A Pharfetched Epitath of 1 Man's Legacy

I spend a lot of time thinking about what effect my decisions will have on my phuture and then I came to a realization that I can't be the only that does this. Other people, also, must be mulling over the if's and but's of life.

Other mere mortals have confided in me that they do the same. People I respect, people I care for, and everyday random people who seem to prevail over the challenges of life.

But then I'll see a clip of someone doing no such thing on every talk show in America. Dr. Phil has built his whole career upon the phrase "What were you thinking?" Often enough I run into people totally immersed in the kool-aide. Oblivious to the consequences of tomorrow.

The problem was that I was finding myself numerically outnumbered.

Then I really threw myself into a tizzy by asking if the "powers that be" were like me or more like the basket cases on the the talk shows??????????

Then I narrowed my focus to Alan Greenspan. Was he really fit for daytime talkshow fodder or did he think things through?????????

So, Alan Greenspan, what were you thinking ?????????
Do you plod on without a hint of forbearance? Or are the sooth sayings your lips blather out a result of deep contemplation of consequences?????

In 2000, I had an adequate number of functioning brain cells to figure out that the tech stock bubble was a load of bull and in the ensuing years I realized that housing in So Cal was another load of horse hockey. I made a well above average living and the bank was telling me the only neighborhood they would let me live in with a traditional fixed rate 30 year mortgage with a max monthly payment limited to lees than 30% of my monthly income was in Compton. But on the other hand if I wanted to go "exotic" on the loan I could live next to my income peers anywhere in SoCal that I wanted. Or, I could even live next door to my boss, if I wanted, all I had to do was avoid using simple math and not ask silly questions like "But what if I can't find a buyer or financing in two years to pay me more than I owe ?" This made no sense to me so I never purchased a home. Still don't own one.

But, Alan, you told me it was a good idea. You said banks should expand credit so that everyone could own a home in Compton. You said this was the greatest thing since sliced bread. You said that freeing banks from the burden of holding loans on their balance sheets would make everyone happy, rich and free to spend money.

So what is it, did you think this through or not??????

I am going to go out on a whim and make a bet that you thought this through, just like I did. That your not the perfect guest for Dr. Phil. That you are smart and purposeful. That you have a reason for your actions.

You sly dog, you did this on purpose didn't you. Props to you man, you pulled off the greatest act of cocksutery in the history of history. I have got to hand it to you, the finesse and style is top notch.

I am kind of surprised no one else has picked up on this before, I mean it just jumped out at me when I was reading it. You are like a super groupie fan of Ayn Rand. I mean she was right there with you when you got sworn in as the Great Jester of the Court aka Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors.

I mean come on what is a guy doing running a Government Sanctioned Controlling Authority of Wealth Creation who is also a bonafide buddy bud fan of Ayn Rand????? That is the definition of oxymoron.

I mean who in there right mind is going to appoint an extremist libertarian to that position? What kind of extremist libertarian disciple is going to be willing to work for the instruments of control over wealth???
It didn't make sense to me... then it hit me. This is like some weird mash up of Manchurian Candidate-Atlas Shrugged-Fountainhead all rolled up in one sneaky little man in a suit and coke-bottle glasses.

You little devil...you! Had us all thinking your just this bookish wonk with big words and fancy sentence structure. Only famous for being able to use more words than a Scrabble tournament to say absolutely nothing. The whole time your this mesh of John Galt/Howard Roark just bidding your time and spinning your web.

Man it is stunning to realize. You planned this all from the start. Sowing the seeds of destruction of the entire top down control of wealth right from within the belly of the beast itself. Epic man, epic......... I just keep getting stunned by the brilliance of it.

Ayn Rand would be spinning in her grave fast enough to light the entire planet if she lived to see the way we are now. I mean the whole point of Objectivism was about everyone living the life of an individual, free to flourish in a natural state. Now the State has declared the freedom of the individual and nature itself to be a threat to its continued supremacy and existence. The only things even remotely recognizable to an Objectivist, like Ayn Rand, would be the virtual and unnatural liberties of cyber space.

