More Financial Doomsday Talk

Over at MyDD there is an interesting, thorough, and well explained piece on America's impending financial doom. Here is an excerpt:

"Don't look now, but the biggest issue for 2008 will be economical, not social. The US fiscal situation, which has been perpetually bad year-after-year, has accumulated to the point that it is so massive, something is going to break.

"The point is that foreign (mostly asian) ownership of our debt has been growing year-after-year, and at a certain point they will decide that owning a certain percentage of US government debt is either too much and/or has reached a threshold where they can use their economic muscle aggressively in US policy. In either case, we're not in control, and the situation has the potential to snowball.

"I'm not talking about who'll eventually pay for the debt. We all know that we pay the interest now, and our kids owe the principal. But the issue is who lends us the money now, at what rates, and how much power do they exert over us?"

The American Financial Armageddon

I know none of you would like to have the Hot Gun Spy looking into your portfolios or checkbooks, but I am warning all readers to watch their money very carefully. I have been hearing more and more financial voices warn of a serious crash in America's financial future, and the chatter is getting louder, more frequent, and more intense. This chatter is from serious folks, too. This is not just a bunch of fringe economists wearing tin foil hats theorizing about a collapse. This is a serious discussion among very serious people.
This from DailyKos:

"Stephen Roach, the chief economist at investment banking giant Morgan Stanley, has a public reputation for being bearish.

"But you should hear what he's saying in private.

"Roach met select groups of fund managers downtown last week, including a group at Fidelity.

"His prediction: America has no better than a 10 percent chance of avoiding economic 'armageddon.'"

"Press were not allowed into the meetings. But the Herald has obtained a copy of Roach's presentation. A stunned source who was at one meeting said, 'it struck me how extreme he was - much more, it seemed to me, than in public.'

"Roach sees a 30 percent chance of a slump soon and a 60 percent chance that 'we'll muddle through for a while and delay the eventual armageddon.'

"The chance we'll get" through OK: one in 10. Maybe."

That is not all. Paul Krugman is now officially referring to the U.S. as a banana republic. Here is an excerpt in a piece from Reuters:

"The most immediate worry for Krugman is that Bush will simultaneously push through more tax cuts and try to privatize social security, ignoring a chorus of economic thinkers who caution against such measures.

"'If you go back and you look at the sources of the blow-up of Argentine debt during the 1990s, one little-appreciated thing is that social security privatization was a important source of that expansion of debt,' said Krugman.

"In 2001, Argentina finally defaulted on an estimated $100 billion in debt, the largest such event in modern economic history.

"'So if you ask the question do we look like Argentina, the answer is a whole lot more than anyone is quite willing to admit at this point. We've become a banana republic.'"

"Crisis might take many forms, he said, but one key concern is the prospect that Asian central banks may lose their appetite for U.S. government debt, which has so far allowed the United States to finance its twin deficits."

Bush has become so worried that the Asian central banks are going to stop bailing us out that he has already started dancing publicly for Japan's Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi.

We are in serious trouble, and you can take that to the bank. Wait, no. Don't take it to the bank. Hide it under your mattress.

Bush Loves to Starve Kids

And we all thought that the Bush administration were perpetuating an epidemic of poverty here in the United States. Well, the Bushies have decided to take their poverty show on the road:

"Malnutrition among Iraq's youngest children has nearly doubled since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq despite U.N. efforts to deliver food to the war-ravaged country, a Norwegian research group said Monday.

"Since the March 2003 invasion, malnutrition among children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years has grown from 4 percent to 7.7 percent, said Jon Pedersen, deputy managing director of the Oslo, Norway-based Fafo Institute for Applied Social Science, which conducted the survey.

"The U.N. Development Program and Iraq's Central office for Statistics and Information Technology also took part in the survey.

"'It's in the level of some African countries,' Pedersen told The Associated Press. "Of course, no child should be malnourished, but when we're getting to levels of 7 to 8 percent, it's a clear sign of concern.'"

If I here one single Christian fanatic say they voted for Bush because they had to vote their conscience, I might......well, you get the picture.

