I Hate Google

Google is an arrogant company, and albeit ran by smart people, the more and more I deal with them, the more and more I realize that not only are they arrogant elitists, but have more power than what I'd like.

I will inevitably move from Blogger (which is owned by Google) to Word Press or what have you in the future, but no matter how "intelligent" they fashion themselves, no matter how "creative" or "cutting edge" they may be, the realities of the free market (otherwise known as reality) boils down to this;


Americans don't like arrogant elitist pricks and they don't trust companies with too much power.

I suggest doing your searching on Yahoo.

In Vegas, No Posting

I'm in Vegas.

These cheap bastards charge for internet access.

$5 for 20 minutes IS A DEAL.

Posts will resume upon my return to the "global warming capitol" of the world, where it is -17 right now, Minneapolis

Degree Mills

"Do you want an exciting career in the field of medical transcriptioning?"

"Do you want to be on the cutting edge of criminal justice?"

"How about an exciting career in travel and hospitality?"

"Then School XYZ is the school for you!"

"Earn your degree in just 16 months and you'll be on your way to a better you!"

This is the typical commercial for the typical 2 year college you will see during daytime TV. And the reason you see it during day time TV is because the target audience is not you nor me, but basically the welfare bum deadbeats who don't have a job and are looking for a way out of their miserable lives.

Now understand we are smart enough to know such a thing sounds like a scam. But to the average deadbeat watching her soaps or the typical loser turning off the video games long enough to watch TV instead so he can eat, this actually sounds like a feasible opportunity and thus 2 year colleges are born.

But allow me to tell you a couple stories about my days teaching at some of these institutions of "higher learning" so that;

1. You know never to go there.
2. You can tell some of your less fortunate friends never to go there
3. These schools may go bankrupt.

So pour yourself a martini, find a comfy chair, kick back and relax as I regale you with my tales of teaching in 2 year colleges.

I first started teaching at this "business" school where the "campus" was a rented out, brown, 1970's style office building located in the inner suburbs of St. Paul/Minneapolis. The school didn't even rent out the entire building, but let that be a lesson to you kids, highly ranked schools lease out their HQ in suburbanite strip malls.

I intuitively knew this wasn't going to be Harvard, but it was a nice part time job and I got to teach my passion; economics - so I didn't much care.

However troubles immediately started to occur.


The first sign of trouble came when I issued the first quiz, of which 85% of the students failed. It wasn't an issue of the quiz being difficult or hard. It wasn't an issue of me being a mean teacher. The quiz was of an average difficulty and any student paying attention would have passed it. However, upon grading the quizzes I realized just what a low caliber of students I was dealing with and made the egregious error of deciding not to LOWER the standards to them, but to have them RISE to my standards and thereby teach them something.

Complaints flooded into my boss about the test being too difficult, they didn't have enough time to study, "by god I have two children and can't study this much" etc. etc. And sure enough, at the age of 27, I was called into the office.

My boss explained to me that we are here to challenge the students, but not too much. That my test was unfair and I should consider tailoring it more to their skill level. Of course with hindsight I now see what the charlatan of a dean was telling me; "Dumb it down because we're fleecing these kids for their money for a worthless degree and if you rock the boat we'll lose some of them." But he couldn't come outright and say that, ergo why he was feeding me a line of bull.

The next quiz I dumbed down, and this time a whopping 30% of the students passed. Naturally there was the same cacophony of complaints which resulted me landing in the dean's office once again. This process continued until I had more or less realized that not only were the students dead set against learning or trying to feign some semblance of being a scholar as well as the complete lack of back up from management to hold some level of standards to these kids. And so, choosing the path of least resistance, I decided I would not only make the quizzes and tests insanely easier, but skew the grading curve so greatly it would put affirmative action to shame.

To avoid any more criticism that I didn't test the students on what we studied I made them make their own "study guide" for the tests. This consistent of each student writing a multiple choice question on a piece of paper, me taking all those questions and photocopying them into a guide for each student. We would review the questions and the correct answers, and then I would take the EXACT SAME PHOTOCOPIED questions, photocopy them again, insert 4-5 questions of my own and then give it back to the students as the official test.

