2008 october

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	2008, OCTOBER

October 27

Every time I call Earthlink with a problem abut anything, they tell me I should stop using MacMail and install their FREE Earthling Total Access software. (Actually, they say “Earthlink,” but as usual my typo seems eerily appropriate, so I’m leaving it.) I have resisted so far because Mac’s Mail program is simple and I’m used to it. Whatever new, wonderful, fancy, and probably complicated and unreliable features other mail programs have, I’m pretty sure I don’t want the bother.

But I finally gave in and let them send me the Total Access CD. I popped it into my computer, installed it in a trice, and went to open it to find out what it can do for me. The first thing it wants (after I perjure myself and say I have read and swear to abide by the rules—does ANYBODY actually read that stuff?) is my current e-mail address, which I duly enter. “Sorry,” it tells me, “that address is incorrect. Please enter your e-mail address.”

1-888-Earthlink to the rescue. To give them credit, they are always there, always answer the phone the same day, and practically always fix the problem. Today is no exception. My consultant told me that, contrary to what I may have been told by his colleagues, Total Access is not essential to my continued well-being. It is “actually a program meant mostly for Windows, and you should keep using MacMail.” He advised me to uninstall it, which I did. I’m much happier now.

By the way, this will be my last post for the month; the page is as long as it will get. If something comes up that won't wait, I'll pretend it's already November. Don't forget to vote. And vote smart.

October 24

AIG has appointed a new vice chairman and in the process defined a new executive position for our times: Chief Restructuring Officer.

MarketWatch London bureau chief reports on Fed chairman-delect Alan Greenspan’s testimony before the aptly-named House Oversight Committee: “…those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder's equity (myself especially) are in a state of shocked disbelief."

"I'm shocked, shocked, to find gambling here," said Captain Renault in Rick’s Café. I thought Claude Rains was more convincing.

October 23

When we were kids, my dad used to make up bedtime stories. To make it more interesting for us (and I suppose more challenging for him), my sister and I each got to choose a few elements to be included and then my dad would weave a story around them. I remember one of the things I always wanted was a really big tree. My sister wanted roller skates.

This was before my father became a psychiatrist, so the tree was just a tree and the skates just wheels on your feet.

I thought it might be fun to try something similar. Rather than solicit ideas, I’ve decided to just take the morning paper and see what kind of story I could make. Here goes:

Long, long ago in a far-off land known as La, there lived a man named James who wanted his daughter to be a Princess. “I shall move my family west from the land of La, across the river and over the mountains to the land of La La,” he announced, “where Britney can remove her clothing and gyrate while singing songs to children. Her umbilical rotation will make her a Princess.” And it was so.

Sadly, Britney learned some bad habits in La La, including chewing gum with her mouth open and driving into people and running away. One day she ran over a member of the Mongols Motorcycle Club (usually referred to in the Politically Correct media as the Down Syndrome Club) and tried to flee. This was unwise in a place where her every move was followed by the palace guard, and she was apprehended before she could turn the corner. Although the victim--placated by a substantial grant of largesse from James--forgave Britney, the Commander of the Guard was less generous. Jealous that her popularity was greater than his own, he determined to make an example of her and called her to answer to a jury of her peers on the charge of operating a chariot without a license. This turned out to be more difficult than he imagined, as no one could determine who would qualify as Britney’s peers. The group eventually chosen was unable to decide the matter. It was not clear whether the sticking point was “driving” or “without a license,” but in any case Britney was set free.

Monster, the Mongol she hit, did not fare as well. He suffered from unexpected delayed consequences of his injuries and required extensive medical care. Unable to turn to his colleagues, who had all been indicted for racketeering after a three-year undercover probe, he filed a claim with his insurance company, WellPoint. Regrettably, he learned that WellPoint was not, as he had been told, the largest health insurance company in the land but was now in fact an investment bank and financial services company. They offered, for a fee, to advise him on the investments in his Health Savings Account. They offered, for another fee, to maintain the account. And to handle disbursements, overdrafts, transfers, checks, and monthly statements. For another, and another, and another fee. As for his actual medical care, our suffering Mongol was on his own.

