Delightful News From the Middle Coast

At 1451ft, Chicago's Willis Tower (née Sears) is the tallest building in the Western World

Our associates in Chicago informed us recently that some of the news out there in this cold, dark world these days is good and we felt we should share:

The Sears Tower, lately unceremoniously renamed the Willis tower, is about to pioneer a kind of crazy-innovative window, one that produces power without obstructing the view or letting in appreciably less sunlight.

At first the Willis tower will only replace windows on the south side of the 56th floor; eventually, the whole south face of the building could be slathered in glorious high tech energy generating windows, enough to generate 2 MW of power. The windows have the added benefit of keeping out the excess heat energy that plagues glass buildings.

As incredible as these windows sound, they're only a small part of a larger, $350 million initiative to reduce electricity consumption of the entire Willis tower by 80 percent.

(courtesy grist.org)

So please, Internet, I implore you to take a moment to block out the horrific situations in Japan, Libya, Egypt, Gaza, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf of Mexico, Wall Street, Detroit, Wisconsin, America, Mexico...etcetera, draw in a few good deep breaths, loosen the muscles in your neck, and soak-up a little ray of sunshine before you head back into the courtroom of public opinion and perjure yourself by saying the whole world has gone to shit because it hasn't.

Only most of it has.

_

The Great American Mistake

Coca-Cola is America. Or so they are always telling us.

Can anybody really argue? It was invented in America, patented in America, peddled in America, and mutated into a thriving international megacorporation by generations of enterprising American businessmen over the last 125 years (happy anniversary, btw).

Coca-Cola is a potent symbol of American ingenuity, a shining emblem of American capitalism, and the perfect example of everything that is wrong about where we have come as a nation.

Fact: The syrup used by Coca-Cola bottlers (who are largely independently-owned and operated, although Coca-Cola, Inc. is a minority owner in most of them) is manufactured in the United States, the process involves spent coca leaves imported from South America, and the story is fascinating.

Fact: Foreign bottlers have the option of sweetening their country's Coca-Cola to local taste--the syrup is just the patented secret flavor and contains no sweeteners.

Fact: I buy my Coca-Cola from Mexico because they use real sugar instead of corn syrup.

Fact: Any American who tastes Mexican Coca-Cola will never go back to American Coca-Cola.

Fact: This should be phenomenally embarrassing for Coca-Cola, Inc. and yet they don't seem to care at all or have any plans to revert to using real sugar. Why would they? They are making a shit-ton of money ["Shit-ton" = 1 with 100 million zeroes after it. -Ed.] and sugar costs $0.02 more per shit-ton than corn syrup, so it makes NO sense from a corporate-bottom-line standpoint to make their beverage taste the way it used to and always should.

Fact: This is proof that American businessmen have their heads so far up their asses they only think in the short-term and don't care what customers want, only what they are willing to consume because they don't think they have a better option.

Homeless Men of America's 'Great Depression Redux Charm Initiative' Still Going Smoothly

Dispatch from The Michigan Front:

PONTIAC, Mich. — A homeless man in southeast Michigan says a woman accidentally gave him a gold ring laced with diamonds when she handed him a handful of change.
Michael Secaur tells The Oakland Press that he was panhandling at an intersection in Pontiac on Monday when a woman pulled up in a vehicle and handed him some money. He says the ring was among some coins, and that he thinks she "did an oops."
Secaur says he would recognize the woman if he saw her again.
He says he quickly dismissed a plan to pawn the ring. The owner of a shelter where Secaur often stays has locked it in a safety deposit box.
Secaur says he has lived on the streets of Pontiac for nearly two years.

(courtesy HuffPo)

Could you imagine a rich person doing that? Hard enough to squeeze some spare change out of them. You gotta get creative, get your finger poopy, and make quaint signs that say things like "Homeless Veteran Father of Three Mongoloid Preemies Who Can't Catch a Break. God Bless." just to get your hands on some Diet-Coke-greased pennies from the polished-walnut-lined cupholder between the cabretta leather-skinned bucket seats of some old bag's Bentley that could fetch enough bank at auction to feed an entire town for a year.

The kind of old bag that doesn't realize for weeks she lost an extraordinarily expensive ring during one of her 5000 daily moments of carelessness--if she ever noticed at all.

And this guy's who's been living in the street for a year is begging to give it back to her. Shades of that Homeless Radio Announceritis outbreak not that long ago.

Thank you, Homeless Men of America, for keeping it classy.

Seriously, though--how bad do they need to make us feel about ourselves before this increasingly derivative hubbub is over and the homeless men are once again a phantom population everybody pretends is already dead, thinks of as naught but a swarm of charming and smelly holographic reminder of the desperate lives people lead when they don't work hard enough or get born to rich parents.

I'm getting too worked up about this. I might just have to forget about it, erase it from my brain by going to Disneyland til it blows over--tickets are only $100 per day for Southern California residents and they apparently have "carts that sell big turkey legs (fried, I think) for $7 each."

See ya there!

_

Wow--I Never Would Have Guessed...

...that so many old white men (and four old white women, to get those affirmative action cunts off their backs) would be such self-serving greedy little pricks and refuse to even discuss reforming the rapists on Wall Street.

I bet there was a run on Viagra and prostitutes in DC this afternoon--and they're pretty well-stocked out there--as all the Wall Street lobbyists' assistants furiously stocked the C Street House for tonight's celebratory jag-off party.

By the way, can anyone score me a ticket to that?

I would love to keep a tally of how many times I overhear the $5000/night escorts ask "Is it in me yet?" as I pace the upstairs (fraternity) hallway pretending to be on the phone with my broker in Tokyo. It may be immature and pointless, but hey--if they are going to eagerly continue the ruination of my country, the least they can do is provide me with a few dozen chuckles tonight.

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Trojan Horse Capitalism

Sit down here on my knee, little boy, and let me tell you a story. Don't worry, I'm not a priest--you have nothing to fear.

