The Dow drops, Amy helps, and Michele is still crazy.

Wall Street, you are killing me! Folks, I might not even finish this post. It all depends on how long it takes a bottle of valium to kick in. Even Mrs. Field is worried, and girlfriend never looks over her 401K statements.

Anywhoo, I know who will be first in line to see The Help this summer: My girl Amy Holmes. Seems girlfriend has found a new gig being the help to a very deranged and racist antagonist. But there will be no acrimony from me towards Amy tonight. I wish girlfriend all the best. Times are hard out here and folks have to get their eat on. Good for Glenn Beckkk. He found his own version of Obama. Like O, one of Amy's parents is a black African and one is a white A-merry-can. Unlike O, however, she was not born in this country; Amy was born in Africa. But I am sure that Glenn will pick her brain to learn more about Obama. She will be a valuable asset come 2012.

I see that Jon Stewart has come out and ripped Newsweek for their latest issue with Michele Bachmann on the cover.[See pic with this post] They have been taking a lot of heat for it. Apparently folks say it makes her look crazy. Ahhhhm, excuse me, she is crazy. Was the photo of her doctored? The answer is no. I think it does a wonderful job of capturing who Mrs. Bachmann really is. So Jon, take a chill pill and go back to fighting the clowns over at FOX.  Sometimes you can be a bit too voluble for your own good.

Besides, it's not even about the Newsweek cover; it's more about what was revealed in the actual article:

"One of the more interesting tidbits to be discussed about GOP presidential front-runner Michelle Bachmann in the current issue of the New Yorker is that one of the books she kept listed on her website as a “must read” was a biography of Robert E. Lee by J. Steven Wilkins. Wilkins is a revisionist historian that seeks to downplay or even glorify the Souths’ tradition of slavery. From the book:

Slavery, as it operated in the pervasively Christian society which was the old South, was not an adversarial relationship founded upon racial animosity. In fact, it bred on the whole, not contempt, but, over time, mutual respect. This produced a mutual esteem of the sort that always results when men give themselves to a common cause. The credit for this startling reality must go to the Christian faith. . . The unity and companionship that existed between the races in the South prior to the war was the fruit of a common faith.

Got that? Because Africans were forcibly converted to Christianity, they didn’t mind being slaves at all but rather worked extra hard to enrich their white owners. For Jesus.This is the rising star of the GOP. If you are even contemplating voting for this woman, you are a goddamn idiot." [Source]

OK, so Justin Rosario was a little harsh, but I get the point.

Hmmm, maybe Ms. Bachmann wasn't so glad that the "Founding Fathers" ended slavery after all.

Finally, good for Lucy Nobbe. Ms. Nobbe dropped $900 to fly a banner over Wall Street to let the bums in New York and Washington know how the rest of us feel about their shenanigans.

Ms. Nobbe, your actions had Field Negro written all over it.

We need more government, not less.

Sorry to post so late tonight folks, but I was actually sitting on the Ben Franklin Bridge and trying to decide if I should jump or not. SIX HUNDRED AND THIRTY FOUR POINTS? WTF? The sixth worst point drop in Dow history. Thank you tea party. Your political gamesmanship was really good for the country.*sarcasm off* 

"Standard & Poor's downgrade of America's debt couldn't come at a worse time. The result is likely to be higher borrowing costs for the government at all levels, and higher interest on your variable-rate mortgage, your auto loan, your credit card loans, and every other penny you borrow.
Why did S&P do it?

Not because America failed to pay its creditors on time. As you may have noticed, we avoided a default.

And not because we might fail to pay our bills at the end of 2012 if tea-party Republicans again hold the nation hostage when their votes will next be needed to raise the debt ceiling. This is a legitimate worry and might have been grounds for a downgrade, but it's not S&P's rationale.

S&P has downgraded the U.S. because it doesn't think we're on track to reduce the nation's debt enough to satisfy S&P -- and we're not doing it in a way S&P prefers.

Here's what S&P said: "The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics." S&P also blames what it considers to be weakened "effectiveness, stability, and predictability" of U.S. policy making and political institutions.

Pardon me for asking, but who gave Standard & Poor's the authority to tell America how much debt it has to shed, and how?

