Dow up....to a 30% drop!

Sorry if I'm not breaking out the party hats for the Down getting back to 9000 today (and back within 2000 points of where it was....8 days ago). 10 years of being told by Boomers that the market always works in the long run, and I see the S&P down 10% since guys my age have been able to have any chance of investing. And thank God I don't own a house.

Ownership society? Fuck that. Give me a good-paying job and secure benefits, and I'll gladly take the extra taxes. You know why? Because there's no point in cutting income and capital gains taxes WHEN NO ONE'S GROWING INCOME OR CAPITAL GAINS ANYWAY! And this is leaving out the whole "being China's bitch because of our deficit," thing.

If you're the one non-Jake person reading this, don't be an idiot and vote McCain. Vote for the guy that actually has a clue about our problems, and some sort of coherent plan to fix it. It's not that hard, it really isn't.

Quick hit

The last 2 weeks have been rather unbelievable. Amazing what happens when you hire people to look the other way and let business and individuals be as reckless as possible. It's like folks never understood that Gordon Gekko's "Greed is good" was meant as a bad thing.

The amount of deficit and debt we will have to make up as a result of these last two-three months will take years and a heavy drawdown in growth along the way. Hang on tight to what you got, because payrolls are down over 750,000 so far this year, probably 1 million for the future, and no room for government to give the jobs or boost to get out of it. As a city employee, I have major fears over what will (or won't) be able to be passed down to state and local governments, which has already suffered greatly under this administration.

But in the meantime, I'll do my part to help Q4 GDP by being in bars for 6 hours before UW-OSU. I don't have much hope after last weekend's big meltdown in Ann Arbor, and the Brewers awful performance is no salve either, but I've been surprised before...

And it rolls on..

This is 1930s level. I am stunned at how badly this could be screwed up. These people on Wall Street need to be straitjacketed, and bent over hard.

Like most guys in my 30s, I have no expectations of Social Security or pensions, but I may as well pack it in and live close to the vest...or pick up a lot of bad habits so I don't make it past 75 (ah, it's your last 10 years that you add to your life anyway). I think I'll go with the bad habits.

And I hear that Ben Sheets is possibly asking out of another start early. SCREW HIM! The Crew has to win tonight and you're asking out. I'm almost at the "good riddance" point now.

STUNNER!

Wow, I'm just stunned and amazed that for-profit corporations decided to swindle folks and make bad bets in an attempt to make a few extra bucks. Just stunned and amazed....

Now I remember exactly why I wanted nothing to do with the financial services industry. Douchebag central. And you gotta love McCain trying to say "We caused this culture of greed and deregulation, and we're gonna fix it!" Of course, there's nothing ever said by the GOPpers HOW to fix it, other than silly platitudes about out-of-control CEOs (where the policy seems to be "you're a bad, bad CEO. Don't be bad again.")

And speaking of bad CEOs, what's with Carly Fiorina saying Sarah Palin wouldn't be qualified to run HP, but that she's OK for VP? Ummm, I'm guessing VP's a much tougher job, although I would anticipate Palin being every bit the screw-up at her job as VP as you were at your job at HP, Carly.

But the really annoying part of that statement is the illustration of entitlement CEO culture. These folks really believe that their little piss-ant company and their (usually inherited) position is somehow more valuable in the grand scheme of things than policy-making, diplomacy, and national leadership. The disrespect these people have for those who decide to serve and improve this country is appalling, and needs to be called into attention.

Barack's sharpening the tone in recent days, but I want to see more, and I want it on my TV screen.

On my TV screen now is the Brewers, who seem to be continuing their epic collapse despite the new manager. Gimme football season, it's gotta be better than this 26th straight year of post-season futility.....or my portfolio.

Bizzaro world

So let me get this straight. 6.1% unemployment, increased poverty, $600 billion deficits, and widespread Wall Street corruption (and the assocaited fallout on our portfolios) aren't a big deal, and the same policies that got us into it are the ones to get us out of it.

