The First Presidential Debate

OK, I can't help myself - how about we do an open thread? I'll start with a few basic questions:

What was your overall opinion of the debate? (questions, time spent on questions, etc)

Name two points from each candidate that you agreed with, and two you disagreed with, and why.

Who do you feel "won" based on content, and explanation of policies and platforms?

Who do you feel "won" based on presentation?

Overall, who do you feel came out on top?

Did the debates change your opinions at all?

Aaaaaannnnnddd let the debates, BEGIN!

Time for a Break

OK, fellow bloggers, Blogcatalog friends, and readers I have good and bad news.

Which do you want first? The good news? OK:

I have an opportunity to showcase my artwork for potential buyers and commissions. This is awesome news for me.

The bad news however...

This means for the next month or so I will be forced to seriously limit my time online. Not only to I have to collect, frame, or properly present what I already have, but finish and create new pieces. Much like crack, the blogging communities I love so much are either all or nothing. So, I am not MIA, but I will be scarce. Unless I Get my work done quickly - which isn't likely.

For now, however I leave you with a Blood for Blood - Wasted youth this is a live version in Baltimore and it is TAME compared to the Blood for Blood shows and Punk n' Hardcore shows I've been to in Baltimore. But it's still good shit. (For a clearer version of the music and words, check the second video out). Why is this song relevant to me?It's what I used to blare out of my car while tearing down the back roads after particularly brutal thesis reviews. It is my anthem from my senior year in art school - it's what I moshed to, it's what I bashed heads to, it's what I drank to, it's what I sculpted to. It's how I unwound. Instead of licking my wounds like a pitiful kitten I would scream this at the top of my lungs, in my car, until I felt better.

Yes, I have serious lung power!





What the hell, why not. Since I'm going down memory lane anyway, here's some Anti-Heroes Carte Blanche for Chaos:



Dropkick Murphys, playing Amazing Grace - and yes, the bagpipes used to drive my fellow seniors batty in the studios. But I didn't care.



And of course, my favorite, Utah Phillips, singing, "The bum on the plush".



Wait, one more Utah Phillips, Ani Difranco mix. This music - is so haunting. I did my best work listing to this album - "The past didn't go anywhere" this sang is called Bridges".

Hey Big Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

As everyone has heard, the US economy is in dire straights. In fact, we now hear about it ad nauseum. So what is the Anarchist's perspective on all of this? First and foremost, I'll reiterate my opinion about Capitalism. Capitalism unregulated is a self destructive economic system, that feeds on inequality, excessive wealth, and worst of all, greed over humanism. When the need to attain wealth begins to override solid common sense, and basic compassion you have an economy that will implode, all on it's own.

Now, starting about four years ago, I began to tell people that the inflation we were seeing was going to cause a real problem. It was simply based on observation, purely anecdotal, but I said it none the less. No one believed me. Years later, I continued to state that the (now worse) inflation was teetering on economic conditions that were ripe for an economic meltdown. "Conspiracy!" They yelled at me.

Well now, people are scrambling aren't they. Nobody listens to the Anarchist, said in my pest Eeyore impression.

Right, what was I talking about? The economy...

Today the debate is about the government writing a bail-out check to the tune of $700 billion dollars, with or without stipulations.

Now, let's work some thing out, here. First you have Frannie Mae et al imploding due to a bad housing market, or rather a real estate bubble. According to the New York Times Fannie Mae has been padding her caboose a bit to fluff the numbers:

After significant accounting problems, the companies since 2004 were required to hold 30 percent more capital than the minimum previously required, in effect capping their ability to purchase mortgages. [...] Henry M. Paulson Jr., announced the takeover over of Fannie and Freddie after advisers poring over the companies’ books concluded that Freddie’s accounting methods had overstated its capital cushion.

So, the company had purchased a high number of bad debt, and even though they were required to keep 30% more capital thus reducing their purchasing ability, they continued to purchase bad debt as the credit market froze.

As Bloomberg writes:

The purchases by Freddie and Fannie helped fuel the boom in lending that led to frozen credit markets, more than $514 billion in bank losses and the collapse of two of the country's biggest securities firms. [...]
Former Fannie Mae CEO Dan Mudd, 50, said in a 2006 interview that he planned to expand the companies' holdings to include more higher-risk loans. Anything else would be ``counterproductive,'' he told investors in March of that year. Brian Faith, a spokesman for Fannie, declined to comment.

