The Difference Between Republicans and Democrats

Mark Sanford has an affair. This causes people to question him, to call for his resignation and of course it has to reflect on the entire Republican party and how long they will remain in "the wilderness" according to the media.

Gavin Newsom has an affair with the wife of his campaign manager, accidentally pays her off to the tune of $10,154 and finally declares that he need treatment for alcohol abuse.

This only puts him in a good position to run for governor of California and help his party toward a better future.

No double-standard there though.

I look forward to all the Democrats and members of the media who will question the mental state of Gavin Newsom, the state of the Democratic party, and finally how the whole party must be wandering into "the wilderness", the toilet oh, and has no future since the "best" they have run for governor is a philandering, alcohol abusing, law ignoring, mistress bribing, mess of a human being.

For Republicans, this criteria is the beginning of the end of their careers. For Democrats, it is practically a prerequisite to run.

Feel like you are part of a broader trend?

CNN-Recession Gardens

Last year, Burpee released a report saying a family will get an average 25-to-1 return on its investment in a garden.

So, by that count, a family that spends about $200 on a medium-to-large garden, as Michelle Obama reportedly did, will save $5,000 in grocery bills over the course of a year.

That statistic is inflated, said Mike Metallo, spokesman for the National Gardening Association.

Metallo's group says a $70 investment in a garden will yield $600 in produce for the year.

To get those savings, a gardener has to know what to plant, when to plant it, where to plant it, how to deal with different soil types and how to care for the garden.

A couple of good points about this article and the first one is that it is nice to see an article about people taking action to get control of their own lives and not have it associated with some sort of extremism. You can plant a garden and not be an economic survivalist or even own a compound. I mean what sort of country are we that all the sudden growing a garden instead of purchasing a latte makes you a nutjob?

Second the returns there that are being sniffed at are well above what anyone would beg for on the stock market even in good years. The low ball estimate is 900% return on your gardening dollars invested and the high ball estimate is 2500%. This means that even if you don't know what you are doing you can pretty much guarantee yourself a 200-300% return on your money.

Where else could you get that in this day and age?

Obama = The Boomer Bust

NY Daily News

In April 1999, they purchased a Chicago condo and obtained a mortgage for $159,250. In May 1999, they took out a line of credit for $20,750. Then, in 2002, they refinanced the condo with a $210,000 mortgage, which means they took out about $50,000 in equity. Finally, in 2004, they took out another line of credit for $100,000 on top of the mortgage.

Tax returns for 2004 reveal $14,395 in mortgage deductions. If we assume an effective interest rate of 6%, then they owed about $240,000 on a home they purchased for about $159,250.

This means they spent perhaps $80,000 beyond their income from 1999 to 2004.

The Obamas' adjusted gross income averaged $257,000 from 2000 to 2004. This is above the threshold of $250,000 which Obama initially used as the definition of being "rich" for taxation purposes during last year's election campaign.

The Obama family apparently had little or no savings during this period since there was virtually no taxable interest shown on their tax returns.

In 2003, they reported almost $24,000 in child care expenses and, in 2004, about $23,000. They also paid about $3,400 in household employment taxes each year. And as Michelle stated, they spent $10,000 a year on "extracurriculars" for the children.

These numbers clearly show the Obamas were living beyond their means and they might have suffered financially during the decline in housing prices had they relied on taking ever larger amounts of equity from their home to pay the bills.

But in 2005, Obama's book sales soared and the royalties poured in. Michelle explained, "It was like Jack and his magic beans."

Without those magic beans, the Obama family would have eventually suffered the consequences of too much debt.

The reality is that most boomers and most Americans who lived and continue to live like the Obamas have no magic beans, no silver bullet, no possibility of having something come along and save them from the trajectory of their financial choices. The Obamas did and clearly their mentality for solving it for much of their generation is to charge it to the kids while hoping for a silver bullet in medical records efficiency or green technology to save them and our economy from themselves.

Isn't it sad when we have to tell almost 50 to almost retirement age adults that there are no such things as fairy tales? They should know better by now.

A NY Times Reporter's Personal Credit Crisis

NY Times

Reading this I was really struck by a couple passages and this was the first one.

If there was anybody who should have avoided the mortgage catastrophe, it was I. As an economics reporter for The New York Times, I have been the paper’s chief eyes and ears on the Federal Reserve for the past six years. I watched Alan Greenspan and his successor, Ben S. Bernanke, at close range. I wrote several early-warning articles in 2004 about the spike in go-go mortgages. Before that, I had a hand in covering the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the Russia meltdown in 1998 and the dot-com collapse in 2000. I know a lot about the curveballs that the economy can throw at us.

