Just one more thing Monsieur...

It's been a while and there's really no good excuse for not writing, so....

Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Everybody has heard about Dominique Gaston André Strauss-Kahn by now. You know, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) who is an economist, lawyer, politician and member of the French Socialist Party and was accused of sexually assaulting a young hotel staff worker in New York City. Well apparently he's going to be let out on a million dollar cash bail. He will have to submit all his travel documents to the Court and be under house arrest in New York in an apartment that his wife will rent for him at whatever the costs in addition to the $200,000 per month that they will have to pay for security for the home detention dictated by the Court. He will also have to post a further bond of $5 million more just to insure that he doesn't flee the city.

Now my question would be, well apart from the "I wonder if he came from the blow job on the face or in her mouth," but that maybe just my own sordid little issue and I really do believe in being innocent until proven otherwise; but my question would be is, how much money do these bastards make for being socialists?

The Art of the Accountant

I don’t think that I have given my explanation of our present financial or economic crises and how it came about. Now I suppose I could go into explaining about sub-prime mortgages and credit default swaps and collateralized bond obligations, but I bet you already know about those. Instead, I’ll just give you a quick allegory. Tell me if you have heard this one before? You probably have, it’s about 40 years older than my father and he’s been dead for almost 10 years now.

There is this boss who is hiring for a position in his company and he has 3 people come in to the office to interview for it. While interviewing the 3 people separately, he asks them the same question, “What is two plus two?”

The first candidate was a lawyer and he answered the question using historical and legal precedents, bringing up references to the Napoleonic Civil Code, the Magna Carta and even a few passages from the Koran and the Talmud. Finally he said, “As you can see, historically, ethically and legally, there is only one number that can be found to be a true representation of the sum of two plus two, and that can only be four.”

The second person was an engineer and thought there must be some trick involved, but she answered much more simply, "Depending on whether you’re dealing with positive or negative numbers," she said, "the answer could be plus four, zero, or minus four.”

The third person was an accountant and when he was asked the question, he looked to his right and then he looked to his left. He looked at the interviewer straight into his eyes and then he got up and walked over to the window. He pulled the venetian blinds down and closed them. Then he walked over to the door of the office, opened it and took a quick look outside. He closed the door and made sure that it was locked so that no one would enter. He walked back over to the desk and leaned over looking his potential boss in the face and said barely above a whisper, “How much do you want it to be?”

And that’s the crisis in a nutshell. Not enough people willing to give us a straight answer. Just accountants and CEO's and Madoffs telling us what they think we want to hear.

Here endeth the lesson.

G-20....Bingo!!

This picture would be funny if you knew the movie this referenced, trust me on that. If you want you can click on it and I'll show you what I mean.

I was going to write about something personal today, but I haven't figured out how to put it down. Instead I think I could do some gossip about Operah's girl school or Madonna's attempt to adopt another African child, but I don't really care about either. So if you don't mind, here are just a few pictures that I've stolen from the news organizations and few thoughts behind them.

You know if there is one thing that I can say about Hillary Clinton it's that she seems to be having the time of her life knowing that no matter what happens, few people are going to blame her if it all goes terribly wrong.

Could this really be the face or faces of our salvation that will lead us from our economic doom or will they guide us to it?

And when exactly did the Obamas think that they would go from the picture above to the picture below?


Or even to this picture where if I could recognize more than 7 or 8 world leaders who may be determining my future, I would be doing well.



You know the last time I lived in London, the only black policeman I knew about was the one that did traffic control outside of the Hammersmith Odeon. I wonder what happened to him.

Also the only riot that I have ever been in was during one of the Notting Hill Carnival riots in the late 70's where the police didn't really have riot gear to speak of.




I remember before crossing the police line to see things from the other side, how 1 constable had picked up headboard from a twin bed and proceded to defend himself from the bricks and rocks that were being hurled at his position. Crack! was the sound of a brick as it made contact with the headboard. Crack! was the sound of the second brick as the policeman swatted it away. At that sound, all of us behind him started to clap as if he was up at bat playing cricket at Lords. It was a very British riot.

Sometimes I miss those days.

I'm Not Mad

I don’t think I am as mad as hell. I think I can take a little bit more in fact. I don’t why that is, I don’t have any special hidden reserves or caches of loot buried in a Swiss account or a bank in the Bahamas or wherever rich people keep their funds. I don’t have a wife who hasn’t worked a day in her life but somehow says that $160 million is hers and that whatever I may have done illegally has nothing to do with her assets. I am no more secure in my life or situation than anyone else I know, and yet as the world seems to be on the edge of heading into the abyss, I am not mad about it and I wonder why.

I think I should be mad. I see the value of my property fall as well as those around me. I see my debts rise in proportion to the hike in local taxes that are coming and the increase in insurance premiums. I also see my ability to cover those obligations decrease more and more while I receive less and less in services that I pay for. We only have 6 police officers in my town and 2 of them are part timers. At night the police station closes and if something happens you have to call the City of Camden, the county seat, and have them dispatch someone. I should be mad, but I’m not.

