Houston: Movin' On Up

Much to my surprise, Houston is now among the top 10 most expensive urban hellholes in the United States. It fit snugly at number 9 with the seat of our socialist government and president, Washington, D.C., coming in at 10. Of all the big cities in Texas I would have expected douchebag-paradise Dallas or dirty-hippie-scumville Austin to be on the list. Oh well.

The good news in the article was that real estate prices in New York City are declining, albeit slowly. Still...going in the right direction. More money in your pocket for the subway.

Behind the Scenes at Gitmo. Or not.

This should be interesting. Binyam Mohamed, former Gitmo detainee, wants documents related to his torture released. I say get a book deal or a made-for-TV movie. But he wants to do it the hard way.

Common Ground

I think we can all agree that balloon boy story was pretty stupid.

I Can Be Like Oprah Too

Last summer some bloggers banded together to start "Infinite Summer," which was a giant blogger book club all reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. At the moment, the group is reading Bram Stoker's Dracula. I would join in but they started at the beginning of August so I'd already be two weeks behind, and I read Dracula two Octobers ago.

However, the new found nip in the air and sense that our country is going through a profound transformation have led me to pick up the great American novel, Herman Melville's Moby Dick. (Full Disclosure: I have read much of the book before but it was rushed for class, many pages were skipped, and it was six years ago.) Throughout the course of my reading I'll occasionally blog about the novel, and I invite others to join me (don't all raise your hands at once). Since it's fairly long and not the lightest reading in the world, I will set a goal finishing the book by New Year's Day, 2010. I was thinking of calling the series "Winter of Dick," but I'm open to suggestions.

The War On Drugs

This is long overdue. The discrepancy between sentences for possession of similar amounts of crack and powdered cocaine is a disgrace and a relic of crime-filled paranoia from the 1980s. From the article:

Under current law, it takes 100 times as much powdered cocaine as crack to trigger the same mandatory minimum sentence.

No matter how tough on drugs you are, that is indefensible. Some advocate increasing the mandatory minimum sentence for possession of powdered cocaine to be in line with that applied to possession of crack, but I prefer the approach taken in the new legislation offered by Senator Durbin. The mandatory sentence for possession of crack should be decreased.

The "War On Drugs" is a giant money pit that does little good for society and I'm pleased some legislators are starting to realize this. We need to reevaluate the way we approach drug use and addiction in this country. Crimes like armed robbery and homicide should of course be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, regardless of whether or not drugs are a factor. However, putting people in jail for "possession" simply wastes resources, especially for possession of marijuana. Moreover, it puts people with no violent past in the same cells as those incarcerated for violent crimes. I fail to see how putting someone who got high in his dorm room in the same room for months as someone who committed a home invasion helps society.

Sadly, facing up to these problems in our criminal justice system just doesn't appear to be something our government is capable of, no matter what party is in power. Any effort to change policy opens up politicians to charges of being "soft on crime." The best hope is that as some states liberalize their drug laws, the trend may catch on and one day the federal government will act as well.

Until then, we'll have to comfort ourselves knowing that one ludicrous, revolting part of the "War On Drugs" might be at an end. It's a start.

CRA : Far From Blameless

As with any debate, both sides love to mischaracterize things, even on this blog, via snide innuendo mostly. I'm guilty of it as well. However, there are somethings that a dash of sarcasm can't stand up against. For this, I am defending my post regarding the stimulus, not the part about the stimulus directly, but specifically 84 words regarding the Community Reinvestment Act ("CRA") found in piece totaling over 1,100 words (word counting is all the rage on the internet, right?)

And even though I will go ahead and assume most people will either skim this piece given my intro, or roll their eyes and not actually read any support I throw out there, whether because they are in a hurry or facts are inconvenient, doesn't really concern me. The reason being, in my own self righteousness, I've read most every damn word posted or linked to on this site because I feel it's necessary.

Ugh.

Now then, in this piece linked to in this post, Robert Gordon professes his belief that CRA is not responsible - in any sense whatsoever - for the problems we are facing today in this country. If you read it, it's very convincing. He does a good job laying things out simply and making a straight forward case against how conservatives blame CRA for the housing market. He even makes some good, valid points - mostly about profit motive.