Even then, with no more than 4-5 question of my own to give those who deserved an A and A, I would still get students to flunk the test. So idiotic and genuinely stupid, or perhaps galactically lazy, were these students, they couldn't pass a test where they had the answers the day before.

Regardless, the majority of the students did pass, but with less than 40% of them earning A's.

Of course the concept of "earning" A's was a joke. Only 2-3 students per class really "earned" an A. But the grading curve was so skewed (at the request of the dean to make sure everybody passed) that the math more or less bumped people who would have really earned a C into the A+ category.

This behooved on my part true pity for the few students I did have that did indeed earn A's. They would study hard and effectively waste their time because all they would have to do is the bare minimum to pass and still get an A.

However, insisting on some kind of level of integrity, if I had to bump some degenerate loser's 12% score to the 70% necessary to pass, then I would bump everybody's score up by 58%. Not to mention the never ending requests from students to do some kind of "extra credit" to pass, I would have to present the same opportunity to every student, of which of course the straight A students would avail themselves of and earn even more unnecessary points. This resulted in some very interesting final scores.

Of the possible 100 points you could have earned in the class the top student had a final score of 170.

She had busted he ass off to earn nearly twice the amount of points she needed simply because that was the work/study ethic she had. The runner up had 150%. I insisted that neither of them study much for the next class I taught which was statistics and instead enjoy their next semester.

Tests and quizzes were just one problem I ran into in the schools. The second one was papers.

Foolish and idealistic, I thought it would be a great idea to have the students write an economics report on a country of their choosing to test their economic and analytical ability. Each student was to pick a country of their choosing and then write a FIVE PAGE DOUBLE SPACED PAPER on that country. This was no Herculean task. Matter of fact, I think I've already written more in this post in the past 10 minutes. Regardless, the hellish bitching and moaning and complaining did not stop.

"I don't have a computer."

"I don't have a printer."

"I don't have access to either."

"Why does it have to be 5 pages?"

"What's the font size."

More effort bitching and whining went into fighting against the paper than actually writing the effing thing.

With much ballyhoo and BS, inevitably I did get them into the computer lab and as the deadline approached, the vast majority of my students were frantically writing as they had procrastinated to that very last day.

Truthfully though, the majority of them did get their papers in on time and with them in hand began a painful task I was completely unaware of.

The first paper I read was on South Korea. The student had written:

"South Korea's economy is a modern industrialized nation, diversified into manufacturing, technology and services. It paradoxically compares..."

And right there I knew something was up.

So well written was that first sentence, I knew there was no way my student could have written it.

Sure enough I went to the Google and found he had just copied and pasted the report from the CIA's World Factbook.

The next paper was on Finland;

"Finland's economy is a mixed free market/socialist economy with the government providing its populace with ..."

Already, too well written. Google. CIA World Fact Book. Plagiarized.

I continued to google search various phrases and sentences that seemed too well crafted for the ability of my students and found out that out of 92 students, 89 had plagiarized.

The next day I ripped into them. I lectured them about how plagiarism was completely unacceptable, they would all get F's and blah blah blah, they weren't listening. And sure enough I got called into the principle's office.

The "dean" then lectured me about how I was overly harsh on the students and that they "didn't know" they weren't supposed to plagiarize. He then went on to read complaints he took in a survey from my students about my performance, one of which was a complaint about this ever so slight speech impediment I have (I cough due to allergies more frequently than the average person). I was to also let all the students write a new paper. I was dumbfounded.

I was to apologize to these students for their plagiarism. Only in a 2 year degree mill.

It was here that I realized that if I was going to keep my job I was just going to have to play ball and pass these kids no matter what. But the trick was to show them still who was boss because by this time they thought they owned me and had won. Never mind their degree would be worthless. Never mind with that kind of attitude they would get fired in half a second. In their little minds they "won" and now life was just going to bend over for them, if not the dean would always be able to save them and would bend life over for them.

But I would get my revenge. For the next class in the next semester was statistics.

