Open Letter to Warren Buffett - Drop Dead!! and take Congress with you

As if the recent comments of Buffet's little sock-puppet Charlie Munger to "let them eat cake" comments were not bad enough, we have to put up with this self-serving drivel from "The Oracle" himself.

First Buffet's letter to Uncle Sugar in Washington, who bailed out these self-described geniuses.

They will get the free government handouts and you will get the bill.

And then to top it off, the guy complains that he may have had to endure Thanksgiving at McDonald's? Oh, the indignity!! Mr. Buffett has to go to McDonald's to eat!!!

What happened to the populist "Everyman" image you and CNBC worked so hard to craft while you slimeballs were feeding at the public trough? Are you too good for McDonald's now?

All this while people across the country are still suffering and NOT receiving bailouts from Uncle Sugar Daddy in DC.

Are you serious?

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/opinion/17buffett.html?_r=2&hp

DEAR Uncle Sam,

My mother told me to send thank-you notes promptly. I’ve been remiss.

Let me remind you why I’m writing. Just over two years ago, in September 2008, our country faced an economic meltdown. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the pillars that supported our mortgage system, had been forced into conservatorship. Several of our largest commercial banks were teetering. One of Wall Street’s giant investment banks had gone bankrupt, and the remaining three were poised to follow. A.I.G., the world’s most famous insurer, was at death’s door.

Many of our largest industrial companies, dependent on commercial paper financing that had disappeared, were weeks away from exhausting their cash resources. Indeed, all of corporate America’s dominoes were lined up, ready to topple at lightning speed. My own company, Berkshire Hathaway, might have been the last to fall, but that distinction provided little solace.

Nor was it just business that was in peril: 300 million Americans were in the domino line as well. Just days before, the jobs, income, 401(k)’s and money-market funds of these citizens had seemed secure. Then, virtually overnight, everything began to turn into pumpkins and mice. There was no hiding place. A destructive economic force unlike any seen for generations had been unleashed.

Only one counterforce was available, and that was you, Uncle Sam. Yes, you are often clumsy, even inept. But when businesses and people worldwide race to get liquid, you are the only party with the resources to take the other side of the transaction. And when our citizens are losing trust by the hour in institutions they once revered, only you can restore calm.

When the crisis struck, I felt you would understand the role you had to play. But you’ve never been known for speed, and in a meltdown minutes matter. I worried whether the barrage of shattering surprises would disorient you. You would have to improvise solutions on the run, stretch legal boundaries and avoid slowdowns, like Congressional hearings and studies. You would also need to get turf-conscious departments to work together in mounting your counterattack. The challenge was huge, and many people thought you were not up to it.

Well, Uncle Sam, you delivered. People will second-guess your specific decisions; you can always count on that. But just as there is a fog of war, there is a fog of panic — and, overall, your actions were remarkably effective.

I don’t know precisely how you orchestrated these. But I did have a pretty good seat as events unfolded, and I would like to commend a few of your troops. In the darkest of days, Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner and Sheila Bair grasped the gravity of the situation and acted with courage and dispatch. And though I never voted for George W. Bush, I give him great credit for leading, even as Congress postured and squabbled.

You have been criticized, Uncle Sam, for some of the earlier decisions that got us in this mess — most prominently, for not battling the rot building up in the housing market. But then few of your critics saw matters clearly either. In truth, almost all of the country became possessed by the idea that home prices could never fall significantly.

That was a mass delusion, reinforced by rapidly rising prices that discredited the few skeptics who warned of trouble. Delusions, whether about tulips or Internet stocks, produce bubbles. And when bubbles pop, they can generate waves of trouble that hit shores far from their origin. This bubble was a doozy and its pop was felt around the world.

So, again, Uncle Sam, thanks to you and your aides. Often you are wasteful, and sometimes you are bullying. On occasion, you are downright maddening. But in this extraordinary emergency, you came through — and the world would look far different now if you had not.

Your grateful nephew,

Warren

FROM BUSINESSINSIDER.COM
http://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-if-the-bailout-didnt-happen-i-would-be-eating-dinner-at-mcdonalds-2010-11#ixzz15Y6xIq00

Then he dropped this line, which sounds like an exaggeration:
"If the government hadn't acted, I would be eating Thanksgiving dinner at McDonald's."

A lot of these guys should be more concerned about swinging from a lamp post than where their next Thanksgiving meal is coming from.

Nothing but a bunch of thieves and liars masquerading as geniuses.

Dear Mr. Buffett:

DROP DEAD YOU RAT BASTARD!!!

1) Don't thank the government, when it is we, the taxpayers, who will ultimately pay the bill to save your sorry ass.

2) We remember what you fail to mention in your letter -- that the financial bailouts predominantly benefited the elite, the ruling class and their cronies -- who were responsible for getting us into the mess in the first place.

3) We do know that we -- "the McDonlad's eaters" were not aided in any way. In fact, quite the opposite. Millions unemployed, tens of thousands losing their houses and / or life savings. And you complain about having to eat at McDonald's?

You and your fellow thieves, like Charlie Munger and Lloyd "Doing God's Work" Blankfein, had better pray that if as expected, QEII is as big a failure as QEI was, the "Torch and Pitchfork 2.0" crowd doesn't make a detour to Omaha on its march to Washington DC.