Bush Voters and Poverty

This is an excerpt from another must-read editorial from NY Times' Bob Herbert on one of the real "values" issues that has painfully fallen through the cracks of this self-righteous country:

"The federal government has not raised the minimum wage since 1997, and has made it easier for some employers to deny time-and-a-half pay to employees who work overtime."

"Franklin Roosevelt, in his second Inaugural Address, told a rain-soaked crowd, 'The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.'"

"I can hear the politicians in today's Washington having a hearty laugh at that sentiment.

"There are advocates and even some politicians hard at work addressing the myriad problems faced by beleaguered workers and their families. But they get very little in the way of attention or resources from the most powerful sectors of society. So the health care workers who can't afford health insurance will continue emptying bedpans for a pittance. And the janitors will clean up faithfully after the big shots who ignore them.

"These are rough times for the American dream. But times change, and the people who have broken faith with the dream won't be in power forever."

I wonder what FDR would think of the thieves we have running the country now. I wonder what he would say about their values.
More importantly, why did millions of these impoverished, and underpaid Americans vote for Bush? And why aren't they paying attention to the real "values" issues?
It is funny to me that Republicans, the party of self-interest, have so successfully won over so many of the voters that their policies have disenfrachised.
It is because of the bogeymen they create: mass abortions, a plague of gay marriages, taking 'under God' from the nation's pledge. These are all issues that are rarely a direct part of most of these people's lives, and yet the Republicans convince them that the liberal heathens are ready to kill babies in their front yards while being sodomized by your son that they just turned gay, all the while burning your Bible over a spitfire made from the bones of your grandma, which the liberals ate, making a toast to her delicate flesh with a glass of chablis.
Oh, yes we liberals have lots of fun, while the financially poor Bush voters just keeping getting poorer and poorer.

Republicans Want You--Audited

This from Josh Marshall:

"As you've probably heard, the congress is pushing through a big omnibus spending bill this weekend. And at the last minute, Republican leaders tried to slip in a provision that would give certain committee chairman and their staffers unlimited access to any American's tax return, with none of the standard privacy protections applying.

"You heard that right.

"They could pull anyone's tax return, read it over and do whatever they wanted with the information."

If you are a voice of opposition then you could find youself audited. I for one will be combing through my old tax returns. If I find a major accounting error then you might never hear from your friendly neighborhood Hot Gun Spy ever again.
Honestly, nothing surprises anymore. Seriously, Bush could walk into my house right now and de-pants me and I would just have to say: 'Yea, that's about right.'
The unbelievable is now believable and the absurd is quite routine. I always wondered how things would be in Bizarro America.

Kerry's Back

Johnn Kerry finally came out today and made what I think is a very strong statement to those of us who voted for him. I am sure most of you got the same e-mail that I did, but I am going to post a huge chunk of it anyway:

"Regardless of the outcome of this election, once all the votes are counted -- and they will be counted -- we will continue to challenge this administration. This is not a time for Democrats to retreat and accommodate extremists on critical principles -- it is a time to stand firm.

"I will fight for a national standard for federal elections that has both transparency and accountability in our voting system. It's unacceptable in the United States that people still don't have full confidence in the integrity of the voting process.

"I ask you to join me in this cause.

"And we must fight not only against George Bush's extreme policies -- we must also uphold our own values. This is why on the first day Congress is in session next year, I will introduce a bill to provide every child in America with health insurance. And, with your help, that legislation will be accompanied by the support of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

"There are more than eight million uninsured children in our nation.

"That's eight million reasons for us to stay together and fight for a new direction. It is a disgrace that in the wealthiest nation on earth, eight million children go without health insurance.

"Normally, a member of the Senate will first approach other senators and ask them to co-sponsor a bill before it is introduced -- instead, I am turning to you. Imagine the power of a bill co-sponsored by hundreds of thousands of Americans being presented on the floor of the United States Senate. You can make it happen. Sign our "Every Child Protected" pledge today and forward it to your family, friends, and neighbors:

http://johnkerry.com/EveryChild"

There are many reasons why this e-mail is important. One reason is because he is, again, stating that all the votes will be counted. Many of us have been waiting for him to say something, anything, on this subject.
Another reason is because he has obviously decided to use his vast mailing list as a tool for legislation. Really, this is the real breakthrough in the message. I have heard Joe Trippi talk about using the force of internet supporters to give momentum to push legislation, but this is the first time I have seen it attempted. It is crucial for Kerry to continue to ask his supporters for support. I think this is a wonderful first step in that process.
Yesterday I thought it was a joke that John Kerry might try to run again in 2008. Today, I'm not laughing.

