"You will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom."

I posted this John Quincy Adams quote on Facebook the other day, and it got the usual number of "likes" and "reposts".   (For those who have mobile devices that aren't good with pics, it's a marble slab with the following quotation: "You will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom.  I hope you will make good use of it.")

What Adams said is now bugging the crap out of me. 

I think if Adams' generation of rebels could get inside the heads of my generation of passive sheep, they would be depressed. 

Some of us don't want to have our freedom preserved.  We want Barack to give us 40 acres and a mule. 

We want to live on a plantation where the owner gives us 3 hots and a cot.  We want him to pay for our healthcare, and we want him to "invest" in our retirement, and we want him to withhold our taxes so he can pay our tribute to our superiors without the money entering our grubby little hands. 

We want the plantation owner to withhold our child support.  If we can't afford to live on our own, we bitch about him not paying us enough to do so, rather than gaining some skills that would increase our worth to someone wanting to trade money for them.   

Some of us don't want our freedom preserved.  We learn about government munchkins eavesdropping on our correspondence, and we assume that it's the cost of remaining a free society. 

We don't want our freedom preserved.  We see a civilian with a gun, and we break out in tumors and rashes. 

We don't want our freedom preserved.  We let Washington and Austin and Downtown rack up huge bills that will be paid by our great-grandchildren, and we just assume that things will continue to be as they always have been.  (Herb Stein's Law:  If something can't last forever, it won't.) 

We don't want our government to merely act as a referee, groundskeeper, cheerleader and security guard.  We want leaders !  Quarterbacks !  Linebackers !  Coaches ! 

If there's ever been a generation that was ungrateful for freedom and liberty, it is this one.  Sorry J.Q.  Maybe you and your dad shoulda stuck to law. 

Sorry for the bad mood tonight.  I'll try to be funny tomorrow morning. 

Never Let A Non-Crisis Go To Waste

Ok, this is some good stuff.  Please hang with me through the preliminary throat-clearing....

Here's The Economist magazine, formerly a cheerleader for Anthropogenic Global Warming, but now drifting toward well-founded skepticism for the second time in the last few months:

GLOBAL warming has slowed. The rate of warming of over the past 15 years has been lower than that of the preceding 20 years. There is no serious doubt that our planet continues to heat, but it has heated less than most climate scientists had predicted. Nate Cohn of the New Republic reports: "Since 1998, the warmest year of the twentieth century, temperatures have not kept up with computer models that seemed to project steady warming; they’re perilously close to falling beneath even the lowest projections".

Mr Cohn does his best to affirm that the urgent necessity of acting to retard warming has not abated, as does Brad Plumer of the Washington Post, as does this newspaper. But there's no way around the fact that this reprieve for the planet is bad news for proponents of policies, such as carbon taxes and emissions treaties, meant to slow warming by moderating the release of greenhouse gases. The reality is that the already meagre prospects of these policies, in America at least, will be devastated if temperatures do fall outside the lower bound of the projections that environmentalists have used to create a panicked sense of emergency. Whether or not dramatic climate-policy interventions remain advisable, they will become harder, if not impossible, to sell to the public, which will feel, not unreasonably, that the scientific and media establishment has cried wolf.

Read the whole thing if time permits, and remember the key sentence in that 2nd paragraph.  The reality is that the already meagre prospects of these policies, in America at least, will be devastated if temperatures do fall outside the lower bound of the projections that environmentalists have used to create a panicked sense of emergency.

Now we take you to Barack H. Obama, in full-blown Chicken Little mode. .   

President Obama will announce Tuesday in a speech at Georgetown University that he plans to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants, according to individuals who have been briefed on the plan but asked not to be identified.


In a statement Saturday afternoon sent via the White House Twitter feed, Obama said that he plans to fulfill the pledge he made in his second inaugural address to “respond to the growing threat of climate change for the sake of our children and future generations.”


“This Tuesday, I’ll lay out my vision for where I believe we need to go — a national plan to reduce carbon pollution, prepare our country for the impacts of climate change, and lead global efforts to fight it,” the president said. “This is a serious challenge — but it’s one uniquely suited to America’s strengths.”