But you did it man, you did it...... Now all that is going to come to an end. I mean sure you had to break a few nesteggs for the greater good but I'm okay with that, in a way. Now I get to look forward to only relying on myself for my well being. I am up for the challenge.

I'm not sure the rest of them will be so admiring but this "punishment" really hurts you more than it will hurt them, right? They won't see it that way for a long time, but let me be the first to say so. Thanks for instigating the infliction of so much pain and suffering on the sheeple that they finally realize they could not depend on anyone except themselves for the own well being. Eons of people managed to do so before the 20th century, we might as well go back to what always worked.

I mean who was I kidding when I thought I could retire at 67 years of age in a few decades, while at the same time science promised me I could live to be 120 and the government would grant me the privilege to spend less than half of my years on this planet doing something productive. Thank you for deluding me of this silly notion.

Man... I'm still trying to take this all in....brilliant....Here we have a bonafide card carrying member of the Objectivist movement sitting there at the start of his career asking himself...."How do I live up to my principles?" "The whole system is built and run contrary to the way I want to live. I know, I'll go deep cover "Serpico" style on them."

"I'll sign up, salute, wrap myself in the flag and march up the ladder, straight into the Heart of Darkness itself (The Fed). Tell everyone everything is going to be okay. Carpe Diem, let them eat cake, bring on the bread and circuses...You have nothing to fear my children... everything you wish for, will be yours. The Secret is real!!!!!!!!"

And then when it is too late for them to realize what I have wrought, I will leave them. The legacy I will leave behind for them to follow will be to use the most words to convey the least meaning. They will continue on the easy path of debt creation. When troubles or worries surface I will sooth their hearts and minds with even more pithy and frothy rhetoric.

They will be drunk with comfort, indifferent to the life of perpetual debt service. Americans will marvel at their own prowess to create wealth from words alone. The rest of the world will look with envy and lust for all things American. And soon enough our admirers around the world will grow in number.

They will grow and grow until they themselves will be able to lust for the same things that Americans lust for and posses. Eventually those that toiled to make the items of lust for Americans will have many others knocking on their doors for the very same things. And soon enough, there will be so many that they will ask to take that which an American had asked to take for himself. And the tinkerer who toiled to make the lustful things will ask the American with what will he barter me for the trinket and the American will show him a piece of paper that promised to give him more paper in the future to barter with, but the others, several of whom had trinkets of their own to offer the trinket maker tempted him with the things he fancied. And eventually the trinket makers competed amongst themselves to see who could create the most dazzling lustful trinket that the other trinket makers would barter for. And soon enough the American found that no one, who still made things, would accept his pieces of paper that only promised more pieces of paper and the American went home with his hands empty and his belly growling because he had sold his last morsel to gather more pieces of paper to give to the bank in barter to live under his roof that he borrowed from the bank.

And they bought it, man, hook line and sinker.... Heck the whole planet got into kool-aide you brewed.

Now I know exactly how you must have felt as you read Atlas Shrugged as it was being written by Ayn. It is quite ethereal to watch the phuture unwind from your lips to reality. I mean it is like I am right in the middle of a Greek tragedy as it happens.

So tell me, when are you going to fill us in on the next chapter???????

I mean your plan up until know is so top notch AWESOME, the rest has got to be top-shelf primo stuff right??????

Where do we go from here? Is there some enclave a la Atlas Shrugged you have going? I know I'm not supposed to ask, as an individual, with help to get to the enclave, I just wanted to let you know that I am on board with the whole thing and just need a map or something I can follow on my own to get there, no help with directions or stuff. Just a big X on a map. I can figure out where the "you are here" button on my own. Throw me a Da Vinci Code bone here man!!!!!

If there is no enclave of self styled go-getters, who are going to live a happy life free of the tyranny of group-think nanny states, I can fend for myself. So it's cool if you don't manage to send a PDF of the "map" to my inbox. Its cool, no harm no foul.

Just toss me a little note that says you have more to the plot. Just a little something to let me know that this was all deliberate on your part. That none of this was just happenstance and shooting from the hip. I mean that's the least you could do for the guy that was the first to publicly realize your brilliance. Isn't it.

I sit here waiting for your acknowledgement, otherwise I don't think I can handle the idea that this was all just a bad day at the office for you.

