Hitman vs. Bangkok Dangerous

OK, I'm going to go on a bunch of minor little posts that I haven't had time for, so here we go.

Why did I waste $9 to see Bangkok Dangerous? Here I was thinking it was going to be something really great and all it was, was a hit man hitting a midlife crisis. I then watched a 2 hour soap opera occasionally interrupted with an occasional sniper shot.

Then I see Hitman. Not expecting much. Just kind of a mindless hit man movie. Infinitely better than Bangkok Dangerous. And it gets me back to a theory I have. Those in power in Hollywood are no longer interested in making straight shot, good guy, bad guy movies. They have abandoned the traditional script to go with movies that do not tell as story, but instead go out of their way to be different.

Cohen Brothers got an Oscar.

Need I say more?

There will be a split as the 60's generation continue to pat themselves on their backs and award themselves awards for movies that the rest of the population couldn't care less about (W.) And while the market goes one way, more and more weight will be given to reviews by FHM, bloggers and so forth as they actually respond to the real world and Oscar/Academy people respond to themselves.

An Obama Halloween

HAR!!!

Anybody know the cartoonist for this? I can't make out the script at the top.

HT

Fact vs. Feelings

I don't know how many times I've had liberals yelling and shouting and at times crying when I'm debating them. Meanwhile, I'm just sitting there, completely indifferent to the data I have.

You have to understand, I am very cold and unemotional about economics and politics. I have no agenda. All I do is look at the facts and decide my ideology from that. Liberals and leftists decide their ideology FIRST and then try to find "facts" to support it.

Guess whose ideology always wins in the end.

Dumbass Liberals

I made a post on Obamanomics that was received quite well.

However, the largest protest or complaint I received were from Obama supporters who insisted there was NO WAY corporate taxes in the US was 40%.

I don't know how else to put this, but;

You're misinformed?

You're ignorant?

You really and genuinely do NOT know what you're talking about?

You have never ever bothered to look up the facts first before forming political opinions, and hypocritically not only vote, but insist others vote based on these foundationless opinions?

I don't know what else to say. It's like arguing with a 3 year old child when you argue with a liberal. And I say that not to be mean or derogatory, but you guys are just plain, flat out are wrong and uninformed.

You HAVE to understand it is NOT a matter of opinion. I am talking about things that are matter of fact. Things that should have no emotion, or philosophy or feelings about it. Things I, and other conservative/capitalists point out are not our "opinion" they are facts. And it is angering, at minimum frustrating when we say something like "the sky is blue" and you say, "no it isn't. You're a racist!"

So, here it is you morons. You uneducated automatons. CORPORATE TAX RATES IN THE US ARE 40 FREAKING %.




HOW MUCH CLEARER CAN I POSSIBLY MAKE IT?

Are You Freaking Kidding Me?

So I click on the link to see John McCain's photo when he was in POW in Vietnam and see the caption below:


Are you F#CKING kidding me????!!!!!

The message may be tarnished because he smokes a god damned cigarette?

How out of f#cking out of touch are you in the media? The guy is in a god damned POW camp, all shot up in the 1960's and he dares to have a cigarette?!

What gets me, what really effing gets me, is how they completely miss the forest from the trees on this one. Here is John McCain, a genuine WAR FREAKING HERO, on his back, defending America and the media thinks, actually believes the fact he has a cigarette is going to have a political effect? That it's not that he's a real man more than Obama could ever be, a patriot captured by the enemy, a man who has seen some pretty rough times and can relate to more of us than any elite leftist poser could, no, it's the fact he smokes a cigarette.

And you MSM types wonder why your industry is at an end. You are the bona fide epitome of the word; IDIOTS

Blogging Insurance!?

Tis true!

What Percent of Lake Minnetonka Properties are Earned?

For those of you not familiar with Twin Cities geography, allow me to lay out the Twin Cities metro to you.

