So the so-called conservatives are having their so-called freedom event with so-called commentators and news anchors from so-called news stations. It’s all a side show to the real problems of the country. It’s easy to misplace anger in an environment where misinformants rule the airwaves.
So, let me show you where the real theft is happening, in case you may have missed it.
First, the FDIC released yet another move towards creating a financial banking cartel. Another one bites the dust.
Corus Bank, National Association, Chicago, Illinois, was closed today by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with MB Financial Bank, National Association, Chicago, Illinois, to assume all of the deposits of Corus Bank, N.A.
But you know there’s really nothing to see here at the NY Times: A Year After a Cataclysm, Little Change on Wall St. Much more important to focus on creeping socialism and taking our government back from imagined enemies.
One year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the surprise is not how much has changed in the financial industry, but how little.
Backstopped by huge federal guarantees, the biggest banks have restructured only around the edges. Employment in the industry has fallen just 8 percent since last September. Only a handful of big hedge funds have closed. Pay is already returning to precrash levels, topped by the 30,000 employees of Goldman Sachs, who are on track to earn an average of $700,000 this year. Nor are major pay cuts likely, according to a report last week from J.P. Morgan Securities. Executives at most big banks have kept their jobs. Financial stocks have soared since their winter lows.
No nothing to see here. Wait, a minute. Maybe we should listen to people with some expertise instead of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh who couldn’t even get one college degree or a freshman’s worth of credits between them . Maybe we shouldn’t focus on sycophants like Chris Matthews or Keith Olbermann who just want to hear themselves talk and hump each others legs until they tingle.
In fact, though, regulators and lawmakers have spent most of the last year trying to save the financial industry, rather than transform it. In the short run, their efforts have succeeded. Citigroup and other wounded banks have avoided bankruptcy, and the economy has sidestepped a depression. But the same investors and economists who predicted, and in some cases profited from, the collapse last fall say the rescue has come at an extraordinary cost. They warn that if the industry’s systemic risks are not addressed, they could cause an even bigger crisis — in years, not decades. Next time, they say, the credit of the United States government may be at risk.
Yup, what have we been talking about here for month after month after month, while we get named called every imaginable insult from one end of the political spectrum to another. I must defy definition if one day I can be called a racist republican ratfucker then be called a greenie and a leftie the next.
Oh, meanwhile …
I’m going to bring out some information I put out on Bobby Jindal in December of last year so you’ll know exactly how little to pay attention to this man. Jindal is obviously positioning himself for a run at national office which doesn’t surprise me at all, because the guy’s been a bigger job hopper than our current POTUS. It’s evident that anything to be learned from any of those short-lived jobs is lost on him because he never puts facts, people, or effectiveness before ideology. He’s a faith-based ideologue. He’s totally convinced of the ‘rightness’ of his view regardless of what the facts are on the ground. Contrary to his insistence that Louisiana is improving when it isn’t, and contrary to his insistent that he’s cut state bureaucracy when the payrolls have gone up, he’s still just a man that never lets facts get in the way of a good dogmatic speech opportunity. I don’t think the man exactly lies, he just appears to be totally delusional.
My dad was a small town Ford dealer (Council Bluffs, IA). Dad was fortunate enough to have a very rich mentor that put him into the dealer development program when I wasn’t even walking and so we moved to what I still believe is the middle of no where and put down roots. I don’t know if you’ve got much experience in a small town, but the local car dealers are actually pretty big businesses for them. My dad headed up blood drives and the United Way. He belonged to the Chamber of Commerce. When Dad was younger he volunteered for everything. As he got older, he wrote a lot of checks. He helped my Mom establish a Victorian house museum that still is world-renown. He always bought tons of tickets to the college world series to hand out to every one who walked in the door. He sponsored little league teams and bought advertising in the local newspapers and TV stations. His 50-100 employees were with dad for as long as I can remember. Not only the mechanics and the office folks stayed with Dad, but also the car salesmen. They were my family too. When dad retired in the 1980s after surviving those horrible energy crisis years, I came to look back on how central the car business is to small town America. Actually, Dad also sold a lot of trucks because we lived in farm country.
American car companies. In a way, it feels like the unwinding of small America cities and a way of living. Chrysler and GM are dumping dealers all over the country. Most of the surviving dealerships are not going to look like the way dealerships developed when cars and the car industry were the most American of all business. I’m sure it’s going to be much more efficient and I am certain that each of the US automakers over franchised, but still, there is something about a small town car dealership that is not going to be replaceable. In many towns, it is one of the biggest employers and also a huge source of charitable donations.

I continue to read current economic thought on the state of the economy and the state of the Obama administration’s response. I don’t’ know if you’ve ever made a trip to
Axelrove must’ve sensed a disturbance in the force because I believe the Blogzkrieg Bots are back at work in sites where the Obamessiah’s economic message has been questioned. Most of the frontpagers and bloggers that I know were chased off various blogs when they harshed the Obama mellow or dared suggest that Hillary’s campaign was better, not racist, and worthy of support. Recently, a set of anonymous email exchanges were released at 
It’s one of those rare things in New Orleans. It snowed like crazy this morning and I essentially had a blizzard vacation today. My campus had about 7 inches of snow and the power went off in Hammond. Down here in NOLA, there were these big huge wet flakes that dropped for several hours. They iced up my hibiscus, my bananas, my avocado tree, and the roads. My 12 year old lab-mix Karma was a pain to try to walk today because she’s not used to snow. Actually, she wouldn’t walk at all. She just stood there wondering why the sky was falling.
This guy may have been a close associate of Obama, Rezko, Axelrod, and Emmanuel (and basically all part of the Daley Machine) but I’m thinking the press will be shy to admit they were wrong and could reconsider their fluffing for Obama during the entire election and now. Also, I can’t imagine any savvy pol that was not careful about what they said to Governor Number 1 when they spoke to him because it was well known the FBI were after evidence for years. If Blagovich just refuses to go any where and continues to stay on the front page, will it help or hurt Obama? Does it detract from all the problems confronting him or add to them? 
