October 11, 2008
Is it time for the tar and feathers?
I, like most average Americans, am pissed with what is going on in our country.
We see our life savings being sucked into some kind of banking black hole that we do not fully understand beyond the fact that it is the result of greed . We see our presidential candidates do the same bull crap mud slinging at each other and when asked a straight question we never hear a straight answer. We are shown short clips on TV why an idea is a good or bad idea. These ads try to sell us fear in 30 seconds or less. Then you are sent a 200 page book so you can be informed. I think to myself, ‘ right I have to work 60 + hours per week and I now I need to read 200 pages to get a bit of truth ( maybe ) ‘, is this the plan?
Less than a week after the federal government had to bail out American International Group Inc., the company sent executives on a $440,000 retreat to a posh California resort, lawmakers investigating the company’s meltdown said.
The tab included $23,380 worth of spa treatments for AIG employees at the coastal St. Regis resort south of Los Angeles even as the company tapped into an $85 billion loan from the government it needed to stave off bankruptcy…
… During the second Presidential debate Tuesday night, Democrat Barack Obama said the U.S. Treasury should demand the money be returned and top executives be fired. Republican Senator John McCain did not specifically address the spa vacation by AIG employees…
For the complete article visit:AIG Execs Take Spa Vacation
So how is this for an idea; We the people just got screwed and the first thing we hear is that these jokers are taking the tax bailout money we give them and they are going to take a vacation at the tune of what?
What will it take to get some honesty or responsible behavior? Maybe a good old fashioned tar and feathering?
Truth or lie?
October 10, 2008
Is it impossible to truely plan our future? Truth or Lie?
For over twenty years of my working life I designed large scale custom homes and developed working drawings and specifications for those homes. I can tell you based on my life experience that planning is very hard and that the hardest part of planning has to do with people. For instance, once after having spent hundreds of hours developing – first a written design program then a series of schematic designs then several versions of preliminary designs, designs that included detailed floor plans, elevations, site plan and sections; the owner was finally ready to sign off on the design so we could start the working drawings, and specifications, the actual documents a builder would use as a guide to build the house.
The married couple who was planning on having this house built was just about to sign off when the wife said, “before I sign off on this design, I have one question”. She pointed to a symbol on the floor plan and said, “my husband and I have both been wondering what this symbol means”. The symbol she was pointing to was one of the most basic floor plan symbols used to communicate an important element of home design, it was the symbol representing a door. So, I quizzed them a bit and I started to realize that they didn’t understand what many of the symbols on the floor plan meant but had been wasting many hours of their time and my time pretending they did and giving me written approval for this design.
At the time, I was a seasoned designer and had designed at least 100+ homes that were built. I began to wonder, how many times I had gone through this design process with people and they really didn’t understand what I was showing them.
I sometimes wonder if that is not a big part of the problem that we as humans have. We are lead down a certain path of planning by well meaning people or not so well meaning people, we think we know what we are approving when we approve it but we do not. We do not really understand and although we are included in decision making through a democratic process, we really have no idea what we are getting, we don’t even understand the basics but we are so opinionated about what we don’t understand!
And the well meaning try to lead us but we foil their plans because we are so opinionated and because we can be so easily mislead by those who are not well meaning or who are only driven by their own self interest and; although you have elected them and paid them to represent you, they expertly misguide you and persuade you to make decisions that help them personally and may very well be against your best interests.
How is it possible for a well meaning leader to succeed in a situation like this that is so deeply rooted in our own human nature? Are we capable of planning our future in any kind of a meaningful way? I don’t know the answer to this, I am curious what others like you might think.
October 6, 2008
Halloween is going to suck this year – Truth or Lie?
Here at Lie of the Day – what can we say? We are just doing our job and hoping for the best.
October 3, 2008
Is it an illusion that reason and Western liberalism will win out over fanaticism? Truth or Lie?
Even when I take off the illusionary blinders of my culture, no real reason becomes visible that can explain why reason should prevail over fanaticism or why fanaticism should be thought of as culturally backward and something that will disappear over time.
Instead, I see myself as having been blinded by a cultural myth, blinded to the fact that the law of the jungle is very possibly stronger than reason and modernity and may win out in the long run.
What do you think?
