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Scared Money Syndrome (SMS)

Economists, industry analysts and retailing executives are looking for “hard data” to explain the downturn in consumer spending. But you don’t need data to figure out that when you scare the people, you scare the money. Just for fun, I’ll call it Scared Money Syndrome (SMS).

SMS is the result of the Bu$h crew monetizing fear as a political currency. Consider that the Bu$h inner circle knew they would be going to war before they took over the White House. This considered, one can argue, reasonably, that the monetization of fear began the day all those $300 Bu$h “economic stimulation” checks were mailed to “average America.” Then came the “tax cut for the rich” thank you very much. All this to “move America forward” from the “Clinton recession.”

The more Bu$h preaches his messianic gospel of war against terrorism the more families and individuals become reluctant to spend their money or go into debt on non-essential and essential items. There is a need for resonable vigilance on the domestic security front. However, the more America sees Tom Ridge looking like an undertaker the more consumer spending will go in the tank. America is maxed out on fear. The economy is taking a shit... and there’s nothing that Bu$h economic gurus like “Mao-Tse” Mankiw can do except to try to figure out who stole the Charmin.

SMS is compounded by the five year spate of TV “reality” shows that, wittingly or unwittingly, promote fear through competitive situations that undermine individual security and self-worth (Weakest Link, Survivor, Fear Factor, etc). Bottom line… unless Bandar Bu$h weighs in with a $500 billion “October surprise” stimulus package in the form of lower gas prices and a surge of recycled petrodollars moving into the US bond and stock markets, president Bu$h will be standing at the pass line on Election Day (if we have one) playing with a bad case of SMS. And when you gamble with scared money, you lose… even on the Redneck Riviera.

posted by Groom 2:19 PM

Another Euphemism for Our Pinocchio President

Here we go again! With job creation for the month of July a paltry (unlucky for him, lucky for us) 13 percent of what Bush said it would be, and with the highly faulty job numbers for May and June, that he was bragging about a month ago, now being “adjusted” downward, the New York Times meekly called Bush’s political speech yesterday in New Hampshire “an upbeat assessment” instead of calling it what it is: another lie, another distortion of the facts, another misleading statement—simply not the truth. The press should point out that the only thing that has “turned the corner”—-to use Bush’s assessment of where the economy stands—-are the unemployment lines.

The good news for Kerry, of course, is that Bush will be the first president since Hoover to have lost more jobs than he helped create in his four years as president. And these numbers will hold up for August and September, unless they cook the books again and the press lets them get away with it...again.

posted by Josh 11:04 AM

Quote of the Day

People used to complain that selling a president was like selling a bar of soap. But when you buy soap, at least you get the soap. In this campaign you just get two guys telling you that they really value cleanliness. David Brooks, New York Times

posted by Jerry Bowles 11:01 AM

Friday, August 06, 2004

Some call it "trickle down," others "getting pissed on"

Lots of stories out there about the July job-creation numbers, but Stephen Pizzo on Alternet really nails it.

Baring a major gaff by the opposing team, today's bombshell job report has exposed once and for all the fraudulent claim that the U.S. economy is in recovery. Wall Streeters headed for the bomb shelters this morning after learning that U.S. employers were only able to add a paltry 32,000 workers to payrolls in July — just a bit short of the 215,000 to 240,000 the administration had projected would be created last month.

As you try to grapple with the significance of these numbers keep in mind that the economy has to create 150,000 new jobs each month just to keep up with natural population growth. And, if you want to keep the economy from slumping into recession employers have to create 200,000 new jobs each and every month.

Add the collapse of the Shiite-US Forces truce in Iraq. Not what you'd call a good day for the Warp Resident's re-election chances.

posted by John 10:39 PM

What is Wrong with This Picture?

Oil prices at an all-time high, no jobs created last month, stock market's going south, Americans continuing to die in a senseless and unnecessary war, and Shrub's numbers hold firm. Who can explain it?

posted by Jerry Bowles 1:28 PM

Slime Boat Vet Recants

Well, that's one.

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:40 AM

The Slime Boat Vets' Moneyman

Just when you think it impossible for politics to sink any deeper into the gutter, along comes something so slimy and execrable that it establishes a new bottom. Such is the clumsy attempt at character assassination by a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which is running an ad in several battleground states claiming that John Kerry is "unfit to be commander-in-chief" because he lied about his actions while commander of assault boats in Viet Nam, some 40 years ago.

