I think I just lost my virginity to a slick Italian. Let's reconstruct this; US Taxpayers "lend" Chrysler $7 Billion and three weeks later Fiat, that slick Italian Don Juan, shows up at my window singing a love aria strait from Puccini and the next thing I know Mr. F has a 35% share of my company. I say my company because it was my $7 Billion in the first place.
If once is not enough for this lothario now I learn Mr. F is ready for more with an option to gain further control, up to 55%, if he is in the mood. This no-cash deal gives him access to my plants, my employees, my money, so he can bring our little bambino love child to life in the US.
So ask yourself, if I hadn't lent the money to Chrysler would Mr. F still have come a courting? Probably, he wanted in and I let my guard down and made it too easy for him. So much for government mandated sex education.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Grandpa Perry's TARP program
Grandpa Perry designed the first TARP program 70 years ago; his version was designed to Toss an Apple into the Rum Pot. Grandpa Perry lost his job as a stockbroker during the Great Depression. No government bailout for him, he had a family to feed and no government handout was going to put a dent in the appetite of six growing children and my grandmother. He decided a little hard cider would be just the stimulant the economy needed. After a brief scouting expedition with the boys in tow, girls were not to be exposed to high finance back then, Grandpa Perry found the perfect spot, a 50 acre farm complete with apple orchard and cider mill, all the better to feed the family and maybe earn a few dollars (quarters most likely).
My Grandfather liked to take credit for moving the family from the city to the suburbs but knowing my Grandmother as I did, I suspect it was my Grandmother who led the troops. After all, she had worked for a successful restaurateur who had “miraculously” weathered the depression. Some call that luck; I prefer to think in more basic terms –bootlegging, and Grandmother knew the cider mill could do double duty.
They weren’t the suburbs back then; it was a rural community, a cross-section of the American melting pot, Irish, French and Italian Catholics, with a few Protestants thrown in for good measure; an agricultural mecca with apple orchards galore and its share of shoe factories. The farm sustained life, producing founding members of the "Greatest Generation", the boys went on to fight and win a war, the girls entered the workforce, and my Grandmother provided the backbone to keep the cider flowing. The farm was eventually lost to a housing development and the family members each went their own way but Grandmother never let us forget that sustaining the family was the bedrock of a strong nation.
Today we face another economic slowdown, not nearly as ominous as some claim, certainly not like the Great Depression, but our President has called on us to sacrifice and I intend to do my part even if it means putting that cider mill back to work. Well Sweep Farm is teaming with life and excitement again after 200 years of being at rest. There are two pigs and a lamb in the freezer, the seed catalogs are starting to arrive, and plans are underway to enlarge the garden. I’m not sure I have time to plant and grow an orchard, time marches on, but the apple orchard down the road should be a good source of raw material for our cider press. Now if I could only find the plans for a still.
My Grandfather liked to take credit for moving the family from the city to the suburbs but knowing my Grandmother as I did, I suspect it was my Grandmother who led the troops. After all, she had worked for a successful restaurateur who had “miraculously” weathered the depression. Some call that luck; I prefer to think in more basic terms –bootlegging, and Grandmother knew the cider mill could do double duty.
They weren’t the suburbs back then; it was a rural community, a cross-section of the American melting pot, Irish, French and Italian Catholics, with a few Protestants thrown in for good measure; an agricultural mecca with apple orchards galore and its share of shoe factories. The farm sustained life, producing founding members of the "Greatest Generation", the boys went on to fight and win a war, the girls entered the workforce, and my Grandmother provided the backbone to keep the cider flowing. The farm was eventually lost to a housing development and the family members each went their own way but Grandmother never let us forget that sustaining the family was the bedrock of a strong nation.
Today we face another economic slowdown, not nearly as ominous as some claim, certainly not like the Great Depression, but our President has called on us to sacrifice and I intend to do my part even if it means putting that cider mill back to work. Well Sweep Farm is teaming with life and excitement again after 200 years of being at rest. There are two pigs and a lamb in the freezer, the seed catalogs are starting to arrive, and plans are underway to enlarge the garden. I’m not sure I have time to plant and grow an orchard, time marches on, but the apple orchard down the road should be a good source of raw material for our cider press. Now if I could only find the plans for a still.
Tortured Minds
Let me see if I’ve got this right. The same people who brought us partial-birth abortion, with its mind chilling devastation, now believe sleep deprivation, isolation, and exposure to cold are considered torture. Anyone who has nursed a child understands sleep deprivation, my friend Dave loves ice fishing – that’s exposure to cold, and I recall my father sending me to my room to “reflect” on the spanking I was about to receive – that’s isolation. Only a tortured mind could equate these simple acts with the horror The Falling Man experienced when he finally realized there was no exit, other than jumping from the window of the North Tower at 9:41 on September 11, 2001. Mr. President, reflect on this before you jump to a tortured conclusion.
Friday, January 23, 2009
KISS Principle 101
Memo to Mr. Geithner and Mr. Summers:
You don’t need a PhD in Economics to understand the KISS principle. Put in place a Keep It Simple Stupid rule – the next banker or Wall Street executive to receive a taxpayer funded bailout must come to Washington, in person, to pick up the check. Let him arrive among the glare of reporters and make sure he flies coach, sitting in the middle seat. Let him know what it is like to be an average Joe instead of living in the rarified atmosphere of $1400 wastepaper baskets! Mr. Thain might still have his job today if he had flown coach.
You don’t need a PhD in Economics to understand the KISS principle. Put in place a Keep It Simple Stupid rule – the next banker or Wall Street executive to receive a taxpayer funded bailout must come to Washington, in person, to pick up the check. Let him arrive among the glare of reporters and make sure he flies coach, sitting in the middle seat. Let him know what it is like to be an average Joe instead of living in the rarified atmosphere of $1400 wastepaper baskets! Mr. Thain might still have his job today if he had flown coach.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
What's up with this?
Senate panel confirms Geithner.
Have the Senate Republicans missed a golden opportunity? Maybe so. Rather than complain about Mr. Geithner's "relatively minor" transgression the Senate Republicans should have used this opportunity to discuss the convoluted tax code facing all American taxpayers. This is not a Timothy Geithner problem, nor a TurboTax issue as Geithner claimed. Flat out (pardon the Freudian slip) the real issue is the complicated nature of our tax reporting system. Why in the world do we need to create a system so complicated only an entire sub-culture of pocket protector armed accountants can make heads or tails of the returns?
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