Just in Time turns into Can't Be Late

JIT Inventory, the wonder of our times is going to turn around and bite us in the arse.

The pending vapor lock of commercial credit is going to ripple through and find weaknesses in the supply chains.

Some vendor somewhere is going to find it impossible to float some amount of commercial backed paper someday. When that happens he won't have the cash for payroll, fuel, rent, payables, etc... He will cry to his bank. The bank will hem and haw................
Charge him Guido rates to get hime by this week.

Multiply this out and soon enough someone, in some loading dock somewhere is gonna be waiting for a truck that never comes. He will tell his manager that the line needs to be shut down because he has no material to load into the production line.

Manager tells Administration. Phone calls fly around, eventually letterhead from an attorney gets flow around. And then the next day HR gets a memo to stock up on 8.5x11 Pink #30.

Rinse and repeat.

Someone goes home to sit next to their spouse who has already been sitting at home because the big box home improvement chain has slashed orders for the widgets that were made at their factory.

The kids mill around the house also because the parents couldn't manage another HELOC to pay for college this year.

Meanwhile the Corporate holding companies file claims against their insurances for all of the disruptions. The insurers collectivley deficate their tailored suits, since they lack any capital to cover the claims and can't raise a red cent in the credit market because the monolines have turned them into Chernobyl for everyone else.

Rinse and repeat until the politicians socialize the debt to everyone.

The phuture of LA as seen from the 91 Freeway

I was heading back to LA from the Temecula Valley where my, soon-to-be F*&*#d Buyer, relative saddled himself with a fixed-mortgage PUD in a soon-to-be ghost town.

Some arsehats at CalTrans decided it was a good time to rack up some overtime in order to saddle us with more future unfunded pension obligations and close the 710 freeway. So I had to continue on to the 110 to go south from the 91 Riverside Freeway.

Low and behold some youths of the local population availed themselves of the opportunity to commence havoc on the highways.

(background)

Everyone and their lead-footed mother knows that the CHP lacks any funds for extra staffing for CalTrans related work. This means when you see a patrol car sitting inside some ramp closure, there are no patrol units on the roads nearby. You can forget about getting any fast help from the CHP if there is a CalTrans Closure within 5 miles of your location.

These kids knew that and decided to play cowboy on the highway. One girl plopped her arse on the window-sill and drove her POS car sidesaddle!!!!
The other underemployed friend in the passenger seat stuck her foot on the gas pedal. Then her friends in at least 6 other cars started to do their own CHP style "traffic break". Weaving side to side and scaring the bejesus out of all the law abiding folks in the rear. Pretty soon all of the sheeple slowed to a crawl watching the wasted youth of America prance around in front of them like self-appointed gods.

I wasn't going to have any of this and continued on at 65 mph. Everyone in my car screaming at me to back-off and submit. I ignored them because I know that real thugs just stand up in the sunroof, turn around and pop of caps in some "fools" hood. I held my ground and drove right through them. They all gave way. All of them met my stare and gave way. None of them were bad-ass enough to meet my challenge of their false authority. Each of them watched me pass on with firm resolve ignoring the banter of my passengers.

(truth be told none of them looked like they could afford to get their dated cars banged up in a TC, I had no qualms about that since I really do have insurance. And for all of you that think I am some jive arse fool, talking nonsense, know this, I drive through south central LA almost on a weekly basis and I don't mean on the freeways. I got out of my car and went about my business even during the riots)

anyway......

They closed in behind me and continued to terrorize those that did not stand up to them.

The chatter in my car fell off to stunned silence as I worked my way past the misguided youth.

All lot of you reading this will think my actions were reckless and a danger to my family. Your right, there was a better than even chance that those punks could have turned violent. I was aware of that possibility before I committed to my actions. I continued on in spite of my misgivings.

But what is more reckless, staying with the crowd and letting others heard you into subservience, or standing your ground and declaring that what is mine is mine and no one can take it away from me.

That my friends is the phuture of California. It is between those that hold their ground and the thugs and miscreants running ruff shod on the unfortunate majority that will be addled with all of the burdens of the recent and fleeting excesses.

