“Losers? Not yet anyway. Here is how I see us. We have been beaten to a purple jelly. We are getting up off the ground, again. One eye is swollen shut. Nose broken, couple of teeth missing, knuckles bloodied, but we know deep down inside that we are just getting warmed up. We are David and Rocky and Will Kane and the sons and daughters of the American Revolution. That is the blood that runs in our veins and that is the blood that is smeared on our dusty faces. And that is the blood that was born to be spilled in the name of Freedom.”

~

Random Thoughts While Cleaning Out the Cat Box

About 5:00 each morning, there comes a purring and a raspy tongue trying to lick my eyes open. No one can sleep through that. While waiting for my Guatemalan free-trade, organic, fog-cutter to brew, I feed the cat and then go directly to deal with the blessings that come from that.

When you start your day with that chore, no matter what happens, it can only get better. I just try not to think about it and not inhale. For those of you who have asked, where I get my ideas, now you know.

The Occupiers

I was thinking about the protestors, the occupiers if you will. Some politicians and media have questioned the value of protesting but I doubt that it can be overestimated. Someone said, “You made your point now go home.”

That is deliciously ironic, don’t you think. Many of the people who are there are there because they lost their homes to a fraudulent foreclosure.

Go home? To Where? They are home. They are out on the street where Wall Street put them.

But as comments are starting to reveal, it forces people to choose sides. It cannot be ignored. And for those who are evaluating candidates, it could not be better timed.

Most of the candidates would never even want to touch these issues and now they cannot avoid them. Chalk up one for the protestors and Democracy.

Some politicians and pundits say it is a waste of time; others try to shift the argument by disparaging the protestors themselves.

That’s an easy one, right? The protestors are doing exactly what any responsible citizen of a free country should do, aren’t they? Whoever they are? Why does that matter? 

So they just dismiss us as a bunch of losers.

Oh, we are a bunch of losers alright. Tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs, lost their businesses, lost their homes, lost their families, lost their health, and even lost their lives as a direct result of Wall Street’s illegal international Ponzi scheme. And it is nowhere near over.

Obama doesn’t get it

The President says that what the banks did wasn’t illegal, just clever, if a bit shady. I thought he was a lawyer.

Isn’t lying to investors about the mortgage backed bonds being backed by nothing at all illegal?

Isn’t forging documents, back dating documents, and filing false recordings in county land records all illegal?

Isn’t pledging the same mortgage as security for multiple pools illegal?

Isn’t income tax evasion illegal?

What about money laundering? Just last year Wachovia Bank paid $160 million dollars because they knowingly and willingly laundered drug money. No one went to jail; ergo it must not be illegal.

What about lying to congress? Lloyd Blankfien went before Congress and testified that Goldman Sachs did not assemble pools of mortgages that were destined for default and then bet heavily by buying multiple forms of insurance that would pay them when the pools defaulted. For this they paid a $550 million fine. Not illegal?

It is the equivalent of buying a fire insurance policy for ten times the value of every house in a subdivision and then burning them all down.

Then saying you did not bet heavily and you did not know there would be a fire. What is the definition of heavily, right? How would you define a years’ worth of GDP? Heavy or not heavy. The entire world economy is a big fat bubble just waiting for a little prick like me to pop it.

They did all that and more and everyone but the President knows about it and knows that they started covering up their crimes before they ever committed them. The alibi, plausible deniability was built into the scheme. MERS was created to cover up the crimes of predatory lending, pledging the same mortgages over and over again in multiple pools, destruction of evidence, manufacturing of evidence, RICO, fraud upon the court and a list of assorted other criminal activities.

Mr. President you could not be more wrong, it is all absolutely one hundred percent ill-fucking-legal. And you are either a bald faced liar or someone too distant from the facts to run the country. You didn’t hear about the 50 State AGs work or all of the other criminal investigations being conducted at tax payer’s expense? You never heard of robo-signing? You didn’t see “Inside Job”? We know you wouldn’t listen to Elizabeth Warren.

Where have you been? The sad truth is that during all of this you have been missing in action. Where is the anger? Where is the outrage? We are left with one inescapable conclusion, you are on their side.

