rules of engagement...

i live by a few simple edicts...

Silence is foo. And it is...

Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey. Its all you ever need know...

If i have to follow the rules, everybody has to follow the rules...

There is a lot of yammering about banking reform these days, probably because there is a need for banking reform. Serious reform. Of course, the Hamilton Hawks (named after Alexander Hamilton) will tell you that there is a need for a strong central bank that answers to no one. While us Jeffersonians (and you know how i feel about Thomas Jefferson) point out over and over (and over) again that money=greed=power grab. In other words give 'em enough rope and the banking industry would rather hang us from the Statue of Liberty (that's what we get for accepting a gift from those socialist French pigs!!) then allow for some regulation over how wealth is managed in this country...

There is a scene towards the end of the film Platoon when bodies of dead Vietnamese are being summarily shoveled into the craters formed by the recent napalm drop. We learned that when left to their own devices the Federal Reserve, and the banking and finance industry will bury this country in the craters left behind by their carpet bombing of toxic derivatives and rampant borrowing. Changing the rules of economics to suit a profit margin almost cripples the entire banking system, but instead of jumping on the grenade, Wall Street decided to throw it back, except it landed in our laps, no pin, no chance. Capitalism run amok...

i would not consider my self a socialist. I'm a pragmatic anarchist, which is to say with all things being equal there should be no rules, except that i know that human nature will facilitate the need for regulation, so, henceforth...

The idea that regulating the Health Care Industry or the Pharmaceutical Industry or the Automobile Industry and especially the Banking industry would reek of socialism is a pathetic attempt to cloak the fact that all of these industries have taken taxpayer money in the past year whether they needed it or not. Is that not socialism. Well, i've been through this...

i was enjoying a martini and some mac and cheese a la Famous Daves when a Nicaraguan gentlemen and i struck a conversation about the Mets. It slowly developed into him railing into socialists in this country. How we are already socialist, giving hand outs to the unemployed and those in the throws of poverty. I asked him, isn't it welfare when banks accept taxpayer money to stay afloat from a free market tidal wave? He shrugged me off. It occurred to me that he was of age where he would have been a teenager in the 1980's. Probably living poorly in an urban area of his home country when the big bad Reagan machine came in to wipe the floor with the evil communists. Like they were the savages forming death squads. The Reagan administration used cold war fear to make us believe that communism and socialism would ruin this country and the world. This gentlemen drank the kool aid. When he said to me that he watched "all the news anchors—Hannity and Glen Beck" as if to say "Country and Western," i quickly looked for an exit strategy and broke north, like Oliver's neck—how apropos...

You see, what most people don't understand, other than the fact that this is a Republic and not a democracy, is that we live 75% or so of our lives like socialists. Ever time you buy a beer for someone and in turn that person buys you one back along the way, that's socialism. When you pass that joint, its socialism. Borrow that drill, cook that meal, shovel that neighbor's walk, or help that person on the side of the road change that tire—socialism. Its the bar that's capitalist, the dope dealer, the Home Depot, the restaurant, the kid looking for $10, or the wrecker that is called. We as a people are inherently socialist. It is simply the structure of our society that is capitalist...

now there's nothing wrong with making a buck. There's nothing wrong with making a lot of bucks, but when there is an opportunity to fix what's wrong, chance to repair a system that has collapsed, why not? What's wrong with a little regulation? Regulation makes sure the pipes don't burst, the roof doesn't leak, your 401K doesn't disappear and YOUR OIL TANKER DOESN'T EXPLODE AND SPILL TONS OF OIL INTO THE GULF OF MEXICO!! Like New Orleans hasn't already seen the ass-end of governmental reform, now they have a puddle of mud the size of Delaware heading towards the French Quarter—WHO DAT? Oh, its just Standard Oil, sorry...

A year and a half ago there was the equivalent of an oil spill on Wall Street. One year and a half after a global economic meltdown we're still wiping off penguins. What's wrong with a little regulation? Would you rather a little revolution?...

There are 41 Senators that would like you to think that shoring up credit card interest rates, making it affordable to buy a home, and having a safe place to invest your money and allow it to grow rather than be—wait for it—regulated through countless fees and conditions—is evil and utterly socialist. That any reform on the banking industry will lead to the strangulation of your freedom, the formation of death squads, or statues of Lenin being erected in town squares all over America. Heaven forbid Lenin takes the place of the John Calvin statues they have planned to erect or their secret plan to replace the Jefferson Memorial with one of that heretic and SOCIALIST FRENCH PIG—how's that for irony Texas?...

The era of Reaganonomics is over. It failed. And it was an epic failure. Alexander Hamilton is dead and buried a block and a half away from the scene of the crime, but Jefferson...

Jefferson Lives!...

Let's move on up...