Sander's Blog

How Can You Say Nothing and then Repeat It? Palin Perfects.

It's no surprise by now that Senator John McCain chose Sarah Palin exclusively, disrespectfully, and foolishly for her gender and her gender alone. Crys of sexism can now take a backseat to my correctness, because she has had several weeks to disprove what all of us were already thinking, and she has completely botched it.

For weeks, day after day, Sarah Palin has said absolutely nothing. And then repeated it.

These are the things that Sarah Palin has said on the campaign trail in every single city she has visited:

-I told Congress "Thanks but no thanks" on the Bridge to Nowhere (1)
-I sold the governor's plane on eBay (2)
-I'm a pitbull that wears lipstick (3)
-I went up against the Good Ol' Boys network in Alaska
-I took a voluntary paycut (4)

(1) Since revealed that she was a strong supporter of the plan until it became wildly unpopular and was deemed unfeasible. But she continues to say this line.

(2) Plane not sold on eBay. Sold through private broker at a loss to the state.

(3) References to lipstick by anybody but herself will be violently lashed out upon.

(4) As with most Republicans, a paycut actually means a decrease in an increase. Her pay went from $65,000 to $64,000, and then three months later shot up to $68,000. It should be noted that as a Governor making less than $70,000/year, Barack Obama's tax plan would benefit her more than McCain's.

So, next time you want to relax, just turn on the extremely limited access to Sarah Palin's interviews and enjoy the white noise that is her position on any subject.

Oversight on $1 Trillion Dollars of Spending

Years ago, when we all went through the tragedy of the attacks on the World Trade Center together, the American people banded together and gave something to the government, and the President, that we've rarely, if EVER, given together. TRUST.

We trusted the President and his congress to draft a hastily crafted bill called the Patriot Act that promised to help capture and bring justice to those that caused such harm on our soil. They acted on our fears and emotions to prevent any delays (a.k.a. discussions) on the bill. In retrospect, we've all seen that the Patriot Act has put some of our most deeply revered personal freedoms in jeopardy. Money was spent through no-bid contracts, phones were tapped, people were blacklisted from flying domestically, the list goes on.

Today, the President spoke out to the American People about how necessary it was for Congress to pass a $750 BILLION DOLLAR CORPORATE BAILOUT without delay in order to prevent the worst financial crisis in history from completely crippling our economy. Sound familiar???

The bill, as it currently exists, allows for complete and total freedom by the executive branch to spend the money any way they see fit. The Bush administration draft of legislation, in section eight, proposes that actions of the Treasury under the act "are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." Additionally, and perhaps worst of all, the bill does not specifically include any actions that would help taxpayers and homeowners. These are the two groups of people that have been and will be most dramatically affected by this massive proposal. Democrats in both houses are trying to demand provisions in the bill that would help American homeowners and give both taxpayers and the government a shareholder stake in the companies they are about to purchase (takeover) in order to assure that if the companies begin to prosper in the future that the payouts will be big and go back to the right people.

WE CANNOT ALLOW THIS BILL TO BE RUSHED WITHOUT THE PROPER OVERSIGHT. Please, call your senator if you have any doubt that they are fighting for this to be taken seriously and carefully. (202) 224-3121

Tell them that you support the biggest single government expenditure in history being deliberated thoroughly and including protections for the people that will be paying for it, the taxpayers. You and I.

Ninja Loans

There has been a certain kind of loan, called a NINA loan, for many years. NINA stands for "No Income, No Assets" and these loans were available to selected people with credit scores of above 660 and a Loan to Value ratio of no more than 75%. Basically, it allowed credit- worthy people that may be self-employed or otherwise didn't have the traditional documentation to receive a loan.

That's all fine and good.

