Monday, February 2, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
The Winter Of Our Discontent
The nations economy looks to be still struggling to get on its feet.
Signs of a recovery are still not apparent.
We are getting little good news, and a lot of bad.
We must keep the faith, and look towards the coming months with hope.
Why? Because it can make us feel better than we otherwise might.
And what will that do for the economy?
Not much.
But remember, the Super Bowl is today, and advertisers are still willing to shell out record amounts for commercials.
$3,000,000 today, for 30 seconds, a record.
That tells me some very large and powerful corporations and people (large people?) believe there is a benefit to reaching out to American and international consumers in this, a dark moment in the current recession.
All is not lost when the Super Bowl can still generate millions, maybe even billions in ad revenues.
So think positively, look towards the shining football stadium on the hill, and remember, if we can't get work in construction or development or finance or mortgages or real estate or the auto business, we can all go to work on Madison Avenue, where we can drink all day, smoke cigarettes constantly, and chase skirts around the office.
This once proud country will rise again, in an alcohol and nicotine-fueled rampage through the boardrooms, bedrooms and hotels of greater New York.
If we can't manufacture things, or create, or innovate, or save, or invest, we can certainly shill.
Brigades of suits, decked out with crisp-edged pocket squares and shiny shoes, will descend on the enemy and convince them that we are still Number 1.
Believe in what I say, oh ye of little faith.
For the words of the profits were written on the corporate wall,
And tenement hall,
And echoes, with the sound, of salesmen.
Signs of a recovery are still not apparent.
We are getting little good news, and a lot of bad.
We must keep the faith, and look towards the coming months with hope.
Why? Because it can make us feel better than we otherwise might.
And what will that do for the economy?
Not much.
But remember, the Super Bowl is today, and advertisers are still willing to shell out record amounts for commercials.
$3,000,000 today, for 30 seconds, a record.
That tells me some very large and powerful corporations and people (large people?) believe there is a benefit to reaching out to American and international consumers in this, a dark moment in the current recession.
All is not lost when the Super Bowl can still generate millions, maybe even billions in ad revenues.
So think positively, look towards the shining football stadium on the hill, and remember, if we can't get work in construction or development or finance or mortgages or real estate or the auto business, we can all go to work on Madison Avenue, where we can drink all day, smoke cigarettes constantly, and chase skirts around the office.
This once proud country will rise again, in an alcohol and nicotine-fueled rampage through the boardrooms, bedrooms and hotels of greater New York.
If we can't manufacture things, or create, or innovate, or save, or invest, we can certainly shill.
Brigades of suits, decked out with crisp-edged pocket squares and shiny shoes, will descend on the enemy and convince them that we are still Number 1.
Believe in what I say, oh ye of little faith.
For the words of the profits were written on the corporate wall,
And tenement hall,
And echoes, with the sound, of salesmen.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Ack! Ack! Ack!!!
Sorry...hairball.
Anyway, Obama was inaugurated, and is now our actual President, and I feel so much better.
I really do.
And he's gone right to work, with smart people, trying hard to make stuff better.
What a change.
George W. flew off into the sunset, with Karl Rove sputtering fealty and non-sensical utterances that only served to make everyone across the world wonder if Rove got into the Kool-Aid when no one was looking, and Cheney, poor old Cheney, wheeling around like someone's ill (and ill-tempered) old Uncle, because he hurt his back hauling all the secrets out of his office...
We cvan hope for better, but there are still a bunch of looney Evangelical-Republican-Fetus-Savers and Convict-Electrocuters out there who think that somehow...somehow...Bush was...
MISUNDERESTIMATED
to the end.
Of course he was, he was so good, so smart, so strong...
We did not have another terrorist attack on our soil after 9-11.
Okay, now read that last sentence carefully.
In all the history books from now on, they will describe all the hopeless failures that the 43rd President's administration either led (Iraq), presided over (Worst Recession Since The Depression), or did nothing about (Hurricane Katrina, etc.), but they will always be able to print that one piece of good news.
And it is really good news, that we did not suffer another terrorist attack on our soil after 9-11.
But more Americans died in Iraq, which after all was totally unconnected to Al-Qaeda, and which did not have ANY nuclear or biological weapons, and, um, oh yeah, that dictator Saddam had actually threatened W's father's life with a real assassination plot...so why did we actually go there?
