My son turns on the cartoons and there’s an ad for DiTech (GMAC) offering 125% financing (true cartoon thinking). What ever happened to the ads for toys and cereals? I turn to Bloomberg and there’s an ad from Countrywide to refinance at no cost to me. No cost means that they tack 10% onto the loan amount. It might not even be visible if you have paid 10 years on your present loan and refinanced. You start out again at 30 years with lower payments. The guy that writes these loans is often nicknamed “Slick.”
I get on the road to go to work and you hear on the radio about “Get out of bankruptcy dot com.” Or another one, “We will save you thousands on what you owe the IRS.” Where do you get the money to pay the lawyers to get you out of debt?
Then there is the movement to help these struggling home borrowers to escape the clutches of foreclosure (AKA the carrot on the stick solution). Give ‘em hope, but for god’s sake get a payment out of them! (And you thought your banker really cares)
The IRS is now accepting credit cards to pay tax bills (I think there is a 5% fee added on). Is this a new convenience thing? Or has the credit card industry taken another stupidity pill? Since real estate eliminated the “Fog a Mirror” test, the credit card companies have come out with a simpler test called “Lick the Envelope Stupid and Mail It in.”
Then you have a president that gets caught with his pants down, and the next thing you know his wife is a congressman threatening to run for President. Sounds to me like the lead levels are getting a little too high in the drinking water for that state.
The press says the president’s popularity is down to 25%. Sounds horrible, but if you figured only 60 % of people even voted, and he won with about 43% of the vote, that comes out to 25%. I must be missing something here?
Ex President Carter spoke up the other day deriding President Bush’s administration as being one of the worst on record. I have yet to find anyone who will admit to having voted for Carter. Everyone still remembers his brother taking a piss on Pee for View.
The rather odd thing about President Bush’s administration is that the Democrats want to blame everything on him. It’s kind of like one of those old Paul Bunyan tales in reverse. Or is it our Congress confirming indirectly that they really do nothing up there on the Hill? If they are so good at solving all our problems, then what have they been doing for the last 200 years?
When you really examine politics, if two thirds of the Congress could get together and agree on what they want to do, the president could play golf all day or clintonize a secretary or two.
So let’s predict the next presidential election (tongue in cheek). I predict that Bill Clinton will be the Republican Nominee for President, with Arnold Schwarzenegger as Vice President. Hillary Clinton will be running on the Democratic ticket with a Vice President candidate that is black, Hispanic, Jewish and gay. Bill Clinton will win the election. Hillary will shoot Bill and President Arnold will pardon Hillary. Talk about a happy ending! Sir Arnold, a Knight from the Kingdom of Kalifornia, will save us!
***** Warning****fractured fairy tale**** Warning*****
Footnote: You have to be born in this country to run for President; the Vice President is not restricted in that respect. Arnold cannot run for President since he was born in Austria, but he can run for Vice President. In this scenario he could become President.*
*For you history buffs, it looks like the 12th amendment closed that loophole. Vice President also has to be born in this country. So, Bill is safe for now, but isn't Dick Cheney looking for a new hunting partner? (I'd better be careful here, I think we are talking about two different types of "quail")
13 comments:
You write:
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The press says the president’s popularity is down to 25%. Sounds horrible, but if you figured only 60 % of people even voted, and he won with about 43% of the vote, that comes out to 25%. I must be missing something here?
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Are you serious about this statistical analysis? There is so much wrong about how you deal with the data that I can't begin to help you out with regards to your reasoning. As far as the facts go, here is one thing that is wrong: The presidents job rating is at about 30 to 35 %. You can find the numbers at
http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm
I don't think I have ever seen his numbers as low as 25%.
One thing you might want to know: Being a partisan hack is becoming passe
Hi Anon
I was really poking fun at the press and also making fun of the Democrats who obviously were responsible for the poll. I was pointing out that they could have come up with the 25% figure the day after the election. Newsweek on May 8th, came out saying that Bushes approval rating was at 28% which tied President Carter. Now I don’t remember the source from the other day quoting 25%, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy also sold real estate.
