The Genesis Plan

Are you confused about what is going on in the U.S. economy right now? Need some help? You have come to the right place. The following plan will help you understand the problem and presents a reasonable solution that you can demand your senators and reps take action on. Socializing the banking system is NOT the answer.

Help New-Think make this viral! Send it to everyone you know.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Genesis Plan.

How To Fix Our Banking System
The “Genesis” Plan
by Karl Denninger
karl@denninger.net

It is clear that we must act to stabilize our financial markets. What is also clear is that if we act imprudently we will destroy our financial markets and system instead of saving it, and are likely to usher in a Depression. What Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke have proposed will do the latter, not the former.

The root cause of the current lack of trust in our financial markets is threefold:

1. Nobody can trust a balance sheet. This is due to off-balance-sheet vehicles (which were supposed to be banned after ENRON) and “Level 3” assets, which nobody can analyze the true valuation of, as identification of the claimed assets and their valuation models are undisclosed.

2. Credit Default Swaps (CDS) are “over the counter” (OTC) transactions with no margin or capital supervision. As a consequence nobody knows if their “counterparty” can pay. In fact huge percentages of these people can’t pay – but nobody knows who they are.

3. Leverage. The SEC removed broker/dealer 12:1 leverage limits in 2004. Every firm that has failed – all five (Fannie, Freddie, Bear Stearns, Lehman and AIG) had leverage far in excess of 12:1. The draft bill is even more dangerous as it accelerates a provision intended to go into effect in 2011 that allows Ben
Bernanke to increase financial firm leverage by dropping reserve requirements on banks to zero should he so choose. It is excessive leverage that got us here in the first place, and this bill actually makes it worse.

The solution to the trust issues in our financial system is elegant and it will work.

1. Force all off-balance sheet "assets" back onto the balance sheet, and force the valuation models and identification of individual assets out of Level 3 and into 10Qs and 10Ks. Enact this requirement beginning with the 3Q 2008 reporting period which begins next month. Total taxpayer cost: $0.00

2. Force all OTC derivatives onto a regulated exchange similar to that used by listed options in the equity markets. This permanently defuses the derivatives time bomb. Give market participants 90 days to get this done; any that are not listed in 90 days are declared void; let the participants sue each other if they can't prove capital adequacy. Total taxpayer cost: $0.00

3. Force leverage by all institutions to no more than 12:1. The SEC intentionally dropped broker/dealer leverage limits in 2004; prior to that date 12:1 was the limit. Every firm that has failed had double or more the leverage of that former 12:1limit. Enact this with a six month time limit and require 1/6th of the excess taken down monthly. Total taxpayer cost: $0.00

Once 1-3 are put in place then send in the OTS and OCC examiners and look at every financial institution in the United States. All who are insolvent and unable to raise private capital immediately are forced through receivership where the debt is converted to equity and existing equity is wiped out.

With the CDS monster caged the systemic risk is removed, the bondholders provide the cushion for recapitalization (as it should be) and the restructured firm emerges with no debt while the former bondholders are now the owners (of the equity) in the resulting firm.

With a clean balance sheet the restructured firms remain in business and open the next morning able to raise and attract capital.

For the few firms that have an insufficient debt-holder capital cushion to successfully complete this process, weare left with two options – a capital infusion or liquidation. There will be few of these and in fact each of those firms is a regulatory failure, as we should have never permitted a firm to become so far "underwater" that the bondholder's capital is insufficient to capitalize a restructuring.

For those firms, give the FDIC (or if an insurance company, the appropriate state and federal regulatory authorities) primary control. As the CDS monster has been caged, the primary threat is now loss to state and federal guarantee programs. If these regulators deem that this firm’s liquidation would result in an unacceptable loss to the system’s guarantee programs then recapitalize the firm as follows:

· The government shall be issued senior preferred debt ahead of all other debt and equity in the capital structure, paying a floating coupon of 3 month LIBOR + 8% adjusted quarterly, in an amount sufficient to bring regulatory capital above minimum limits.

· All dividends are suspended for as long as the preferred remains outstanding, and during that period no employee of the firm may receive any form of compensation exceeding that of the President of the United States for a corporate officer, and no more than that of a United States House member for any person who is not a corporate officer. At the issue of the preferred stock all outstanding deferred compensation, including options, are deemed cancelled.

· The firm may retire the preferred at its option by repurchasing it at the issue price.