Okay, if I had the world's greatest military force at my disposal, and that guy had wanted to assassinate my dad, I probably would have done the same thing, wouldn't you?
I just hope I would have been more honest about the whole thing.
But remember, Truth doesn't actually mean anything anymore.
Evangelical Conservatives still support a guy who didn't feel Truth was as big a deal as Security and Secrecy.
Why would they? Because he's with them on other issues more important to Evangelical Christians than Truth. Such as Abortion, Gay Marriage, and Guns.
Those are really more important than Truth.
And Bush doesn't give 2 shits about the environment, since his corporate buddies told him not to. Which fits perfectly with Evangelicals...they don't really care about the environment unless it is someday free of Gays, Abortionists and Fornicators.
A few of these Evangelicals cared so much about Fetus' rights, in the 90'S they killed off a few of the doctors who were trying to kill off those fetuses.
But that works, right?
"I'M PRO-LIFE AND I SHOOT".
Much like it's okay to kill a convict on death row, because he killed somebody else.
When they quote that the Bible says "An eye for an eye," they mean it.
In fact, that passage was written into the Bible to make it clear that there would be new rules governing the religious, and it was hoped, governing all societies.
"An eye for an eye" actually represented a reduction in the level of vengeance one could expect when that was written.
The author was trying to get people to reduce their level of revenge for wrongs, to a more equitable level.
Before that, it was more like "A village for an eye."
So we should be happy with the killing of a killer, as it represents a civilizing step, and not the other way around.
Right.
Anyway, Obama was inaugurated, and is now our actual President, and I feel so much better.
I really do.
And he's gone right to work, with smart people, trying hard to make stuff better.
What a change.
George W. flew off into the sunset, with Karl Rove sputtering fealty and non-sensical utterances that only served to make everyone across the world wonder if Rove got into the Kool-Aid when no one was looking, and Cheney, poor old Cheney, wheeling around like someone's ill (and ill-tempered) old Uncle, because he hurt his back hauling all the secrets out of his office...
We cvan hope for better, but there are still a bunch of looney Evangelical-Republican-Fetus-Savers and Convict-Electrocuters out there who think that somehow...somehow...Bush was...
MISUNDERESTIMATED
to the end.
Of course he was, he was so good, so smart, so strong...
We did not have another terrorist attack on our soil after 9-11.
Okay, now read that last sentence carefully.
In all the history books from now on, they will describe all the hopeless failures that the 43rd President's administration either led (Iraq), presided over (Worst Recession Since The Depression), or did nothing about (Hurricane Katrina, etc.), but they will always be able to print that one piece of good news.
And it is really good news, that we did not suffer another terrorist attack on our soil after 9-11.
But more Americans died in Iraq, which after all was totally unconnected to Al-Qaeda, and which did not have ANY nuclear or biological weapons, and, um, oh yeah, that dictator Saddam had actually threatened W's father's life with a real assassination plot...so why did we actually go there?
Okay, if I had the world's greatest military force at my disposal, and that guy had wanted to assassinate my dad, I probably would have done the same thing, wouldn't you?
I just hope I would have been more honest about the whole thing.
But remember, Truth doesn't actually mean anything anymore.
Evangelical Conservatives still support a guy who didn't feel Truth was as big a deal as Security and Secrecy.
Why would they? Because he's with them on other issues more important to Evangelical Christians than Truth. Such as Abortion, Gay Marriage, and Guns.
Those are really more important than Truth.
And Bush doesn't give 2 shits about the environment, since his corporate buddies told him not to. Which fits perfectly with Evangelicals...they don't really care about the environment unless it is someday free of Gays, Abortionists and Fornicators.
A few of these Evangelicals cared so much about Fetus' rights, in the 90'S they killed off a few of the doctors who were trying to kill off those fetuses.
But that works, right?
"I'M PRO-LIFE AND I SHOOT".
Much like it's okay to kill a convict on death row, because he killed somebody else.
When they quote that the Bible says "An eye for an eye," they mean it.
In fact, that passage was written into the Bible to make it clear that there would be new rules governing the religious, and it was hoped, governing all societies.
"An eye for an eye" actually represented a reduction in the level of vengeance one could expect when that was written.
The author was trying to get people to reduce their level of revenge for wrongs, to a more equitable level.
Before that, it was more like "A village for an eye."
So we should be happy with the killing of a killer, as it represents a civilizing step, and not the other way around.
