"That Guy", Masked Men and Republicans, ...whack, whack. Did you watch the Debate last night? I knew the Penguin was coming back.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH..........................good news Sweet Tooths!

Rookies is coming back to New Albany; bakery will open at Federal Hill Cafe Oct. 24

word-a-licious

Luuuuvv it! New slang from some blogger over at Daily Kos "wingnutosphere"

Wall St Bail-Out Gives Local Leaders Idea.

“New Albany City Council will vote on freeing funds for cash flow”

Either some bodies calculator jammed or this second emergency(what emergency? - everyday is an emergency in New Albany) appropriation in about a month looks 10 times bigger than last’s month request.  What did I miss? 

Certainly Ms Garry has a contingency plan for state revenues funneling in late?  Or a dollar amount of what it will cost on a monthly basis to pay salaries et al?   Give me a million, quick! ...so Henry Paulsen-like. 

“• A public hearing will be held and a vote taken on the additional appropriation of $250,000 to be used for storm damage clean-up.”

umm,  watched too many trees destroyed BY the street department that were fine before they took a whack at them.  Exhibit A are the locusts formerly known as trees on Market Street that I watched decimated today.   I doubt you could have none a better job of ruining a block that was slowing coming to life than that horrible hatchet job.  Whether there was storm damage to them or not, that is not the way you clean up a tree, that’s the way you kill it.  God help the Greenway.  Couldn’t all this wanton destruction’s cost be included in the $1-million on the other request just to tidy things up?  Can anybody bring some sloppy resolution for money to the council?  Quick, I have one for $50,000 to replant the trees the Mayor’s office has ordered destroyed last year.

“• Council members will meet at 6 p.m. Monday for a work session to tour the set-to-open Scribner Place/YMCA. The YMCA is scheduled to open Nov. 15.”

One more comment, cause I’m in a mood today.   It seems like a silly waste of money to pay the city council to tour to new Y.  I found the free tour offered Mon and Wed nights quite adequate and suspect that council members could easily acquaint themselves with the facility on their own time.  I’d hope their attention would be focused on budget issues with all these screaming financial issues of late. 

Final Day to register to VOTE in Indiana is Oct 6, MONDAY

America! This is God. I need you people to be out by the end of the week, I’ve got someone interested in the property.

(paraphased from a poster I saw in the 1960s that I’ve never forgotten cause it was so funny)

The big bail-out of 2008.

OK - another $700 billion of fresh hot-off-the-press soon-to-be-worthless dollars. Who wins? All of us! We just put off China owning our country a tiny bit longer. I personally will appreciate the extra months of freedom, albeit a false freedom. The stark raving math I”m doing shows our total debt loan as a country is so past sustainable, it’s just a matter of time before the foreign holders of that debt call it in and we can’t pay, so...

pimp my bank, take my first born and everything he will ever earn, double-down on the off-shore accounts and be ready for WWIII.

Or - make sure you are at the polls Nov 4 and vote for Obama/Biden and let’s see if there’s anyway to pull out of this crisis before everything we know is gone.

WoW! The people pulled the levers of Congress this time. Let's keep up the pressure.

From Jim in San Marcos, who blogs as The Great Depression of 2006.

THE CRASH DEFINED

A crash is pretty much just a redistribution of wealth, from the rich to the poor. The very rich stand to lose 90 percent of their wealth. With the poor, 90 percent of nothing is still nothing.

The bail out is a tax on everyone in the country ranging from $5,000 to $20,000 depending on the fool talking. For a family of 4 that’s $20,000 to $80,000. If you consider that 3/4ths of the population pay little tax, this is going to be a very heavy wagon to pull.

If we do absolutely nothing to fix the mess, there will be a blood bath. The top 10% of the population get their lunch in Spades. After that, Mr. Rich guy is going to be looking for a job.

This doesn’t mean that we silver foxes walk away Scott free. We are going to get burned badly. That would have happened after the bail out failed anyway. We can’t print our way out of this mess, but can't we let the idle rich implode into nothingness?

If the government wants to do something, let the house of cards collapse. Then print money to keep people in food and shelter; this is a transfer payment I understand (plus it is a government responsibility). There should be no bail out support for the super rich. Paulson kiss your absurd 700 million dollars goodbye.

