Is Wall Street worthy of being bailed out?

Maybe I don't know much about economics or fancy mortgage backed securities, but I do know that in many neighborhoods around this city there is an epidemic of foreclosed houses. Some communities, some cities have been really hobbled by foreclosures. Many of them were due to unscrupulous loans, but a great deal were due to things that were happening in the country.


Businesses have been closing, leaving employees laid off, rising prices have made it ever more difficult to make ends meet, and things have been just generally tight all over.


So, why didn't Wall Street know this?


How could anyone who works on Wall Street, whose business it is to have their finger on the pulse of what is happening, miss all of the glaring For Sale signs all over America?

So, Wall Street gets to recklessly run the country into the ground and they get rescued. What is to make them any more responsible? How do we know that others will be more responsible than AIG? How do we know there won't be a $442,000 jaunt at taxpayers' expense?

How will we get out of this? I just cried when I looked at my retirement statement, and I am not close to being ready for retirement, but I would like to not lose everything I have gained due to cavalier and madcap decisions.

Can you hear the music?

....Cue the banjos.



Is this really the person you want ready to take the helm when that whipper-snapper McCain finally gives up the ghost?



So, this is what America needs? These are the traditional family values that are being protected and fought for?



She can say, however, that the political is personal. She can see the abstinence only sex-ed policy at work right behind her. Promises break a lot faster than condoms.



Oh, is this the picture of America that we are all supposed to embrace.

The Barak and Michelle Obama New Yorker Magazine Cover

The 21 July 2008 cover of the New Yorker Magazine shows a caricature of Barak and Michele Obama. Barak is dressed in muslim attire with a turban, and sandals, and he is bumping fists with Michelle who is sporting an afro, wearing fatigues, combat boots and has a machine gun (assault rifle) strapped to her back. The two are standing in the oval office with a portait of Osama bin Laden hanging over the fireplace and the American flag burning within it.

The New Yorker says it is satire. It looks like fear of a Black President is really making people leave all the pretences behind.

Why can't we all just get along?

U.N. fails to pass sanctions against Zimbabwe

It is not often that sanctions are truly called for, but this is one of those times. Zimbabwe has become a dictatorship. Robert Mugabe has beaten and bullied any opposition into hiding and submission. He has run the country into the ground. Russia and China stood together and vetoed the "resolution that they said represented excessive interference in the country’s domestic matters." Incredible. So, the people of Zimbabwe will suffer and the world will watch and not come to their aid.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/12/world/africa/12zimbabwe.html?ex=1373601600&en=378a937aa0966d70&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Condoleezza Rice

I have never liked anyone in politics as much as I like her. I know I have said it before, but I thought I would repeat it.