Now you must understand that at this school there were multiple "majors" and they would keep the majors together so as to breed comradery. The majors were computer science, accounting, "travel and hospitality," and "health care." Naturally, the computer science and accounting students had a high mathematical aptitude and therefore would not only do better, but advance through the class faster. Therefore after 4 weeks they were already twice as far as their "travel and hospitality" counterparts.

Thinking there was nothing wrong and learning to make the class insanely easy, I thought there were going to be no more complaints. And sure enough there was;

The computer science and accounting students were complaining because they had done twice the work in the same amount of time. The dean then said I can't teach two different classes and they must be standardized across all majors.

This presented a problem to me in that there was no way in hell the travel and hospitality majors would ever be able to accomplish what the other students were doing. Thus I had to slow them down while travel and hospitality caught up. Thus, one of my greatest creations ever;

The Halo Statistics Project.

To grant the travel and hospitality majors enough time to get their fat, imbecilic lazy asses enough time to catch up, I decided that the accounting and computer programming majors would conduct a statistical experiment playing Halo. We linked 4 X-Boxes together, each person (including yours truly) would have a statistics sheet, and as we played various games we would record various statistics;

# of deaths
# of kills
# of assists
Time Alive
etc.

This would then give us enough empirical data to have a field day with to calculate things such as standard deviation, mean kill and calculate very important things such as;

"If you have 18 deaths in Halo, what percentile are you in, in the sub game "Slayer Pro?"

"What is the correlation coefficient between assists and the use of a bazooka."

For the next two weeks we played Halo while the rest of the students caught up.

Naturally, of course there were complaints. The travel and hospitality majors found out the other students were playing Halo. And when asked why they couldn't play Halo, I said, "well you're two weeks behind the other students so I have to find a way for you to catch up and this way we will have empirical data to use in future projects and experiments."

It did not go over well. By this time my repoire with the students had deteriorated so much there was nothing I could do. Teacher's cars were getting keyed, I was regularly called names and insulted by students. It was a "college" but it was more like teaching in a ghetto high school. The students were completely unaware of any possibility it was their fault they were failing or were so inconceivably stupid other students had to resort to "Halo Statistics" for them to play catch up.

Of course, by this time, I had given up on any kind of desire to teach these kids. I made it possible for those who wanted to learn, to learn, but instead of treating my job as an educator, I treated it as a baby sitter. And fresh in my mind the complaints filed about me being a idiot and a jerk and having that "stupid cough thing" as well as being forced by the dean to apologize to these daytime-tv-watching morons, I had one final trick up my sleeve.

The students by this time knew enough about simple statistics that the concepts of the bell distribution curve and how standard deviation can estimate what percent of the population you rank in were within their ability to calculate. But, since I was a concerned teacher, the question was "what kind of calculation can we do or test to make this personal and interesting to my beloved students?" And then it hit me;

IQ.

There was a web site, where if you had the time, you could take a rather thorough IQ test and get your IQ. It wasn't official or anything, but it would serve the purposes of my little statistics experiment. The students would go online, take their IQ test and then calculate what percent of the population they ranked in, in terms of their IQ.

The students were all excited about it. Of course they were the smartest students in the world and the world and meanies like me were just out to get them. They were almost supremely confident they would score high and no doubt some of them were tentatively planning on showing me their IQ to "show me."

So off they went to the computer lab, 45 minutes they came back with their score and I then showed them the method using a mean of 100 to find out what percent of the population they ranked in.

And as more and more of them looked up their percentile on the little percentile sheets their shoulders slouched. Their faces shocked. The travel and hospitality majors, you could tell, were double checking their math because they couldn't believe they were that stupid. Many faced the paradox of having to ask me to help them because on one hand they couldn't believe they scored that low, but they didn't want me to see their IQ (which I insisted be kept confidential). One girl started crying and another student who never shut up and found it a vital necessity to constantly talk in class, actually shut up. We found one student was "officially" retarded (though he wasn't, he just didn't try) while another was ecstatic to find out she was in the top 30%, until I pointed out she subtracted wrong when calculating her standard deviation and she was in fact in the bottom 30%. The class was somber, silent and depressed. Oh sure, there were the genuine straight A students who were happy and arguably finally vindicated that they were smart, arguably MENSA material, but the rest of them got a harsh delivering blow from the real world. There was their real grading curve.