Remember this, children.  Please, please, please remember this one thing.  The damn weather isn't cooperating with the models.  Climate isn't changing as predicted.  Obama knows that if he's going to get in another expensive boondoggle for supporters, he has to act fast. 

Here's some more of his statement.  For "economic opportunities", you can safely substitute the word "graft".  Or perhaps "kickbacks". 

In Saturday’s statement, Obama emphasized the economic opportunities that could come from tackling carbon emissions.


“We’ll need scientists to design new fuels, and farmers to grow them,” he said. “We’ll need engineers to devise new sources of energy, and businesses to make and sell them.”

Ok, enough of that damn fool.  Let's move on to another one, a senator from Hawaii. 

Senator Brian Schatz’s (D-HI) filed an amendment for the immigration bill Wednesday that would allow stateless people in the U.S. to seek conditional lawful status if their nations have been made uninhabitable by climate change.

I'll believe that I contribute to Climate Change when senator Brian Schatz’s (D-HI) starts travelling from Hawaii to D.C. in a canoe carved from a coconut tree.  Christ Almighty, do these people have no sense of shame?  At all? 
Here's more.....

Again, let me be clear about what this amendment does. It simply recognizes that climate change, like war, is one of the most significant contributors to homelessness in the world. And like with states torn apart and made uninhabitable by war, we have an obligation not to deport people back to a country made uninhabitable by sea level rise and other extreme environmental changes that render these states desolate.

The sky isn't falling, people.  It simply isn't.  We have weather.  Good, bad, and normal. 

There is no crisis.  But we're not going to let the non-crisis go to waste. 

Judge Andrew Napolitano on "Trusting Goverment"

Words to live by from Andrew Napolitano:

Repeat after me: Government is power. Government is not to be trusted. Ever. Even if you believe that some government is and will always be necessary, that ‘necessary’ piece of government should always be regarded as a prudent lion tamer regards the big carnivorous cats that are ‘necessary’ for him to make a living. To imagine that seemingly subdued purring lions can be trusted to be dealt with in any ways that do not include the use of strong cages, leashes, ceaseless and deep suspicion, and escape hatches is the height of romantic absurdity – wishful thinking of the most extreme and inexcusable sort. Government is by its very nature a dangerous, untrustworthy, dishonest, arrogant, slippery entity – characteristics that are by no means reduced anywhere near to insignificance by a wide franchise, regular elections, and sturdy ink-on-parchment documents called “constitutions.”


Unless you are a high-ranking government official, government - no government – is ever “Us.” It is always “Them.” And They are not to be trusted. Ever.

The Pain, The Pain

Televangelist Oral Roberts once told his followers that unless they gave him 4.5 million dollars, the Lord was going to "call him home". He got away with it.


Barack Obama once told his followers that unless they gave him 700 Billion dollars in "stimulus", they were going to suffer an economic disaster. I bet he gets away with it. (The massive spending on the right side of this chart is supposedly a cure for the bad things on the left. LOL.)

BTW, Obama's top economic experts, Peter Orszag, Jared Bernstein, Christina Romer, Larry Summers, and Austan Goolsbee have ALL resigned. They came in, ripped off the Treasury, and got the hell out. There are some stains that they don't want on their resumes.

And yet there are still true believers who can't see it. No matter how likeable Oral Roberts and Barack Obama are, there really is such a thing as a con game. Admitting that you've been taken really does hurt.

Bob Dylan refuses to accept Barack Obama as his personal Lord and Savior

I picked up the new Bob Dylan CD a couple of days ago.  Good stuff. 

I have my concerns, though.  Mikal Gilmore, in a recent Rolling Stone interview gave Dylan opportunity after opportunity to confess his sins, ignore economic reality and let Obama into his heart. 

Dylan wouldn't do it.  Go here for details.

Seriously....  Was Gilmore really expecting the author of this musical gem to continue endorsing our Warlord-In-Chief ???
Here are some of the boys from Pearl Jam doing Dylan's "Masters Of War".

The next next next next Solyndra

They're all going belly-up. 
If their ideas were good, they would've attracted private capital. 

The donors have been rewarded, the victims (you) have been fleeced, and it was all as predictable as the winner of The Texas Rangers vs the Little Sisters Of The Blind softball match. 