Those thugs can take the form of disaffected youth or paper pushing creditors. Either way you are hapless if you don't hold onto what is yours and do your damnedest to keep it away from the takers.

A Phuture Reflection on the Collapse of the (Inland) Empire

DATELINE: Temecula, Summer 2008

Looking back now it seems so easy to slap your forehead and say "Of, course", but not so long ago it would have taken a real gut-check to open your eyes and ask "Why is all of this here?"

Look around out here in the IE, every boarded-up commercial space covers a storefronts dedicated to filling homes up with superfluous brick-a-brak to fill all that extra space and toys for all those spots in the multi-bay garage.

All those families that escaped the tight confines of rental units in Orange, LA and San Diego, burst upon the IE and into the spacious 3/2 homes with garages and yards needed to do something to keep from staring at all that extra drywall.

"Honey lets' toss out all that old furniture that we brought from Garbage Grove last year and take that 40 grand of equity and really do all the rooms right?"
"Wow, honey can we!!!!! YEAH!!!!!

"Honey, I'm bored"
"Well, No-Worries Lending called and said we can pull another $60K out of the guest bathroom, let's get matching jet skies for the whole family!!!!!!!!

"Honey, I'm bored"
"Hey, we just got a mailer from Grows on Trees Financial, the bede in the master bath get us another $45,000. What do you want to do?

"I don't know, let's be prudent this time."

"Start a college fund?"

"No silly, Phase 3 is opening behind us. We split that $45 as a down on two units and then we'll sell one when phase 4 finishes and drop the other one in two years so we can keep every dime of the $500,000 profit. Beatty next door told me that is what she and Frank are doing.

"That sounds like a great idea!"

It all made sense back then, life is good, I'm living the dream! I deserve the 7 piece mahogany bedroom set, 60" plasma, ATV, JetSki, and Jacuzzi tub.

And the housing industry obliged them. Making sure that everyone got a chance to live the good life and that was going to last forever. But everyone pushed it to far, and little by little, all of the little players who tried just a little bit harder to get their tiny percentage of the pie, pushed it just a little bit more. And that is why we are here today.

Everywhere along the line from the guy who owned that barren empty land to the loan originator who got that family to sign the papers for that tiny patch of former orange groves, only had to concern themselves with maxing out their random opportunities. "Everyone was getting rich, why can't I expect a little bit more." But all these little bits add up, and pretty soon you are going to run out of folks that can pay the monthly nut that finances all this good fortune.

Did you really think we were going to keep spending like crazy at the Lowes, Staples, B-B-Q City, Bob's Billards, ATV Town, Best Buy, Kohls and the like.

What happened when the big chain stores started seeing same store sales drop from the one year old stores sprinkled all over the IE like pixie dust. Those big shot CEO's started to shutter the under-performers. They have to prop up their falling stock values with big pronouncements on cut-backs and efficiencies. Wall Street wants answers, it doesn't matter if they are excuses.

The big chains retreated and forced everyone to travel farther to more established stores. This made traffic even worse in the IE. But the same store sales numbers looked better and Wall Street loves it when you lop off under-performing liabilities, take a one time $30 mil write down and promise better times ahead for your stock. Everyone should be really happy that they did this, right? Your Retirement depends on that 401 K ,don't it? It's bad enough that my home is not worth what I paid for it but now you tell me my retirement depends on Home Depot same store sales? Now my portfolio is racing my home to see which hits bottom first. Great! Dow 1400 in 07' and 8000 in 08'?

When the big anchors in the corner mall close, the little mom and pops and Quiznos next door will die a quick death. All of those folks in the service/retail market left out of work and not be able to pay the option ARM monster mortgage pushing foreclosures up even more.

Home prices sank and the commuters who were the only ones left with incomes ended up in a deeper funk. Driving in traffic longer, eating up that $6/gal gas. Getting home too late and too despondent to go out to the movies or the restaurant.

And "poof" even more places started closing down. No more Macaroni Grill in BFE Wildomar, you have to drive 8 miles into downtown Temecula for a meal or a movie.

To heck with that, they all said, and just got 50 .lbs frozen bags of stuff at Costco and went back home to watch on-demand movies.

