Simple Solution: Remember Ma Bell?

I have a solution to the AIG problem. It is Very Simple.

The Problem: AIG was a very successful insurance company run on a very low risk and conservative business model. Deregulation allowed them to get into the financial services industry and do amazingly risky things that turned around and bit them like a crack dealer's neglected pit bull. This was really a Very Big Problem because they now have their tendrils embedded deeply in many Other Industries - which they will drag down with them in their death throes.

The Wrong Answer: This bailout nonsense. As I mentioned before - the number of the bailout is the same number that we owe to China. Essentially we're losing at the craps table and have decided that rather than cut our loses - we're going to double-down and throw the dice some more.

My Answer: Since the US Government now owns >80% of the company - they can do what they like with it. I say Split AIG Up into Smaller Companies, just like Ma Bell. Their interests are too broad. Let the financial services division fly or go down in flames on their own in a Free Market.

Everyone is so upset about the bonuses that the executives all received from AIG. Do The Math. That $156 Million represents 0.1% of the total $30 Billion that AIG received. That is a rounding error! Who cares!? Where is all the rest of the American taxpayer money going & why don't we get more say in how it is spent?

I pay my taxes to run the government, not corporations. They get my money on their own - and only the Good ones do that. The Failing companies should do just that - FAIL. That is what a Free Market means.

Our bankers are Communists. Yes - China is still a communist country. Never forget that! When exactly did America start copying from their playbook? You can try to call me Joe McCarthy but in my humble opinion Secretary Clinton is a communist sympathizer, and so were the Neocons.

Aiming for short term gains are what got us in this mess. China plays a very long term game. How much longer until they take back Taiwan? They have maneuvered us into a position where we can now do NOTHING to stop them.

Do I have to remind everyone of what they did to the spy plane that landed in China in 2001? The Chinese government has no love for America - they still refer to us as "Imperialists" to their citizens. They still do represent a threat.

What's US$700B Between Friends?

It is easy to forget that when people throw around the name 'Clinton' these days, that we are talking about the current Secretary of State - the former Junior Senator "from" New York.

Recently also we hear numbers thrown around like $700Billion, $800Billion, maybe as much as US$1.25Trillion Dollars. These are absurdly huge numbers that belie the size of the hole that has been dug for the American Taxpayer to fill in for this absurd economy of ours to continue life-as-usual.

You might ask how the hell we got ourselves into this mess when as little as a decade ago we actually paid off the national debt.

Certainly The War Effort is to blame in terms of what we went on a shopping spree for with all that money. But where did it come from? How did we even allow ourselves to get into a situation like this?

When a college kid runs up $80k worth of credit card debt without ever holding a job you ask why the credit card company gave them credit to begin with. Why were they allowed to borrow and spend like that?

Well the answer to why we could do this is hinted to by Secretary Clinton urging China to keep lending us money. And that magic number we keep hearing reflects the $700Billion that we currently owe them.

I recall when her husband was in office looking on in horror and shame in 1998 as they sat in box seats overlooking a parade in Tienanmin Square - the site of the student protest for democracy that was mercilessly put down by the communist chinese government not a decade before that.


So if you want to know who paved the way for the Chinese to hold the mortgage to our economy it was the Clintons. If you want to know who used that resource like a crackhead taking cash advances from an ATM card then you can blame the Bushes.

20081030.1414 Microsoft's Chinese Black Screen of Shame

If anyone thinks that the Chinese government has any real respect for Intellectual Property law - then I think that this story might take a crowbar to your faith in communist lip-service:
China tells Microsoft to rethink 'black-out' anti-piracy tactics: report from PhysOrg.com

China has told US software giant Microsoft to reconsider controversial new anti-piracy tools that cause computer screens to turn black if a pirated program is identified, state media reported.

[...]
Notice if you will - Big M is not making the stolen software stop functioning per se, nor having it phone home for help, nor in any other way reporting the theft other than turning the screen black. That would be just fine for most servers for example. What with the prolific release of 0 day hacks it is probable that this measure will also be hacked into mere nuisance status within 24 hours of it's release - making the argument largely symbolic - and therefore all the more damning for the Chinese government that is now protesting.

Where is it written that anyone is entitled to free upgrades? If they don't like the new version of Windows, then they do not have to buy it. The same goes for everyone else - oh & look - Vista is practically a spontaneous consumer boycott action - see how that works?

But from that we have the beginning of the long trail of political rhetoric that will now begin to ensue listing for the next decade all of the reasons why Copyright law and the enforcement of software licensing contracts should not be applied equally to China. So far we have the disparity of income in the developed and developing worlds, the 'realistic situation' in China today (i.e. no one ever buys any software), and so on.

So much for no Nationalism in the Globalized Economy. Why is it OK for India and China but not for the USA?