That's a good boy...now where was I...oh, yeah:


Once upon a time, there was a successful family company that got a bit too big for its britches, was bursting at the seams, shall we say, and one of the owner's sons, the greedy one, decided this company had a great opportunity to balloon into a massive money machine. After much in-fighting, and maybe even the death of the old man, the greedy son got his way and sought the advice of a greedy banker, who was more experienced in this sort of thing.

In exchange for a large sum of money, the banker advised the company to seek outside capital in order to expand at an unreasonable rate, undercut competition, corner the market, and raise prices. Once the company went public, there was no turning back and everything went according to plan. The stock became increasingly valuable, the family grew wealthy beyond their wildest dreams, the wolfiest wolves in the wolf business acquired as much stock as they could get their hands on, and they quickly began hounding the executives for increasingly outlandish profits to satisfy their bottomless appetites.

Manufacturing was streamlined, raw materials were either bargained down to extortionate deals or vertically integrated right into the monster, labor unions were fought tooth and nail, pennies were pinched, and still it was not enough.

Over time, the family and its loyalists were either phased out, neutered, or converted. Hired guns were brought in, unsympathetic to the needs of other humans, and the successful business was rewired from the ground up.


Manufacturing was outsourced to China, customer service inquiries were fed to call centers in India, benefits were reduced for every employee not in the executive ranks, millions of dollars were spent in order to avoid responsibility for environmental damage, taxes were dodged, and lawyers and lobbyists were hired by the dozen to insulate the new company from all responsibility, to protect it from all restrictions.

Millions more were funneled to media conglomerates through Madison Avenue, in order to make this cold behemoth appear friendly. A revisionist vintage logo was drawn up, folksy commercials were produced, corporate practices were greenwashed, the truth was buried, and what had once been a profitable family company with visible virtues and flaws, with a sense of community, a (relative) sense of decency, is now little more than a cuddly, helpful, responsible wooden horse with a perverted profit monster inside, lying in wait for the best opportunity to murder the entire world in their sleep, as soon as there is a buck in it.

Now, who wants a fucking Twinkie?


_

All You Need to Know About Detroit

Detroit: Choose your plot--$1 each, no more than 14/person, please.

As promised:

Besides the tax incentives, Michigan has several traits that make it attractive to the film industry. Unlike Louisiana or New Mexico, which are also film hot spots, Michigan has four marked seasons. It has more than 3,000 miles of coastline along the Great Lakes, bodies of water so big their horizons are as empty as an ocean's. There are lots of charming old towns with charming old buildings, several universities and plenty of out-of-work autoworkers itching to do something with their hands, such as build sets, operate lighting systems or learn makeup artistry.

Even Michigan's economic malaise has an upside for Hollywood: Those empty, abandoned streets in Detroit are perfect for moviemakers, who can close off entire blocks for weeks without worrying about disrupting the city's flow. The Irishman, a movie due next year starring Val Kilmer and Christopher Walken, was shot in several neighborhoods of Detroit and barely interrupted city life, even when explosives were set off.

"Detroit is a fantastic resource," says Larry August, director and managing partner of Avalon Films, which has done mostly auto commercials in the past. "You have a city that was built for 1.8 million or 2 million people, and it has a lot fewer people than that (912,000 now, the Census Bureau estimates). That's the definition of a back lot. It's gritty, it's urban, and it's a very film-friendly city."

There's even a barely used high school west of Detroit in Howell, Mich., which has stood empty since 2003 because the town can't afford to operate two high schools. It's been the backdrop for at least one movie and is the location now for a pilot being shot for a sitcom for tweens.

(courtesy USA Today)

You had me at "tweens."

You also had me at "Val Kilmer" and "definition of a back-lot."

Whoo! HAGS! lol...

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Health Care and the Assholes Who Hate America

I'm not entirely sure why I've waited so long to weigh-in on the health care issue, but I have.

I think my reluctance is partially due to the fact that I believed nothing save disappointment would come of it. Lofty goals dragged through the mud by greedy politicians on both sides of the aisle, etcetera.

Yes, un/fortunately, I've gotten to the point in my life where I have read enough books, read enough newspapers, known enough people, lived in the world as a man with my eyes and ears open, and been burned too many times before.

In short, I have become far too jaded for a man of my years and the zaniness of the health care debate just made me sick and tired of it all, made me want to withdraw even farther from the world outside my window, lest I get to the point where I do something so crazy it would work, like recruiting a willing prostitute and paying her to fuck her way through Congress, as I strangle every sonuvabitch post-coitus and we all start over.


Many people in this country with the best of intentions have railed against Obama. I'm not talking about the Teabaggers here, or your typical corporate-lackey Republican dickbags. I'm talking about everyday Americans, many of whom are Democrats, many of whom who voted for Obama. They have mostly spoken out in private, like my accountant's wife did the other day, but others have stepped out in public with their critique.

What are they angry about? That Obama is spending too much time dealing with the health care situation and not enough time creating jobs. As if that was easy to do in the world we live in.

I hate to call you out on it, Mrs. Accountant, et al, but if you think long and hard about it, you will see the connection, you will realize that Obama is fighting on your side and doing the best he can.

You see, what he and the Congressional Democrats worth their salt have been doing for the past year is only in part battling for health care reform. Obviously, they have also been dealing with the Great Depression Redux and normal day-to-day matters of state, but, most importantly, they have been scrapping behind the scenes with the greatest enemy our country has ever known--our own greed.

This greed is manifest in a Brobdingnagian python called "Special Interest" that has nearly strangled the life out of our political establishment, as it twists around the Capitol Building, squeezing harder every time the nation exhales.

Until you slay this python, nothing is possible, much less creating jobs out of thin air. This task is not an easy one--in ancient times, it would have called for a Theseus, in modern times, apparently it called for an Obama.