· The appropriate regulator shall have primary authority to “call” the above debt issue at any time and force bankruptcy (along with recovery of invested amounts) should the firm fail to execute an effective turnaround plan.

Finally, drop the silly shorting restrictions. Liquidity in the market stinks and this is a big part of why. Start prosecuting aggressively the rumors and other manipulation that leads to stocks both rising and falling.

This plan will instantaneously stabilize the credit markets as balance sheets will be transparent, the CDS monster will be permanently de-fanged, leverage will be returned to reasonable levels and the forcibly restructured firms will have no debt on their balance sheets and be able to access the capital markets. Firms that would fail once they have disclosed their true liabilities and result in unacceptable insurance program costs will be recapitalized with a reasonable expectation of the taxpayer not being stuck with the bill. Systemic risk will be removed.

Best of all, it will require zero taxpayer dollars with few exceptions, and for those instances where taxpayer dollars are required the amount of taxpayer risk would be small and well-protected.

This plan is very similar to what Janet Tavakoli proposed on September 25th in an open letter released on the web.i Ms. Tavakoli is an internationally recognized expert in these matters, is an adjunct professor of derivatives, and is widely published.

This and other alternatives must be examined before our nation embarks on what may be a disastrous path.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE

YES YES YES!!!

I have never been prouder to be an American than I am today. I have renewed faith in our system of government. Along with thousands (millions??) of other Americans I have spent the week slamming the phone lines of congress persons to insist (in the strongest of terms) that we not pass the so called "bail out" in any form. No number of special provisions justifies borrowing our way out of a credit crisis. We won!! Without the efforts of concerned citizens and the internet community I am certain we would have just socialized our economic system.

The near future will not be a cakewalk. No doubt we are headed for hard times, as I have been saying here for more than a year. As I write this the dow has tanked more in 30 minutes than it does in a bad month. But we have shown that the American people will not compromise when it comes to freedom. We will not be given our marching orders by the Federal Reserve. Right on!!!!! Power to the people!

There are still many congress persons who voted for this bill even with unprecedented outcry from their constituents. Their names will be posted on the website shown below. Please join us in systematically voting these people out of office. People who thought they knew better than the people they represented.

http://supportedthebailout.org/

Increase Forward Fire on Congress

It is working but we are not done. I have been calling and e-mailing like crazy. The congress persons are now scared to support this thing because the people are "giving them the business".

Click here to find out more!

A little humor for you. May be slightly offensive (my sincere apologies) but MUCH closer to reality than the mainstream media.

Tin-Foil-Hat-Thursday

Fed Lies!

The following cut and pasted from here. Do not trust the Federal Reserve. You did not elect them. They are a private company. The are no more "Federal" than Federal Express. Would you give Federal Express $700 billion if they said, "Trust me, we have your best interest in mind." If you would, please contact me...I need all of your money and I have your best interest in mind. Now, see below.

The Fed has claimed that this is a "liquidity crisis."
Really Ben? Then perhaps you can explain this?



Note that this is an intentional drain of "slosh", or liquidity, from the banking system. $125 billion in the last four days drained?
You wouldn't be trying to intentionally cause a bank failure or two to bolster your call for the $700 billion "bailout" plan, or perhaps intentionally lock the short-term credit markets, would you Ben?
If the market has a liquidity crisis, why would you be intentionally draining reserves from the banking system? Don't you think you ought to explain that to Congress?

Contact Congress

I sent a letter similar to my senators and rep this morning. Please do the same.

Dear Dr. Coburn,
My wife and I have supported you with our votes in the past. However, if you vote for the proposed “bail-out” in ANY form you lose our votes forever. Furthermore, we are successfully working to mobilize others to vote against anyone who supports this action.
Respectfully,
Jeff and Michelle Johnson

Don't Give Paulson $700 billion!!

I just called both Oklahoma senators and my district representative to let them know that if they support the proposed "bail-out" in any form they will lose my vote. Lots of people are calling and the swithboards are slammed with 10 to 1 against the "bail-out". Let's let the markets work themselves out (which may require some suffering). Much of what we are seeing is due to goverment regulation in the first place (ask if you want me to expound on this). Speak up now! This is OUR government!

FED UP USA

Contact your Representative

Contact your Senator

And as a reward for coming to New-Think for your information...here is some hot off the presses inside info.