But in 2004, I joined millions of otherwise-sane Americans in what we now know was a catastrophic binge on overpriced real estate and reckless mortgages. Nobody duped or hypnotized me. Like so many others — borrowers, lenders and the Wall Street dealmakers behind them — I just thought I could beat the odds. We all had our reasons. The brokers and dealmakers were scoring huge commissions. Ordinary homebuyers were stretching to get into first houses, or bigger houses, or better neighborhoods. Some were greedy, some were desperate and some were deceived.

As for me, I had two utterly compelling reasons for taking the plunge: the money was there, and I was in love. It was August 2004, just as the mortgage party was getting really good. I was 48 years old and eager to start a new chapter in my life with Patricia Barreiro, who was then my fiancée.

The man was 48 years old and his job is to cover the bubble and the people causing it. This means he is educated, well-informed and at an age where he shouldn't be given over to impulses over reasoning.

In the euphoria of moving in together, we both succumbed to magical thinking about ourselves, as well as about money. My fantasy was that Patty would become an ambitious go-getter. “This can really be an exciting new chapter of your life,” I kept telling her. Patty had a very different dream. “I feel as if I am finally at home,” she exclaimed as soon as we moved into the house. She could settle down and do the things she had always been best at: making a new home, nurturing her children and loving me. One way or another, she figured, we would earn enough money to make good on our glorious gamble.

Magical describes the time and circumstances surrounding our current president Barack Obama who, by the way happens to be 47 years old and has just submitted spending plans that will triple the national debt. Much like this reporter, he has the brains and even sounds occasional warnings about his own spending. However I guess the magic will probably make it all work out in the end right?

I was actually beginning to feel sorry for Chase. It seemed to be so flooded with defaulting borrowers that it didn’t have time to foreclose on my house. Eight months after my last payment to the bank, I am still waiting for the ax to fall.

We have an entire generation who should know better and who are still waiting for something magical to happen, but in reality, they know that ax is going to fall. It is going to fall on our country, on our currency and on our children. It is shameful.

The Long and Short of It

The vehicle I currently drive most next to the vehicle I used to drive most.

I was driving my truck a bit this week. I like to make sure it still gets moved a bit otherwise things go wrong when it just sits (or so I have always been told.)

The oil in my vehicles gets changed every five thousand miles and I use synthetic oil. I casually glanced up at the corner of the truck windshield and noted that the last oil change was at the end of May 2008 and the truck hadn't even hit the three thousand mile mark in almost a year since then. The truck has faithfully engaged in it's new role which is mostly to sit around, get driven once every two weeks to work just to make sure nothing goes bad, and then the rest of the time to haul stuff either for my rentals or for vacation.

I had hoped to have the Escort pay for itself in gas savings within a year. Nothing like a free car to motivate a change in driving behaviors. That hasn't quite panned out as gas dropped from the almost $4.50 a gallon it was here in California to roughly $2.15-$2.25 a gallon now. However my current car still gets double the mileage that the truck gets and that means instead of saving over $200 a month, I'm still saving roughly $80 in gas. It isn't much after you add insurance, registration and maintenance. The actual savings gets down to roughly $20 a month after that. However it is nice to have a third vehicle since all our vehicles are older and owned instead of OWED as so many people tend to do. The Escort at least lets us ride around with air bags and was made in 2002 as opposed to my truck which was made in 1991. Wear and tear would have had a cost on one of these vehicles in some form or fashion so I'm better off no matter what.

Victor Davis Hanson Nails It!

National Review

An imaginary but accurate accounting of how the press would have treated these gaffes, policy positions and just outright lie if they had been attempted by a President Palin instead of President Obama.

My favorite part...

WORSE THAN 'NUCULAR'
ABC’s Katie Couric summed up the general disappointment with the president’s communication skills. “I tried to warn the American people in that interview a few years back what they would get if they voted for her. Let’s face it: She’s a walking embarrassment. I mean just count ’em up: The mayor of Wasilla thinks Austrians speak some lingo called ‘Austrian.’ Then she tries her hand at Spanish and comes up with some concoction, ‘Cinco de Cuatro.’ Next thing she’ll walk into the window of the Oval Office and expect it to open — oops, she’s already done that. No wonder that when her Teleprompter stalls, she shuts her mouth until it catches up. I’m surprised she managed to get sworn in. And did she think that tasteless ‘Special Olympics’ slur was funny? Or making fun of octogenarian Nancy Reagan’s séances? No wonder Wanda Sykes feels at home.”

Yes we know that SNL can claim Palin saw Russia from her porch, but we wonder why they can never remember or make fun of the Obama foreign policy and foreign understanding flubs. We understand that when Palin is great on a teleprompter it is because she is an air headed bimbo (a bimbo who has been married to and has five children with her high school sweetheart) and when Obama need the teleprompter... well he is the smartest guy ever of course and it is proof of nothing with regard to his mighty intellect.

The doublespeak is double tiring.