Now, I am not a blind fan of his, mind you--nor am I even a Democrat. I am an independent thinker who is smart enough to align myself with the Democrats for the time-being--although they themselves are far from perfect--since we live in a country that unfortunately allows us only two realistic choices.

I definitely had my doubts about Obama's performance, and continued to have them for quite some time. I started to believe he was crumbling under his own inability to recognize the impossibility of non-partisan politics, the true strength of special interests, the futility of his efforts, the precarious nature of his position.

His grand plan didn't hit me until health care gave its final push, seemed suddenly on the verge of success, and it was then I realized the full effect of his masterstroke--he spent the entire last year trying to reach across the aisle and get Republican input because he knew that either way it would work out in the nation's favor.

Either the Republicans would participate and help to hammer something out, or they would strut around the henyard looking like deranged assholes in the media for an entire year, and he would ram it down their throats anyway.

Clearly, the latter scenario has played out and I must say I am in awe of his patience, his plotting. The Republicans (and many Democratic beards) have been assholes for decades, but they have always been able to skate, have never really been called out en masse.

The beauty of Obama's method is that the health care debate went on long enough that too many Republicans said too many idiotic things, too many Republicans went down in homosexual/extramarital/corruption scandals, too many Republicans came up with zero alternative plans, and right when they thought they were ramping-up to take over Congress and set themselves up for a repeat of the 'glorious' Bush years, they have been decimated.

They not only lost the health care battle, but looked like complete assholes in the bargain. Everything they said was recorded, everything was written about. Best of all, the drama went on long enough that it even managed to filter down to people who don't ordinarily follow politics or watch the news. Many Republican supporters have come out against them as a result of their actions, of their ridiculously juvenile and sinister methods.

This new, energized environment will hopefully allow for easier passage of other necessary measures--jobs legislation, financial reform, gay marriage, education, etc.--and those wavering, could-be converts to the Democratic cause might finally realize that the Republicans do not care a lick about their plight, about America, about true freedom. Their one goal is make more money for their masters, since they know they will get a nice fat cut when it's time to retire and they somehow land a cushy part-time job that pays them 6-7 figures for playing golf all week.

Yes, the health care victory has emboldened Democratic leadership, buoyed them in the polls, inspired the previously lackadaisical electorate, and, most importantly, stomped on the throat of the Republican Misinformation Asshole Authority (DC Local 600).

The dawning of a new era seems possible.


Which isn't to say that I have just dropped acid, decked myself out in flowers, and done a rain dance out of deluded excitement for a world without evil, but we are now, without a doubt, living in a world where evil has at the very least been taken down a notch, and I need to take what I can get.

Of course, the Republicans are not one to admit this defeat and have responded in typical fashion:

1. 32 Republicans have filed ridiculous amendments to the health care bill, knowing that all Democrats will have to vote against them to ensure passage of the bill. Get ready for election commercials along these lines: "He voted against a measure to deny Viagra to known pedophiles. Is this the kind of man you want in charge of the future of your children?"

2. Others went home crying, like sore losers do, their flaccid penises dragging between their legs, whined to their loyal asshole cronies that it isn't fair, that they need to do something about this fast, and are now fighting the health care bill in state courts, where you know it can unfortunately take an eternity to get a result--while rich lawyers rake in taxpayer dollars, while benefits are potentially delayed.

Meanwhile, the Republican leadership tries to regroup, tries to brainstorm how a relative handful of crazy assholes can reclaim the most powerful country on Earth and use it for evil.

Meanwhile, all the corporations shaking in their boots at what the future may hold will continue to fund them, will increase their lobbying efforts, will continue to buy everyone that is to be bought, will do everything in their power to maintain the regrettable pre-health-care status quo.


Like it or not, we are at a tipping point. We can be redeemed or we can tumble down the bottomless pit.

Only time will reveal our fate, but everything on me is crossed right now--even my eyes--and my hope for the future has been restored.

Let's not blow this.

_

Is America Ready?

As shocking as it may be for you to hear, my reaction to the news that North Korea executed its finance chief by firing squad recently is one of conditional envy.

Americans disgusted by the gross inefficacy of their supposed representatives in supposedly-democratic Warshington should be so lucky as to have decisions made so swiftly, responsibility bestowed so irrevocably.

Lloyd Blankfein's Money Bin

Imagine if we had executed the smug criminals of Wall Street when they came to the Hill to beg for help in their continued quest to rape and pillage the working class. Imagine the fear their fate would have placed in the hearts and minds of their would-be successors, imagine their good behavior.

Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions

Imagine the sudden tidal wave of morality that would wash the mountains of filth out of the halls of Congress, should a handful of hypocritical philanderers, inveterate racists, and corporate lapdogs face the gallows on FOX News. Imagine respecting a politician for the service he performs for his country.

Jon Stewart for Dictator?

Yes, sir--provided your dictator is benevolent and intelligent, change can be swift, justice attainable, and the world a better place.

Too bad they never are...

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21st Century Jesus

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Entire Peruvian Nation Now On Master Cleanse

You're looking at about 3.6 million pounds...sterling!

No matter what the fashion, cosmetics, and film industries say, there is new and undeniable evidence that fat people ARE worth something these days.

And it is turning them into walking targets:

LIMA, Peru — A gang in the remote Peruvian jungle has been killing people for their fat, police charged Thursday, draining it from their corpses and offering it on the black market for use in cosmetics. Medical experts expressed skepticism that a major market for fat might exist.

Three suspects have confessed to killing five people for their fat, said Col. Jorge Mejia, chief of Peru's anti-kidnapping police. He said the suspects, two of whom were arrested carrying bottles of liquid fat, told police it was worth $60,000 a gallon ($15,000 a liter).

...Mejia said Castillejos confessed that the gang would cut off its victims' heads, arms and legs, remove the organs, then suspend the torsos from hooks above candles that warmed the flesh as the fat dripped into tubs below.

