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READERS IN 162 COUNTRIES |
February, 2009 . . . Published Sort of Monthly
The Frumuous Bandersnatch Satirical Newspaper founded in 1965...On-line in 1997...One of America's oldest satirical newspapers.
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BANDERSNATCH HOLIDAYS
WHERE TO PUT THE GUANTANAMO PRISONERS? Closing Guantanamo is easy. The problem is where to put the prisoners we aren't going to release. The answer is obvious. Create a Toxic Prisoner Train and roll them around the country the way we have our toxic waste on trains that never stop. REAL ADVERTISEMENTS - HELP KEEP US ALIVE ON THE WEB SITE LISTINGS
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BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS DISCOVERED IN IRAQ BAGHDAD: US Forces discovered a cache of biological weapons in Iraq yesterday, after years of searching for Saddam's alleged trove of weapons of mass destruction. "Our search teams picked up a very strong reading of biological weapons material in the western part of Baghdad," said an anonymous spokesman for the US military. "When we entered the warehouse, we discovered tons of lethal agents." The warehouse in question contained food supplies sent to Iraq from American sources. The vast majority of the lethal food was peanut butter. BANKERS DON'T UNDERSTAND IT IS OUR MONEY Many people are wondering how come the bankers don’t get it that when the US taxpayer fronts money to a bank, we get really peeved when the bankers give out billions of dollars in bonuses. Obviously they are so self-absorbed they have no concept of the fact its money from hard working folks who will never fly in a corporate jet, or get to spend the weekend in Las Vegas having a big party. We need to kick their sorry butts. There’s another aspect of this that the whole corporate world, bankers, auto makers, et al do not understand about government money. Government works on the concept of "red dollars" and "green dollars". What that means is government money is not one giant pot from which this or that is paid. People have used the term the money is "fungible" sort of like not being able to tell one grain of wheat from another in a sack. That’s how the private sector views a sack full of money. This isthe origin on Ponzi schemes. Essentially, all private businesses are Ponzi schemes. But, when you’re dealing with government money, there are differences in the dollars. Take for example a grant from the federal government to a city to build a wastewater treatment plant. The feds give the city $60 million to build the treatment plant. The city absolutely has to keep track of every penny of the federal grant and prove to the feds that every penny went into the treatment plant project, and not one penny went to buy police cars or mow the grass in a city park. Thus governments keep separate books and accounts for their different kinds of money. Red dollars are sequestered from green dollars, with the red dollars (federal rant money) only going to the red dollar project, and the green dollars (local sales tax income) going for the purposes those dollars are assigned to (buying the police car). That’s horse manure. Let’s say the bank only had $40 billion to start with, and could not make new loans AND pay bonuses. So add $20 billion. Did the bank make new loans? Nope. It gave the bonuses and it was OUR $20 billion that made that possible. The mistake on the part of the government was its failure to demand that the $20 billion become "red dollars" and was only spent on making new loans, with audits proving that’s where the money went. Because the bankers gave our money away, the government needs to get it back. And in the future, us taxpayers either end up owning these banks and other outfits, so we can fire the weasels that ran everything into the ground, or at minimum the money is put in a separate trust account, and some government official will have to approve withdrawals from that accoun, which is exactly the way many federal grants work. Why treat bankers any differently than others who receive federal grants and loans? Lets make the bankers understand those red dollars are ours. BLUE SKY & WATER BANK FORMED
In order to take advantage of the proposal to create a "bad" bank to absorb all the toxic assets of failing financial institutions, with private participation involved, a group of unemployed residents of Arizona have created the Blue Sky & Water Bank. "We propose to buy thousands of homes and commercial properties for $1," said a spokesman for Blue Sky & Water. "Then we will resell these toxic assets, splitting the take 50-50 with the federal government." At first government officials sneered that the Blue Sky & Water proposal, until they realized the only way to get the toxic assets off the books of the financial institutions was for the government to eat 100% of the loss, which could cost trillions of dollars. Under the Blue Sky & Water (BS&W) proposal, the US government would actually get something back, reducing the loss to taxpayers. "The best thing about the BS&W concept is the government would have no responsibility for managing or maintaining the toxic assets," said BS&W. BS&W noted that none of their officials have any financial experience whatsoever, and that none had ever worked in a bank even as a janitor. "Our total lack of qualifications for this