You are going to take the fall for this not because of what happened, but because it appears you did nothing other than kiss up to big business and talk about some vague hope and change. No more hoping, home boy. We are bringing the wood and change is inevitable. Time to choose. Them or us?

Do not assume that you will be the Democratic nominee.

Losers? Not yet anyway. Here is how I see us. We have been beaten to a purple jelly. We are getting up off the ground, again. One eye is swollen shut. Nose broken, couple of teeth missing, knuckles bloodied, but we know deep down inside that we are just getting warmed up. We are David and Rocky and Will Kane and the sons and daughters of the American Revolution. That is the blood that runs in our veins and that is the blood that is smeared on our dusty faces. And that is the blood that was born to be spilled in the name of Freedom.

And, there will be blood. Thomas Jefferson said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants.”

That has become one parched and thirsty tree as a global financial elite have hacked off limb after limb. Mr. Jefferson, the time is well past due, Sir.

And yet, it occurs to me that despite “presiding over” what will turn out to be just the beginning of some serious hard times, The President doesn’t appear to have an opponent.

The republican nomination process reminds me of “Speed Dating”.

The heart of the GOP rises and falls as it flits from candidate to candidate hoping to find someone not entirely covered in warts.

The result? Each new candidate to enter the competition instantly becomes the front-runner. But after a brief discussion and a look at his baggage and the GOP is looking past him over his shoulder. Somebody, anybody with a good heart and a half a brain, please.

Governor Christie swore he wasn’t going to run and for three days he led the field.

I believe that if Dennis Rodman were to throw his hat in the ring he would soar to the top.

So my criterion for selecting is if they are undatable, and I wouldn’t want to spend three hours over dinner with them, I don’t want them to lead. So here we go, datable or undatable?

Herman Cain is the newest to jump in and right now he is number one. He said this in response to the occupiers of Wall Street. “Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself. It is not someone’s fault if they succeeded, it is someone’s fault if they failed.”

He added that the occupiers “should go figure out what America is all about.”

This might be a good time to mention that I actually did that. I found out what America is all about. I took a risk. I built a business. I created high value jobs. I made investment decisions based on lies. I learned that in America the game is rigged and the books are so cooked you could make gruel. Chew on that Herman.

If your pension fund blew all of your retirement money, how is that your fault? If you worked in the public sector and your city or state goes broke because they secretly misspent tax payer’s money on cocaine and hookers, how is that your fault?

If some jackals with names like Cerberus, Apollo, and Bain, (Mitt Romney), used a leverage buyout to get control of the company you worked for, and then borrowed heavily against it, while underfunding the pension plan, and bankrupting the company as a way to get rich, like they did to Mervyns, The Tribune Co., Linens n’ Things, and hundreds of other large employers with borrowing power, how is that your fault?

In 2006 alone, 667 U.S. companies were taken over by leveraged-buyout firms. Hundreds more were taken over in 2005 and during the first half of 2007, before the credit crunch hit. And remember, it was often the most profitable healthy companies that were bought out, because these were the companies that could be used to borrow the most money.

Which is it?  Either he doesn’t think those money making ventures that left vacant storefronts from one end of the country to the other had anything to do with unemployment. Or is it that like Obama, he doesn’t know anything about anything.

As a big time CEO for Godfather’s Pizza, you would think he might have read about all that stuff in the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. And what kind of President would he be?

Hey, Herman, how many Pizza Franchises does it take to fill an empty Mervyns Store?

There are four applicants for every job.

He doesn’t see any racism. So he probably wouldn’t see sexism, or ageism, or religious bigotry. But they are real. Prejudice is a fact of life. Bias is everywhere. Some people just don’t like some other people on account of…fill in the blank.

When we acknowledge that, we are able to elevate our thinking by embracing the uniqueness of the individual as we share this brief walk through time. Herman Cain is an arrogant member of the 1% who equates his personal success with his ability to lead at a very difficult time.

It would be like dating an African American Archie Bunker. Not only is he undatable, like the others, he has no compassion. He predicts he’ll get a third of the black vote, I predict he’ll only get one percent. As a matter of fact, with the Black unemployment rate hovering around 17% and his firm indication that he has no plan to create jobs for them, he stands a better chance of being dragged behind a pick-up truck.