October 2, 2008
Is this any way to run a society of human beings? Truth or Lie?
This is an excerpt from an excellent article by William Blum:
Why do we have this thing called a “financial crisis”? Why have we had such a crisis periodically ever since the United States was created? What changes occur or what happens each time to bring on the crisis? Do we forget how to make things that people need? Do the factories burn down? Are our tools lost? Do the blueprints disappear? Do we run out of people to work in the factories and offices? Are all the services that people need for a happy life so well taken care of that there’s hardly any more need for the services? In other words: What changes take place in the real world to cause the crisis? Nothing, necessarily. The crisis is usually caused by changes inthe make-believe world of financial capitalism.
All these grown men playing their boys’ games. They create an assortment of financial entities, documents, and packages that go by names like hedge funds, derivatives, collateralized debt obligations, index funds, credit default swaps, structured investment vehicles, subprime mortgages, and dozens of other exotic monetary vehicles. They create all manner of commercial pieces of paper, of no known real or inherent value, backed up by few if any standards. Then they sell these various pieces of paper to the public and to each other. They slice and dice mortgages into arcane and risky instruments, then bundle them together, and sell the packages to those higher up in the pyramid scheme. And some of those engaged in this Wild West buying and selling become millionaires. Some become billionaires. They get Christmas bonuses greater than what most Americans earn the entire year. Is all this not remarkable?
And much of the buying is not done with the buyer’s own money, but with borrowed funds; “leveraged”, they call it. The pieces of paper sometimes represent commodities, but the actual commodities are not seen, may not even exist; if the seller demanded the buyer’s own funds, or the buyer wanted to see the goods, the whole transaction would freeze. They sell “long”, expecting the price to rise; they sell “short”, expecting the price to fall; they sell “naked short”, which means they neither possess nor own what they’re selling; a name for each gimmick. They take ever-greater risks buying and selling increasingly-esoteric pieces of paper. It’s a glorified Las Vegas, casino capitalism.
These pieces of paper can be so complex that many of those buying and selling them do not fully understand them; no problem, they just resell the pieces of paper to someone else at a higher price, even when one or both parties know that the paper, while pretending to be payable debt, is virtually worthless. The government, even when it tries to moderately regulate this Monopoly board, can at times also be confused by the complexities of the pieces of paper, compounded by the less-than-transparent practices that envelop the transactions; a potpourri including speculation, manipulation, fraud. Billionaire financier Warren Buffett has called the pieces of paper “weapons of mass financial destruction.”
The boys of finance have been playing their games for years, and so at each stage of the process there are insurance policies allowing the players to hedge their bets; they insure, and they re-insure; hopefully covering themselves against the many risks of the game, often knowing that they’re trading in questionable debts; the giant corporation AIG, a major player in the insurance game, has just been taken over by the federal government. And with each transaction, at each level, someone earns a commission or a fee. There are also other firms whose purpose in life is to go around rating various players and their pieces of paper and their credit worthiness and giving seals of approval which are relied upon by investors. Some of these rating firms, we’re now learning, have been surprisingly incompetent, when not simply dishonest
President Roosevelt, confronted in the 1930s with similar players, called them “banksters”.
It’s all built on faith, as fragile as the religious kind, the belief that something is worth something because it comes with a piece of paper with reassuring words and numbers written on it, because it’s traded, rated, and insured, because someone will sell it and someone will buy it. The same market psychology, the same herd mentality, that went into constructing this house of cards built on pillars of greed can cause the house to collapse in a heap. But the Monopoly players keep their bonuses, and bow out with multimillion-dollar golden parachutes; while tent cities are springing up all over America.
Is this any way to run a society of human beings?
And the government is in the process of trying to bail out these reckless traders, these parasites, rescuing them and their system from their own nonsense. With our money; without a major restructuring of the Alice-in-Wonderland rules of the financial games, without instituting the toughest of regulations, oversight, and transparency, and with no guarantee that the spoiled-little-brat Masters of the Universe will act in any way other than their own narrow self interest, the rest of us be damned.
Capitalism is the theory that the worst people, acting from their worst motives, will somehow produce the most good.
If you would like to see the whole article here is a link to: The Anti-Empire Report
What is your opinion? Is this anyway to run a society of human beings?
September 26, 2008
Will this be the New Dollar Bill? Truth or Lie?
