salesmen and women and haters of clichés everywhere).

What's worse is editorials "praising" Joe Biden (Boston Globe), or describing him as an "outstanding candidate" (Rolling Stone). This is a man that has influence-peddled for more than 40 years; has inappropriately touched more women and girls (hair sniffing and lingering forehead kisses included) than Muammar Gaddafi. How is any of this praiseworthy? How can editors write this stuff with a straight face? It's a revoltin' development, as the old saying goes.

Here's what we get with a win by Biden: a kind of soft totalitarianism where our rights will be curtailed for safety, abundance of caution, a lack of intellectual curiosity, sensitivity to select/popular/trending groups, language changes (better learn to speak woke!), continued stifling of contrary voices by the press, and an erasure of history. No wart will go unremoved from America's past. We'll also continue down the path of fighting racism with racism. Retribution is the name of the game. Half the country will continue to be shit on and thought of a dunces. 

And Trump unfortunately won't go away. Not because he's a loudmouth attention-seeker. But because the left needs a punching bag, a shibboleth (Nixon is still assailed and it's 2020!!). We'll just go from Trump IS the worst president to Trump WAS the worst president, ad nauseum. And there will be no criticism of the new regime! 

Tails you win, heads I lose will be codified.

  

President Harris by March 2022

A smack in the face. Here's what's going to happen. Biden wins, but not in November (the guy who wins in November won't be sworn in in January). 

Biden then goes about the task of fighting off calls to investigate Trump and his administration. He'll hate this. He has his own agenda and executing that while trying to punish Trump would not only bring his own plans to a standstill, it would piss off half the county and basically be akin to a certain Southeast Asian ground war the US involved itself in in the 1960s and 70s. 

Nonetheless, those fights trip him up. Biden is now stumbling as he starts his tenure, much like a racehorse bumped just out of the gate. Concurrently, all through 2021 Biden will likely still be fending off the accusation of influence peddling -- see Biden, Hunter et al. This will find he and his admin limping into late 2021 hobbled by internal discord, and tugged this way, that way and leftway. 

Meanwhile, quietly undermining the whole enterprise will be anti-growth policies (tax increases, regulations) that will be a drag on the economy. 

All of this is, of course, is exhausting. It would be a challenge for 35-year-old president let along  a 78-year-old one. By early 2022, Biden will have had it. He will step aside and badaboom badabing, just like Bob's your uncle,  Kamala's your president. This will bring San Francisco magical economics to the national level, with California's lousy dismal science practices not far behind.

Biden is an empty vessel, ready (and willing) to be filled with any noxious American-hating policies that the far left sticks down his throat. Biden doesn't hate the US -- he's become wealthy plundering it via influence peddling for almost 50 years. But he's not smart enough or brave enough to fend off the leftist hordes.

In fact, this admin will be so odious, so ferociously anti-American, such a failure at running the country, that this could be the last Democratic president in a generation.

Trump is an asshole of spectacular proportions. He's weapons grade. But he's an effective bulwark against the coming totalitarianism.

Buttinskies

Apropos of everything. Today, buttinskies. Those ever present everybody's business minders. And the direction we're heading -- life under professional do-gooders -- if the left wins more than just prez or just congress or, in fact, anything in November).

"Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind-in-the-mass through some pet formula of their own. The harm done by ordinary criminals, murderers, gangsters, and thieves is negligible in comparison with the agony inflicted upon human beings by the professional do-gooders who attempt to set themselves up as gods on earth and who would ruthlessly force their views on all others with the abiding assurance that the end justifies the means."
― Henry Grady Weaver from The Mainspring of Human Progress

And another, by CS Lewis:

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

Here's what the master himself (hisself), Hank Williams, had to say about all this:

If I wants to honky tonk around 'til two or three
Now, brother that's my headache, don't you worry 'bout me
Just mind your own business
Mind your own business
If you mind your business, then you won't be mindin' mine

Mindin' other people's business seems to be high-toned
I got all that I can do just to mind my own
Why don't mind your own business
Mind your own business
If you mind your own business you'll stay busy all the time

Commentaries

August 2011 is the last time I posted. Welcome back me! 

👈 Formula. I think it's for a bourbon, water back.