Good Morning,We had Ed Hill (BofA's Washington Rep) on the Equity Hoot this morningregarding the political situation in D.C. Key headlines:Bill unlikely to pass this week or next: 128 votes short nowAdministration "spectacularly unsuccessful" in making their case tolarge groups Congressional offices getting calls from constituents 10-1 AGAINSTthe billSome more details:Likelihood of passage this week has dimmed since yesterday.After speaking to leadership on both sides (they need 218 votes topass), they want 120 votes on each side. if the vote were today, 50dems, 40 reps (218-90 = 128 short), FAR from having enough votes topassWhen he canvassed 30 congressional offices yesterday the overallresponse was uniform: For every 1 constituent who phone in forsupport of the bill there were 10 against it. Remember the electionis only 5 weeks away and this weighs heavily on their minds.If they extend the session (which is likely) Thursday is the earliestthey could come back (after holidays), then it takes some time topass the senate where rules require more debate, don't expect itpasses this week or next week.also talking about strong oversight, both congressional &governmental. bankruptcy provisions still in play, but less likely,tough to get 120 RepublicansPaulson makes a compelling case 1-1, but not in large groups. TheAdministration has been unsuccessful getting their own party behindit.

Anyway, President Bush will take over the airwaves this evening trying to get folks to support this. It should be entertaining.

A Day With Jeff

Still asleep.

Get up and get ready.

Walk out the front door. Still mostly dark.

Drive to work.

Arrive at work. Sun coming out now.

I'm at my office again. Whatdya know, it looks the same as yesterday...and the day before...

COFFFFFFEEEEEE!!!!

Bible study.

Result of drinking lots of coffee.

Design stuff. Awesome stuff.
Do math to prove to skeptics that the awesome designs will work. Lunch/gruel/mush
Read news/check markets/random research/get mad at the man/blog.

More designing of awesome stuff. Stuff too cool (and confidential) to show on the interwebs.

Leaving work.

Headed home.

Look there's Millicent. Playing in the yard without clothes. Again.

Hey Kati, what's up?

Ashlea! Asa! Good to see you!

Kori, quick, look at your feet.

Dinner time. Then let's all just hang out for a while.

Put Asa to sleep.

Read a good book. Oh...not that one.

That's better.

Go to bed. Look, Millicent beat me to it.

I love you!

Need a Laugh?

Watch this.

Time for Torches and Pitchforks

A member of a forum I frequent wrote the following in reference to giving away the rest of America's money. If you care about this at all...it is time to get involved...this week will decide how things go down. Feel free to cut and paste this and sent it to your congress person(s).

Enabling Act of 2008

Enabling Act of 2008

Dear Member of Congress:

You are being asked to assign unprecedented powers to an unelected, and unaccountable former Wall Street banker, under the guise of bringing stability to the markets and solvency to our banking system. With one hastily thrown together vote, you are going to create the most powerful human being in world history – Henry Paulson.

This is being done for the purposes of fixing a “crisis” that has suddenly, in the last hour, been presented to Congressional leaders. This act would remove the constitutionally mandated powers of regulation of the money supply, and the value thereof, from Congress and give it to an unelected member of the President’s cabinet. According to the act, this person would be above judicial review, and be allowed a $700,000,000,000 revolving line of credit to print money on behalf of the United States government. That is more power than anyone has ever had – anyone. Caesar did not have this power.

This should sound eerily familiar.

In March of 1933, after the “crisis” of the Reichstag Fire, newly named Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler, petitioned the German Reichstag to give him plenary powers over the affairs of German government. The Reichstag transferred its power, on an emergency basis, to the Cabinet of Germany for a period of four years, and this was called “The Enabling Act”. This was to deal with the perceived “crisis” of Communists within the German government, when the “crisis” was never fully substantiated. It is believed by most historians that the Reichstag Fire was a deliberate act to coax the Reichstag into giving up its power.

That history did not end well.

You are being goaded into giving Henry Paulson plenary powers over the economy and government spending, money supply, and value of that money. Those powers belong to you, held in trust for the citizens of the United States. Our Founders gave you those powers TO PREVENT THE VERY SCENARIO THAT SECRETARY PAULSON HAS PRESENTED TO YOU.

You are being manipulated.