If we pay our bills, we're a good credit risk. If we don't, or aren't likely to, we're a bad credit risk. When, how, and by how much we bring down the long term debt -- or, more accurately, the ratio of debt to GDP -- is none of S&P's business.
S&P's intrusion into American politics is also ironic because, as I pointed out recently, much of our current debt is directly or indirectly due to S&P's failures (along with the failures of the two other major credit-rating agencies -- Fitch and Moody's) to do their jobs before the financial meltdown. Until the eve of the collapse S&P gave triple-A ratings to some of the Street's riskiest packages of mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations." [Story]

Exactly Mr. Reich. Ironic indeed. The very people who are partly responsible for putting us in this mess, now have the nerve to tell us that they are going to have to downgrade our credit rating. That's like a thief coming into your home, stealing your big screen television, and then complaining to you that the picture isn't clear enough. The nerve!

Meanwhile O is still talking about our deficit problem....huh? O, here is a memo from the field: F&^% the deficit problem! We need jobs! Still, if you insist on going down this road, here is how you solve your little deficit problem: Raise taxes, get the f*&^ out of Afghanistan and Iraq, and start talking about putting people to work. We should be spending more not less. How are you going to stimulate job growth if you are cutting three trillion dollars in federal spending? That is lunacy. But it's just what these wingnuts want, to beat our government into submission. It is the fundamental difference between these folks and those of us who are... well... actually sane. We believe that it is our government's job to make society work in a better more efficient manner. The wingnut, on the other hand, sees our government as the enemy. They fail to realize, of course, that they are the government; we all are.

I will leave you with the words of Dick Polman:

"Obama, having weathered the ginned-up debt-ceiling crisis, is again declaring that he wants to "put America back to work," but those words are hollow. He's handcuffed by this deal. He and the Democrats won't have the money to launch any big job-creation programs even if they muster the will to try.

Of course, that's precisely what the Republicans intended - to starve the government. Most Americans probably don't agree with that strategy, but since when do they have a say? Polls suggest they just want to get back to work, by any means possible. Last month, when Gallup asked people to name their most important issue, 31 percent cited the "economy in general"; 27 percent cited "unemployment/jobs." A distant third, at 16 percent, was "federal budget deficit/debt."

This is a time when the jobs crisis requires more government spending, not less. Consumers won't prime the economic pump, because they're still in a fetal position. Private businesses won't hire, because they're still playing it safe. There's a myth going around - brought to you by the same people who deny climate change - that the 2009 stimulus was a failure. Congressional Budget Office and Commerce Department figures say otherwise; the stimulus plan saved millions of jobs and would have created more had it been bigger."

Thank you Mr. Polman.

Now if you will all excuse me, I have to go and check out some more bridges.


















 

Pep talk.

As most of you know I love sports analogies, so I am going to use one here.

A-merry-ca these days is like a basketball team with loads of talent that is getting beaten by a lesser team. We are down double digits at half time and we needed our coach to inspire us and tell us to go out and use the talent that we have and win the damn game.

The O man was our coach tonight, and he did a good job of trying to fire up the A-merry-can team. He laid out the x and o's to help us do it, and he inspired his players to get fired up and go out and lay it all on the line. That is what he needed to do. For too long he talked like a coach whose team was finished and was down by too many points. His players were hanging their heads and looking at the Dow scoreboard and thinking it was over. This speech tonight changed that somewhat, and I will be damned if his players probably aren't feeling like they might be able to pull out a win.

"But while our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken; though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.."

Put me in coach!

Oh, and before I sign off, I have to make a few points:

You all will notice that Eric Holder wasn't in the House chamber tonight. I think his O ness might have told him to be the one to stay at a hidden place in case of an attack. We don't need A-merry-ca being reminded about what "cowards" they are tonight, Eric.

I loved the first lady's hook up. Mrs. Obama I can honestly say that you are the first and only First Lady in history who made my johnson restless.

Who was the brotha in the greeting line who looked like he jumped off an Ohio Players album cover?

And was that his O ness hugging Richard Shelby? O man, maybe you can walk on water.

I am watching the republicans own version of his O ness give the republican response now.(Poor guy, even FOX is dissing him) And all I can say is that if imitation is the greatest form of flattery, the dumbocrats must be feeling downright giddy.

504!!!

