Time for another

Yes, it's time for another post. Like the ones I used to know...

So, does it bother anyone that the Fed will be printing more and more money until the banks start borrowing? Isn't that what the Weimar Republic did circa 1928? Granted they were paying off reparations to the conquerors, but aren't we a bit in the same boat having declared defeat to the likes of Citigroup, AIG and Countrywide? Can't wait until my home appreciates to $50 million. I can take out a home equity line for a loaf of bread. At least interest rates will be low.

The bankers usually win. That's the lesson. Whether in war time, crisis, revolution -- it's not the lawyers Shakespeare should have feared, but the bankers. In a way, he did try to warn us, I guess. Before you read into whether there's some underlying message here, there isn't. The point is that people in pinstriped suits always seem to win only because we let them. Madoff is on record for bragging that he talked to regulators like children and had to educate them about his business model. That's pretty funny for someone who kept handwritten ledgers like he was George Bailey at the Bedford Savings and Loan. I guess Quickbooks was too much of a hassle.

And, what about the Bush shoe-throwing journalist in Iraq? I think he's just a patsy. When you look at the tapes of the press conference, clearly there's a second shoeman. I think Rehnquist needs to convene an official inquiry. There's a magic Oxford theory in our midst. I'd like to know just where Thom McCann was when those shoes were flying.

Does it really bother you that there are people not fazed by what's going on this country? Watch a movie fromt the 1940s or 50s. Okay, it's a bunch of people who could've slipped out of a Wonder bread wrapper. Besides that. Does life seem better? More civil? Contrived? Does it seem like people were rich? Poor? Middle class? I think the strata were closer together. Maybe it's me but I think Bill Gates would've been just a deca-millionaire and the average worker would've been content saving enough for a 20 percent downpayment on a 6 percent interest mortgage.

So, you say that it's unfair if everyone doesn't have access to the same benefits of housing, SUVs and flatscreen TVs? I'd have to say yes. It's the rules of the game that have been altered. Like playing Monopoly with your eight-year-old. You don't want to see him disappointed when he lands on your Boardwalk with a little red hotel greeting him. So, we bend the rules. Why not have someon with a $35,000 job get a $500,000 home? And, why not have that couple making a combined $100,000 get a home for three-quarters of a million? After all, everything's going up and it could never come down...

But we all know that everything is cyclical. My five-year-old knows this from Lion King's cycle of life. The King's son will take over and his son will inherit and so one. They even have a song about it, which we've recast the Cycle of Poop. You know you eat something, it gets flushed then fish eat it, you eat the fish... I remember my eighth grade science teacher saying we're drinking water that passed through Napoleon.

I always disputed that since I never drank Perrier in my life.