An American Problem

At the time of the auto industry bailout, it sure sounded encouraging when President Obama announced that we were ushering in an era of "creating new jobs, unleashing new prosperity and manufacturing the fuel-efficient cars and trucks that will carry us toward an energy-independent future.”

So, how's that working out, Mr. President?

Oh, of course.

But at least something is being sold, right?

In particular, what Mr. Obama called his “one goal” — having Detroit “lead the world in building the next generation of clean cars” — is nowhere near being achieved. While the idea of improving G.M.’s and Chrysler’s fuel efficiency was doubtless a politically popular justification for the bailout, American consumers have not embraced the goal with equal fervor. Sales of fuel-sipping compact and subcompact cars have actually dropped this year, while pickup and sport utility vehicle sales grew by double-digit percentages.

Woooo hoooo! It may not be green, and it may not be next-generation as promised, but at least sales are up! That has to be a good omen. But... who is buying?

Another troubling trend is an increase in fleet sales — the delivery of huge numbers of units to corporations and government agencies. While fleet sales improve short-term volume, the profit margins are slim and the practice can hurt long-term sales as consumers come to view the models as unsexy “fleet queens.” And Detroit has gorged on such sales in 2010, with some 32 percent of all vehicles from the Big Three sold through October going to fleet operators. Furthermore, a quarter of all the hybrids built by Detroit since President Obama took office have been bought by federal agencies, showing that enthusiasm for Detroit’s hybrids is limited somewhat to government fleet buyers.

In addition, even when it comes to the trucks and S.U.V.’s that Americans actually do want to buy, the bailed-out automakers are building vehicles faster than they can be bought. Inventory levels at both companies have ballooned this year, to the point where G.M. now has nearly three months’ worth of sales sitting on its lots...

Feeling better yet about the success of these bailouts?

Allowing new cars to pile up on lots may well be the most deadly of Detroit’s new-old bad habits, as the practice not only artificially inflates sales numbers (which, ridiculously, are booked upon production, not when a vehicle is driven off the lot), but also lead to yet more incentives, fleet sales, subsidized leases and subprime lending.

Sigh. I keep looking for a silver lining in this piece, but I'm not seeing it.

I know, I know, we can't expect a 180° turnaround in two years after decades of behavior, but overall this does not look at all like any lessons have been learned. In fact, it reminds me of the state we're in politically: a lot of promises about change, efficiency, and a brighter future while bending over backwards to maintain the status quo.

Why We're Screwed

Paul Krugman of the New York Times, writing about the "Mortgage Morass," says Happy Friday, ya'll.

True to form, the Obama administration’s response has been to oppose any action that might upset the banks, like a temporary moratorium on foreclosures while some of the issues are resolved. Instead, it is asking the banks, very nicely, to behave better and clean up their act. I mean, that’s worked so well in the past, right?

The response from the right is, however, even worse. Republicans in Congress are lying low, but conservative commentators like those at The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page have come out dismissing the lack of proper documents as a triviality. In effect, they’re saying that if a bank says it owns your house, we should just take its word. To me, this evokes the days when noblemen felt free to take whatever they wanted, knowing that peasants had no standing in the courts. But then, I suspect that some people regard those as the good old days.

Capitalism is hard at work.

The Next Wave

For months I've been hearing about this so-called "recovery" we're in and all the while I've believed this is a premature celebration. Of course, most of the celebrating has been on Wall Street, and a few upticks in department store sales. But nothing has really screamed recovery yet.

In fact, the devastation at the state level is beginning to trickle gush down to basic essential services -- our backbone. Atlanta's MARTA is feeling it.

On Monday night, workers and officials at the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority volunteered to paint the X’s on a third of the system’s buses and trains to symbolize the 30 percent cut in service the agency is facing because of a decline in sales tax revenue and a Republican-dominated Statehouse that has been slow to help.

[...]

“We are just crawling out of a recession,” said Sam Massell, a former mayor of Atlanta, “but we will be knocked back into another one if the salespersons are not behind the store counters, if the restaurant workers are not in the kitchens, if the office staff are not behind their desks.”

About 46 percent of the more than 100,000 people who use Marta to get to work each day say they do not have access to other forms of transportation.

More than 80 percent of the nation’s transit systems are considering or have recently enacted fare increases or service cuts, including those in Kansas City, Mo., Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C., according to a survey released this month by the American Public Transportation Association.

Teachers are also about to become acutely aware that the recession is far from over.

From coast to coast, public schools face the threat of tens of thousands of layoffs this year in a fiscal crunch likely to result in larger class sizes and fewer programs to help students in need.