Six members of the gang remain at large, Mejia said, adding that in addition to the five killings the suspects confessed to, the gang may be involved in dozens more. Castillejos told police that the band's fugitive leader, 56-year-old Hilario Cudena, has been killing to extract fat from victims for more than three decades.

At least 60 people are listed as missing in Huanuco province, where the gang allegedly operated, this year alone, though the province is also home to drug-trafficking leftist rebels.

Mejia said police received a tip four months ago that human fat from the jungle was being sold in Lima. In August, he said, police infiltrated the band and later obtained some of the amber fluid, which a police lab confirmed as human fat.

...Police named the band the "Pishtacos" after a Peruvian myth dating to pre-Columbian times of men who killed to extract human fat, quartering their victims with machetes.

Mejia said Castillejos claimed his was not the only gang engaged in such killings.

...Dr. Adam Katz, a professor of plastic surgery at the University of Virginia medical school, was incredulous when told about the Peruvian ring.

"I can't see why there would be a black market for fat," he said. "It doesn't make any sense at all because in most countries we can get fat so readily and in such amounts from people who are willing and ready to donate that I don't see why there would ever be a black market for fat, of all tissues." (read full article here)

Whether or not the existence of a black market for human fat should exist is irrelevant--it seems unlikely that these gang members would go through all that disgusting butchery/rendering for no reason, so they MUST be selling that fat to somebody for something.

Can it really be that hard to figure out whom? Or are the culprits too well-connected to face consequences? If this is all part of another risky Wall Street investment scheme, I swear I'm gonna...wait a minute--this could be just the miracle cure we've been looking for all this time!

Considering the favorable trade-off between liposuction costs and black-market fat prices--especially once costs go down as the number of procedures skyrockets--there might be some real money to be made here, America!

Maybe if 'the powers that be' were to turn our abundant fat reserves into a tradeable commodity and create a Cellulite Czar to control the flow to the marketplace--in order to keep prices high through manufactured scarcity, like DeBeers has perfected with diamonds--the Great Depression Redux might finally become a blip in our rearview mirror and America can proudly stand atop the world once more, stomping our rivals to dust as we laugh our way to the bank and increase consumption to even more grotesque levels.

Ahhh--a return to the good ole days would be nice...

_

Maybe Michael Jackson DID Inspire the World...

...and we have him to blame for all our problems. Check these lyrics from Man In the Mirror (to be sung to the tune of Man in the Mirror, written and composed by Siedah Garrett, not MJ himself):

As I, Turn Up The Collar On My
Favorite Winter Coat
This Wind Is Blowin' My Mind
I See The Kids In The Street,
With Not Enough To Eat
Who Am I, To Be Blind?
Pretending Not To See
Their Needs
A Summer's Disregard,
A Broken Bottle Top
And A One Man's Soul
They Follow Each Other On
The Wind Ya' Know
'Cause They Got Nowhere
To Go
That's Why I Want You To
Know

I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
And No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself, And
Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself, And
Then Make A Change)
(Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na,
Na Nah)

I've Been A Victim Of A Selfish
Kind Of Love
It's Time That I Realize
That There Are Some With No
Home, Not A Nickel To Loan
Could It Be Really Me,
Pretending That They're Not
Alone?

He saw the world for what it was--a bad place. He tried to change it, tried to inspire other people to change it ("We Are the World," for example), and...they listened to him. They believed in him. They followed him. The Kool-Aid was guzzled. It worked.

Well, congratulations to Michael then, for successfully leading us unto this shitty promised land racked by unemployment, bankruptcy, landfill mountains of bric-a-brac, and the Gosselins.

The case:


Defendant: Michael Jackson
- quick to blame somebody else for all his problems
- over-medicated on legal drugs pimped by the pharmaceutical industry
- had a penchant for justifying whatever he did, no matter how ill-advised
- sexually dysfunctional
- firmly religious, despite his thoughts and deeds
- spent more money than he made, mostly buying useless shit to decorate his house/body
- lost his house to a bank
- died in order to provide for his family



Plaintiff: The People of the World
- quick to blame somebody else for all their problems
- over-medicated on legal drugs pimped by the pharmaceutical industry
- have a penchant for justifying whatever they do, no matter how ill-advised
- sexually dysfunctional
- firmly religious, despite their thoughts and deeds
- spend more money than they make, mostly buying useless shit to decorate their houses/bodies
- lost their houses to several banks
- died in order to provide for their families, but forgot they had AIG insurance that was void upon death, as explicitly stated, in Aramaic, on the inside of an anonymous envelope they were sent once
- HUGE Michael Jackson fans

The Charge:
That Michael Jackson did, willfully and with malice of forethought, mislead The People of the World and plunge them into utter financial ruin and a life chock-full of sexual deviance and drug abuse.

The Verdict:
Well, I suppose that, considering it is possible Michael was instead a martyr who not only frittered away $500 million on total shit in order to have more in common with the average American but also became an overly-vain, sexually-perverse freakshow for the same reason, the least I can do is give his corpse the benefit of abstaining from this useless verdict. Case dismissed.

Uh-oh...wait a minute...I hope no crackpot religion starts out of that off-hand courtroom comment, like it did around 30 AD when my ancestor said that thing about that Jesus lad...or is it already too late?

My opinion, as strange as it seems, is that if it becomes clear that he did not abuse those children, he was very close to being a saint. And even if he was not, this is the first time in my life when I feel the presence of God's hand in what had happened. I am not religious person at all. But the whole story is so amazing, it contains some message, which I do not quite understand yet. I keep thinking about it since he's gone. It is also strange that the person like him could have such a big impact. You never know who will be chosen to convey some message from above. There are people who are not as rich as he was, not that confused, not keeping pornographic journals at home, doing much more for the humanity than he did. But he is the only one who looked like he had that divine spark. Isn't it strange?

(posted by Stranger on this fascinating blog entry. Seriously, just read through those comments at the end and a whole lot of questions about our why our world is in the shitter will slowly come into focus as you hear from some of its inhabitants...)

