Just to follow up on that last post...

The crisis explained in one chart

This chart compares total debt (or “credit”) in the U.S. to GDP (or Gross Domestic Product) on a percentage basis. Current total credit-market debt stands at more than 340 percent of total GDP.


So that big spike in the 1930's was during the Great Depression. But it wasn't a run-up in debt that caused that spike. It was the GDP contracting out from under the debt value. (Remember this graph is debt/GDP ratio, so if you shrink the bottom half of the fraction, the line goes up.)

In the current crisis, up until now at least, GDP has not been shrinking. At least not much. The spike is because our debt is increasing. The remedy, supposedly, is even more debt. The line goes up. And what if our economy shrinks and our GDP declines? (What if!) Yes, the line goes up. Put them together, and.... well, hang on, we're already off the freakin' charts here. We're gonna take that line in the red oval, and cause it to spike?

Crap.

Our government is insolvent.

And I was really hoping for some nice tax rebates for solar panels and hybrid cars. And a functional health care system. And money for retirement. Oh well, maybe next time.

So start picking out names for the new country you and your neighbors will be forming.

A few thoughts when you're drafting up new laws: Don't give corporations the same legal status as individuals. Don't let bankers be in charge of banking regulations. Don't let chemical companies be in charge of agricultural policy. And don't have an electoral college.

Feel free to add your own suggestions.

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Just to expand on my comment from yesterday....

I am proud, not because we have elected an African-American for the first time. I am proud that his being the son of a black African and a white American didn't matter. Obama didn't win because of his race. He also didn't win in spite of his race. He truly won because of the race he ran rather than the race he belongs to.

People sometimes tried to bring race into it, but it never really stuck. And despite reports of "huge turnout by the African-American community," the percentage of black voters in this election was not drastically different from previous elections. And it was proportional to the population as a whole.

Obama won among blacks, but he also he won among Latinos. He won among those making less than $50,000 per year, but he also among those making more than $200,000 per year. He won in the so-called blue states, but he also won in red states. He won with more votes than any President in history. He won on the largest voter turnout in a hundred years. He won running against a very experienced, highly respected opponent with crossover appeal. He won despite a series of smear campaigns that lost his opponent a lot of that hard-earned respect. He won without resorting to a smear campaign of his own, as far as I can tell. He made his case based on real issues rather than side issues, or imaginary ones.

In the end, it didn't matter that he had skin of a different hue than all who came before him. It didn't matter that his father was a Muslim from Kenya or his preacher was radical or his middle name was Hussein. It mattered that he ran a better campaign, that he had better ideas, and that he won more respect, and inspired more people.

The day will come when we no longer feel the need to remark on these semi-arbitrary firsts - first black to do X, first woman to do Y, first Hispanic, first Jew, first gay Asian, first black Hispanic Jewish woman... When there have been dozens of black senators, it won't mean as much to be the first black senator from Ohio.

Race and heritage will always matter, but it will matter to families. It will matter for traditions and customs and holidays. It will matter in a different, more positive way. We will stop thinking of people who are six generations removed from Africa, as African-Americans - they'll just be Americans. We'll stop referring to those with some small fraction of their ancestry rooted in Africa as black people. They'll just be people.

And that was the real essence of Martin Luther King's Dream. Not that a black man could become President, but that a man's being black wouldn't even factor into it. In Dr. King's own words:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

We're not quite there yet. But yesterday, we took a giant leap in that direction.



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Seeing into the future....

We live at the corner of two rural roads. They are not very busy, but they are right on the way to our local polling place.

So last night I was out removing campaign signs from the corner of our property. Again. I've got quite a collection of them now. There are several reason why I don't want these signs, including a basic agreement with Scott Adams that campaign signs are lame.

Now it so happens that all of the signs on our corner so far have been in support of Republican candidates. If you read this blog, you can probably guess my political affiliations, such as they are, but this isn't about partisan political bullshit. This is about people leaving their garbage in my yard.

So I called the county Republican headquarters to complain. The old man, er "gentleman" as he tried to insist, disavowed any responsibility by the party or its volunteers - anybody can go get signs - and then, without knowing anything more about me, proceeded to suggest that I was un-American for not wanting this fine Republican spam on my property. When I explained that I'd do the same if it were Democrats, he all but called me a coward for not standing up for something. He blathered on about "that Socialist," and what's wrong with this country, and how at 83 years old, he knew a lot more about the world than me. Apparently in all those 83 years he still hasn't learned his way out of being a rude, inconsiderate, unprofessional, disrespectful, condescending, selfish, petty, close-minded asshat.

But whatever. Rant over.