In the end I went on to teach at another 2 year college, this time with the wisdom knowing not to try to teach the kids anything, but to entertain them. Pass them along, give them their B- and everybody's happy. And it is here that the lesson of degree mills and junior college must be learned.

There is no point in going to these schools unless they are accredited and you are intending on moving on to get your 4 year degree. Many states and local governments have 2 year colleges and they're great. They are typically part of the state university system, they are accredited and they are a VITAL AND GREAT opportunity to those who may not have the means to afford a 4 year college or perhaps was just goofing off during high school and now realized the merits of education. However, there are other 2 year "institutions" out there that are nothing more than degree mills. Non-accredited, typically private companies that are just that; companies.

They don't care if you get a good education. They're not really there to help you. And they certainly do not care if you get a job or not.

They're just there to take your money.

Uncle Jay Explains Carolyn Kennedy

I'm starting to like Uncle Jay

Thank You New York Times

To quote MacGruder from "Home Movies:"

"New York Times?

New York Tiiiiimes?

You think you're better than us?"

The Return of Malthus

I'm a very efficient man. I don't like to waste time. And the reason I don't like to waste time is because I know I'm going to die. You only have a certain amount of seconds on this planet and if I can convey a concept quickly without much dialouge or ballyhoo, then so be it. I save myself time and my readers time.

So the concept (the quick concept) I want to convey to you is the theories of Thomas Malthus, an economist who specialized in the field of "limits." His particular specialty in this field was predicting the doom of man due to humans' ability to produce enough food to feed the population. He predicted, much like the fruit fly experiment we all did in high school, that we would produce enough food to cause a burst in population which would only be doomed to starvation as we produced beyond our means of nutritional support.

He was proven wrong in that advances in farming technology yielded more crops per acre that ever previously imagined possible and made starvation (at least in civilized countries) a thing of the past.

However, Malthus is not dead in that his theories will apply to our most recent economic crisis. Not so much in the way of farmers being able to produce enough crops to feed the nation, but rather producers producing enough wealth to feed the parasites.

In light of the record amount of debt the US has accumulated, along with the welfare bum, suburbanite princess entitlement mentality, subprime deadbeats, mortgage brokers, Madoff's, and oh, and this whole minor recession thing, I think we are at a turning point where a critical mass of the population is dependent. I know the term "dependent" is not an inciting nor exciting term, but it should be, because it means those who are "dependent" rely, or as I cynically, yet truthfully like to say, parasite upon others.

If you are dependent, then that means you're not independent. It means by default you rely on other people to carry your dead, fat weight in this economy (just like Caroline Kennedy). And whereas Malthus' concern was food production, mine is just pure simple economic production.

Though I have not run the figures, the macro-figures being posted about bailouts, as well as our cornerstone institutions showing themselves to be nothing more than parasites upon the masses, I think that there literally is not enough producers in this country to produce enough wealth to support all the people in the nation. And given the recent election of Barack Obama and his forever increasing amounts of stimulus spending, it not only convinces me the country is not serious (nor educated enough) about getting out of this recession, as much as they are about getting theirs and transferring as much wealth to themselves off this dead rotting carcass known as America. The only question I ask "where is all this money going to come from?"

Of course I ask myself the question rhetorically.

Socialists in congress combined with comrade Obama have eliminated any incentive to excel and produce the wealth necessary to bail out this economy (and I mean really bailout as in REAL economic production, not just transferring money and calling it a bailout, I mean like our problems would be over bailout). Obama and his socialist democrat ilk have done nothing more than promise to transfer wealth from one group of people to another to bribe the recipients into voting for them. Ergo, no real consideration has ever been given to how to actually increase the production of wealth as much as it has been to use a transference of existing (and dwindling) wealth for political purposes. Of course there are obvious shortcomings of this politicking;

1. With taxes going up on the rich (or as I like to say the "productive" or "employers") what incentive will the have to invest/create jobs here.

2. With wealth transfers what incentive with the burgeoning recipients have to get off their lazy, fat welfare asses and produce some kind of wealth (let alone enough to support them?)