In the center you have two major cities; Minneapolis and St. Paul. The Mississippi flowing through both, cutting Minneapolis in half as it flows southward, and then cutting St. Paul in half as it turns and flows northward, inevitably turning south again and making its run for the Gulf of Mexico. Surrounding the two city centers is an oval of inner suburbs, which in turn is surrounded by outer suburbs, with houses getting progressively larger and the yards bigger the further out along the radius you go. But depending where you are (north, south, east or west) of the metropolitan hub, more or less generally determines what kind of neighborhood you live in.

Bar “pockets of resistance” such as Edina, St. Louis Park, and so forth, the inner suburbs are more or less blue collar, old school neighborhoods, pock-marked with crime ridden extensions of the poorer parts of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

The northern suburbs are predominantly blue collar. The running joke in the Twin Cities is if you are in Anoka you should wear your “good” snowmobile jacket if you have a wedding.

The eastern metro is filled with farms and ranches and apple orchards, with epicenters of limousine liberal smugness manifesting themselves in the forms of trinket/antique shopping towns like Stillwater.

The south is kind of a hodgepodge of varied sorts, but you’re generally solid white collar.

But the west…ohhhhh, the west. Let me tell you about the west.

For directly west there is a lake called Lake Minnetonka. And Lake Minnetonka is no ordinary lake, it is a many-multi-chambered, multi-bay, multi-isthmus lake. Tons of shoreline, nestled within coves, within peninsulas, within hidden lakes, all interconnected to allow boats and yachts the best sailing bar going to Lake Superior. If you do not have a map, you can get lost, but you won’t care because it is the most beautiful lake in the state. And it is because of these traits that it was only a matter of time that it would come to house the richest of Minnesota’s rich.

Every bit of lakeshore has a mansion on it that can compete with any other mansion throughout the world. You can go to various bars along the lake and see nothing but Beamers, Mercedes, Ferraris, and Lotuses being valet parked for their owners. You can see boats that are just as big as what they have on the North Shore bay in Chicago. You can go there and see the most poshly dressed and done up people and think you’re in Milan. But you’re not, you’re in fly over country.

Naturally, if you’re a normal hard working Joe, this is a foreign world to you. A world of peppered hair investment banking types ordering $15 martini’s. A world where trophy wives drive their Lexus SUV’s to the local towns at 11AM to meet their trophy comrades because they don’t have to work. A world where 17 year old high school kids have nicer cars than you’ve ever had. It is a world you just can’t relate to. But I have a dirty little suspicion about this world, and that suspicion is it’s like the “Barbie Girl” in the “Barbie World”;

It’s fantastic.

But it’s made of plastic.

What first aroused my suspicion to this ultra-elite world is when working in banking I would get an inordinate amount of real estate developers who claimed residency in the area. In my book I regale the story of a man I called “Zorba the Swede” who I titled such because he was always super tan when he came into the bank, even in January. Minnesotans do not pull off that “Greek guy in a speedo with a lot of chest hair” tan in January (let alone July). But this guy did and he hailed from Wayzata (the capitol of this elite area). Regardless, it was the likes of Zorba and his ilk and their uncanny ability to reside in the Lake Minnetonka area that raised my eyebrow. And the reason my eyebrow was raised was not the tans they were sporting, but their tax returns.

Most of them showed losses.

It seemed odd to me that if you showed losses on your tax returns that you could somehow live in the Lake Minnetonka area. Matter of fact, unless your tax return showed at minimum a $1.5 million salary a year, I don’t see how you could even afford to live in the “slums” of Lake Minnetonka. But somehow they did.

But the excuse I received was universally the same;

“Oh, Zorba made money, he was just trying to low his tax bill by showing losses. But rest assured he was a very successful real estate developer/surgeon/businessman, which is why he needed an emergency $4 million loan this afternoon. You understand of course, it’s just business.”

Funny thing was I never understood.

I understood they weren’t making money. I understood they had overleveraged themselves into property that would never sell. I understood there was a housing crash coming. And I understood that even if they had $30 million in assets, if they had $35 million in debts, they were insolvent. But I never understood how somebody who was LOSING money could afford a $10 million mansion on Lake Minnetonka, and still don’t to this day.

