Ugly. Criminally Ugly.

In less than 18 months forty percent of global wealth has evaporated. Poof!

http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSTRE52966Z20090310

That makes me think that forty percent (or more) of global wealth was pure bullshit.

In basic terms, this global economic crisis started in the U.S. housing market. Back during the late nineties, Phil Graham, a Senator, wrote legislation which majorly reduced regulation in the mortgage industry. This paved the way for the housing bubble.

People's income started going flat back around 2000. This meant that the housing party was going to be over and that housing prices would stop their meteoric rise and start to fall a bit as demand cooled. ARM and NINJA to the rescue!

ARM, as most people know, stands for Adjustable Rate Mortgage. This is a loan where you initially pay a lower interest rate. At a later date (2 years later, usually) the rate would increase, making mortgage payments as much as double in some cases. Designed for house flipping and speculation, many people were caught with these loans when the housing market started cooling off. Unable to sell, the higher interest rates kicked in and their payments went through the roof. Foreclosures by the millions followed.

NINJA is a less known type of loan. The acronym stands for No Income No Job Applicant. This initially started as a way to sell homes to illegal immigrants who could not legally be employed in America. They had jobs, they just couldn't claim them on the paperwork. The NINJA loan became a way for mortgage brokers to sell to any-old-body. Make a terrible loan, get your commission, and let the recipient of the loan deal with the fallout.

All of this was bad... oh, yes... but the worst has yet to be explained. Any idiot, even a Wall Street executive, could see that these were risky loans. There had to be some other way to make money off these loans aside from the monthly mortgage payment... let's think here, boys...

What Wall Street came up with was nothing short of criminal. Wrap these mortgages up into securities, price them at 20-30 times their value, break up the mortgages and slice them and dice them ten ways to Sunday so no one could tell what securities fund was comprised of what mortgages (and at what terms/rates), insure them, get them rated AAA, and sell them on the global markets.

All of this required massive collusion. The insurers had to be in on it. The rating agencies had to be in on it. Banks had to be in on it. Wall Street had to be in on it.

Massive. Criminal. Fraud. Conspiracy.

And now we, as the American tax payer, are expected to bail out the top 1%. Bail out the bankers. Bail out the insurance giants. Bail out Wall Street. And yes, it is the top 1% who dreamed up these loans and how to insure, rate, and sell them to make more money off of smoke and mirrors. Yes, it is the wealthiest Americans who are almost solely to blame for this mess we're in.

To top it all off, these same people are balking at a tax increase to help cover the fallout! Rich motherfuckers. Most of these people haven't been poor for generations and they have no idea what is is to live hand to mouth. They have no idea what it is like to have to scrimp and save for what they want or need. They have no idea what damage they have done.

Detroit is different. I have no problem bailing out Detroit, and here's why:

Without auto manufacturing in America we are no longer a superpower.

Never mind the fact that GM, Ford, and Chrysler are also victims of Wall Street's greed and incompetence. They are suffering from a lack of demand. Most of the green initiatives they are pursuing started long before the downturn. The Chevy Volt is a good example. They were in the process of changing their faulty business models when the recession hit.

The simple fact of the matter is that auto manufacturing is a matter of national security. It is this industry which provides the backbone for military industrial might. No modern nation can be a superpower without this component. It is a prerequisite.

But the right is using this as an opportunity to attack the unions. Yes, evil unions! Oh, noooo! They are responsible for such evils as child labor laws, workplace safety regulations, the forty hour work week, retirement and health benefits, and the list goes on. Do your research. Before unions, labor was exploited. It was during this time of rampant exploitation of labor that communist and anarchist movements in this country took hold.

Few people know this, but there was an anarchist movement and a communist movement afoot in this nation which was very strong around the turn of the century (1900). Much of their gripe was with industrial exploitation of workers. Horrible and dangerous working conditions where children worked like slaves, the hours were as long as the boss demanded, and the compensation incredibly low. This movement in America even managed to assassinate a President! William McKinley, to be specific.

Oddly enough, once the labor movement in this country started to gain ground and improve conditions for workers, the base for these more violent and destructive movements began to dry up. So why is it that unions get such a bad rap in this country?

Essentially, you can blame it on Jimmy Hoffa and the infiltration of some union shops by the mob. Much of this, at least on the larger scales, was cleaned up by the Justice Department under the RICO Act. However, the taint of this corruption provided the necessary "in" for some elements within our political establishment to go after unions and demonize them.

These same elements persist to this day. They are politicians in the pocket of the captains of industry and finance. These same politicians are eager to bail out Wall Street (no questions asked) and defuse any blame that anyone tries to place at the feet of these captains. At the same time they make Detroit grovel for an amount that was roughly 5% of what they approved for Wall Street with no strings attached!