Since he had spent virtually all of his settlement on a new, tricked-out chopper, Monster was forced to put his hospital bills on his credit card. And since the employment prospects for a member of a disbanded motorcycle-and-methamphetamine club are somewhat limited in today’s economy, he had difficulty making the payments and, at 24% interest, soon found himself facing huge debts.

In this at least, he was fortunate to be a California Mongol, instead of one from Asia. There, as in China, Mongolia’s southern neighbor, the government deals severely with credit card debt. In China, in fact, default on a $3000 bill could result in a 5-year imprisonment. But Monster managed to recover and get out of the hospital without actually paying anything, and he then changed his name to Turnip and invited the folks at WellPoint (who, it turned out, had been the bank to issue his Mastercard) to partner with the Red Cross and see what they could get out of him. They got the Harley.

Not likely To Be Continued…

October 22

Big Three Update:

I see that Kirk Kerkorian, who dumped 7.3 million shares of Ford on Monday, is planning to unload the rest of his holdings, another 133.5 million shares. I don't think that will do the stock price much good. And two of Ford's board members and the CFO departed last week. So the evolution continues, and the direction things are going is becoming clearer.

Meanwhile, I’ve had my Prius for two years and I love it more with each passing day and each incremental increase in the cost of gas. But it isn’t perfect.

Four times now I have walked into the garage to discover that the battery was dead. Not the big battery that runs the motor but the separate 12-volt that starts the car. And unlocks the door.

The battery’s tucked away in its own little compartment in the trunk, easily accessible until it goes dead, when the compartment automatically locks. I’m sure Toyota had a reason for this. To get around the slight problem this presents, they added a separate jump-starting terminal in the engine compartment up front.

The first time my battery died, I learned that the Auto Club will not jump start a Prius. I’m not sure why—the procedure is spelled out clearly enough in the manual. Fortunately I was able to do it myself and went happily on my way. A good thing, too, since the alternative would have been to tow it. But it’s a front wheel drive and when the engine is off, the wheels are locked and you can’t get it out of Park. How do you jack up the front end and hook up the tow truck IN THE GARAGE?

The next time, I jumped it, drove around to recharge the battery, and took it in to the dealer who said everything was fine, but “the battery sometimes goes dead on these Priuses if you don’t drive them for a couple of days.” Excuse me? A couple of days?

This last time, I got it going and went straight to the dealer. He found that he couldn’t start it either, until I told him you had to put the key in. This does not inspire confidence in the Service Department. He noted that the battery was “low,” so he recharged it and then checked the battery and the electrical system. Everything is fine.

The Service Manager advised me to wait until it happens again and have it towed to them, so they could check it with the battery dead. I’m not sure how this will help, but he basically says if it ain’t broke he can’t fix it, so I have to break it. He didn’t have any suggestions as to how to get it out of the garage. I guess I’ll have to start backing it in….

Postscript: I sent this letter to Toyota’s customer service people. They eventually called back with some plausible theories. They told me to:

1. Disable the Smart Key system, which was constantly using power by sending out signals to the key in my pocket. Unfortunately, I don’t have a Smart Key system to disconnect.

2. Keep the key away from the car, for the same reason.

3. Disconnect the auxillary terminal. They told me to have the dealer do this, because it required a wrench. Since that would make it impossible to jump start the car next time the battery dies, I have decided to ignore this advice and carry jumper cables wherever I go.

October 21

The trial of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens is all over but the shouting (or “closing arguments” as we call them). All over but the shouting, the verdict, and the reelection. He may well get reelected even if convicted, which could be awkward. He won’t be eligible to serve, and they don’t elect a Vice Senator to take over in case of “disability,” so Governor Palin will have to appoint somebody else. I hear former State Trooper Mike Wooten might be available….

Stevens has testified that “we have lots of things in our house that don’t belong to us.” Like the entire ground floor. And the Viking gas grill he says is on loan from his buddy Bill Allen. Besides, he says, he doesn’t even use it. And all of his furniture, which Allen loaned him when he, Allen, took all of Stevens’ old furniture out of the house. Besides, Stevens says, he doesn’t even like the stuff.