Time would go on and sure enough there was no limit to the number of “Zorba’s” out there. Real estate developers. Non-descript businessmen. Investment brokers. All showing losses. None posting profits. But invariably all living in the fanciest zip codes money could buy.

But as the housing crash started its decline, it was interesting to see how many of these “super-successful” business men failed to provide their most current tax return. Or their most up to date personal financial statement. Or just give us projections or estimates of what their current financial situation was. They would hem and haw, and ultimately balk, but according to my supervisors;

“Well, they’re very successful men. They are so busy making money, they don’t have time to get their tax returns in on time. That’s why they always file extensions.”

Funny, I never understood that either.

In any case, what I suspected ultimately proved to be true. The majority of these “super successful business men” were in short nothing but financial deadbeats. Losers who couldn’t even manage a lemonade stand to profitability. Inferior little middle-aged brats who didn’t have the guts, nor the aptitude, nor the intelligence, nor the skill to genuinely work up the wealth they farcically paraded around. And some were so egregious in their financial masquerading they begat the attention of their friendly neighborhood federal investigators;.

Adam LaFavre once the darling of real estate circles is under investigation for a litany of things.

Michael Parish of Parish Development plead guilty to a $50 million strawbuyer and fraud scheme.

And Bruce Nedegaard, convicted felon, turned real estate mogul, who, tragically died of cancer before he could be sentenced for fraud, tax evasion and a whole host of other no-no’s.

But just three men do not make the 50,000 or so Lake Minnetonka area residents all financial deadbeats. There are people who ethically (or at least, legally) earned (cough cough! - inherited) their multi-million dollar lakeside homes. Genuine wealth and empires have been produced providing billions in profits and thousands of jobs. But as the housing market has collapsed and with it the economy, the wheat is being separated from the chaff and I am now questioning what percent of the Lake Minnetoka residents are genuine captains of industry earning their “elite” rank, and what percent are just a bunch of financial deadbeat posers.

Three events or observations have piqued my suspicion.

First was last week when it was a rare beautiful October day, I decided to take my motorcycle (that’s right ladies, the Captain is a bad boy) and cruise around the 98 miles of shoreline on Lake Minnetonka. What amazed me was just how many homes were for sale. A brand new mansion for sale here. A partially completed dream house there. And an old school estate up for auction there. Two large “luxury condo” developments on the lake were nothing but ghost towns and I remember reading about the developers and these much heralded developments as the local paper fawned over them as local celebrities. In short, it was shocking to see Minnesota’s richest neighborhood having the same, if not, a higher percentage of the homes for sale as your local suffering blue collar neighborhood.

Second was a story told to me by an acquaintance who lives in the area about a young, budding socialite couple who live in the area and live in one of the nicer houses. However, they actually don’t own the $5 million home. It is owned by the mother in law who lets them live there RENT FREE as if they were a 20 year old college couple trying to pay for tuition. Worse still, the “business” the husband runs is perpetually losing money and needs a constant cash infusion from the mother in law. Meanwhile they drive around in nothing but the finest luxury cars and SUV’s while wining and dining at the local restaurants where drinks are $10 a shot. Fine, the house may not be up for sale, but how many live-in-my-mom’s-basement-at-the-age-of-40 “successful” investment bankers are there? I want that set up.

And finally was the now disgraced Tom Petters. Multi-billion dollar business mogul who lived in Wayzata and was recently paid a visit by the local, state and federal law enforcement representatives who were quite insistent he come with them. Posing as only a poser could, he was heralded by scores of magazines and newspapers as a “super successful” businessman (who no doubt had trouble getting his tax returns in on time too), only to turn out to be crook who defrauded billions from his victims. However, it was not his arrest that crystallized by suspicion into an outright thought, but that he had a magazine called “Lake Minnetonka Magazine.”