effort is probably our single best asset," said a spokesman for BS&W. "Like why would you trust anyone from the financial sector or from government to make this work?" The first thing BS&W would do with the toxic assets is rent them to current occupants at discounted rates, so folks could keep their homes and businesses. "If all these properties are not dumped into the market at once, their values will increase over time," said the spokesman for B&W. "Eventually, when the financial mess clears up, people will be able to get credit and buy the properties, so there’s a good chance the government will get a serious amount of its money back." The goal is for the government to wait until values recover, instead of fire selling everything like they did during the RTC period. Of course the BS&W people would get filthy rich as well. "Do you want to bet that down the road, what we’re proposing is exactly what the federal government is going to do, only the people who get to buy these assets for $1 and split the profits with the feds will have really good connections in Washington," said the BS&W spokesman. HOW DID WE GET INTO THIS MESS? There’s something we don’t understand about the financial mess we’re all in, and maybe readers could shed some light on this. If I understand how this all started, a lot of flakey mortgages were made by Countrywide and others to “subprime” borrowers with really low initial payments, that would then adjust to much higher payments the homebuyers couldn’t make. The banks making these subprime and ARM loans didn’t even check income or other qualifications before making these loans. But they made lots of money from this scheme. Lots of people who probably shouldn’t have bought homes, did buy them, increasing the volume of construction of new homes in the country. Home values went up. Mortgage bankers bundled all these “toxic” loans they should have known were going to default, and sold them off to other investors who thought they were buying high quality paper, instead of junk. The bond rating agencies give this garbage high ratings, which misled investors. Meanwhile, other investment outfits floated even more money into the mortgage lenders so they could make even more flakey loans, bundle those up, and sell them off to more unsuspecting investors. When the folks who bought the houses they couldn’t afford started defaulting on their mortgages when the monthly payments adjusted upwards, the house of cards collapsed. Home values went down as repossessions went up, and the investors who bought the bundled paper found out the paper was worthless. So how much "toxic" assets are there? One trillion worth? Two trillion worth? The new home construction industry collapsed, throwing tens of thousands of real estate agents, construction workers, etc out of work. Then the banks quit lending money to pretty much everyone, even people with stellar credit records, crashing lots of businesses. Lenders also started freezing out people from buying new homes who could afford them, crashing the homebuilding industry and driving the value of homes down even more. Banks also started freezing out people who could afford to buy cars, and crashed the auto industry. Since hardly anyone could get credit to keep their businesses going, they started scaling back production and laying off people. The hole gets deeper. Sales and property tax revenues to state and local government started dropping as people lost their homes, and quit buying stuff because they were afraid they might lose their jobs. Governments started cutting back their budgets, laying off people. Stores started laying off people and shutting down. Unemployment skyrocketed the last three months, creating millions more people who couldn’t afford their homes and car payments. And who couldn’t afford to buy stuff. And the hole gets deeper and deeper. Going back to the start of this, we had the money wizards scheming to line their pockets, and now a whole lot of folks are getting hurt because of this. These are folks who were paying their bills and stayinmg afloat. But with the crash, they're wrecked now, through no fault of their own. So…is the solution to throw more money at these financial schemers? Or shouldn’t the government focus on the victims of this mess, and help out people who have lost their jobs and are now defaulting their credit obligations which will dig the hole even deeper? My dad used to say the first step in getting out of a hole was to quit digging the hole deeper. What do you think? SOME THINGS OBAMA COULD DO TO REALLY CHANGE THE STATUS QUO THE ECONOMY A trillion here, a trillion there....how about really blowing the doors off the situation and starting from scratch. Here is our suggested economic recovery plan...>>>
THE AUTO INDUSTRY How about bailing out auto buyers....More here...>>>
AMERICAN ENERGY INDEPENDENCE OK. We need to ramp up oil and gas production at home and build some nukes. Here's a plan that will find out in whose back yard this will happen...>>>
THE MILITARY Our military capacity is stretched to the breaking point by constantly sending our troops back to Iraq and Afghanistan over and over agaon. There's a whole untapped resource for our military that needs to be tapped...>>>