These are comments from various comment sections -- of them Medium, a site rife with tedium.  The first comment was in response to an article about capitalism on Medium. I don't remember the particulars now. The "This guy" refers to umair haque, a Medium regular who cheers on the demise of America. His energy for this type of writing is impressive. I don't know who he is -- calls himself an economist; wikipedia says he's a London-based  consultant -- but man-alive does he not like the US!! It's his right but it's always striking that those who register on the extreme end of hating a system lack of awareness that they write from a place where they can openly and safely hate that system; a system that pays them to talk and write about the how much they hate the system (there aren't many). This is particularly true because the remedy or model they espouse wouldn't let them do that! I don't recall what the other comments are for or from -- i guess they were from the Ukraine nothingburger. That comment is a little unkempt. Then there is a Trump support view.  

This guy writes a prodigious amount of nonsense. He doesn't see America’s glass half empty, he sees it completely empty, dirty and about to crack. 

Capitalism is here to stay. It may suck sometimes, but it’s the best system there is for most people. If you like socialism, communism, democratic socialism, whatever flavor, go somewhere else — how about Cuba, N. Korea or Venezuela?

Another comment about haque that's a little meaner: 

You’re an economist???!!! Ha ha. I dont think you can include yourself in the group called “other good economists.” Did you study at Hugo Chavez University? Or perhaps at the Burma Socialist Programme Party School? You cannot be an economist and a socialist at the same time. It’s like being a religious scientist or a left-handed shortstop. Not to mention you’re a relentless critic of capitalism — shouldn’t you be happy this is happening? Anyway, curious, is your last name pronounced Hack? Because that, I’m afraid, is kind of what your are.

After this article I think I cancelled my subscription, although I think I paid all at once 'cause I still can read the stories. Medium, though. Ugh. I don't have the data but it just seems like millennials run amok. Bitching about how bad everything is. It's sad because the real pressing problems don't involve race or gender or whatever identity. They involve concentration camps (Uighurs in China), freedom (Hong Kong), daily utter and complete misery, ruined economy, suffering (Aleppo, Syria and now Lebanon). These are just a few. What's to become of these places? Who's going to fix? Are our problems really that bad in comparison? Black people too often are treated unfairly and unkindly by cops. In some cases, they are killed. Let's address that problem specifically instead of painting everyone everywhere racist unless they agree with you. And let's not widen the scope to say that we need Marxism to replace capitalism. Wacky to be sure. 

WSJ?
Not sure what I'm saying here many months later or who I'm saying it to. In any case, it’s shocking to me that those in favor of impeachment seemed to have their heads in the sand during the House part of this thing. Did you completely miss the part where Democrats rejected all witnesses called by Republicans? Did you miss the fact that this part of impeachment took just a few weeks, didnt force the president through the courts to allow more witnesses? (They wouldve won in court). Did you miss the three weeks that Pelosi delayed delivering the articles? Weeks that the House couldve been running their investigation more thoroughly? Did you miss the fact that none of the articles delivered actually named a crime? Why? Because there was no crime. The money was delivered, no investigation took place. Any btw, why not a Biden investigation? The Trump hate is so strong that no one on the left seems to think the whole Biden/Hunter Biden/Ukraine/Burisma thing was a little strange and not kosher.? And if running for office makes you immune from investigation, then everyone everywhere who may have broken a law should just say, sorry I’m running for office, you canbot investigate or prosecute. This was big nothing burger that only strengthened Trump’s base and resolve. It probably attracted the uncommitted voters, too. 

WSJ?
This one I still believe. You know why people like Trump? Because he never insults them the way the left does. Never calls entire swaths of country racists. Never tells them just because of the color of their skin, they need to shut up, that their time is over (Obama... ok he implied it!). They’re tired of climate catastrophizing every weather event (when btw, what’s gonna kill us all is a virus a la corona/SARS, etc).

Tough week!

Been awhile! Where have I been? Who cares? No one! Or no one reading (or not reading).

Oy. A tough few days for the Big O. First he blew it on the debt ceiling debate -- lost pretty big, then the market gyrates all week and ends with an S&P downgrade of US long-term debt and a horrific shoot down of US sailors in Afghanistan. To top it all (one would hope), the Dow drops 634 points.

Clearly something's not working.

What S&P was thinking in pulling the trigger on its downgrade is anyone's guess. Making up for its screw up on rating subprime mortgages? A new purpose in telling the truth? Who knows?

What it seems like S&P has done is suddenly tell the truth when all around are avoiding it. The elephant in the room is that US and Europe are in big big trouble. Not sure why Europe is deemed in better shape than the US -- who would you count on to pay you if either the US or Europe went belly up and you owned their bonds? The US or Europe? The US undoubtedly.

Despite all the drama and the panic, the downgrade in technical terms isn't really a huge deal. It says nothing about default. It's just, as S&P head Devan Sharma has said on the talk show circuit, it's just that the US is a bit more risky an investment than it was a year ago (or a week ago, etc).