I’m sorry we didn’t get to hear the full testimony. I was hoping for the perfect combination of interlocking excuses, along the lines of "I never borrowed your damn lawnmower and besides, I returned it in perfect condition. Furthermore, it was broken when I got it."

The Senator has an uphill battle. He is fighting “Public integrity attorney Brenda Morris.” How can you win against someone identified as a “public integrity attorney?”

October 18

You heard it here first (unless you already heard it somewhere else): what we continue to call, mostly out of nostalgia, the Big Three automakers will become the not-particularly-big One. It’s hard to guess which one will be left, though. Chrysler currently has nothing to recommend it that I can see, and one bailout is all you get, so I’m guessing it will go first. It could get swallowed up by GM, as has been rumored, but even for free it will be a bad deal. Meanwhile GM, hemorrhaging cash for years, is trying to hold on with such aberrations as the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid, but pinning its future on the Volt. The latest rumor is that, if they ever get it on the market, it will cost in the neighborhood of $40,000. That’s a pretty expensive neighborhood in hard times. If you have that much lying around, or you can get a loan, it will take you something over 8 years (assuming you get 100 MPG—which you won’t—and gas averages $4 over the next 7 years) to break even compared with a $20,000 20MPG model. Good luck with that, GM.

So what about Ford? Ford has announced that next year it will market a 64 MPG car. In Britain. They can’t sell it here because of the exchange rate, so they are planning to retool 3 different truck plants to make “European-style” compacts in this country.

Ford’s chief of manufacturing, Bill Russo, says “we absolutely need to make more smaller vehicles as soon as possible.” That’s the kind of forward thinking that has typified the American auto industry: the Japanese have been eating their breakfast and lunch for decades and they just now noticed they’re losing weight.

To help out our auto industry, the government is guaranteeing $25B in loans at a third of the going interest rate, which would be approximately nothing. “This is exactly the kind of project the government should help fund,” said Russo. “It’s going to change the kind of vehicle America drives.” No, Bill, it’s not. It may, if you’re lucky, change the brand. But America is already driving the kind of vehicle you don’t make yet.

October 17

No wonder the economy is collapsing. People are (God help us!) starting to save rather than borrow and spend.

Why is it a bad thing that people are spending less of what they don’t have to buy stuff they don’t need? When did “economy” stop meaning “thrifty and efficient use of material resources” [Very old edition of Webster’s]? Was there some paradigm shift when I wasn’t looking? Is “Economy Class” now the expensive seats? When did a citizen become a consumer, as though consumption was our reason for being?

When, for that matter, did Growth become the defining factor of our welfare? It’s so important that we dare not even suggest the alternative. Words like stability, or even contraction, are unthinkable. We can only consider the Rate of Growth, and there are only three possibilities for the economy: robust growth, slow growth, or “negative growth,” a term coined because economists have to recognize the possibility of contraction, but they don’t have to call it that.

Real economic growth refers to (or should) increased prosperity for the population, and I’m all for it—although it might be better if it actually reached the people who need it. But the talking heads all seem to believe that growth is continually increasing spending and borrowing. They fail to notice that spending more than you have may make for interesting numbers on a graph, but that has no relation to fundamentally improved well-being.

Now our leaders are promising “money” to support the stupidity and/or chicanery of borrowers and lenders, to help them do more of the same. Let’s hope nobody notices that that money does not exist.

October 16

The election is giving me a headache, the economy is giving me a stomach ache, and the stock market is making me seasick. I’m gonna go lie down and listen to some music.

Have you ever heard of “noise music?”

At first I thought it was a joke, just another oxymoron to add to my list. But apparently it’s been around for a long time, at least since John Cage’s 1952 “composition,” 4’33” consisting of four minutes and 33 seconds of nothing. (For those of you interested in this sort of thing, Cage’s silence is protected by copyright. Mike Batt paid a six-figure settlement to the John Cage Trust in 2002 after publishing “A One Minute Silence,” despite his claim that “ours is better silence. It’s digital. Their’s is only analogue.”)

If only they could have left it at that.

But no.

Noise has come to popular music. To a large extent noise has been popular music for some time, but usually mixed with some rhythm or lyric or at least something intentional. "Music" is now produced with a random sound generator, FX software, and anything that can produce hiss, hum, static, and feedback.