But, he fails to appreciate the cycle which led to the current state of affairs, which indeed started with, what else, CRA.

In studying the history behind the law during my final semester at STCL, I was able to follow the progression, over 30 YEARS, from CRA to what we have now. And, I'll direct you here (though I doubt anyone will trouble themselves and actually read it), for a fairly well laid out defense of this position, instead of quoting or paraphrasing it directly. The article addresses step-by-step, the contentions I've heard and read regarding why CRA is a factor in our current economic crisis.

I must say, however, that when I read the article by Mr. Gordon, my initial reaction was, "he's totally missing the point. Without CRA, we wouldn't have gotten to this point in the first place." Does this mean that without CRA, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley would have come or not come around? I don't know, that's something we can never know because the past is unchangeable.

I will also directly concede that many conservatives abhor governmental regulation, but, as I said in my previous post, I believe that good laws are necessary to keep things balanced, that regulation is, not only helpful, but necessary to avoid the raising up of robber barons and whatnot. But, just as hurtful as the absence of regulation is, regulation that is punitive, overly restrictive, hearts-in-the-right-place-but-makes-no-economic-sense, commerce killing is just as bad. CRA falls into the category of punitive and hearts-in-the-right-place-but-makes-no-economic-sense. The punitive part is what makes the second part actually happen - otherwise no sane business would do it in the first place.

And to say that conservatives are doing nothing but blaming poor folks for this whole mess is just propping up a straw man argument because we aren't blaming poor people. The myth is perpetuated because I believe it makes them feel good because it's apparently God-given fact that conservatives hate poor people. I'll not get into my personal experience here, but I just don't think that joke's funny anymore. But, you'll be happy to know you got my dander flaring, so smirk up. The sad part about this is the people loosing their homes because they were taken advantage of by the mortgage companies, security traders, and banks, enabled by CRA.

I'll leave with this. I had a professor who is nearing his 90's. I took two classes with him, Oil & Gas Law and Federal Procedure. He often would talk about God, how women can vote now, and when he was the mayor of Bellaire, and that he's been a life long Republican and never thought he'd see a black man in the white house. I can picture the uneasy smiles of my fellow, female and minority, students. So, you can image everyone's surprise when he said that as long as we've got the death penalty, we might as well just use it on Berney Medoff. Why am I mentioning this? Because even the staunchest of conservatives think the "shitbags" on Wall Street are mostly to blame for this mess. But, please, let's not keep supporting bad laws in the name of "liberalism" via CRA.

We Two Jeans Together Clinging

I'm somewhat conflicted about using the only known recording of Walt Whitman's voice to sell blue jeans. It does debase the country's greatest poet a little, but I also feel like he would have been ok with it.

However, the idea that Whitman can still move merchandise comforts me. Maybe there's hope for us yet.

Self-Parody Watch

"Ronaldus Magnus"

The Government Made Them Do It

It has become a pillar of conservative thought recently that the economic crisis wasn't caused by a lack of government regulation, but by poor people and the ivory tower liberals who love them. In 1977 those dastardly liberals in Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, and then our innocent captains of the financial industry were forced to give loans to poor people which caused the apocalypse thirty years later. This view of the economic crisis has even appeared on this very blog, but I believe it is wrong for reasons summed up here. I would put more blame on the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act if we're focusing on the government, but I still believe most of the blame lies with the shitbags on Wall Street. I guess I'm old fashioned.

Perry to Commission: "Leave capital punishment alooooneee!!!"

Our beloved, immaculately coiffed governor, Rick Perry, is now obstructing the Texas Forensic Science Commission's efforts to investigate whether Cameron Willingham was innocent, and therefore probably shouldn't have been executed. Turns out the arson he was convicted of may not have been arson at all. Whoops.