Reports of deep staffing and service cuts are emerging in several states, including California, Illinois and New Jersey, as school officials say that finances have been stretched to the breaking point.

[...]

Education Secretary Arne Duncan estimated that education layoffs could total from 100,000 to 300,000 unless Congress acts.

"It is brutal out there, really scary," Duncan told reporters on Capitol Hill. "This is a real emergency. What we're trying to avert is an education catastrophe."

The irony here is that we are making cutbacks in areas that cannot be outsourced to India or China.

While Wall Street banks may be celebrating, millions of people at the other end of the spectrum are bracing for yet another clusterfuck.

1 in 4

That's the number of people with mortgages in Florida who are behind on payments.

That's an economy on the rebound?

Nationally, it's one in ten who were behind at least one payment in the last quarter.

The delinquency figure, and a corresponding rise in the number of those losing their homes to foreclosure, was expected to be bad. Nevertheless, the figures underlined the level of stress on a large segment of the country, a situation that could snuff out the modest recovery in home prices over the last few months and impede any economic rebound.

Unless foreclosure modification efforts begin succeeding on a permanent basis — which many analysts say they think is unlikely — millions more foreclosed homes will come to market.

“I’ve been pretty bearish on this big ugly pig stuck in the python and this cements my view that home prices are going back down,” said the housing consultant Ivy Zelman.

The overall third-quarter delinquency rate is the highest since the association began keeping records in 1972. It is up from about one in 14 mortgage holders in the third quarter of 2008.

Our Biggest Problem (What? Only One??)

Your morning dose of reality as seen through the eyes of Bob Herbert, op-ed columnist for the New York Times.

Some 247,000 jobs were lost in July, a number that under ordinary circumstances would send a shudder through the country. It was the smallest monthly loss of jobs since last summer. And for that reason, it was seen as a hopeful sign. The official monthly unemployment rate ticked down from 9.5 percent to 9.4 percent.

But behind the official numbers is a scary story that illustrates the single biggest challenge facing the United States today. The American economy does not seem able to provide enough jobs — and nowhere near enough good jobs — to maintain the standard of living that most Americans have come to expect.

I've already come to terms with the fact that our standard of living is as unsustainable as our current health care system. But that doesn't have to translate into a tragedy. Some of us, perhaps most of us, are going to need to make adjustments in our "American Dream."

But what is really shocking about the current unemployment situation is the impact on younger Americans and especially minorities (well, that part isn't shocking at all; it's the status quo, just on a larger scale).

Only 65 of every 100 men aged 20 through 24 years old were working on any given day in the first six months of this year. In the age group 25 through 34 years old, traditionally a prime age range for getting married and starting a family, just 81 of 100 men were employed.

For male teenagers, the numbers were disastrous: only 28 of every 100 males were employed in the 16- through 19-year-old age group. For minority teenagers, forget about it. The numbers are beyond scary; they’re catastrophic.

This should be the biggest story in the United States. When joblessness reaches these kinds of extremes, it doesn’t just damage individual families; it corrodes entire communities, fosters a sense of hopelessness and leads to disorder.

And I can't help but wonder how involved these age groups are in the critical health care debate. I fear the entire dialogue is being driven by those baby-boomers who have been paying attention and have seen the rampant inflation in the health care sector, and have experienced the costs first-hand, and the baby-boomers on the right who are having their fears stoked by various media figures and right-wing fringe elements throwing up the socialist red scare all over again.

America's youth need to be paying attention and getting involved now. Health care needs for those in their 20s may seem to be a low-priority (perhaps a couple of rungs below the crisis of Twitter being hacked) right now, but this is an opportunity to influence the debate and help shape a system on which they will depend in another 15 years or so.

I know, I know. I'm dreaming again. That is about as likely as Dennis Kucinich winning the 2012 Democratic nomination.

Credit Checks Are Screwing the Downtrodden

This isn't a new practice; in fact I read about this last year and another article appears in today's New York Times regarding employers running credit checks on job applicants and then refusing to hire those who appear to have a history of "bad decision-making."

Business executives say that they have an obligation to be diligent and to protect themselves from employees who may be unreliable, unwise or too susceptible to temptation to steal, and that credit checks are a help.

“If I see too many negative things coming up on a credit check, it’s one of those things that raises a flag with me,” said Anita Orozco, director of human resources at Sonneborn, a petrochemical company based in Mahwah, N.J. She added that while bad credit alone would not be a reason to deny someone a job, it might reveal poor judgment.