The ad begins with each of the “witnesses” claiming to have served with Kerry during the war. None of them were actually on a boat commanded by Kerry and their claims to have “served” with him are true only in the sense that they served in the same Navy as he did at the same time. As a matter of fact, so did I--serve in the same Navy at the same time, that is--but I don’t remember seeing Kerry or any of these clowns either. In the ad, they made a series of outrageous claims—not supported by concurrent documentation or the testimony of the men who actually did serve on Kerry’s craft—that challenge Kerry’s and other eyewitness accounts and, in fact, accuse Kerry of faking war wounds and killing a naked, injured man.

There hasn't been anything quite this loathsome since JFK's goons started a whisper campaign that Hubert Humphrey was gay in the West Virginia primary back in 1960.

It will surprise no one to learn that the moneyman behind Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is Bob Perry, CEO of Perry Homes, one of the largest builders in Texas, who has long supported the John Birch wing of conservatism. Of the $158,750 raised so far by the Slime Boat Vets, Perry gave $100,000, on June 30, 2004.

In 1981, along with fellow Texas millionaires Nelson Bunker Hunt, Herbert Hunt, and T. Cullen Davis, Perry was a founding member (and treasurer) of the Council for National Policy, a right wing strategy group designed to rival the Council on Foreign Relations which, the CNP's founders believed, was “soft on communism” and just not quite as Christian as it ought to be. Tim LaHaye was also among the organizers. This is before he made about a billion dollars writing the Left Behind science fiction novels which evangelicals consume as literal truth by the truckload. The CNP’s membership ranks include all the power players of the Christian right, embracing such upstanding Americans as Oliver North and Reverend Moon and Randall Terry.

In the 2002 election cycle, Perry and his wife, Doylene, donated $905,000 to Republican candidates and causes in Texas, $200,000 in Louisiana, and $50,000 in Arkansas. I would not be a bit surprised if it turns out that Perry Homes sells houses in the latter two states, as well as Texas. Perry has regularly been among the top donors to the Republican Majority Issues Committee, a group allied with House Majority Whip Tom DeLay. He was the top individual contributor to Texas governor Rick Perry (no relation), who took office when George W. Bush became president and was elected to a four year term in 2002.

Perry has also been one of the biggest supporters of Texans for Lawsuit Reform, one of the state's largest special interest groups, which works to protect hard-working businesspeople (like, say, homebuilder Bob Perry) from disgruntled buyers and their evil lawyers.

In fact, Perry hates lawyers and lawsuits (and, apparently, customers) so much that he spent hundred of thousands of dollars and seven years fighting--all the way to the Texas Supreme Court--a lawsuit brought by a couple who bought one of his houses that had a faulty foundation rather than settle for $2800. He even tried, unsuccessfully, to get a bill passed that would have exempted him from coughing up. Apparently, he'd rather spend his vast fortune smearing political candidates he disagrees with. Careful, Bob. Shit sticks.

posted by Jerry Bowles 7:18 AM

Round up the usual suspects

Here we are just three months from Election Day and the White House needs to remind us that they're making a credible effort to find the anthrax perps. Funny how the New York Times article fails to mention that the anthrax envelopes were sent only to Democrats on the Hill. Maybe that news wasn't fit to print.

posted by Groom 5:42 AM

Chronicles of Wingnut Hypocrisy, Chapter #5,487

Seems the same group that tried to get the FEC to ban TV ads for "Fahrenheit 9/11" on the grounds that it violated campaign finance laws is now seeking an exemption from the same rules so it can advertise a book called . . . (wait for it) . . . "The Many Faces of John Kerry: Why This Massachusetts Liberal is Wrong for America.''

Yes, they have no shame. But they're counting on you having no memory.

posted by Michael 2:28 AM

Thursday, August 05, 2004

Where is the Outrage?

If there really were such a thing as a fair and balanced press, it would be all over the slap on the wrist fine the SEC levied against Halliburton for defrauding investors while Dick Cheney was CEO.