Where are the crowds with pitchforks and torches?  Folks, they stole your money, gave it to their friends, called it "green", and they expect you to act like it's business as usual. 

Go here.  If you have time to read about the most recent scam, go here.

 

A modest proposal from Perry de Havilland for those who are under attack

Samizdata's Perry de Havilland, one of the guys whose excellent typing got me hooked on this blogging thing, has an excellent suggestion for those trying to respond to the London rioters:  Be a vigilante. 

I am delighted to see that some people are 'taking the law into their own hands' and not just abandoning their communities to the barbarian thugs...

When the trouble came, hairdressers, sales assistants and butchers were among the scores of Turkish and Kurdish workers who stood outside their businesses in Green Lanes, Haringey, from 8pm having been warned by police to expect trouble.

The Guardian filmed others – some armed with baseball bats – on guard outside shops and restaurants in Kingsland Road, only a mile away from Hackney's burning high street. Three workers from Re-Style Hairdressers were among those out in Green Lanes, after word spread that an attack was imminent at about 4pm [...]

"We were outside ready and expecting them," said the manager of Turkish Food Market, who asked not to be named. "But I felt very panicky because we are not safe from either the rioters or police. We put all of our efforts into this shop. It took 20 years to get it like this. But we do not know about our rights. I'm scared that the police and the government will attack us if we defend our businesses. We are being squeezed between the two."

Firstly, to those blaming 'immigration' rather than the welfare state, and the utterly grotesque way the state demands you do not protect what is yours, well people would do well to emulate the Turkish and Kurdish community in Britain. Indeed the looters we see on television and streamed over the internet are so multi-racial it must gladden the hearts of the Welfare Statists who created them.

So when the police decry 'vigilantes', I would point out that communities can often do a better job at protecting themselves than the police can and the folks who got out on the streets, not to loot but to defend their neighbourhoods, well they are the real heroes here.

The safety of you and your property is only tangentially of interest to the state (certainly they want to tax what you own, so to that extend they do indeed care about your life and property), but as demonstrated starkly over the last few days, the state also created the conditions that led to these riots and is therefore rather uneasy about punishing people who, after all, only do what the state does every day only without having to smash any windows.

A community of few people with rifles and something worth protecting are not such a soft target to thugs, even armed thugs, than a disarmed general population looking vainly for the Plod to save them. But for all sorts of reasons, the British state has so effectively propagandised this country that to even suggest armed self-defence puts you on the lunatic fringe... so crowbars and cricket bats it is then.

If these last few days shows anything it is that when push comes to shove, only you and your neighbours can defend against what can only be called barbarian scum. Contrary to what the state would have you believe, you have the right to defend yourself and your property that morally supersede any law that would deny that right. The rioters 'took the law into their own hands' so I applaud those Turks and Kurds (and many others whom the Guardian would not be so keen to report on) who did the same... they took the law back from the barbarians with and put it where it belongs: in their own hands.

Go here to read de Havilland's last sentence.  It says it all. 

If any Fort Worth readers disagree or think it is over the top, come live in the East Side for a while.  Yeah, some places aren't safe.  But if you have proper armaments in your castle, you can sleep like a baby. 

Good luck, London !!!

On Families And Nations And The Difference Between The Two

"The idea that the nation is one big family that must pull together translates in practice to the idea that the politicians are our parents and we are dysfunctional children who can't be trusted to spend our own money or make our own decisions."   - Harry Browne

Climate Change Conference attendees vote to ban Dihydrogen Monoxide

This is like the old manufacturing/trucking joke where you send a rookie employee after the board stretcher.  Or ask him to go get the left-handed monkey wrench.  Or ask him to change out the spark plugs on a diesel engine.  Or bring back a bucket of grinder sparks. 
(I once sent a driver to Home Depot to get cans of Dehydrated Water.  It worked beautifully.  His supervisor called me about an hour later, asking what the hell was I doing to her driver.  We laughed for days.) 
Anyway, here are some people from CFACT asking Climate Change Conference attendees to sign a petition banning Dihydrogen Monoxide.  That would be H2O.  Water. 
In the first few minutes, they also get some signatures on a petition calling for the immediate "destabilization of the U.S. economy". 
They'll sign anything, as long as it's green and wholesome. 
Enjoy. 