Right.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Today's Weather, continued
We rarely get this much snow.
A couple of inches is about all, and if we get more than one or two brief snows per winter, that's unusual as well.
Some years lately we haven't even had any measurable snowfall on the valley floor.
We may get freezing rain a couple of times, or maybe none at all in an average winter.
This year, the snowfall is as heavy as it has been only a few times in my life in Oregon.
And we have had several snow storms in a row, and a couple of freezing rain events.
I have been here about 40 years, and in this Northwest part of Oregon, we normally just don't get the storms like the Eastern and Southern parts of the state.
Every winter we can drive an hour to Mount Hood for snow up to 10 feet deep, and there are many ski areas along the Cascades down the length of Oregon that are easily accessible to most of the population.
Usually we have to go to those mountains to see a foot of snow or more.
Today we just have to look out our windows.
I like it!
A couple of inches is about all, and if we get more than one or two brief snows per winter, that's unusual as well.
Some years lately we haven't even had any measurable snowfall on the valley floor.
We may get freezing rain a couple of times, or maybe none at all in an average winter.
This year, the snowfall is as heavy as it has been only a few times in my life in Oregon.
And we have had several snow storms in a row, and a couple of freezing rain events.
I have been here about 40 years, and in this Northwest part of Oregon, we normally just don't get the storms like the Eastern and Southern parts of the state.
Every winter we can drive an hour to Mount Hood for snow up to 10 feet deep, and there are many ski areas along the Cascades down the length of Oregon that are easily accessible to most of the population.
Usually we have to go to those mountains to see a foot of snow or more.
Today we just have to look out our windows.
I like it!
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Snow Day!
We have had snow off and on the last week or so, and now we are getting a big storm coming our way today that is expected to dump at least several more inches of snow.
Then it should transition to ice for tomorrow, and all next week we will probably have an off an on snow mix coming down.
White Christmas!
It's good to have seasons in Oregon.
Then it should transition to ice for tomorrow, and all next week we will probably have an off an on snow mix coming down.
White Christmas!
It's good to have seasons in Oregon.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
The Loan Arranger, To The Rescue!
After several weeks of good news/bad news, it appears that Congress has stopped trying to help the American auto industry (actually the Senate stopped the House) so the White House appears ready to step in and do "sumpthun" about it!
George Bush has done a lot of idiotic things in his term, and this is not one of them.
For all the recent Conservative Capitalist talk of the need to "Let the auto companies work out their problems in Bankruptcy like any other corporation", going Banko is not the solution here.
Avoiding the argument raised by bailing out the financial sector, which is a service industry producing nothing tangible, we need American auto companies for many reasons.
They are major drivers (oops) of the economy in many parts of the country, including all of the ancillary and supporting industries and businesses that provide parts and services to them.
They are a necessary component of any serious wartime effort to mobilize; we need workers skilled in producing such vehicles, as a security issue, even if we do our best to avoid war in the future.
Manufacturing is a staple of a strong economy. In the past, when the great powers of the world became rich, they shipped labor intensive work to cheaper countries, and focused more on finance. The Dutch, the Spanish and the British all once ruled the world. When they slowly changed from manufacturing powerhouses to finance powerhouses, they at first got richer, then they slowly lost economic strength, stumbled, and began to lose their supremacy. At the same time they also overstretched their military around the globe, and they ran up huge deficits in their spending. These compounded their problems, and hastened their decline as world powers.
Sound familiar?
The reason America became a superpower, then the superpower, was because Great Britain lost their position, and after competing for a couple of decades with a cardboard cutout of a juggernaut called the USSR, we took it.
Our innovation and manufacturing strength provided for economic strength, which provided for military strength. Our Democratic system of government and our economic strength have been great forces in tandem (for the most part) and are what have given us the ability to be a superpower. Sometimes we let our military strength go in directions it should not, but that is another argument.
The American auto makers actually have been competitive in the past, and are competitive in parts of the world now, and can be competitive in the future. Ford does very well in Europe, and GM does well in China, and Chrysler has in the not too distant past both great designs and very profitable years.
If we let our manufacturing companies go away, we lose those jobs, we lose those skills, and we risk losing much more.
If we feel we do not need or want to be a superpower anymore, then we need to make decisions about going that direction. We cannot let things happen to us without discussion and without generating public policy in a new direction if that is what we want.