All I am saying is that we have been taken for a ride. We've been pumped and dumped. Forces are at work that favor the extremely wealthy and screw the middle class and poor. And many of us still don't see it!

The American Dream once meant an honest shot at a decent life for anyone who would work hard and play by the rules. It has been hijacked to mean "wealth and glamor", or wild success. It is no longer good enough to simply own your home, raise your family without hunger or desperation, and retire with dignity. Now you have to have your ride pimped, granite counter tops, and take deluxe vacations to have attained the "American Dream."

By hijacking the American Dream to mean "extreme wealth" we have been made to think that any policies that do not favor the wealthy above all others are somehow unAmerican. We are meant to believe that tax policies that shift wealth upwards are fine, but that tax policies that shift wealth to the middle class or poor are "class warfare" or socialism at work.

Let me tell you something - America has never experienced class warfare. The French Revolution was class warfare. The Russian Revolution was class warfare. The American Revolution was not class warfare. The elite and wealthy in America lead a revolution against the wealthy and elite of England.

In France the wealthy were carted off and executed en masse at the guillotine. In Russia the ruling class was exterminated like rats. And so I say to you again - America has never seen class warfare. The wealthy are terrified of it here because the wealthy never win at class warfare. They die like rats.

Am I saying we should start killing rich people? Hell no! I'm saying that the wealthy interests in this country are doing everything they can to rip us off, to squeeze every last drop of blood they can out of us, and at the same time stave off retribution at the hands of the masses. These chickens always come home to roost, however.

One thing that France and Russia both had in common was an autocratic regime that ignored the people and favored the wealthy to the exclusion of everyone else. America is different in that we have a democracy which is at least marginally responsive to the will of the People.

We have flirted with open class warfare in the past and we were brought back from the brink by people like Teddy Roosevelt (Republican - trust busting) and Franklin Roosevelt (Democrat - New Deal). Regardless of whether or not you feel these initiatives were worthwhile or not, they altered public perception of the landscape and brought us back from potentially huge civil unrest as a result of the lower classes rebelling at their lot in society.

In both cases (trust busting and the New Deal), the public was outraged by the abuses of the wealthy. At the turn of the century it was the robber barons and industrial titans like Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Schwab who used the Pinkertons and like methods to brutally suppress worker strikes and unionization.

In 1929, short selling and abuses on the stock market were the cause of massive hardships in this nation. Forces beyond the average man's control had ruined his life and they were rightly angered by this. These forces were again comprised of those who had wealth and wanted more and more and more and more.

Forty percent of world wealth lost. The poorest among us always bear the heaviest brunt of these downturns. Historically, when the better educated middle class starts to feel the pinch is when things get ugly. They "rouse the rabble", as it were, and with numbers they break the back of the wealthy establishment and, at least, force concessions.

So let's all pull together before it gets that bad, eh? We're rocketing in that direction, if you hadn't noticed. How many people do you know who have lost a home, a job, or both? I am lucky in that I live in Charlottesville. Between the University of Virginia, hospitals, NGIC, and other agencies and industries our area only tends to get hit by the worst recessions.

I will tell you one thing, however... I walk to work every day right through our downtown and Main Street areas and I've been seeing a noticeable uptick in the number of homeless people or people begging for change. Old ladies living in tents, people pushing shopping carts around picking up cans, disabled people in wheel chairs on the Mall asking for money.

It's getting ugly.

Two Great Articles

Poverty Of Imagination - /// - President's Day

Both of the above articles are by Jim Kunstler. Excellent reads... He is about as close as anyone has come to encapsulating my own personally held views concerning the impending "realignment" the world is in for.

I Should Be An Economist...

Here's a great article on Reuters concerning how close we may be to another Great Depression:

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5077TM20090109

Why should I be an economist? I've been saying almost the exact same things as are in this article for around a year. Particularly the point about how the unemployment numbers these days are calculated as compared to how they were calculated in the 1930's (i.e. today they are parsed to make unemployment look lower).

If you search this blog for the word "depression" you will see six entries dating back as far as early June 2008. If you know me, you'll know that I have talked about our proximity to another depression for at least a year. Hmmm - right around the time that this long recession began.

Mindset

Let me be clear about the way I view our future and why I consider myself a survivalist... and for that matter, what I think of when I use a word like "survivalist."

The Future

Succinctly put, it's bleak. We've seen two million jobs evaporate this last year alone. Our manufacturing base is in serious trouble. Banks are clamming up with the credit and all our economy does is consume, consume, consume. We make nothing.

