Why The Germans Won't Bail Out Anybody

Europe is about to blow unless the Germans do something and start lending. I have a friend who is German. He told me a long time ago that the Greeks will have to just pay for their ways. They are lazy and just want to sit on the beach. And the French are the same. He works here in America and I know him quite well. What was amazing to me is that he really is just a step away from those pedantic Germans who pop up in movies and on Hogans Heroes. He does not deviate from methodology. And this is the reason the Germans lost the war but also almost took over the world.

What is scary is the logic that sits right under his cool facade. He also believes old people should just die and that would solve a lot of the worlds problems. He says this with no more emotion than ordering a hamburger. It is logical. We keep too many people alive and the world cannot support all these people. He is not a monster and has a family and is a good father.

But looking for the Germans to bail out countries where they believe people lived beyond their means is not going to happen. They will watch as the European economy implodes and drags the rest of the world down with it. As my friend said, they get what they deserve. Yavol.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

The Real Cost of Black Friday

Granted Black Friday is consumerism gone bad. Getting up at the crack of dawn or going to the store at midnight is slightly mad, but what is the real cost to save a buck? If you went down to the store at midnight then the cost is obvious. You leave your family on one of the few days you have off to go to a store and fight with thousands of others for a deal you may or may not get. The cost is psychic yes but it is also economic.

You will spend money to compensate for leaving: gas and food for one. Loss of sleep for another, somewhere you will have to catch up. Maybe you take the kids to a movie or dinner to compensate. You are not home and there is a hit there too. Dad or mom is gone again. A day home from work to be with family has turned into another parental absence you cannot make up. The number of days we as Americans have to spend at home is diminishing as the recession drags on and on. People are already working Saturday as standard operationg procedure to keep their jobs.

But lets say you don't take a hit anywhere else. You have succumbed to the oldest bait and switch on the planet. You are in the store to get hat IPOD for fifty dollars less and maybe you get it but then you get hit with all the other deals. Impulse buying kicks in and now you are getting the switch. Statistics prove people buy unwanted items just by entering the store and that is what Black Friday is all about. Even if you get suckered just a few times the savings that got you up in the middle of the night is gone.

So save yourself some time and money and let Black Friday pass. The deals you miss will be more than paid for by hanging with your kids and your wife or husband. And we all know that time is not money. Time is much more precious.

www.billhazelgrove.com

The President Has One Shot Left to Jump start Housing

The American Jobs Bill is taking water fast since the Speaker and the boys have already said they won't increase taxes for nuthin. Uh Uh. Not going to do it. The fourteen month countdown is here and like the wrestler ahead by two points all they have to do is hang on and let the economy tank and it's game over for Obama and crew. But the President does have one bullet left and it will be his last shot. It could save the economy and his Presidency.

Here it is. Forget about the Jobs Bill. It is too scatter shot anyway. What he should do and really has to do is give the American people back their homes. He can do this and he won't need congress. He can order Fannie and Freddie to immediately change their guidelines and refinance anyone with good credit regardless of the the value of their homes. Anyone. Millions would move to lower rates and get two months off in the process and get their escrow money back. Massive cash infusion for the middle class.

Secondly. Give a ten thousand dollar incentive for anyone buying a new home. It worked before and it will work again. Get people buying homes again. Third. Order all the banks who hold second mortgages to subordinate to the first lien position. The second loans are strangling homeowners by not allowing them to refinance. Third. Give the market back it's equity. Make it illegal to count foreclosures and short sales in comps for appraisals. These should not be counted. They are aberrational and taking away the value for homeowners who have been paying their mortgages on time.

Why do this? Because the crash started with housing and it will end with housing. This was not a normal boom and bust cycle. The crash occurred because lending was broken when the derivative market blew. The middle class backs their hand with their homes. Everything they do comes from this asset. Give the housing market back it's value and middle class people will start to buy again. Hiring will follow. But here is the real reason: The effect would be immediate.

Forget about tax cuts for businesses. Nothing will trickle down. It has to go up. This is what the economists don't get. This is what mortgage brokers and real estate agents know. The President could save his Presidency by doing this. But he has to do it now. He has to focus. Because this is his last shot.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

Rocket Man...sometimes a house is not a home

Priming the Pump

We had a Briggs and Straton lawn mower when I was a kid that refused to start. I would have to pop off the spark plug and pour gas into the cylinder, blow out the gap in the plug, put it back and start pulling again. The mower would start with a quick burst and then sputter. I had to do this three times before the mower heated up and ran again. Dad called it priming the pump and when I got minibikes and motorcycles then snow blowers it became my go to method to get an internal combustion engine running again.

