The Perfect Storm

If we make it to the eye, then we just have to get through what we already went through...

Whenever I think I’m too doom and gloom on the economy, I see a story like this one that reminds me we’re in for a long haul here. When the Yuppies have stopped buying, it’s time to be scared. In fact, could this be the end of Yuppies as we know them.

As a cultural historian, I’ve studied the gradual decline of Yuppies since their most recent peak before the burst of the dot-com bubble. They’ve seen this crisis coming for quite some time, since they were the first to realize that their free-spending credit-paved roads to happiness would, sooner or later, come to an abrupt cliff. They invented “Hipsterism” which cleverly embraces overpriced cheap-looking clothes in preparation for the times where they’ll have to rely on cheap cheap-looking clothes to survive. And it’s pretty much the same thing with beer (PBR) and cigarettes (American Spirits). They should rename ‘Urban Outfitters’: ‘Transition to Forced Poverty’. Of course that would be too direct for this crowd, but I digress.

In any case the deflation of the dollar, the rapid decline in market capitalization tied to deflation, and the sudden decline in home equity that caused the deflation in the first place has led to a scenario where the US Government has to print money and spend it to produce a counterbalancing inflationary force. Virtually all agree that this spending should be long-term-investment based.

The preceding paragraph is, more or less, a wet dream for Progressives. In fact, it’s a Perfect Storm for our esteemed President-Elect. He’ll have (almost) unprecedented opportunities to spend large sums of money on programs and institutions that have a chance to fix things. What could be better? It’s like being a venture capitalist with unlimited funds, which I think would be the best job in the World if it ever existed. Fantastic.

So when unemployment rises from the current 6.5% to 12-15% (with a significant gender bias of a much higher percentage of unemployed males, much more to come on this), the crime rates go through the roof (it’s clear to me now that a good economy was the biggest factor in post-abortion crime rate reduction), and we start realizing what really happened here, the Government will have to spend cash left and right to dig us out of this thing. It’s the Perfect Storm for Mr. Obama.

When my friend’s 9 year old kid asked me about the financial crisis, I told him very simply (and do correct me if I’m wrong): everyone thought there was a lot of cash everywhere, and then they realized a lot of that cash didn’t exist. This cash was created when housing prices went up, and then it disappeared when they went down. When people realized this, the value of cash went up and the government had to create new money out of thin air to avoid the value going up too fast. Then he asked me if the government can just keep printing money until it’s all better. I told him that’s the basic plan.

The DC Hero Bailout for the Auto Industry

What the hell is all this nonsense about using part of the $700B bailout to send to the auto industry? The US Government shouldn’t be bailing out GM, Chrysler, or Ford. The bailout should come from the people who need these companies to succeed more than anybody else.

In other words, shouldn’t every OPEC country be chomping at the bit to bail these companies out? If I was K.A. up there, I’d already have more cash than I could spend. I’m looking for an investment, especially at the moment. Why not swoop in and not just bail them out, but buy every one of those companies outright. Then have them churn out SUVs at a frantic pace, and give out gasoline rebate deals with them for 5 years of gas at $1.99 a gallon?

The only downside I can think of was if relations become strained between the US and the Saudis, and the US seizes the companies as assets. But oh well, just shut the pipes and bleed every SUV owner dry at $6 a gallon until you recover your (minimal) equity you lost in the auto compaines. I guess it’s just easier to sit in the palace and watch the money come in.

I’m assuming this is a bad idea for reasons I’m not considering. If it happens to be a great idea, I’ll take this post down. I don’t want them getting any ideas.

Beard for Barack

 

put the shades on and grow the sideburns until they connect, man, trust me

 

 

Many of you know that Barack likes to fashion himself, to an extent, after Abraham Lincoln who was famous for his no-moustache beard. Many of you might not know that Lincoln didn’t grow a beard until after he was elected in 1860. He grew it in the 4 months between the election and inaguration (which was on March 4th back then). 

There are many theories concerning why Lincoln grew it, but nobody knows for sure. There was a little girl who told him he would look better with a beard, and wives would convince their husbands to vote for him (women couldn’t vote remember). But it was more likely that Lincoln felt like he was “going to war”, and beards and facial hair were a popular battleground choice of both the Union and Confederate soldiers. Beards are manly.

Personally, I think he grew it because he was sick of Mary Todd’s bitching and he wanted to use the scruff to scratch up the soft parts on her body. There’s gotta to be a word for that, let me know if you know what it is.

By my count, Barack has 10 weeks. This is plenty of time for him to shred those pretty-boy looks that got him elected and get tough with some man hair. And, in all seriousness, it would probably take him almost all of that time to grow it. 