Has the American economy tanked so badly that our government is issuing new money? I received this prototype from a friend. Will this be the new dollar bill?
Is it true our economy is so bad they are printing new money?
Sara Palin and the Rape Kits? Truth or Lie?
This video seems too crazy to be true
[ which being 2008 in America – likely makes it true ]
September 25, 2008
Video: Can Mama Make it all better? Truth or Lie?
Students at WASU have been talking about this video and others. Many students have expressed dismay and wonder if this can really be happening.
Join the students of WASU and let us know what you think.
Can Mama make it all better?
Here at We’re All Screwed University students seek the truth!
September 22, 2008
Should taxpayers demand five conditions on trillion dollar blank check? truth or lie?
Robert Reich suggests that five conditions be added to the “blank check” the Bush Administration is requesting to bail out Wall Street:
The public doesn’t like a blank check. They think this whole bailout idea is nuts. They see fat cats on Wall Street who have raked in zillions for years, now extorting in effect $2,000 to $5,000 from every American family to make up for their own nonfeasance, malfeasance, greed, and just plain stupidity. Wall Street’s request for a blank check comes at the same time most of the public is worried about their jobs and declining wages, and having enough money to pay for gas and food and health insurance, meet their car payments and mortgage payments, and save for their retirement and childrens’ college education. And so the public is asking: Why should Wall Street get bailed out by me when I’m getting screwed?
So if you are a member of Congress, you just might be in a position to demand from Wall Street certain conditions in return for the blank check…
1. The government (i.e. taxpayers) gets an equity stake in every Wall Street financial company proportional to the amount of bad debt that company shoves onto the public. So when and if Wall Street shares rise, taxpayers are rewarded for accepting so much risk.
2. Wall Street executives and directors of Wall Street firms relinquish their current stock options and this year’s other forms of compensation, and agree to future compensation linked to a rolling five-year average of firm profitability. Why should taxpayers feather their already amply-feathered nests?
3. All Wall Street executives immediately cease making campaign contributions to any candidate for public office in this election cycle or next, all Wall Street PACs be closed, and Wall Street lobbyists curtail their activities unless specifically asked for information by policymakers. Why should taxpayers finance Wall Street’s outsized political power – especially when that power is being exercised to get favorable terms from taxpayers?
4. Wall Street firms agree to comply with new regulations over disclosure, capital requirements, conflicts of interest, and market manipulation. The regulations will emerge in ninety days from a bi-partisan working group, to be convened immediately. After all, inadequate regulation and lack of oversight got us into this mess.
5. Wall Street agrees to give bankruptcy judges the authority to modify the terms of primary mortgages, so homeowners have a fighting chance to keep their homes. Why should distressed homeowners lose their homes when Wall Streeters receive taxpayer money that helps them keep their fancy ones?
September 21, 2008
Politician Lies?
Give me a break! If there were a politician who had integrity and said the same thing to everyone, that politician would not get elected. Politicians lie because people do not want to hear the truth. People will only vote for politicians who tell them what they want to hear.
This is what I think:
If you want to get elected you are expected to lie about many things.
If you had an extra-marital affair, you are expected to lie.
If you smoked pot as half of all Americans have, you are expected to lie.
If you ever cheated on your taxes, you are expected to lie.
It seems that American’s are currently incapable of facing the reality that politician’s are human, that all politician’s have skeleton’s in their closet, relative to the expectations of the American public, that political parties will use these skeletons and if they can’t find any, the political parties will manufacturer them through negative public relations campaigns. Why should we expect our politicians to be somehow morally superior to us, the average citizen?
We elect politicians to do a job.
Our politicians should be qualified to do that job.
Our politicians should not be corrupt and should not have a record of corruption. This is not a simple matter. What determines if a politician is corrupt?
This is the definition of corruption per the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
1. Impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle 2. Inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (as bribery) 3. A departure from the original or from what is pure or correct 4. An agency or influence that corrupts.
So good voters, study this definition well and study to determine if you think a politician fits this definition. If in your best judgement they do then – DO NOT vote for them. We don’t need corrupt politicians!
I predict most voters will continue to elect the politician who lies the most. I believe that is one of the main reasons we have so much corruption built into our political systems. It simply reflects the bad judgement of voters and the limited choices they are presented by our political system.