“If you see a history of bad decision-making, you don’t want that decision-making overflowing into your organization,” she said.

More than 40 percent of employers use credit checks at least sometimes, according to a 2004 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, up from 25 percent in 1998. The share has almost certainly risen today, say career counselors.

Yeah, like the millions of people who made the "bad decision" to take a job at a company which would at some point lay them off, or the "bad decision" to feed their families vs. pay the mortgage when the option is either/or. And many made the "bad decision" to seek medical help for a serious injury when they had no health insurance because they can't afford it, and are now facing bankruptcy due to the enormous costs of health treatment.

Are there also millions of Americans who have abused credit cards, shopped for things they don't need and can't afford, simply because credit was easy? Of course. But this practice is screening out far too many honest workers who have been impacted by the current recession and making their lives far more difficult.

But hey, people who might easily pass a credit check are just one less thing to worry about because we know they aren't going to steal, right?

Excessive Bank Fees

The $2.7 billion second quarter profit by JPMorgan and the $3.44 billion profit at Goldman Sachs would have been pocket change for Bank of America if they had successfully pulled off this heist.

New Hampshire resident Josh Muszynski bought a pack of cigarettes at a local gas station for what he thought would be a few bucks but his bank account indicated he actually spent $23 quadrillion instead.

Expecting to see a few hundred dollars of charges when he logged online to check his debit account, Muszynski was amazed to see the 17-digit figure of $23,148,855,308,184,500.

Damn him for noticing. I would have assumed another cigarette tax went into effect.

Stop the F-22 Now!

My three-dimensional political spectrum just got a little more bent this morning after reading about the F-22 fighter jets. President Obama has rightfully said he won't sign the military spending bill unless the $1.75 billion program to buy seven jets is removed from the bill.

Senators Edward Kennedy and John Kerry support the purchase. Senators Carl Levin and John McCain oppose it. Supporters want the program because of the high-paying jobs which will be retained. That sounds reasonable on the surface except for one small detail: The Pentagon doesn't really need these jets.

The Pentagon would rather buy unmanned aircraft to gather intelligence in Afghanistan and accelerate the testing for the F-35, a new plane designed to attack ground targets. Pentagon officials say the F-22 is hard to maintain and costs $44,000 to operate for an hour, compared with $30,000 for older planes.

But many Republicans in Congress say more F-22s, which were designed for aerial combat, are needed as a hedge against countries like China.

Holy shit! Let's break this down into bite-sized pieces. In an era when we desperately need to be spending money on things like infrastructure, education, reducing poverty, combating homelessness, health care, gaining energy independence and developing renewable energy sources to name but a few, we have senators pushing for a military expenditure which is unnecessary, simply to keep workers employed. (And keeping executives and stockholders of Lockheed Martin happy.)

It is this kind of disconnect which has me wondering how we'll ever get out of this hole. (We won't, but that's another issue.)

And that argument that the F-22s are a hedge against China? Please. If China wanted to bring us down, they already are well-positioned to cripple us via the economic system. However, Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), the chairman of the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee, believes China will potentially be a threat at some point, "particularly as it will compete directly with the United States for energy supplies."

All the more reason we should be addressing our energy needs now, not when we're over a barrel. No pun intended.

Consider as well, the costs to operate each of the F-22s: $44,000 is one American worker's annual salary for every hour the jets are in use. And that's on top of the $1.75 billion price tag which is another 38,636 such annual salaries.

While that may amount to a minuscule fraction of the jobs we've lost in the current recession, to squander that money unnecessarily is wrong-headed, misguided, and totally void of reasonable logic.

Let's jump back to the China statement for a moment, and John Murtha. And Japan's desire to buy F-22 fighter jets. But there's a slight problem: there's an export ban on the jets.

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), the chairman of the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee, said Wednesday that he intends to meet in the coming days with Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) and Rep. Bill Young (Fla.), Murtha’s GOP counterpart on the Defense subcommittee, to discuss lifting the export ban on the F-22.

The key player in that briefing will be Obey, who in 1998 wrote the legislation that bans the exports of the F-22 mainly to keep secret the aircraft’s radar-evading stealth technology. Obey has not budged since, and it’s unclear whether he is willing to relent.

On the surface, it sounds like a pretty good idea if we want to keep these jobs. Allow Japan to buy the jets instead of us building them for ourselves unnecessarily. A win-win situation, right? Ummm, not so fast. In the world of politics, military, and money, things are never simple.