Shit. It's too late--the idiots have already had time to mull it over and make irrational decisions (also known as faith). I wonder if this new religion will be some sort of cocktail of Jackson's own diverse religious beliefs--maybe its cult members will have to wear a veil, knock on each other's doors to preach the word, and have weekly sleepovers with little boys. Or will they be more literal and pull their doctrine from his song lyrics...hmm...

Or perhaps this is all a bunch of lubbock and, like Mr. Hyde or The Emperor, Michael Jackson was simply an evil man who grew more physically detestable as his dastardly deeds grew more numerous and revolting, as he embraced the Dark Side, and neither he nor his adoring fans want to believe it.

Anything's possible I guess, I mean, we're in America, right? Go us!

_

How Do You Know When Things Are Better?

When corporations spend millions of dollars to tell you they are.

Who cares that you're 45 years old, living in the basement of your demented parents' foreclosed home in an abandoned subdivision threatened by a hurricane? Who cares that you eat oatmeal and stale crackers three times a day? Everybody still employed by GE had a smile on their face in that commercial where they told you everything is better now!!!! Lighten up!!!!! Get out there and buy something fun--like medicine for your bronchitis--with that unemployment check that never came! LOL!!!

Wipe that bloody drool off your chin, shattered human! Bank of America paid a lot of money to BBDO and the television networks so that they could tell you everything is okay. Who cares that they don't loan out money anymore, continue to speculate against you on the stock market, and now buy and sell securitized life insurance policies, gambling against their golf buddies in the health care industry.

Wait, what was that? Say that part again?

Wall Street investment banks are planning to buy and securitize life insurance policies of older Americans. A $1 million policy might be sold for $400,000, then bundled with other policies and sold to investors, the New York Times reports.

Duke law professor James Cox calls the development “bittersweet.”

“The sweet part is there are investors interested in exotic products created by underwriters who make large fees and rating agencies who then get paid to confer ratings," he told the Times. "The bitter part is it’s a return to the good old days."

The story says the plan could be good for Wall Street but bad for insurers, which set rates based on the assumption that policyholders will let their life insurance lapse before they die. If the policies are bought and securitized, insurers may lose money and pass on the loss in the form of increased premiums.

(courtesy ABA Journal)

Wait--what does that mean, exactly?

Well, [Wall Street's] new plan is to buy life insurance plans from elderly and sick people for cash. The example that the New York Times gives is someone selling a million dollar policy for a $400,000 payout, but the payout amount would all depend on the seller's life expectancy. These "life settlements" would then be bundled together to form bonds that can be sold to investors. The investors would start paying for the person's policy from then on. When the person dies, the investors collect on the policy.

Apparently, the faster the person dies, the more money the investors make. However, regardless of whether you die sooner or later, Wall Street firms will profit off of fees collected from creating the bonds and facilitating transactions. You could say that Wall Street is planning to "securitize" people's lives (or deaths, as it may be) into a kind of CDO (Collateralized Debt Obligation). And we all know how great that whole CDO adventure played out for Wall Street, right? What could be dangerous about creating a similar class of financial products with sick people's life expectancy as the focus?

(courtesy CBFE Economics)

Wow--things really are better! Now Wall Street is betting everything on the health care industry stealing so much of your parents' money that they have to sell their life insurance benefits right before they die.

It's like these guys are just begging to be called out on this, daring somebody to say something, to do something--like a serial killer leaving clues at the scene of the crime.


But the funniest part of all this hubbub (aside from all the other hilarious stuff I've thus far mentioned) is that these companies didn't think they could rely on you knowing that things are better because your life was actually better. I mean, are they going to start hanging out around my dinner table so I know when my food tastes good?

Just try to wipe this fucking beatific smile off my face, reality! I'm a paid actor in a television commercial and I am damn good at my job!

"CUT!"

And now, back to frowning reality...

_

The Unspoken Evil In the Housing Market, Country

(photo courtesy Sally Ryan/New York Times)

The New York Times printed an article today about the house next door to that of the Obamas (pictured above) being put on the market recently. It was an interesting article for many reasons, but hidden amidst the facts and figures is a phenomenon that is sadly not getting enough attention:

Very few people I know--college educated, with jobs--can afford to buy a house, regardless of record-low mortgage rates and falling home prices. Some of them have settled for overpriced condos, some have moved into farm country and face ridiculous commutes, most are prepared to stay in rental apartments far longer than previous generations ever did.

This is not healthy for our country, as we are now firmly on the path to becoming a two-class nation--working-poor renters and fabulously-wealthy landlords, the modern-day equivalent of ever-toiling serfs and their wealthy land-owning lords.


For Your Consideration:

The year is 1973. The house next to the Obamas, a beautiful 17-room mansion on the south side of Chicago, sells to a young couple for $35,000. The median household income for that year was $12,051; assuming they were average, the house cost 3 times their annual salary.

The year is now 2009. In 36 years, their house is now worth in the neighborhood of $1-3 million--an increase of between 28 and 85 times the original purchase price and a fabulously lucrative investment. In 2006 (the last year figures are available), the median household income was $58,407; the same house would now cost the new owner 17-51 times their annual salary.

[Also, keep in mind that the inflated 2006 figure reflects double-breadwinning households, which was not common in 1974, so the difference is even greater than it appears.]

And you wonder why so many people took out bad loans? They felt they deserved to live in a house, as hard-working, gainfully-employed couples--and they were right--but the market was such that there was actually no way they could afford to pay for one. Between greedy real estate developers, corrupt politicians, predatory bankers, insatiable real estate trusts, real estate speculation, and bidding wars, prices became artificially, unsustainably high. Wannabe homeowners forced their hand and they lost. Big time.

The Man: 9,941,994, Men: 0.


Meanwhile, the bleeding doesn't stop there, of course.

