“No one in congress read the faux stimulus bill. According to their own accounts, not one senator or one representative read the entire bill. It is more than scary that so much money is taken from our future to pay for things that may well not be beneficial to our economic recovery, without anyone actually reading and debating the details of the bill…

All of us are suffering in this recession. Why aren’t the 92% of homeowners with mortgages that are being paid on time, just as deserving of tax dollars as those who refuse or can’t make their mortgage payments? That would be real stimulus. Why does it make sense to keep people in homes that they cannot afford? …

The great American dream of accomplishing anything if you work hard, are creative, honest and smart, is crumbling while our government continues to reward stupidity and avarice while building up a voter base.”

Why are we still paying for these morons aka representatives in Congress?  In this day and age we can all cast our own vote using our computers - why on earth do we need to pay ‘representatives’ - let all of us do the voting - now that would be a democracy. And of course, then we would really have ourselves to blame…

“four of the five biggest contributors to the 2008 campaign of Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, were finance companies; ditto for the committee’s ranking Republican, Congressman Spencer Bachus.

Talk about down and dirty!

In the Senate, it’s the same deal. Since the start of 2003, Citigroup (C) has been the largest contributor to the war chests of U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd and U.S. Senator Richard Shelby — respectively, the Democratic chairman and ranking Republican of the Senate Banking Committee. Also among Dodd’s biggest donors are American International Group (AIG) and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). You can’t make this stuff up!

The entanglements between members of Congress and banks like Citigroup, Goldman Sachs (GS), Bank of America (BAC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Morgan Stanley (MS) run wide and deep. Because of this financial finagling, fixing the banking system and redesigning the U.S. regulatory structure are doomed, unless the incestuous bonds are broken.”

So, we are pouring good money after bad just because these guys need the campaign contributions - where is the media on this - looks just as bad as the Blagojevich scandal - or maybe worse, because nobody’s talking about it. If Obama is serious he should be asking these guys to resign from the committees they have a conflict of interest in - today.

I want my tax money back….

“Ten of the 13 big beneficiaries of the Treasury Department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, saw their outstanding loan balances decline by a total of about $46 billion, or 1.4%, between the third and fourth quarters of 2008…. This is even as they scooped up $148 billion in taxpayer TARP funds intended to stimulate lending.”

So Mr. Obama - good start with the $500,000 CEO salary cap (which should have been in place from the start of TARP and should be retroactive) - next step, tell these guys they have 30 days to lend the money or else give it back. This was not supposed to be ex-bank-CEO turned Treasury chief handing out our money to protect his old banking buddies. Otherwise, this ‘bailout’ looks like it’s just taxpayers paying for the mistakes made by rich bankers to give them time to try to cover up their greed and irresponsibility.

Something smells fishy when the TARP money was supposed to free up credit and stimulate lending, and yet that still doesn’t seem to be happening.

And, from Dr. Ron Paul:

“From the Great Depression, to the stagflation of the seventies, to the current economic crisis caused by the housing bubble, every economic downturn suffered by this country over the past century can be traced to Federal Reserve policy. The Fed has followed a consistent policy of flooding the economy with easy money, leading to a misallocation of resources and an artificial ‘boom’ followed by a recession or depression when the Fed-created bubble bursts…

Abolishing the Federal Reserve will allow Congress to reassert its constitutional authority over monetary policy. The United States Constitution grants to Congress the authority to coin money and regulate the value of the currency. The Constitution does not give Congress the authority to delegate control over monetary policy to a central bank. Furthermore, the Constitution certainly does not empower the federal government to erode the American standard of living via an inflationary monetary policy…

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to stand up for working Americans by putting an end to the manipulation of the money supply which erodes Americans’ standard of living, enlarges big government, and enriches well-connected elites, by cosponsoring my legislation to abolish the Federal Reserve.”

So, step 3 - get rid of the Federal Reserve - the founding fathers warned against establishing a central bank - and we now have evidence that they were right. Now that would be change!

This stimulus plan is the old Democrats at work - riding on Obama’s good-will, and they might just use it all up in one fell swoop.

According to the Wall Street Journal -

“There’s $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn’t turned a profit in 40 years; $2 billion for child-care subsidies; $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects. There’s even $650 million on top of the billions already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons.

Some $30 billion, or less than 5% of the spending in the bill, is for fixing bridges or other highway projects. There’s another $40 billion for broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects that are arguably worthwhile priorities.

By our estimate only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus.

This is supposed to be a new era of bipartisanship, but this bill was written based on the wish list of every living — or dead — Democratic interest group. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it, “We won the election. We wrote the bill.”

I really am not a fan of Nancy Pelosi - and she is the ‘brains’ behind this bill - and Obama does not have any line item veto. If this is what he wanted in a stimulus package, I need to do some serious re-thinking on my vote last November. This is my idea of same-old, same-old, which is what I thought I voted against.

Can you believe the latest - this guy hits the talk show circuit rather than show up at his own impeachment trial. Someone said they are wondering about the governor’s mental state. Well, I’m not wondering - this guy is certifiably nuts.

Maybe after he’s booted out of office, he can find a home in Iran with I’manutjob (Leno’s name for Iran’s not so sane president).

I mean really - who do they think they are? Why do they think they they can dictate union busting because they have foreign auto makers in their states without unions. Do these bozos have any idea what they are doing? Do they really think the foreign auto companies can survive in the US if all their suppliers are half broke with production a shambles because the US auto makers are gone?

I’m not saying the unions shouldn’t make some concessions, but not because of a senate mandate. It is not just 3 companies and all their jobs at stake - it’s their suppliers, and their suppliers, and theirs… and on and on. Millions and millions affected. We are all connected - and more likely than not YOUR job will be impacted if the big three go belly up - maybe not immediately, but the pain will trickle through the supply chain…

I wish there was a way to ‘recall’ the senators and start over with a clean slate of non-good-old boys. This is too important for good old boy politics as usual - but they just don’t seem to get it, or else they just don’t care.

Who does this guy think he is, and how stupid or egotistical can he be to think he could get away with auctioning off a senate seat to the highest bidder. Especially since he was already under investigation, and he knew it - any ‘normal’ person would ‘lay low’ - but not this guy. He also tried to get editors at the Chicago Tribune fired in exchange for millions of dollars - editors who wrote things about him he didn’t like (perhaps the truth?).

Now, he’s saying he is absolutely innocent - but the Feds have got him on tape. Does he honestly think anyone can believe what he’s saying?

Ok, I have not tried to get a loan lately, so I have no experience with getting turned down, or not.

I have not tried to get a mortgage lately either, so again no direct experience.

But, when I go to the store - it’s not empty. When I drive to work, the roads don’t seem any less crowded (even when gas was 4.00 a gallon).

House prices may not be going up, but I can’t say I see any real bargains either (I don’t get any foreclosure lists, I just watch the Sunday real estate shows - so maybe I’m missing the bargains).

I don’t know anyone who has been layed off - although I know quite a few who are worried.

Compared to 2001/2002/2003 when the telecom debacle was in full swing - when everyone I knew was either layed off, or about to be, or scared to death - while the media was not talking about it…

Just kind of made me wonder - if I wasn’t watching the news, what would I think about the economy?

So, I’m hoping this is unusual. I needed to upgrade bloxsom once in 3+ years, and that was just fine with me - and it worked.

Wordpress worked fine too - with or without the upgrade, same for the theme, and same for the plug-in. Maybe after I’m more used to this, I’ll feel better ignoring upgrade requests (after all, if I upgraded every time XP wanted me to, that’s all my PC would be doing ;-).