This is what we need now. We need to prime the pump with some raw gas and get things going. If an economy is a motor then ours just wont start. Middle class people are the gas of an economy. Sorry but they are. Without buying power it doesn't matter how many times the spark plug fires there can be no combustion. People have no buying power anymore, no gas. We have to pull off the plug and pour rag gas into the cylinder and see if can get the motor to catch now. It is a last resort but that is where we are.

Do not insult me with trickle down nonsense. Nothing trickles down. Let me say it again. Nothing trickles down. The rich stay rich and companies say fat. They will not suddenly release all their millions and employ people. They will find things to do with their money no doubt, but we now need to put the gasoline directly into the cylinder. We do need New Deal style muscle.We need to give people jobs. Any kind of jobs. Call it Grow Up. But the gas must be poured into the engine and not sit in the tank.

People need money to spend. This is how the economy gets rolling. Oh but it will sputter. The stimulus didn't work. Bull and so what. Something is better than nothing. Forget about rich people bailing us out.  That Republican mantra is just bull. We will bail ourselves out by giving to the people who will spend the money to buy the goods and get the economy rolling.

A lot of times I had to put the gas in several times before the mower would start. We will probably have to do this several times also. But priming the pump does work, and eventually, the motor  starts again.

1929 All Over Again

There was a great financier who stepped in on the second day of the Stock Market Crash in 1929. He was the richest man in the country and he had decided enough was enough. He would personally save Americas bacon by bailing out the stock market. He went around and bought shares in every large company, infusing millions and millions of dollars  all over the stock market horizon. The market would not crash on his watch and for a while it seemed to work. The crash paused while people took heart that the richest man in the world had just rescued the market and by proxy the American economy. Then it went to the floor.

Now we seeWarren Buffet bailing out Bank of America with billions. Bank of America stock goes up nine percent and people are taking heart that one of the richest men in the world is giving the bank a vote of confidence. Too bad he gave the money to the wrong people. Bank of America is in the toilet because our homes are worthless and becoming more worthless. He should have just given the money to the homeowners. The bank mirrors the market and the derivatives that killed it and is now on the hook for billions in litigation. The great ship Buffet will not stem this tide. Bank of America is too big to fail but it seems destined too.

Because no one is doing anything for the very people who can bail out BOA: their customers. The bank prefers to just let everyone default while they foreclose on people whose only sin was to own a home that is now worthless. Bank of America is the Titanic of the Housing Crash. She holds tons of soured mortgage securities pawned off to people who are now suing them. She bought Countrywide. Talk about an iceberg laden with sub prime garbage. And she is taking water so fast that even Warren Buffets patch will not work. What is scary is that Buffett had to do this.

And what will the government do? Bail them out again? More money after bad. President Obama better do something for housing or he will be the Captain John Smith of the SS BOA breaking in two and heading for the icy darkness of our second Great Depression. Oh, that financier who tried to bail us out the last time: JP Morgan.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

Rocket Man

Mr. Perry Comes to Washington

Those Texans. They have their guns and their horses and their hats and all that land of cactus and sagebrush and land. Think Giant with Rock Hudson and now Obama is James Dean trying to get a toehold on the big ranch of jobs. Mr. Perry just  comes a blazing with his six guns shouting JOBS JOBS JOBS and the town folk are impressed. There haven't been jobs in these parts for a long long time and now comes this big Texan saying now you listen and you listen tight! Were going to get the jobs and were going to get them now.

The President is nervous on his pony. Mr. Perry has a big American stud and a large hat and he has the jobs or so he says. And now that is half the battle isn't it? The assumptive close. Say it and it will come true. This evangelical secessionist swaggering governor could just upset the whole applecart with his Texan ways. There is a reason people hate Texans. They brag. They swagger. They assume they are better than everyone else and more of a man for that matter.

And I'm not sure the President is really up for Mr. Perry. I don't know if Mr. Perry knows any high faluting words like bipartisanship or compromise. God is on his side anyway and he don't have to compromise if he don't want too. He does have a Reagan swagger. The question is how big is his boot and will he stick it all the way in his mouth? Only time will tell, but President Obama better saddle up, because there is a new sheriff in town.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man Kindle and Paperback

Not Enough Pie to Go Around

You have to wonder if there is simply just not enough pie to go around. All our worldwide convolutions seem to have a common threat and it is that the promises made in the last century cannot be kept in this century. There is simply not enough resources, money, land, water to deliver on the promises made. Social Darwinism is rearing it's ugly head and without a war the general message seems to be that some of us will make it and a lot of us wont. Such is the world we  now live in.