Real wages (adjusted for inflation) have remained stagnant since 1974, despite enormous increases in productivity and work hours. In other words, while costs have risen dramatically, you are making the same amount--or, in most cases, less--than your father did in 1974, when gas was $0.55 a gallon and a beer at a ballpark cost ten cents. A beer at a recent LA Dodger game set me back $12, or 1/12 of my daily take-home pay.

In the last 36 years, health care costs have skyrocketed, retirement benefits have dwindled or disappeared, and the cost of a private university education has gone from $10,000 a year to $32,000 a year (for public universities, costs have increased 37% in the last 10 years alone).


How are we supposed to live like this? How are intelligent people who have a soul--and, therefore, did not become shady bankers, selfish corporate executives, or lawyers--supposed to afford to buy a house somewhere that could be classified as 'non-bumblefuck?'

Homeowners’ equity fell to 41.4 percent of the total value of household real estate at the end of the first quarter of 2009. This percentage has decreased sharply since the end of 2005. It first fell below 50 in the fourth quarter of 2007 – marking the first time that homeowners’ mortgage debts exceeded their equity in their homes since 1945, when the Fed’s data begins.

(source: American Institute for Economic Research)

There you have it, folks--sixty-four years of 'progress' has resulted in a net-loss of equity. Thank you, corporate America, for shipping all the wealth not in your own pockets overseas.

Are we reaching a point where intelligent, rational people are going to start moving off the grid in droves and repopulate depressed rural areas in their quest for an affordable house? Will we all have to live in factories abandoned by 'patriotic' corporations who moved all their non-executive jobs to China? Where will all these newly-rural people work? How far will they have to drive to shop somewhere that isn't evil-incarnate WalMart? How are they supposed to afford to send their children to school?

Or, since everyone has a college degree these days (thanks, University of Phoenix!) and a diploma doesn't even guarantee a job at Starbucks, will people eventually stop sending their children to college?

I know that sounds crazy, or at least illogical, but if we look at the matter honestly, and perform a simple cost/benefit analysis, at some point the costs will outweigh the benefits. Who wants to graduate college $100,000 in debt, with an ever-dwindling prospect of gainful employment and the looming fear that they will need to locate another $750,000 just to buy a house in the city they grew up in?


It wasn't even 100 years ago that most intelligent, productive people got their education in the real world, unable to afford a college education. They got menial or entry-level jobs and worked their way up from there.

However, what with unemployed PhDs fighting each other over janitorial jobs these days, another, more exotic option is becoming increasingly enticing, and probably as useful:

Formerly an option only for wealthy members of the aristocracy, these days a high-school graduate could choose--instead of going to college--to live, frugally, in a string of major European cities over a four year period, immersing him/herself in language, culture, and the arts. This would not only provide a well-rounded liberal arts education and--shockingly, but truthfully--be cheaper than attending a 4-year American college, but it also comes with free, top-o-the-line health care! Invent a time machine and sign me up!

Time to dust off your Grand Tour brochures, travel agents!
(If the Internet didn't kill you all slowly...)


You may think this is all a joke. You may think these ideas are radical, ridiculous, and ill-informed. You may be right, you may be wrong, but the way I see it, this is the very real, human side of the matter, one that is rarely discussed in the media, or over the dinner table.

The exorbitant cost of a comfortable, quality life in the United States these days--now more unattainable than ever--is the dubious result of three main factors:

1. Decades of unnecessary, harmful real estate speculation by wealthy American freelance speculators, deep-pocketed real estate trusts, investment organizations, and corporations.
2. The insatiable hunger for profit that defines the modern corporation.
3. The fact that our government has failed to act on behalf of its less-moneyed-yet-vastly-more-numerous constituents, failed to step in with laws/oversight/restrictions, and is therefore complicit in allowing the situation to spiral out of control.

For all their blustery talk about America being the richest and most powerful nation on Earth, the rich and greedy oligopoly has created a country its own hard-working citizens can barely afford to live in.

What, may I ask, is the benefit of that, aside from the pieces of silver lining their pockets?

_

Postapocalypse Now?

I realize it's no surprise to those of us 'in the know,' since we know everything, wink, wink, but for the rest of y'all, recognize:

A depressed relic of a mining community in Bumble, Kansas, is little more than a gasping ghost town full of toxic poor people crying for help. There is no work. There is nothing to do. Everybody in town wants to go anywhere else. The Earth may as well be salted.

Don't believe me? Peep this:

The Mayor of Treece

This is what the Mayor of Treece, Kansas, has to say:

Mayor Bill Blunk sees no reason for sugar-coating his opinion when asked to describe this town.

“It’s dead,” he said. “Wasted land.”

Almost anywhere else on the map, such bluntness could cost a politician re-election. But not here. Mr. Blunk has the near-unanimous support of the population, 140 people or so, who are perhaps singular among residents of municipalities in that they all want out of theirs.

“I’d be happy to go as anyone,” said Randall Barr, a retired sand company worker. “You can’t do anything with this land. What good is it?”

“My father was one of the last miners,” Glenda Powell said. “He died of cancer, and so did my mom — bad lungs. This has always been home, and I don’t know where we’d go, just a place where we can breathe.”

(courtesy NYTimes.com)

What the fuck? Is this the dust bowl? What year is this? Is the reanimated corpse of John Steinbeck crouching in the weeds over there, gleefully jotting notes for Grapes of Wrath 2: A Zombie Tale? Is this all part of some twisted, evil-mastermind/New-York-art gallery-director's plan to amass a treasure trove of fresh, achingly expressive black+white portraits of poor people to sell to rich people for a blushing profit?

But what shall become of the babbittry? Where are their Republican saviors on white horses, sworn to protect the rights of poor people everywhere to be poor enough and dumb enough to trust them implicitly and never revolt, but never so poor that they might organize and try something drastic?

It not being an election year, I suppose those jowly heroes are just too busy accepting bribes, lying with each breath, contaminating the environment, cheating on their wives and constituents, being hypocritical, and childishly impeding necessary change to care too much about 140 unemployed Kansans in a state they always win anyway.

