just a thought: there are no good guys.

Well Here We R

Guess I've been busy living and so forgot to write any thing but, things have slowed a bit.
Truthfully I had no idea that anything was going wrong until the stock market crashed. And that seems odd as I have NYT and WP ssending me news letters about this and that. I can't recall any thing about illness in China. It must have been lightly reported.
When the market dropped I was sure it was my fault. You see I am a chicken about investing money ever sense 9\11. A sane and prudent man, somebody wrote, keeps his money in a can. Or a money market these days. Anyhow for some reason, late at night, I decided to put some dough in a Mutual Fund of solid reputation.
The next day, seriouisly, the very next day, the dow fell a thousand points and kept on. And I just laughed and laughed as my luck is well established as crap.
Then I noticed something else was going on. "The end of the world as we know it" is an appropret quote.

Care for a little health care

If I had a lot of stock in a major health insurance company I would be so pissed!
If I got a big bonus because I have a job with a major health insurance provider in the risk management department I would be so pissed!
If I was the CEO of a major health insurance corporation I would be so busy with Legal and Marketing figuring how to circumvent any new regulations that could effect stock prices and executive bonuses.
If I were a politician I would be trying to figure where to get the camopain money I will lose when I vote for a health bill I can no longer prevent passing.
Were I HR director I would be crunching numbers so I would be ready to lead the way to minamised expoisure to litigation.

If I were a person with a job that includes health insurance at ever increasing rates with ever increasing co pays I would not have a clue what to think, but I would be seriously concerned with what is about to happen

Now after our leader spake forthwright and diligent the law that shall come to pass we rejoice in the certinty that wrong shall be made right.
I honestly don't see the problem.
Medacare works great. All doctors and hospitals take it. Let's just put everyone on medicare at birth.
Yea yea I heard that there is some funding problem with medicare but it comes out of my check and we can always get more money from the treasurey. Why they made up a trillon bucks just last year.
Adaven

The everchanging story

The link below is to a interesting story about financial manipulation. It is a little extreme as one would expect from Rolling Stone, but not at all that really unbelievable. It strikes me as what one must expect from capitalism taken as an end in itself.

Business began as trade. It works as give and take over time and distance and has a balance that provides opportunity for growth. When there is take with no give it becomes plunder and leaves only ruin. Conquest became a better alternative to plunder as it left business intact. Trade is needed if you are to have empire.

When we get to today! The only empires left are Financial ones. They have no borders and no allegiance to any country or nation.
The information age has made time compress times 1000. No investment can be long. Only Strip-mining makes sense. Ethics? Pleeeeeesse! Bonuses now now bonuses.

So here we are. Serial plunder is now the best business stragity.
Actually it is a bit more complicated than that. http://CNBC.com has a great report on how we got to where we are. http://www.cnbc.com/id/31187744
Work your way through it and be amazed.
Adaven

The Great American Bubble Machine : Rolling Stone

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29127316/the_great_american_bubble_machine

Six months later

What an amazing ride it has been. I find it hard to write anymore because things are so fractaled. New Word! Really, if you drill down through the news and all the events you can kinda see patterns repeat. The dayly dead bodie count is now usually two per million / square miles of pop denencity or some other stat is ticle nonsence like the spelling in this sentence.
I really think there are some bankers somewhere laughing their asses off making jokes about CDS CDO SPM TARP and other letter groups used to cover up the greatest wealth theft that could be imagined. Bernie looks like a girl scout swiping a cookie out of each box.
Just where do you think the money has gone? Stocks? Well now really a stock is worth only what you can sell it for. After the dot com bubble you would kinda think all the money lost would make investors leery of a "make easy money" environment but NO! Truth is a lot of money was made in the dot com time. Some gotta win some gotta lose good time Charley got screwed but his broker had multiplies. Ya see the very first fish monger, back in the stone age realized that every time a clam changed hands a bit of shell could be chipped off and enough chips would look just like a real clam. The concept of getting something for nothing was born. It came to be called banking and was the beginning of the "dark side".
I am absolutely serious. Pre-people surly killed each over food or water or sex or territory just like any other animal but competition for an idea was what really kick started civilization. Now we had concepts to deal with and after a couple hundred-thousand years the rulers of the dark side were looking for the next angle.
Unrealistic valuations via dot com stock offers were cool but the "vig" (that is the something for nothing part) wasn't all that huge. They realized that the concept of inflating something beyond any reasonable level could bring gigantic profit if it was based on something really large and widespread.
Now back at the beginning of the dark side, one of the things we killed each other over was territory and as our brains developed, out came the concept of "Real Estate"
which is the purest form of "Something for nothing"
Well as you can tell it was jumped on like a [ insert something obscene ]
And to show what strip miners they were, as they were pumping up values and getting the vig for the lones made with other peoples money(like my and your 401 or retirement) they invented vapor investments like colaterized swapped obligation default derivative defecates and soaked up more and more available hopes and expectations and promises, till it all collapsed in a heap of denials and excuses.