Florida Vote Tampering?

I am sure there are many blog readers who have grown sick and tired of conspiracy theories about the 2004 election results. Well, too bad. Some of us are not just jumping on the bandwagon now. Many of us have been screaming from the rooftops since 2003 about the risk of compromising democracy via electronic voting machines. Now, we are finding that are fears were warranted:

"The three counties where the voting anomalies were most prevalent were also the most heavily Democratic: Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, respectively. Statistical patterns in counties that did not have e-touch voting machines predicted a 28,000 vote decrease in President Bush’s support in Broward County, yet machines tallied an increase of 51,000 votes – a net gain of 81,000.

"President Bush should have lost 8,900 votes in Palm Beach County, but instead gained 41,000 - a difference of 49,900. He should have gained only 18,400 votes in Miami-Dade County but saw a gain of 37,000 – a difference of 19,300 votes.

“'No matter how many factors and variables we took into consideration, the significant correlation in the votes for President Bush and electronic voting cannot be explained,' Hout added. 'The study shows that a county’s use of electronic voting resulted in a disproportionate increase in votes for President Bush.'"

"The odds of this occurring by chance?

“'Less than once in a thousand,' he said."

You can read the full article here, but it won't make you feel any better.
I said it once, and I will say it again. Bush did not win this election honestly. I am certain of that. Does my certainty do anything to change the results? Absolutely not, but that doesn't mean I'm ever going to shut up about it.

Stoking the Fires of An American Hell

Powell's resignation today is a real blow to any of us that believed that he was the single voice of reason in this administration. Even more of a blow is that Bush is going to give the job to Condi Rice, which is a good indication of the dark days ahead.
This from the Washington Post:

"Powell's departure -- and Bush's intention to name his confidante, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, as Powell's replacement -- would mark the triumph of a hard-edged approach to diplomacy espoused by Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Powell's brand of moderate realism was often overridden in the administration's councils of power, but Powell's presence ensured that the president heard divergent views on how to proceed on key foreign policy issues.

"But, with Powell out of the picture, the long-running struggle over key foreign policy issues is likely to be less intense. Powell has pressed for working with the Europeans on ending Iran's nuclear program, pursuing diplomatic talks with North Korea over its nuclear ambitions and taking a tougher approach with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Now, the policy toward Iran and North Korea may turn decidedly sharper, with a bigger push for sanctions rather than diplomacy. On Middle East peace, the burden for progress will remain largely with the Palestinians."

And we thought the last four years were hell.
I suspect the fires are only rising higher.

Cleaning The CIA

Just one day after the Washington Post reported that the CIA was in chaos under new director Porter Goss, Newsday is now upping the ante:

"'The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House,' said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House. 'Goss was given instructions ... to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president's agenda.'"

If true, then this is a very terrifying development. This would seem to suggest that Bush is beginning an attempt to clean government agencies of criticism, and worse, of Democrats altogether. It won't be long before homosexuals are wearing pink triangles and Democrats are wearing donkey t-shirts.
All kidding aside, this is scary stuff. These are scary times to be an American.

Good Christians?

This from Maureen Dowd in tomorrow's NY Times:

"You'd think the one good thing about merging church and state would be that politics would be suffused with glistening Christian sentiments like "love thy neighbor," "turn the other cheek," "good will toward men," "blessed be the peacemakers" and "judge not lest you be judged."

Yet somehow I'm not getting a peace, charity, tolerance and forgiveness vibe from the conservatives and evangelicals who claim to have put their prodigal son back in office.

I'm getting more the feel of a vengeful mob - revved up by rectitude - running around with torches and hatchets after heathens and pagans and infidels."