For the past 13 months, Paulson, and Federal Reserve Chairman, Bernanke have repeatedly given public statements through the various media, and have testified to Congress on the soundess of our banking system. As that time has worn on, they have repeatedly come to Congress for various bailouts (Bear Stearns, AIG, Fannie/Freddie), as well as acted to install confidence through the manipulation of the Federal Reserve Monatary Policy, and announcing various liquidity programs to keep money in the banking system (TAF, TSLF). While they have been taking extraordinary measures to shore-up the banking system, they have always maintained that the system is sound and just needs a little time to get through a “soft spot,” or a “contained” problem (Subprime).

You now know that they were lying the entire time. There is no way to sugar coat this. They have been lying to you since March of 2007. They are lying now. This was plainly known to many in the professional and amateur investment communities, recently smeared as “short sellers.” It turns out that the cynics were right all along. This is why we have a free press.

Ask yourself, why didn’t they come to you for this unprecedented bailout last October, when Paulson attempted the same thing with various Wall Street banks? Surely, the problem was known last fall when Paulson attempted to create his “super SIV.”

Had he come to you at that time, there would have been at least 11 months to debate the issue, open it for public review, and deal with it while the stock market was trading at an all-time high. Why did he wait until the weekend before the Congressional recess for the bi-annual election cycle, and present the plan over a weekend where the public could not comment? Why did he have to wait until the stock market teetered on collapse, and the credit markets were frozen solid?

He needs a “crisis” so you will not oppose him.

Ask yourself, why did the Senate Majority Leader and Speaker of the House, as late as September 16, attempt to leave the issue in Washington and head back to their districts, leaving the Administration to clean up the mess, then suddenly have a change of heart less than 36 hours later? What was said? Why are the details of the briefing given to Congressional leaders not available for public review? Why are you being asked to vote for something so hastily and without proper briefing or public review? Does Democracy flourish in the dark, or does tyranny and fraud?

We know the following:

Paulson and Bernanke have lied for the duration of the credit crisis.
Every bailout has been bigger, more frequent, and has resulted in a much bigger “crisis.”

Now, Paulson and Bernanke are telling you that they really are telling you the truth and this bailout will work.

You are being played.

They are framing the issue in terms of Congress voting to rescue the banks and the markets. Let me be clear on this point: YOU ARE NOT VOTING ON THE HEALTH OF THE BANKS OR THE MARKETS. YOU ARE DECIDING WHO GETS WHAT MONEY IS LEFT OVER AFTER THEY FAIL. The markets (equity and credit) are going to experience a large dislocation, or in the common lexicon, “a crash.” That is an absolute certainty. You are merely deciding if the US citizens are going to keep their money, or give it to Wall Street bankers. You are deciding if the US government is going to survive or collapse. Giving Paulson unlimited spending powers will ensure that the government collapses. That is a certainty.

Paulson and Bernanke need to be removed from office for malfeasance. For 18 months, the health of the banking system has been very suspect. They have known all along what is happening and have failed to act. Their actions have been limited to lying to Congress and the American people and manipulating the accounting to cover the insolvency of the US banking system.

You are being asked to abdicate. The American people want their Constitution and their government to survive. We will rebuild what Wall Street has destroyed, but we need to keep our money in order to do it.

Vote against this unprecedented power grab. History shows the folly of such endeavors.

Very truly yours,

Per Karlsen


ticker forum

Fascist Friday

Do you think you know how the banking and monetary systems work? You sure didn't learn it in a public school. *Have you noticed what the Fed did this morning*? WAKE UP!!! Below is a long but important video. I do not necessarily endorse everything in it...but...when it talks about income taxes and the federal reserve I am in complete agreement. Please watch this video!! Then forward this link to your friends and family. OR at the very least, if you can give good arguments against the evidence given in the film...please do so here.

*This morning the Federal Reserve, a private corporation that is not part of the government AT ALL, rolled out a plan to stick the U.S. citizens with a few trillion of bad debt...no one voted on this, nor will it be up for a vote...because we are not in control of the Federal Reserve. Evidently, they are in control of us. Of course the stock market rallied so most people will just go along with their business. WE ARE BECOMING SLAVES!!!

Here are some quotes that I hope will motivate you to watch this film.