There are a lot of people who are upset and or up in arms about the bonuses that some executives received at AIG after fucking up the company and the economy. I am not. I see them as people who have learned to look after number 1 and I can’t fault them for that. If truth be told, in my next life I want to come back as one of them or at least have whoever represented them in their contract and compensation negotiations represent me.

I say if Congress or the Administration didn’t bother to care before about what the company would do with the money that they were given, or think that they wouldn’t do a Merrill Lynch shuffle board play on them, then why should I? You may answer because you and I will have to pay for it, but I would say that I’ll be long dead by the time that thing is paid for. I mean isn’t that we have done before, what we do now? Don’t we just pass on our obligations and the results of our actions on to those who come behind us? Isn’t that what things like global warming, national debt and social secuity all about?

For years now, corporate executives have made a ridiculous multiple in earnings of their average employee, and no one said anything; probably because people were just waiting for the opportunity to get the chance to make that amount of money for themselves. And now that things are going sour, people act like the inspector in the movie Casablanca, shocked to find out that there is gambling going on in the premise, but I’m not mad.

Really I’m not mad. I think like a worker bee, like a drone, I just shovel shit from one hole to another and wait for the next shoe to drop. I’m resigned to it.

I taped a copy of this movie years ago when I first saw it. But I’m not sure I know where it is now and it seems to be so appropriate at this time. Although I know I’m not at that stage yet, but I'll let you know when I am.

"Please Sir, can I have some more?"

So last night I was able to get my drink on. I had about five or six drinks but I only paid for one. It was like the old days when I could walk into some place and people would think that because I must have looked like new meat, I could have been had for the price of a beer or some cheap watered down mixed drink. It was too bad that many of them would just walk away a little lighter in their wallets with just memories of some insignificant polite conversation. That was my specialty. Like Marlene used to sing,

“Men cluster to me like moths around a flame.
And if their wings burn, I know I’m not to blame.”

Of course nowadays it's no longer as simple as it used to be. Like women my age who have to paint their faces and wear that wonder bra that will show their best assets, I will sometimes go for the tight leather jeans, no underwear and a strap cock ring for extra emphasis. There is nothing that says "hold your interest" more than a man with a nice print, and that's regardless of what or who you are into. Plus that was the look I was going for until the shit started to hurt and I had to pull off the ring in the bathroom. Why do I bring this up? I'm not sure really other than to say I needed a little attention and so I played the part. I played it to as far as I was comfortable with.

The CEO's from Detroit's Big 3 needed a little attention when they went to DC, cap in hand like Oliver Twist asking for a cup of gruel. (What is gruel?) They needed a few more billion to tide them over for the next two years because the economy had destroyed, or was about to detroy their business unlike what it must have done to Toyota and BMW.

However as everyone knows, they didn't get what they asked for but instead got the message of come back again later but with plan that states how they will become profitable. And next time try a little humilty by maybe not using the corporate jet which cost $20,000 for the day on average and trying slumming it in 1st Class instead when asking the tax payer to cover them. I've heard since that GM has already sold off 2 of it's 5 corporate jets in order to start saving money.

All I'm saying is that if I were advising the CEO's, I would tell them that they should pick the best and most fuel efficient car that they make and drive down to DC in order to make their point. Of course they would run the risk of breaking down in Pittsburg and perhaps alienting those that thought the Big 3 were salvagable. But they may also get the sympathy vote and get even more than they wanted. Who knows?

All I'm saying is that sometimes you just have to strap on whatever you need to strap on in order to show off your best attributes if you want to get what you want.

Mugabe, white man's Burden?

When I was young, most boys like me would read comic books about Superman or Batman. Some boys would follow the Marvel Superheroes, but I never got into that. I was more of a strictly DC Comics man myself. But what I really enjoyed was going to the library and reading all of Hergé’s TinTin books that I could get a hold of. They were about childhood adventure, crime and travel around the world in order to save the day and put things right for everyone. Until I hit my mid 20’s, I had thought that I had read all of the TinTin books but then I came across the hidden book, TinTin au Congo and I was shocked.

I wasn’t shocked in a debilitating way. But I was offended by the cover of a young African child with huge plate like red lips flapping in the wind being driven by his white European pseudo master. I was reminded that these books were written in a different age when Hergé was a Nazi collaborator (maybe) and imperialism and colonialism was a good thing and black people were seen as less than human, or at least people who needed to be taught the right way. It was the time of the white man’s burden.