JERUSALEM God must have had a strange sense of humor when he gave land title to Jerusalem to three different religions. There is a solution...>>> QUIT DUMPING FORECLOSED HOMES INTO MARKET The crash in home values due to the subprime mortgage fiasco is largely due to two factors---no one can get a mortgage any more, and there are so many foreclosed homes on the market that home prices have plummeted. Let's focus on the second problem -- the glut of vacant houses that is driving down home values below existing mortgages, precipitating even more defaults and foreclosures. The answer is real simple---stop banks from dumping these foreclosed homes on the market at fire sale prices. Maybe one way for this to happen is if the Feds take over the "troubled assets" of banks with bad mortgages, so these "toxic assets" are off their books, and put these houses into temporary federal ownership. The Feds then rent out these foreclosed homes, but hang onto ownership until the market recovers and the Feds can at least get back the original mortgage loan amount on the houses. If someone wants to buy the foreclosed home at the loan amount, cool. Sell it. But selling off foreclosed homes below their loan values just makes everyone else's home values drop, triggering even more defaults. This is stupid. SAVE THOUSAND ON YOUR COLLEGE EDUCATION -- GET YOUR FREE COLLEGE DIPLOMA HERE |
HOW TO AVOID BEING LAID OFF With the economy shrinking faster than George Bush’s legacy, many workers fear they’re going to be laid off and end up homeless wandering among strangers. This is a legitimate fear given recent news that tens of thousands of workers are being riffed by major companies. And we all know who will be the first to get pink slips. The older workers so companies can escape funding pensions. Women. Minorities. Plus, anyone who has a boss that wants to get even for some slight. That’s a whole lot of us on the chopping block. And we can’t get younger, change our sex (no health insurance plan covers this one), or get whiter. And whatever we did to plant the seed of revenge in the boss has been festering for way too long to do anything about it now. The first tactic that seems to work for some is to become invaluable to the company. A friend of ours got laid off a while back…an older guy. The corporate wizards had the bright idea that if they got rid of all the old folks in the company who cost them a lot of money, they could fatten the bottom line by hiring a lot of young folks. Problem was the young people didn’t know anything about the technology of the company and when management realized the older people actually were adding value to the company, they hired some of them back. So make sure you are the only one with the computer codes, and other proprietary information of your employer so if they lay you off, all their screens go dark and their financial records vanish. Another friend dodged a layoff because the store she worked in had a lot of customers who only spoke Spanish, and my friend is a very fast language learner. She actually doesn’t speak that much Spanish, but the customers would talk to her and the bosses only saw that she was ringing up sales. So what if the customers thought they were buying a shirt instead of a rope. The second tactic is to have no expectations about being hired back at the same pay and benefits. My older friend got offered his job function back, but only as an independent contractor so the company didn’t have to fund his pension or health care benefits. Better to have some income than none, he figured. But don’t give the bosses the codes or access to the proprietary information unless they write you a really big check. A third tactic is always look really busy. See our prior advice on Avoiding Work. There’s nothing worse than a boss catching you with your feet up on the desk doing absolutely nothing, even if there is absolutely nothing to actually do. The New York Times Sunday January 24, 2009 had a great article about looking busy in order to survive being fired. The fourth tactic is lawyer up. Age or racial or sexual discrimination is still illegal in this country and if someone has to get the ax, let them be the ones who can still be legally discriminated against…the white guys. Always have plenty of cards for the law firm that sues employers for discrimination in your pocket, and post them on the company bulletin board. Retaliation is also illegal. Next, consider going into business for yourself. If the store is going to close, there’s a good chance there’s a great deal for the lease of the space, and a chance to buy the inventory for a song. Actually, you might get to rent the store space cheaper than your home. Ditch your home and live in the store. Finally, if there is no way to avoid being bounced, remember that for every door that closes another one opens. The sad reality in America today is what we used to do for a living has become obsolete or worthless in the current economic environment. That doesn’t mean you have to become extinct. It means you’ve got to evolve. Change. Adapt. Retrain. “The Squirrelly Advisor” is a parody of “How To” advice columns. The premise of “The Squirrelly Advisor” is to address topics of concern from a decidedly off-beat perspective. When confronted with choices in our lives, we hear the voices of our angels and demons advising us, and sometimes we also hear the voice of the squirrel. Rarely do we actually act upon the advice of our inner squirrel, but sometimes being able to laugh about our problems opens new doors of awareness.
