virtus1's Xanga

bailout cost per household

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:53:02 GMT

from cnet

Bailout type Cost to taxpayers (Source: Reuters)
Financial bailout package approved this week up to or more than $700 billion
Bear Stearns financing $29 billion
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac nationalization $200 billion
AIG loan and nationalization $85 billion
Federal Housing Administration housing rescue bill $300 billion
Mortgage community grants $4 billion
JPMorgan Chase repayments $87 billion
Loans to banks via Fed's Term Auction Facility $200 billion+
Loans from Depression-era Exchange Stabilization Fund $50 billion
Purchases of mortgage securities by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac $144 billion
POSSIBLE TOTAL $1.8 trillion+
NUMBER OF HOUSEHOLDS PER U.S. CENSUS 105,480,101
POSSIBLE COST PER HOUSEHOLD $17,064+

Carroll Quigley quotes

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:20:43 GMT

Carroll Quigley wrote:

The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one,
perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the
doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical,
so that the American people can "throw the rascals out" at any election without
leading to any profound or extreme shifts in policy.

Quigley continues later, "But either party in office becomes in time corrupt, tired, unenterprising, and vigor-less. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies."

He later in the same chapter of "Tragedy and Hope" slams Goldwater supporters,

His most ardent supporters were of the extremist petty-bourgeois mentality driven
to near hysteria by the disintegration of the middle classes and the steady rise in
prominence of everything they considered anathema: Catholics, Negroes, immigrants,
intellectuals, aristocrats (and near aristocrats), scientists, and educated men generally,
people from trig cities or from the East, cosmopolitans and internationalists and,
above all, liberals who accept diversity as a virtue.

Is this the way the Republicans and Democrats think of Ron Paul Supporters? The frat boy eastern establishment Republicans looks down on Ron Paul supporters and favor names like Romney because he promised deliver more of the same. It seems that the majority of Republican voters hold what Quigley deem as middle class (or Puritan values) of inborn evil which requires external application of punishment to manage. It seems that the average Republican voter does not believe in self-control and requires an extensive police state. The combination of Eastern Establishment supported Republicans combined with redneck puritans form an electorate which is a winning combination for Republicans. Remember, since 1980 Democrats have held the presidency for 8 years and those years had strikingly similar foreign and domestic policies. This explains the sneers of Guiliani, Huckabee, and McCain when Ron Paul would speak during the debates.

Democrats are driven by class warfare and need to enforce equality at the tip of a gun. The result is an enormous police state to enforce the laws of equality through hate crime legislation, progressive taxation, and other schemes. The Frat Boy Eastern Establishment Democrats call on the army of paranoid minorities and those dependent on welfare to prop up a dictatorship of equality in the same way redneck puritans do. The words to the song are the same, but it has only a slightly different tune.

Really Dirty Photo

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 19:36:12 GMT

This is the swingarm on my bike after last weekend's race. Yikes the track was as slippery as snot. The open field section was fast and grippy with some great high speed sections and corners that you can let the rear end hang out, but the forest sections were swampy and rocky.

Total information awareness?

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 05:01:06 GMT

1. Nobody can say (without violating the laws of logic) that the lack of a terrorist attack since 9-11 was caused by US intelligence agencies. Saying the CIA, DIA, TIAA, or whatever alphabet spy network stopped terrorism is a first rate of example of the, "Fallacy of False Cause."

I say NO-Thanks for our loss of civil liberties, violations of privacy rights, and the material loss of property through aggressive taxation and inflationary policy.

The State of the Nation and John Hagee

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 06:48:12 GMT

This post will make me unpopular, but it seems to be the truth.

Yet again, another anniversary of 9-11. I got a e-mail saying that they are already talking about the anniversary in London on the morning shows. A New Yorker was interviewed on one show where he mentioned that the only people in New York thinking about the hole in the ground were tourists. Let's reflect on where we are now.