And the CEO salary for last year was raised, as their ability to stay afloat dwindled:

From Reuters:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The head of Fannie Mae, a company chartered by Congress to help more Americans own homes, reaped a 7 percent rise in pay last year, to $13.4 million, while the company lost money and the country suffered its worst housing crisis in decades.

Furthermore, the subprime lending crisis is coming to a head with allegations of lenders intentionally falsifying application information, and generally taking bad risks that were not outlined by the CRA, a policy that required certain lenders to make mortgages and loans affordable or available to their non wealthy clientele of choice. Add a peppering of speculative lending based on an artificial boom in real estate and a smattering of lenders giving out subprime mortgages when they were not required to by regulation, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac taking on more risk than they feasibly could thus encouraging this lending, and what you have is a market imploded.

OK, and now on to AIG a multi billion dollar private insurance company who plays a similar role as Fannie Mae et al, but in the insurance world. Another large company who took risks in the real estate industry, and the global economy, and apparently had a bit of mismanagement going on. For a play by play by the numbers, read this article.

So what we have here, are companies who are privatized, who rail against government intervention, who get themselves into trouble, and then turn around and ask for a bail out, from the government, with no strings attached.

Really?

In what world, who here has ever borrowed money - from your mother even - who has ever borrowed money that have no strings attached? You can't get a $500 grant without the grantor crawling up your rear end to make sure you are fulfilling the goal you outlined in your grant proposal. You can't get a loan, a mortgage, a school scholarship without jumping through hoops of fire and signing consent agreements that you'll spend the money on what you say you will.

You can't get a credit card with a $200 dollar limit without stipulations. Even if you do have good credit.

But multi million dollar companies who play fast and loose with bad debt and speculative markets can get $700 billion dollars without some form of oversight?

Not with my tax dollars.

From PBS tonight, on News Hour, with Jim Lehrer show:

Various Democratic counterproposals included provisions that limit executive pay for firms asking for the bailout; greater congressional and independent agency oversight of the program; give the government an equity stake in the companies that are seeking a bailout; and help homeowners renegotiate mortgage terms.

However, the House minority leader, John Boehner of Ohio, said yesterday the Bush administration proposal should be passed quickly and without the add-ons. [...] REP. CLIFF STEARNS (R), Florida: Through these bailouts, our federal government is effectively risking hard-earned taxpayers' dollars to protect private-sector companies that utilize reckless investment strategies with little regard to the consequences.

RAY SUAREZ: Stearns and other members of the House Conservative Caucus echo many of the concerns across party lines now that Treasury has produced its sweeping plan. [...] (Chris Dodd) we're not going to write a check for $700 billion and walk away. Accountability issues, taxpayer concerns, what we do with the foreclosure issue are all legitimate issues that people are raising. Some maybe have more items they want to add, others less, but all of it kind of focused on the issue.

Of course, Republican John Boehnr of OH wants to nix any regulatory stipulations, and write the check as quickly as possible.

Of course these companies will need to be bailed out, or else our economy will utterly collapse. But I dare say that all of the citizens out there braying on about how great private free market free from government regulation is should sit up and take notice.

Left to their own devices, these mega companies cause more harm than good, and still require a babysitter to keep them out of trouble. Anyone who is still convinced that government interference, and only interference was the sole cause of this needs to look at the numbers again. Risky business ventures, bad accounting, poor budgets that allow CEO's to collect millions as their company goes up in flames, these are bad decisions made by greedy men.

That is what the "free market" encourages. this is what the deregulated market creates.

In a way, I would like to see that implosion happen. In a way, little old vindictive me wants to sit back as we enter into an economic depression because of these greedy companies, and say "See! See! I told you this was a bad idea!" In a way, I want it to implode so it can be rebuilt the right way.

Of course, millions of innocent people will be the victims, and not the greedy companies and their golden boys who made enough money off the backs of those who will pay the price to buy their own island, and hide away until the rage settles down. And they can safely return to the states without the fear of being lynched.

The Simple Difference between Anarchism and State.