You act like "Thanksgiving at McDonald's" would be the worst inconvenience you could suffer. When people across the country are truly suffering, every day of the year?

Happy Thanksgiving, you arrogant, self-absorbed POS. Don't choke on a wishbone or anything.

The Slav

BERNANKE TESTIMONY JUNE, 2009:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/testimony/bernanke20090603a.htm

Instead of addressing the twin towers of fiscal irresponsibility that the Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke outlined in his testimony to Congress in June 2009 -- the annual budget deficit and the total national debt load -- Congress and the administration did what it does best, NOTHING.

To paraphrase von Mises, they took the cowards way out.

Nearly a century ago, the great economist Ludwig von Mises observed that massive central bank easing is invariably a form of cowardice that attempts to avoid the need to restructure debt or correct fiscal deficits, avoiding wiser but more difficult choices by instead destroying the value of the currency.

Like rats deserting the Titanic, they ignored saving the least fortunate among us, instead filling the lifeboats with those in America who were the most blessed.

COWARDS, LIARS, THIEVES!!! THE WHOLE BUNCH OF YOU.

They were however getting richer while most Americans were getting poorer. Incomes increasing, wealth exploding higher. Is that the reality for most households across the country since 2008?
It is in D.C.

Just like Buffet, these guys benefited and prospered while the rest of the country suffered.

FROM THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/12-facts-that-will-blow-your-mind-federal-employees-and-members-of-congress-are-getting-rich-while-those-of-us-who-pay-their-salaries-suffer

Median household income in the United States fell from $51,726 in 2008 to $50,221 in 2009, and yet the personal wealth of members of Congress and the salaries of federal workers (especially at the higher levels) continue to explode. A lot of corrupt politicians and federal fat cats are raking in stunning amounts of cash, and we are the ones paying the bill. There is certainly nothing wrong with making a lot of money, but does it seem right that so many of our "public servants" are getting filthy rich while so many of the rest of us are barely getting by?

#1 According to an article in the Hill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's net worth soared from $13.7 million in 2008 to $21.7 million in 2009.

#2 In 2005, 7420 federal workers were making $150,000 or more per year. In 2010, a whopping 82,034 federal workers are making $150,000 or more per year. That is more than a tenfold increase in just five years.

#3 More than half of the members of the U.S. Congress are millionaires.

#4 The total compensation that the U.S. government workforce is going to take in this year is approximately 447 billion dollars.

#5 Today, all members of Congress earn at least $175,000. This is far, far more than the average American makes.

#6 60 percent of the federal government workforce is represented by labor unions.

#7 The median wealth of a U.S. Senator in 2009 was 2.38 million dollars.

#8 In 2005, the U.S. Department of Defense had just nine civilians earning $170,000 or more. When Barack Obama took office, the U.S. Department of Defense had 214 civilians earning $170,000 or more. In June 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense had 994 civilians earning $170,000 or more.

#9 Insider trading is perfectly legal for members of the U.S. Congress - and they refuse to pass a law that would change that.

#10 According to a recent study conducted by the Heritage Foundation, federal workers earn 30 to 40 percent more money on average than their counterparts in the private sector.

#11 When you factor in such things as retirement and health care benefits, the compensation gap between federal workers and private sector employees gets even larger. Just consider the following quote from the Heritage Foundation study mentioned above....

"Including non-cash benefits adds to this disparity. The average private-sector employer pays $9,882 per employee in annual benefits, while the federal government pays an average of $32,115 per employee."

#12 The personal wealth of members of the U.S. Congress collectively increased by more than 16 percent from 2008 to 2009.

And so while Mr. Buffett exhales in relief and pays homage to the gods he worships that he doesn't have to lower himself to dine at a McDonald's on Thanksgiving, let's take a look at how the "other half" lives in Amerika today on the week before Thanksgiving.

FROM THE ST. PETE TIMES:
Gulfport man tries to kill himself as bank forecloses on his home
http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/article1134965.ece

The bank sent someone to drill through the lock. It was 9:02 a.m. when the drilling stopped. The busted lock hit the floor inside.

That's when they heard the gunshot.

The man not only tried to kill himself, he succeeded. But to listen to ass-wipes like Warren Buffett, perhaps we should be thankful that the criminal banskters, the stocks of many of whom Buffett owns in his Berkshire Hathaway portfolio, are made whole and protected.

God Bless America this Thanksgiving.

But just in case, be prepared for "TORCH AND PITCHFORK 2.0". In this case I trust, the sequel will be so much better than the original.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING MR. BUFFETT. YOU ARROGANT, SELF-ABSORBED PIECE OF SHIT!!

-------
FROM THE DAILY BELL:
http://www.thedailybell.com/1535/What-Kind-of-Freedom.html

Start with Buffet. Here is a man who constantly campaigns for increased taxes to be placed on US citizens, identifies himself as a Democrat and is worth something like US$50 billion. He poses as an investor, but really he makes "investments" in businesses that have hidden economic advantages, usually via regulatory loopholes. Of course Buffet may seem free-market oriented in the sense that he has made a fabulous fortune in the "investment game" – but when one examines his criteria for picking companies, it becomes obvious that one of them is mercantilism.