During the housing bubble, a new kind of loan called a NINJA loan appeared. NINJA stands for "No Income, No Job, no Assets." Now, does your gut feeling tell you that a person with no income, no job and no assets is a good candidate for a loan? If you get a funny feeling from that, you shouldn't be working for a lending agency. Millions of people who NEVER would have been able to buy a house were all the sudden capable of making their dream come true. Sounds like a great program, right? Except that dreams turn into nightmares quickly when all the sudden you can't afford your mortgage anymore, your house isn't worth what you paid for it, and nobody wants to buy it anyway.

Welcome to the present.

Lenders guided, tricked and coerced people into mortgages with terribly unstable terms because there was financial incentive in it for them. Loans (debts) are traded on Wall Street and nobody cared about the outcome until they found out they were the last in line and nobody wanted to trade with them. Now, we have perhaps the biggest financial crisis in history looming and people are pointing fingers while the CEOs of predatory lending companies take golden parachutes and escape to the tropics.

Many people, for many reasons, are to blame for this mess. But in my opinion, first and foremost, the policy-makers at these lending agencies are guilty. Instead of walking away from their mess with multi-million dollar payouts, they should be tried and imprisoned for lending fraud, false advertising, SOMETHING. (I'm clearly not a lawyer.) Whoever sat around a table and decided that they would give huge loans to people that they KNEW couldn't pay them back, therefore placing their stockholders at great risk, should be held accountable.

Now I know that the government bailout, AT THIS POINT, may be the only option to fix this mess, but we still need to address the cause of the problem and make sure it never happens again. If these people get away with millions of dollars and the idea that the government will bail them out in the future, we've made negative progress. I mean, at least the first time they may have known they were gambling. Now if they see that the government (and Republicans in this specific instance) are willing to privatize rewards but nationalize risk, it will be a sure bet.

There needs to be a clear map drawn out for the people of 1.) What steps were taken to get us into this place, 2.) What steps are being taken to get us out of it, and 3.) What legislation will be put in place to prevent any future occurrences. *If we don't learn from this, will be do it again.*

The Cost of the Bailout

Just laughing at the irony of how the Republican platform has always been about less government spending, more deregulation, free-markets. Not necessarily a bad talk, but certainly not a good walk...

Here's what's happened in *less* than ONE MONTH...

$700 billion bailout package for Wall Street
$438 billion projected deficit in the federal budget for 2008
$200 billion for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
$150 billion in rebate checks that some people call “stimulus” (my first $600 stimulated my gag reflex)
$85 billion for AIG
$29 billion for Bear Stearns

That makes… $1,602 billion ($1,602,000,000,000)…. quite a bill if you ask me.

Forget about "who's gonna raise taxes for who" in the current election, think about who’s going to pay for all THIS? (Hint: Me, my kids, my kids' kids, their kids, their nephew's kids, their grandchildren's' children...) I feel like writing a letter to my Great Great Great Great grandchildren that says nothing but "Wasn't Me."

On the plus side, even if my great grandchildren are still broke from all of this, at least having a 400 year-old letter on actual paper will be worth something on eBaymazon's List (I'm assuming eBay, Amazon and Craigslist will have conglomerated by then....)

The national debt ceiling will have to be raised for the second time in two months to accommodate all this spending… now it will be $11.3 trillion… boosting the national debt to over 70% of GDP. The highest the national debt got during the Great Depression was 44% of GDP.

Me thinks it's time to take my silver bars and gold coins just wait in a bomb shelter until it's all over.

P.S. This information is from CNN.com, AgoraFinancial.com, The New York Times (NYT.com), and the US Government website.

She's coming down!

The old office is getting torn down right now!

Date Night!

At Central Cinema watching Raising Arizona and drinking a pitcher with muh boy!

My City

Another beautiful day at the Pike Place Market in Seattle.

iPhonery

I'm sitting at Starbucks with 3 other people and we're all on our iPhones. Is this what the future smells like?

Amy Walker on the Today Show!

My beautiful God-sister showing off her talents to Matt and Meredith

Happy Halloween!

To celebrate the recent (and unexpected) addition of a MacBook to my
life, I'm dressing up as a Windows System Error!