A Cat's Eye View

Baxter here. My Female Human has been Too Busy to Blog this Week since her one feeble Attempt on Monday. I guess I'll have to do the Hard Work yet again.

This is a new Picture she took of Me standing next to my Favorite Toy. It's a green Bird-like thing with magenta fuzzy wings. The Best Part about it is it makes a pitiful Squeaky Noise when I pick it up and throw it into the air. Kind of like a real Bird or Mouse. I really like Toys that make noises.

I played with my previous Favorite Toy so much it eventually lost all its feathers and became a shell of its former Self. So my Female Human bought me this new one. I also have a couple that rattle when I toss them around. All of these are Very Good to Play With in the middle of the Night, especially in the Bedroom where my Humans and That Dog are trying to Sleep.

However, I digress. It's time for me to report on a few News tidbits that have popped up in the past few days.

First of all, the Bush Human (who is called a Lame Duck, which I find Confusing) has finally authorized the release of $17 billion to Chrysler and GM from the TARP funds to help them Make It through the New Year. But the money comes with Strings Attached. It's like giving a Stray Cat a meal and a warm place to sleep and then Dragging him off to the Vet's. No Free Lunch for this Industry!

"The plan pumps $13.4 billion by mid-January into the companies from the fund that Congress authorized to rescue the financial industry. But the two companies have until March 31 to produce a plan for long-term profitability, including concessions from unions, creditors, suppliers and dealers."

Hmmmm...where were All Those Strings when they gave all that Money to the Investment Banks?

In Other News, some old pictures of Barack Obama from his College Years have surfaced and the story is Making the Rounds. Apparently back in 1980 when Obama was at Occidental College, a photographer friend, Lisa Jack, asked if he'd let her do a photo shoot with him, and he complied. The result are some Great Pictures of the Obama Human when he was Young and Carefree. A few of My Favorites, courtesy of Time Magazine (see Link for the Rest of the Story):

Personally I like the Last One best. But we can all be Grateful that Ms. Jack hid the Pictures until after the Election.

Of course Most of You have heard by now that Bristol Palin's possible Mother-in-Law has been arrested on drug charges. Pretty Sad Commentary on who Bristol's Mom Sarah has been "pallin' around with," as Sarah would say - you Betcha!

So, what's up with that Blagojevitch Human? They've got him Recorded on a Wiretap - isn't that what the Humans call "red-handed"? - and yet he just declared he would Fight till his Last Breath because he "didn't do anything Wrong." He must have a Bigger Pair than most Tomcats I've ever met. Is he a Sociopath? Part of the Definition of a Sociopath:

"Manipulative and Conning: They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.

Grandiose Sense of Self: Feels entitled to certain things as 'their right.'

Pathological Lying: Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.

Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt: A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way."

As the Humans say, "If the Shoe Fits...put it on."

My Female Human is going to talk about the whole issue of the Obama Human picking that Warren Human to do the Invocation at his Inauguration. That is just Too Much for Me to Deal With right at the Moment.

For now, I'm going to head off and Play with my Favorite Toy and snort some Catnip. Wishing All of You a wonderful Friday Night.

Saturday Meanderings

It's very cold out today. Ordinarily I wouldn't know that since I rarely venture out in the morning in the winter. But today was the day that our neighborhood association (of which there are about 100 members who pay dues, but only about nine of us who actually do things) puts up decorations along the fence in our local park.

These decorations are big wooden boards which are painted with holiday pictures, that have to be attached to the fences with plastic ties. The pictures (houses with snow, mittens, snowflakes and other non-religious but cheerful images) were designed by one of our members, who is an artist, years ago. The pictures were drawn on the boards and then local neighborhood children painted them with waterproof paint. We've been putting them up for the past nine years or so and everyone enjoys them.

Luckily for the nine people who do things in this group, the county park workers store the boards in one of their buildings all year and they bring them out in their truck and help us distribute the boards along the fence at even intervals. And even better, the high school coach whose mom lives in our neighborhood brings his entire football team to help put them up. Without them it would take us all day.

So this morning, bright and early at 9:30, I arrived at the park armed with a Box o' Joe and four dozen donuts from Dunkin Donuts. A crowd of teenagers (mostly boys) had already gathered at the meeting place. They eagerly put up my folding table and the donuts and coffee were placed on the table, which was immediately swarmed by cold hungry kids. When they were done it was as if a plague of locusts had visited - only a few crumbs left.