As forensic science has improved over recent years, we seem to be finding again and again that the state makes gross errors in criminal investigations that could lead to executing innocent people. Some are lucky and are exonerated before they are executed, but Cameron Willingham wasn't so fortunate. To me, the best solution to this problem would be to just stop executing people. That way any possible miscarriage of justice can still be set right. One thing I don't understand about conservatives who are in favor of capital punishment is that they don't trust the government to do much of anything right, but they trust them to stick needles full of poison into the right people. I believe that is one power the state shouldn't have.

Holy crap, it's real life "Pralaya"

Way back in 2002, our dear leader, Christopher, and I wrote a movie titled "Pralaya." In this particular film there was a story line revolving around a mother character who had difficulties with having children, which led her to terminate numerous pregnancies. One of the problems leading to this was her desire to be a mother and her husband's reluctance to having more children. The couple had two children, a son and a daughter.

Why am I talking about this? Because of this woman.

To quote Keanu Reeves, "Whoa." Kinda creepy how close our fiction was to reality.

Why I Like To Be Stimulated By Joy Division

It's hump day, y'all. Work is for chumps.

Why I Don't Like the Stimulus

Congress is calling for a second stimulus to inject new cash into our economy. My initial reaction was a bit jaded, in that I figure they’d wait till the congressional elections got a little closer to toss the second half of TARP into the market.

Being the conservative that I am, a proud believer in capitalism, ardent foe of graft, ardent supporter of earning your keep, and essential realist, a second stimulus does not settle well with me.

This article from the Wall Street Journal (hold your knees for a moment so as not to knock your shins from the jerk) states what I think is a fairly simple idea regarding the stimulus: “Every dollar [the government] injects into the economy must first be taxed or borrowed out of the economy. No new spending power is created. [The stimulus] merely redistribute[s] from one group of people to another.”

I am not an economist, but I find the statement very easy to understand. To toot my own horn, that may be because I am a graduate from the Bauer School of Business at the University of Houston and had the opportunity to study in depth how business are created and managed, how jobs are truly created, etc while acquiring certification in their No 1 ranked entrepreneur program. Further, I rounded out my education at South Texas College of Law focusing my studies principally on the U.C.C. (generally the beautifully intricate laws governing much of our financial schemes), Bankruptcy, and Banking laws. I can honestly say I have studied the horribly drafted laws propping up our banking system, including the punitive statutes that strong armed American banks into lending money to individuals with no means to actually pay for it. Motivated by a mostly good natured yearning for greater diversity (or fiery passion to give a helping hand to those less fortunate), these laws, among other things, ultimately gave us the housing bubble and put many of those intended to be helped in even worse positions. And I say all this as evidence that I have at least a modicum of understanding on the subject.

And despite the terrible results of this type of short-sightedness, even if well intended, is exactly what I fear will occur if our government continues “stimulating” our economy in this way.

People argue the stimulus worked. To that, I think it apt to respond that the surface, superficial bleeding may have been momentarily curtailed, but the death inducing internal bleeding never stopped, as is becoming evident, by the increasing decline in the economy.

The toxic assets bought up by the government are still toxic assets, but now we’re getting to pay for them collectively – with money lacking credibility because 1) foreign governments don’t want to bail us out, 2) confidence in the dollar is steadily falling, and 3) the theory behind stimulus is only that, theory, and not proven economic fact.

Case in point, the stimulus was supposed to help create jobs. With unemployment at 9.8%, and “trending up,” and the so-called, “real unemployment rate” at almost 17%, it’s hard to see how the first stimulus did much in the long run. The number of persons unemployed in the U.S. is now over 15 million, more than double the amount in 2007. Why? The amount of jobs “created or saved”, in the 100,000’s, were significantly less than jobs lost, in the millions.

Okay, so that’s one reason to doubt trumped up claims about the stimulus’ effectiveness.

Here’s another, by flooding the market with fresh U.S. dollars, the government is, bit-by-bit, destroying the value of its currency, which then makes our global neighbors reticent to use our cash. This also ratchets up inflation, leaving we, the American people, with decreasing purchasing power, both because we can’t buy as much and because we may not be actually earning much (i.e. no job and dependent on unemployment checks) – meaning less people buying stuff, less money going into the market, and a shrinking economy.