September 13, 2008
Should McCain put Palin on the Supreme Court? Truth or Lie
From a recent Newsweek article, Dahlia Lithwick argues that McCain should put Palin on the Supreme Court rather than have run her as his Vice President.
After reading the article, I think Lithwick’s logic is sound and that this would be a great course of action for John McCain to follow.
Here is a quote to demonstrate just how sound her logic is:
Finally, Palin has revealed, both as the mayor of Wasilla and then as the chief executive of Alaska, a style of governance that features the not-infrequent firing of dissenters. Among the growing list of those dismissed or threatened with removal on Palin’s watch were Mary Ellen Emmons, the Wasilla town librarian and vociferous opponent of Palin’s proposal to dabble in book banning, and John Bitney, Palin’s legislative director, who was dating the not-quite-ex-wife of one of her husband’s friends. Palin is also the subject of an ethics investigation for firing Walt Monegan, the Alaska Public Safety commissioner, who declined to fire the state trooper divorcing her sister. I can’t help but wonder if following two years of scandals surrounding the Bush administration’s decision to terminate nine U.S. attorneys for their imagined disloyalty, John McCain might be nervous about a vice president with a proclivity toward doing the same thing. If McCain puts Palin on the Supreme Court, however, she has only a trio of law clerks and a secretary to hire, and each can be vetted for ideological purity.
No fair arguing that Palin isn’t experienced enough to sit on the highest court of the land. What matters—far more than experience—is one’s unyielding moral certainty, relatability and gender. And Palin has these qualities in spades. Washington’s old-boy problem hardly ends at the Oval Office. If ever there were a D.C. institution in dire need of a place to plug in a breast pump, it’s the Supreme Court. And Palin has already proven that neither the courts, nor precedent, nor even the Constitution itself will be a match for the force of her will. America has finally found someone suited to put the “law” back into scofflaw, and it’s Sarah Palin. McCain shouldn’t waste her talents on state funerals.
September 11, 2008
How bad are prevalent lies of Omission?
Being an American, this is what I have noticed about lies of omission:
- Every decade seems to encourage certain lies of omission and every decade seems to permit or encourage certain truths to be told.
- in the 1960’s young people were encouraged to tell the truth about their disdain for ‘authority’ and the ‘establishment’. This truth infected the society at large and there was a general disdain for authority and the ‘establishment’. Certain truths are also discouraged during each generation. In the 1960’s, people were discouraged from expressing patriotism or traditional religious beliefs.
- During the 1970’s people of all ages were encouraged to tell the truth about how much they liked sex. This truth also infected the society at large. Adult theaters called ‘Pussy Cat theaters’ were common in most towns as were nude bars, etc. ‘Open marriage’ was a common concept and there were many main stream movies that promoted these kinds of ideas like ‘Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice’. The one night stand was considered a normal, socially acceptable relationship. Prudishness about sex was discouraged. Divorce was encouraged. Therapists would commonly encourage people to get a divorce if there was any dissatisfaction expressed during counseling sessions.
- in my opinion, the 1980’s showed signs of overt manipulation of peoples values, wherein citizens were bombarded via TV and radio with government promotion of a return to traditional Family and Christian values. This came about at a time when most people were already fed up with many of the excesses of the 1960’s and 1970’s that were impacting our society in negative ways and this bombardment had a strong effect.
- The 1990’s seemed to be about Globalization, multicultural-ism, Big Box Retail Stores, Windows95 and, leveling the playing field. It was a new post cold war world we lived in. The conservative values fostered in the 1980’s by the Reagan Administration seemed to take root during this period. There was this idea of ‘tough love’ floating around.
- This new American Century was marked and largely defined by 911, Anti-Terrorism, War and rising prices. The brand of conservative family values and christian values so heavily promoted in the 1980’s during the Reagan Administration and after 911, becomes a fundamentalist force to be reckoned with by those who would favor liberty and democracy over an authoritarian and theocratic interpretation of the primary founding documents of America, our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution and, our Bill of Rights.
