Right now, I’m sitting here with the window open for the chat, waiting for Mr. Welch to sign into the chat and realizing that most of my questions for him start with “Hey, idiot…”

This is the man who just said “We have to fix the housing market before we can think about fixing the economy.” That was in reference to – oh, you know – creating jobs. Green energy. Infrastructure improvements. Those things should go into buckets to be addressed AFTER we fix the banks. Give the banks more money and more assurances. And yeah, some banks are going to fail – we should let the LITTLE banks fail and save the big banks. Oreally??? Letting these banks get so big is what screwed us up so badly in the first place. I think what we just proved is that any bank too big to fail should get broken down into smaller bits. Thank you, that’s all there is to see here, move on.

I’ve never quite figured out how nominally smart people can’t wrap their heads around the idea that people who don’t have money and jobs can’t buy houses. Or groceries. Or televisions. And it starts there because when enough of them can’t buy houses or groceries or – well – put their money in the bank, yeah? And when people don’t buy from businesses, then businesses fail. And when businesses fail, more people lose their jobs. And the more people that lose their jobs, the more businesses fail. So – how do you fix it? You do things that put money to spend into the pockets of the people that fuel the engine – the people who buy the groceries and the houses and the televisions.

And the chat is starting… here goes:

Mr. Welch, do you think we have only seen the tip of the iceberg in the current economic crisis?

Jack Welch: Good morning everyone. Thomas — No, I think we’re getting our arms around it. And if we can get Congress and the government to focus on the banks and get them functioning, we’ll see a recovery within the next 18 months.

Comment From Jim Thompson]
“Buy America”, how do you feel about this?

Jack Welch: Good morning Jim. I think it’s a disaster, we went through this with Smoot-Haley in the 30s and it reduced global trade by two-thirds in 24 months

[Comment From David in Selinsgrove, Pa]
How is this stimulus package going to benefit struggling home owners with their mortgage?

Jack Welch: David, right now this package isn’t going to do a thing for them. The government treatment of the banks has to include mortgage relief in some form and I think it will.

[Comment From Josh B]
Good morning Jack…Do you feel executive pay cap is a good idea?

Jack Welch: Dear Josh — they have to do something and the president’s proposals are reasonable and if the banks perform the restricted stock that will be granted to the executives will make up for the lost compensation. I like the incentives.

[Comment From Jason Barnes]
What advice do you have for small business owners and how might we take advantage of any of the stimulus funds?

Jack Welch: Jason — business owners of any size have two areas to focus on: one is preservation, and that means getting costs in line for the tough times ahead. And secondly, innovation has to be part of every employee’s job. Every business needs new ways of doing business.

[Comment From Bob Belinke]
Jack: Why not have the Gov’t buy all home mortgages and people pay it back lke they pay taxes. The banks can lend money just to business (for the most part) and if you don’t pay your taxes/Mortgage to the gov’t, you loose what you would loose now

Jack Welch: Dear Bob, I think you’ll see something along these lines of government intervention in the mortgage market. The exact form it will take, I don’t know.

And that was that. Obtuseness, they name is business executives.

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No, race did not take a vacation when people can still refer to Barak Obama as “exotic” – because, as Scarborough said, “His name is Barak Obama, not Jim Smith.” To which Ridley responded, “Barak Obama is not an exotic name in my sister’s neighborhood.” Which echoed what I had just shouted at the television – it’s not an exotic name in my neighborhood either – heck, my next door neighbors are named Malik and Trudell – double-heck, my NEPHEW is named Khalil.

Race did not take a vacation when the endorsement of a man as highly respected across the board as Colin Powell is discounted as “a black man endorsing a black man – where’s the surprise in that?” It’s definitely not taking a vacation in Hawaii when the talking heads spend half their time marveling how little race mattered in this election, or opining that race “helped” Barack Obama, or assigned credit for Obama’s win to “all those liberal white kids who were thrilled to be part of a historic moment”. Did you vote to be a part of history?