This means that Buffet values companies that in some way have developed access to the US government at state or federal levels and can pull levers of power available to no one else. Buffet is thus not investing in companies that necessarily have a better widget. He is putting his money into companies that are interacting most efficiently with government. He is not in his investing making a principled stand for entrepreneurialism or free markets but seeks out firms that have best exploited the current socialist and leveling environment of the US. It is difficult to reconcile this investment philosophy with freedom.

Tea Party as Third Party or the Torch and Pitchfork Crowd personified?

This will be the long-term future direction of the Tea-Party IMO.

The RINO's will regroup and reclaim their position within the GOP and push out the "Tea Party element" within the GOP.

They will be joined by the Blue Dog Dems -- who also feel out of place withing their own party -- and some Independents.

The D,I,R and TP's will each corral about 25% of the electorate.

The Crist's and Castle's and Murkowski's and Arlen Specter's of the world show a disgusting sense of entitlement and "how dare they toss me aside" attitude that people find disturbing.

The government as a whole has a sense of "how dare you question the methods by which we deliver you government" through this behavior and the continued foot-dragging on issues such as auditing the Fed. Regular folks and businesses cannot turn down an opportunity to be audited by government officials like the IRS or the SEC. But government routinely avoids having the light of day turned to their activities and the people are now suspicious as well as angry.

The government and the Fed is now afraid that if regular folks become embedded in their little country club setting and give the people an inside look at what goes on in Washington that their would be a revolution. Hopefully, it's a peaceful one.

From Gallup:

PRINCETON, NJ — Americans’ desires for a third political party are as high as they have been in seven years. Fifty-eight percent of Americans believe a third major political party is needed because the Republican and Democratic Parties do a poor job of representing the American people. That is a significant increase from 2008 and ties the high Gallup has recorded for this measure since 2003.

We can see the seeds being planted in the following stories from the past week.

Trouble to the right of me.

from publiusforum.com

http://www.publiusforum.com/2010/09/18/country-club-rino-republicans-throwing-temper-tantrums/

Country Club, RINO Republicans Throwing Temper Tantrums

September 18, 2010

-By Warner Todd Huston

One of the interesting things of this election cycle has been to see what sore losers RINOS and country club Republicans are becoming. Since the Tea Party Movement has been throwing establishment GOPers out right and left (or maybe that’s let and left) some of them have responded with petulance instead of accepting the will of the voters.

In fact we’ve been seeing quite a few little tantrums thrown by the RINO set as voters have been turning against them.

Recall that “Benedict” Arlen Specter had to jump parties because Republican Pat Toomey was encroaching on the privilege that Specter assumed he’d earned. Once it became clear that Toomey was the GOP choice, Specter petulantly snubbed him and no support was forthcoming from
supposedly life-long Republican Specter.

Are all these temper tantrums really all an effort to support the “most electable candidate,” i.e. the RINO? Or is this a RINO protection racket we are seeing? All I know is that in many cases this year the voters are speaking for the Tea Party-styled candidates, those candidates that stand for real conservative values. Yet the country club set, the RINO faction is standing in the way of the will of the voters.

And trouble to the left of me.

from Fox News

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/22/blue-dog-democrats-use-health-care-overhaul-campaign-punching-bag/

Blue Dog Democrats Use Health Care Overhaul as Campaign Punching Bag

When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi let 30 Blue DogDemocrats break ranks to vote against the controversial health care overhaul in March, she probably didn't expect them to go the extra mile and campaign against it in the fall.

But for several of these fiscal conservatives, the bills they didn't vote for have become far more important to their campaign message than the legislation they supported.

Members of the so-called Blue Dog Coalition are railing against the health care bill, and other Democrat-sponsored spending packages, in a bid to highlight their independence from the Washington establishment. In a year when spending is a top voter concern and incumbency can translate to liability, Democrats in moderate-to-conservative districts are using their ads, websites and public appearances to condemn their party's marquee legislative achievement in the closing weeks of the campaign.

"The majority of the American people are against it. I believe that our nation can't afford it. And I didn't vote for it," Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., told Fox News in reference to the health care bill.

Taylor last week went further than any of his Democratic colleagues in speaking out against the law. He joined dozens of congressional Republicans in calling for a repeal of the package, the first Democrat to do so.

The good news is that slowly but surely, some on the left are starting to see the light.

EVEN CHRIS MATTHEWS -- WHO USED TO GET A TINGLE UP HIS LEG WHENEVER OBAMA SPOKE -- IS NOW CORRECTING THE ANOINTED ONE.

Important Distinction: Giving People Tax Cuts Is NOT Giving People Money; It's ***THEIR*** Money

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/09/giving-people-tax-cuts-is-not-giving.html




The bad news is some are still woefully ignorant. This statement, from someone who I used to admire and respect, shows we still have a long way to go. This kind of ignorant statement makes Republican Senator Jim Bunning look compassionate.

WARREN BUFFET'S RIGHT-HAND MAN SHOWS CONTEMPT FOR THE "LITTLE" PEOPLE WITH HIS STUNNING "LET THEM EAT CAKE" REMARKS.

