If (Or what the Bear Stearns deal reveals about our nation)

If a middle-class person files for bankruptcy, his credit is wrecked ... no credit cards, living paycheck to paycheck.

If a small company runs out of work, they close their doors. They sell off their equipment at pennies on the dollar.

If a large institutional bank makes risky investments, and the market collapses, that company is sold at pennies on the dollar to the next biggest bank. The economic food chain continues.

The whispers on Wall Street prior to the Bear Stearns collapse ... J.P. Morgan buying their competitor at an extreme discount, including a Manhattan building worth over a billion dollars ... executives for Bear Stearns selling their shares a couple of months before the ultimate collapse, the iceberg clearly in site as the U.S.S. Titanic rode full steam ahead, the hopes and dreams of the American homeowner riding in the hull.

The geniuses on Wall Street have played the system like a fiddle. Their MBA served them well. The ethics training they received at school was nodded and winked at.

The business schools will take the lessons learned and indoctrinate future MBAs with the political wisdom imparted by Henry Paulson and J.P. Morgan ... they will learn that the former head of Goldman Sachs can drive the Treasury to give taxpayer dollars to risk-taking banks in exchange for worthless paper ... they will learn that the link between government and Wall Street will protect them when they make mistakes ... "So, go ahead," the professor will say. "Take a risk. You won't pay if you fail."

Such a corrupt system, where ethics is replaced by a mix of laziness and fortune at all costs, leaves our nation open to outside influence.

Walk the Line: Angel Jimenez Review and Spoiler-filled Commentary

And now, Angel Jimenez, with yet another offensive-yet-thought-provoking satirical rendition:

Perched here, high atop the world below ... with my know-it-all thoughts to guide me ... self-aware ... willing to boast in my human frailties ... the perfect modern amalgam honest hypocrite ... once again, DailySkew readers, allow me to pass judgment on a movie and the characters within.

Walk the Line brought a tear to my eye at the end. I found the personal trials that Johnny overcame, and his relationship with June Carter, to be inspiring and humbling. It was an incredible life he lived. Really.

But, then my bulls*** meter started chirping....

The first reading I got on the meter had to do with the length of the movie -- this is a problem with any autobiographical movie ... decades of ups and downs are summed up in two hours, and due to this limitation in modern filmmaking, we, the viewer, get the sense that struggles in our lives can be overcome instantly.

This is a falsehood, and a disservice to the memory of Johnny Cash.

Not that his estate cares. I don't blame them ... they need to "Eat, eat, eat, for lunch, breakfast, and dinner." We all have to make a buck, and have to sacrifice some integrity in that pursuit.

No exceptions.

Then, with the carnal knowledge of what REALLY goes on behind closed doors, thanks to myspace and CL, I started considering some of the scenes that were left out of the movie (and Johnny Cash's book that the movie was based on).

Like the scene where Johnny serviced the in-the-closet record label owner to get Fulsom County Blues recorded. Or how bad a husband the pill-poppin' Cash was to Vivian. Or how June Carter was a more-than-willing accomplice to Cash's lifestyle.

So much for romance and happily ever afters. One could hypothesize that he replaced one addiction (pills) for another (June). After she passed away, he died of withdrawal.

But that really is simplistic, isn't it? Who knows? Maybe he started popping pills again after her death.

Hell, maybe they were both poppin' pills, all along. Maybe Trent Reznor was hookin' him up. I'm just sayin'.

Who knows what to believe these days? In my opinion, believe the worst, and you're probably 50% closer to the truth!

And don't tell me he suddenly, instantly gets along with his father after years and years. His father blamed Johnny for the death of Jack ... and we are led to believe that this wedge existed betweeen them for decades ... and then, by the end, the father is wearing some tropical shirt, talking on a tin can phone with his grandkids, while Johnny slaps him on the back and encourages him to tell the story about the flood? Happily ever after?

Bulls***. Not buyin' the Man in Black fairytale.

And finally -- why do we waste our time worshiping Johnny Cash, anyway? Cause he was a Christian? Cause he overcame a drug addiction?