And just like that, the service sector in the IE shrank back down to what it was in 1990's in terms of how many people were need to be employed to service a ghost town of commuters trapped in negative loan to value mortgages sprinkled in between all those empty homes.

How much longer will these poor souls languish in these ghost towns? How can they sleep at night wondering if tomorrow, another neighbors' driveway will have a U-haul truck parked and packed up for someplace else.

When will the good times come back to the Empire?

Why don't I count, but want to count you.

Here are some reasons why I should be President:

• Parents and other folks, who hoped the best for me, when I was growing up, always reminded me that, when I grow up, I can become President one day. When I was little, the future, hoped for by my elders, seemed to hold such promise. Men were walking on the moon when I first opened my eyes to this world. No generation born before me was witness to an event as momentous, unifying and pivotal to the future of mankind and sadly no generation, after mine, was born with men looking down from the heavens, covering the world with the tip of their thumbs as they crossed the plains of Frau Moro. What went wrong for me? For us? I got on the ride, we call life, at it's absolute climax and it has been downhill, for all of us, since.
• The Constitution states the I have to be 35 years old and a citizen of the United States. That part was easy. The Poll Tax is abolished so pretty much everyone can vote for me. But in order to get my name on the ballot, I have to file a lot of paperwork. But the paperwork is different in each of the fifty states and I have no idea what the rules are for ballots for ex-patriots and the outlaying territories. If the Democrats and Republicans can bearly manage to get on every ballot, what chance do I have?
• In school they taught me in social studies and government class that anyone can be elected in this country. They even taught by example, holding elections for the student body. This was my first exposure to the truth, because it brought me face to face with the popularity contest we Americans pass of as Democracy. I declined the encouragement of my teachers to run for office. I did not feel compelled to stand in front of the student body and do my rendition of Sally Fields' Oscar acceptance speech. If I wanted it bad enough like Pedro, I could have won an office, I just don't think I would have treated the office with any respect. The rewards of office rang hollow to me, if I had only to say anything to get it. The people who got elected to the student body were rewarded with the responsibilities vital to the education of the students who saw fit to put them in charge of organizing dances and putting the yearbook together. WOW! I don't know how I could have gotten through school if the popular clicks weren't slavishly toiling away at paper streamers and glitter decorations. But then again you only get out of something what you put into it. Is' my fault for not wanting more out of student government, but they did give me the chance to learn what self-government is and is not. Thank you teachers for that.
• I've managed, so far, to not get convicted of any treasonable offense. I'm not sure how long my luck will hold out, since almost anything you do or say can be construed to run afoul of the Patriot Act nowadays. But that's all I have to say about that.

Here are just a few of the reasons why I can't be President:

Those nice old folks and my parents never mentioned that I would have to find a way to spend nearly a billion dollars to convince people to vote me into office.

There are only two ways to spend that kind of money.

1. I have to take it out of my own assets.
2. Or, I have to convince, cajole, connive, beg, borrow or steal it from someone else.

I am not a billionaire so option one is out of the question for me. Thanks to the generous tax policies and boom markets of the previous administrations, there are lots of fresh billionaires who can spend that much or even ten times the going rate for the office. It turns out that most of them are content to sit on the sidelines and only the 'loons' have tried to buy their way into the office. In fact more billionaires have spent more time and money trying to get off the planet than have gone into politics. Does that relfect more poorly on their priorities or the value of being president?

Option two is the popular path to the oval office. Why risk your fortune when you can find plenty of others willing to advance their interests through your ambition. I can't bring myself to do this. I can't fool myself into thinking that rising through the ranks of a political party won't leave me beholding to others that have put me in the spotlight. I can't abide by a platform based on capturing the slightest majority of the electoral college demographic. The president is supposed to read, comprehend and execute the duties of the Constitution as the leader for every single American. Very few of the recent ones have had the self-discipline to constrain his focus to the tasks laid out in the Constitution.

In the movie 300, Xerxes's proclaims that he is willing to sacrifice the lives of all his armies for his glory and kingdom and King Leonidas retorts that he, on the other hand,is willing to die for any of his men. For any of you who watched this scene, how many of the presidents who have served as your Commander-in-Chief can you imagine to be like Leonidas? How many of them resemble Xerxes? In all honesty, how many, if any, have lived up to your expectations as your leader?