Murtha, who is willing to work with Inouye on facilitating the sale of the F-22 to the Japanese, admitted it is an expensive proposition that also depends on whether Lockheed Martin’s Marietta, Ga., production line will stay open for several more years. That production line in turn depends on U.S. domestic orders for the plane. The Obama administration did not ask for money for the production of the fighter jet in fiscal 2010 and is adamant about halting production after the 187th airplane is delivered to the Air Force.

Murtha said that he would like to be able to purchase another 20 aircraft in 2010, but that he is uncertain whether that would be possible, considering the total price tag for those planes is $3.2 billion. Murtha also said that he is concerned about the high cost of operating and maintaining the existing planes.

Ahh, catch-22 with the F-22! We need to keep paying to keep the plant operational (i.e. churning out unneeded and expensive jets) until we can work out the details of an export to Japan, which might ultimately help with that Big Red Scare from China when they need more energy.

There are not even any guarantees at this point that this plan will even come to fruition.

For the F-22 to end up in Japan, Lockheed Martin would have to spend a considerable amount of time — several years — demilitarizing the plane. That essentially means stripping the jet of sensitive technologies employed by the U.S. military. That could be costly. By Murtha’s calculations the research and development to remove those capabilities would cost at least $1 billion and could go much higher, and it is unclear whether the Japanese would be able to pay such a steep price.

There's a lot more going on here than just "saving American jobs." I smell a big ol' stinking dead rat.

The Bright Side to Economic Calamity

I'm glad to see prison reform and tough sentencing guidelines for low-level offenders being tossed away in favor of more sensible -- and less costly -- solutions. I'm just not sure why it takes a devastated economy to put that into place. I suspect this is indeed a reflection of the economic realities rather than a concrete change in philosophy.

Once the economy turns around it will be interesting to see if we return from whence we came -- back to ridiculously long prison sentences for mere possession.

Cash-strapped states are increasingly turning to alternative sentencing methods and to streamlined probation and parole as a way to keep low-level offenders out of prison and in their communities.

[...]

The measures include drug courts, which allow low-level drug offenders to avoid prison time through treatment and intense, personal, weekly intervention by a judge, and at least 500 courts for people arrested for driving while intoxicated. Drivers avoid jail by attending regular alcohol-treatment classes and by submitting to random tests.

States have also begun to shorten probation and to reduce the number of people sent to prison for technical violations, such as missing appointments.

[...]

These trends are showing up almost everywhere as a direct response to governors and state legislatures looking with alarm at prison costs eating up increasing shares of their budgets. According to Adam Gelb, director of the Public Safety Performance Project for the Pew Center on the States, more than half the states and the District are trying to reduce the growth in their prison populations through alternative sentencing and through new probation and parole procedures.

Surprisingly, this is happening even in Texas, although our current track record hardly qualified as progressive.

But what is striking, experts say, is how some states with reputations for being tough on crime are most rapidly embracing these policies, which might have once been dismissed as the product of liberal think tanks and soft-on-crime leniency.

Texas is a case in point. From 1978 to 2004, the inmate population rose 573 percent and the state's population increased 67 percent. With hard sentencing laws and some conservative judges, Texas built a "lock 'em up" reputation. The state has more than 155,00 inmates and leads the nation in putting prisoners to death.

But two years ago, Texas officials were faced with an alarming projection: By 2012, the state would need 17,000 more beds, which would mean building eight prisons at a cost of nearly $1 billion.

State Rep. Jerry Madden, a self-described conservative Republican, had just taken over as chairman of the Texas House committee on corrections. "I started asking questions," he said in a phone interview. To avoid building more beds for more prisoners, Madden said, "You either got to slow 'em going in, or speed 'em going out. And Texas is not a state that says, 'Speed 'em up going out.' "

[...]

The changes, implemented in the 2007 legislative session, included more funding for drug and DWI courts. New rules shortened the average probation time from 10 years to five. With about 445,000 people on probation, the system had become "the Number One feeder to the prison system," said Ana Yáñez-Correa, executive director of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, a progressive group.

The state also ordered the parole board to raise its parole rate to an earlier number of 31 percent; the proportion of eligible inmates granted parole had slipped to 26 percent.

With those changes in place, prison population growth slowed to a trickle. From January 2007 until December 2008, Texas added 529 inmates to its total, a tenth of what was projected.

It's enough to make me hope the economy doesn't improve. Because tough times seem to be the only time we come to our senses. And that's rather pathetic.