Give me a break -- most of us don't have the opportunity to live the lifestyle he lived. We don't fall into those traps BECAAAUUUSE we're not DANCING ON THE DAMN TRAP DOOR!

For example -- early on, he's singing at a concert, and there's a groupie in the front, showing off her boobs with an overly tight sweater. When the set is over, the stage manager lets her in to see Johnny ... and you know the rest (CL, MySpace, etc).

Johnny Cash pursued a career that is fraught with pitfalls and traps for a man seeking to "Walk the Line." He DELIBERATELY chose a career, AFTER GETTING MARRIED, that would mean playing for hot-blooded teenagers, night, after night, after night!

Give me a break! His suffering was SELF-INFLICTED. Nobody made him choose that path. Nobody made him take those pills to begin with. Nobody!

I will say this: the scene where he smashes his guitar to pieces and tears the sink from the wall was one of the most realistic depictions of a violent outburst born of frustration that I have ever witnessed. I got chills.

Anyway -- great movie. I highly recommend it. Just take it with a grain of salt, okay?

We here at the DailySkew disagree with Angel Jimenez's verbal attacks on Johnny Cash and his family, and have the utmost respect for the work of the Man in Black. We, too, shed some tears while watching Walk the Line. I know that's not a guy thing to do....

Anyway, we here at the DailySkew do support the right to free speech, and we encourage comments and submitted articles.

The Economy: Now What?

As some of you know, we famously predicted the collapse of the housing market after the 2004-2005 Hurricane seasons ravaged Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.

A year ago, I wrote a follow-up that explained the need for Acceptance (tm) ... in other words, we needed to accept the coming fall in housing, and plan accordingly.

Again, I wrote that in March of 2007.

That was plenty of time for the geniuses at Bears Stearns to divest themselves of some of their sub-prime mortgage investments at a loss ... a small loss, compared to the full-blown Ebola virus eating away at their company's existence!

But, hey, what do I know? I'm just a writer on the web. I'm nobody, as far as the GENIUSES are concerned.

For some reason, I actually believed the folks on Wall Street would take the proper action....

A couple of days ago, I read this article thanks to Drudge, where 82-year-old famed economist Anna Schwartz basically said what I said a year ago.

God bless her ... but if she's the smartest economist whom people respect ... then we are clearly doomed. It is clear that the younger "Wise" men and women on Wall Street, who should be rising to to fill Anna's, and Milton Friedman's, shoes aren't worth the paper their MBAs are printed on, or their salaries.

My friend Damian asked me, "Now what do we do? What's the solution?"

The solution that I prescribed a year ago remains the same ... unfortunately, the treatment will be more painful.

As I've explained in the past, the actions of the Fed to lower rates to 1% Post 9-11 merely moved our economic troubles from that time into the future ... AND, it increased the nature of the problem.

So, what does the Fed do now, knowing what's happening? They lower rates to below 3%!

Whatever happened to historic lows? Don't they understand that 4% is a perfectly reasonable interest rate?

Do they really think that putting the rate below 3% will bring confidence back into the economy? Sorry, Mr. Bernanke, but that was a one-trick pony, and Mr. Greenspan already rode it.

I was okay with lowering the rate to 4% ... but Bernanke needs to stop listening to the braying on Wall Street. It's time to stand firm, and let the dominoes fall where they may. Instead, Mr. Bernanke seems determined to add more dominoes to the cascading stack, toppling over more citizens and financial institutions in its wake.


The longer the Federal Reserve, along with Treasury Secretary Paulson and the politicians on Capital Hill, continue to delay the inevitable, the harder the economy will crash when they finally run out of tricks.

I pray the Fed stops lowering rates. I pray that certain financial institutions are allowed to die in peace -- Bears Stearns is starting to look like Weekend at Bernie's, for goodness sakes!

The economy will survive. The dollar will recover ... eventually. We'll get through it.

We must take our economic castor oil. The credit binge, individually and collectively, must stop. And it will stop, whether we like it, or not.

R.I.P. ... On My Car Window?

What is it with people turning their cars into rolling tombstones, with epitaphs scrawled or pasted on their car windows?