I'm sorry folks. I know you like to believe that "America will always pull through." Or that if you "pray enough" God will save America like he always has. Sadly, the truth is nobody puts this country ahead of themselves and when you have a certain "critical percentage" of the population nothing more than a bunch of whinny, self-entitled, spoiled brat "Barack save me now" socialist parasites, your country is doomed.

Malthus will be vindicated. The trick is to not be around when it happens.

Advice for the College Youth

I got an e-mail from Kyle asking about changing majors, and after writing the response I figured this would be decent advice for any college aged youths or youths contemplating college;
____________

Hi Kyle,

Heh, thanks for reading. I am particularly grateful in that maybe my experience might do some good for a younger fella.

Here's the deal. Anything worth getting a degree in is going to take a lot of math. This means subjects such as engineering, computers, medicine, etc. It is not whether you "like" the subject you are majoring in as (especially in light of this economy) you cannot afford such a luxury. In other words, you may think majoring in something is "tough" but it is a much more difficult route to major in something that you may like and suffering trying to find a job for the rest of your days (consider a nerdy engineer who slaves and tolls to get his degree in 4 years vs. an teenage gangbanger who slacks off, over time the gang banger has a harder more difficult life). Ergo your desire to change majors is great.

As for the major itself, if you are going to go into economics, then don't even bother unless you plan to get your masters. A bachelors will not do. Additionally, being in economics, you will most likely work in the financial services industry which is basically corrupt and based on nepotism instead of skill. Getting a masters will allow you at minimum to teach at a 2 year community college (which is what I did for a while) where the politics and corruption are a mere faction what they are in banking. Do not have any grad illusions of being heard or having your work implemented. You do not have gray hair and you are not the husband of the vice president. You will be a cog in the banking machine (albeit a highly educated one)

If you are not willing to go all the way and get your masters, then a subject such as accounting or engineering or computers is the other routes to go. Those are 4 year degrees that will get you jobs. However, if you want more guidance all you have to do is look at starting salaries. The labor market will tell you what's in demand. Teachers start off at $32,000 per year . Chemical engineers I think are around $52,000 or so.

The final thing I'd recommend is this;

DO NOT WORRY IF IT TAKES YOU ANOTHER 3 YEARS TO GRADUATE. I am explaining this to you so you do NOT make the same mistake I did and therefore can have a better life. Learn from my mistakes, it's immensely cheaper. You may not like school. You may have a plan to get out in 4-5 years, but;

1. Nobody in the real world gives younger folk a chance, no matter how smart or educated you may be. A 45 year old baby boomer does not see a difference between a 22 year graduate and a 26 year old graduate. In their eyes you're all incompetent punks barely able to wipe their own asses (and based on the majority of leftist idiots graduating from college, they're right). Regardless, it is here you are a victim of your generation. An eagle surrounded by turkeys. You may as well spend your time getting a good degree AND ENJOYING IT. No need to rush. Take another 3-4 years in college. It's much more enjoyable. Chase girls, get drunk. And for god's sake, don't worry about your GPA. Just keep it above a 3.0 and you'll be fine.

2. The economy is shit and will continue to be shit. School is an ideal place to be.

Sorry to be so glum, but hopefully that will provide you a little bit of guidance above and beyond what the "student counselors" will.

Cpt.

Uncle Jay Explains the News!

You Will Visit Agnesy

I feel guilt in that there are many people who link to me and I do not have the time (nor the programming expertise) to link to them (to create a blogroll I mean).

Regardless, I try to make the occasional post to highlight those that are kind enough to link to me here at Cappy Cap and one of those is good ol' Agnes.

I don't know much about her, which I regret, because if it weren't for having to make a living and pay the bills, I would genuinely like to just hang out on the internet and meet people of similar interests.

Alas, the compulsion to contribute to GDP is a relentless call and one that I must obey.

But in the meantime, visit Agnes because she seems a sweet kid out in Kuala Lumpur (sorry, originally thought she was in Singapore) and that is a country (Malaysia) that seems to have it's shit together more so than any American/western nation does.