After they had been fortified with sugar, they were ready to work, and I didn't need to do much after that. A few more people from the neighborhood showed up but the teenagers did 99% of the work. Most of them did the job last year so they knew the drill, and they showed the new recruits what to do. DH arrived and took some pictures for our neighborhood newsletter and by 11:15 it was all over and I could return home and warm up!

Moving on...I heard that "our" area of the Adirondacks got an ice storm yesterday. Apparently the whole eastern portion of the country, including Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, got hit with it and lots of people have lost power.

I was glad to hear that FranIam and Mr. HeIs did not lose power, but they did get hit with the ice and unfortunately have lost trees in their neighborhood.

Assuming our cabin was hit with ice as well, I doubt any further roofing or other work will be done on it for quite some time! In fact, work may be done for the season. I expect there will be nothing but snow up there from now until April. However, we will probably still go up and check on it over New Year's weekend so we can try out the Jeep. Think the ice will have gone away by then? (No, neither do I). At least we had no power to lose!

On another subject, check out this link which will bring you to a site called "Igetblues.com" which has posted two videos that you have to watch. I can't embed them so you must go there. They show what life would be like without the blues (picture the Rolling Stones and the polka...enough said).

On a more serious note, as you already know, the Senate did not pass the bailout bill for the auto industry, which is not good for us since we just bought a Chrysler product and it has a lifetime warranty. Lifetime of the car or lifetime of the company? If the latter, it may be a very short warranty.

However, Bush is apparently going to give them some of the $700 billion already allotted by Congress for the Wall Street bailout. I guess Bush doesn't want to be known as the president who let the American automobile industry go down the tubes.

While I don't have sympathy for the CEOs of these companies, who have not made much effort to keep their industry in pace with the times, something many people forget is that their workers and retirees are costing more because of healthcare insurance so there is less money for innovation, quality or keeping the costs of the cars down vs. competition. If our country had universal healthcare as many foreign carmakers' countries do, this would be taken out of the equation and the disparity in wages between Detroit and foreign companies would not be that large.

The GOP is trying to blame things on the UAW, but there are many factors at play here. Besides, the GOP was perfectly happy to throw $700 billion at Wall Street with basically no strings attached, but can't manage to give the car companies $14 billion without adding so many conditions that the talks broke down? Come on, it's class warfare pure and simple. They just want to blame the union.

If anyone thinks it's OK to let the American car industry go under, this Op Ed article in the NY Times reminds us what happens when car companies go out of business.

"Misery has rarely been mentioned as a reason to pass an auto industry bailout. But walk through the Packard plant on a December day and you will know that once a car company disappears, in southeast Michigan at least, nothing comes along to take its place."

Detroit has been trying to redevelop this factory since it closed in 1957. You can go here to see a whole group of pictures of the abandoned building, which was once a marvel of architecture in its day.

Let's hope whatever Washington does, we can save the American auto industry and prevent a further meltdown of our remaining industrial strength.

Turning the page? I don't think so...

This week McCain's adviser, Greg Strimple, publicly announced that the McCain campaign would try to distract the voters from the financial crisis by attacking Obama. In his own words:

"'We are very well-funded, and we are looking for a very aggressive last 30 days,'' said senior adviser Greg Strimple. 'We're looking to turning the page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr. Obama's liberal, aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for the Americans.'"

Sticking to this script, Sarah Palin has been trying to tie Obama to Bill Ayers, a former member of the radical Weather Underground group, which carried out a series of bombings during the early 1970s. From the same article linked above Palin has been saying:

"Obama 'is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country,' Palin, 44, the Republican vice presidential nominee, told donors at a fundraiser last night in Costa Mesa, California. 'This, ladies and gentleman, is not the kind of change that I think we should be believing in.'"

Palin and her backers are ignoring the fact that the man in question is now a respected professor, the bombings took place 40 years ago when Obama was only 8 years old, and Palin herself was hardly out of diapers at the time.

In the meantime, Obama has finally come out with ads pointing out that McCain was one of the "Keating Five" from the 1980s, a much more recent and pertinent connection to the current crisis facing our nation. Although McCain was ultimately cleared of illegal actions in the scandal, he was reprimanded for "poor judgment."