Think copyright difficult. Ill logical extend deconstructivism not dead. music holder be ear.

Quote no comfort lyric, groove predict no, work brain harder. bet like ter . some mother garbagegarblegarb impregnable metazoan pinnacle forensic e pluribel vocapoca ars lungfishufflutter micoien lpine 0j;lwi34p987cnp0q9w73;lojkjn

Adkllfj np-98qw7r-34

October 15

In 1972 Raiffesen-Bank and Boerenleenbank, two Dutch banking cooperatives decided to join forces and several years later formally adopted the name derived from the first two letters of each. Today there are several branches along California’s Central Coast. I’m thinking that no one involved in the original merger spoke English—would you give your financial institution a name that sounded like “rob a bank?”

October 13

I promised to come back to this.

Where is it written that health care for prisoners has to be better than health care for the unincarcerated? Right here in Amendment VIII to the Constitution: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” The courts have ruled that prisoners must have access to care, and that care must meet the “standard of the community” to avoid being characterized as cruel and unusual. Access and quality are two separate issues: if prisons simply mirrored the community, 20% of California’s convicts would go without health care. But the care of prisoners has to meet the standard of those on the outside who get care. In other words, San Quentin is a big, free HMO and it has to be at least as good as Kaiser Permanente.

Hmm, there’s a thought: what if the prison system just did away with their own system, which sucks by federal decree, and signed up with Kaiser—which hasn’t received a federal decree yet? We have contracted away the prisons themselves in the form of private, for-profit correctional institutions so why not contract out the medical care? They would probably have to pay higher premiums than you and I do, since the prison population is a fairly high-risk group, but I’ll bet it would still be less than it costs now.

I notice that Amendment VIII, quoted in its entirety above, doesn’t actually refer to prisons at all. Since the courts have characterized substandard medical care as cruel and unusual punishment, it seems to me that that means universal health care is in fact mandated by the Constitution. I suppose it depends on the meaning of “inflicted,” but does it matter whether one’s circumstances are inflicted by poverty rather than law enforcement? And even so, given our current public policy, an argument could be made that poverty is at least in part inflicted by the government. Seems to me that people who can’t afford coverage ought to have a viable class action.

October 12

Here’s the good news: the market is not dropping today. It’s Sunday.

So far, it looks like lowering interest rates wasn’t the twig for the market to grab onto after plunging over the cliff. I don’t know when it will hit bottom, but I’m pretty sure it’s gonna hurt. In the cartoons, I’d be the guy standing underneath, looking up…. Today’s review of my 401K highlighted a slight change in my personal status: I have gone from retired to unemployed.

And on a completely related note, the President’s approval rating last I looked (sometime last month) was 19%. Nineteen percent! That’s incredible! The population is around 300 million. If you assume that half of them are under age or under detention and excluded from the poll, that means that about 28 million people think he’s doing a good job! Where do these people live???

They must be the ones who think McCain looks like their grampa. Incidentally, if you think McCain supports your position on any given subject, you’re right. Depending on what day it is. His deeply held beliefs seem to shift with the political winds. You can Google “McCain flip-flops” and check out any of the several million results to see what I mean, or just check out this one: www.alternet.org/election08/90956/?page=entire

I suppose there are reasons to support the guy, but straight talk is not one of them.

Oh, I almost forgot. In case you were wondering about taxes, here’s how the candidates’ schemes break down.

THIS WAS AN INTERESTING TABLE, BUT TOO HARD TO COPY HERE. TAKE MY WORD FOR IT.

Source: Tax Policy Center (a joint venture of Urban Institute & Brookings Institution) quoted in L.A.Times

These figures are based on the pre-crash plans; whoever wins, your actual taxes will be somewhat higher, though neither candidate will tell you that. Thought you might like to know.

October 11

If you have been paying attention, you may have noticed that when I add something new to the top of this page, I subtract something from the other end. The page can only be so long. So I am trying something new: archives. If you want to go back to something earlier than this month, click on the NEW BUTTON, "B.S. Archive," at the top right to go to the previous month. You can go further back a month at a time, all the way back to August. It’s a pain in the butt to make a bunch of new pages for old material, so August is as far back as I’m going. Unless you happen to be a publisher, in which case I have everything stashed away—call me.