"SUCK IT IN AND COPE" - SHOWS THAT ARROGANCE AND GREED DO NOT KNOW PARTY BOUNDARIES.

THESE GUYS OPENLY SUPPORTED, CHEERED AND PROFITED FROM THE BAILOUTS, STIMULUS AND FEDERAL RESERVE TINKERING IN THE ECONOMY.

from MISH'S Global Economic Trend Analysis Blog:

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/09/amazing-arrogance-gall-chutzpa-and.html

Amazing Arrogance, Gall, Chutzpa, and Unmitigated Effrontery from Berkshire Hathaway
Posted: 20 Sep 2010 08:07 PM PDT

It's hard to know exactly the precise words to describe the arrogance and unmitigated effrontery of Charles Munger, the billionaire vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, who today rattled off an insane barrage of insensitive comments regarding the bailouts.

Charles Munger, the billionaire vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., defended the U.S. financial-company rescues of 2008 and told students that people in economic distress should “suck it in and cope.”

Munger's quotes:

Charles Munger, the billionaire vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., defended the U.S. financial-company rescues of 2008 and told students that people in economic distress should “suck it in and cope.”

“You should thank God” for bank bailouts, Munger said in a discussion at the University of Michigan on Sept. 14, according to a video posted on the Internet. “Now, if you talk about bailouts for everybody else, there comes a place where if you just start bailing out all the individuals instead of telling them to adapt, the culture dies.”

“Hit the economy with enough misery and enough disruption, destroy the currency, and God knows what happens,” Munger said. “So I think when you have troubles like that you shouldn’t be bitching about a little bailout. You should have been thinking it should have been bigger.”

Germany was unable to stabilize its financial system in the 1920s, and, Munger said, “We ended up with Adolf Hitler.”

“Now, if you talk about bailouts for everybody else, there comes a place where if you just start bailing out all the individuals instead of telling them to adapt, the culture dies.”

So we should all thank God that our government is around to steal money from the middle class, the savers, the people who did things right -- in order to to bail out the wealthy, the profligate spenders and gamblers who bet their own money and lost and now want a subsidy from the rest of us so they can keep playing the game? That money was not manna from heaven, it was money begged, borrowed and stolen from the American taxpayer, you braying jackass.

If there's one thing that the Tea Party movement is all about is that people FINALLY are beginning to recognize what is going on and are not just saying NO, they are saying HELL NO!!!

They are tired of these intellectual snobs in Washington -- don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out Larry Summers -- telling regular folks that they know better and the voters are too stupid to understand these complex issues they've screwed up.

They are tired of these people spitting in our faces and then trying to convince us it's raining.

What they don't get is the Tea Party is the torch and pitchfork crowd personified, and they are tired of being ignored, not listened to, lied to and stolen from.

FOR FURTHER READING PLEASURE:

From The Daily Bell

US Fed Gains Power, Loses Credibility?
Saturday, September 04, 2010 – by Staff Report

http://www.thedailybell.com/1346/US-Fed-Gains-Power-Loses-Credibility.html

Libertarian Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) recently asked for an audit of the gold in Fort Knox. The mainstream media pooh-poohs such demands as paranoia. Yet the Fed and its enablers have resisted thorough ongoing scrutiny as well. Instead the institution has received significant additional powers. See the pattern? On the one hand, the Fed resists accountability. On the other, Bernanke et al. present an apologetic front and vow they will do better next time.

This is the kind of crisis control that the power elite practiced in the 20th century; it is today the kind of crisis control being applied to such failed dominant social themes as global warming. But we wonder if it will work in the 21st. In our view, people have already seen too much, know too much and are too upset. When it comes to the law and legislation, Bernanke and Congress may be in the right. But the law can only go so far. Sometimes, such ventures begin to look questionable regardless.

When people know too much, the law itself can begin to seem suspect; and this is how societal upheavals are created. This is in fact an inflection point for the powers-that-be. Creating fear-based promotions in order to generate societal consent for ongoing concentrations of power and wealth – the manufacturing of an authoritarian society in other words – has worked well for the PTB. But when the promotions begin to fail (due to information on the Internet in our view) and the elite continues its programs regardless, then the potential for social tension increases dramatically.

The Mind Conspirators
Saturday, September 04, 2010 – by Nelson Hultberg

http://www.thedailybell.com/1347/Nelson-Hultberg-The-Mind-Conspirators.html

More and more Americans today are coming to understand the terrible truth about our Federal Government -- that it seeks to dominate us as citizens, to mold us into a society of dutiful Stepford Wives totally beholden to the wishes of elite politicians, bureaucrats and bankers. Those who study history, independent of the public school system, understand that this state aggrandizement process has been under way for the past 100 years in America in one form or another, and that it is taking place because too many of our citizens sanction such dictatorial usurpation and actually work diligently for its implementation.

‎"Anyone going to his neighbor's home and taking his money at gunpoint, regardless of all the wonderful, selfless things he promised to do with it, would be promptly arrested as a thief. But for some reason it is considered morally acceptable when government does that very thing." -- Ron Paul, The Revolution: A Manifesto, 2008

Que the Torch and Pitchfork Crowd!!!