It would seem the optimism that started with the Wright Brothers in Kitty Hawk and dampened by the sinking of the Titanic then buoyed with our triumph over evil in two World Wars then reinforced with the American Centuries Gottermerung of Capitalism, has ended not with a bang but a whimper. We promised the world during those high flying years and the world cannot understand why we wont deliver. From the Arabs to those protectected by our vast Social Safety Nets, we cannot pay on the checks our higher nature is writing.

We have always believed that everyone could have a shot at the American Dream. But of course we never talked about all the people who didn't get it. They mostly died or starved or just went silently into the American night. But now we are really faced with the reality that most people will not find this mythical Leave it To Beaver land of milk, two cars, and a home. We simply don't have the cash and it seems nobody else does either.

Nothing new under the sun. We staved off the laws of survival of the fittest for maybe fifty or sixty years while we ruled the world, but the sun has set and we now no longer have the dineros to help those who cannot help themselves. Like those poor souls who drowned in the icy Atlantic with lifeboats nearby, it is truly every man, woman, and child for himself. At least with the Titanic, woman and children were spared. First class that is.

Rocket Man Kindle Downlaod

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." - James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning

The funniest serious novel since Richard Russo’s Straight Man, rich with the epic levity of John Irving and salted with the perversion of Updike." - Chicago Sun Time




Writer in Residence for the Ernest Hemingway Foundation William Hazelgrove's third novel is "a charming tale of fatherhood, family, and the American Dream." (Midwest Book Review).

I want to talk to the President....

And tell him trickle down has killed all the middle class lawns. And that the credit faucet has been turned off for anyone not in the one percent and the lawns have become dormant and are in danger of dying. I would tell him middle class people are  no longer represented in Washington and he has let a group  of people choke off all the water under the lie of fiscal conservatism. I would tell  him middle class people are not dressing as well and their cars are getting older. I would tell him that their houses are worthless and that unless he restores their value the economy is doomed to sputter.

I would tell the President the banks do not want to lend to the middle class anymore. I would tell him they have upped the requirements for a loan that nobody can qualify. I would tell him that credit is being withheld and it is starving the very people he needs to bring about a recovery. I would tell him he should allow people with good credit to refinance regardless of the value of their home. He should tell the appraisers to stop using foreclosures and short sales for comparables. I would tell him to pass a law making it mandatory for holders of second mortgages to subordinate to the first loan and allow people to refinance their home.

I would tell him that the banks will  not lend anymore and he has to establish a National Bank to lend to the middle class. I would tell him to walk through Home Depot or Starbucks or Target and see all the people working there who used to have white collar jobs. I would tell him to notice there are no customers. I would tell him that unless he gives buying power back to the John Q Middle class our economy is doomed. Maybe our republic. I would tell him he has to fight the bad guys now even if he loses. He has to fight the one percent, the banks, the corporations. He has to fight for the little guy who elected him.

I would tell the President time is running out. That it is going to be a long hot summer. I would tell him it is not too late. I would tell him to start on housing. Start with the middle class's biggest asset. I would tell him if he restores housing then he can grow the economy from the bottom. That is where the grass has to be watered. I would tell him to call me or any middle class person and find out what is really happening in America. I would tell him this could be his greatest moment, but he has to act now.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man will blast off in the summer

Maybe we need to set a restore point for the economy

You know when your computer crashes you go back and set a restore point. This is a point where the problem did not exist. It has gotten me out of many tight spots in computer land. But maybe we need a restore point for the economy. Maybe we need to go back to a point before the big crash when everything still worked. Well, here is my Restore Point Solution for our sputtering credit market. The Restore Point Solution is based on four suppositions.


One. The economy is dead in the water because the middle class lost their largest asset--their house.

Two. The economy worked before the mortgage crash broke the housing market.

Three. The mortgage crash broke the back of housing because it wiped out the basics of lending.

Four. If we fix the broken mechanism, then the housing market will return and the economy will start moving again. This will work because the housing market worked before. Not unlike a restore point on a computer, we go back to when the economy worked before.