Politicians are more interested in scoring short term political victories than laying the foundation for long term sustainability and growth. The term "mortgaging our children's future" is such a cliche these days that the poignant image it is meant to convey is utterly lost. In short, politicians are long on gathering power und to themselves, and very short on actual, real leadership.

Our leaders, be they corporate or government, are no longer expected to produce results. They are bailed out or golden parachuted or pardoned when they fail or even commit criminal acts. There is no accountability. The meritocracy that once made this nation great is no longer. Our democratic ideals are dying out in favor of a nouveau nobility. Kennedys, Clintons, Bushes, and more.

Our executives in the governmental realm behave more like kings than officers of the public trust. Our corporate chiefs act like spoiled children of nobility who are given a small fiefdom to run... often into the ground. Corporate boards are comprised of executives from other, often competing, companies. One CEO may have a board whose members are CEOs at companies whose boards on which they themselves serve. Can anyone say mutual masturbation?

Our leaders are modern day robber barons; thieves, confidence men, and thugs. I mean that with no poetry and in all ways literally. We have yet to see the Obama Administration in action, of course. While I am allowing myself to hope a bit, I know history too well to get my hopes too high. Washington has a way of changing those who mean to come to town and root out the rotten core of our government.

The momentum of this financial crisis has not slowed one bit. No one talks about this, but the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are as much to blame for our financial problems as the mortgage crisis. The defecits we run (roughly $400 billion a year for the last few years) do not count the cost of the wars we are engaged in. They are funded with emergency supplemental spending bills - off books. The true defecits we have been running are north of half a trillion dollars a year.

Do you hear that sound? It sounds like a giant toilet flushing... and we're on our way out with the crap.

"Survivalist"

This word is oft maligned as meaning "gun nut", "militia freak", "racial supremacist", "radical", or "wingnut." This is not what the word means to most of the community.

While I am not a prominent member of the survivalist community, I do consider myself a survivalist. To me the word "survivalism" means, in its most basic form, "preparedness." So to be a survivalist means to be someone who is prepared or who strives to be prepared for the day when the trucks stop delivering me my food and when the lights go out.

To be honest, no one can foresee exactly what shape the coming gridcrash will take. Will the markets melt down and banks fail causing currencies around the globe to go into a hyper-deflationary spiral? Will there be an attack on Washington which will cause a lapse in centralized authority leading to riots born of panic? Or will budget shortfalls in the fed, state, and local levels coupled with high unemployment cause government to essentially be ineffective and overwhelmed leading to defacto anarchy? We saw how well the fed responded to a disaster like Katrina. Or, on the radical end of the spectrum, will a bug escape some Army lab and wipe out 90% of the world a la Stephen King's The Stand (minus the supernatural stuff)?

The point of the last paragraph is to say that there's no telling how, or even if, the shit will truly hit the fan. How does that influence the survivalist's mindset? I can't speak for others, but for me it means having a flexible, generalized plan that can handle as many eventualities as possible. It means learning a whole metric ass ton of information on the basics:

• Prioritization - What must you have? What can you do without if you had to? What do you do first?
• Water - Treatment and sourcing
• First Aid - Not bleeding to death
• Growing and Storing Food - Gardening, composting, and food preservation
• Hunting - When the supermarket runs out of meat, you'll need to hunt, kill, and prepare game of some sort. This will be especially important years when your garden's yield is less than expected
• Sanitation - Getting rid of waste and possibly using it as compost
• Energy Engineering - When the lights go out, can you get them back on? Can you setup a wind turbine? Could you construct one? How about biodiesel? A tractor would make that farm way more productive...
• Outdoorsmanship - If you had to spend a night outdoors in the winter, could you? How about a week? A month?
• Gunsmithing and Marksmanship - Fixing, cleaning, and shooting guns
• Construction - If a tree falls on your roof and knocks a hole in it, could you repair it?
• Brewing - Making your own beer, because what the hell is life without beer?

Just think of all the stuff you call on others to do. Do you have even the slightest clue how to do that yourself? Some things will just go away. For most, electricity will simply be gone or could be unreliable, at best. How will you preserve your food without the handy-dandy refrigerator?

Not too long ago we knew how to take care of ourselves. My grandparents canned food from their garden and so did my father and mother. They didn't do it because they were poor and had to, either. To the contrary, my grandparents and parents were on the more afluent side of the middle class. Our great-grandparents didn't have refrigerators and it was a way of life for them to grow food and preserve it themselves.