If you own stocks in banking, give the field a holla, I know the number of a very good suicide hot line here in Philly. Seriously, WTF? That 504 figure is not Jimmy Rollin's batting average, or a new area code, it's how much points the Dow lost today. The most since September 11.

All this on a day when Mr. Morton made the astonishing statement that the "fundamentals" of the economy is still "strong". Huh? I wonder if someone told him how totally ridiculous that statement was. Oh, apparently they did, because later in the day he tried to say that he meant the American workers are the fundamentals.....What? I guess they will no better than to let Mr. Morton give speeches without a script in front of him next time, the man is losing it.

Look, I have a confession to make: I do alright money wise. Between me and Mrs. Field, I am pretty much in that percentile that his O ness wants to increase taxes on. So I am not one to panic over money, or the lack of it. Unlike Mrs. Field (who has a lifetime subscription to Kiplinger's), I honestly don't follow the markets that much. I rely on my city pension fund, and Mrs. Field to read my deferred compensation statements. Mrs. Field reads her 401-K statements like you would read your bible. She knows all about large company growth funds, emerging growth funds, diversified international funds, value funds, and blend funds. She has us diversified in Janus Oversees, Columbia Acorn, Fidelity, Meridian Growth, Vanguard, Harbor Capitol Appreciation, Franklin Templeton...ahh shit my head is spinning. But you get the point.

So anyway, today, for the first time since I have known her, Mrs Field was talking about the stock market, and just how fucked we all might be. And seriously, when you read stuff like this, how can you blame her? "Wait a minute", I ask her. "I thought you were the one who always said that we should be patient investors, and that you invest for the long term. Don't panic with the rise and fall of the markets you always say, right? ""Yeah field but this isn't looking good. The Dow lost over 500 points today, and the banking sectors are getting hammered." "Sooo, what does that mean for the kid? ""It means the kid's stock portfolios and his wife's retirement is taking a beating. It means the kid's home probably lost about 10% of it's value within the last few days, that's what." She is being sarcastic when she says "kid", and she is not a happy camper. "See field, you have your little pension with the city, and it's pretty much guaranteed, so I am sure you don't worry about these things like the rest of us." Memo to all husbands out there: when your wife starts referring to your pension plan as "little", you might have some issues.

But, as is always the case, I blame the frat boy for this mess. These damn republicans with their leave the corporations alone, laissez faire attitude towards financial regulations in this country, have caused us to be in this mess. They are not laissez faire economist, they are fucking "Market Anarchist", and we are paying for it.

I was reading about Princeton economist, Robert Shiller, in the Philadelphia Inquirer, and he was basically saying the same thing that Mrs. Field is: we are fucked. And no one in government is doing anything to save us. Shiller says that the "the immediate fix that is needed is similar to that called for by the Great Depression, but unlike the 1930s, nothing fundamental is being done." This gloom and doom guy (I wonder if he would like a nice African American woman to marry)actually said that "home prices have sunk 30% since 2006, and that we could go back to a 25% unemployment rate like it was from 1925-1933." Gloom and doom to be sure, but the guy is no dummy. He helped to develop the "Standard and Poor's Case Shiller (that's his name in there) Home Price Index" for ten large metro markets, so he knows what he is talking about. But at least he has some solutions. He thinks, for instance, that "the government should replace Fannie Mae with an overseer and guarantor of mortgage loans, and that it should bail out lenders and borrowers to keep them from dragging others down." But he even admits that this is a "stopgap measure" which would just be designed to shrink the company's loss exposure until the next administration (sure you want this presidency thing O man?) figures out a more permanent way to fund home loans. Shiller wants the government's goal to be "pushing home prices back up while preventing a fundamental loss of economic confidence in our institutions and in each other, while preventing distress among people of modest means. He also wants a 'Financial Product Safety Commission' tracking loan and investment products, promoting fee only financial planners, to reach lower income people." Gee, there is a novel concept, making financial planners more affordable to everyone. And get this; the guy wants to "detach loan and bond prices from the U.S. dollar, whose steady erosion by inflation gives a false sense of its value." Gee, again, what a novel concept. "Loan prices", he argues, "should rise and fall with the value of goods produced and consumed in an economy, while bond prices should be tied to national economic output". Now I am no economic expert, but hell, that makes sense too.