As for Mitt Romney, he may be number two in the polls but he leads all candidates in job destruction. As head of Bain Capital he got rich while the employees of the companies he ran into the ground became unemployed. Now he’s going to create jobs? That to me is the sign of a shimmy. It doesn’t bother me that he is a Mormon, it bothers me that he is just another well-coiffed pretty boy who doesn’t mean a damn thing he says. Undatable.

Michelle Bachman. She cures gay people? Of what? I don’t like to be around people who even think about stuff like that. How can people like these ever create unity in our country when they are so disparaging of us? Undatable.

Newt Gingrich. Dating a man named Newt does come with draw backs. You would hate to introduce him to people, but you know, of all the candidates, he’s the closest thing they have to a ”ladies man.”

I know he doesn’t seem the type, kinda roly-poly and all, but he has had more GFs than Dobie Gillis.

He’s also a Family Values guy. He merged those characteristics nicely by divorcing the mother of his two daughters while she was dying of cancer and marrying another woman whom he also subsequently divorced. As President, would he fool around on us too? Undatable.

Rick Perry. He shot up the polls; he opened his mouth and apparently stunned even his wife and dropped to seventeenth place in a twelve candidate field. He reminds me of Martin Short trying to do his best Ronald Reagan. Unfortunately he is one of the new breed of politicians who believe that the best governing is done in secret. Undatable.

Even with the ears and the nasally voice, Ron Paul is starting to look kinda cute, huh? And he’s a Doctor. Your mother would like him.

Holder subpoenaed in gun “walking” investigation

I noted with interest that the Justice Department is deflecting criticism about its role in supplying the major Mexican drug cartels with an entire armory including high powered automatic assault rifles, las bombas, las grenadas and las bazookas. We know that some US law enforcement officers have been murdered with these weapons as well as tens of thousands of Mexican and American citizens. More than have been killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At the same time, the DOJ has been slow to investigate the financial crimes committed by Wall Street arguing that they have limited resources and must pursue the highest priorities.

So why did they then decide to go after California Compassionate Act compliant dispensaries as well as media they advertise in?

It wasn’t to create more jobs in California, that’s for sure. The sad reality is that the Mexican drug cartels have lost a huge revenue stream to these enterprises and they want it back. They own Eric Holder and he knows what would happen if he did not do as he was told.

In Mexico, there are almost as many severed heads of law enforcement officials being kicked around in the streets as soccer balls. GOOOAAAALLLLLLLLL!

His “gun walking” made them so powerful that he must now live in fear.

Like The Man said, “What recession?”

We all know that American wages have been stagnant for decades and are now declining at a time when food and energy prices continue to rise. We know that millions of our fellow citizens will stop receiving unemployment benefits over the next six months. Those people will be forced to turn to desperate measures just to survive.

But there is still a glimmer of hope, based on the theory of “trickle-down” economics; it can only be good news that the rich are getting richer.

Our amazing CEOs have done it again. No matter how difficult the business environment these geniuses of commerce always find a way to triumph. (Cue-up Queens we are the Champions and hum along) “No time for losers for we are the Champions…of the World.”

For all you do, from out sourcing jobs to countries that still permit slave and child labor, to propping up the phony currency arrangement with China, CEOs, this Bud’s for you.

There is joy in American board rooms. According to Forbes, “Compensation for the chief executives of America’s biggest corporations is way up in 2011, 28 percent higher than last year on average, according to GovernanceMetrics International. If you were already in the top quartile of high-paid plutocrats, your comp nearly doubled. Cash bonuses are triple what they were before the recession.”

Obviously, we need to make some serious changes in leadership because things are not getting better, they are getting worse. Join a protest, write a letter, register to vote, join a party, get informed, or send me an angry letter and tell me why I’m wrong, but do something to show you care.

George W. Mantor
The Real Estate Professor
Founder, American Foreclosure Resistance Movement
http://www.realtown.com/gwmantor/blog
http://www.gwmantor.hersid.com/

“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”  —  Mahatma Gandhi

~

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