The great Strom Thurmond's protege, GOP Congressman Joe Wilson

The people of Treece (which just sounds like some city-state in a Greek tragedy, doesn't it?) have naught to do but sit idly on their dilapidated porches chewing inedible objects, unsure of how to respond to the neglect:

What the F?! Never saw this horseshit coming. Thankfully, I'm in a position where, despite the fact that I am destitute and living in a veritable fire swamp, I can easily ignore it all, watch NASCAR, and somehow still pack on the pounds. It is even easier than I thought to turn a deaf ear to that small voice in the back of my stunted brain, shouting into the wind, 'wait--why aren't they doing anything, those capable, loving, God-fearing-when-convenient men and women in charge? They promised to look after me if I voted for them! Can't they get out here and kiss some babies, airlift in some powdered milk, distribute free toaster ovens, pose for a few triumphant photos, and make me feel less unhappy/guilty/greedy/fat?'

Well, come on, little voices in the back of the brains of Treecians--stop asking for so much. Let us give those tireless public servants the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it's not their fault. Maybe the Republicans could devote a few minutes of their time to defend the common man if that pesky colored fella wasn't wasting all their time trying to help the little man in the health care game, forcing them to fight tooth and nail for the sake of their obscenely wealthy, fearful financial base...


Which brings me to my point--perhaps without realizing it, we are living in a post-apocalyptic world, populated with near-neanderthals and ruled by untrustworthy, blood-sucking, survivalist assholes. Maybe it was a slow burn and we didn't even feel it, but here we are, suddenly realizing we just got off a ride, our minds reeling post-involuntary-extraction from the Matrix.

What the fuck is going on? How did we get here? After untold centuries of incessant labor, how is it we are not all able to finally just chill out, sleep in, spend our afternoons sitting in cafes philosophizing as our money effortlessly multiplies, and go home to write a hit play, then watch it in the national theater next week with our old college buddies and begin a torrid affair with the blossoming prima donna?

Why have we allowed ourselves to arrive at a point in time where I would rather live in the past than the future? When was the last time so many intelligent people felt this way? During the Plague? Why have we created a world inhabited by more sandwich artists than real artists?

Word to all you ostriches out there: shit sucks and it is not getting better. It's every man for himself. Primal shit. You want my advice, get yourself a piece of land, a tent, a couple hundred Bic lighters, some Cheetos, and an arsenal that would make Dick Cheney blush. When you see three flares in the night sky, it's time to storm the Bastille. It's the only way to enact any real change, for better or worse. Trust me.

Hey--before you go, I'll trade you 42 shiny things for that one little can of soup and that jerk mag in your backpack. Deal?

_

But whatever is a dandy to wear?

Embarrassed by your too-fancy hat in 'these economic times?'

As Michael Jackson would say, 'you are not alone.'

"...modesty has been a byword this recession, and baseball caps are no exception. Consumers are opting for Corollas over Cadillacs, Formica kitchen counters over granite and, it turns out, hats with traditional designs over garish ones."

(courtesy nytimes.com)

Sure, that makes total sense--the 10% decline in sales of garish hats must be because consumers "don't want to look too rich and fancy" in these Great Depressiony times. I mean, can you imagine the embarrassment if somebody realized you were wearing a brand-new $35 hat that was really ugly, rather than a brand-new $35 hat that was really plain?

My balls shrivel in fear of that day.

I wonder if anybody at New Era/NYTimes has considered the fact that the steep drop in sales might instead have something to do with people "buying less shit they don't need cuz they broke."

1 in 10 people in this country are fucking unemployed.

But, for the sake of argument, let's assume New York Times reporter Ken "Boring" Belson did his homework and the numbers don't lie--people are buying less-garish hats because they are poor.

Is this the first good news to come out of the financial crisis?

The hick in me is, for some reason, angered by this news. It almost makes him want to staple some hot-pink tassels onto a (traditional) Cubs hat and parade down the filthy, desolate sidewalks of Wall Street, preening himself in the smudged windowpanes of the once-mighty Goldman Sachs, making Indian battle cries, and waving a gun around.

There are, after all, some rights that are gloriously unalienable, you fucking terrorists.

_

Reader Poll: Should the $100 million man get his due?

As many of you already are aware, Andrew J. Hall is set to receive a $100 million bonus from a unit of Citigroup--a company which would have gone bankrupt had they not been bailed out by the taxpayers to the tune of $45 billion.

To make matters worse, his impressively profitable performance derives from speculation in energy markets, which is a practice on which the government is considering placing heavy restrictions.

Andrew Hall is one of those guys who manipulates the price of crude oil/gasoline, irrespective of the effect his efforts may have on millions of consumers with far less money than he, purely in the name of profit.

But then again, Mr. Hall has a contract--and this is America. He made Citigroup billions of dollars and we want them to make money so they can pay us back, right?

Or do we ever really expect to be paid back? I certainly won't hold my breath, or even stand on one leg.

Technically speaking, Mr. Hall did nothing wrong--he performed his job within legal boundaries (one would assume, although you never know when oil is involved) and it's the system that's broken.

But how do you fix a system if you keep giving people financial incentives to be selfish pricks? Maybe denying him his exhorbitant bonus would be a good first step in "putting things right that once went wrong."

And so it is that, not for the first time, I wish we would have simply let all the selfish, stupid, speculative financial firms in trouble just go bankrupt, allowing the healthiest ones to feast on their remains and grow stronger--things might have been a lot hairier, maybe, but such is the cutthroat nature of capitalism and, in the end, decisions like these would have been so much easier:

"Sorry, Mr. Hall, I know you made us billions of dollars in profit from all those stupid commoners who have to buy gas from the oligopoly to get to their $6/hr jobs cleaning the shrimp you eat out of the mouths of blue-blood virgin debutantes every Friday afternoon at the closing bell, but we have no money to pay you! We fucked up! Now, do me a favor and go fuck off back to your German castle and jerk off on your Schnabels!"