I'm sorry for your loss, but I DON'T KNOW THE PERSON! What do you want me to do, send a prayer to God, asking to let your friend through the Pearly Gates?

I don't get it. I thought a cemetery was a place where a family could go quietly to mourn and remember a loved one who passed away. I thought an urn filled with ashes sitting above the hearth was a way to keep a loved one close in your thoughts. I thought sprinkling ashes on the ocean, or in space, or WHERE EVER you're legally allowed to do so, was a way to commemorate that life with quiet dignity.

Whatever happened to quiet dignity? To reverence?

Putting an epitaph on your car DISRESPECTS THE PERSON WHO DIED. It's a MOCKERY.

People driving by, seeing that sign ... they could be cursing your friend ... or they might feel uncomfortable knowing someone died so young.

What if someone didn't like the deceased? They might video tape your epitaph as it rolls by, and mock you on Youtube.

Oh, wait -- I forgot. We live in an era where we all have to give a SHOUT OUT! We all have to PUBLICIZE OURSELVES. WE DON'T EXIST IF WE'RE NOT ON TV. We don't matter if we don't put our names out there.

Whatever happened to discretion ... to shame?

I guess discrete or shameful matters are posted on people's windows ... on your car and the Internet.

Lazy Man's Ethics and Elliot Spitzer

Dear Skew,

Is Prostitution okay?

Let's look at this from the perspective of LME (Lazy Man's Ethics). LME morality says, "Prostitution is okay ... as long as you don't get caught!"

Clearly, Elliot Spitzer was an LME practitioner.


Does prostitution affect the family?

Again, LME morality says, "Prostitution is okay ... as long as you don't get caught!"


What about other forms of sexual immorality?

You mean like porn, strip clubs, and craigslist encounters? Here comes Pete and Repeat: LME morality says, "Prostitution is okay ... as long as you don't get caught!"

REAL morality says, "Families are destroyed by a spouse's infidelity. Children are given the wrong message and a poor example when a parent commits sexual sin."

I know ... I'm going against what I learned in public school by allowing the word "Sin" to appear in this blog in a moral context. I'll be sure to confess my allegiance to the party and denounce Goldstein real soon.

***

Let me go into a related tangent -- there's no need to reinvent the wheel here. Family structures do not need to change in order to allow sexual immorality into the home.

The family structure needs integrity, and parents of integrity.

In case some of you have forgotten, here is the definition of integrity, from freedictionary.com:

in·teg·ri·ty
1. Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code.

2. The state of being unimpaired; soundness.

3. The quality or condition of being whole or undivided; completeness.

---

[Middle English integrite, from Old French, from Latin integrits, soundness, from integer, whole, complete;]

***

I guess politicians like Spitzer forgot that word after graduating Law School.

Couple of music videos

The first video is by Oasis, called Stand by Me -- it features a Memento-like use of time-displacement.





The second video, Shift Work by Kenny Chesney, is the OFFICIAL song of Tashman Technologies, as far as I'm concerned. The Refrain of the song says it all: "7 to 3 ... 3 to 11 ... 11 to 7."

Ad-free

The following is a DailySkew Public Service Announcement. Here is DailySkew co-founder, Tony Vahl:

At this time, we here at the DailySkew have decided to go ad-free on our oldest web address, dailyskew.com.

Why(tm)?

The reason is quite simple, friends. I don't NEED $.70 EVERY THREE MONTHS from googoogoogle. OOOOOooogle. Rhymes with....

I don't need it, and I have confirmed, via telepathic communication, that Slim Dami don't need that chump change either, doogal.

$.70 every three months is INSULTING. FIVE YEARS OF "Billions for goo, $.70 for me" has worn me out.

I guess that's the price I've paid for being a loyal supporter of Gmail, Calendar, Docs and spreadsheets, Gmaps, GScholar, G-Earth (Earth-G?), etc.

I still love those free services, and plan to continue using them. I am grateful for their free services, as they've improved my Internet life. For example, the fact that I can watch Bloomberg TV or CSpan 2, thanks to iGoogle and Lab Pixies, is really cool.