And my question again is this: who in the frat boys administration was thinking these things out? Why were they just letting the financial sectors and the markets police themselves while they lived high on the hog, and drained our 401-K accounts? That was a rhetorical question. I am quite sure that you all know the answer. And now we have Mr.Morton, a man with no clue about our economy, ( he doesn't have to, his wife is worth a hundred million) promising us that he will fix this mess. Yeah right, and guess how is he going to do it? By cutting corporate taxes, and bailing out speculators, that's how. Nice. You gotta love those republicans. Destroy the country with their economic policies, and demand that we give them four more years to run it.

Anyway, enough of this financial talk, I am looking down at my butt and my calves, and the spinning hasn't stopped. Mrs. Field is on the phone with her sister, and she is telling her that she has to get off because she has to get on her computer. I will give you one guess what she is going to go and check on. If you don't get a post from the kid tomorrow, it's because I am out looking for a third job. I mean I know I am a Jamaican, and as the joke goes, we are used to working multiple jobs; but damn!

I am going back to the game now, my birds are up at the half.

Friday rant.

A couple of things: First, thank you frat boy for destroying the A-merry-can economy with the help of your dumb ass.....I take that back. With the help of your rich ass friends (There is nothing dumb about them).

Today the Dow tanked almost 400 points, and we had the worst unemployment news in over 22 years. Five point five percent or some shit like that. Great numbers if you happen to be living in a Third World country. But here in A-merry-ca that number is way too high. And of course, for us black folks, we know that we have to double that number now don't we. When you are at the bottom of the barrel hard times hit you harder than everyone else.

Oil is trading at $136 a barrel, and the country is going to hell in a fucking hand basket. And it's in this climate that the poor "O" man is going to get his shot at the wheel. If that's not some fucked up shit I don't know what is. Thank you George. Why couldn't the black man get to be in charge after Clinton? But then, I guess, if things weren't so fucked up the black man wouldn't even have gotten his shot at being in the big house in the first place. Oh let's just go ahead and give it to the Negro, things can't get any worse. But isn't that how it always is? We get shit when it's so fucked up that no one else will take it. Ahhh Marvin *Lewis do you think you can turn around the Cincinnati Bengals? We always see it in sports. The black Managers get the teams that are so bad that they can't get any worse. Right now, here in A-merry-ca, things are so fucked up that it's hard to see them getting any worse. And I guarantee you that if the "O" man wins he will be blamed for all the shit that's happening now. Come on Field, do you think it's a coincidence that the Dow started tanking after your boy wrapped up the dumbocratic nomination? Wall Street has the jitters, they are scared of this guy, he is a Socialist. Get used to that kind of rhetoric. And all of this while the frat boy takes us deeper and deeper into a damn recession. And, I don't know, but there just doesn't seem to be enough outrage out there for me. Folks are just going along to get along. Gas $5 a gallon? No problem. People being laid off by the thousands? No problem. The Chinese and Saudis own damn near everything in this country while most of the Corporations in A-merry-ca are surviving on credit? No problem. A fucking endless war for god knows what half way around the world? No problem.... you get the picture. But hey, as long as we have our cable T.V., central air, and McDonald's the republic will be fine.

Now to my second little issue: It's not a big one, but like the long post office line, it's something that bugs the shit out of me.

It's you folks doing all of your banking at the ATM machines. Look, they are "'automatic' tellers". They are not interactive, they can't talk back to you. So if you ask for $100 and the machine spits out a bunch of twenties, could you go off to the side and count your money please? I mean honestly, if the machine is short say twenty dollars, you make a note of it and call the bank. Standing at the ATM machine WILL NOT help. And please please, could you check the balance in your account before you go to the ATM machine? If I see one more mofo with three different debit cards checking three different accounts and taking different amounts out of each one I swear......

Sorry, for the bitc....whoops I can't use that word. I don't want to be called a sexist. Sorry for complaining once again about some shit that irritated me during the day. I don't want you folks to think that all I do is bit....whoops, I mean complain about shit all day. I actually enjoy quite a lot of things, and like the rest of you, I am actually quite happy to be in A-merry-ca.

Why wouldn't I be? My cable works fine, and happy meals are still a bargain.