The Restore Point Solution

One. every second mortgage by law has to be subordinated regardless of Loan to Value ratios if the borrower is credit worthy. Why this? Because the second mortgages are bricks on the first loans. They are strangling the primary mortgages because the banks have not adjusted CLTV Combined loan to value requirements. This is stopping millions of people from refinancing who are credit worthy. Refinancing is the way the middle class clears the board. It is the way they pay down debt, send kids to college, buy cars, do home improvements, buy boats, motorcycles, appliances, give themselves breathing room to catch up. Refinancing is critical to the middle class because it reduces their payments and gives them cash flow. It gives them what the rich have with their reserves, an emergency fund.

Two. You allow credit worthy people to refinance regardless of Loan to Value. One in four mortgages are under water. Again, high combined loan to value ratios are killing loans. People with eight hundred FICO scores are not being allowed to refinance because their homes are upside down. This is wrong. These people will stay in their homes if allowed to go to a lower rate. This is squeezing off the credit market for the middle class homeowner who has done everything right. Tying a loan to an asset that has depreciated due to extraordinary circumstances is bad banking. You must get the money moving around again. This would ignite a boom in refinancing. A literal boom of cash would be unleashed.

Three. Allow people to take money out of their homes and tie it to fifty percent of pre crash levels. In other words, we give people equity again in their homes. This would allow people who truly have equity but because of the extraordinary downward pressure of foreclosures it has artificially pushed the value of their homes down. This would free up millions of dollars and inject it back into the economy. Fifty percent of pre cash levels would give the banks protection.

Four. Credit Amnesty. Millions of people who had perfect credit have been wiped out by the Crash. They were good payers and never had a late. Now because of extraordinary circumstances their credit scores have fallen and they can no longer enter the credit market. This is wrong. The Crash is as much a catastrophe as 9/11 in that it was not the fault of the people. The middle class had no hand in the terrible decisions of the banks. They were the victims. And the victims need to have credit amnesty. If people had good credit before the crash then they should be forgiven and allowed to re enter the credit market. You can not have an economy when only one third of the people can participate.

Five. A permanent buyer credit of ten thousand dollars. Not first time buyer credit, but any buyer credit that will come off their taxes. This will jump start buying again. But it must be permanent until the housing market returns to boom levels. Then it can be stopped. The pump must be primed to get the machine rolling again. This will address the housing market wiped out by the crash.

Ok. That's it. Now, all we have to do is go and set that restore point on the computer. Let's see what button does that....

Bestselling author William Elliott Hazelgrove is the Hemingway writer in residence for the Ernest Hemingway Foundation. He has written four novels, reviews and features for USA TODAY and been the subject of stories in the NY Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and NPR'S All Things Considered. His forthcoming novel is Rocket Man. More information can be gathered at
http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

Maybe this is as good as it gets

As a writer you are used to hard times. You do not question those hard times and think well easy times are on the way. You just accept the hard times as the way things are and deal accordingly. This allows you to navigate the very hard existence that is the writers lot and get on with the business at hand. After you accept the situation then you are empowered because you are not waiting  anymore. This is the way it is. This is as good as it gets.

Our economy might be as good as it gets. If you turn off the crack cocaine of easy credit for the last twenty five years and accept we now live in a global economy with no lock down on markets, then you start to think well maybe this is really our economy  Take away that rocket fuel of stimulus credit and the good ship prosperity does not seem so close anymore. It is a sobering thought.

We are waiting though. We are waiting to uncork the champagne when the good times return. We envision a starting gun going off or damn being opened or a tidal wave of pent up  demand to sweep over the country and the good times will be back and we will all wipe our brow and say, wow, glad that's over. But what if the situation we are in right now is the real economy? If you take away the artificial stimulus of money for nothing and accept we must compete in world markets, then maybe this is what our revved down economy feels  like. Not a Mustang, but maybe a slow steady Buick.

This would mean millions of people are waiting for nothing. Millions of people are not taking bad jobs or menial jobs on the bet that the good ship prosperity is just over the horizon. I know twenty somethings who have come out of stellar Universities who have been out of work for years. They are waiting for their anointed jobs to return. But maybe the straight commission job of the insurance salesman, the door to door salesman, the Amway salesman, the copier salesman, the telemarketer, the fry cook, the MacDonald's position, the cable technician...maybe these are the real jobs of our economy and we better start going after them. Maybe, this is as good as it gets.