They say we will recover. Everything will go back to how it was before. I don't think so. I think they just don't get it. The way we have been doing things will not work anymore. The world is too big too fast and much too interrelated for all the different dark sides to coexist as they have.
Adaven

adaven asks

Please go out and vote. Remember it is the only power we have. I hope this election will be the largest turnout ever, and that will be an event.
Adaven will endorse:
All incumbents that voted against the war in Iraq regardless of party. No other incunbents except:
Obama and Biden because Biden is not as important as the top runner.
McCane would have been a good choise in 2000 but he has run out of time and sold out.
If you have a problem voting for a black man you are a problem for which there is no souution.
Adaven will(has)vote for Obama. He asks that you do too for all the reasons you have likely thought of yourself. In all reality it is time to shake things up an this is the least distructive way. After all revolution is a drastic step and we should try other things first.
Adaven

Like I Said

We knew they would bid up gasoline pertty quick but they are really going to town with it. Target $5 a gal and they want to get there as fast as possible while we're still in shock. Greed is so cool. Like cancer, the bigger the tumor the faster it grows.
However, cancer does kill it's host now dosen't it. Not that smart a stratagy, himm.
Stripmining is all well and fine, you can always move to another mountain but were talking the economy here. Just like a well, if you pump too fast it can colapse into a sinkhole. I'm not sure they are smart enough or even able to keep the feeding under control.
Oh! and what about the airlines. Thoes guys are freaking. Some of it may be just taking advantage but I think they are bleeding out. Look for pay tolits next.

No Mo

Take a look!
Soon fuel will cost so much we won't be able to go far.
Air travel too will be out of the question.
A little history here. Who has controlled a population without restricting their mobility?
nobody
LOOK OUT

Obama or Yo Mama

The absolutely last thing I want to be accused of is raceism so don't read anything into the title of this post.
Now I know in a race for office the staff is now a liability as well as a resource.
Ya'll got ta watch what Ya say ya'see nothing is off the record so shut up an wrap a press filter across the mouth.
Nuf said. We's blind and neutered from now till November.

Anyway! We are going to have a change of government now even though a depressingly large number of slime would love to have 4 more bush years to suck the juice from the belly of America.
Let's not forget to change out all the other congressmen and senators come November, sparing, for a single term only, those who did not vote for the Iraq war. You know what and who I mean and let there be no exceptions.

Now I don't want to step on any toes or break any stained glass windows but the time for a democrat president is at hand. They have this rhythm worked out. RRD they is two Republicans and one democrat for one or two terms depending on who is up or down at some other place we can't see.
Trust me. The other place is real. And you can't see it. Don't even bother trying cause it is more important to work where you can see and be seen because that is where you have power.
The reality is that the numbers do matter. What I mean is::
THE NUMBERS DO MATTER when we talk about 300 million numbers
The power of the vote is tossed around a lot. In a lot of places it doesn't mean much.
Cuba...
But because of an oversight by our founding Fathers(who wanted nothing to do with a democracy)voters in America have a lot of power.
That power has been stepped on stretched, squashed and worked over in a lot of ways but it still is there and it still has influence. We, as individuals can still have a say.

Mr Obama did not vote to go to war in Iraq. All other viable candidates did.
I guess ya can figure out my choice.
-Adaven

I figured out a Plan

Change of Government! I've said it before and believe it is a good idea but the only way I can think of to implement it is to just elect new (not incumbent) candtdates.

Let's disband the government.
Now don't get upset.
It will be kinda of like a parlement thing.

We just fire all the congress foke and the president
and say "Y'all done a lousy job. YOUR FIRED!

Now we get to work and __(I started to write elect) an new bunch _but what I mean is select. NOW Don't get all rilled up. We have to start somewere and elections have become all about who gets the most money for T V spots.
I will suggest some kind of a lottery of registered voters with a test for basic compentency in a couple of areas like literacy and such. We might just give a IQ test and if the selectee scored too low or too high we would choose again. Yes I mean that. Really smart people need to spend their time on R & D and solving the hard problems. What we need are reasonably bright foke to administer and repair a government that has big problems.
There a lot of things like terms of office and compensaion that need to be addressed but if we start with say 100 to work on straightening out the big mess we're in and another 100 to work on the future situation maybe a couple of years down the line. We should promise all of our draftees that they will gert relief aft er three years. See I'm thinking 6Mo to get a handle on things and two years hard work and 6mo to help a successor get a clue. So we have a continnuly rotating body of able bodied thinkandoers who have no agenda except careing for America and it's people. And after three years their tossed out to go back to whatever they were doing.

I may be crazy but so are the times and thinking big may be our only hope.
Adaven

Fire!

It is no surprise that So Cal is burning up.It is no surprise that bombings in Packistan and Iran and Iraq continue to take lives. There are so many Morons.
Some just can't help starting fires some just can't help keeping them burning.

Do they have television in Iran

Our country has hosted the president of Iran. Was this an episode of the daily show?
I wish I could remember the name of a performer I saw on the Ed Sullivan
show-- Oh! yes. It was Professor Backwards. He was Funny!
However he was not the (somewhat)leader of a large and powerful (read Wealthy) mid-eastern country.
What really makes me sad, is that I hear the same (dancing around the question) from our own presidential candidates.
Or some other kinda of fixing to get to an answer ta "What exctally was the question?" Ah! Let's move on to after this message.
Awa! You get the idea.
Change of government.
Adaven

So much Fun

It has been a ball watching Paris. Now I hope she can just stay locked up.
45 days is long enough for us to forget all about almost anything so--
"wouldn't it be nice"
if when someone goes to jail or prison or gets locked up for whatever reason it will be considered poor taste and bad journalism to acknowledge their very existence. I mean they are publicly dead till released from the slammer.
Then we can get on with whatever may be of intrest or maybe even give a bit of attention to something IMPORTANT.

Change What?

It is a crazy idea. We need stability in this time of distress. There are a lot of good people in government and we can't go upseting every thing. Can we?
Read this blog to see what I'm talking about.
http://changeofgovernment.blogspot.com

Adaven