Losing My Hope

I've been in the doldrums all week and can't seem to snap out of it. The heat might be getting to me. We've already had 15 days of temperatures at 100° or over, and 8 of those days were 105° or more. Today is likely to be the 9th day of such extreme heat. Incidentally, that is my threshold for meeting the definition "hot as fuck." Between 99.5° and 104.4° is just "damned hot." Unless there is an afternoon cloud providing some shade, I am now limiting my walking regimen to mornings until this heat subsides. But I digress.

I am also being weighed down by some very unpleasant political realities which, unlike the heat, will not fade away by mid-September. It's giving me a restless anxiety.

The fact that I built up a set of completely unrealistic expectations for change in the Obama administration is chewing the hell out of my raw nerves. And now that Barack Obama's approval rating is dropping, speculation is being fueled as to whether he will be a one-term president, and whether the Democrats will start losing seats in the 2010 mid-terms if the economy hasn't improved substantially by this time next year. In the meantime, everyone is scrambling to figure out what to do.

The looming political battle is about how to respond, and three camps are forming. The first includes the White House and most Democratic leaders in Congress, who champion a wait-and-see approach until more of the stimulus money hits the streets.

White House officials estimate that the government has committed $158 billion for spending around the country, but only about one-third of that has been spent. Temporary tax cuts have totaled about $43 billion thus far, according to White House estimates.

A second camp, consisting of nervous Democrats and some economists, argues that the government must spur the economy with another round of spending, tax cuts or a mixture of both.

The third camp is led by Republicans, many of whom argue that the spending program was wrong from the start and that the government should focus on tax cuts.

Ahh, yes, the same old tired song and dance routine. Maybe we need a fourth camp.

I keep asking myself, "why are our choices limited to center-right Democrats or far-right Republicans?" The progressive left really isn't getting much of a shot at fixing the problems if we keep becoming disillusioned with a lack of progress among the current crop and then swing wildly back to the right in 2010 and/or 2012.

Then I realize that is the only scenario because this country will probably require another century or two for us to get our shit together. Because the substantive change I am seeking is not going to be brought about by Congressional coddling, reaching across the aisle, and compromising on critically important matters.

To use a beer analogy, when I voted for change, it was not to replace Bud Light with Miller Lite, or even Heineken. I want to be knocked off my feet by a rich, dark, smoky unpasteurized brew on tap, with a thick frothy head, served in a pint glass instead of an aluminum can.

Unfortunately, that's not the American way. And this reluctance to not only embrace change, but failing to aggressively pursue it, could well be our downfall.

The level of corruption in politics is astounding, and our political system itself seems to be choking our hope, or mine at least. Here is one example which brilliantly illustrates the gross inefficiency of our federal and state governments.

According to an analysis by The New York Times of 5,274 transportation projects approved so far — the most complete look yet at how states plan to spend their stimulus money — the 100 largest metropolitan areas are getting less than half the money from the biggest pot of transportation stimulus money. In many cases, they have lost a tug of war with state lawmakers that urban advocates say could hurt the nation’s economic engines.

The stimulus law provided $26.6 billion for highways, bridges and other transportation projects, but left the decision on how to spend most of it to the states, which have a long history of giving short shrift to major metropolitan areas when it comes to dividing federal transportation money. Now that all 50 states have beat a June 30 deadline by winning approval for projects that will use more than half of that transportation money, worth $16.4 billion, it is clear that the stimulus program will continue that pattern of spending disproportionately on rural areas.

“If we’re trying to recover the nation’s economy, we should be focusing where the economy is, which is in these large areas,” said Robert Puentes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, which advocates more targeted spending. “But states take this peanut-butter approach, taking the dollars and spreading them around very thinly, rather than taking the dollars and concentrating them where the most complex transportation problems are.”

[...]

Seattle found itself shut out when lawmakers in the State of Washington divided the first pot of stimulus money. Missouri has directed nearly half its money to 89 small counties which, together, make up only a quarter of the state’s population. The United States Conference of Mayors, which did its own analysis of different data last month, concluded that the nation’s metropolitan areas were being “shortchanged.”

Basically, the stimulus money, or the transportation segment of it at least, is simply being squandered with no rhyme, reason or logic.

Oh, there's a reason all right (emphasis mine):

“We have a long history of shortchanging cities and metropolitan areas and allocating transportation money to places where few people live,” said Owen D. Gutfreund, an assistant professor of urban planning at the City University of New York who wrote “20th Century Sprawl: Highways and the Reshaping of the American Landscape” (Oxford University Press, 2004).

Professor Gutfreund said that in some states the distribution was driven by statehouse politics, with money spread to the districts of as many lawmakers as possible, or given out as political favors. In others, he said, the money is distributed by formulas that favor rural areas or that give priority to state-owned roads, often found far outside of urban areas.