Although Anarchism is a complex topic, I thought it would be prudent to outline some basic differences between Anarchist philosophies and structures, and State based, centralized government structures as well as some basic economic differences using simple, plain, examples for the purpose of comparison.

Let's start right away:

I will use something we can all relate to - our own families and everyday life experiences to offer a simple comparison of the two social structures.

State based Government

In a state based, or authoritarian based social system, you have one or several people who assume a position of authority and power, who make the rules, enforce the rules, and the rest simply follow along. In a family based example, this would be akin to say, one parent making all decisions with very little input from other family members.

The rules, although some may be legitimate and logical, are strictly set, and so too is the punishment with little regard to individual circumstances, and with little regard to the fact that the rules may not even benefit the family. For example, while rules may state that certain people have certain chores, the burden of the chores may be undue on one person, or unmanageable, or even unreasonable.

Other rules for the household may be so arbitrary that the family finds them to be a burden on them. Essentially, you get a dictator like rule with one person saying do as I say, or pay the consequences.

Anarchism

In a similar fashion, the Anarchist household will allow the adults in the house to have some form of authority over the children, but not each other. Their authority of the younger ones is based on a sliding scale with consideration for the child's age, experience, knowledge and ability. Rules are common consensus, and agreed upon by both adults and children, to a reasonable extent, and the rules are often not even spoken.

The family "rules" are flexible and subject to change according to the family's needs. Leadership by way of teaching proper behavior and responsibility is a matter of discipline, not punishment, and, no one has total authority or final say with regards to family decisions.

Most families actually work like this. It's a natural state of living to find ways top work collaboratively and come to compromises and general rules more so than having one authority deciding everything for everyone else.

We rarely need a mediator or law system to hash out disputes, and come to agreeable terms. As reasonable humans, we do this ourselves. Although sometimes a mediator is called for, they have no more authority over anyone else, they simply help everyone calm down, see things rationally from a non participating point of view.

Economics

Again, I will use similar examples.

Capitalism

Capitalism is the most sought after form of economics by State based governments, as the world sees a need for "free" trade.

In a family, Capitalism would work like this:

One family member is the head of the household. Much like a CEO, President, or upper management, they get to make the rules, Dictate working conditions, set the schedule, the wages, and reap the benefits while they juggle the paperwork.

All other family members would be "workers" who are assigned chores and duties, and are paid for their work according to their "market value". (IE< they get an allowance). The allowance is then used to purchase the use of products in the home, or as rent, etc. Those with the least attractive jobs get less than those with "better" household chores.

The CEO and upper management family members reap the benefits of a clean, well ordered house, without actually having to do the grunt work themselves. Plus, with allowances being paid in, they get a profit, too.

Anarchism

In an Anarchist set up, each family member contributes equally, to the best of their ability, and everyone reaps the rewards. Working collaboratively they get the house clean, the bills paid, and chores done in half the time, with a fraction of the effort and hassle required by it's opposite, Capitalism.

Often times people call tis call for more benefit with less work lazy. Anarchists call it working smarter, not harder.

Again, this is how most families work. The work load is shared, as are the benefits, and, although one family member may rise to a leadership position in one area (say, finances) and others in other roles (say, cooking, or tending the children) the work load is still shared, and "cooperative leadership" not authority is what makes it run smoothly.

It is what provides the greatest benefit with the least resistance.

You can also make the comparison with something as common place as splitting the dinner bill.

A capitalist would enter into say, a pizza parlor, decide s/he wants a gourmet pizza that is very large 9by default, not choice) and costs $20. S/he will buy the pizza, eat a few slices, and take the rest home. S/he may eat a few more slices the next day, but after sitting in the fridge a few days, the rest will essentially walk itself to the garbage bin.

An Anarchist would look at the same pizza, say, I don't want to spend $20 on something I couldn't possibly eat all myself, and calls a few friends.

Between four people, the whole pizza is eaten, and it only cost each of them $5.

Which sounds better?

I am unsure of why the concept of sharing - money, power, prestige - makes people so uncomfortable, or, for that matter why the notion that working smarter and not harder across the board is something bad in everyone's eyes.

Maybe someone could enlighten me as to why sharing workloads AND the benefits is so scary?