THE TORCH AND PITCHFORK CROWD - COMING SOON TO A NEIGHBORHOOD NEAR YOU!!!

I just love stories like this. It's a local story. But this is and has been developing nationally for years. So we're back for further review of the landscape.

Schools debate if students should bear full cost when they pay to play

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=365919

School board members learned last week that the cost of running the interscholastic sports for the district's middle and high schools averages $417.58 per athlete per sport.

At least two board members - Roberts and Jack Hinterlong - thought the fee hikes weren't enough. Hinterlong said a fee should cover at least 50 percent of the cost of the activity.

"I'm of the mind we have our backs pushed against the wall," Roberts said, noting the Batavia teachers union had just agreed to give up part of its raise and insurance benefits for next year, to avoid laying off up to 60 teachers.

If it comes to spending money in the classroom or on a club, the decision is a "no-brainer" for her, Roberts said. She'll favor the classroom.

Like it or not, since the beginning of the 20th century, extra-curricular activities and sports have been considered to be a vital, integral part of a well-rounded education.

This whole tactic of figuratively holding a gun to the head of extra-curriculars and sports in order to extract property tax increases from the electorate has been going on for many years and it was repulsive when it was done.

Now the shift is to use the programs to augment diminishing revenues and avoid cuts that strike at the fatty portions of the budget--which is very clearly salaries, benefits and spiraling, out of control administrative costs within the budget.

How logical is it to cut muscle and leave fat untouched? Or to attack a segment of the school that actually has demonstrable, proven positive effects on the health and well-being of kids?

We can't fire teachers who act criminally within the system and harm kids with any reasonable speed, but we sure can take a knife to what works pretty quick, can't we?

It doesn't make any common sense.

Average Total Spending per pupil has surpassed $9K each and is heading towards $10K nationally.

According to the Census Bureau, it was approaching $9K in 2007
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/010125.html


Average Spending on Extra-Curricular Activities (ECA) is about $450 each.

According to Encyclopedia Brittanica via Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracurricular_activity

So we are looking to correct budget deficits by demanding payment from a segment of the curriculum that currently only commands 5% of the budget!!

Are you kidding me? Again, this is like someone who is drowning in debt suggesting that all they need to do is cancel a couple of channels on his cable bill or switch his cellular phone plan.

Compound stories like these, with the history of shell-game maneuvers like:

-- The "Pass a State Lottery to Benefit Education" shell game that was perpetrated on Florida voters years ago. Little or none of the funds went to benefit education

-- The property tax shell game that many municipalities play today--whereby property appraisals that are the basis for determining tax revenues sent to the schools are kept artificially high by basing them on inflated pre-housing bubble levels. They change the rules or methodology from recent sales (which are currently deflated) to a three-year average (to lock in the inflated values longer) in order to lock in higher revenues. Funny how when the market was moving higher they couldn't re-assess houses fast enough.

-- The prior history of "extra-curricular hostage taking" strategy to extort property tax increases via referendum.

And now this current strategy shift to off-loading of expenses is nothing more than a selective tax increase on parents whose children are involved in ECA.

It's done because administrators and politicians cannot properly budget and control costs and expenses in an efficient manner.

So they kick the can down the road instead of taking proper steps to controlling the part of the budget that is bloated and out of control and responsible for the deficits. Nothing but a bunch of cowards, thieves and charlatans.

When the "torch and pitchfork" crowd comes knocking on their door, I hope they don't act too surprised. What we really need is a politician who confronts corrupt, out of control monopoly power of government in the same way the trust buster Teddy Roosevelt (the better Roosevelt) did when the abuse was on the private side of the ledger. Public abuse of power and control is just as bad.

Urban Dictionary definition of "torch and pitchfork" crowd:
A group of angry or vocal opponents who regularly come out against something, usually prognosticating dire consequences.

I guess the shoe fits.

However, it's not enough to complain and not offer constructive solutions. Here's a story of a district--Towanda School District (PA)--that is taking on the difficult steps necessary to tackle the problem in a common sense way.

http://thedailyreview.com/news/towanda-school-board-decides-to-not-eliminate-extracurricular-activities-1.630162

While the Towanda School Board had said in mid-January that it was going to look at the school district's extracurricular activities and possibly eliminate some of them, the board has since decided to keep them all in place.

The decision to preserve all extracurricular activities was made at the school board meeting on Tuesday, when the board also approved a school calendar for the 2010-11 school year and heard from a financial advisor on the state of its swap agreement.

In addition, Towanda schools Superintendent Diane M. Place announced that, under Gov. Ed Rendell's proposed budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year, the Towanda School District would receive a 9 percent increase in its basic educational subsidy, which is the primary form of state assistance to school districts.

Extracurricular activities

As the school board works on the school district's budget for the 2010-11 school year, it has been looking for ways to cut expenses, as it will be facing increased health insurance, pension, and salary costs in the coming year.

At its Jan. 11 meeting, the school board had asked school district Business Manager Doreen Secor to draw up a list of the school district's after-school sports programs and other extracurricular activities, which would include the amount spent on each program and the number of students who participate in each program.