Here we are facing the most dire economic situation since the Great Depression and it's still all about selfish personal greed in political circles. Have no fear, this is all part of the Obama administration's master plan:

Obama administration officials, who have called for ending sprawl and making sure that federal transportation spending is cost-effective, say they are looking at how states are spending the money from the stimulus law, officially called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of the current system.

“The transparency that comes with Recovery Act funds is letting us see what’s happening in real time, and that’s a good thing,” said Roy Kienitz, an under secretary of transportation for policy. “Understanding where recovery dollars go and why will help us determine how to shape long-term transportation policies with the goal of getting the most benefit for every dollar.”

Bull-fucking-shit! Come on! This behavior is nothing new; this has been going on in some form or another through the centuries.

It is clear that states and politicians cannot be trusted to spend the stimulus money wisely, and as it was intended. Hooray for transparency so we can all be annoyed. Well, except for the millions of Americans who aren't paying attention. I know, I know, I'm being too harsh. Let them get through their Michael Jackson grief and then I'm sure they'll come around.

Aside from the economy and the recovery efforts, there's tremendous pressure to overhaul health care which, if the transportation stimulus spending provides any clues, we are likely to get screwed in the ass on that front as well. There isn't a perfect health care scenario, but you can bet we could do a whole lot better than what we'll end up with once Obama and Congress are done compromising and kissing ass with Big Pharma.

The nation's largest insurers, hospitals and medical groups have hired more than 350 former government staff members and retired members of Congress in hopes of influencing their old bosses and colleagues, according to an analysis of lobbying disclosures and other records.

[...]

The hirings are part of a record-breaking influence campaign by the health-care industry, which is spending more than $1.4 million a day on lobbying in the current fight, according to disclosure records. And even in a city where lobbying is a part of life, the scale of the effort has drawn attention. For example, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) doubled its spending to nearly $7 million in the first quarter of 2009, followed by Pfizer, with more than $6 million.

The push has reunited many who worked together in government on health-care reform, but are now employed as advocates for pharmaceutical and insurance companies.

It is ironic that the entire health care reform movement is one giant spreading cancer. But that's politics and the American way again. Expect real substantive change and progress and ye shall be disappointed.

Outside the unpleasant realm of health care and the economy, things aren't any better on the civil rights front. We continue having to fight like hell over no-brainer issues like DADT (although hope is brewing), which makes a repeal of DOMA and full nationwide marriage equality seem hopelessly distant. At least one state has the cajones to go to battle for justice.

Even this initial breath of fresh air is already stagnated a few miles up the coast.
Barely two months after Maine became the fifth state to allow gay marriage, 55,087 assholes have now signed a petition to put that up for a public vote. Thank the Catholic Diocese of Portland and others for that effort. And people wonder why I have such issues with organized religion.

We'll now have that homophobic gem in our faces, along with a big infusion of cash from out-of-state interests to push infuriatingly obnoxious bullshit advertising for weeks leading up to the election day showdown.

Whoever first uttered the words "life is just not fair" deserves a gold brick award for overachieving in understatements.

For the record, in a battle between red and blue, this is not how a progressive country should look.

But once the summer heat subsides, I'm sure I'll calm down and realize just how irrational I'm feeling at the moment.

I Would Gladly Give You an I.O.U. on Tuesday for a Hamburger Today

Those "registered warrants" being issued in California, aka I.O.U's, have been slow in coming for many... or yet to arrive.

“We are out of cash now,” said Carlos Flores, the executive director of the San Diego Regional Center, which provides services to Californians with developmental disabilities. The center is awaiting a $12 million warrant. “I can pay my staff next paycheck, and that’s it,” Mr. Flores said.

Other state contractors who provide services to the disabled had similar stories. Mark Berger, the chief executive of Partnerships With Industry, which offers job placement and training for the same type of clients, said he, too, had yet to get a warrant. “I haven’t heard of anybody who has received one,” Mr. Berger said.

There is also the possibility that if and when the warrants do arrive, the recipients might have to jump through hoops to turn them into cash.

The majority of banks have been clear that they will not take the warrants after July 10. Banks “do not wish to facilitate the lack of resolution of the budget deficit by basically providing this accommodation for an extended period of time,” said Rod Brown, chief executive of the California Bankers Association. “California must become more fiscally responsible.”

[...]