I never read the book not just because it was in French, but by that time black people were coming into their own. The King of Pop was black at the time and was turning the music industry around. The other MJ was the ruler of the sports arena and pulling in celebrity, fame and fortune. I think RJR-Nabisco was on of the largest companies in the world and that was headed by an African American and New York City had gotten its first and so far only black mayor. Apart from a few earlier troubles with Idi, most African nations were free and independent and headed for a prosperous era that they had not seen since before colonialism. Even South Africa looked like it would free Mandela and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe was the one that everyone was trying emulate.

But I guess all that changed when Mugabe decided that the agreements that he had made for independence in Britain with the former Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia, Ian Smith were no longer valid and he started to turn farmland once held by white settlers over to his own supporters whether they knew how to work a farm or not. They say that the land has become fallow now and inflation has risen astronomically and that the people are hungry. They say that other industries there have collapsed and the economy has become so burdensome that it affects the economies of Zimbabwe’s neighboring countries. I'm not saying he is wrong in what he wants done, but it may not be working out for him or the people.

There is to be an election in Zimbabwe tomorrow with the leader of the opposition Morgan Tsvangirai refusing to campaign because of the violence that they say is perpetrated by the Mugabe militia against those who do not support him. As Mugabe has already said that he will not leave office until his work is done, a sort of African version of Charlton Heston standing by the NRA podium crying out, “from these cold dead hands,” and holding up a rifle above his head. In other words, it's doubtful that any change will come to Zimbabwe unless it’s a Mugabe change.

What does all of this have to do with the people who live across the Atlantic? Nothing probably. Except maybe that if Zimbabwe is a allowed to become more and more unstable, how soon will it be before the country's instabilities become exported to neighbors like South Africa or Zambia where we do business? How soon then will it be that the US puts on its neo-colonialist hat to protect American interests like it has done so many times before? How soon will America have to start driving the Africans around just like TinTin? Who knows?

Checks & Balances

A friend of mine at work sent me the following email. It’s about the government stimulus rebate check that will be sent out to tax payers in order to jump start the economy.

WHEN YOU'LL GET YOUR REBATE
The order in which the IRS sends out payments will be based on Social Security numbers. If your return is processed by April 15, here's what you can expect.
Direct deposit payment
If last 2 digits of your SS# are: Your rebate should be sent by:
00-20 May 2
21-75 May 9
76-99 May 16
Paper check
If last 2 digits of your SS# are: Your rebate should be sent by:
00-09 May 16
10-18 May 23
19-25 May 30
26-38 June 6
39-51 June 13
52-63 June 20
64-75 June 27
76-87 July 4
88-99 July 11

Source:IRS

Up until now I had not really thought about what I would do with the check once I received it. One idea I had was to continue what my father used to do with his extra cash and send it on to my cousin in New York, He’s a guest of the state there and won’t have access to creating a decent life for himself for a hell of a long time; life in fact.

Another idea, the practical one was to pay off a bill or set it aside to pay upcoming bills like my gym membership or cell phone bills. I should do something an adult would do, something dull, something dreary. But I know I won’t.

The third idea is to get an iTouch media player to replace my iPod. I can get one for $599 and if I went to Delaware I would pay no sales tax and walk away with a dollar that I can use to buy a soda or play the lottery. Can you imagine if I won the lottery on a dollar tax rebate, it would be like the gift that didn’t stop giving. I would be so excited that I would probably nutt, ejaculate automatically right there on the spot. I would be so grateful I would have to join the Republican Party and start supporting the war. I would get so crazy, I would have to run down the street and holler that Bush should be made a saint. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

What I’m actually thinking about now is that I can really help the economy by buying shares of Bear Stearns. As everyone knows, the share price for that venerable company went from over $90/share less than 2 months ago to $2/share yesterday and there is an offer for JP Morgan Chase to buy them out, although I believe it went up to $5 today. Of course it’s always risky to get into something that is a reflection of the failed policies of both the Federal Reserve and the government, but how much lower can the price get? And anyway, it’s only $600. Even if I lost every cent, no one is going to have to worry about me jumping off of some building in downtown Manhattan. There are other things that would keep me much closer to home.

Oh I know, if I’m going to throw the money away, I can go back to Morimoto. It’s a restaurant in Philly that is owned by Stephen Starr and the Iron Chef of cable fame. I had dinner there once last year. I was with a friend, Curtis. I’m always dragging him out some place, one day he’ll turn on me. Anyway, so I ordered a bowl of soup and sushi and he got a basket of cold noodles that you had to pour a sauce over it to add flavor. We also ordered a bamboo shoot of Saki to wash the stuff down. Yes I said bamboo shoot; I guess having it come out in a bottle would have been just too Western.

I think with the tip, the whole thing came up to $180. That was $90 for a bowl of soup, 4 pieces of sushi and something to drink that reminded me of my own stomach juices. Crazy.

I still wake up in the middle of the night with night sweats thinking about that dinner. It’s a memory that still lives with me. Hmm, now there’s a thought, I can stimulate the economy and have a lifetime of nightmares. Money well spent I think.