I saw the magazine once and it reminded me of the time I was invited to one of the “popular kids” parties back in high school. Shocking as this may be, I was nerd back in 1991, and for me to be invited to this party sounded more like a set up than anything else. It turned out to be a genuine invite by one of the nicer popular kids, but when I got there, instead of this wild crazy party with the cheerleaders running around topless, all it was, was the cheerleaders watching a video of themselves cheering at a recent football game and the jocks watching the same. All they were doing was watching themselves on the VCR. It was the most boring party I had ever been to and I remember leaving only after 10 minutes to go play some Dungeons and Dragons with my friends.

Regardless, the point was this magazine was the exact same thing. A “hurrah for us” fest. A magazine where a bunch of people read about themselves and the parties they went to. It was nothing but them masturbating over themselves. Articles about “Joe Schmoe and Jane Jones-Schmoe (note the hyphenated name) hanging out with real estate tycoon Bob Bobson and his Minnesota Viking’s cheerleader Bambi Bames as they discuss which boat they’re going to buy.” Or “banking heiress Jessica Johnson and some friends party it up at the local club – rumor is she is dating star investment banker and most eligible bachelor, Lance Winthrop!”

It was all of the observations mentioned above, combined with the fakeness of this magazine (not to mention the owner himself was now proven to be a deadbeat) that made me think it wasn’t just a few bad apples in Minnesota’s most elite neighborhood, but that something closer to 25-33% of the population were indeed posers.

Now, admittedly you cannot get rid of nepotism. Undeserving people will inherit the fortune their parents worked up. But what angers me the most about this is the attitude these elites have. I’m not talking about me being jealous or envious, I’m talking about the hypocrisy these people have. It’s one thing to build up an empire from scratch, buy a mansion and drive your Lotus around and live the jet set lifestyle. You earned it. You deserved it. You produced wealth and earned so much money, not to mention employed people along the way that you deserve to sit on the docks of Lake Minnetonka while you sip your $10 martini and say, “I’m one of the best. I am indeed one of the greatest.” I applaud you.

But if you are what I estimate to be that 25-33% of losers who just inherited it, or borrowed it, or worse, just stole it, not only should you have shame, you should be taken to a back alley and have every undeserved penny beaten out of you. Not because you have it (however you may have gotten it), but because of your insistence that like all the other subprime deadbeats, thieving bankers and other entitlement princes and princesses out there, that you’re ENTITLED to it. And what’s really goading is when you flaunt it.

The dead beat, live at home, son in law who isn’t man enough to make a profit to support himself and has to live off of his mother in law driving a luxury car? Back alley with a baseball bat.

Partying it up living off of embezzled funds, posing as some big time hot shot “businessman” with $40 million in assets and $50 million in debts soon to be bailed out by the taxpayer as you throw the economy into recession? Back alley with a baseball bat.

And Tom Petters with his house he owned (well, “he” never really owned it);

Back alley with a baseball bat, broken glass, rubbing alcohol and a blowtorch.

Now I’ve said it before and I will say it again, because I think those of us who work for a living, who manage to spend within our means, only to bail out financial deadbeats like these, really need to hear it (since it’s only true)

We are better people than you.

We don’t pose, we’re legitimate.

We don’t steal, parasite, inherit then flaunt, or borrow with no intention of paying back, we earn.

We are the ones who make this country and any other country great. And while you may have your Beamers and your Lake Minnetonka homes and your fancy parties, you’re not fooling any one. Your net worth is negative. The waitress with a positive checking account balance has a higher net worth than you. You are the losers and we are the winners.

"Once the state extends the franchise to every warm body"

Turns out it was not Cicero, but rather Robert Heinlein who said it;

""[O]nce a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader — the barbarians enter Rome."

Robert A. Heinlein (Courtesy of The Corner @ NRO)"

ht to Alfred Mahan

Regardless, here is the point people;

It is in teaching the population and educating them about the basics of economics that you could have a democracy that would be forever lasting, or at least not befelled by human's natural desire for greed and tendency to put themselves ahead of others. It is economics that is the key to making a nation great. If the people understand why you can't just go a file for bankruptcy and why instead of majoring in cosmetology you should instead major in chemical engineering, then wealth will be produced and poverty eliminated to such an extent it would rival the olden days of the US. I write about it in further detail in my book, but also plan on making a post along the lines that inevitably as science disproves various traditional religions wrong, for moral and spiritual guidance, people will turn more and more to economics as it is the laws of economics that ultimately govern our behaviors. And if the study of economics can be mastered by the masses, there would be an unbelievable advance and enrichment of society.

