12.1 Billion of TARP money for bonuses?

Dear Federal Government,

I'm writing to you to inquire about the completely obscene bonuses that you're letting companies who borrowed massive amounts of public money pay out. Between Bank of America, Citibank and Merill Lynch they're paying out 12.1 billion dollars in bonuses. I know that many of the people at these firms are hard working Americans who probably desire a little extra in the paycheck, but this seems just a little steep. I don't know about what business classes you were forced to take in college, but at least the marginal one I was forced to sit through gave me enough of an idea of how a business should work that if you're not making money, you probably shouldn't be paying bonuses.

I'm wondering if you see the insane hypocrisy of companies who helped drive our national economy into the ground using money borrowed from the Federal Reserve to keep operating now blowing it all on bonuses. I guess I was delusional as an American that this money would be used for things like fixing the economy and that it would have the same sort of strings attached that food stamps might have, you can buy food so you won't starve, but no booze or smokes!

Now that we're all part owners of these companies I wonder if you will do the right thing and step in take this money away from these nitwits. Obviously if they've got the money to pay people one million dollar bonuses, they don't need ours.

I guess I could ask why you decided to save all these companies in the first place. Honestly, I think that talk about being too big to fail was just to make sure you didn't look stupid since all your deregulation bullshit had finally come full circle to bit us all in the ass. I'm beginning to think all the deregulation stuff is just a misleading name for letting companies run amok without any accountability.

It's been my observation, however myopic it may be that people in Wall Street are interested in one thing only, making money. They don't care who it hurts or the long term consequences of their actions. IF they did, do you really think we'd be in this situation?

Now I know that as far as this whole bonus situation is concerned, since congress is completely bought and paid for their won't be any resolution. The American people will continue to take it up the ass while our hard earned money is given to these weasels.

Your loyal citizen.

Well isn't that a pile of sad shit...

I don't know how many of you remember this, but a couple of years ago down in New London Connecticut a bunch of people were evicted from their homes and the town took their land under eminent domain. Obviously the homeowners got lawyers and the whole thing ended up at the supreme court where the court basically fucked the average citizen in the ass and said that it was totally cool.

It's good to know that after all that, they went and built a... oh wait... the lands still sitting barren four years later?!?

Are you telling me the town evicted a whole shitload of people and then bulldozed their homes and then did nothing with the land?!?

What about that hotel and those condos they were going to build? Oh it was predicated on the idea that they were going to build some Coast Guard museum that I guess the people involved haven't even decided they're going to put in the area?

Wow that's pretty fucking lame. I guess when it's time for elections that'll be a pretty easy campaign slogan:

"Vote for me! I won't steal your home and then bulldoze it for nothing!"

Also a shout out should be made to the Supreme Court who basically decided that business was more important than peoples rights, but this being America, we pretty much knew that was the case anyway...

What really scares me...

I've got a house and a couple of cars.

If I went outside and found my car a smoldering hulk, while I'd be sad, I know that my auto insurance would at least give me enough money that I could go to a dealership and get myself another car. Yeah, it would be a hassle, but it would be okay.

Same with my house. If a pipe burst and my cellar flooded, or if there was a fire or a tree landed on my house, I know a phone call later things would be okay.

However, I don't hold out any illusions when it comes to health care.

Getting sick, even though my health insurance comparatively speaking to others is probably really good is a scary proposition.

It amazes me that in this day and age, the number one reason of people going into bankruptcy is because of medical bills.

Yet our congress, who I might add apparently is fully of weaselly dipshits care more about keeping their health care constituents happy then actually serving the people they supposedly represent.

I fully understand these fucks live in some wacky bubble where real world shit doesn't affect them, but I have a distinct feeling, their caving to the health care industry is going to back fire in a huge way, at the ballot box.

How much more expensive is health care going to be, while supplying a inferior product before these nitwits wake up.

If we can't have nationalized health care system, then I think the government should demand that any health care provider who wants any government perks must become a none profit.

I don't understand why these nitwits fear becoming a government entity anyway. It's not like real market forces effect the government. Got an over priced weapon system designed to fight an enemy that doesn't exist? No problem, we'll still fund it! And these guys would actually produce a useful product.