More signs this morning. They've been replaced by a new one that just says "PRIVATE PROPERTY - ALL CAMPAIGN SIGNS WILL BE REMOVED."

Anyway, it's ok, because I already know who wins the election. And if those school kids are wrong, I'll reference the Dilbert guy again and plan for The End of the Republic. Come to think of it, we might be halfway there already.

If you're feeling pissed off on my behalf, take a deep breath and go read this to have your faith in humanity fully restored.

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QUIT CALLING ME!!!

Anybody else out there in a "swing state"? Are you getting called a dozen times a day by pre-recorded politicians and their minions? Does your voicemail have pleas from your county auditor, local party officials, pollsters, both presidential candidates, Arnold Schwarzenegger, LeBron James, and political causes you've never even heard of?

We've got the creeping crud moving through our house, including a slightly feverish and very clingy baby, and the last thing I want is to hear the phone ring every hour from sun up until after dark (and no, I'm not exaggerating). And you can't even pick up the receiver and give the robo-caller a piece of your mind.

Anybody who didn't see this coming when politicians excluded themselves from the do-not-call list, please raise your hand.

What? Nobody?

Maybe we'll just have to unplug our phone for the next few days...

And just to keep this from being an entirely whiny post, here's my Halloween costume for the office contest:


Bonus points if you can figure out which limbs are real and which are fake.

I haven't dressed up for Halloween in 15 or 20 years. I should do that more often. I even won a $40 gift card to Target. Of course I can't come up with anything at Target that I want or need, but it was cool to win a prize anyhow.

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Pushing the Pie Party Platform

It has come to my attention that presidential hopeful Barrack Obama is apparently a regular reader of my friend Sharon's highly influential blog.

Who can forget her seminal post, "We're Going to Need More Pie"?

If I may quote:

I’m in favor of pie. I mean, what could be better than pie? It is commonly associated with good, noble things like motherhood, America, light bondage and domination, clowns and the federal reserve, so how could we not be for pie? In fact, who isn’t for pie? Well…I have to tell you the ugly truth. There are powerful anti-pie interests in our government, and people working night and day to restrict your pie access. But we here at Casaubons book (Who is “we” you ask in puzzlement? Well, Sharon has obviously gone off the deep end writing her book, as you can tell from this post, so mostly the voices in her head. But they sometimes wear cool hats, and one of them is named “Leo.”) are committed to bringing you the truth about pie access and other equally crucial issues, like socks and beer.

Now let me quote from a recent stump speech by Obama. This speech was given almost one year to the day after Sharon's Pie Post. In his speech, Obama mentions pie no less than 15 times in under two minutes:

We decided to stop at a diner because I was hungry and I decided I wanted some pie. Pie - That's what I wanted. You make pie? What kind of pie you make? Sweet potato pie? I like sweet potato pie. I'm thinking of having a sweet potato pie here in Philadelphia. Because I've heard a lot of people are saying they can make sweet potato pie. I'll put it up against my mother-in-law's sweet potato pie. Alright, you give up? ... So anyway, they did not have sweet potato pie in Southern Ohio. So I had coconut cream pie. The governor of Ohio, he had lemon meringue pie. So we ordered our pie and I decide that I'm going to take a picture with the wait staff, because they all say that the owner of the diner is a die-hard Republican, so they want to take a picture with me so they can give him a hard time. And just as we're finished taking the picture, the owner comes out, with our pie. So I take my pie, and I say I hear you're a die-hard Republican, sir...

Sounds like a solid endorsement of Sharon's revolutionary Pie Platform to me.

Here's the video clip of Obama's Pro-Pie speech:


In other news, I got a big kick out of both Obama's and John McCain's speeches at a recent charity event. I thought both candidates were very funny.

McCain, parts 1 and 2:




Obama, parts 1 and 2:




And finally, to further alienate any readers who have low-bandwidth connections (or who are uncomfortable with profanity), here's a three-part series from Funny or Die. I love the premise - "John McCain's 7th House is an apartment. Where he has 2 roommates."
, shockwave-flash@http://www2.funnyordie.com/public/flash/fodplayer.swf#!flashvars#key=a76684554a" href="http://www2.funnyordie.com/public/flash/fodplayer.swf#%21flashvars#key=a76684554a" id="">

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

--

Checking the hole cards one more time....

Okay, so the US Government didn't quite go all in yet. But I thought it was interesting that when the no vote came through on the $700 billion bailout, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 777 points. The next morning, it was reported that the loss in the market meant the US economy lost $1.2 trillion just in that day. Which suddenly that $700 billion seem a bit small.

So let's play with that ratio a little.

So if -777 points = -1.2 trillion dollars
700 billion dollars = 400 points

So if that bailout money were directly injected into the economy, that would theoretically amount to an increase of 400 points. A pretty good increase for a single day.