Bestselling author William Hazelgrove is the Hemingway writer in residence for the Ernest Hemingway Foundation. He has written four novels, reviews and features for USA TODAY and been the subject of stories in the NY Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and NPR'S All Things Considered. His forthcoming novel is Rocket Man. More information can be gathered at www.billhazelgrove.com

The Bleeding Dog and the Masters of the Universe

Enough populist rage. Let's cut to the chase here. Middle class people are practical and sensible so lets look at it that way. If you have a bleeding dog and take him to the vet and he says well I can help him but it will cost you a ten thousand bucks and I don't know if he will live or not anyway, but you don't have a choice, you must save him. You then look over at the dog pound and think, but if I get a new dog then that will only cost me five hundred. You look back at your bleeding dog. He has had a long life and it is his time. You must do this, the vet says, or the dog will die! You look at the dogs in the pound. They are eager, frisky and just want a place to run. So you have a choice. Shovel money after your old dog or let a new dog have his day. But you do what the vet tells you and pay the ten thousand.

Or let's look at it from a mechanical standpoint. You have a steam engine. It runs on coal. It doesn't work. You take it to the shop and the man says well you need a new cylinder, run you about ten thousand. That's funny you say, I just put a new cylinder in there. The man says, nope you need another one. So you do it and you take it home and it still doesn't run. You look in the firebox and see there is no coal there. You could have saved your self five grand by just buying a five hundred dollars worth of coal, but the mechanic kept telling you it is the engine.

The Masters of the Universe still are telling us what dog to save and how to fix our engine. The common element to both of these scenarios is they get the money. They are the vet and they are the mechanic. Capitalism is all about selling. Everyone is selling. The Masters of the Universe are selling too. They are selling their positions, their jobs, their way of life. They are saying who we have to save and how much and unfortunately no one is really questioning them. If you buy into the Banking System Must Be Saved, then you are doomed to failure. This implies an all or none scenario. This implies all banks will fail if we don't buy their bad debt for trillions of dollars. The dog will die and the engine won't run.

Alright, lets break it down to this. If you give a family a ten thousand dollar check. They will spend it. If you give them a twenty thousand dollar check. Then they will spend it. If you give them a thirty thousand dollar check, they will spend it. Here is a diagram:


Please read from bottom to top.


UP!
GOES
MONEY


Now read from top to bottom


MONEY
DOESN'T
GO
DOWN!


So if we give money to the butcher, the teacher, the secretary, the salesman, the accountant, the mechanic, the doctor, the conductor, the writer (had to get that in) then they will spend it and money will go UP! But if we continue to donate money for the bleeding dogs, because the Masters of the Universe tell us to, then we will just lose the money. The dog is bleeding and no one can stop it. Sometimes, you just have to get a new dog.

They Were Expendable

As a stockholder of AIG I demand the money back from the twenty five people who threw AIG under the bus and then the company. CEO Liddy says these people were so important they gave them millions of dollars in retention bonuses after they left. THEY JUST DON'T GET IT. There are millions of people unemployed. As a stockholder I demand they go out and find people to replace the bozos who lost a billion dollars. Oh, they already left. Oh, they already got their money. As a stockholder I demand to know the names of the twenty five people who trashed the company and the economy. CEO Liddy says he cannot give those names for the harm that might befall them. You know what.. HES RIGHT. Simple solution. Give us back our money and no harm will come to these people. As a stockholder I demand an immediate cessation of all bonuses. Oh, well, we cant do that because there are millions more already promised in the insurance side of the business in RETENTION BONUS. So the irreplaceable insurance adjuster stands to get a million bucks just to stay in his job. Again, as a stockholder I demand management go out to the MILLIONS of people looking for work and find replacements for these people too. CEO Liddy says these people are the best and the brightest. Then lets go find the Worst and the Dumbest. In fact, as a stockholder, I demand we find the biggest morons to work at AIG and pay them no retention bonus. I'm sure they will be fine with that.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

The Domino Theory

When we were in Vietnam they said that if Vietnam fell then the rest of Indochina would go Communist. They invoked the Domino theory to say one thing will cause another. Ten years later we left and Vietnam became a Communist country and nothing else happened. Then they said that if we didn't go in and take over Iraq they would have a weapon of mass destruction and throw it our way. The domino theory again. If we don't act then certain doom. We went in and could not find a weapon of mass destruction. We are still there. Then they said that if we didn't reelect the President the evil doers would come over and attack us and by the way we are on high alert for another attack. The other candidate looked very wimpy after some well placed swiftboating and we added torture and wiretapping the entire population to our Bill of Rights. Then they said that if we did not immediately give seven hundred billion dollars to the banks all hell would break loose. We gave seven hundred billion and all hell broke loose anyway. Then they said that if we did not bail out AIG to the tune of one hundred and seventy billion then the entire financial system would disintegrate. We gave AIG the money and they gave it to foreign banks and brokers and other people who they won't even name. The financial system might fall apart anyway and AIG is probably going away. The domino theory only works on fear and it has worked well for forty years. When I was a kid I used to line up dominoes on the floor and push one down and watch them fall. It was pretty cool. But sometimes, for no reason at all, the dominoes just stopped on their own. Go figure.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com