I think the problem that these guys have is that if the government was to provide a universal health care program, or was to nationalize the existing systems into the Department of National Health non democratic countries around the world would see it as a failing of capitalism.

Unfortunately, the health care system, strayed away from capitalism a long time ago. The first big issue is that in a fee based system, healthy people don't make you much money. Thus there's really no incentive for them to treat a problem when it first appears. If it looks like you might be diabetic, offering a free gym membership isn't going to be nearly profitable as selling them insulin, lancets and syringes the rest of their lives... Being efficient isn't profitable.

Thus, until a really great health care system comes out that is both profitable and good for the patient (and can get past the red tape and monopolistic behavior of the existing health care providers) we'll be stuck with our current bad medicine.

Dear Sarah Palin...

Wow, how you've fallen from grace girl! What happened? Only a couple of months ago you were riding around in a private jet with lots of nice fancy cloths actually thinking you might be vice president. Now here you are resigning as governor hoping like hell you don't end up getting brought up on ethics charges!

I know it must be rough when the press who sat on their asses while George Bush and his cronies got us involved in a bunch of illegal wars, lied to the American people and racked up massive debt basically gave them a free pass, maybe you were hoping they'd give you the same courtesy.

Who are we kidding. We both know the only reason you got elected as governor of AK is because the last guy was so terrible your entire campaign consisted of "I'm not that guy." The only reason you were picked as vice president was in hopes of stealing votes away from those people who were pissed that Joe Biden was picked for VP instead of Hillary Clinton.

It could also be that after seeing Barack Obama speak they realized they were totally fucked and needed a scapegoat to blame when things went wrong. I can't imagine that any presidential campaign worth its salt wouldn't have looked into your closet and closely examined all the skeletons before signing off. We both know the GOP has better scruples then that! Except we both know the don't... More likely is the idea that by basically burning you at the stake they've taken the heat off the prior administration that had you not been such a hilarious side show would likely be infront of a congressional hearing answering for all their bullshit.

We both know the GOP is totally freaked out by women in power. The idea of a woman in control of the largest state in the union must have really pissed some people off. What a better way to get rid of you then to nominate you for the VP, know you'll fail but will fail so amazingly that by the time the dust cleared you'd be hawking crap on informercials. I also hear that Cheney had his CIA assassin squad take care of a certain boisterous TV celebrity to make room for you!

Though now that the press has had a chance to look into your personal life, I'm sure MTV called and pitched the idea of the reality TV centered around your life. I'm sure it'll be something of a mash up between the real world and that show about Hulk Hogan's house.

Best of luck with all that!

Mashup...

Hey Gang,

I'm going to warn you now that this post is going to be all over the place!

I've always been a huge space nerd and 40 years on I'm still awed by what we were able to accomplish and saddened by how little we've accomplished since then. Yeah, the ISS is kinda cool, but it's in low earth orbit and it's honestly been a huge money sink. I'm not sure we've gotten anymore out of it then we got out of Mir.

When you think about the Trillions (a number with 9 zeros after it) we spent fucking up Iraq/Afghanistan/etc we could have a fully manned base on the moon and mars and a couple ISS as way stations!

Also, while the shuttle is cool, we should have started a long time ago building it's replacement. The big issue is that it's not nearly reusable as we were led to believe and it's actually turned out to be a huge headache to maintain and it's fragile.

I've been watching what's been going on in Iran with somewhat of a sidelong glance. In so much that after we've finally getting Iraq sorted out, Iran (who BTW had a lot to do with the instability in Iraq) is going to come apart at the seams. What I think the whole world has learned (as well as the Islamic council) is that there is a whole heck of a lot of unhappy people in Iran who feel very disenfranchised. We've also all learned that the the people currently in power basically will do anything to stay in power and anything they say about democracy is just empty prattle. Now, a weak Iran might be good for Israel, so how they're going to manipulate this is yet to be seen.

Now, of all the TV shows I've ever watched, one of the shows that I can watch over and over is Futurama. I've come to the painful conclusion that Fox is being run by drug addled criminally insane gophers in clown suits. How do I know this? There is talk of recasting the voice actors for the show...

FOX, are you out of your FUCKING mind(s)? While your at it, why don't you redub all of the smurfs with and Gilbert Godfrey and Serena Williams!

I'm pretty sure in some sensible society what you're doing would be considered a crime!