Bush is right to help them survive. The reasons for their dire straits right now are many, including less innovative and exciting designs in many of their models, and lower quality than some of their competititors, as well as higher costs to build (primarily because of higher labor costs) than most of their competitors. And maybe one or all of them need new leadership to really get turned around.
But the real reason they are in such serious trouble right now is that sales fell so sharply late this year. And in that debacle, Detroit is not alone.
November sales fell over 30 % for Ford and GM, and about 40 % for Chrysler.
November sales fell over 30 % for Toyota and Honda.
November sales fell more for Toyota and Honda than they did for Ford.
Does anyone really believe that if Toyota or Honda start to fail, that the Japanese Government will not find a way to rescue them?
And if you believe that those two companies will not be allowed to fail, you get a hint as to why our Big Three should not be allowed to fail either.
Sure, it hurts to see billions going to financial firms that in many ways contributed to our terrible economic troubles, and sure you can say why throw more billions at the huge auto corporations, but you would be missing the larger point;
Even if the bailout of the Wall Street Finance Goobers was or is a huge mistake, saving the car companies is not a mistake.
In fact, it is just the opposite.
It is an imperative.
George Bush has done a lot of idiotic things in his term, and this is not one of them.
For all the recent Conservative Capitalist talk of the need to "Let the auto companies work out their problems in Bankruptcy like any other corporation", going Banko is not the solution here.
Avoiding the argument raised by bailing out the financial sector, which is a service industry producing nothing tangible, we need American auto companies for many reasons.
They are major drivers (oops) of the economy in many parts of the country, including all of the ancillary and supporting industries and businesses that provide parts and services to them.
They are a necessary component of any serious wartime effort to mobilize; we need workers skilled in producing such vehicles, as a security issue, even if we do our best to avoid war in the future.
Manufacturing is a staple of a strong economy. In the past, when the great powers of the world became rich, they shipped labor intensive work to cheaper countries, and focused more on finance. The Dutch, the Spanish and the British all once ruled the world. When they slowly changed from manufacturing powerhouses to finance powerhouses, they at first got richer, then they slowly lost economic strength, stumbled, and began to lose their supremacy. At the same time they also overstretched their military around the globe, and they ran up huge deficits in their spending. These compounded their problems, and hastened their decline as world powers.
Sound familiar?
The reason America became a superpower, then the superpower, was because Great Britain lost their position, and after competing for a couple of decades with a cardboard cutout of a juggernaut called the USSR, we took it.
Our innovation and manufacturing strength provided for economic strength, which provided for military strength. Our Democratic system of government and our economic strength have been great forces in tandem (for the most part) and are what have given us the ability to be a superpower. Sometimes we let our military strength go in directions it should not, but that is another argument.
The American auto makers actually have been competitive in the past, and are competitive in parts of the world now, and can be competitive in the future. Ford does very well in Europe, and GM does well in China, and Chrysler has in the not too distant past both great designs and very profitable years.
If we let our manufacturing companies go away, we lose those jobs, we lose those skills, and we risk losing much more.
If we feel we do not need or want to be a superpower anymore, then we need to make decisions about going that direction. We cannot let things happen to us without discussion and without generating public policy in a new direction if that is what we want.
Bush is right to help them survive. The reasons for their dire straits right now are many, including less innovative and exciting designs in many of their models, and lower quality than some of their competititors, as well as higher costs to build (primarily because of higher labor costs) than most of their competitors. And maybe one or all of them need new leadership to really get turned around.
But the real reason they are in such serious trouble right now is that sales fell so sharply late this year. And in that debacle, Detroit is not alone.
November sales fell over 30 % for Ford and GM, and about 40 % for Chrysler.
November sales fell over 30 % for Toyota and Honda.
November sales fell more for Toyota and Honda than they did for Ford.
Does anyone really believe that if Toyota or Honda start to fail, that the Japanese Government will not find a way to rescue them?
And if you believe that those two companies will not be allowed to fail, you get a hint as to why our Big Three should not be allowed to fail either.
Sure, it hurts to see billions going to financial firms that in many ways contributed to our terrible economic troubles, and sure you can say why throw more billions at the huge auto corporations, but you would be missing the larger point;
Even if the bailout of the Wall Street Finance Goobers was or is a huge mistake, saving the car companies is not a mistake.
In fact, it is just the opposite.
It is an imperative.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
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