People expecting money from the state who do not get a warrant by Friday have three choices. They can try to find an alternative bank or credit union willing to deal with someone who is not a customer, they can hold the warrant until it matures and collect the interest, or they can try their luck in secondary markets, where some people are already seeking to buy i.o.u.’s at a discount.

What's interesting is that there are plenty of Californians who would gladly pay more taxes to help solve the deficit, under the right circumstances.

28,742 California I.O.U.'s

That's over $53 million on the road to potentially $4.8 billion if a budget agreement isn't reached soon.

photo: Max Whittaker/Reuters

It was only the second time the state had adopted the emergency payment method since the Great Depression. The National Conference of State Legislatures had no record of any other state’s ever using them.

It was unclear whether the i.o.u.’s, known as warrants, would be accepted by all of the banks in California, which were caught off guard by the move and seemed hesitant to entrust the state to repay the them — at an interest rate of 3.75 percent — in October, as promised.

Aside from being the most populous state in the US by far, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world as a stand-alone nation. Get ready for some ripple-effects.

In June, half a million more jobs were lost in the US.

In all, the economy is now coming up short by some 8.8 million jobs: since the recession began at the end of 2007, 6.5 million jobs have been lost and 2.3 million new jobs that were needed to keep up with population growth never materialized.

This joyride isn't over yet.

photo: John Moore/Getty Images

Asshole - Part 2

Foiled Goil, over at Big Brass Blog, did a nice pile-on of my earlier Daily Dose of Asshole post. There is also a link to the WaPo story from Mike Goldman in that post's comment thread.

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with Rep. Kirk?

In a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Kirk said he told Chinese officials "the budget numbers that the U.S. Government has put forward should not be believed."

[...]

Democratic operatives aren't letting this one go. They're fixated on Kirk's declaration that the U.S. budget numbers "should not be believed." In other words, Democrats charge, Kirk is calling his own country a liar.

"After helping get us into this current economic crisis by supporting President Bush's failed economic policies, Congressman Mark Kirk went to China and told Chinese officials that the American government was not to be trusted," says Ryan Rudominer, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "Congressman Kirk's questioning of America while representing our government in China is incredibly irresponsible and endangers the American economy."

Is Kirk the most irresponsible person in Congress? And if not, is he striving for the title? His timing on this is not so great, as if there were ever a good time to rock that boat.

Top Five Countries

These five places make me glad I'm not in Obama's shoes right now.

Mexico

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrives in Mexico on Wednesday for what will be the first in a parade of visits by top administration officials, including President Obama himself next month, to try to head off a major foreign policy crisis close to home. They will find a country mired in a deepening slump, miffed by signs of protectionism in its largest trading partner, and torn apart by a drug war for which many in Mexico blame customers in the United States.

Pakistan

Now, as the Obama administration completes its review of strategy toward the region this week, his sudden ascent has raised an urgent question: Can Mr. Sharif, 59, a populist politician close to Islamic parties, be a reliable partner? Or will he use his popular support to blunt the military’s already fitful campaign against the insurgency of the Taliban and Al Qaeda?

Czech Republic

Transatlantic tension over the handling of the global economic crisis intensified Wednesday when the prime minister of the Czech Republic, which holds the European Union presidency, described the President Obama’s stimulus measures as the “way to hell.”

[...]

...Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek argued that the Obama administration’s fiscal package and financial bailout “will undermine the stability of the global financial market.”

Mr. Topolanek’s comments, only a day after he offered his government’s resignation following a no confidence vote, took European officials by surprise.

Whew! Feeling sick yet? We're not done!

Israel

Israel’s prime minister-designate, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Wednesday that the coalition he is forming would be a “partner for peace,” offering a pledge that seemed designed to reshape his reputation as a foe of the peace process with the Palestinians.

The promise brought a muted response from some Palestinians.

[...]

On Wednesday, Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister and leader of the centrist Kadima party, called the prospective coalition a government “conceived in sin,” according to The Associated Press.

United States

The Obama administration said Tuesday that it would move hundreds of federal agents to the country’s southern border to prevent a spillover of drug-related violence from Mexico, and that it would focus more efforts on stopping weapons and money from flowing south.

And...

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner on Wednesday pressed the case for expanding the government’s ability to take over and restructure ailing institutions that threaten to the broader financial system.

There's five already and I haven't even mentioned Iraq, Afghanistan, China or Russia. Holy shit.

Fine, Let Toyota & Honda Conquer the World

Jeeez!

Right now, carmakers say they would be able to sell only their smallest, most fuel-efficient cars — models like the Toyota Prius, a hybrid whose sales have fallen sharply since gas prices began dropping last fall — because once-popular vehicles like pickup trucks made by Ford and G.M. are not efficient enough.