The Three Percent

What is really behind the AIG bonus rage is the suspicion that there is a group of people in this country who are laughing their way to the bank. It is that old idiom that ninety seven percent of the money is given to three percent of the people and the remaining ninety seven percent must split the remaining three percent. AIG bears this out. But what is really behind our collective outrage is that this group of people who seem to have it all don't work for their money. They don't. Ivy League schools dump out business graduates and they are snapped up by companies like AIG who put them in positions that require six figure retention bonuses. Normal people do not get hundreds of thousands of dollars for staying on the job. But once you are the three percent then the Christmas baubles rein down. You not only get the bonuses but outrageous salaries and stock options that set up people for life. For Life. The deck is surely stacked. Imagine what has gone on under the wire. We are getting a fraction of what really goes on in the land of three percent. Millions of dollars are paid out that we will never know about. And these people are not putting in brutal hours, making life and death decisions. These are derivative traders, glorified mortgage brokers who just have a much much more lucrative yield spread. Instead of making a few thousand on a loan they make a few million. America was founded on the precept that yes anyone can become anything but we also demand a level playing field. That was what the Revolution was all about. We should not be put in a position where others can take advantage of of us. So we have a representative form of government that says we all have the same rights under the law and the same opportunities. But it would seem that the three percent have an unfair advantage over the rest of us. The three percent get their money regardless. Why? Because they are entitled and entitlement goes beyond a bankrupt company or an economy teetering on a depression. Americans hate the thought that one group of people are somehow more deserving because of the accident of birth or an Ivy league school. Sure, give them their money, but lets see them earn it. That's what the rest of us have to do. We have to work and earn our money. Maybe the three percent should earn theirs now, because I don't think America can afford to have a slacker class anymore.
http://www.billhazelgrove.com

You've Got To Be Kidding

Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice, start a revolution. You have got to be kidding. AIG now is taking the money the government gave them and paying out MILLIONS of dollars in bonuses. Listen up all my friends who work for a living...they are taking your dollars (we now own eighty percent) and paying out not thousands, not hundreds but MILLIONS OF DOLLARS to individuals. Some people are receiving a million dollars and more in one check! You are going to love the rationalization--it would be illegal not to pay them. Oh OK. WHAT!!!!!!!!!! You mean the company that bought tons of bad derivatives, the very people the financial arm of AIG the very people that bought this stuff...THEY ARE THE ONES GETTING THE MONEY! It would be like driving a bus off a cliff and then getting paid a million dollars for doing it. The treasury department raised a stink but determined the bonuses are LEGAL. WHAT???????????? So, a company that would not be in existence except for tax payer money (EIGHTY PERCENT) is saying that legally they have to pay the people who bankrupted the company. COME ON. Tell me they would pay them if they went bankrupt. This is straight highway robbery. You have to love the CEO justification. They can't attract quality people unless they pay them well. WHAT! Quality people! A bag lady who did nothing but sit at a desk could have done a better job than these guys--she at least wouldn't have thrown the money away on worthless mortgage back securites! These are the people who threw the company under the bus and now us. GIVE ME A BREAK. I mean if you are going to rob a bank and steal money at least use a gun and call it what it is. But to say it is legal is an insult to every person with an eight grade education. Even a kid knows when they are being gypped. And we are being gypped in the worst way. And here is the real shot between the eyes. They don't want to tell anyone what they are doing with the billions they are paying out. That money is going to Bank of America and others through back door insurance policies. So we are giving the money to more people who are paying other people bonuses and giving them trips.
The United States=Plutocracy. Rule by the wealthy. Plutocrats. A-I-G.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com