In hard times, can you trust the cop who hasn't been paid in two months? They may be in as tough or tougher a bind than you are (more likely the latter). They are just like you except they have authority and a gun. I have to admit, if my family were hurting and I had the gun and authority, I'd be sorely tempted to use it to my family's advantage.

A survivalist, in short, does not take for granted the notion that the cushy comforts of modern life will always be there. In many ways, a survivalist is a rationalist. Look at our economy. Unsustainable and obviously broken on a fundamental level. Look at our energy consumption habits. Unsustainable and terrible for our environment. Look at our modern society. Stupid, lazy, and isolated with no signs of improvement. Look at our leadership. Incompetent and corrupt.

Who wouldn't be concerned? Who wouldn't look at all of that and wonder when we'll reach the tipping point which brings it all crashing down? A survivalist is someone who sees the big picture and resolves to not be a victim. A survivalist may be your savior one day...

Prognostication

Let me tell you something here - if the US Auto Industry collapses then I officially deem this nation no longer a superpower. The long ride we've had as a preeminant global force will be done with if the industry that won World War II for us goes away.

There was a scene from Band of Brothers that leaps to mind where Webster (along with the 101st Airborne Division) is riding in the back of a long convoy of trucks along a highway where 300,000 German POWs are marching in the median going the other way.

They are walking and riding in horse-drawn carts and Webster screams at them, "What were you thinking!? Look at you! You have horses!! Say hello to Ford and General Motors! You ignorant, servile scum! What are we doing here? You interrupted our lives for this?!?!"

The idea that a nation could attempt to dominate the modern world on horseback was preposterous.

Our manufacturing base is without a doubt the central cog in our military machine. The auto industry is the wheel upon which almost all teeth in the industrial cog are mounted. When that goes, the last of anything we actually make is sure to soon follow.

Gut Punch Correction

(Click for larger image)

Slight correction from yesterday. It seems the Dow has lost 42% (rather than 40%) of it's value from its high on October 9th, 2007 of 14,164 down to its low of 8,175 as of October 27th, 2008.

Recession Finally Admitted by the Fed

Finally there are rumblings from Washington that seem to admit to a recession. I think the American people have been tuned into the reality of an economic downturn for quite some time.

As of now, the Dow is down another 502 points. The other day it was up by around 900, but I knew that was mere volatility. This downturn won't stop until the actual fundamentals of the world economy are repaired.

The U.S. especially needs to put its economic house in order. We need to start making things again. That is what is fundamentally at the core of our floundering economy - we don't make anything any more. We make money off of money. We flip houses. We use credit.

There are many things that have gone awry, don't get me wrong. However, increasing manufacturing jobs in America would have the effect of decreasing unemployment, putting more money in the pocket of Americans. Two thirds of our economy is based upon consumer spending.

I think retail stores are going to take a major hit this Christmas. Americans are losing their jobs, their homes, and their confidence. Watch the stock market in late December and early January. Look for a big drop when the retail numbers prove to be abysmal.

I think the turnaround here will take a good long time. I think Americans have been shocked into waking up from a credit card coma. Spending will slow. Savings will increase. Less cheap crap will be bought in stores. Bad news for China, really.

If Americans are smart and we have good leadership we can come through this better and stronger. If the focus is on technology and research into alternative energy we have a chance. If America leads the way with a whole new fleet of battery driven and alternatively fueled cars we can again be the auto manufacturer of the world. If we invest in infrastructure like schools, roads, a new solar and wind electrical grid, and college we can again become competitive.

If our leaders have the political will to raise taxes we might be okay. If we are honest with ourselves then we see that raising taxes is unavoidable if we are to address our national debt and other needs simultaneously. If Americans can change their ways and refrain from spending what they don't have then each of us may yet find economic salvation.

If we hold our leaders accountable on the issues that matter to all of us we can save ourselves from ourselves. Issues like education, roads, jobs, a stagnating economy, and the environment are all interrelated and can all be solved on a single line of attack.

The simplest answer is usually the best answer. I usually denounce Occum's Razor as a means for oversimplification of complicated issues and ideas. In this case, however it is right on.

Problems like crumbling roads, vaporizing jobs and a worsening environment can all be solved by investing in green technology and providing government subsidies for green infrastructure projects. This would lay the foundation for jobs and a revitalized economy. It would allow us to export this technology and put America back on the economic map as a producer and exporter rather than an importer and borrower.

More Americans with good jobs boosts consumer confidence and provides the fuel for two thirds of our economy (consumer spending). More good jobs means a larger tax base. Government subsidies for technology research means many many small businesses getting startup money from either the government or venture capitalists.