It is a hard job, and it is very hard on the mind and body of the one who becomes President, but that still does not excuse the recent lack of quality and integrity of those to hold the office. The choices we have for this office are only as good as the process by which they are elected. This system only leaves room for those with the money, cunning and guile to wield enough influence to prevail. No one can consider honorable the methods by which our candidates for president are selected.

I foolishly continue to hope that my choice for the next leader will be based on my faith to entrust in someone who can do a better job of it than I can. Someone who will uphold and defend the Constitution in it's entirety. Someone who will wake every morning and ask themselves "What do I need to do today to ensure that every single American has an equal chance to do the best for themselves and this country?"

There are, by far, more obstacles to my Presidency, most of them bear some manner of influence on how I can't imagine doing the things, I have studied or witnessed, current and former president commit in the execution of their duties as my president. Any other reasons I can imagine, pale in comparison to the caveat of campaign fiancees. I literally can't afford to get into the rest of my reasons why I can't be the President of the United States of America.

If you, on the other hand, can imagine faithfully executing the duties of the office of the President of the United States, please let me know if you will campaign for the office in 2008. If you can't get yourself on the ballot, I will write you in mine. But first, you have to convince me that every American, not just the ones that vote you in, deserve having you in-charge for four years.

I eagerly await a correspondence with someone worthy of my vote.

A vote that I do not ever wish to make in vain, again.

A vote that I will rigorously protect from the charlatans.

A vote cast in gratitude to the sacrifice of those that defended my right to do so with their lives and limb.

If you feel up to the task, please reply below and convince me that I should trust you with my life, liberty and happiness for the next four years.

If you find yourself disinclined to bear the heavy burden that is the Presidency of the United States please, also, reply below.

Please only recuse or nominate yourselves. If you think higher or lessor of others, then please forward this petition to them. I fully hope to receive a unique reply from every citizen of this country.

Count me out

I will not seek, nor will I accept, a nomination for the Presidency
of the United States of America for the next election.

Although I have met all of the requirements for eligibility for this office in accordance with the Constitution of the United States, I would consider the duties and obligations of this high office to be beyond my power to faithfully execute.

It is with a heavy heart that I, as a citizen of these United States, must recuse myself from the solemn obligation of executing the duties for this high office, once held in the highest regard by generations before me. I cannot in good conscience wield power in a manner that will force me to sacrifice the liberties of the citizens for whom it would be my solemn duty to protect from all enemies foreign or domestic. I cannot knowingly seek the endorsement of my fellow Americans at this time of national crisis.

A crisis whose resolution I cannot foresee surmounting without sacrificing the life, liberty or happiness of the very same citizens who would have me elected to this office. An office, whose soul purpose is the execute the will of the people upon whom I will be forced, by providence and lack of honest foresight of those that came before, to inflict upon with burdens, unimaginably incongruous to the principals we Americans have held so dear for generations. Ideals we have sacrificed our bravest and brightest to achieve only to squander away.

I fear I will lack the resolve to make the hard choices that will have the most heinous consequences for those citizens of this country that have contributed the most blood, sweat and tears for the continued welfare of this republic. I look upon with dread to the inevitable bickering and bargaining I must endure to wrest control from those that have benefited most and given so little in return for their good fortunes.

I fear that the impotent rage that our foreing policy has become in the eyes of our friends and enemies will hamper our ability to advance the interest of our nation abroad. I rue the day that the president will be compeled to acquiesce our most vital principals of free trade amoung free nations because the only alternative we have left for ourselves is ashes in our mouths.

I am as certain of my doubt to do what is best for this county in the future, as I am certain that my lack of effort in the past has contributed to mess we are in now. I never took the chance to ask my fellow citizens to do something to make things better. Never taking the effort to ask is this the best we can do? And having the courage to act on the need with a solution.

May all who serve this great nation, have the courage to do what is best for the freedom of every soul. And may everyone of our citizens have the courage to seek out and find the best amongst us to serve this country.

Sincerely,

Me