(Sorry, just trying to digest a $1 trillion DEFICIT (not debt, freaking one year deficit) because of the stupid moronic, lazy, slothful POS neo-Americans that infect (yes, I do mean that in the viral sense) America)

American Financial Sub Prime Dead Beats Cost More than the War on Terror

I said it before, I said it in my book, and by God, I'll say it again;

The sub prime degenerate scumbuckets of America caused more damage and have cost more than the terrorist attacks and subsequent war on terror;


Sorry to bring this horrible truth to light.

Percent of Millionaires that Have Lost Money

Seems like all of them;



And though I am a capitalist, as I've realized more and more just what an unacceptably high percentage of them didn't earn it and achieved such wealth through nepotism and cronyism instead of skill and game, I will take joy in their misery.

Obama-ese Translated

The major makes it easier for those of us who speak, blunt, direct, English.

"Signs" of the Recession

Ax l's Bo fire

U imate Ele tr nics

Abb 's

These are just a few of the sign's I've seen whilst driving through the Twin Cities at night where a light has gone out in one or more of the letters that are prominently displayed on the store's front or sign.

And while I have seen burnt out lights in the past before, never have I seen it to this extent.

I theorize it is a sign of harsh economic times and makes me wish that a more longitudinal record of "burnt out sign lights" had been recorded so as to be used as a metric to measure the severity and harshness of a recession.

Anybody else noticing this?

Israel Should Continue Until Hamas is Destroyed

I love the timing of how once Israel is winning and about to rout Hamas and remove a cancer from the Palestinian people and we are all one huge step closer to true peace in Palestine...

THE WEST IN FULL UNISON AND CHOIR BEG ISRAEL TO STOP.

B as in B.

S as in S.

It's almost as if the west and other nations want the Palestinian issue to never end. As if there's this powerful lobby group of diplomats and negotiators at the UN that need there to be a continual crisis in the Mideast otherwise they'd be out of the job. Ergo, once their agitator, Hamas, is on the brink of being destroyed or weakened to the point they can't terrorize Palestine anymore, they beg and plead Israel to call a time out.

Israel should continue to do all in its power to wipe out Hamas and if necessary reoccupy Gaza, and it would be a great help if the Palestinians would help them.

The Pie Chart of Blame

I received a request to break down who I blame for the housing crisis/financial mess/recession we've gotten ourselves into and thought it might do some good to not only list all of those at fault, but what percent responsible they were. Thus a handy little pie chart;


I first and foremost blame the sub prime borrowers because, as I've said before, none of us would be in this mess if they did what they said and paid back what they owed. Thusly I assign a 23% blame on them.

However, it's not like financial dead beats could have done this on their own. They needed help. Specifically, they needed some moron to loan them the money and here I blame mortgage brokers and lenders. In the past these people would have normally weeded out the sub prime dead beats from borrowing money in the first place and summarily denied them the loans. However, driven by commission and short term profits, these idiots lent money out they knew they would never get back. Thusly, I assign a 17% blame to them.

Now, unbeknownst to most people, and arguably the main point of my book (which you should buy), is that the media and society only focus on one side of the housing crash problem; demand. All we ever look at is how demand was artificially inflated by shoddy, if not, absent lending controls, a flood of sub prime dead beats entering the market and easy credit. Nobody looks at the other side of the equation and that is supply. Here the exact same story was repeating itself.

For it wasn't just sub prime dead beats that wanted to own houses, but scumbag, moronic real estate developers who wanted to build more and more housing and sell it at inflated prices. These people are just as much to blame, for as much as the sub prime dead beats artificially inflated demand, these crooks skyrocketed supply. And so much did they boost the supply of housing, they flooded the market with it, which drove prices down and made it impossible to sell your house for anywhere near what you paid for it. I blame them precisely as much as I do their demand-side counterparts - 23%.