Of course people would have to quit believing in worthless socialist drivel such as "hope" and "change," but, even despite the naivety of spoiled brat Obasming American leftists, I think most people when given the choice;

"A pathetic government financed existence of mediocrity standing in bread like circa 1970's Russia"

or

"A Bermudian level of capitalism and $80,000 per capita GDP."

Will come around to the "new" religion.

Eliminating the Tax Benefits of 401k's

Oh, you so knew this was going to happen.

And all you dumb Gen-xer's out there who thought the "Roth" was too good to be true.

Yeah, it is.

I wonder how that will affect the value of stocks?

Stupid Romans

Pfa! Romans. Cicero. What did they know? Didn't they know Barack was going to save them all? Besides which, it's not like daddy won't pay for it anyway. Duh!!!

Obama vs. McCain's Tax Plan

I only have one question to ask;

For Obama, if the bottom third of income earners don't really pay taxes, how do you give them a tax cut?

Never mind, I already know the answer.

The Suits Head for Wal-Mart

Interesting chart. Enjoy slumming with the rest of us "normal" schleps you now-unemployed real estate moguls;



ht.

Behind the Housing Crash Reminder!

A friendly reminder to buy the book if you haven't already.

Beside which it entails stories of Jennifer Aniston, IRS investigations, a heroic capitalist underdog hero fighting the forever blurring forces of nepotism and socialism and a plot that is continually unfolding. How can you NOT buy the book?

Tatsuya Ishida: Another Victim of Ignorance

I don't personally know Tatsuya Ishida, but I have a feeling he is;

1. Younger than me.
2. Not as informed as I am about economics.

And the reason I say this (and I mean this in a non-derogatory manner) is he is suffering from what I deem a lot of youth are suffering from and that is ignorance when it comes to basic economics. He has an identity complex.

First off, let me state that I am a HUGE EFFING FAN of Sinfest.

And "HUGE EFFING FAN" is the highest rating one can achieve in the Captain Capitalism hierarchy of rankhood.

Tatsuya is smart, he is brilliant, and if one were to test his IQ, there is no doubt in my mind it would exceed 130 points.

The problem is he is misinformed, and like most other youth, have no idea what they're talking about when they discuss the difference between capitalism and communism.

To those of us intricately trained in the differences between the two ideologies, his two latest comics;

This one

and

This one

show, quite clearly, that he has his heart in the right place, but plainly lacks the basic understanding of the basic tenets and principles/differences between capitalism and communism.

I mean this not in a jest or ha ha way, but a serious way. How many younger folk out there are unable to make that vitally important discernation between capitalism and communism, and (scarier still) vote on these misinformed, faulty premises?

It's almost as if their natural survivalist/darwinian instincts know what is "bad" and can easily identify it, but they're so easily taken in by the (nothing short of) B freaking S that is known as the false promises of socialism, that they propagate it.

Regardless, Tatsuya has provided me some much needed humor and mirth in a life that would otherwise be quite depressing, but I wonder that if Ishida had any formal training in the basics of economics...could he not be the one...the one that would bring balance to the force???

Ah! Who am I kidding? I'm the one. I'm the one that will bring balance to the force. That or the realities of economics, which *by definition* REALITIES of economics, more or less "forces" us all to adhere to, no matter how much we disagree with "realities."

Damn realities....You mean Obama won't guarantee I get a pony?

Cheap Canadian Bastards

So I go to try to find some basic economic data on Canada. Shouldn't a problem. Canada afterall IS a democracy, a 1st world nation, and its government SHOULD have basic economic data available for free.

Oh how foolish I was. For upon finding the pinnacle source of economic data, I find out you have to pay for the "honor" to have what should with no exception be PUBLICLY AVAILABLE AND FREE DATA!