The school board had planned at the time to look at the list to see which programs to eliminate.

The school board reviewed the list on Tuesday, and then accepted the school district administration's recommendation to keep all the extracurricular activities in place for the coming year.

The school board also accepted the administration's proposal to pare 2 to 3 percent from the school district's budget for after-school sports and other extracurricular activities, which would save the district $10,000 to $15,000.

"I'm not sure we could go much above (2 or 3 percent) without adversely affecting the quality" of the extracurricular activities, Secor told the school board.

By not eliminating extracurricular activities, the school district will "continue to offer the diverse opportunities to students that set us apart," Place said.

Place said that students do better academically if they are involved in extracurricular activities, and high school Principal Dennis Peachey said the activities also result in higher school attendance rates by students.

The main expenses related to extracurricular activities are stipends for coaches and advisors and transportation costs to meets, school board Vice-president Pete Alesky said. "The rest of the costs are not that much," he said.

Swap

In December, Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner had sent a letter to every school district in the Commonwealth, urging them to refrain from using interest-rate swaps and to terminate any swaps agreements they may have. Wagner has said the swaps are "risky financial instruments."

But Les Bear of Robert W. Baird & Co. in Exton, who is a financial adviser to the Towanda School District, said the school district's swap has worked out very well for the district.

So far, the district has earned $214,000 from its swap, he said. The district entered into the swap several years ago.

The swap is currently tied to the district's 2007 bond issue.

As the bond is paid off, the risk that comes from being in the swap agreement and the cost of terminating the swap early decreases, he said.

The exposure to risk and the cost to terminate the swap early "will reduce dramatically after 2012," he said.

While the swap is scheduled to end in 2023, the district could end it at any time before then, he said.

The cost of terminating the swap early, which is based on market conditions, would be $300,000 today, he said.

"Potentially, by 2015, it could be a lot less," he said.

He said the district should look at ending the swap well before 2023, after the early-termination cost decreases.

It is interesting to note the use of interest rate swaps as part of the budgeting process.

Because on the one hand--at the grass roots level--we have parents and kids selling coupon books or cookies and conducting car washes to help the schools balance their budgets while in the ivory tower we have administrators playing a game of poker with complex financial instruments.

THAT'S INTERESTING.

NOTE ON INTEREST RATE SWAPS from www.investorprotection.com:

Interest-rate swaps are complex financial instruments and tied to variable interest rates. If interest rates remain favorable, purchasers like a municipality benefit. If market conditions create an unfavorable interest rate environment, however, the bank responsible for initially selling the swap receives higher payments from the purchaser.

BECAUSE IT CAN LEAD TO THIS:

http://www.investorprotection.com/jpmorgan-chase.php

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is a global financial services firm with assets of $2.1 trillion and operations in more than 60 countries. For years, the company made big profits by arranging complex investment deals involving credit derivatives for states, cities, hospitals, school districts and other entities that sell debt in the municipal bond market.

In 2007, the collapse of the subprime market and the subsequent liquidity squeeze caused many of these financing arrangements to sour, forcing countless public agencies and municipalities to come up with billions of dollars to pay for increased interest payment costs.

WOW!!! Billions of dollars??? That's a lot of car washes, dude!!!

Get educated folks. And get involved!!

JUST ANOTHER CASE OF HISTORY REPEATING

STOCK MARKET CRASH OF 1929


STOCK MARKET CRASH OF 1987

I'm getting the same feeling about this stock market situation as I did when 9/11 occurred. At the time I felt like, "Wow, this must be what it felt like when Pearl Harbor was attacked". You knew that you were experiencing an event that would be in the history books of the future.

The same type of event continues in the stock market today. We experienced this as a nation in 1929 and 1987. The 1929 event was cataclysmic and changed this nation forever with the subsequent Depression and the ushering in of the New deal policies of FDR.

We will apparently go through similar changes today, which will cause government to bring about policy changes that will change our lives, and our children's lives forever.

Luckily, this time we have Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, an acknowledged student of the Depression, to guide us. In fact, one of his famous quotes is that we learned the lessons of the Crash of 1929 and won't repeat the mistakes that were made then which drove the nation into depression.
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http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/innovation/2008/1006/1222959318754.html

ON THE occasion of the 90th birthday of the Nobel-prize-winning economist Milton Friedman - celebrated at a symposium at the University of Chicago, in November 2002 - Ben S Bernanke, then governor of the US Federal Reserve Board, lauded Friedman and his longtime collaborator, Anna J Schwartz, for their seminal work, A Monetary History of the United States 1867-1960.

In this classic tome of American economic history, Friedman and Schwartz lay the blame for the Great Depression squarely at the doorstep of the Federal Reserve by arguing that, at the point of acute crisis, its tight policies caused the failure of more than 40 per cent of banks in the US and led to massive deflation.

At the very moment when capital should have flowed into the economy, they argue, the Fed staunched it and by its policies unleashed instead the pervasive suffering that followed.

