Michael Moore: new movie trailer

This is the teaser for the Untitled Michael Moore bailout documentary film that focuses on the global financial crisis and the U.S. economy. In theaters October 2nd , this will explore the root causes of the global economic meltdown and take a comical look at the corporate and political shenanigans that culminated in what Moore described as “the biggest robbery in the history of this country” - the massive transfer of U.S. taxpayer money to private financial institutions.

Ain’t that a drag that we’re gonna have to wait?

Putting the bailout in perspective: Iraq and military spending

The media - both locally and nationally - has been awash in wailing and a great gnashing of teeth over what the bailouts might cost. What they fail to do is put this within any kind of meaningful context. Even so-called liberal commentators are wringing their hands in dismay over the, admittedly, huge numbers we’re dealing with.

What are we really talking about here? All of the bailout money is taxpayer dollars spent how? As the size of the bailout increases, the more they become a numerical abstraction - hard for anybody to get their head wrapped around.

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Why this bailout is NOT terrible

I’ve been harping on this for a while now, so I hope my regular readers will bear with me. At breakfast out this morning my mother continued the “bad behavior” drumbeat in regard to corporations and their CEOs. According to Winifred, this is the cause of it all. Corporations should be nice, and care about the environment yada yada. You would have been proud of me. I didn’t rise to the bait. She’s 91-going-on-92 years old and it would have been pointless.

Let me say it one more time: corporations are not people. They are bundles of contracts. They have no ethics or morality inherent in them. That’s why they require regulation by a government that has it head pulled out of its own backside. Americans made money ass over bandbox for decades in the middle of the last century - often referred to as the Golden Period of America - in spite of all the horrendous regulations. Gee, if regulations on corporations were all just inherently bad, how could that have happened? Let’s all go ask Phil Gramm - with some tar and a bag of feathers in hand.

So this afternoon, when I read this article from The Motley Fool online investment newsletter, which we’ve subscribed to forever - and got out of the market well in advance of this crisis, thank you very much Fools - I knew I had to post it.

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Will somebody, please, turn out the lights at Chrysler?

It depends on how you want to look at it, but I think it’s a positive that I’m old enough to remember the old Lee Iacocca years at Chrysler and the original government bailout of that perpetually troubled automotive firm. I also have enough of my chemo-fogged memory intact to remember thinking at the time that the company should go away.

The question seems to be hanging on: how many times will we do this for Chrysler?

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Baseline: The Financial Crisis for Beginners

Local blogger, AnnOnn, tipped me off to this one today. She’s a good, solid blogger, but needs to quit putting me in the same paragraph as Bill O’Reilly. This also goes for you, Arden. Quit putting me in the same paragraph -or planet - as Ann Coulter. Bwa!

Anyhow, AnnOnn managed to watch Bill Moyers’ Journal last night (where the heck was I? Oh, yeah - sick in bed):

Last night Bill Moyers interviewed Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. Simon has a very informative website, The Baseline Scenario, and Moyers referred to Simon’s blog entry “High Noon: Tim Geithner v. the American Oligarchs.”  from AnnOnn Everything

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Friday Fish Wrap: January 30, 2009

I simply have to begin with the following photo since it so concisely says everything the Republican nervous nellies need to know right now.

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