To add insult to injury, we have to pay it all back, and how do we do that? Taxes. We can either raise them and stifle the economy, or we can lower them and truly stimulate the economy, and generate the needed tax revenue (but we can’t do that and keep spending like a teenage girl with her daddy’s credit card – the gov’t being said teenage girl, daddy being us, the public).

Many states that relied on the first round of stimulus cash are still losing jobs and, big surprise, need more cash. For instance, look at Michigan, the state with the highest unemployment rate in the U.S. In the last ten years, the state has lost over 800,000 jobs, in the next year they expect to loose another 130,000 jobs (or 370,000, depending on how the math works out, I believe it’s meant to read the sooner rather than the latter). Not dismissing the 40,000 jobs being created by the state's green initiative, partly funded by Fed money I would assume, but 40k increase (taking up to the year 2020 to finally get to that mark) paired with 1 million decrease is hardly acceptable. And it's no secrete, California is bankrupt and on the verge of going the way of Argentina. And according this article, 46 states are essentially bankrupt and will need further cash from the Fed to survive. But what happens after that? Another stimulus…again and again? Increase taxes and witness the populace flight of the monied people a la New York? This tax and spend model is obviously not working. We don’t need temporary fixes, we need long term strategy.

The stimulus is not just delaying the inevitable, it’s making it worse. I believe it would be better to endure some hard times now, let the system correct itself, as it has the proven ability to do, and stop trying to wrangle the un-wrangle-able. Meddling with the market is what got us here in the first place. Don’t misconstrue and think I want laissez-faire, I don't and believe good laws can, and do help maintain growth. But, let’s stop thinking about tomorrow, and think about a decade from now, two, three decades from now.

"In reality, economic growth -- the act of producing more goods and services -- can be accomplished only by making [workers] more productive. Productivity growth requires a motivated and educated workforce, sufficient levels of capital equipment and technology, a solid infrastructure, and a legal system and rule of law sufficient to enforce contracts." [from the WSJ article above]

Not more government spending. Business establishment, business spending, business hiring – actual job creation. Private, not public.

Simple formula for economic prosperity = lower taxes (more to spend) + less government spending (that way they don’t need to tax our cash so much).

Why it won’t work:

1) A big chunk of our growing population (in number and in girth) would rather get paid for doing nothing, than do something and get paid for it (i.e. lazy). 2) The people in charge are intellectuals who’re running on theory rather than reality. Which is a general criticism of the left, good intentions mostly, but unable to deal/face consequences. Or, maybe the consequences are okay with them…I don’t know. 3) What I perceive, as true hatred for capitalism.

How Dare Our President Win An Award

The Villagers still have sand in their collective vagina over Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Apparently this is one of the worst things that's ever happened to this country and is comparable to hurricane Katrina. I'll let Indian Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor tell them what they can't seem to understand:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
War of Peace - Shashi Tharoor
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore

Note To Self

This would make a good beginning for a movie. My urban hellhole is so full of colorful and inspiring characters.

Because AFI is awesome and I won't stop until everyone knows it, that's why.

Good 'ol fashion AFI, gotta love it. Circa 1999, "Total Immortal" from the All Hallow's E.P.

It's Called a Trend

Dear Matt Drudge,

I realize that you don't believe in climate change. You are entitled to your opinion and can gather evidence to try to prove it, but showing that it's cold today somewhere on the planet, and that in all likelihood it will be cold somewhere tomorrow, does nothing to help your case. I don't think the scientific community's position has ever been that it will continue to get hotter and hotter every day until we all burn to death next year.

Love,

Chris

Baby Phat, I mean Fat.

All that milk may do the body good. But what use is a healthy (uninsured) baby?

The New Joie de Vivre

I was quite surprised by this article on workplace suicide in France. She didn't like Mondays. Seems like they don't like Mondays. And Tuesdays. Well, just life in general.

p.s. I am not crying out for help.

RIP: the weekend

Dancing Jack from trunk animation on Vimeo.