Still.... if everyone else is maintaining the lie, at least until we can get out of the hole we're in, then why not just maintain it a little bit longer?

Anyway, Obama once again didn't help himself when he finally address the S&P downgrade and presumably the meltdown that was then occurring. All he did was refry the same old beans that he's been refrying now for months. Apparently he mercifully edited out some of the millionaire and billionaire trash talk.

He was right that congress needs to come together on a plan to cut spending and raise revenue. The only way I see that happening is to do a complete tax overhaul, specifically on the corporate side. There are too many selective tax breaks for companies that don't need them. Funny thing is though, it's not oil!!! Oil profits actually kind of suck over the long-term, and their tax breaks are small compared to others. But in any case, get rid of all the breaks, drop corporate tax rates down to 25% -- or how about below 30%?

Increasing taxes on just millionaires and billionaires just doesn't do enough. Sure, it'll raise some revenue, but its impact on our debt is basically the equivalent of a fart in a hurricane.

Let's hope this is a wake up call Obama and Congress answer.

Charles Bukowski

For most disaffected layabouts, ennui-filled ne'erdowells, and booze-addled navel gazers, or those who aspire to be such (and respected as such), Charles Bukowski is a beacon. For them and even those who are weekend layabouts/ennui-filled ne'erdowells/booz-addled so and sos, etc, he said a lot of meaningful things.

Everyone who wants to be different, edgy, carefree, nihilistic, etc, mentions Bukowski as their inspiration or muse. He was kind of a modern day Diogenes, although instead of a lantern, he probably stumbled around with an empty bottle of Jack Daniels, looking for an honest man.

But he had some pithy quotes. Here's one of his good ones that was on some punky kid's profile:

"If it weren't for physics and law enforcement, I would be unstoppable." It's a great one to be sure.

He wrote Barfly, one of my favorite movies. A great musical score in that one, too.

And he also had a great quote that fills me with hopeful procrastination; although it's from Wikipedia so's a bit suspect. Nonetheless, it's pretty good:

'Somebody at one of these places ... asked me: "What do you do? How do you write, create?" You don't, I told them. You don't try. That's very important: not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It's like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks you make a pet out of it.'

We need more people like him today.

Note: I don't believe I wrote this. I can't remember, and it doesn't sound like me; doesn't look familiar, and brackets? Think it was lifted from a comment area of a site. So apologies to whomever wrote this for not being able to give credit.

[Democrats who blame Bush for the current mess we're in] are so misinformed it's sad. TARP was 787 billion, [and]...you completely ignore all the other funds...the GSE's are up to 400 billion and counting...it will be trillions by the time they are done, FHA is now kicking the can down the road and has an 11% default rate on their mortgages, all the government backup of issued debt to recapitalize the banks, the Fed asset buying program. You have no clue how large a number we are talking about. The US Govt by GSE's now backstops 5 trillion in mortgage debt Dan.

The Fed is to blame also, Bernanke is too smart not to have seen the housing bubble. However, statistics because they substituted rents for home prices in the CPI, allowed the fed to delay raising rates.

You have to net tax cuts against economic growth.

We forced the banks to loan to unqualified borrowers, we incented them towards securitization through the Basel II capital requirements being stacked in favor of securitization. FNM and FRE lent AAA ratings to loans with credit scores as low as 590 and with no money down (despite their charter requiring 20%).

Why has the market been going up...think hard. The Fed has pumped billions and billions into the banks, which we the taxpayer are financing, allowing the banks to invest and trade away to generate profits to recapitalize. and where's the dollar? Stocks in US are priced in what? Dollars.

There were 7 stimulus events during the great depression, none broke the cycle. That's just fact.

Keynsians keep asserting that there is a positive multiplier effect of government spending. Latest estimates say the stimulus multiplier is .89, which is a negative multiplier.

And which President signed the Financial Services Reform Act of 1999? Hint, it was Bill, and the republicans didn't have the votes to overturn a veto. check the money, Pelosi, Reid, Schumer, Dodd...they all voted yes, and got lots of cash for it. www.opensecrets.org

Which Treasury Secretaries shut down Brooksley Borne at CFTC who wanted to regulate derivatives back in 1999? Summers and Rubin with Greenspan's help, and the support of the White House.

It was Dodd who wrote in the language allowing the AIG bonuses.
It was Geitner who allowed them to settle the derivatives trades at full value - shuttling more capital to the ailing banks.

Don't delude yourself, Democrats are just as responsible if not MORE for the mess...