It is almost as is these so-called "christians" have disregarded the Gospels. Someone needs to remind them of the Beatudes:

"3 Blessed are the poor in spirit,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are those who mourn,
For they shall be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek,
For they shall inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
For they shall be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful,
For they shall obtain mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
For they shall see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
For they shall be called sons of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake.
12Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Forgive them, Father. For they know not what they do.

What Checks and Balances?

I will acknowledge that I have not yet offered a post-election commentary. There are many reasons for this, most of which have to do with having to take my head out of the oven, and let's face it, it is much warmer in there then it is out here. But also because it is truly as bad as we thought it might be, and I am tired of people trying to pretend otherwise.
This country is in real serious trouble right now and for all of you out there trying to put on your special Bush rose-colored glasses, well, stop drinking the kool-aid. I have had two friends call me up to offer their regrets, trying to cheer me up. Both of these guys are right-leaning, both voted for Kerry (not happily), and both offer up the same advice: "Bush can't wreck the system because our system is based on checks and balances." That is all fine and good if the conservatives were limited to one branch of government, but they own all of them right now.
This is the closing from an excellent commentary in this week's New Yorker:

"The red-blue split has not changed since 2000. This is not a center-right country. It is a center-right country and a center-left country, but the center has not held. The winner-take-all aspects of our system have converged into a perfect storm that has given virtually all the political power to the right; conservative Republicans will now control the Presidency, the House of Representatives, and the Senate so firmly that the Supreme Court, which is also in conservative hands, has abruptly become the most moderate of the four centers of federal power. The system of checks and balances has broken down, but the country remains divided—right down the nonexistent, powerless middle."

I hate to burst everyone's bubble but the system of checks and balances is worthless when all those in power are on the same page. So, I guess now we become spectators to the dismantling of an empire. I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later.
If you need me I'll be warming my head in the oven.
No, but seriously, things are extremely bleak right now, and they will continue to be for at least the next two years (before the mid-term elections), but we have to keep fighting, protesting, writing letters to our editors, and yelling really loud. They might not hear us, but at the very least we need to continue listening to each other.

NY Times Trying to Debunk Fraud Theories

The NY Times has a different angle on the possibility of voter fraud in the 2004 Election:

"A preliminary study produced by the Voting Technology Project, a cooperative effort between the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, came to a similar conclusion. Its study found 'no particular patterns' relating to voting systems and the final results of the election.

"'The 'facts' that are being circulated on the Internet,' the study concluded, 'appear to be selectively chosen to make the point.'

"Whether that will ever convince everyone is an open question.

"'I'd give my right arm for Internet rumors of a stolen election to be true,' said David Wade, a spokesman for the Kerry campaign, 'but blogging it doesn't make it so. We can change the future; we can't rewrite the past.'"

We'll see how it all plays out in the next few weeks, I guess.
By the way, if you were to ask me if I think there is even the slightest chance that Kerry will end up being president, I would say no. Not a chance.
However, we still need to count the votes, and to examine any possible problems or irregularities that may have taken place last Tuesday.

National Recount?

I am one of the many in this country who don't believe for one second that Bush won either Ohio or Florida. I know that this is easily dismissed by non-skeptics as sour grapes, but I really don't care. I think there is too much evidence of irregularities to just be dismissed. Thank goodness that I am not the only skeptic out there screaming at the electorate to do something now.
Cobb and Badnarik, the Green and Libertarian Party candidates, are both asking for recounts in Ohio. The Kerry campaign has lawyers on a so-called "fact finding mission" in Ohio. And Ralph Nader is involved all across the nation, and is desperately trying to get John Kerry and John Edwards more involved in the recount process:

“Our offices are being flooded with faxes and e-mails asking for assistance in resolving these irregularities – a lot of them are citizens who voted for you. You must now take action to give our nation the fair accounting it deserves from the 2004 election and to protect democratic processes in future elections. Although your party extended considerable funds and manpower to unconstitutionally drive us off the Ohio ballot, in the spirit of good government, I urge you to make this effort now.”

I don't think we have heard the end of this drama. In fact this may be the beginning of uncovering the ultimate attempt at theft of our democracy. Nothing would surprise me.
Now, when are the networks going to start covering this story?