I’ve got a confession to make. I voted for Barack Obama to be a part of a historic moment – but not the one that most people believe. I did not vote for Barack Obama as a black man – that honestly made no difference to me at all. I voted for a man who is like me – a practical idealist who sees the world as more than black and white, who appreciates nuance and believes in the power of every single person. The pundits and talking heads have waxed poetic about the huge turnout of young people who delivered the election for Obama – but that’s not even part of the story. What I saw was a huge outpouring of people in MY age group, in my little pocket of the generation gap, we who inherited the desire to make a change in the world around us just as the world smugly decided that it had changed just enough, thank you very much. Obama campaigned on a mantra of change and challenge – he called on people to step up and take responsibility and take action.

I voted for hope. I voted for responsibility.  I voted for a man who stepped above those who tried to cover him with mud and refused to throw mud back. I voted for a thinking man, a listening man, a man who believes – not in compromise but in melding opposing viewpoints into a cohesive direction. I voted for a community organizer who believes that the people deserve better than they dare to hope for – they deserve to have their needs met.

And I voted AGAINST an ugly racist campaign that maligned everything in which I believe. To say that race played no part – or worse, that race only helped Obama – is beyond disingenuous. It’s malignant. That bigots dare to say Barak Obama was elected BECAUSE he was black is repugnant.

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Date: 2008-12-20, 1:23PM EST

Saw a wonderful ad on “Free” where a family welcomed people with no power into their homes and I would like to offer the same.

I live in Westboro. Have a small place but certainly plenty of heat and food to help.

Please contact me if you need somewhere to shower, food, laundry, internet and phone access.

And then there’s this one:

Date: 2008-12-19, 7:36PM EST

If you are a single parent and have been hit by the storm or the
economy and are unable to obtain a Christmas dinner, I am giving away a
turkey with fixings. If you are unable to cook it yourself, I will cook
it for you. Free local delivery. (I am a single parent of two myself
and I know first hand how tough things can be) If you are interested,
please send me an email.

I just want to bring a little joy back into the holidays.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

And this one:

And this one – from the same person as the last one…

… just an update we fed and showered 12 people today , and did about
15 loads of laundry, and are hoping to do it all over again tomorrow

all are welcome FAMILIES WELCOME!!!! old young and any in between all gods children are welcome

You are welcome to join us tomorrow night for dinner , we are
having chicken mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese and a tossed salad.

If you or someone you know is in need of a hot shower or a warm place
to sleep, or just needs a place to cook a hot meal,or would like to do
some laundry we also have internet access to offer or a phone to make
some phone calls, you can also charge cell phone and or Ipods etc , or
just need a shoulder to lean on or someone to talk too

our home and hearts are open. I know there are a lot of folks out there
who still do not have electricity. We are blessed to have ours back. ..
Sorry I dont have much to offer but thought I would help out the best I
can… thank you.

Even the corporations are doing their part… see this one…

Date: 2008-12-16, 9:13PM EST

Company will Donate more Points = Free Nights from Corp. Acct: for
Helping Families in Need of Shelter due to Record Ice Storm Damage and
Power Loss…… email your needs.. Also, co-worker came in with a Wood
Burning Stove..PICK up, NO CHARGE

People are good. Remember that when it seems like the whole world is nothing but shit. There are good people in the world. People are good.

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Offer: Kitchen & doors still open. Help is here ( Douglas)

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It’s hit me before, but it hit me even more forcefully in this discussion about a second economic stimulus package. Interestingly, those who have often been the most vocal against “socialism” and “spreading the wealth” and wasteful government spending – with a couple of exceptions – were the ones most likely to say that the last economic stimulus check “came in handy” and they’ll be happy to see another one.