Pass it so we can see what's in it, Write it so the author can read it, Re-educate us so we will swallow it.

Here's House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, on ObamaCare® explaining that we had to pass the ObamaCare® bill to see what is in it. 


But wait....Here's Senator Max Baucus affirming that he wrote the Healthcare bill, but hasn't really, like, read it:

Baucus replied that if Libby residents (his townhall meeting audience) assembled an economic development plan, he would do what he could to help, and he took credit for “essentially” writing the health care bill that passed the Senate.

“I don’t think you want me to waste my time to read every page of the health care bill. You know why? It’s statutory language,” Baucus said. “We hire experts.”

Yep.  Politicians don't write laws.  Lobbyists do.  And they have never, ever had such a flock of sheep just waiting to be trimmed. 

Finally, here's Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, talking to ABC News Radio:

“Unfortunately, there still is a great deal of confusion about what is in [the reform law] and what isn’t,” Sebelius told ABC News Radio in an interview Monday.
With several vulnerable House Democrats touting their votes against the bill, and Republicans running on repeal, Sebelius said “misinformation given on a 24/7 basis” has led to the enduring opposition nearly six months after the lengthy debate ended in Congress.
“So, we have a lot of reeducation to do,” Sebelius said.

No, no, no....you guys are doing just fine.  Keep talking, keep talking.  We were supposed to pass the bill to see what was in it, but they guy who "wrote" the bill says that it isn't done yet because it's still being massaged by lobbyists and lawyers, but one day soon, ObamaCare® will be revealed in all its glory. 

Finally, here is one last video.  If you're an American taxpayer, you paid for it, and it features a cross-section of America promoting some ultra-wholesome Big Brotherism.  I didn't spot an Apache Bricklayer or a Transvestite Blacksmith, but all other categories of folks are covered. 
This thing will live forever. 
As long as people like to laugh, they will play this video.  In my retirement, I want to set up a theatre to play "An Inconvenient Truth", "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", and this government video, every weekend at midnight, for the edification of the young. 
Lord have mercy, historians and economists are going to have fun with this thing:

If you think we're in trouble now....

Note to Congress.... Please add Nancy Pelosi to your email message groups

Washington needs to get "on message". 
First, we were told that all healthcare negotiations would be on C-SPAN. 
Then we were promised the most transparent administration ever. 
Then we were promised that all "non-emergency" legislation would be posted on the internet for 5 days prior to it being signed into law by the Prez. 

But every now and then we hear from someone who didn't get the memo.  This clip is only 5 seconds long.  Go ahead.  Hit play.  Please. 



Why are people cheerfully allowing politicians to take over their lives?  Just curious.  I welcome all theories and explanations. 

Two political ads. One of them will live forever as an example of weird

Here's a cool political ad, done The Chicago Way. I really like the Godfather typeface. Tony Rezko, Obama's old running buddy, gets a few shout-outs and its funny how the admakers can assume that their audience will know who Rezko is. Found it on Ed Driscoll's blog.



Here's another one that just might be the 2nd most bizarre thing I've ever seen that took major bucks to produce. Watch a little of the intro. It quickly becomes tiresome. Then go to the 2:10 mark. The special effects make Dark Shadows look like Avatar. Maybe that was the point. Sheesh.



These will only get better as election day approaches. Pass the popcorn ! !

Update from 15 minutes later: Mr. Reynolds at Instapundit just posted Hitler's response to the Demonsheep ad.



He also had a link to this one about the comical reasons we should let the government begin a Cap and Trade system....



Will the Superbowl ads compare with this? I think not.

Cash For Clunkers - Another Rant

I just watched The McLaughlin Group segment that ran yesterday. Eleanor Clift said that the Cash For Clunkers program was highly "succesful".

Larry Summers, who was a Free Market kind of guy until he went to work for The Teleprompter, was on Meet The Press an hour later. He pointed to the Cash For Clunkers programs as something they'd done that was "succesful".