Unhooking The 'Ol Gasbag

I realize that I haven't posted in awhile, and to be honest, I am at a loss lately for what there is to say. Even I, the newshound that I had become, have been relatively unplugged since last Wednesday and have enjoyed it. I have done some reading, and have caught up on some great movies that I had missed after months of wonkish obsession. Truth is I have been finding the other blogs quite boring lately, and am unsure if I want to continue hooking myself up to the old gasbag everyday. So, I am still deciding what direction to take this blog. Obviously, I will still post political material when warranted, but I don't want to post political material just for the sake of the blog's so-called subject.
I don't know. We'll see what happens. I'll post something when I have something to say.
Otherwise, I have some reading to do, and my new novel has taken a beating while I was going crazy over politics. By the way, why haven't you bought my old novel? What are you waiting for? Do it here or at Amazon.

Bush's War

This boy was "collateral damage" during airstrikes in Fallujah this past Saturday. Thankfully, he is recovering. However, his father was killed in the airstrikes.
Another reason to hate Bush.

A Statement

We have lost the presidency to an incompetent moron again. We have lost seats in both houses of Congress because of the fervor of the religious right. But there is an even larger loss that we must address. We have lost sight of the virtue of progress in this country.
We liberals have lost the battle of ideas. We have been beaten in the war for the hearts and minds of the electorate. Why has this happened? It is because we have grown lazy. We talk amongst ourselves and not to the country as a whole, and even when we try to talk to the larger country, well, frankly they are too wrapped up in their own lives to understand that they are standing still in their tracks, or worse, moving backwards.
We have a challenge before us today. We can sit back and allow our republic to be irreparably harmed by the religous right, or we can revolt. I am not proposing a violent revolution but a revolution of ideas. We need to stand up and shake off the dust of this democratic party and make the party stand firm in our ideals. We must be bullheaded and progressive, mean and liberal, savage and smart, cunning and creative. And if the democratic party does not heed our call then we must form a new progressive party.
If the christian fundamentalists want this country then they will have to win a civil war of creativity and innovation, and their simple faith will get them nowhere other than where they are, which is standing still. Only we, the liberals of the United States of America, can move this country.
So, let us move.

4:30 Exit Polls

Here are the Exit Poll numbers:FL: 52/48 - KERRY
OH: 52/47 - KERRY
MI: 51/48 - KERRY
PA: 58/42 - KERRY
IA: 50/48 - KERRY
WI: 53/47 - KERRY
MN: 57/42 - KERRY
NH: 58/41 - KERRY
ME: 55/44 - KERRY

NM: 49/49 - TIE

NV: 48/49 - BUSH
CO: 49/50 - BUSH
AR: 45/54 - BUSH
NC: 47/53 - BUSH
Thanks to Mathew Gross.

The Bush Campaign's Obituary?

This from the Washington Post:

"Bush's aides predicted victory when talking on the record, pointing to polls showing that the race remained a tossup, both nationally and in key states. But despite the insistence that all was well, the erosion in the moods of Bush's inner circle over the past two weeks was unmistakable. Several of his close advisers said they were concerned because the president had achieved no last-minute momentum, and Democratic turnout was looking as if it might swamp the Bush-Cheney campaign's projections.

"A Republican official who is privy to Bush-Cheney strategy and polling said that as the incumbent, Bush should be further ahead of Kerry in polls. 'Some of them have been moving in the right direction, but it isn't enough,' the official said. 'Karl [Rove] is a big believer in the bandwagon effect, but there has been nothing over the past week for the president to use it to turn it around.'"

VOTE!

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VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

HGS Daily Poll Average

HGS Daily Tracking Poll Average (Average of Zogby, Rasmussen, and ABC/WP):
Bush: 48.6%(+0.6 from yesterday)
Kerry: 47.5%(-0.2% from yesterday)

HGS: Election Predictions

My Electoral Prediction (270 needed to win.)
Kerry: 306
Bush: 232

Percentage Prediction
Kerry: 51%
Bush: 47%
Nader/Others: 2%