We are in a war against a country (Iraq) that had nothing to do with 9-11. Bin Ladin is free, but we did throw his wife's chauffeur in prison for life even though he had nothing to do with the attack. We are poking Iran and Russia in the side hoping they will get pissed off and start a fight. Terrorist attacks on US citizens or military have become more prevalent since 2001. The Middle East is less stable and oil prices have skyrocketed. Both main presidential candidates are bloodthirsty warmongers. Yes, Obama is a bloodthirsty warmonger. The US National debt has skyrocketed to pay for inefficient military vehicles running on overtime, million dollar bombs, expensive drones, and lots of .223 rounds. Depending on which model, a C-130 is a 20-45 million dollar aircraft that uses around 600 gallons per hour of fuel. The C-130 is a fuel miser compared to lots of the military equipment around.

Our civil liberties have been shot to pieces with bills like the "patriot act" and the "military commissions act." The militarization of civilian police and increasingly brutal tactics have become commonplace. We are less free and we are paying through the nose for our own whipping. This is why our founding fathers opposed the standing military and opposed aggressive foreign policies. Wars and armies have bankrupt the nation and led to the suppression of natural rights.

We have forgotten that the Taliban is not Al-Qaeda so we go to war against both. The American news media has forgotten that 9-11 was about aggressive US Foreign policy.

----End rant----

What can we do?

1. We can only pack our bags, leave the foreign nations that we have been occupying
1a. Tell Israel and John Hagee to shove off
2. Dismantle our military and return to the state and local militias that kept the nation safe in the past
3. Repeal all gun laws so that we can protect ourselves against foreign and domestic aggressors
4. Think about Switzerland as a model for national defense and diplomacy
5. Engage in peaceful trade of goods and ideas across international borders
6. Vote Libertarian (or at least not for Republicans, Democrats, or Greens)

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:07:08 GMT

An education student was arguing with me recently. People with a public stand against government education monopolies have the undergraduates in that academic ghetto called the College of Education irate. She made the argument that without public education, the rich will receive a superior education to the poor. It would be hard to test 300,000,000 people in the United States without great expense. Testing by state reveals that there is no relationship between being rich and being educated. Specifically, I chose "personal Income" which is available from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Morgan Quinto "Smartness Index." Without knocking everyone out with boredom, here is a plot which disproves the Marxist class theory so many undergraduates hold.

Why Americans Cant Get a Job

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:23:01 GMT

It is easy to blame some employers for closing shop and moving abroad. These employers face stressful regulations ranging from environmental to accounting regulations that at best will cost the firm thousands in penalties to imprisonment for screwing up on taxes or miscommunication in accounting standards. An employee or administrator can go to, "pound me in the ass prison"1 for both intentional fraud or an unintentional mistake.

A recent analysis this author did of the city of Sherwood, AR revealed a strictly anti capitalist mentality. The economic development commission stated that they simply do not want any manufacturing in their city borders. As a result, the only jobs in the town are low level retail and call center jobs. Can we blame a company from fleeing a country which regulates them out of competition and simply tells them outright that manufacturing is not welcome here?

Here are a couple of revealing graphs.

1. Quote from Office Space

Yes, parts of the US are in recession. Neither Republicans or Democrats will make things better.

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 06:56:18 GMT

One of the best ways to understand monetary inflation is to take a look at Money with Zero Maturity.

The story of every recession in the 20th and 21st century is artificial liquidity created for political purposes. That is anything beyond secular growth.

Republicans and Democrats have no real incentive to promote monetary stability. Tight money would mean no more groundless wars, the iron triangle would starve, Raytheon, Boeing, and Blackwater would have to build marketable goods.

Mars Carnival

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 04:00:58 GMT

I have never liked going to London as much as I should. There are some things I like about the city, and I have some good memories there. For example, mu mum and I ate fish and chips at one of the above ground tube stations in the snow. When I opened the paper, the steam from my breath mixed with the steam from the food. We ate and chatted. When I think of London in those terms, it is a nice place.

I can only think of one instance where a copper was a bit pushy, and it turned out that it really was for my safety. He knew more than I, and I have forgiven him.

On the other hand, there is a burning annoyance about the town. The city is full of the intolerant "tolerance police." These are people who teach our children that anything goes and everyone is the same. I will take a single Lord Acton over 1,000,000 Ken Livingston's. Any extreme of depravity fine with these people. It is one thing to acknowledge the innate freedom of people to be themselves but not at the cost of civilization. For example, when you visit the shops, some are full of Jamaicans and wanna-be Jamaicans who apparently do nothing all day. Indolence is not acceptable. It really is annoying. I will not be bullied by the tolerance police.