But what about the next day?

If the DJIA is sitting at 10,000 points and we bring the above ratio into this, then those 10,000 points would equal $17 trillion.

Billions, trillions... Gah. These numbers are way to big. Let's shrink the economy WAAAY down.

I hereby declare that the entire US economy is valued at $100.


Good old Ben.

Now, if my math is right - which is always a risky assumption, I'll admit - that puts the bailout package at about $4.12.

One quarter, one dime, one nickel, and two pennies.

I hope they don't spend it all in one place.

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The US Government goes "all in"

Lowering interest rates didn't work. Cash infusions didn't work. Bank mergers, bailouts, and takeovers didn't work. More and bigger interest rate cuts, cash infusions, bank mergers, bailouts, and takeovers have still not worked.

So now they are to the point of maxing out the wife's credit card for $700 billion worth of chips, and pushing them all into the pile for one big double-or-nothing bet.

Is anybody else nervous as hell about all this?

If this were an energy-related crisis, I think I'd have a fairly good understanding of it. But the financial system is so shrouded in mystery, I don't even really know what or who I should believe.

I thought this news segment from PBS did a pretty good job of explaining the basics in layman's terms. I still wish I had a grasp of the bigger picture...





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Too funny not to share...

SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

DEAR AMERICAN:

I NEED TO ASK YOU TO SUPPORT AN URGENT SECRET BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH A TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF GREAT MAGNITUDE.

I AM MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY OF THE REPUBLIC OF AMERICA. MY COUNTRY HAS HAD CRISIS THAT HAS CAUSED THE NEED FOR LARGE TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF 800 BILLION DOLLARS US. IF YOU WOULD ASSIST ME IN THIS TRANSFER, IT WOULD BE MOST PROFITABLE TO YOU.

I AM WORKING WITH MR. PHIL GRAM, LOBBYIST FOR UBS, WHO WILL BE MY REPLACEMENT AS MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY IN JANUARY. AS A SENATOR, YOU MAY KNOW HIM AS THE LEADER OF THE AMERICAN BANKING DEREGULATION MOVEMENT IN THE 1990S. THIS TRANSACTION IS 100% SAFE.

THIS IS A MATTER OF GREAT URGENCY. WE NEED A BLANK CHECK. WE NEED THE FUNDS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. WE CANNOT DIRECTLY TRANSFER THESE FUNDS IN THE NAMES OF OUR CLOSE FRIENDS BECAUSE WE ARE CONSTANTLY UNDER SURVEILLANCE. MY FAMILY LAWYER ADVISED ME THAT I SHOULD LOOK FOR A RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY PERSON WHO WILL ACT AS A NEXT OF KIN SO THE FUNDS CAN BE TRANSFERRED.

PLEASE REPLY WITH ALL OF YOUR BANK ACCOUNT, IRA AND COLLEGE FUND ACCOUNT NUMBERS AND THOSE OF YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN TO WALLSTREETBAILOUT@TREASURY.GOV SO THAT WE MAY TRANSFER YOUR COMMISSION FOR THIS TRANSACTION. AFTER I RECEIVE THAT INFORMATION, I WILL RESPOND WITH DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT SAFEGUARDS THAT WILL BE USED TO PROTECT THE FUNDS.

YOURS FAITHFULLY MINISTER OF TREASURY PAULSON

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How much is $700 billion?

You may have heard something about a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry by the US Government.

A recent post by Wendy got me thinking about how much $700 billion is.

Let me write it out first, just for effect:

$700,000,000,000.00

Looks big.

Almost a trillion. Might as well call it a kazillion because our brains are not really wired to comprehend such numbers.

There are just over 300 million people in the US. So if we each do our patriotic duty and chip in our share (no slacking, you babies and children, unemployed, disabled, retired, impoverished...), it'll cost us a mere $2,300 per person. In my house, with a wife and 3 kids, that's $11,500. Then we'll be the proud owners of, um...

Okay, let's let the market fix it instead. I keep hearing how efficient markets are. I guess this must be the exception that proves the rule. But let's just say that this bail out is just what the market wanted, and it can earn back that $700 billion for us.

Let's say the value of those assets we just bought with our tax dollars were to increase at $1000 per second. Markets are global, so we can gain that $1000 a second around the clock. That's $86 million a day. We should have it paid off in no time, right?

Yeah, we'll be all set in 22 1/2 years. Then we can start working on paying for Fannie and Freddie and AIG and all those other cash infusions. After that we can start paying off the national debt. Then we'll be golden. Or, our grandchildren will be anyway.

So all we need is $1000 a second for a couple decades. What could go wrong?