Fuckin A, times are tough and it’s time to get tough. It’s time to bring the beard back to the White House (for the first time since Benjamin Harrison famously maneuvered himself in between two Grover Cleveland presidencies. Here’s the beard type chart. I think his best options (in order) are the Chin Curtain, the Proper Goatee (no moustache), and the Hollywoodian. He has to avoid the moustache at all costs.

Proposition 8: Misplaced Hate

Bert & Ernie? Uh, no

You’ve heard by now that Proposition 8, to renew the ban on Gay marriage in California, passed with 52.5% of the vote. Given the national unpopularity of Gay marriage I was pretty unsurprised, especially given the large Latino and Black populations in California, that it passed. It was likely to pass as soon as it was put on the ballot by an astonishing 1.2M people who signed a petition to put the Constitutional Amendment on the ballot.

Now, even though the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ coalitions raised $35.8M and $37.6M respectively, there’s some DC blogger calling for a ‘boycott of Utah‘ because the Mormon church supplied tens of millions of dollars to the ‘Yes’ coalition.

“The main focus is going to be going after the Utah brand. At this point, honestly, we’re going to destroy the Utah brand. It is a hate state.”

So the solution is to stereotype the entire state of Utah for stereotyping homosexual marriage. The irony is so thick.

I think the real problem is that people aren’t going to vote for gay marriage, not that they were brainwashed into voting against it. Even our uber-Liberal President-Elect is against it. Also, the fact that Black voters (who voted 70% for Prop 8) came out in record numbers to vote for said President played a big part in this. So they were brainwashed by the Mormons? I’m confused.

Personally, I wouldn’t have voted for or against Prop 8 because I think the whole gay marriage thing is a waste of time, just like the flag burning amendment. Just have some kind of union for gays that has all the rights of a marriage, and make up a name for it. People would vote for that, but I guess the angry gay groups wouldn’t settle for that. Instead, we have to watch gay marriage propositions get shot down every time they get voted on. What a waste of time and money.

Another thing I don’t get: “They just took marriage away from 20,000 couples and made their children bastards.”

Wait, wait, wait, somebody needs to explain to me how gay people make babies. Do they get a 3rd person to donate the egg-uterus/sperm and then keep that person around as an Aunt/Uncle? That sounds like a disaster. And what’s with the punitive slam on bastards? Aren’t we past looking down on children from unwed parents? I never mentioned the guys name, but he’s the editor at AmericaBlog.

BREAKING: Barack Obama Wins 2008 Presidential Election

Barack pledges to stop smiling, start working

Hopefully I beat MSNBC with my projection (by a hair I’m sure), but DC Hero is now prepared to project Barack Obama as the winner of the 2008 Presidential Election!

I’m not a pawn, so I won’t classify myself as ‘Democrat’ or ‘Republican’, but I certainly lean conservative… in a good economy. Thank God it’s over. I don’t have to watch or listen to anyone go on a post-teen-angst/sexual-frustration fueled emotional tirade defending a party or a platform they don’t understand anymore. These people don’t know how to argue or prove a point. How do they make it on television? I was watching Bill O’Reilly the other day (don’t ask) and seriously wondered if I was the smartest man alive, or at least the best arguer. If you find yourself getting emotional in a political discussion, it’s time to take a deep look in the mirror.

One of the few things I hate, and I mean I legitimately hate, about young people is their strangely innate desire to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they’re right about something. There are more young/immature people now because of the failure of the modern relationship, and their barrage of stern and uninformed opinions is pathetic to watch. It’s strange, because they all have an inferiority complex about the quality of their educational background, but they completely dismiss the importance of “structured learning”. It’s also strange because they have such a contempt for ignorant and uneducated Americans, but are oblivious to the fact that a semi-informed opinion is 10 times as dangerous.

Reddit is a good place to fine these circle-jerk youths. Oh, here’s a good one. Vote up if you want the United States to end the war, make wiretapping illegal, invest in clean energy and rid Congress of people who will get in the way of these goals. The only thing worse than this is the bands that reiterate these primitive opinions and call it “getting political.” Give me a break. What does Rage Against the Machine call it? Activism? Call it what it is: poorly informed and oversimplified opinions on complex geopolitical issues. And every fan they have that internalizes those opinions is worse off as a result.

So wait, what is this about? The complicated political issues that actually matter (this doesn’t include gay marriage, abortion, or flag burning) are never cut and dry. There are usually very intelligent people that disagree with each other on them. If you think it’s cut and dry and you can’t see both sides, you don’t understand the issue. These issues include the Iraq War, the Bailout, Nationalized Health Care, etc. This just got boring, I’m stating the obvious.