If McCain wants to try to "turn the page" away from our economic crisis and attack Obama to keep the American public's mind off the mess he helped get us in, it isn't a wise strategy. How many other skeletons does a 72-year-old man have in his closet compared to a 47-year-old man? I'd wager a lot more. Two can play this game.

In the meantime, Wall Street is continuing to tank, with stocks down nearly 500 points to below 10,000this morning after the markets in Europe went into free-fall overnight. This isn't the kind of financial problem you can just wave $700 billion at and it will make it go away. This is a serious, long-term financial debacle and it will take more than Congress passing a bailout package to fix it.

McCain will try to turn the page, but I think the American public won't let him do it, as long as their 401ks are going down the tubes and their mortgage payments are in arrears and there is so little confidence in the entire banking system. They'll just keep going back to the first chapter and seeing that the hero of this story is not going to be John "Keating Five" McCain. There is a reason Obama's poll numbers keep going up no matter how many attacks McCain and his henchwoman make on Obama.

As President Dubya famously said, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me...you can't get fooled again."

Black Monday - Deja Vu All Over Again

So, it seems that the bailout that had supposedly been agreed upon, has failed to pass in the House of Representatives. According to the New York Times,

"The vote against the measure was 228 to 205, with 133 Republicans turning against President Bush to join 95 Democrats in opposition. The bill was backed by 140 Democrats and 65 Republicans."

Apparently, Nancy Pelosi made a cranky speech before the vote, saying it was all the Republicans' fault that we were in this mess, and it didn't go over well with some of the Republicans.

"Immediately after the vote, many House members appeared stunned. Some Republicans blamed Ms. Pelosi for a speech before the vote that disdained President Bush’s economic policies, and did so, in the opinion of the speaker’s critics, in too partisan a way.

'Clearly, there was something lacking in the leadership here,' said Representative Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia.

Democrats, meanwhile, blamed the Republicans for not coming up with enough support for the measure on their side of the aisle."

I don't know whether the bailout is right or wrong. I do wonder whether, if Ms. Pelosi wanted the bill to pass, why she would have said something partisan right before the vote which she knew would anger Republicans. Or, maybe she didn't want it to pass, and can blame the Republicans now for not voting for it.

All I know is, the stock market fell 778 points today, the biggest single loss since Black Monday in 1987.

In the meantime, Wachovia, the country's 4th largest bank, is being gobbled up by Citigroup. There are so many buyouts and mergers going on this month that it's like watching a game of PacMan.


The Times had an interesting chart in their Sunday Business section showing how the various investment firms had gradually been swallowed up over the years. It really started back in the 1980s.

Remember E.F. Hutton, founded in 1904 ("When E.F. Hutton speaks...")? Became part of Shearson-Lehman-American Express in the 1980s. Then Lehman Brothers was spun off later on, and we know what happened to them.

Remember Salomon Brothers (founded 1910)? Now part of Citicorp.

Smith Barney? Yep, Citicorp again.

What about Dean Witter? Remember that name? They were around since 1924. They're part of Morgan-Stanley, which is turning into a bank holding company and will be subject to greater regulation.

Then there's Paine-Webber (remember "Thank you Paine Webber")? Now part of UBS Securities.

The chart is an interactive chart that is part of an article called Wall Street, R.I.P., and it really brought home how consolidated all of these firms have become, and how the basic way Wall Street functions will be changed in the future, no matter what happens with the bailout.

"The huge bailout package being debated in Congress may succeed in stabilizing the financial markets. But it is too late to help firms like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, which have already disappeared. Merrill Lynch, whose trademark bull symbolized Wall Street to many Americans, is being folded into Bank of America, located hundreds of miles from New York, in Charlotte, N.C.

For most of the financiers who remain, with the exception of a few superstars, the days of easy money and supersized bonuses are behind them. The credit boom that drove Wall Street’s explosive growth has dried up. Regulators who sat on the sidelines for too long are now eager to rein in Wall Street’s bad boys and the practices that proliferated in recent years."

Personally I think that's a good thing.

But what isn't a good thing, in my opinion, is consolidating even more money and power into the hands of even fewer financial institutions. If those regulators don't keep an eye on them in the future, we may be facing an even bigger mess next time around.