--

Side note - I'm glad to see some in Congress standing up to this proposal rather than seeing it sledgehammered through without much thought. I honestly don't know what the answer is, but let's remember that the people proposing the solution are really the same people who got us into the mess in the first place. You don't entrust the designated driver's keys to the town drunk.

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Brilient

Is it just me? It's just me, right?

Just for the record, you're not going to hear me endorsing or campaigning for any Presidential candidate here. It's your own job to do your homework and figure out who you think will do the best job as President. Personally, I haven't heard any candidate saying the stuff I think needs to be said or talking about the stuff that we should be talking about. I'm not much for political commentary, at least in the form I usually find it.

Besides, the fewer of you who vote, the more my vote is worth! So forget that civic duty crap and just skip voting, especially if you haven't taken the time to look into the issues and policies. Let's not pick our government based on what we heard on the teevee that one time.

But I have to share a story. Well, more of a revelation, I guess.

I was driving home from work last night, and alas, I had no audio book. At some point, I turned on the radio, and I heard a bit of Hillary Clinton giving a speech to her supporters - rallying the troops.


There was something vaguely familiar about the sound of her voice, especially when she was raising it to be heard over the crowd. She sounded, well, a little annoying. She sounded like somebody else. It took me a minute to put my finger on it, but it finally came to me.

Hillary Clinton sounded just like Richard Simmons.


Okay, maybe it is just me. But from now on I don't know if I'll be able to listen to Hillary speak without picturing her with frizzy hair, a tank top, and short shorts. This can't be good.

Here's a clip of Hillary, rallying the troops earlier in the campaign, and definitely not plagiarizing Barack Obama:


Here's a clip of Richard Simmons on The Late Show with David Letterman:


Close your eyes and make sure you can tell which is which...

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Don't Vote!

Please don't go out to the polls today. Stay home and relax. Watch some TV or something. You don't need the hassle.

I mean, the way I figure it, the lower the turnout, the more my vote is worth. Ok, just kidding. Mostly.

At my polling place, I was pleasantly surprised by a very short line, an easy to use voting system, and even a viewable paper record of my votes as they were cast.

It made me feel a tiny bit better than I did after watching the previously mentioned documentary on how insecure our voting systems can be. Now we just sit back and see how it all plays out...

Democracy in action

Another U.S. election season, another batch of hotly contested races coming down to the wire. Both sides are optimistic about the results. "Almost inexplicably upbeat," in certain cases.

If you live in a democracy, or something resembling a democracy, you might want to watch this documentary, from those wingnut conspiracy theorists, HBO.

Don't forget out and cast your "vote."

Wow. I used to swing both ways in the ol' voting booth. When did I become so partisan and cynical?

Smoke screen

It would appear that Ohioans want to curb smoking in public places. In fact 20 Ohio cities, including our nearby capital of Columbus, already have smoking bans in place. Now we have on our upcoming ballot, not one, but two, state-wide anti-smoking proposals to vote on: Issue 4 and Issue 5. One is sponsored by a group called Smoke Less Ohio, the other by a group called Smoke Free Ohio. Both are polling in the 55-60% range for passage. Now, setting aside your feelings on whether you think a smoking restrictions are good or bad, what could be more democratic than a direct vote on such a topic?

Well...... Hmmm.....

Two different smoking issues on the ballot at the same time?

Does that seem odd?

Does anyone smell a rat?

Keep sniffing.

Issue 4 proposes a new ammendment to the state constitution to put some relatively minor restrictions on smoking in indoor public places. Issue 5 is for a more restrictive state law that would prohibit smoking in most indoor public places.

What happens if they both pass? I'll get to that in a sec.

Issue 4 is sponsored by a group called Smoke Less Ohio. They call their bill "The common sense smoking ban." Members of the Smoke Less Ohio coalition include:

• R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company
• Lorillard Tobacco Company
• Retail Tobacco Dealers Association
• National Association of Tobacco Outlets, Inc.
• Cigar Association of America

Huh. That's interesting...

Now let's say they both pass, which looks pretty likely. That should send a resounding signal that Ohioans want to get away from secondhand smoke, right?

Let's see what will actually happen: Passage of Issue 5 would mean a new state law. Passage of Issue 4 would me a new constitutional ammendment. Constitutional ammendment trumps law. Issue 4 supersedes Issue 5. Furthermore, as a constitutional ammendment, Issue 4 also supersedes any local laws on the subject. So any existing restrictions (like the one passed not once, but twice by voters in Columbus) would be tossed out.

From this we can deduce the following key points:

• Politicians are corrupt
• Voters are ill-informed
• Tobacco comanies are evil
• I hate politics

Quod erat demonstrandum