This event if understood for what it is, is a great redistribution of wealth. With the government buying failed assets; it doesn’t make them worth any more. What good does it do for the government to own them? Private industry has a loss, let them eat it!

We have survived one House of Representatives vote, we need to make sure that they understand, that we understand that printing money won’t solve the problem. This cannot be pushed into the future. The money is not there even if it was an option.

If you have a moment click on THIS LINK and express your concerns to your Congressman. Do we give the rich their money back? ---Or do we say “Suffer with the rest of us!” Vote now, and write your Representative a letter. I really think that we are being listened to, take the time to give your Representative your view; we are not billionaires, just voters.

Remember one thing, for government to pay the bills, we the people have to earn it. There are no quotes around the word earn. This next election could be all about, “Toss the Bums Out.” We don’t need a President as much as we need Congressmen that have some testosterone.

Please do me a favor and click on the link and give your Congressman you view, we can’t print our way out of this mess.

Thank you and good night

Stark Raving Math!!!

The nation's social bargain with the rich
The Boston Globe
By Derrick Z. Jackson September 30, 2008

CONGRESS has been rushing to save financial CEOs from themselves with a $700 billion bailout that amounts to a tax of $2,333 on every man, woman, and child in America. This is after three decades of the nation's leaders punishing struggling Americans for their lack of personal responsibility, from Ronald Reagan's assault on "welfare queens" to the bipartisan slashing and capping of welfare benefits by President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

More recently, presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama have said undocumented folks should pay fines to get in line for citizenship.

Then, of course, there were the 1.5 million home foreclosures last year and the 2.5 million foreclosures projected for this year by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Many economists and politicians have washed their hands of them, saying, tsk, tsk, they were irresponsible for taking on too much responsibility!

If scapegoating struggling Americans on personal responsibility fails to work, we just ignore them, as sure as the Ninth Ward of New Orleans remains the American Dresden after Hurricane Katrina - while rebuilt Gulf Coast casinos break new revenue records.

All those millions of Americans, facing everything from slashed food stamps to swamped homes, live in a patronizing America where Clinton signs the 1996 welfare bill by saying, "We're going to take this historic chance to try to recreate the nation's social bargain with the poor. We're going to try to change the parameters of the debate. We're going to make it all new again and see if we can't create a system of incentives which reinforce work and family and independence. We can change what is wrong."

No broad parameters are being changed for greedy or incompetent Wall Street CEOs, as the financial sector assures itself a compliant Congress with $2 billion in campaign contributions since 1990 (Obama and McCain have respectively received $25 million and $22 million in campaign contributions from the financial sector in this campaign cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics).

Negotiators on the hill do say they will tax bailed-out companies for executive salaries over $500,000, but Wall Street found its way around similar rules in the past.

Yesterday, amid increasing outrage, the House failed to pass the bailout bill.

No bailout should happen without recreating the nation's social bargain with the rich. The nation can no longer afford the disparity where the average American CEO makes 344 times the pay of the average worker, according to the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy. The CEOs and their boards should pay toward the bailout before a penny of that possible $2,333 comes out of the pockets of Americans.

There is more than enough money among the financial elites to pay for the bailout. The Institute for Policy Studies last week calculated that a securities transaction tax of a penny for every $4 invested would add $100 billion a year to the treasury. Had such a tax been in place after the 2001 Enron scandal, it would have added up to the current cost of the bailout.

A wealth surcharge of no more than 3 percent on households worth more than $10 million would add another $300 billion. In response to the news this year that two-thirds of American corporations paid no income tax between 1998 and 2005, a corporate minimum income tax could add another $60 billion.

The institute said a 50 percent tax on salaries of $5 million or more and 70 percent on salaries of $10 million or more - until the bailout is over - would add another $105 billion. Killing overseas tax shelters, loopholes for excessive CEO pay and the sale of mansions, and creating a progressive inheritance tax would add another nearly $300 billion.

Institute senior scholar Chuck Collins said that would be a much more fair way to deal with the consequences, and discourage a worsening of "casino capitalism," than the rush to dump this on the taxpayer. "Many of these things have been examined, but not implemented," Collins said, "But Congress essentially punted on how to pay for the bailout."

If Congress is the punter, the people are the football being kicked once again far downfield as Congress and the CEOs high-five with relief from the skybox.

Derrick Z. Jackson can be reached at jackson@globe.com.