A GD Insurance Salesman

The sky is falling. AIG COULD TANK! The government is tossing in another thirty billion but the chairman says that is a pittance. He reckons (folksy) that it would probably take about 300 billion to keep them afloat. Just a mere three hundred billion and even then he doesn't know if that is enough. So right now every man woman and child is on the hook for fourteen hundred bucks on the AIG Bailout. In other words we own AIG. My mother in law reeled in horror when I said I was going to earn some extra money by selling insurance: "A Goddamn insurance salesman," she fumed. Well that says it all doesn't it. You know those guys who bet against you. When you die they might pay off. When you get sick they don't pay off. When you get a ticket your rates go up. When you go to the doctor your rates go up or if something is wrong or they drop you. Or your kid goes to the doctor and they claim a preexisting condition from five years before and so we aren't going to pay for the treatment thank you very much. They are the same guys that debit your account every month for insurance that does NOTHING. If your house burns down, if your car crashes, if you get sick, if you die, if someone sues you, if lightning strikes...if, if, if, if, if...then they may or may not payoff. And if there is a loophole they will find it. I'm sorry that insurance only covered you if you the car hit you but you caused the accident. SORRY. Oh and by the way, we dropped you. Oh, you didn't go to traffic school and now you have a ticket. SORRY. We just doubled your rates and it doesn't matter that you had a perfect driving record--We need more money to insure your sorry ass OR ELSE! Else? That's right pal, you will be UNINSURED. Oh, you mean like the millions of people who can't get health insurance. Oh right. THOSE PEOPLE. By all means insure me, let's see, I'll take an umbrella policy, a life insurance policy, a health policy, a homeowners policy, a car insurance policy, and throw in a renter policy just to be on the safe side. THANK GOD I AM INSURED! Oh, by the way, you know all that money you have been giving us for twenty years--WE LOST IT! Whoops. Threw it away on derivatives. And here's the kicker. The CEO of forty years is now suing us! The nerve of this guy. He says we didn't tell him we were broke when he cashed out and became our biggest shareholder. Hey, you FD up pal...you TRUSTED US. Sucker. They say one is born every minute. But ..listen....ha ha...we need three hundred billion just to stay afloat because if you let us go baby then we all go! KABOOM. Game over! So don't even think about the way we have ripped you off for years because if we go then the economy is TOAST. So...now you are all stockholders. That's right. We are all in this boat together and we sink or swim. So there you have it, now whose the Goddamn insurance salesman? Huh?

Earth Wind and Fire

I dig Earth Wind and Fire. I dig disco. I discoed. Good times. Party on dude. Cheryl Crow not so much. Something about that California singing about the mellow party times...been there done that. I am not a golfer. Nope. Chasing the white ball with little carts forget about it. Besides a woman who used to live across the street from me died when her cart veered into a retention pond and she drowned. Ignominious. So I steer clear. It seems so...I don't know so mainstream. Golf, Sheryl Crow, Earth Wind and Fire, Pinacolodas, the nice Pacific breeze blowing in from the ocean. Shrimp anyone? I'll take two please and another drink for my friend there and how about a bottle of champagne? I wonder what all the poor people are doing? What is all the rancor about anyway? We are doing just fine thank you. We made money last year and then the government just kicked us a cool billion. A round for the house! Hey, you know what, screw it, have Earth Wind and Fire play all night, and Wan...money is no object. Oh, and if you have one of those fine Cuban cigars. So where was I...right...all this talk of nationalization. Rubbish. Look around you. What do you see? Prosperous people. People with tans and margarita smiles. C'mon, the losers are broke now...the suckers George. Take you and me. We saw the train coming and played it cool. Now we are a billion to the good and we are sitting our ass down here by seashore. Right...oh sure, lobster? Fine, bring us four. So...you know it's survival of the fittest baby. Darwinism. Let the bad banks go man. Let the auto companies go. It's the way capitalism works. All that stuff about goverment for the people and by the people...please. There will always be poor people and there will always be the middle class who will never get a clue. Ha! That's a drink. What did F. Scott Fitzgerald say? The rich are very different from you and me...you bet your ass we are! Oh...Hemingway said that...well, someone said it and it doesn't' really matter because you are either in or you are out and you know who you are. Ah yes...life doesn't' get much better than this...really it doesn't. What did you say your name was...George...you know you look familiar...were you ever in government?