Again, these real estate developers could not have done this without help, and here is where the fourth culprit lie - banks and bankers. Banks, blinded by what they deemed to be perpetual commission for continually approving $35 million suburbanite real estate development deals, would pay no heed to the burgeoning level of supply they were dumping on the market. And since they didn't care about how much supply was hitting the market, they also didn't care if it would bankrupt them, necessitating a taxpayer financed bail out. They put their commission ahead of not only the long term longevity of the bank, but from lessons learned from the S&L bail out, they knew the taxpayer would be stuck with the bill. They are equally to blame for the mortgage banking scum that lent so frivolously to the sub prime deadbeats - 17%.

The two sides of the economic equation, supply and demand are accounted for, but it behooves the question "what were people thinking?"

Well most "people" were neo-Americans, accustomed to not having to work or pay for anything. It was their entitlement mentality that they were entitled to a house, entitled to a flat panel TV, entitled to a convertible and entitled to a life. Additionally, most neo-Americans put themselves first above and beyond all others, so even if Banker Bob knew lending money to Developer Dave would result in a $10 million loss for the bank, what did he care? He was going to get a cool $100,000 commission off that deal. Besides which, he had no loyalty to the bank, he was already looking for another job. It was this childish, me-first-at-all-costs-including-tanking-the-US-economy mentality that created the environment by which the housing bubble and subsequent crash could fester. Ergo, it is the spoiled brat, entitlement, American psychology that is to blame, earning 13% of its share.

The two remaining culprits were simply responding to what Americans and society wanted. Investments banks, though not the originators of the loans, accelerated the bubble by allowing the originators to sell the toxic loans they did make. This disassociated the originator holding onto the risk of the loan and gave them great incentive to go for volume and approve everything under the sun. Again, adhering to the "me-first" mentality, investment banks passed on crappy loans to unsuspecting investors, of course, not without first, getting their cut in commission - 4%

And finally, how can a good ole fashioned bubble form without the implicit consent of the good ole government. Again, prompted by the desires of neo-Americans to have everything for free, and always eager to use taxpayer money to buy votes at the expense of society, democrats (primarily) through the years instituted policies such as the CRA that somewhat sternly suggested banks lend to losers and scumbags. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the government intermediaries that made this possible as they financed/guaranteed the mortgages made to the most rotten, degenerate scumbag borrowers. And if you weren't for giving away free houses to the poor, you were a racist, nazi, sexist fascist. Of course, the "government" is really just an illusion, as last I checked this was a democracy and it is the people who govern, thereby making the government just a condoner of the things going on and earning it a 3% share of the blame.

A Cappy Cap Original Joke

I have made several jokes, but this one is so bad, and my friends forbade I tell it, which means, it has to be told.

There was a monk living in a monastery in the Italian Alps. He worked hard recording bibles and studying the scripture. However, he had a blessing and a curse.

On one hand he was a talented jazz musician. Able to compose jazz songs that were amazing, rivaling the best composed hymns of all time.

On the other hand he was a compulsive kleptomaniac.

They called him;

Felonious Monk.

FDR = Madoff = Ponzi

ht

Cuba to Celebrate 50 Years of Communism

Cuba is about to celebrate 50 years of communism.

Sadly, there's no reason to celebrate. Not by the numbers anyway.

And a Happy New Year

I was thinking about making a New Year's resolution to not engage in economic schadenfreude and take glee in the pain of others.

Then I thought about all the pain these sub prime deadbeats are causing the economy and all the banks that are asking me for my tax dollars to pay for their stupid mistakes, not to mention all the gray haired middle age bankers who scoffed and laughed at me and my ilk when we said there were problems in the housing market. And so on second thought, naaaahhhh, I'm going to continue to gloat;




And thus, let me give you the 2008/2009 New Year's Toast

May your houses and Mercedes get repossessed.
May you lose the job you earned through having nice hair and kissing the boss' ass at the expense and integrity of the firm.
May your toxic wife leave you as you no longer can establish a line of credit to rent her.
May your children actually have to pay their own way through college and learn to hate you as you spoiled them this entire time and accustomed them to an unsustainable level of living with other people's money.
May you never travel to Europe, Arizona or any other luxury trips ever again.
May the IRS come knocking at your door this April.
And may you have to get a real job and produce something of worth.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Andrew L, Sir, You Hurt Me

What did I do to deserve this?

ht to Andrew