The grand result: Violence at Mars Carnival.

The tolerance police have bullied people into accepting all level of anti-social behavior by certain segments of society. Instead of using the powerful tool of scorn and disdain against pot smoking rastas, we tell our children and peers that we should accept them as they are. I don't think we should round them up and throw them in jail, but we don't have to accept them into society. When they enter the shops, we should tell them to piss off. Get a haircut. Dry out.

The violence at Mars Carnival happened because we let it happen. Usually I am not on the side of the police, but in this instance, the police should have beat the snot out of the people who assaulted them. Especially since the police were taking extra steps to be nice.

One of the best parts of going to London is heading back to Essex.

Cars.

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:23:28 GMT

1. The US education system is a complete failure. The schemes governing schools are very successful at producing cashiers for the fast food industry and not much more. Ask a recent graduate, and they insist that they are geniuses. It was noted in Automotive Design and Production magazine that in the next five years the automotive industry will have a shortage of more than 500,000 people largely because they lack the basic tools the thought. The welfare rolls are busting at the seams. This is one of the keys to the demise of a great industrial nation. The USA was an industrial nation whose entrepreneurs and firms collectively attempted to satisfy the wants and needs of people who are willing to trade a product of their labor for an automobile. The government removed the fighting spirit of the working class in order to maximize the reelection possibilities of a handful senators and representatives. This is shameful.

2. Traditionally, this has been the time of the year that I race cars. It's been a few years since I've gone to the track mainly because there aren't any racetracks in Central Arkansas therefore there are no track days. The closest Solo I race is hundreds of miles away, and Solo II offers to little track time for the effort it takes to set the car up and fix what you break. Solo I and II are lousy substitutes for a track day anyway. You get what you can though. This little pickle is taking me off because I am getting zero track time.

3. Everybody in this state loves NASCAR, which in my opinion, is probably the crappiest form of racing devised by man. It genuinely sucks. This is partially related to the fact that American cars are ugly and passionless. This includes muscle cars. I wouldn't own a saloon built by Chevy, Ford, or Chrysler at any price. They are genuinely hideous.

What is wrong with American cars?
+The interiors are cheap
+They float around on the road like the engineers who designed them have piles and didn’t wanted to get jolted
+The boxy shapes are awkward and lack classical proportion
+A car like the Lotus Elise is purely beyond the scope of an American auto maker because they are too large and will not adapt.

This confuses me. British Leyland destroyed the Jaguar. An American auto maker turned the British Leyland disaster into the Jaguar of today. This is clearly a stunning automobile and an achievement. Once the company is turned around, they sell it to a crappy Indian company!?! Only an ivy league MBA could think of such a bad move.

Ford Europe's history of creating peppy little fast hatches is marvelous. I don't understand why so few of those engines have achieved the same level popularity in the United States. That's the cheap end of the market. On the other side of the market, why would a sensible person buy an enormous retarded SUV for $50,000? A driver can buy an Audi A8 which is much more sensible in a lot more fun. If Ford can fix Jaguar, why can't they fix themselves in North America? I suggest Ford, Chevy, and Chrysler string their engineers up by their nostrils. I moved a friend's Ford pickup truck at the motocross track only to find that the steering wheel and where you sit are not even close to lined up. Semi trucks have shorter gear throws than that POS. It is crap.

The niftiest mass-produced American car is overweight, under suspended, and unruly in an un-fun sort of way. This car is the Corvette. It is a worthless pig at the limit. I know because my father has one. It wouldn't know nimble if it looked it up in the dictionary. This country is awash in technology, creative people, and money. This is the best car they can come up with?

I will be the first person to recognize the US auto industry has improved its quality by hundreds of percent. The rest of the world, though, has also improved its quality. GM Ford and Chrysler are behind the curve.

The list of things that I dislike about NASCAR is too voluminous to mention, and it could be argued that I have offended my readers enough for the day. Suffice to say, I don't like it. I don't watch it.