If you have a question you want some Squirrelly Advice on, send your question to The Squirrel
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RECENT BACK ISSUES OBAMA CREATES CRISIS FOR COMEDIANS
2008
CHRISTMAS EDITION
2008
PRE-ELECTION SPECIAL: McCAIN BLAMES SHORTER DAYS ON OBAMA
NEW
POLITICAL AUCTION SITE LAUNCHED SENATOR OFFERS VOTES FOR SALE
ON eBAY A SERIOUS GUIDE TO THE BORDER PATROL
DESERT VIOLATES ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS
DUST BUNNIES DECLARED ENDANGERED SPECIES
BACK ISSUES
OFFSHORE DRILLING PROPOSED
OFF REPUBLICAN COASTS
CALENDAR MAKERS PROTEST END
OF TIME
INTERSECTIONS PROVEN TO
CAUSE TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS
PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY
PANDERING
SENATOR OFFERS VOTES FOR SALE
ON eBAY
GLOBAL WARMING BLAMED ON
TERRORISTS
BOMBING IRAQ WITH DOLLARS
PROPOSED
ALCATRAZ REOPENED AS A WHITE
COLLAR CRIMINAL PRISON
BUSH VOCABULARY LIMITS IRAQ
POLICY
US-MEXICO BORDER SAME AS
ISRAEL-PALESTINE BORDER
BANDERSNATCH RESPONDS TO
ELECTRONIC SPIES
SANTA BLAMED FOR SOCIETY'S
PSYCHOSIS
FROSTY THE SNOWMAN ENDORSES
ALITO FOR SUPREME COURT
EXTREME MAKEOVER TO REBUILD
NEW ORLEANS
PLANETARY ROTATION BLAMED FOR
EARTHQUAKES
LAWYER BUYOUT PROGRAM
PROPOSED
SAVE SOCIAL SECURITY BY DYING
YOUNGER
BANDERSNATCH CLASSICS
BAD COW
PUBLIC RELATIONS
NEW WONDER DRUG PLACEBO
DISCOVERED
TRAILER PARK SEEKS HISTORIC
STATUS
INDIAN RUINS PROPOSED AS LOW
INCOME HOUSING
FREEWAY MEDIANS NEW
LANDFILL SITES
FEMININE SIDE OF WATER by NANCY VALENTINE
CONGRESS INDICTED FOR
SECURITIES FRAUD
THE PAST DECADE THROUGH
BANDERSNATCH EYES (1997-2004)
ALIENS
INVADE ARIZONA
BAD TUNNEL DESIGN BLAMED
FOR DI'S DEMISE
FASTER THAN LIGHT TRAVEL
FOUND
MAYTAG REPAIRMAN OFFERS TO
SAVE MIR
BILL CLINTON'S DEFINITON OF SEXUAL RELATIONS
TAMPA TO HOST 2010 WINTER
OLYMPICS
BANDERSNATCH GUIDES BANDERSNATCH
HOLIDAYS
BANDERSNATCH
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