And to cement the continued growth of this new economy you invest in education. A smart workforce is an efficient and innovative workforce. You also ensure this new boom is sustainable with massive infrastructure investment in both existing and new techologies (as they come online). Improve roads and build a new sustainable electrical grid. This will create jobs in and of itself as well - this will feed back into the positive cycle by putting more money in the pockets of Americans and growing the middle class.

That is a lot of "ifs." Believe me, I am aware of that fact. Every pay period I am putting a little bit towards survival gear and supplies. I am trying to hope for the best, but I am planning for the worst without a doubt.

EDIT: At close of trading today the Dow was down 733 pts.

The Butt-Rape of Main Street

Mao Tse-Tung and Lenin might have been on to something. How many times do we have to be screwed by the titans of industry before we wake up? When does enough become enough? When do we pick up the gun?

I'm not advocating it - not yet. I'm just wondering when it is that people get so fed up with the bullshit being shoved down their throat by Washington and Wall Street that they go armed into the streets. Bullshit like:

1. "We can't have national healthcare because it's too expensive. But you sure as hell better cough up a $700 billion bailout in just a few days!"
2. "Bankrupt due to medical bills? Well, see we just made it easier for the hospitals to take your house. Oh, you're welcome!"
3. "We have to cut education spending because we just can't afford it. We have this $10 billion a month war of choice we have to fund."
4. "Sorry about college being unattainably expensive, but we just can't afford to help you with that. See, we have these regulations we need to loosen and then we'll be cutting the taxes on those who benefit from that deregulation."
5. "Hey, remember how I outsourced your jobs and stagnated your wages? Yeah, haha! Good times. Hey, I got real fucking stoned and was doing some plain retarded stuff with that mortgage I sold you... yeah, yeah. I repackaged it and sold it for like 20 times what it's worth. Hey... I need to jack your payment by like 120% to try to cover my losses."

These same guys that have had Main Street bent over the barrel, slapping us in the face with the cock of outsourcing and donkey-punching us with stagnant wages now want us to pay the bill for this date rape.

Wall Street to a crying Main Street, skirt torn and dirty: "Hey, sorry I punched you in the fucking mouth, called you a 'whiner', and then ass-raped you in the alley behind the restaraunt I told you we'd eat at. Who am I kidding? I'm not sorry for that. I actually ended up taking Congress out to dinner, Main Street. Yeah - I know you're bleeding, but I need you to pay for my date with Congress. Yeah, and you better pay right now or things will get fucking awful."

Fuck them. No matter what there's going to be pain - bailout or no. There was a bailout during the Great Depression and the Depression still happened. Fuck these assholes. Let them all lie in the bed they've made. Let the chips fall where they may and we'll just have to deal with the fallout.

We don't even know if the bailout will help. This is the actual consensus of the economic intelligensia. They admit it. How did they come up with $700 billion as the pricetag for this bailout? Just a guess...

Grrrarrrr! I could just scream. Nah - I'll go shooting instead.

Teh H4x0r

Main Entry: Teh H4x0r
Phoenetic Pronunciation: \tay hack-sore\
Function: noun
Date: Late 20th century

1. an elite computer programmer, technician, engineer, or systems architect.
2. anyone who can bend a computer to their will.
3. me, muthafucka!

<--------------------->

I've been banging out so much code over the last week. My job entails much more than just programming, but I've been finding all sorts of ways to solve problems with my code-skillz lately.

On any given day I could be called upon to perform Oracle database administrative tasks, develop .NET code for web apps or services, troubleshoot client side problems, advise on third party solution architecture, or manage and coordinate project teams and activities. Oh yeah - I forgot I also do both end-user and technician level training classes. I've probably forgotten a task or two...

All of this and I serve on a rotating weekly on-call schedule with three other guys. On-call is 24/7/365 between the four of us. Hospitals never sleep, you know. Oh yeah... haha. I also develop the training material for the classes I give as well as develop the documentation for all of the systems I develop and/or support.

Anyways - back to the code. Over the last week or so I have been a veritable Indian sweatshop of code output. In this short period of time I have:

1. Added a historical record revision tracking system to our web based Change Control system (which I wrote originally)
2. Created a record reconciliation routine with excel spreadsheet output and configurable parameters to compare items sent and items received between two different systems here at the Hospital.
3. Detected, isolated, coded a fix for, tested, and deployed said fix for an issue with an Oracle monitoring service (that I wrote originally) whose output had come under criticism. In all honesty, it was a bug in my software but it was a bug that only manifested itself when a certain other group did something they should never do to my precious server.
4. Overcame our LAN group's excessively restrictive security policies in order to coordinate a vendor installation of software on a load balanced server arrangement. ("That didn't work?" Hmmm... troubleshoot, test, troubleshoot, test. Call LAN group "Hey, open up permissions on such and such registry key.")

