Goin' To A Town Hall Meeting

I am having a beast of a time getting ready to attend my local town-hall meeting! Just when I have my outfit all put together, those town-hall fashonistas find a hot new designer and suddenly my hard sought choices seem very last season.

For example, I had settled on a very tasteful combination of Mao and Vlad, accessorized by Joe, when I find out that everybody is now wearing Swastika! Now where am I going to find Swastika this late in the game? Nordstrom doesn't seem to carry Swastika, and even YOOX, which can usually be counted on to have the avant-gardiest of the avant garde designers seems to be out of stock!

Just what is a fashion conscious girl supposed to do? I can't possibly show up wearing last season what with all the cameras recording every detail of every outfit in attendance - a big fashion faux pas and they might ban me at Saks altogether! Then what would I do?

At least I found the perfect footwear - a pair of MOMA Combat Boots
which I found at yoox while looking for "Swastika" - so at least that wasn't a total waste of time! They're even on sale!







RH



Nancy Pelosi video on how people who show up to protest at town-hall meetings are wearing swastikas.

Some Housewife Perspective

Yet again, I must interrupt my usual programming to weigh in on the national mud slinging fest. Here are my thoughts:

On the financial mess:

1. Acorn is not the root of all evil. It is an organization with a mission to try and help poor Americans afford their own home. It is a noble and worthy mission. Is there corruption within Acorn? Certainly. There are human beings running it, and human beings come in all varieties - including greedy and incompetent. Is Acorn responsible for the financial mess? I am sure it contributed to it, but by no measure could it have brought about the financial meltdown on its own.
   
   
2. The Barney Franks of Washington, who pushed for more lenient loan underwriting standards had a responsibility to monitor the effects of doing so. They failed miserably. That Barney Frank even shows his face in Washington after what has happened to Fannie and Freddie is a testament to our time - a time in which accountability, responsibility and shame have been completely tossed aside and replaced by a 1960s hippie free-for-all mentality. Unfortunately for us, there are not any members of the Great Generation left to clean up the messes made by their Boomer children.
   
   
   
   Watch Barney Frank tell us how financially sound fannie and freddie are. Hint: If Republicans are pushing to regulate something, it might be something we want to consider. (Other idiot Democrats mentioned that we need to get rid of: Charles Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. )
   
   
3. Glass/Steagal was put there for a reason. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act got rid of a few important protections, namely those separating banking, securities firms and insurance. This is another piece of the puzzle. A little history:
   The guy in the picture is Carter Glass - who was both a smart guy and a Democrat. Sounds funny in the same sentence, doesn't it? He and Mr. Steagal to put together some laws that managed to keep us out of hot water for 75 years. Having just lived through a similar financial crisis himself, he probably knew a thing or two about the causes - Gramm, Leach and Biley, on the other hand, were not so astute.
   
   (Not that there wasn't opposition at the time:)
   
   

   Washington — The secret drive of Big Business to kill the Securities Act is getting more intense.
   
   What Wall Street wants to do is hamstring the Act by eliminating the civil liability clauses. As now written, the Act makes corporation directors, executives even accountants liable for damages if through misleading the public, any investor loses money.
   
   So, potent is this propaganda that an Administration committee has been set up very quietly to change tho Securities Act and also to modify the bank deposit guarantees in the Glass Steagal Bill.
   
   Members of this committee are: John Dickinson, Assistant Secretary of Commerce, who once represented ""Sullivan and Cromwell"", attorneys for various Wall Street organizations. William Stanley, assistant attorney general and Jim Farley's man at the Justice Department. A. A. Berle, Jr., member of the ??? Trust, and expert advisor on banking and railroad questions. Arthur H. Dean, member of the firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, as an advisory member.
   
   Their job is to kill the Securities Act as painlessly and quietly as possible. (1933)
   

4. The Rating Agencies failed so miserably it defies explanation - Moody's, Standard & Poor, etc. the companies whose sole raison d'être is to evaluate the financial condition of other companies were apparently staffed entirely with chimpanzees. Chimpanzees which had only managed to master the first letter of the alphabet. We should do a poll of all the zoos and circuses in the country to figure out from where they have escaped and return them as quickly as possible before they try their paw at other things - like California's budget or the banking bailout.
   
   Without the AAA ratings handed out by the chimps, insurance companies like AIG would not have a) sold so much insurance guaranteeing a pyramid scheme or b) stocked their reserves with the same pyramid scheme securities.
   
   
5. But seriously guys, did you really think securities made up of sub-prime mortgages was a safe bet? Really? What? No, I don't have any bananas!
   
   
6. Mortgage brokers, loan officers and real estate agents: FYI - I saved a ton of those "Bad credit OK, Refinance NOW, Here, Have $300,000 Today!" ads I got in the mail. I am in the process of scanning them to post for all eternity. Real estate agents - how many of you nudged your prospective clients to fudge their income upward? I personally came across more than one who did - as well as loan officers who pushed "Stated Income" loans - (which are perfectly fine if the borrower has a brain) - with the encouragement to "State Up".
   
   
7. The borrowing/foreclosed upon public - you know who you are and you know what you did.
   

So quit acting like there is only one guilty party and quit pretending that if Bush and Obama didn't inject the money into the economy that they did and still are doing - that we wouldn't all be in a far bigger mess than we are.