Man, life would be so much easier...

Or would it? What do you think, world?

_

What Recession?

It's nice to know that no matter how tight international funds may be, there's always room in somebody's budget not only to pay a man who is not even a painter to paint pictures he never intends to sell (and might even throw away), but also to rent a beautiful building in Venice for him to do it in (and fly him and his subject there, put them up, feed them...).

Now, don't get me wrong--I think it's a somewhat fascinating project and might even result in some good art, if by accident. If somebody were doing it in his or apartment, garage, or studio and had an intended purpose for the resulting paintings, I'd be all for it.

But this is ridiculous.

_

The End of an Era

Credit card companies--whose usurious interest/fine policies are now suddenly under fire from politicians seeking broader support from the long-ignored working poor--now want to begin charging their loyal, bill-paying customers annual fees and collecting interest immediately after each purchase, eliminating the several-week grace period such people currently enjoy.

Why would they do this when it will stop most of those people from using credit cards for anything but online purchases? To make up for lost income on which they have ill-advisedly come to rely.


Is that not like a pimp who also owns a strip club charging a higher cover and more money per lap-dance to loyal bill-paying customers after the Feds shut down his pimping side-business? Hmm...maybe that's a stretch.

I really hope the government prevents them from enacting those policies, although for some reason I feel it will be difficult to prevent, despite the fact that we actually own most of those companies now...

Oddly, the most irritating thing about this New York Times Business Section article about the current credit card situation is not all that, but this:

People who routinely pay off their credit card balances have been enjoying the equivalent of a free ride, [David Robertson, publisher of the Nilson Report, which tracks the credit card business] said, because many have not had to pay an annual fee even as they collect points for air travel and other perks.

"Despite all the terrible things that have been said, you're making out like a bandit," he said. "That's a third of credit card customers, 50 million people who have gotten a great deal."

Shocking.

A 'free ride?' How, exactly, have we gotten a free ride? It seems that credit card companies--and their highly-paid advocates in politics and the media--would like you to think they only make money when their customers don't pay their bills on time.

Not true.

If this NY Times article were better researched and more evenly reported, it would mention that credit card companies reap billions of dollars a year from doing exactly what credit card companies are supposed to do--taking a small cut from every purchase charged to one of their cards.

Why do you think a lot of small businesses don't allow their customers to use credit cards? It is partly to keep some transactions off the books, for sure, but mostly it is because allowing credit card use will either cut into their meager profits or result in them needing to raise prices slightly, thereby losing any competitive advantage they may have had against larger, corporate stores.


Fees and penalties were supposed to be gravy for credit card companies, a bonus to help fill the coffers, to smooth them through low spots in consumer spending, not the main source of revenue. But greedy people are greedy and once the bankers smelled blood they got a taste for it; they saw an opening, an immoral and quasi-legal income stream to exploit, and they did so with gusto.

The fact that credit card companies and their bloated executives now rely too heavily on penalties in a somehow-still-insufficient attempt to quench their insatiable thirst for moneymoneymoneymoney is not my fault. It's not your fault.

It's nobody's fault but their own.


This whole scenario calls to mind a similar problem we have with parking tickets.

Example: I got a parking ticket in Los Angeles the other day. It seems I forgot to move my car in time for street cleaning, which resulted in a $58 fine.

$58.00?

If I were making $7-8.00/hr--which is what most people with jobs actually make these days--that parking fine would be an entire day's wages. Does that sound fair? No way.

Oops--I forgot to put a quarter in the meter. $45.00 fine. What?!

Clearly these fines have gotten out of hand and need to be corrected, but the problem is that--much like credit card companies--cities have come to rely heavily on the millions of dollars of annual income from parking fines. Each year, their budgets are based on an expected amount of parking violations, the number and salary of their employees reflect this future wealth, and holes in city budgets are able to be plugged with whatever might be left over.

Therefore, if ticket amounts were reduced to a sensible level, or if car owners suddenly became more vigilant and stopped making mistakes, cities would either go bankrupt or be forced to enact an immediate and many-fold increase in the annual automobile registration fee.


And so here we are, living in a world where both our city governments and banks have come to depend on bad behavior and excessive fines to keep themselves solvent.

And it's somehow our fault, and so we must pay. Or cut up our credit cards!

_

How Do You Know You're An Idiot?

You are a bank that buys 450,000 pounds of uranium.

What, you mean using other people's money to make yourself endless amounts of money wasn't easy enough for you, Mr. Lehman?

Did you get bored with it after 70 years of nearly unfettered success, since the last time you and your cronies blew it?

What stupid decision will be next?

"Hey, Stoddard! I just got a hot tip from a friend over at the Pentagon--get me 400 million tons of pencils--STAT! We can't lose!"
"Got 'em!"
"Oh, shit--wait..."

The only way to lose money in banking is to be an asshole. Unfortunately, assholes seem to gravitate toward the industry like power-abusers to politics.

At least they learned their lesson--wait...

_

Depression + Guns = Bad

The economy is in the shitter. Unemployment is at the highest level in 25 years. Every day, more and more lives are shattered.

I had a feeling it would not be long until there was another big shooting spree and, sadly, I was right.

It was the nation’s worst mass shooting since April 16, 2007, when Seung-Hui Cho, 23, shot and killed 32 people in a dormitory and classroom at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Va., then killed himself in the largest shooting in modern American history. In the last month, 25 people, including 2 gunmen, were slain in three mass shootings, in North Carolina, California and Alabama.

If you include the one in Germany recently, that now brings us to a total of...a lot. A lot too many.

Let me now just take a time-out to properly thank God that so many desperate, unhinged men across the Western World have such easy access to deadly weapons for no good reason.

Thankfully, the NRA has chosen to remain silent of late, or I might have had to convince some hillbilly to bust into their offices and self-defend them all to death just to get a point across.

_