All that and I fielded a few HelpDesk tickets, too. I'm on call this week.

Teh. Fucking. H4x0r.

State of the Union

My fellow Americans,

The state of the Union is not strong. As President of the United States of America I feel it is my duty to tell it to you straight. This country has been horribly mismanaged by a two-party system paralyzed by gridlock for far too long.

Corporate interests have pillaged our national heritage for the sake of the next quarter's profit statement. Manufacturing in America is something from an era gone by. Gone are the good middle class jobs that would afford a decent living to people with no college education. These jobs have gone overseas and the corporations who sent them overseas got tax incentives to do it.

The college education that is a necessity these days will cost you far more than it ever cost your parents, starting most graduates off in a state of debt from the moment they take their diploma. The average American family is hard pressed to send their children to college. This sets the stage for a less and less competitive and qualified American workforce in the future. This will put America at a severe disadvantage in the global marketplace.

These are not the only hardships the middle class faces. While all of the other industrialized Western nations have moved on to nationalized healthcare affording coverage to all of their citizens, America's healthcare system has become more expensive and slipped to a ranking of 37th, just behind Costa Rica. The threat of bankruptcy due to illness looms large over the heads of every American family.

After decades of underfunding, America, whose public education system used to be the envy of the world, now has a decrepit system where lower income students are at a severe disadvantage and every student is expected to learn with fewer and fewer resources.

All of these things go to undercut and weaken the middle class, which is the backbone of a strong America. The middle class has always fueled the American economy and with the middle class deteriorating can it be any surprise that America itself seems to be in decline?

The Recession of 2001 was a recession from which we never truly recovered. The "recovery" we experienced was largely fueled by rising housing prices which afforded consumers seemingly free money in the form of home equity loans. This meteoric rise in housing prices coupled with stagnant wages was an unsustainable trend and lead to the inevitable housing market correction we are seeing today.

The lack of regulation in the mortgage industry lead to predictable abuses piled on top of a wildly overvalued housing market, coupled with abusive repackaging and reselling of these loans on the international markets. Millions of foreclosures on American families coupled with millions more American families trapped in their current homes* will only deepen a long-running economic downturn that has never truly and sustainably been reversed.

Oil prices skyrocketing causes food prices to rise, the cost of a commute to rise, and a general rise of prices across the board for all things you buy. Stagnant wages. Falling consumer confidence. The highest debt-to-income ratio in the American household since the Great Depression.

A lack of action from the federal government on global warming has put us further behind on an issue that we should have began work on in the late 70's as envisioned by Jimmy Carter. I myself take issue with many things he did during his time as President, but on this issue he displayed uncanny prescience.

The war in Iraq is a barrier to progress on any of the above issues. While we are bleeding in Iraq we can not undertake any solutions here at home. The human cost in Iraq is a tragic metric which proves the folly of ever going in. The financial cost drains our coffers while the infrastructure in America collapses around us, while Americans lose their jobs, their homes, and their health - while Americans lose their security.

In short, nothing is going right. Liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat we should all hang our heads in shame. We have greviously failed the American people and the American dream. Thankfully all is not lost. Not yet. We can reverse these trends.

We can pull out of Iraq with honor. Our soldiers have accomplished their mission. It is the political leaders who have failed in their mission, not the brave men and women in uniform. I propose that within the next two years that we draw down all combat forces in Iraq, leaving a diplomatic and humanitarian mission in their place. It is our moral obligation, after killing so many innocent Iraqi civilians and destroying their nation's infrastructure to be in the forefront of the humaitarian mission they so desperately need.

For our men and women in uniform returning home, we owe nothing less than the best medical and psychological care that is available. We owe them a chance at a real future in the form of a full ride to any college to which they can gain admittance. We owe them our thanks and our understanding and our sympathy as they adjust to life after war.

We must capture Osama bin Laden and destroy the resurgent Taliban and alQaeda. We must finish what we started in Afghanistan. To that end I will propose commiting 50% more soldiers to the stabilization mission in Afghanistan, granting Afghanistan preferred trading partner status, and creating a collection of special forces teams whose entire purpose is tracking down Osama bin Laden.

Getting us out of Iraq is not only morally correct, but a financial necessity. We do not want to follow the Soviet Union down the path of a bankrupting war in the Middle East. To correct any of the problems here at home will require we stop spending money we don't have in Iraq.