Basically, the oil services conglomerate sexed up its financial reports through a change in accounting methods that it didn't tell investors about. It's like shifting from celsius to farenheit because you like the bigger numbers. Halliburton will pay $7.5 million to settle the case, which is lunch money in big corporate terms and probably covered by some sort of insurance policy anyway. Uncle Dick is not saying whether he was aware of the shift in methods but, let's put it this way, there is no CEO so stupid or out of touch that he wouldn't be aware of such a change.

Meanwhile, to deflect what little minor criticism is out there, the Justice Department has let it be known that it is "broadening" its investigation into charges that certain Halliburton employees took bribes in dealing with overseas contracts. Don't hold you breath for the probe to be finished before November.

posted by Jerry Bowles 6:00 PM

Yo, Boss... a little more transparency please

Jerry praised Bruce Springsteen for last night's performance with Ted Koppel. What Jerry didn't mention is that the Boss is one of the big machers in the Dems grass roots voter mobilization group ACT ("Americans Coming Together") along with Emily's List founder Elaine Malcolm and former AFL-CIO political director Stevee Rosenthal. I got some direct mail from ACT yesterday telling me that "John Kerry will end subsidies to the drug companies and HMOs and fight for a real prescription drug benefit under Medicare that uses the purchasing power of tens of millions of seniors to negotiate lower prices." Sounds good. But it's all sizzle no steak. The reality is that instead of rolling back the Bu$h plan with corrective legislation in the US Congress, the plan provides an opening for individual states to "negotiate" with the drug makers. That cuts out leveraging the negotiating power of seniors nationally. Since we know there's little wiggle room for benevolence in the "free market" New York state might get better rates on formulary drugs than South Dakota. Floridians will pay less than folks in Wyoming. And Arizonans will continue to get thrown into jail in Nogales, Mexico for buying prescription drugs there. Maybe instead of straddling the fence using "states rights" as a cover, the Kerry and the brain trust ought to come up with their own "Contract With America" to harness the neotiating power of all those- including "pre retirement" voters who are victims of the Bu$h plan. Folks in Century Village, Flordia and at the Villa Serena retirement center in Mayfield Heights, Ohio want to know.

posted by Groom 4:00 PM

Truer Words Were Never Spoken

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

-- George W. Bush, upon signing the $391 billion defense bill, 8/5/04.

posted by Michael 1:10 PM

What Smells in Here?

Hey, I'm as gullible as the next guy but doesn't all this furious backpedaling on the latest terrorism alert smack of...desperation. The GOP spinners are going nuts proclaiming that the alert was based on new information, as well as the old stuff, throwing in "links" to suspects they couldn't possibly have interviewed yet. Further evidence that Karl is beginning to sniff the pale and odorous smell of defeat.

posted by Jerry Bowles 9:08 AM

Channeling Cartier-Bresson

When America was still one nation, indivisible, Henri Cartier-Bresson escaped from a Nazi labor camp on his third try and joined the Free French. Beyond the US-led invasion, his images put a human face on France’s return to democracy. At age 95, Cartier-Bresson finally hooked up with that great big Leica in the sky Le Monde announced.

A bourgoise Communist with Stalinist leanings during the Popular Front of the 1930s, Cartier-Bresson was a photographer in the French army when he was captured by the Nazis. The puppet Vichy government changed the national motto from liberte, egalite, fraternite to the fascist slogan famille, patrie, travail (family, country, work). I suspect his images of “the war on terror” and “homeland security would have captured a lot of the fascist famille, patrie, traville”… the faces of the politicians, participants and victims. The visual equivalents of slogans like “a stronger America” and “we’re moving forward” and “today I’m announcing an end to hostilities.”

posted by Groom 7:36 AM

Born to Run

These questions are at the heart of this election: who we are, what we stand for, why we fight. Personally, for the last 25 years I have always stayed one step away from partisan politics. Instead, I have been partisan about a set of ideals: economic justice, civil rights, a humane foreign policy, freedom and a decent life for all of our citizens. This year, however, for many of us the stakes have risen too high to sit this election out. Bruce Springsteen, NY Times, August 5, 2004

posted by Jerry Bowles 7:36 AM

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

How to Talk to your Jewish Friends about Israel

I’ve been talking up politics with a lot of Jewish friends lately, and am surprised to find that otherwise liberal to moderate people of the persuasion are thinking of voting for Bush because he seems to be “strong on Israel.”