- This is what confuses me so about having lived through these nearly 5 decades: If you were to follow the life course of average American’s that I have known, you would find a majority of people who used drugs in the 1960’s and called the police ‘pigs’, who in the 1970’s got divorced or cheated on their partners or participated in ‘group gropes’. You would find many of these same people in the 1980’s, seeing themselves as Christian Conservatives who believe in ‘traditional values’ and who by the time the 1990’s came around, would not admit to having been hippies in the 1960’s and/or swingers in the 1970’s. Then after 911, these same people changed once more to some kind of person I hardly recognize as an American or even a friend.
- Then there are people like me. I was slightly influenced by each decade but never gave in to the excesses of what became normal behavior in each decade, including this one. I carry forward the parts of each decade that influenced me. Those influences make me who I am today, which is way outside the mainstream. Not hippie, not swinger, not traditional, not authoritarian. I am a quienticential product of the American way – not a product of any given decade I have survived.
- In my opinion, there are lies of omission about the personal transformations most middle age Americans have gone through to ‘fit in’ during some of these rather bizarre periods of radical transformations in American culture. I think that if middle age Americans started being honest about who they really are rather than pretending and going with the flow of these ‘movements’ (and I think this ‘New American Century’ after 911 IS just another ‘movement’) we would see that America is not what it pretends to be now. I am not sure what America is and, I can only speak only from the perspective of my unique generation, but I think all this pompous authoritarian fundamentalist stuff at least when worn by Americans over the age of 50 is not flattering considering their ‘real’ histories and is a dangerous pretense that hides a generation of adults who are too easily influenced and have few core values that can withstand peer pressure. I think if tomorrow, the majority of people started calling the police – ‘pigs’, these same conservative old people would go with the flow and do the same things they have done in the past, they would start seeing me as ‘establishment’ rather than liberal because I would be supporting the police and think these instant liberals were jerks.
September 4, 2008
Is the end near? – Truth or Lie
Professor Obvious of WASU gave a lecture today on the state of the world:
Look toward our future! Today there are approximately 6.7 billion people on this little planet. In the next hundred years all these people will be dead, well most of them anyway. What a tragedy! Who will dispose of all these bodies? Think about this too, more people will be born during the next one hundred years and many of those people will die! And what about all the animals? Think about the great blue whales, how many of them will die? What about the lions and tigers and bears? We worry about war, oil, poverty, terrorists and politics but who thinks about the great disaster that is facing us all other than those of us here at WASU?
At WASU, we are thankful to those professor’s who both seek and expose the truth! Obviously, our favorite professor received thunderous applause and a standing ovation from the appreciative audience here at We’re All Screwed University.
September 2, 2008
The Republican Party has a political strategy that seems to be working for them – Truth or Lie?
The strategy as I see it goes something like this:
- Argue Republican Party goals are so righteous that the ‘ends justify the means’ with regard to party behavior.
- This effectively puts the party above the law.
- Fight dirty because the parties righteous goals are more important than the laws of the land (i.e. the Constitution and so forth).
- Hold Democrats to the standard of not being above the law because their goals are not lofty enough to put them above the law.
- Discount Democrats because they do not have the same righteous lofty goals set forth by Republicans.
- Make fun of Democrats because they obviously are not above the law like Republicans.
- Express moral indignation about anything a Democrat says or does.
- Attack, attack, attack.
- Then party!
September 1, 2008
‘No Values Voters’ Looking To Support Most Evil Candidate
Vodpod videos no longer available.
August 30, 2008
When Authority figures are liars – the most respected man in America
In High School, if there was a teacher that no one had respect for then everyone would love the kid at the back of the class who threw spit-balls at that teacher when the teacher was not looking.
It is interesting that the most respected man in America seems to be a comedian – Jon Stewart.
As Jon Stewart has said himself, he is like that kid who throws spit-balls at some politicians.
Is he popular because the American people have no respect for some of the current gang of politicians who are running our country – and especially those politicians that Jon is throwing spit-balls at?
That must be a lie, right?
August 29, 2008
The most trusted man in America would not do this!
He would not throw spit balls from the back of the room!
or would he?
August 26, 2008
Energy Policy (truth or lie?)
Do you think ‘War for Oil’ is a sustainable energy policy?
To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.
–Bronson Alcott
August 24, 2008
A symphony of lies
“It’s not a matter of what is true that counts but a matter of what is perceived to be true.”
–Henry Kissinger