On the other hand, those most likely to support Obama and his policies – regularly referred to as socialists and Obamunists – are questioning whether sending out small checks to taxpayers is of much use at all, and suggesting that a better use for that money might be to raise the upper limit for food stamp eligibility, extend unemployment benefits and provide local aid packages to be used for infrastructure improvements and maintaining current levels of staffing for civil service employees.

What’s most interesting, though, is how many of the people who chant the “lazy welfare” and “lazy poor people” song mention that they are on food stamps, are living on social security benefits or are receiving some sort of state aid themselves.

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The Question: Well then what did Sarah Palin mean when she said that Barack Obama did not see America and you and I see America?

Brad Blakely: She meant that Obama wants big government to run the people’s lives. McCain thinks that people should run the president’s lives. She was talking about a difference in policies.

(for the record, that’s paraphrased because it was JUST shown on MSNBC and I typed as I listened)

Seriously, WTF?? And where the hell was the MSNBC reporter’s head other than up his ass? Okay, he asked “Are you serious? Do you expect us to believe that she was talking about policy?” And then he let it slide when Blakely reiterated that it was all about the economy, experience and raising taxes.

Let’s skip the part about raising taxes for the moment and take a look at what Palin actually said – anyone who’s been watching the news has seen this repeated ad nauseam:

(Senator Obama) is not a man who sees this country the way you and I see this country. This is a man who sees this country as imperfect – as so imperfect that he pals around with terrorists.

Unless terrorists are discussing the economy then I don’t see how the hell ANYONE could possible miscounstrue that statement for a statement about Obama’s economic policies. So.. yeah. WTF, Brad Blakely!

On the flip side, this morning Palin’s new talking point is that Barack Obama supports abortion becuse he doesn’t want girls to be “punished with a baby”. That’s what he said – he said it right here in Johnstown, she shouted to roaring crowds this morning.

Um, okay. Let’s look at the context:

The comment was made on March 29 on the CNN Ballot Bowl program with interviewer Mary Snow.

The Question (Mary Snow): (Senator Barack Obama) just was asked a question about how his administration, if he is elected, will deal with the issue of HIV and AIDS and also sexually transmitted diseases in young girls. Here’s Senator Barack Obama:

Obama: (… ) or we give them really expensive surgery and we don’t spend money on the front end keeping people healthy in the first place. So when it comes to — when it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include — which should include abstinence education and teaching the children — teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include — it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I’ve got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals.

But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at the age of 16. You know, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information. You still want to teach them the morals and the values to make good decisions. That will be important, number one. Then we’re still going to have to provide better treatment for those who do have — who do contract HIV/AIDS because it’s no longer a death sentence, if, in fact, you get the proper cocktails. It’s expensive. That’s why we want to prevent as much as possible.

Well, golly, would you look at that? It has NOTHING to do with abortion at all!

And the conservative pseudo-pundits on the ‘discussion sites’ charge that anyone who doesn’t believe the McCain campaign can’t be bothered to research because we’d much rather drink the Koolaid. If that’s the kind of Koolaid the Obama campaign is serving up, lemme get back in line.

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I’m honestly kinda tired of hearing about how this whole house of cards is the fault of people who bought what your good ol’ buddies were selling. Hell, they weren’t SELLING this shit – they were shoving it down our throats. I could wallpaper my bedroom – and it’s a BIG room – with the multiple loan offers I’ve received in the last eight years. I could paper it three layers deep. And that’s not counting the thousands of telephone calls, the thousands of hours of television ads, the millions of online ads and the hundreds of thousands of newspaper column inches devoted to convincing lil ol’ me that borrowing money to buy a house was the SMART thing to do.

I’m going to barf the next time I hear that ‘they’ should have known better. THEY didn’t have a prayer of knowing better, not when your good buddies were telling them that this was the time to grab hold of that gold ring and go for the American dream. They trusted the guys in the suits who were supposed to know what they were doing, who were supposed to be advising them. Who would have believed that a bank would give a loan to someone they knew couldn’t pay it back?