Seeming to belie the notion that Jews are folks who “live like wasps, and vote like Puerto Ricans,” many thinking Jews are being seduced by the Republicans into casting their votes for our Holy-Roller-in-Chief.

So, who would be better for Israel? Should non-Jews care? And how does someone devoid of an emotional stake in this argument talk about it to friends who do?

On the second question, I defer to the wisdom of Retired General Anthony Zinni (not advisable to reference the Polish refugee, John Shalikashvili), who in a terrific speech he gave in May, corrected the Wolfowitz cabal view that the “road to Jerusalem leads through Baghdad.” (Come to think of it, that’s probably exactly how they made the argument to Skip, bringing Cap Weinberger back to draw a highway leading to a big cross with Jesus on it.) Instead, as Zinni points out, if part of the strategy was to make Israel secure, then they got it wrong. Clinton did get it, tried desperately to fix it, and Bush before the Iraq invasion ignored the truth that you will not be able to attain any kind of stability in that part of the world until the ordinary Arab can no longer use Israel as an excuse for the toilet being stopped.

But when you get the uncomfortable feeling that your Jewish friends have a soft spot in their hearts for Skip because Ed Koch tells them Bush is “the greatest friend Israel has ever had,” come back with the following key questions:

If U.S. leadership cannot act as an honest broker, who can? Not the U.N., whom even moderate Israelis loathe. Can Bush be an honest broker after agreeing to the Gaza Plan in April?

Who would be better to find a lasting peace (or even a peace that lasts for a couple of months?) A goy who can only see black and white or a leader (who happens to be half-Jewish, even if it is the wrong half) who understands the, yes, I’m sorry, “nuances” of Israeli politics? Sharon represents only the hardest of lines in Israel and most Israelis, as your Jewish friends know, accept the reality that they will eventually have to live with their neighbors, not bulldoze them into the Mediterranean.

What is Kerry’s voting record on Israel? (Solidly supportive.) What was Bush’s support prior to 9/11?

What is meant by the “end of days?”

And if you are still talking, but want to make a gracious exit, wisely blame Arafat and go grab a cocktail.

posted by Evelyn 4:33 PM

Gemütlichkeit

My hometown of Monroe, Wisconsin (population 10,000), is still buzzing this morning after John Kerry's sudden and unscheduled bus-caravan visit yesterday, on the way from a town meeting in Beloit to a rally in Dubuque, Iowa. He made a couple of stops in town, at Baumgartner's (for a cheese sandwich, no doubt), and at the Huber Brewery, known to many in the Midwest as the home of Berghoff beer. We don't know if Kerry actually drank any (although you can bet the press corps did), but he appears to have taken a mini keg to go.

posted by jabartlett 1:38 PM

Tom Goes Undercover

posted by Jerry Bowles 11:43 AM

Let's Get Ready to Rumble...

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:26 AM

Where Do they Find these People?

Perhaps in the Clarence Thomas School of (Workplace) Comedy. The other GOP hopeful to oppose U.S. Senate candidate Barak Obama in Illinois, Andrea Grubb Barthwell, was cited in an internal inquiry in the White House drug office last year, for "lewd and abusive behavior." Hint: how many places can you hide a kaleidoscope?

posted by Evelyn 8:32 AM

Let's See If I Have This Right...
Or Am I Missing Something?

A failed dirt road land deal that hurt no one results in a $70 million taxpayer- funded investigation of a president that leads to an impeachment, but a cooking-of-the books that resulted in a 46 percent increase in the earnings of a company by the current vice-president gets a slap-on-the-wrist fine and a free pass in the press. Not surprisingly, the fault the SEC found was not in the cooking, which is "permissible" under the regulations, but, are you ready, "the failure to disclose the change to investors."

What's going on here? Are investors' rights to know any different from taxpayers' rights to know? Is there a pattern of secrecy here? Is the timing of the finding at all suspicious? Is this not an opening for Kerry to pounce? Just wondering...

posted by Josh 8:30 AM

Crying wolf all the way to the bank

What if they called a terror alert and nothing happened? What if they called another terror alert and nothing happened? Will the American people continue to be guilted into patriotic silence by the Bu$h-Rove propaganda machine, become immune to the threats and no longer take them seriously? The increasingly messianic homeland terror message evoked by our leader merely ratchets up the fear factor and with it the price of oil. World crude prices have increased 33% since January. All those Bush Rangers are having their Texas Tea Party at the tune of $44 a barrel.

