I've tried to grab this several times, but it keeps getting blocked/removed...almost like some one doesn't want it to be seen.

watch this movie

It paints a pretty good picture of how we got to where we are.

Bailout Bill

Well, it is Sunday around noon, and it sounds suspiciously like the taxpayer is about to be sold down the river yet again. The bailout bill reportedly is almost complete, to the tune of $700,000,000,000. And since the gov't has only one source of income, and that source is your and my pockets, we are about to be royally and regally s-c-r-e-w-e-d by our representatives in DC.

see new plan here

Plan went from 3 pages to 100+ pages, with all the "gimmie-gimmie add ons

I guess that my skin is getting a bit thinner, but watching TV and seeing Barney Frank and Chris Dodd on the screen, telling me that all of this "crisis" is because the administration failed to oversee things, makes me want to punch the screen. Go back and look at who was SUPPOSED to be overseeing......it was Barney Frank's committee. Who fought against bills reining in Fannie May and FreddyMac...it was Chris Dodd. Who took LOTS of money from Freddy and Fannie.....want to hazard a guess here?? Who got REALLY NICE deals on their mortgages from Country-Wide, which was very very buddy-buddy with Fannie and Freddy?? Hint hint, first name is Chris, last name starts with D. And then they have the audacity to stand in front of TV cameras and try to tell us how we have to undo this crisis with our hard-earned money!!!!! It is almost enough to make me ill. How about we assist those who need assisting via loans or whatever, so that Joe and Joan taxpayer don't end up getting hit with the bills while those who caused the problem ,or allowed it to happen, walk away fat and happy on my dime.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092503602.html

More on the Financial "Meltdown"

I'll preface this by admitting that I have absolutely no idea how the financial markets work, and have no financial stake in the stock market at all. Having said that:

Years ago, when someone owned stock in a company, what he/she owned had an intrinsic worth. Those shares in XYZ Company were a fractional ownership in the company, and the assets of the company gave shares a true, tangible value. That has changed now. Now many companies have no inherent worth, but simply are companies whose only business is owning other company's stocks, which companies own yet a third company's stock, etc, etc. So at the bottom of the food chain, the shareholder is holding a piece of paper, whose only value is what someone else says it is worth. Everything further up the chain is all "smoke and mirrors". Is it any surprise that such a system must topple sooner or later?

Now add to that the fact that somewhere in that food chain, there is someone who is less than completely honest, and who realizes that if the supposed value of that piece of paper is jacked up, it becomes more desirable, and so more shares can be sold and so he/she can make more money, and his/her company becomes worth a lot more because of this sudden added value. Starting to sound familiar?

I honestly don't know if the proposed bailout is necessary or not, to "save the economy". But there are some features about it that certainly raise red flags in my mind.

"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

Those words, straight from the bail out plan, scare the pants off of me. They put the Secretary of the Treasury completely outside of and above the law of the land. For the life of me, I can't think of ANY way to justify that.
The plan also basically is giving a huge chunk of the economy over to Federal control. And since there is good evidence that much of this mess was caused by federal control, why on earth do we think they will do any better job in the future?
In July, the feds gave something in the neighborhood of $400 Billion for protection of those holding bad mortgages and in danger of foreclosure, remember?? WHERE IS THAT MONEY?? Why are we paying twice?

I'm getting long-winded here...... a link to an article that talks about some of this"derivitives" stuff which I found helpful

http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/yourlife109609;_ylt=AihYXGa_2tf9PJDeCl.2G0S7YWsA

A Beautiful day

In the midst of all the political rancor and feuding, let us not forget what a beautiful day we enjoyed today!!
It is all too easy to get caught up in the world and miss some of the truly wonderful moments that happen....a lovely day, a friend, a pretty flower, a clear blue sky. I need to remember to stop and enjoy every now and then

More hacking

This just in....the website for Bill O'Reilly has been hacked, apparently in retaliation for his demand that those who published Gov Palin's stolen e-mails be prosecuted.

Once again the party of compassion, love and kumbiah shows another, less-pleasant side.

More on the financial collapse

It seems that the current administration DID try to put some controls on the Fannie Mae and FreddyMac nonsense.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/11/business/11LEND.html?ei=5070&en=f31e9de1e37a3180&ex=1221969600&pagewanted=all&position=

Note the date here. This was in 2003. And the Democrats, especially Senator Barney Frank (D), stood up and claimed everything was just peachy and no regulation was needed.

Also of note, the sub-prime lending was MANDATED by the Congress under bills passed by the Carter and Clinton administrations; these bills mandated loans be made to applicants who could not meet the banks' requirements for mortgages, else the banks faced stiff penalties.

Once again we see the fantastic job that government intervention leads too!!

Let me see if I understand this correctly........a bunch of people take a quasi-governmental agency and cook the books to give themselves obscenely large bonuses, and in the process they run that agency into the ground. Now that FannieMay and FreddyMac are on their last legs, I’m supposed to give my money to bail them out while those who caused the problems are spending their multimillion dollar bonuses.
Can you think of any way, any way at all, to justify this? If you or I tried this, we’d be under investigation, then under arrest, long before the sun went down. But because of who these people are, they walk away scot free leaving the stupid taxpayer to clean up their mess. And I say stupid because we will sit here and allow it to happen, again and again.
This is NOT a partisan issue. The B.S. in Fannie May and Freddy Mac has been going on for years under more than 1 administration. And no one, NO ONE, has done spit to stop it or to hold anyone responsible. Why aren’t those who fudged the books under indictment? Why aren’t those who took the illegally-obtained bonuses forced to at least repay them, if not be arrested for fraud and theft?
Is there no one in Washington who gives a tinker’s dam for the common man?

Yup, ANOTHER blog from the Hudson Valley

With all the goings on in the world, especially all the financial and political happenings, I had to find a place and way to vent, someplace not associated with any other website.

This is my effort