What they didn’t realize is that the banks didn’t care if they could pay the money back. The banks knew that they’d get the money back one way or another.

Mr. Bush, I may be stupid but your contention that the only way to dig us out of the hole we got into by borrowing money is to make more money available to borrow just doesn’t make sense. As best as I could tell, you’re talking about letting all those people that got tricked by the Wall Street con men sink, let their houses sit there empty and falling apart, and give $700 billion to the banks to make new loans. Oh, and you gotta borrow the $700 billion to do it.

Now, I’m not John McCain, but I do have a couple of ideas about how we could solve this problem. See, I was listening to you real close and remember you saying how we have to make sure that the banks have money that they can lend to other people. I remember from high school econ classes that banks get money to lend to other people by collecting the money they’re owed by people that borrowed money from them. Right now, the problem is that they played all sorts of crappy little games so that people ended up with mortgages they can’t afford for houses that aren’t worth the money they paid for them.

Mind you, they could afford the payment on the mortgage originally, because the banks approved them for a mortgage that started out at a low, fixed affordable rate. And most of them could afford to keep paying their mortgages at that low, fixed, affordable rate. So how about doing something like this with that $700 billion:

- immediately call a temporary halt to all foreclosures in progress
- reset the interest rates on all hybrid mortgages to the introductory rate
- require the re-negotiation of all hybrid mortgages
- require that all banks receiving federal money forgive missed or late mortgage payments up to six months with no penalty to the homeowner (only applies to historical missed payments, not to any future missed payments)
- apply the $700 billion to the interest that was expected on those mortgages that are in foreclosure if it’s used at all

This won’t reverse foreclosures that have already taken place, and it won’t completely repair the damage done by irresponsible lending. It will, however, put things back on the right track – people will keep their homes if they can afford to keep them. They will make mortgage payments, which will put money back into the bank coffers, which will make money available to lend to others. Those who would have lost their homes anyway because they took out loans they couldn’t afford will still lose their homes eventually. The banks and mortgage companies that made irresponsible loans will be penalized.

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The problem with Obama’s current stance is that he has taken the high road for so long that too many people think he’s looking down his nose at them. There are certainly racial undertones to being called uppity, but it goes beyond race. When he talks, people feel dumb. And they don’t like feeling dumb. He needs to relearn the lessons that every community organizer learns the first time they try to convince people that they’re doing things the wrong way. If you want people to listen to you, you need to speak their language. You can’t mince words, you can’t double-talk and you can’t send people scrambling for their dictionaries.

With the Obama campaign on the defensive, Obama is second-guessing every word that comes out of his mouth, and the hesitation is costing him in the polls. Someone needs to make it clear to him that this is the short-attention-span campaign. He has to stop prefacing every remark by trying to refute every possible way that his words could be taken the wrong way, because no matter what he says, someone will find a way to take it the wrong way – but at least they’ll hear it. Right now, by the time he gets around to making his point, his listeners have tuned out.

As much as I’d like it to be otherwise, this election will not be won on the strength of a carefully prepared budget. It won’t be won on policy statements. It won’t be won by vague promises of change and messages of hope. It won’t be won by prefacing every point with so much explanation and background that the point gets lost in the verbiage. It will be won by the candidate (or the party) that can get in the most quick jabs and present his/her case in pithy, quotable phrases.

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The June 2002 Wasilla financial report shows that by 2002, Wasilla had acquired long-term debt of $25 million. The city’s general operating fund showed an excess of revenue over expenditure of $2.3 million. The budget showed an ending fund balance of $4.6 million.

In both of those years there are other expenses and factors as well, but it’s obvious that both of the following are true:
While Palin was mayor of Wasilla, the city’s general operating fund ran a surplus (which, according to many sources had far more to do with a sales tax passed during her predecessor’s term) and that she increased the city’s long term debt by well over $20 million.