OPEC president Purnomo Yosgiantoro of Indonesia says that the price of a barrel of crude can go even higher… “It all depends on what happens with the terror alerts in the US.” How long will we allow Bu$h, Rove and their pawn, Ridge, to imbed a disempowering sense of fear in the electorate as we move toward Election Day? Would a Kerry White House have called the same terror alert? Enquiring minds want to know.

posted by Groom 7:45 AM

Family Values (3)

Woke up this morning (Japan Time) and found CNN promoting the notion that while "Values" are not the most important issue on the minds of voters who see Iraq/national security and the state of the economy as far more pressing, "Values" just might be the issue that tips a battleground state one way or the other.

When asked about values the Republican (who was, I believe, Rep. Trent Franks, 2nd District, Arizona) immediately started up by running on about defending "traditional family values" against the horrible threat of gay marriage legitimated by "activist judges in Massachusetts."

The Democrat, Virginia Governor Mark Warner, replied in Kerryesque terms, opposing those who attempt to use values to divide Americans and urging that we focus, instead, on fairness, a value that all Americans share. In so far as he seemed to be side-stepping, his response seemed, while respectable, weak.

I couldn't help thinking how much I would have preferred his invoking the views of the usually detestable David Brooks and asking, politely but firmly, if, given that over half of American marriages end in divorce (and more in the Bible Belt than anywhere else), gays who want to marry aren't actually supporting the institution of marriage.

Then, given the predictable bluster in return, ask directly if Franks favors the notion that wives should be subordinate and obedient to their husbands.

posted by John 7:25 AM

Seriously, Did You Ever Think You'd Live To See

a black Southern carpetbagger?

posted by Michael 1:57 AM

Devious or Dumb?

Maybe they aren't trying to scare us by leaving out the part about the threats being based on three- or four-year-old information. Maybe Tom Ridge is as thick as his shirt collar size suggests. Maybe he's honest, but dumb. Hey, it happens.

posted by Jerry Bowles 12:10 AM

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

Welcome to America: Have a Nice Day.

A Bush-Cheney Production
In association with
Fearwillsetyoufree.com
Directed by Tom Ridge
Screenplay by Karl Rove

posted by Jerry Bowles 6:27 PM

Weather Report... hell on the red sauce

Abrupt climate change? Rummy don't think so. Not on his watch. He wants the research to dance as slow as he did at the senior prom before he went off to wrestle at Princeton. But wait... don't we already mess with the weather? We're in denial here about as much as New York Timesman John Noble Wilford was when he wrote all those articles about global warming being possible not probable back in the 1980s and that it wouldn't have any measurable effect on climate. It's happening, and if Lord Rum is as fast on his feet as his ripple soled shoes suggest, then why he need four more years to weave climate change into the fabric of homeland insecurity?

Hope the White House Mess isn't ordering pizza sauce made with those "Roma" tomatoes imported from Mexico. The ones that make a great sauce for Monday Night Football pizza served with, uh... non-alcoholic beer. Mexican tomatoes are now a threat to homeland security and national security and your personal security because of an out break of food poisioning. Food borne illness is the new fear factor. But isn't it strange that it is always "foreign"...the German Measles, Hong Kong Flu, West Nile Virus... now Mexican tomatoes. Why not Idaho potatoes? Georgia peaches? Oops, it's election year. That would mean losing some votes. Scorecard... number of US citizens the CDC says were killed last year from food poisoning = 5000. Number of US soldiers DOD says killed in Iraq since our unilateral invasion = 1000. Maybe Halliburton or Manchurian Global need to sell Mexico some machines to nuke their tomatoes.

posted by Groom 4:45 PM

Say No More

Mamta Popat was covering a Bush-Cheney event in Tucson as a staff photographer for The Arizona Daily Star. She is of Indian descent. A campaign worker for Cheney called the Star's office the day before the event asking for her name, date of birth, social security and race as part of a background check. The paper refused to answer the question on race.

"We don't do racial profiling in the Bush-Cheney campaign," Dick Cheney said. "Our job is the fan the flames of intolerance by singling out certain minorities for special--nudge, nudge, wink, wink--attention."

posted by Jerry Bowles 2:31 PM