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered
~Thomas Jefferson

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.~Henry Ford

Give me control of a nation’s money supply, and I care not who makes its laws.
~Mayer Rothschild – Private Banker

The real rulers in Washington are invisible and exercise power from behind the scenes.
~Felix Frankfurter – U.S. Supreme Court Justice

We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years......It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.~David Rockefeller – Private Banker, Council on Foreign Relations

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
~Goethe

Petition....Please Sign

This is the first petition I have ever advocated here on New-Think. This one is important. Please read and if you agree...please sign. To break it down to the most basic terms. The Federal Reserve (a private banking entity with no government oversight) has been printing/creating money around the clock lately to give to large investment banks (both in the U.S. and around the world) so they can keep operating. What you need to understand is that this entity (the Fed), which has no government oversight, is putting the U.S. taxpayer (YOU) on the hook to bail out monolithic investment firms who have made bad (and possibly criminal) investment decisions. When all the chips fall the taxpayers will be left holding the bag and the game will continue on Wall Street. Wake up! Here is a chart to give you a clue about what we are looking at. What we are seeing has no historical precedent. The vertical line at the right side of the chart represents what banks are stealing from you.




Copy and paste this link to the petition in your browser window:

http://financialpetition.org/petition-nobail.shtml

Let's Review

In June I made the following outrageous predictions. Let's see how I am doing.

1. Dow Jones Industrial Average under 10,000 by June 2009 (probably before 2008 is over). Can't help but feel really good about this one...not there yet, though.


2. Oil at $170 per barrel by Dec 31, 2008. (caveat: this is assuming no major economic collapse...which may not be a good assumption). Oil will not be at $170 in December BUT it is only because of the caveat I made. We are CURRENTLY seeing a MAJOR economic collapse.


3. Total collapse of the U.S. economy by Dec 2012. And I do mean worse than the Great Depression. This was by far the "craziest" prediction. Unless your head is in the sand, I think that you will grant that it is not looking quite so crazy anymore. Unfortunately.

By the way I have a great idea for a business. How about we go to the casino and make a bunch of crazy bets and if we don't win we make taxpayers give us money for the bad bets..but if we win we get to keep the money. Oh wait, somebody else already had that idea...and it is bringing down the economy as we speak.

Stock Market Spankin'

CNN Headline at 3:17 p.m.:

The Dow ends nearly 500 points lower -- its worst point drop in more than seven years -- as bank woes scare investors.

As I have been saying here for more than a year...it's just getting started.

GLOBAL FINANCIAL COLLAPSE
Uploaded by TECHNOLOGOS

Meanwhile the Federal Reserve has hired a new spokesman.

Financials Getting Hammered

Curiously the djia is only down 200-300. It is not reflecting the magnitude of the turmoil we are seeing in the financial world.

I'll just let today's headlines speak for themselves:

Fed funds jump to 6 pct in mkt, tripling Fed's target - MacroEconomic News

Global Markets Are Battered By Wall Street Hurricane - CNBC

AIG, Facing Liquidity Crunch, Reaches Out to Regulator - CNBC

UBS Falls 19%, Hit by Reports of New Writedowns - CNBC

Wilbur Ross: Possibly a Thousand Banks Will Close - CNBC

Bailouts Will Push US into Depression: Manager - CNBC

Stocks in U.S. Drop as Lehman Bankruptcy Deepens Turmoil in Credit Markets - Bloomberg

Lehman Files for Record Bankruptcy, Victim of Meltdown Firm Helped Create - Bloomberg

Banks Hoarding Cash Send Fed Funds to Decade High Over Fed's Target Rate - Bloomberg

Bank of America Will Buy Merrill for $50 Billion as Credit Crisis Broadens - Bloomberg

Credit-Default Swaps Surge Most Ever as Lehman Threatens to Unravel Market - Bloomberg

Finally, from PrudentBear.com.

Here is what we know:

1. Fannie, Freddie and the FHLBs all failed and were effectively nationalized last Sunday.

2. On Monday, the ISDA released a tersly-worded statement that reluctantly admitted that there was a "credit-event" triggered by #1 above. The NY Fed also was involved in this situation and had hastily called for a conference call among the destroyed CDS players.

3. "Coincidentally", this last week LEH fails outright. AIG stock starts trading like pets.com at the end of the Internet boom and Merrill's stock is right behind AIG in the "dropping-like-a-stone" department. Perhaps unrelated, WaMu [stock price] also collapses. So does Wachovia. And others as well.

4. In the meantime, ISDA offers another less-tersly-worded statement that it is working with the destroyed CDS players to figure out who owes what to whom, who owns the underlying $1.4 TRILLION in Fannie/Freddie debt and the actual the size of the CDS positions (which I have made an irrefutable case for their being many multiples of CDS to underlying debt), yet doesn't reveal any of the players or the positions.