The follow-up on Meet The Press was Harold Ford, Jr. (Mommy Party - Tennessee) and J.C. Watts (formerly Daddy Party - Oklahoma). Ford said that Cash For Clunkers was "succesful".

I think we can safely say that the Talking Points Memo for Sunday morning, August 2nd, included instructions to call the Cash For Clunkers program succesful.

Those three acted like the administration had performed miracles along the line of the loaves and fishes.

Let's break it down into comparable situations, shall we?

If Tim Geithner and I stand outside Wal-Mart with guns (it's legal when Timmy does it) and we force everyone who passes by to give us some of their money, and then we give $7.00 of that money to everyone who is going to purchase a pair of jeans (if they'll trade in one of their old pair), we'll probably be succesful. But only if you're looking at nothing but the number of jeans sold.

If Tim Geithner and I stand outside Home Depot with guns and we require everyone who passes by to give us money, and then we give $40.00 of that money to everyone who is going to purchase a lawnmower (if they'll trade in their old one), we'll probably be succesful. But only if you're looking at nothing but the number of lawnmowers sold.

If Tim Geithner and I stand outside Neiman Marcus....$2,000....purchase a chocolate covered skink....we'll probably be succesful. ....the number of chocolate covered skinks sold.

Can you imagine the furor that would erupt if the nation learned that Neiman Markups, Home Depot, or, God help 'em, Wal-Mart, had actually lobbied for Timmy and me to execute this robbery? Wouldn't there be protesters in Bentonville, Arkansas by now????

So why in the heck aren't people totally outraged over this wealth transfer to Detroit? Beats the heck out of me.

Barack Obama really is our shepherd, and we are The Sheeple of his pastures.

When Shepherds Get Bored

Well-trained Border Collies
Christmas lights.
Video Cameras.
Some compliant sheep.
A pasture.

The business going on during the synthesizer music is a duplication of the late 1970's video game "Pong".

Enjoy !


Light-Up Sheep Art - Watch more Funny Videos

I dare you to watch this and not think of the American electorate.

We the Sheeple of The United States....

I've got a question for you, but first let me rule out the answers I'm not looking for, and why....

Let's rule out The Roman Empire, which required its satellite nations to pay heavy taxes to support the various Caesars, the Roman army, and building projects. The satellite nations generally didn't have a voice in the Roman government.

Let's rule out the various Communist regimes of the past century, and the North Koreas and Cubas which claim to carry the Marxist dream into this century. Those unfortunate people didn't have a choice about the actions of their government either.

I also propose an exemption for the various Imperialist structures of the 1500's to the present. When Great Britain, for instance, ran India and Hong Kong, the subjects of their Commonwealth didn't get to vote on the activities of their government.

I think that covers the broad, general exceptions.....now, the question.

Can anyone think of a time when the citizens of any country voluntarily allowed their government to take this much from the poor to prop up the rich?

Let me define rich: AIG, The Big 3, The members of the United Auto Workers Union, Wall Street, assorted banks and bankers, and possibly American Express.

Is everyone too busy watching Dancing With The Stars to care? Are the struggles of The Dallas Cowboys to clinch a playoff berth too much of a distraction? Is Ron Paul not photogenic enough to get our attention?

Or is it because we don't get a bill for these expenses in our mailbox every month, and these charges are all being put on our grandkids' Bar Tab? My God, this is sickening.


Are we now a nation of sheep?

The picture of Sheeple Grazing In Their Pasture came from here.

A Rant - Republicans, yes Republicans, are concerned that Obama might be a Socialist.

Out of all the totally ridiculous things in the 2008 elections.... the number one absurdity, in spite of serious competition from Reverend Wright, moose hunting, how many houses McCain owns, flag lapel pins, and Hillary crying in New Hampshire....the number one absurdity is Republicans claiming to be concerned that Obama is a Socialist.

How in the name of All Things Holy, after the last two months, can anyone claim to be concerned that Obama could POSSIBLY rise to the same level of Socialist giveaways as the Republican party and their peerlesss feeder, George W. Bush?

If we had merely given our nation's collective Amex, Mastercard, Visa, and Discover cards to a gaggle of Shanghai harbor whores, could the damage have been any worse? Could anyone have intentionally added 20% to the national debt?