The American people are far ahead of their leaders on almost all of these issues. The need to break our dependence on oil is one of these issues. We need to spark a Green Revolution in this country. By ending subsidies for oil companies and transitioning this money into federal grants for green technology research and low interest startup loans for green technology companies, we can stimulate the economy in a true way creating a new generation of jobs - "green collar" jobs that will pay a good wage.

These jobs will provide the basis for a revived middle class and address our environmental problem at the same time. Restructing of the tax code to end the Bush tax cuts for those who make more than $200, 000 a year will put the federal budget back on track and allow for renewed investment in America's infrastructure and education system.

We must raise the CAFE standards for all auto manufacturers who sell cars in America. To further the cause of the environment, I will propose a bill that will grant tax incentives for American auto makers who exceed the minimum CAFE standards on the cars they make.

In this same bill I will also propose a massive reinvestment in public transportation, the centerpiece of which will be a new national highspeed rail system. Couple this with funding help for municipalities who pursue local light rail solutions and we will reinvent travel and the transportation of goods in America.

At the same time we do all of these things, we must address the national shame which is the inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina. We must rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. We must reach out and help our fellow Americans. We must resettle those who wish to return to their homes and reinvest in these Gulf communities, many of which were struck by desperate poverty even before Katrina.

In part this can be done by rebuilding all of the schools in neighborhoods like the Ninth Ward in New Orleans. The federal government should partner with local and state officials to build model schools in these regions. State of the art facilities that will be the benchmark for returning America's education system back to the envied position it once held.

Terrorism and failed states are the new enemies America faces in the 21st century. To face these new threats will require a new national security stance whose roots we can trace to the past. Like Truman at the dawn of the Cold War, we must face these enemies with a strong alliance of like-minded states. We must rebuild the alliances that have suffered so much lately as well as forge new alliances.

With this coalition we must share not only intelligence gathered concerning threats, but we must share the burden of dealing with these threats. Standing together with old allies and new, America will be better positioned to lead the world to a new era of global peace and prosperity.

To earn the right to lead this new alliance, America must reestablish its moral authority. Let me be clear to the American public, to our allies, and the world at large:

America renounces torture in every way. America recommits itself to the Geneva Conventions and will reestablish itself as the world's leader in human rights advocacy. We renounce all policies of the previous Administration concerning "enhanced interrogation" techniques and torture. Waterboarding is torture. Any rendition programs that may exist are summarily terminated as of this very moment.

All detainees at Guantanimo will hereby be given a trial or freed. The legal grey zone that is Guantanimo and its detention center is a stain on America's honor. Let me be clear, this stain was not inflicted by the men and women in uniform who honorably followed the orders of their superiors.

This stain is laid clearly at the feet of the previous Administration. I urge Congress to finally hold the hearings that may bring accountability to those truly to blame for these crimes, not the low ranking enlisted soldiers who have borne the brunt of the punishment to this point.

===================

And so on... I could type for hours. No matter who gets in the White House I will follow them to the bitter end if they give this speech for their first State of the Union speech and then follow through on making it happen.

* Trapped by being upside down in their mortgage, which is owing more on your mortgage principal than the amount for which you could sell your home

I Wouldn't Wish it on my Worst Enemy

Whoever our next President is could spend their entire term doing any one of the following:

• getting the economy on track again (not that they can do more than facilitate with sane policies)
• getting us out of Iraq
• repairing our massively damaged professional government bureaucracy
• balancing the budget
• repairing our crumbling infrastructure
• addressing global warming
• repairing our health care system
• improving our limping education system
• capturing bin Laden and taking down alQaeda
• repairing our standing with our allies

...and the list goes on. In truth, many of these items are interdependent and would have to be tackled in parallel. I do not envy whoever takes the Oval Office next because, Republican or Democrat, you have to admit that Bush has massively screwed the pooch, so to speak...

I am actually an independent voter. In my day I have voted for some Republicans and some Democrats and to be honest neither party impresses me much these days. But the fact of the matter is that the Bush Years have been awful for this country in every measurable way.

To quote Patton Oswalt, "If the standard for impeachment is covering up a burglary or getting a blowjob shouldn't this guy have been dragged out onto the White House lawn and shot by now?"

I couldn't agree more and to that end the Republicans must be taught that this cannot stand. If the Dems won't grow a sack and impeach him and then try him then we as voters must reject the Republican policies roundly at the ballot box.

I don't care who you are - you have a reason to be mad at Bush whether or not you realize it. If you disagree with me I suggest you comment here and challenge any point I've made. I can back everything up and will do so gladly if it means lifting the veil from a fellow citizen's eyes.