“I want clean air and clean water just like the next guy,” said Erich Merkle, an independent automotive analyst in Grand Rapids, Mich. “But in the real world, there would be consumer outrage with the fact that they’re limited to maybe two vehicles and there’s nothing there that would meet their family’s needs.”

You want to see "consumer outrage?" I'm outraged that these asswipes are getting billions in bailout money and don't seem to be willing to stretch an inch. These low fuel prices aren't going to hang around indefinitely. Eventually we'll be right back where we were in the summer of 2008. But whatever. I've completely lost my sympathy.

Just yesterday, another 75,000 people probably aren't going to buy a Tahoe, Suburban, Escalade, or Prius. So, chew on that, Detroit.

Thank God.... A Recession, and a Damn Good One

From the US Blows the World a Fart US News & World Report comes 9 reasons why the recession is a good thing. Only 9?

Booming layoffs are a nationwide bummer, but some of the suddenly unemployed will go into business for themselves, and form startups that will grow into thriving companies someday.

I can think of 10. Maybe that rag will have to bite the dust in 2009. How many production line workers are going to form a startup and make a killing?

Oh, sorry, I forgot. It's all about the white collars.

Christianity Running Rampant

txrad, who has been unemployed now for 13 months, saw a job posted he really wanted to do. It involved feeding raw foods to people trying to cleanse themselves. Christians specifically.

Raw food for Christians. Is anyone else allowed to cleanse?

txrad told me tonight that he didn't apply because of a faith statement about The One which was required.

I said, "fuck, that's easy."

I continued, "Well, just say He (the One -- not Keanu) would have been appalled about Guantanamo Bay, waterboarding, the war in Iraq, and any number of other things, and see where that gets you."

If they are really Christian and they are trying to heal, they won't hold it against you that you aren't a Christian and that you are more Christ-like than 90% of Christians.

We just won't say that part. And maybe you won't get to serve raw food for cleansing to anyone except yourself.

Go for it. Nothing to lose reallly.

There's gotta be a raw-food vegan atheist joint around here somewhere that's hiring queers.

A False Sense of Security

Left to our own devices (i.e. the free market economy) I wonder how long we'd ride the worm before implementing necessary change to break this cycle.

From the plains of North Dakota to the deep waters of Brazil, dozens of major oil and gas projects have been suspended or canceled in recent weeks as companies scramble to adjust to the collapse in energy markets.

[...]

But the project delays are likely to reduce future energy supplies — and analysts believe they may set the stage for another surge in oil prices once the global economy recovers.

Much to my dismay, this is already having an impact on cleaner and greener alternatives.

Investment in alternative energy sources like biofuels that had flourished in recent years could dry up if prices stay low for the next few years, analysts said. Banks have become reluctant lenders, especially to renewable energy projects that may prove unprofitable in an era of low oil and gas prices.

This would be an ideal time for the government to take a leading role in promoting and developing green alternatives to better prepare us for the years ahead when we will, without a doubt, be facing prices similar to, or higher than, what we saw over the summer of 2008.

I am hopeful that Barack Obama will lead the way.

Speaking of biofuels, those morning coffee grounds can do more than feed your roses.

In research that touches on two of Americans’ great obsessions — coffee and cars — scientists at the University of Nevada, Reno, have made diesel fuel from used coffee grounds.

Meanwhile, the Toyota Prius plant in Mississippi, scheduled to begin production of the car in 2010, is being put on hold. Indefinitely.

A casualty of a weak economy, not to mention average gas prices back down around $1.66 nationwide.

Can We Pray Ourselves Out of a Recession?

Many are willing to give it a shot apparently.

Photo credit: James Estrin/The New York Times

At the Life Christian Church in West Orange, N.J., prayer requests have doubled — almost all of them aimed at getting or keeping jobs.

Like evangelical churches around the country, the three churches have enjoyed steady growth over the last decade. But since September, pastors nationwide say they have seen such a burst of new interest that they find themselves contending with powerful conflicting emotions — deep empathy and quiet excitement — as they re-encounter an old piece of religious lore:

Bad times are good for evangelical churches.

Maybe. And maybe not.

Gov. Sarah Palin's home church was badly damaged by arson, leading the governor to apologize if the fire was connected to ''undeserved negative attention'' from her failed campaign as the Republican vice presidential nominee.

Damage to the Wasilla Bible Church was estimated at $1 million, authorities said Saturday.

Buckle Up

Get ready for what may be a wild ride.