And now they're talking about another stimulus check. You want to know what's funny about that? You really want to know?

Here's what I got in the mail yesterday:

To: The Whited Sepulchre
Fort Worth, TX

Dear Taxpayer,

You are entitled to an economic stimulus payment of $1,200.00 as provided by the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008. You can expect your payment by 10/24/08. If you do not receive it within six weeks of this notice, blah blah blah blah.....

I haven't gotten the first economic stimulus check yet, and the damn fools are already talking about billing my grandchildren for another one ! ! ! Isn't the whole idea behind Keynesian economics something about government being the only entity that can swiftly and efficiently control the levers of the nation's economic engine to prevent catastrophe????? Hell's Bells, when my first check was approved, we were in another universe. Everything, relatively speaking, was just peachy.

I'm re-reading "The Most Southern Place On Earth - The Mississippi Delta And The Roots of Regional Identity" by James C. Cobb of The University of Tennessee.

It's a great book about the area in Mississippi where I grew up. Cobb outlines all the abuses of the sharecropping system, especially the requirement that the (largely illiterate) sharecroppers purchase all of their supplies from "The Company Store" - i.e., the plantation owner.

Here's a brief excerpt about what went on after the plantation owners spent a long hard weekend partying:

Frank Smith recalled being told by a plantation bookkeeper of the time when the planter who employed him had ordered him to charge all the tenant families on his place with another barrel of flour, rationalizing this cheating with the explanation that he had lost heavily at poker the night before and could not bear the thought of his wife and children having "to pay for last night".

Does that remind you of anything in the Year Of Our Lord 2008? Anything at all? Let's see what that paragraph would read like 30 years from now:

(A future historian) recalled being told by a government accountant of the time when Paulson and Bernanke told him to charge every American with $2,500.00, rationalizing this theft with the explanation that their friends at Goldman Sachs had lost heavily in the housing market, and could not bear the thought of their wives and children having to pay for....well, just about anything.

Some people might be offended by the parallels I'm drawing between the 2008 American electorate and 1920's sharecroppers.

Well, if you're not yet offended enough to start voting for 2nd parties.....

Lord have mercy, we're a nation of sheep.

Kill The Bill

Michelle Malkin is live-blogging the giveaway package Bailout Bill.

Worth perusing every couple of hours.

A few thoughts I've had today....

I know a lot of people who have defaulted on their mortgages - mostly employees going through divorces, dealing with addictions, or other circumstantial reasons. But the number doesn't seem higher than usual. Where are all of these millions of people who are losing their homes? Do you know many?

Regarding the inevitability of the giveaway bailout....

1) The people on Wall Street clamoring for this bailout, are they friends and contributors to various Congressmen and Senators?

2) Have Wall Street and the banks succesfully lobbied government for tariffs, quotas, tax breaks, loopholes, and other freebies?

3) Will this bailout increase the power of government?

4) Will most Americans continue to vote the way they've always voted?

5) Was the 700 billion dollar figure arbitrarily pulled out of someone's nether regions? Do you believe it's merely the amount they think they can loot from the treasury?

6) Do you believe that we're merely refilling more Golden Parachutes?

If you answered YES to all these questions, but haven't written or emailed your representatives yet, please email me. I want you to invest in this nice Nigerian Lady's project to get some money out of Africa.

If you don't have strong opinions on these questions, don't worry about it. "Dancing With The Stars" and "American Idol" will be into their new seasons soon.

Regardless of our opinions, we can kiss that money goodbye. Check out the National Debt Counter to your right. It's spinning like mad.

That's nothing. It's going to be whirring around like the odometer on Haley's Comet.

Have you paid off your Subprime Mortgages?

Subprime Mortgage.
Subprime Mortgages.
The Subprime Mortage crisis.

That's one of those politically correct phrases that adds a scent of respectability to gambling. The phrase "loaning your savings and insurance money to unqualified people at higher interest rates for houses they can't afford" just seems too harsh.
What would happen if the print, TV, radio, and online journalists started referencing the "Government guaranteed loans to shiftworkers so they can buy McMansions" crisis?
Would that change our perception of the current problems?
Would we be less charitable about the ongoing bailout?