THEY HAD NO CHOICE IF THEY WANTED TO AVOID COMPLETE AND UTTER DISASTER.

On the same note, please remember Prezzy Baby - all the money you are spending will have to be paid back, and there will be consequences, such as inflation and dollar devaluation, so take it easy!

PS - Anybody who says "Capitalism is dead" is a dirty, pinko, commie and should be quickly dispatched off to North Korea to gain some first-hand experience of how much fun it is to live under communism. I would have said "The Soviet Union" - but OOPS! Doesn't exist anymore!

Next up: Health Care
but first I am going to watch some soap operas or bake a cake or something. I find this all very annoying to think about.

RH

Retro Housewife Survival Guide - Understand

Hello Out There!

I have a question for you. Why do you think Mexico is a 3rd world country and the United States isn't? Are Mexicans genetically inferior to Americans? Are they born with smaller brains? Are we just plain better?

The answers to the last 3 questions are No, No, and No. At least I have never seen any evidence of this, and I would be highly skeptical if somebody turned up with some.

Here is my answer to my first question: Our system is better than theirs. That is really the only reason. We have put together a social structure that does a far better job of taking care of the allocation of resources, educating the population and preventing corruption. Our system is based on the rule of law - which requires the majority of the population to respect the law or suffer the consequences. I don't like every law we have and I am sure most people feel the same way - but I do try to follow the law because I know if I don't, bad things will happen to me.

Our system is not by any means perfect, it could be better; there are a lot of things we need to improve on - but here's the kicker: it can also get a lot worse.

That's why when I hear Nancy Pelosi promising a group of illegal immigrants amnesty - and calling the enforcement of US law "un American", I get a little peeved. She is creating what some like to call a moral hazard - rewarding those individuals who have broken the law and giving them what they want. She is putting our system in danger, the only thing that stands between us and the crap hole that is Mexico. And yes, it is a crap hole. Most of the population lives in poverty, while the upper-class enjoys ridiculous wealth. If you are Mexican and feel insulted, you should be - but not by me - by the Mexican government that protects the corrupt few and forces the many to make do with crumbs or risk life and limb to sneak into the US.

The sheer number of illegal immigrants alone should have you quaking in your boots. Why? Because it makes it less likely that they will be assimilated into American society before their ways of doing things do too much damage to our system. In other words, instead of doing things the American way, they will continue to do things the Mexican way, which is what they know and are familiar with. This isn't something that is peculiar to Mexicans, this is human nature.

This is already happening right under our noses. The increasing prevalence of Spanish in this country should be setting off alarms from San Diego, California to Bangor, Maine. Not because there is anything wrong with Spanish - it is a beautiful language, but because it is not the language of this country.

The English language is the main ingredient in the recipe for making Americans, it is what we all have in common. And NOWHERE on earth is there a country where two languages peacefully coexist when spoken by two different populations in the same geographic location.

In Switzerland, they have four official languages, but the populations are separated geographically. They may learn the other languages in school, but most people are not fluent in more than one. I know this because I have tried to get by with German in Geneva, where they speak French, and it does not work. I had far better luck with English.

Even the perpetually peaceful Canadians are constantly running around trying to keep Quebec from declaring its Independence or trying to rejoin the mother ship. And they have geographic separation. What they don't have is a common culture -and that is because they have two languages - because language is, to a large extent culture.

Finally, In case you haven't noticed, the country is in a good amount of trouble. The system is currently broken and vulnerable. Nancy Pelosi and those like her are the biggest threat to your well-being and accustomed way of life there is. She is putting in jeopardy the lives of every single American citizen as well as those of all current and future immigrants to this country, both legal and illegal. Because if we break the system, we will be just another 364 million homo sapiens living in cardboard boxes and scrounging for food.

You must insist our laws are respected and enforced, and that Spanish is removed as an option. I hope I never get to say I told you so, because by then it'll be too late.

RH

When Politicians Betray The People

There was a time when democrats were the party of the American middle/working class. I don't know who Nancy Pelosi answers to but, I am quite sure there is nothing middle or working about them. I don't think they are even US citizens. Let's just say there is a very SLIM chance of that.

Can somebody please explain the rational of not including E-Verify in the stimulus package? I am seriously interested in hearing the reason(s) which explain why it is OK to spend American tax dollars to create jobs for people who are in this country illegally.


Doesn't that seem unfair to anybody else but me? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Have Removed American Worker Protections From The Economic Stimulus Bill

America, Is it true what they say about you? That you are all a bunch of lazy slobs who refuse to work? That you just want an unemployment check, but not an actual job?

That has not been my impression, but then there she is up there, speaker of the house, defender of NON American Citizens, and nobody seems to mind.

So, you people out there would rather lose your house than take a job that is "beneath" you?

Cause I have to say, in our family here, we think that our tax money should be used to help US citizens. I must admit, that is self interest/preservation speaking more than patriotism - Today we are OK, tomorrow, who knows.

But if it should happen that we have to scramble for jobs - I'd like to think I am not going to compete against people who aren't even supposed to be in the country.

And maybe we could be so brash to ask the Mexican government to take care of their citizens for a little while - they do, after all have quite a few billionaires in Mexico, including the richest man in the world, "Carlos Slim".

Maybe we can get Nancy to ask her boss for us?

RH