The Pickel Barrel

When I was growing up my family was always in debt. We were like the United States is today, always running behind, one step ahead of the rent, the utilities, the milk bill. My dad did the best he could, but he was a traveling salesman and so we were subject to commission checks and the vagaries of an impersonal economy. Some times, when things were really bad and Christmas gifts were being shorted and hot dogs were served again or a vacation was cut then my dad would say to me in the car, "it's only money." He followed this one up with: you are not the sum of your liabilities and assets. We were Southerners with a healthy disregard for capitalism and so I didn't think too much of these epigrams. But now one can glean from those statements all sorts of things. We were all still healthy. No one had died. Somehow we would muddle through to the next check. We always did somehow muddle through and all my brothers and sisters went to college. We never did catch up and to this day my father pays a high price for living in debt. But I can't say I didn't have a happy childhood. Now we are in financial straits that are about as perilous as they can be. OK. So maybe we are in a depression. Maybe the auto companies will fail and the banks will be nationalized. Maybe we will all be eating Mac and Cheese and drinking canned beer again. I don't think there will be rioting in the streets. The government will keep the social programs going and the lights on and the water running. No one will invade us because our 401K's tanked. The military will still have enough missiles and guns and tanks and weapons of mass destruction to keep hostiles away. So what are we afraid of really? Losing our homes, our jobs, our position? Homes and jobs can all be replaced. If you have your health and your family is doing all right then you're Ok. What we really have to deal with is our relation to a currency that for two hundred years has given us our sense of self worth. The Puritans set the bar, if I am rich I am good and if I am poor I am bad. My dad had another phrase: everybody has their day in the pickle barrel. He pulled this one out when I lost a girl, didn't make the team, didn't get a job. The implication was that yes times are bad today, but they will get better. Everybody takes their turn. The pickle barrel is pretty crowded about now, but we'll get out. As my dad said many years ago...it's only money.

A Full Belly

Did you see the Academy awards last night? I mean, even Oscar seems off in these strange times. Forget that a lot of people took a pass or so they say. I personally didn't see anyone missing, but there was a palpable feeling of the King and Queen not being present. Don't ask me who the King and Queen are, but maybe it was the third Jack Black interview or the Morton Downey nomination for appearing in black face. Hemingway had an old phrase, "Praise to the Face is open Disgrace." Did you see the new way of presenting the awards? They have the last five guys or gals who won come out and present the award. The part that made you want to sink down into your chair or couch was when the actors and actresses went on a love fest of adoration for the nominee. We had to watch Meryl Streep smile for a good five minutes while praise was lavished. Or Kate Winslet who smiled graciously when the actress forgot her lines and began to sound like Sara Palin on a bad night. Who came up with that one? Well, movies are down. No one goes anymore and what better way to sing the praises then dig up the stars and have them gush to another stars face. It was a tad embarrassing for all involved. I don't know. Maybe it was the Hyundai commercials that promised you that if you lost your job they would take the car back no questions asked. I have to say I haven't' heard GM offer me that on my gas guzzler. Or the other commercials that spoke of these uncertain times. Or maybe it was the high hat routine that smacked of Ginger and Fred during the Depression. Suddenly glitz and movie stars seemed irrelevant. Even Sean Penn's call to arms against proposition thirteen seemed strangely marginalized by the times. The novelist EM. Forester once said, "art is for a man with a full belly." Maybe that's what it is now. Maybe there are just too many people who are in distress to worry about movie stars right now.

Carpe Diem Baby.

Seize the day. You bet. I am the lone shopper now in a thousand stores. I walk the aisles as a man from the old economy, holder of a house no one wants, a car that sucks gas, carrier of no spendable credit. The last hurrah of a party that ended but no one told us. I cruise the lanes of Home Depot and Target and Menards besieged by a thousand people with red vests and radios and badges. Do you want this? Can I get you that? No, I'm just looking. I am the lone shopper among the tons and tons of goods from a twenty year binge that ended overnight. Middle class families run by while daddy looks over his shoulder for the job he lost. They aren't buying. Hell, I'm not even buying. A man with Carpe Diem on his shoulder, making his way through the detritus of greed and billions of dollars in bonuses given to the few. One percent makes ninety nine percent of the money while the rest split the one percent. Something like that. Pillage and burn. Move on. No buyers here in the stores. What to do with all these malls and houses and cars and things we no longer need? What did the Russians feel like when it all fell apart? Hope the man in the White House is at the top of his form because we need it. Still, I need to buy something, do my part for our moribund economy. If only everyone would quit looting. Where did that first three hundred and fifty billion go? Search me? Somebody got it. Junkets and Las Vegas and Jets. Right on baby. Carpe Diem. Seize the Day. They seized the day and everything else. Brother can you spare a dime? No! I'm with you there. How about a little credit? Lost your mind. Move on no buyers here. Here they are...May I help you sir. Nope, I found it. Got my plunger, head for the register and head for the car and drive home with no gas in the tank. Carpe Diem Baby.