Is it possible, is it just freaking possible, to have governments in the western world, please act like you actually serve the people and not the other way around? Is it possible to have you little power hungry, impotent bureaucrats not act like a totalitarian dictatorship, and instead of this petty extortion for data that should be made available to the public for free, please at least FEIGN like you're here to serve the people.

I know this may sound like a minor grievance, but for Christ's sake, are you joking me? You're going to charge for data that not only should every Canadian citizen have the right to know for free, but can easily be found on the OECD for free?

To Statcan (and I mean this sincerely);

Go f#ck yourselves!

Who Will Obama Kill When He Gets Into Power?

Scary, but it's like he's reading from Obama's playbook

Thanks to the Preppies on Wall Street!

Hedge fund manager who bets against Wall Street and their spoiled brat, nepotistic blue blood ilk, thanks them for their stupidity.

Sounds like my long lost brother.

Not Another Baby Boomer Drama

OK, seriously, you remember the movie "Not Another Teen Drama." It was a mockery of the 1980's, John Hughes movies that were essentially pointless, but drew a crowd because it played to spoiled little brats teenagers' psyches in the 1980's.

Is Oliver Stone's movie any different, except it's for the Cialis crowd?


I ask this as a serious question, would anybody but a Baby Boomer go see this? And perhaps the question needs refining, because not all Baby Boomers have no lives. Some of them have moved on and done something productive. Ergo;

Would any NON-burnt out hippie-loser-recreate-1968 Baby Boomer see this movie?

I've heard of Oliver Stone, I know he made some movies, but you know, the best movie I've seen in a while has been Hitman, and since then, Die Hard. Oliver Stone directed neither. And while I know those in control in Hollywood are the old guard of burnt out blunts, and somehow think this is a great film (or at least worth pissing away millions in advertising) couldn't you burn outs just have forwarded a couple e-mails to tell the other 250 '68 Re-enactor nerds that there was this really cool movie coming out and instead spent the millions on a charitable cause or create a college fund or something?

Just throwing it out there.

Seriously, what compelled anybody to think this was a movie? This shows you just how out of touch people are in Hollywood where "W" is somehow considered a viable movie. GW isn't even out of office yet. GW, aside from invading Iraq, is in reality a really milquetoast president. He is not Teddy Roosevelt. He is not George Washington. He is not a compelling figure. Ergo, the fact a movie was made about him was more a testament to those who wanted to make/watch a movie about him, which is frankly pathetic.

Seriously, it's like a generational version of a family forcing guests to sit down and watch home videos of a family's trip somewhere or another that nobody cares to watch. Worse still is the host doesn't realize nobody gives a damn but them or about the stupid movie.

Regardless, though I disagree with practically everything Obama stands for, if there is one shred of silver lining about the Obama campaign is that it does signal "change" in that the old guard of crappy 70's. 80's, 90's and 00's Boomer dramas is beginning to end. That Oliver Stone's movies will soon be relegated to being shown in nursing homes.

In the meantime the rest of the conscious world will be watching Iron Man or Hitman or the latest James Bond flick.

Another Barack Obama Supporter

And remember, the capitalists, Republicans and libertarians are the parties of "hate."

Friday Funnies

I will be engaged in pumpkin hunting, chasing skirts, X-boxing and other American male activities this weekend and will leave you with the required reading;

http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2959

American Manifesto

Yeah, that about sums up what real change Obama will bring to America. About as much success as "Live 8" did for Africa.

Time to mock sociology majors

How I listened to authority back then and how I still do to this day

How the Captain Proposes to a Girl

I love it when suburbanite chicks compare carat sizes

How the Captain would speak freely if he could in these socialist states of America

My Dad was a pastor. This is how I will run a church if I ever get one.

Why I'm a carry conceal permit holder

This is how true conservatives think. Not your namby pamby peace studies majors who want to make themselves feel good by going to a third world country to effectively do nothing.

My view on children.

And finally, why I gave up on Christianity, because it was too hard to believe on the little Sinai Peninsula Moses got lost for 40 years.