I admit that I can barely allocate my 401K funds properly, but here's the problem as I understand it:

Joe Bob wanted a McMansion. He couldn't afford a McMansion. But we were in the middle of a housing bubble, where prices were doubling every 6 years. Plus, the bank was going to charge him higher Mafia-style interest rates. Prices were going up so fast that if Joe Bob couldn't make the payments the bank would still own a house that was worth far more than its value when Joe Bob moved into it. They could always find someone else to sell it to.

Then everyone woke up and realized that there were too many McMansions on the market, and they weren't worth the asking price. Oops.

I have a lawyer friend in Mississippi who recently got into trouble for falsifying documents on subprime mortage deals - it didn't matter if Joe Bob had never held a job for more than 3 months. It didn't matter if his only job was pulling Curly Fries out of the grease when the timer went off. My lawyer buddy would fix the paperwork so that Joe Bob's employment record could at least fit the "subprime" standard for a Mississippi McMansion Mortgage. When the loan invariably went into default, my friend had his sales commission, Joe Bob had partied his ass off in a new house for 6 months, and the bank was stuck with a devalued house in Crotch Rot, Mississippi.

Because of this scam, my friend has lost his license to practice law, and he's lost his real estate broker's licence. He's now avoiding prison by playing Hannibal Lecter to the FBI's Clarice Starling. Agent Starling comes to his house a couple of times a week with files from mortgages gone bad. My buddy, after putting Miggs in the back yard and offering Agent Starling some Fava Beans and a nice Chianti, looks through the mortgage files and tells Clarice whether they were legit subprime loans or fraudulent subprime loans.

At the time when my friend got into trouble, the bank was responsible for the legitimate loans that went bad, and criminals were responsible for repaying the fraudulent ones.

As of this week, you're responsible for all of them.

And you're still going to keep voting for Democrats and Republicans, aren't you?

It's time to pay your bar tab, sir....

Ever go out with a bunch of friends, set up a bar tab on your credit card, eat and drink for hours, only to have a few of your "friends" excuse themselves to go to the restroom and then leave the premises when it came time to pay the tab?

No? Well, look again.

If you're a U.S. citizen, some people from Bear Stearns recently came to your table and ordered appetizers, multiple entrees, enough drinks to float a small fishing boat, and some desserts for the group in the next booth. They lived like kings.

A few minutes before closing time, they excused themselves and ran for the parking lot. There you sat, wondering how to to explain all those credit card charges to The Little Woman Back Home.

Then, to add insult to injury, a husband and wife named Fannie and Freddie sat down with you the next night, ordered everything "to go", left the table to make some phone calls, and were never seen again. They apparently took their food with them. You're even more concerned this time, because you already talked some of your Chinese buddies into co-signing for this particular credit card.

Your Chinese buddies aren't very happy, and they're thinking of swinging by your house to pick up the dinette set you used as collateral.

You see, this is all fair. Fannie and Freddie have known all along that no matter how much debt they get into, or how many bad decisions they make, you're going to be there for them.

Here's where it gets really interesting. You are going to go out to yet another bar tonight. Yes, tonight. And this bar has it all ! ! ! The Lehman Brothers (see the excellent Michael Lewis book "The Money Culture" for tales of LB excess) are going to sit down at your table. They're going to ask if you're running a bar tab. You, like an idiot, are going to affirm that you're running a tab. Your credit card is there behind the cash register for The Lehman Brothers to see.

The Lehman Brothers are going to order food, drinks, birthday cakes, and promise the waiters very generous tips. They're going to bring in strippers from next door and purchase lap dances.

They're going to leave you with the bill. This is going to happen. And you're going to bend over and take it.

Because they can't be allowed to fail. You can, but they can't. They are the ones who have been making campaign contributions to their buddies in high places. All along there has been the unspoken promise that they can always put their expenses, their mistakes, and their bills on your bar tab.

It's a concept called "Privatize the profit; Socialize the risk".

Why aren't people rioting in the streets? Because we know the government will eventually print more money to pay for all this? Because the transactions are too complicated for us to understand? Because we're the ones who've been voting for Republicans and Democrats all these years?

Or perhaps it's because we're a nation of sheep.