BobDruwing's Open Salon Blog

Channeling History

Mon, 9 Feb 2009 20:02:19 -0500

There are basically two versions of history.

The one most people are familiar with is taught in the schools and in the mainstream media. It's what those who want to maintain the status quo and insure their hold on power would have you believe. In reality, it's propaganda and it's dis-empowering.

Then there is the truth and to learn the truth, one must do considerable research and independent study, but it's worth the effort, because it's empowering.

Please see: http://www.squidoo.com/groups/assassination

Barack Obama's First 100 Days

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 05:01:20 -0500

So now that we, at long last, once more have a president who appears to actually be presidential in character and ability, the media is looking at the situation in terms of his first 100 days.

It strikes me as hilarious that the jackasses at FOX News, who unfailingly supported George W. Bush, as he took the nation to hell in a hand basket, are struggling on a daily basis to find anything at all to criticize about Barack Obama. After all, they, like nearly everyone else (including Bush, who couldn’t vacate the Oval Office fast enough for his liking; let’s face it: he never felt comfortable there), treated him like he was the president from the instant he won the election. Perhaps the counting should have started then. It would not hurt the assessment of Mr. Obama any.

Barack Obama has supplied this country with more optimism for the future than George W. Bush ever did, beginning even before he’d won his first caucus, and since his election, he has shown more ability to lead and to analyze the nation’s problems and deal with them in an honest and workable manor than Bush did in eight years, but then the Bush administrations caused more problems than they solved (really, did they solve any?), so this isn’t much of a surprise.

An honest assessment of William Henry Harrison’s 30 days in office would rate Harrison higher than George W. Bush, by nature of the fact that he did the nation no harm. Keep your eyes open. Whatever else Mr. Obama may do during his time in office, he’ll accomplish more in his first 100 days than Bush has accomplished in his entire life. You can count on it.

Where is the credit card lenders' patriotism?

Sun, 4 Jan 2009 04:01:30 -0500

After 9/11, the American consumer was asked to go out and spend. It was said this was the best way to support the economy and show your patriotism, short of shipping off to hunt down Osama bin Laden and his terrorist pals. I don't know about you, but I bought two houses. You may recall that the housing market kept the nation's entire economy out of the toilet after 9/11.

I did really well with one of these houses and sold it at a profit, before President Bush threatened to do away with the mortgage interest income tax deduction, because the housing market was so healthy, he apparently reasonned that mortgage holders could afford to help pay off the enormous deficit that had largely resulted from his unnecessary war in Iraq. Unfortunately I still have the second one many months after his threat caused the stall that was feared may be the beginning of a turnaround in the market and thus became one.

So now that we're in the midst of attempting to bail out the banking industry, among other mega-industries who are apparently less financially savvy than your paperboy, my question is: where is the patriotism in the credit card companies' raising of consumers' interest rates on their credit cards to the default rate, when these consumers haven't made a late payment, spent over their credit limit or otherwise defaulted, thereby only adding to the financial problems from which these many, many thousands of consumers are already suffering?

Oh sure, Congress has already stepped in to prevent the card companies from doing this after June of 2010, when it will be far too late to help most people, but in light of the fact that these interest rates would certainly have been considered usary before the credit card companies argued that they would only come into effect should the cardholder exceed his credit limit or make a late payment, how is it that they justify worsening the situation for those who have both played by the rules and helped the economy as a whole with their spending, by slamming them with these rates that are suddenly trippled over night?

I don't think it has escaped the attention of most Americans that, come election time, there's always a lot of rhetoric about crime, law and order, yet deregulation of the financial industries (among others), by those we've been putting in office for far too many years, has been the greatest contributor to the conditions which amounted to the powder keg to which the president put a match with his afore mentioned threat and, like laws, regulations exist for a reason, the reason being so those who are regulated cannot, with impunity, do things that could be extremely harmful to consumers and our society as a whole.

Though President Regan's economic policies were disastrous for America, there are those who like to revere him as the man who ended the cold war by forcing the Soviet Union to destroy itself financially. Recently CNN ran a story about a Russian financial analyst who has predicted a similar outcome for our country. Those at the top of the pyramid in America may find this absurd, but then they're not, of necessity, living from day to day on their Visa or Mastercard; they're not having to put gas in the tank with their Shell card so they can continue to hunt for a job.

There's plenty wrong with this bail out situation, both the need for it and how it is being handled, but aside from the slap in the face that the rate increase represents, somebody with a loud voice in Washington should be screaming that it is extremely unpatrioic and there should be no sympathy for financial institutions that are adding to the finacial problems of the average taxpayer who is, from the bottom up, providing the funding for the bail outs.

Am I the only one who noticed that George W. Bush ...

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 10:08:00 -0400

Seriously, I know there have to be a great many other people out there whose reaction must have been the same as mine when GWB announced that his administration was considering doing away with the mortgage interest income tax deduction, folks who own at least one property and were well aware that the mainstream media was having no success in slowing down a healthy investor driven housing market, but that they sure seemed to be trying to put the scare into us with week long series like "Is The Housing Bubble Going To Burst?"

Of course, I knew he wouldn't get anywhere trying to monkey with the deduction; it's what makes a mortgage affordable for all of us who can't afford to pay cash for a house, and this is why I knew he wasn't making the announcement for the purpose of preparing us for that. In fact, the following day he announced it again, this time saying that perhaps only a percentage of the deduction would be eliminated and since then it has never been mentioned again.

Now, we know he has advisors and they certainly would have advised him that any legislation to eliminate this deduction would never be passible, if he had been serious about the idea, so why did he make the announcement?

Well my reaction to his doing it was: "This will probably work! Everyone considering buying a home has to wait to see what happens and everyone considering selling just decided to sell!"

So instantly there was a stall in sales and more places for sale. This effect for only the two days showed up as a stall to all market watchers and was reported as a slowdown, which became a self fulfilling prophecy, then a trend, a turn around, until it became what it is today.

Now I'm not saying the conditions for what has happened didn't pre-exist. I fact my point is that GWB knew they existed and knew what he was doing. This was an act of class warfare: dis-empowerment of the middle class by means of eliminating the average American's greatest chance at financial independence and if Bear-Stearns needed to pay a price, well there's always collateral damages in war.

I'm sure the news footage is in the archives of all major networks and you could match the time of the start of the turnaround on a graph to when he made this anouncement for no other apparent reason, so...

Am I the only one who noticed that George W. Bush touched off the mortgage meltdown and the subsequent world-wide financial crisis, just as certainly as the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand touched off World War I, breaking the one thing he hadn't already broken in this country, the thing that held this country together financially after 9/11, so that people like me, with good credit, and good 30 year mortgages at low rates, are getting screwed blue, because our houses have dropped in value by 50% in 2 years?

This didn't happen because of bad loans, folks. Even most "bad" loans were functioning just fine in a healthy market where the morgage holders knew they could refinance, because their property had appreciated at a healthy rate, not suddenly plummetted in market value, because the President had manipulated the market.

Believe me, had he pulled off the exact same sort of market manipulation on the more regulated Wall St. (and, while we're on the subject, God knows just who among his cronies may have bet against the mortgage industry at just the right time on Wall St.) he'd be in jail, where he belongs.