So, while I may feel insulted, I understand. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Besides, I make an okay living in my real life ... so who cares if I'm writing for nothing with clicks for free? What am I, panning for gold here?

Whatever.

This has been a DailySkew public service announcement.

Obama: How DOES He Raise $55 million in One Month?

Michael Savage raised this question tonight -- how did Barack Obama raise $55 million in February?

It's an excellent question. The MEDIA seems to shrug their collective shoulders and accept this as a byproduct of Obama's "Grassroots movement."

I know from personal experience that raising money on the internet is damn near impossible ... if you're an honest guy. Now, if you're a snake-oil salesman, or a spammer, or an aggressive con artist/hot chick, or a purveyor of porn/voyeurism/prostitution ... then I could see you making money!

Now, if you're an honest guy and you find a decent method, like Damian did with PPP, you can be sure that Google will eventually "Layeth the Smacketh Down" on that candy web trick ... I've read about this for years on Addme.com -- "Oh, Google figured out how to stop this technique we've used for getting hits, but they haven't figured out THAT!" And then in three months, another technique ... then, another, and another.

Truthfully, you either have to be dishonest or so cynical about the way the internet works that you don't care about pre-internet morality and ethics. An argument ... let me rephrase, a STRONG argument can be made that, like the wild west depicted in movies, business morality and ethics practiced on the internet is not practical for most people trying to make a buck on the web.

Which brings me back to Dr. Savage's question -- how does Obama do it?

And who benefits?

I believe some people have bought into his snake-oil salesman's charm ... it seems to be a mix of "He's the new JFK!" and "He's a good speaker!" But is this grassroots religious fervor worth $55 million?

Perhaps enemies of Clinton are gleefully backing the new upstart ... perhaps the "Pink hand" is giving Obama a boost in exchange for a promises ... perhaps the corrupt Chicago political machine is working overtime....

It would be nice if the MEDIA would investigate this....

Separated at Birth: Hillary and Selma Simpson

On the eve of yet another Super Tuesday, I thought I'd hire a professional voice-over guy to compare the voices of Hillary Clinton and Selma Simpson:


Separated%20at%20birth%20Hillary%20and%20Selma%20Simpson.mp3


I'd like to thank Everton Locke for the voice-over work.

Rib City!

The following are quotes from the pig that appears on the Rib City logo:

Come on down and have a serving ... of me!

Mmm, mmm. Boy, I taste good with barb-b-q sauce!

I'm just DYIN' for YOU to EAT MY RIBS!

I don't bite! I won't even squeal!

My brothers and sisters and kids are all happy to leap on the grill for you!

Go ahead and stick an apple in this big, smilin' mouth o' mine and get to cookin' it, boy! Soooooeeey!

Driving in Bizarro World

The following occurred while driving on a Sunday morning in Central Florida:

Driving down a three-lane road. Car in far right lane slows to 5 mph and starts coming over to the left. I'm in the far left lane.

The car is now in the middle lane, signaling to go left. I come to a stop, yielding to the small Toyota Corolla.

The Corolla comes to a halt. I wait. I honk. Nothing.

I drive off, my blue Focus honking by my hand as I drive past.

As I cross the intersection, I hear honking from behind. I look, and a black Toyota Tundra truck rolls past my right. The driver sticks out his hand and gives me the all-American one-finger salute.

The one thing I cannot stand is injustice.

Here, I yielded for some poor fool, and I'm the brunt of vitriol?

I honk at the huge pick-up truck. The driver honks and gives me the finger again.

We come to a stop light. He pulls up beside me and rolls down his window.

He yells something. Gestures. He sees my beard through the tinted windows and a knowing look comes across his eyes. I gesture in front of me to the Corolla that was drifting over a few moments and stoplight before. He rolls up his window.

The light turns green, and I make a left. He goes straight.

Did this driver not see what transpired before him? Did he not see the car in the middle lane? Did he not see that I was courteous on a Sunday morning, yielding to the poor old fool in the Corolla?

Would he have preferred if I had kept cruising at 50 mph, not knowing if the Corolla would continue advancing? With my CHILDREN IN THE BACKSEAT?

You be the judge.