Friedman's and Schwartz's insights about the role of the Fed contradicted the conventional wisdom at the time, but have stood up well. "This achievement is nothing less than to provide what has become the leading and most persuasive explanation of the worst economic disaster in American history," Bernanke said in his speech. He praised the book for its "development of historical detail" and for its "previously untapped" use of primary resources to craft its argument. "Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve," Bernanke said. "I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again."
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Unfortunately, Bennie Boy, that doesn't preclude you as the Fed Chairman and some combination of the Treasury Department and the Congress from making new and improved mistakes that will change this nation forever.

At the rate old "Helicopter" Ben is dropping money on the financial system, he's clearly due for a nickname upgrade along the lines of "C-130 Cargo Plane" Ben.

In seeking to steer the nations monetary policy since he took over from the equally incompetent Alan Greenspan, Bernanke has shown all the skills of a hallucinogenic, teenage diver would exhibit in his first foray down the highway in a high performance sports car.

All of these clowns were only too happy to sit back and watch the Greenspan "housing bubble" deflate when the only apparent losers were homeowners. Now that the blood has splattered closer to home, and by home I mean on the pin-striped suits of the bankers they serve, the crisis reached proportions requiring emergency actions.
And by emergency actions, I mean grabbing for the taxpayers wallet and the savings of middle-class Americans, as well as their children and grand-children.

All of these destructive events happened under the Fed's watch:
- The Great Depression, through monetary expansion of the 20's which burst in the 30's (sound familiar)
- The S&L crisis (sound familiar)
- Long Term Capital Management (a hedge fund, sound familiar) failure of 1998 almost crippled the financial system
- The dot.com bubble burst in the 90's
- The 90's easy money era under Greenspan, brought about the housing current housing bubble that just burst and is spilling blood all over the street

And as we can see, some of the events are clearly repeating. Maybe we should treat the Fed like a dog that continually pees on the carpet. Nah, too good for them.

The first responsibility the Fed has, and the only one the European central banks concentrate on, is inflation, Why is this?: BECAUSE INFLATION IS A THIEF. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE.

- Inflation destroys savings making it impossible to save funds for life purchases like a home, college for he kids and retirement
- Inflation moves wealth from the poor and middle-class to the rich.
- Inflation distorts the economy by providing "easy money" to those who haven't earned it and since it is not "their own" money, they waste it on bad investments.
Think of people who were "flipping" houses and condos because of easy monetary policy. Where are those "flippers" now? Probably hanging out with the "day-traders" from the 1980's in some bar talking about the fortunes they made and lost.
- This economic distortion leads to subsequent unemployment, which affects the middle-class and poor disproportionately. Countries that have low inflation and solid economic policy tend to have very low unemployment (think Switzerland).
- Inflation allows governments to deficit spend. Borrow first, then print money out of thin air to attempt to eliminate or pay-back the borrowed dollars with cheaper dollars down the road.
- Inflation is a hidden tax on future purchasing power and the government spends the money in advance.

I don't even want to get into how the government distorts (hell, why don't I just say it - LIES ABOUT) the CPI figures released to the public. Why would they do this? To keep the public docile and many government payments are tied to the CPI. Think Social Security payment to grandma and grandpa.

It just seems like we get into some of the problems because the Fed also worries itself about economic growth as well. If someone can't handle one task very well, asking them to do two tasks simultaneously seems to be a stretch, right?

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER 30,1999:
In a move to help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders. The action will...encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans.

This step by the Clinton Administration, along with groups like ACORN and armed with provisions of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRIA), openly badgered and threatened banks with lawsuits (charging red-lining or racial discrimination) and with threats to block any future mergers the bank might entertain if they did not allow this type of lending to explode.

Combine this with the repeal of Glass-Stegall and the Graham-Leach-Blilley Act that the Republicans in Congress promoted allowed banks and Wall Street firms to run wild. They promoted the "casino" mind-set that we see in the market today that is dominated by short-sellers, hedge funds and other speculators.

The SEC under Chairman Christopher Cox has been almost as incompetent and possibly corrupt as the Federal Reserve. To allow short-selling with little or no restriction (no uptick rule), much less-naked short-selling (you don't even have to borrow the stock anymore) has allowed wanton speculation and wild, irrational trading that we still see daily. There are margin requirements to actually BUY a stock, but no requirements on the short-side. This is completely irrational.

Equally irrational and throwing more gasoline on the growing fire the SEC allowed investment banks to increase their profits by taking on more leverage (risk). We're suffering the consequences of that unwinding of leverage today.

I don't even want to scratch underneath the Federal Reserve and the SEC and get down the Federal Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the mark to market rules that exacerbated the problem. If the above failure do not occur, then mark to market is not even an issue, in fact it's a positive.

So to review, we had:
- The GSE's (Fannie and Freddie) running wild
- The Federal Reserve provide the elixir of easy money
- Wall Street unshackled from regulators
- Government blessing provided by CRIA and the destruction of the regulatory walls provided by Glass-Stegall.
- Lowered mortgage underwriting standards
- Corrupt credit rating agencies violating the public interest
- Predatory borrowers AND lenders

And from our leaders we get finger-pointing, with neither side willing to look in the mirror and point the finger at themselves.

And then we wonder why Congress has a lower approval rating then the President.