5. On Friday evening, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, the SEC, and EVERY FRIGGIN' LARGE INVESTMENT BANK IN THE WORLD begins meeting to ostensibly discuss "ONLY" the dismemberment of Lehman.
....
Last Sunday's GSE nationalization triggered THE LARGEST DERIVATIVES EXPLOSION IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND!!!

Yet, now we are being told that the tiny-by-comparison Lehman failure is causing all sorts of problems with parties and counterparties to Lehman debt and derivatives.

And furthermore, every Big-Shot goverment agency AND every major investment bank has been meeting in panic sessions to supposedly discuss ONLY the Lehman autopsy, and NOT the afore-mentioned GSE triggered, multi-TRILLION dollar CDS implosion?

Yeah, right.

For those few readers who need things explicitly spelled out for them, I will oblige:

This AIN'T just about Lehman, folks. It's about what Fannie and Freddie's demise triggered:

THE MASSIVE, UNPRECEDENTED, WORLDWIDE IMPLOSION OF TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF DERIVATIVES POSITIONS!!!

And the collapse of Leh, of AIG, of Mer, and of probably all the other banks and hedge funds and other gamblers involved in this "Casino from Hades".

Free Fallin'

Interesting day for the U.S. economy for sure. Hang on to your hats. More later today once things shape up.

Don't Waste Your Vote (on either major party)

I won’t be voting for a Democrat or a Republican in the upcoming presidential election. The primary reason is because I don’t really believe there is a major difference between the candidates. In regard to foreign policy, the welfare state, big government, and privacy issues there is no discernable difference at all. Where is the candidate for states’ rights and shrinking of the federal government? Where is the candidate who will reign in the Federal Reserve and move us toward a currency that is actually backed by something more than our imaginations and maintained the shuffling and obscuring of massive debt? As either Obama or McCain will learn during the next term…it is probably too late for that already. The tsunami is coming. I could go on for ten paragraphs about Bear Stearns, Fannie and Freddie, and, soon to come Lehman, Merrill Lynch, and WAMU…but even the perfect candidate could not fix this mess now.
Now I realize there are, theoretically, ideological differences that should be considered between the candidates. This one supports Roe vs. Wade, this one doesn’t. This one wants gun control, this one wants less. But where is the candidate who will state that NEITHER of these issues and many like them are not issues for the federal government to decide AT ALL. At best (where constitutional to even question) these should be decided by the states.
On energy policy. One party wants to drill offshore…the other doesn’t. Seriously, they are not even engaging in the correct debate. I realize most of the sheeple of America believe this is where the debate is. All the time we are told idiotic drivel like “America has 200 years of oil, and all we have to do is go get it.” Absolutely NOT true. These accounts take into consideration oil shale, oil sands, and the Bakken formation. These ARE NOT conventional oil plays and will not solve the energy crisis. We cannot extract any of these resources at high enough rates to make any more than a small bump on the declining production curve of American oil. Don’t believe me, though (someone involved in this arena professionally), research it for yourself. Just please do not listen to what the democrats, republicans, or CNN, or Fox News tell you. Oil is down to a paltry $100 a barrel now (major sarcasm)…so for Joe-six-pack this is probably a dead issue since surely it will head far back down into double digits and stay there forever….it’s our God-given American right (more major sarcasm).
Erosion of civil rights and right to privacy. This is a big one. We are seeing things that are I frankly cannot believe are happening in America. Habeus Corpus/eminent domain…where is the champion of the private property owner? A hair splitting debate about the definition of torture for crying out loud....should we ever get so close to torturing other humans to even ask ourselves these questions? Unregulated government sponsored phone tapping of private citizens. What. Does anyone even care? Neither of the two major candidates does.
I am just getting started. But if you find yourself saying you are going to vote for the lesser of two evils…then don’t. Pick a third party candidate who lines up with your views. The lesser of two evils is still evil. Down with the two (one) party system. More on this later…I’m out of time.

“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out’ at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.”
Carroll Quigley – Author of Tragedy & Hope

Happy Birthday Kori

In honor of Kori's birthday here are some pics.

Party Pictures

We had a party this weekend...about 25 or so attended. Here are some pics from the talent show we did during the party.



Me doing some comedy.



Kati singing a song.



Kori doing her magic show.



Michelle reading some Poe.



Molly performing a flip.