Another brief list of reasons to be pissed at the Bush Administration and pity the next because they'll have to fix it:

• The suspension of habeus corpus via the Military Comissions Act of 2006
• The NSA tapping our phone lines without a warrant
• Our intelligence aparatus (they warned him "bin Laden determined to attack within US" before 9/11)

About the intelligence community in the US... it needs to be fixed, yes, but only to undo what the current Administration has done. The responsibility for failing to prevent 9/11 doesn't lie with the agencies themselves but with the political arm of the Administration. They were warned and when it bit them in the backside they shifted blame to the agencies and followed that up with a major restructuring to make it appear to the public that they had fixed the problem.

We have lost 8 years on every front imaginable. Worse than that we've not only lost time, but ground. We've actually gone backwards in every arena since 2000. Had we jumped on environmental issues in 2000, I wouldn't be nearly as pessimistic as I am now.

They're Not Building a Prison - It's Built

Click the image above for a full sized version of the chart. Has the population of America quintupled since Richard Nixon's 1971 declaration of a War on Drugs? The prison poulation sure has...

Intro

A little background on me to start with, eh? As of this post I am 35 years old and I live in Charlottesville, Virginia. I am a male IT professional (programmer, DBA, project manager, application support engineer, you name it!) who works a full time job here in town. I am a married father of four with kids ranging from 1 to 13 years of age. My wife also holds down a full time IT job. You could say we're a middle class geek family living the American Dream.

Despite my relative good fortune, I have always sensed that something was wrong with modern industrial society. Even before I would have known what a term like modern industrial society meant I could see that there was a sickness that seemed to be everywhere. I have always felt that something just isn't right.

So many things about the lifestyle we live in the western world are both unsustainable and unjust. The destruction we have wreaked upon the planet has, to date, been a mere dress rehearsal. With nations such as China and India coming online the slide will only gain in momentum. The addition of these two nations to the list of modern industrial powers will nearly triple the portion of the planet's population that lives under the umbrella of industrial capitalist consumerism.

I mention all of this not because I'm some communist or eco-terrorist. I state these simple facts because it is painfully obvious that this trend cannot continue unabated. We have already passed Peak Oil, the point where planetary oil production has reached its maximum level. With increased demand coming from India and China the rate of depletion of the remaining 50% of world oil reserves will far outstrip the rate at which the first 50% was consumed.

"What about green technologies?" you say.

I fear it may be too little too late. Over the course of the coming entries we will discuss this point and many more in greater detail.

I am a realistic optimist. That is to say I hope for the best but plan for the worst. Do I want this cushy lifestyle to go by the wayside? Do I want there to be chaos and civil unrest? Do I want there to be global turmoil and starvation? Of course not.

Do I think that it may happen? Do I think that maybe we woke up to the warning signs too late and that some people will live in denial until the lights go out? Yep.

I do all of the responsible things that I can think of, such as:

1. Recycle everything that my locality will accept (cans, paper, cardboard, plastic, & glass)


2. Compost


3. Use only CF bulbs in my home


4. Walk to work


5. Drive compact sedans when I do drive


6. Insulate my hot water heater


7. Use low-flow shower heads


8. Wash laundry only in cold water


9. Eat a mainly vegetarian diet


10. Replace appliances with energy efficient models


11. Shop local and organic as absolutely much as possible


12. Minimize money spent in the big box stores

There's more - that's all that immediately pops into mind. And believe me, I know there's more I could do (please respond with any suggestions!). The point is, despite the fact that I am not nearly as active in conservation as I could be I am pretty sure I do a whole hell of a lot more than most people.

Most Americans drive alone in their giant SUV to work, eat lunch at some restaurant that probably got its food shipped in from a long supply chain touching all corners of the globe, go home to a positively frigid home with the AC cranked, buy disposable everything from Wal-Mart (made in China with near-slave labor, no doubt), and then vote against every initiative that may help reverse climate change because it has a slight chance to impact their lifestyle.

The fact is that people are lazy by nature. Why change anything if the wolves aren't baying at your door? The problems is that the wolves are baying at your door. You just can't hear them because your TV is on too loudly.

Well I can hear them, people. I'm not a gun nut or militia freak. I'm just like you. I get up and go to work every day to make a better life for me and my family. I love my family just like you do. I have friends and hobbies. Despite my relative normalcy I am preparing for a general collapse of the system.

In future entries I'll talk a lot more about the details of my preparations, the things I see happening in the world that concern me, and as I learn them I will pass along survival tricks and tips to you. Please check out the Required Reading section on the right-hand side of the page if you want to get a decent list of material germaine to the subjects we'll discuss.