From the fiasco of the first Hank Paulson-Ben Bernanke "rescue bill", to the subsequent new-and-improved Pelosi-Frank-Dodd-Paulson bill to the G-7 or 8 or however many clowns-stuffed-into-small-car measures there were, we've seen the market spit all measures back into the bureaucrats collective faces like a colicky new-born.

Is there any wonder why I think the following video would be an accurate depiction of the effectiveness of our leaders fiscal problem-solving abilities?




Nobody is arguing that some of these steps were taken with the best of intentions. Who doesn't want to own a home? In hindsight, now I know how I was able to qualify for a mortgage when--at the the time I applied--using some of the old-school underwriting standards, I was probably not the best candidate for mortgage approval.

But we didn't go for any of those exotic mortgages, using the rationale that if the terms sound to good to be true they probably aren't, we went for a traditional 30-year mortgage with a 10-15% down payment. So, we had some equity stake in the house. It wasn't given to us freely or too easily. People don't value things that are given to them as much as things they have to earn.

The unintended consequence was they devalued the American Dream of home ownership for everyone by turning it into something that was almost as easy to achieve as the prize at the bottom of a Cracker Jacks box. Thanks again, leaders.

NO MONEY DOWN, INTEREST ONLY PAYMENTS, NO INCOME VERIFICATION, NO JOB, NO PROBLEM--HECK, WE DON'T EVEN CARE IF YOU PAY THE MORTGAGE--WE'RE GOING TO PACKAGE IT AND SELL IT ANYWAY.

That's what some of the radio ads sounded like from some of these fly-by-night mortgage companies, and where was the Fed or any of the regulatory bodies when these spiels were flying around the airwaves. I know I thought, "How the heck are these guys going to stay in business?" Now we know, on the backs of Uncle Sam and his seemingly bottomless pit - the taxpayers wallet.

They've all collectively pissed on the American Dream of home ownership.

They've all collectively and continuously pissed on the faith and confidence of the public in our JUSTICE SYSTEM, OUR FINANCIAL SYSTEM, AND FINALLY, OUR ENTIRE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT.

My only question is when are we a nation going to say - NO MAS, NO MORE?

There's an election coming up, we have a chance to put our money (what's left of it) where our mouth is, so to speak.

I have to say, under the circumstances--if any incumbent gets re-elected to go back and FINISH THE JOB--then we do deserve the government we continue to get.

My advice to guys like Bush, Greenspan, Bernanke, Paulson, Cox and their newest best-est buddies in the Congress Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, Frank and others I'm sure I am leaving out should just quietly leave D.C., quietly go home and retire.

Don't write any books documenting your sorry-ass legacies.

Don't go out on any public-speaking tours, telling lies about what you did. We can see and feel the results better than you. We have to live with the consequences.

For all those guys, my enduring thoughts regarding their legacy can be summed up by former Tampa Bay Bucs coach John McKay's famous quote.

When asked about his team's execution during one of their many consecutive losses during their initial season, McKay replied, "I think it's a good idea".

SAME HERE.

I just have one simple question, just one. When do we get to this point, are we there yet?:

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UPDATE-PAULSON EXPRESSES REGRET:

Washington (AP)- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Thursday expressed regret for the many errors made that led to the biggest financial crisis in seven decades, but he insisted the administration is pursuing the correct course now to end the debacle.

"We're not proud of all the mistakes that were made by many different people, different parties, failures of our regulatory system, failures of market discipline that got us here," Paulson said in an interview on Fox Business Network.

Well, at least we have that. I'll give him credit, he's the first one I've heard take some sort of ownership of the crisis. Of course he should. When he was in charge at Goldman Sachs, he advocated heavily for the SEC to loosen the purse strings on the leverage restrictions under the guise of keeping our financial system competitive with international markets. To which of course is the "Mom's Wisdom" logic: "If everyone else was jumping off a bridge would you? Do the right thing, NOT what everyone else is doing"
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Can somebody tell me what is wrong with McCain? Is the Republican strategy to NOT WIN the election?

It seemed in last nights debate as if somebody had to tell him he should be angry and had to coach him up as to what he needed to be angry about. Something like this:

Campaign Flukie: John, tonight we need you to show some anger, some passion about this economic situation we're in. The markets are tanking, people's 401K's are melting away faster then the polar icecaps.

John McCain: That's OK, my friend. That just means they'll need more beer. Did I tell you my wife Cindy is a beer magnate. And she's pretty hot too. ;) ;)

Campaign Flunkie: JOHN, THIS IS SERIOUS. PEOPLE ARE CONCERNED ABOUT LOSING THEIR HOMES.

John McCain: Well my friend, I'll just explain to them that maybe they should have 7 or 8 homes like me and they wouldn't be so worried. In any event there's still lot's of beer. That should appeal to Joe Six-Pack. It shows I'm a regular guy, except for the glut of homes.

I think he has demonstrated that he's not much more than Bob Dole with a better personal story. And if it wasn't for Sarah Palin, he would have been down by 20 points and this election would have been over a long time ago. Good luck back in the Senate John.
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SPEAKING OF MOM'S WISDOM: YOU'RE JUDGED BY THE COMPANY YOU KEEP. CHOOSE YOUR FRIENDS WISELY