If you find anything is this blog that sounds serious, you’ve missed my point; I’m poking fun at a lot of stuff. Even the founding fathers of this country realized that the general population was too inept to run a Democracy. Things really haven’t changed; the Republicans and the Democrats understand this quite well. So if Bush got 25%, who has the other 75%? Politics and religion are not winnable arguments. That’s why we have wars.
So when you go into work tomorrow tell GW that Jim in San Marcos says Hi. BTW I voted for the guy.
There, there Anon 10:19.
Your humorless slant on Jim's post has you sounding like just another humorless party (sig heil) droid when you ignore the humorous tone of Jim's post and focus merely on the accuracy of his math.
By this example, you must also think Jim believes Clinton will be on the sig heil party ticket, and he will run against Hilly.
While the actual % of Bush's low approval rating can be debated, the fact that it is extremely low cannot.
People who might have had some respect for politics before 2000 are being rudely awakened by the patent absurdity of this man's self inflicted crises- and that he apprently has no problem taking the rest of us down with him.
But I sleep easy at night; I didn't vote for these particluar scumbags.
You are still in denial, I see.
Thanks Numpty
I hope anon doesn't take any of this personally. You can't take life too seriously, we're not going to get out of it alive.
I do think that this Bush poll ought to be labeled for what it is. It's really a vote on the war in Iraq. Obviously it is unpopular.
I guess if you keep the Hoi Polloi focused on the war, they won't notice that they are waist (waste) deep in a real economic mess.
Anon 10:19 sez:
The presidents job rating is at about 30 to 35 %...
I don't think I have ever seen his numbers as low as 25%...
One thing you might want to know: Being a partisan hack is becoming passe
Exactly.
Jim,
Realizing that this is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, I just can't help but point out that the Vice President is subject to the same qualifications for office as the President.
Amendment XII:
"But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."
So no Ah-Nuld '08...
I remember the requirement from Article II but that 12th amendment they passed in 1804, -- I don't think I was getting the paper that year--I obviously missed it.
You must admit that there is a longing by the general voters for presidential candidates with charisma, like Kennedy and Regan.
The debates in 08 are going to be dull.
Actually, you don't need to be born in the country to be president. You must be a "natural born citizen." Therefore, if you are born outside the US to US citizen parents you would qualify to run for president.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born_citizen
Hi Brian,
Between you and Anon I got nailed twice on this Fairy Tale. Kind of hard for me to believe--it must be old age.
I corrected the footnote a enough to keep any one else from following my errant footsteps.
You have shown me that there is a lot to the U. S. Constitution that we don't even fathom even when we read it twice.
Thank you both for your input, I learned and relearned a few things today.
Take Care
Okay Jim, I believe you were trying to be humorous, but there's always a bit of truth behind every joke.
The one thing I take exception to is the implied tying of Democrats to the current "do-nothingness" of Congress... geez they just now took the majority back (although a non-veto overiding majority). So attaching Congress' failures to the Dems is a bit unfair at this point.
Anon
I hit on both parties. I try to keep political issues out of the Blogg.
I was just alluding to the fact that the Democrats were pointing a finger at the present Administration for all of our problems, and I was saying that Congress (both parties) has had 200 years to fix everything and they haven't even come close.
I apologize for any confusion. My writing composition skills aren't the best in the world
If you don't understand politics, don't talk about it. Clinton is not a congresswoman. She is a senator. I agree with what else you have to say. But on this one it really showed your ignorance on politics. Save your breath and bash your Christian President.
Hi Anon
Your comments don't ring true
"If you don't understand politics, don't talk about it. Clinton is not a congresswoman. She is a senator. I agree with what else you have to say. But on this one it really showed your ignorance on politics. Save your breath and bash your Christian President."
Clinton is a Congressman and also a Senator. If you think that she is not a congresswoman, I think Bill would agree.
As for ignorance on politics, how is that possible. We each have only one vote. I do believe that probably the worst person available is usually elected to office. But that's not my fault.
And as for the president, whoever he may be, even if I didn't vote for him, I stand behind him and offer him my support. Thats what democracy is all about.
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