Asking questions about a female candidate's views and management abilities is sexism, finding irony in promoting abstinence-only education and the resulting pregnancy of a teenage daughter is "off-limits", and calling the promotion of these same awful ideas with a different packaging "lipstick on a pig" is somehow a personal attack? But ripping on the choice of millions of Americans to do social service work over prostituting themselves to the highest bidder is perfectly fine, and supposed to be proof that "those do-gooders" don't get it?

And people are falling for this crap?

And the ridiculousness of the GOPpers would be a mere annoyance if there wasn't a real threat of people being stupid enough to believe this bullshit. You wonder why me and a lot of others in our mid-30s see no point in trying hard, because if these folks are allowed to succeed, it proves the game is fixed, and not worth participating in.

In addition, I'm watching the Brewers choke their way out of the playoffs AGAIN, losing 7 of 9, including 4 of 6 the freaking Reds and Padres. I'm not even panicking as much as I am totally disgusted, so maybe that's carrying over into my political views. It's almost not worth it for me to keep up with the Crew, even if they make it.

Amazing how a lot of these fears and angers go away when I'm drinking with friends. Maybe there's a point to that which I need to follow. Ah, who am I kidding, OF COURSE that's the point. Sports and beer is real, politics and economics are not, and maybe that needs to be the attitude I should take for the next 8 weeks.

Update from the author

I've since made my way to Milwaukee to count some beans and hopefully watch C.C. Sabathia help me see my team in the playoffs for the first time since I started getting man hair. Let's just say I wasn't seeing a $600 billion deficit, 5.6% inflation and $3.69 gas being a "relieving low, low price." But hey, why not elect McCain when you can get even more fun on top of this entertainment of an economy, right?

Dear God, hope we're smarter than that, and that Ned Yost is smarter than I fear he may not be. I'll try to post more if it comes to me.

Barack on small towns

I gotta give props to Barack Obama for telling it like it is about small towns. I lived in a shit town like this in La Porte, Indiana, and the amount of people who were duped by the Karl Rove machine was enormous. It's not surprising. No one wants to admit they've been screwed over their entire lives- they want to believe that what they've been doing has a point, and that there's some kind of hope out there. So they grab onto the things they know and recognize, like God or guns or some other BS values issue, because they can realte to that. Looking into economic issues that have turned their once-vibrant communities into defeated ghost towns is just far too tough for people that are working 10-12 hour days and raising their families.

So no wonder these people fall for Yalies who tell them "I'm just like you," despite the fact that these people back policies that will guarantee small-town folks will NEVER have the chance to be "just like them". And I even think in the back of their minds they know this, but like a beaten spouse, they're so scared of what might happen if they leave the comfort of their losing situation. So they stick with their losing hand, and guarantee that they stay beaten down and in their current place. Which is exactly where the rich suburbanites want them to be. What these suburban wusses DON'T want is to have small-town folk actually compete with them, because then the suburbanites might actually have to earn their money and status. And God forbid someone have to work for what they get in America!

Obama's comments will piss off some people for a bit, but many of them are the 28 percent of dopes who still support this president, so they're irrelevant for this election anyway. And now that Hillary's trying to exploit this anger over the comments by saying "Oooh, what Barack said was hurtful. You people are just fine. I have Midwestern values just like you." WHAT? Sliming everyone in sight and sticking with philanderers for career reasons are Midwestern values? It will backfire once people say "Wait a minute, Bubba rammed through NAFTA. You guys have advisers with Colombian free trade organizations. You've lived in Arkansas and D.C. for 40 years and made 9 figures in the last 7 years. How are in the world are you like us?"

As a former Hoosier that still keeps in touch with the area, I just hope it happens sooner than later, so the Hoosiers can knock out the Billaries on May 6. We'll see if this country is soft and reactive, or tough enough to accept Barack's hard truth. And it's pre-empted any chance for the GOPpers to try to use stupid social issues this November, because Barack can say "See what I said back in April? They're trying to play you?" And if there's something small-town people can't stand, it's the idea of some rich city slicker trying to get something over on them.

Whether he meant to or not, Obama may have made a move that could be the winner. Or it could confirm that this country's down the drain. We'll see which it is.