Now for today, just a brief observation. I’ll start thinking again tomorrow.

And I thought the L.A.Times was bad. North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency, apparently reacting to the world’s speculation on the health of their Dear Leader, reported that Kim Jong Il had appeared in public to watch a college soccer game, so there. The report failed to note where the game was played or whether he had actually attended the game or watched it on TV in a bar. Or who won, though I suspect that, as one of the participants was Kim Il Sung University, the outcome was foreordained.

The Times, in reporting the report of the report, cautioned that the report could not immediately be verified.

October 10

Not a book review:

Through a somewhat convoluted set of circumstances, I found myself in possession of a pre-publication copy of a book scheduled for release in the fall. Since it was free, I thought I would read it. The name of the book is “Happiness” and it’s about what it is or how to get it or why you don’t have it or something like that. The authors are two psychologists. One of them is described on the book jacket as “the Jedi Master of happiness,” while his co-author is referred to as “the Indiana Jones of Positive Psychology.” I read the introduction, written by yet another psychologist who coincidentally is the wife of the Jedi Master and the mother of the Indiana Jones. Her twin daughters, also psychologists, were mentioned in the introduction but I don’t know how or if they figured in the book in any other way. I wasn’t willing to read any further to find out.

There are some books you just know you don’t want to read, just as there are some families you just know you don’t want to meet. So when this one comes out, try it if you wish, but don’t look to me for a review. I had Happiness in my grasp, but I let it go.

A book review:

I just read a book that was so bad I couldn’t read it. The Art Thief, by Noah Charney. The premise, three art thefts in three cities that are—surprise!--connected, was sufficiently interesting that I tried over and over, but the writing was so bad I kept throwing the book across the room (it’s a paperback). I finally decided it was bad enough that it was worth going through just to highlight the most egregious passages, some of which I share with you herewith:

“The only light in the room shone from a silver-necked halogen lamp [on the desk].” But a “Fauvist painting hung spotlit on the walnut wall.”

“…gun-metal gray bones that shone like ink…”

“Swaddled in concrete and steel and glass, the London night bore a soft misty rain that ran like gauze…”

“The illuminant sign…hummed noiselessly.”

“Wickenden’s face was emotionless, but the space behind his eyes gave him away.”

And my personal favorite, a passage to make Bulwer-Lytton circumgyrate vertiginously in his dank and dismal sepulcher: “His thoughts fed fuel to the speeding train of his quivering eyes, his temples beaten by the sunlight streaming in through the huge glass window at the front of the bus, a refracted barrage of white on white, an avalanche of absolute emptiness.”

Charney’s research leaves a little to be desired, as well; he makes the statement that “every president of the United States had been a Freemason,” an assertion that went wrong right after Washington. (There were 14 if you count LBJ, who never went past Apprentice.)

As I said, the plot was not bad; it could have been a decent book if anyone had bothered to edit it. Or if it had been written by somebody else. Wait for the movie.

Oh, in case you think I don’t like anything, go get The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.

October 8

Well, the market dropped another 500 points yesterday. The good news is I won a nickel from Jeanine, who bet the Dow wouldn’t go below 9500. The bad news is it was my nickel. At least I now have two to rub together….

The bailout—screw it, I’m calling it what it is—was intended to prevent a meltdown of the economy. Those of us who actually have to live in the economy didn’t think for a minute that it would work, but we didn’t get a vote. Or rather, we did, but somehow….

Now Paulson has picked his Goddam Sachs buddy to oversee the debacle. It’s absurd enough that two guys from a bank holding company are in charge of digging out from the disaster they themselves have wrought. But do you know the name of the new Bailout Czar? Neel Kashkari! Honest to God, is that really his name??? (He does spell Neel with a double-e, but without the K in the front.) Charles Dickens couldn’t have come up with a better name! Cash & carry is in charge of the Office of Financial Stability, charged with the job of easing the credit crunch. It must be true: as Mark Twain pointed out, fiction has to be believable.

It may be a bit early to say, but so far I’d have to say the results of the economic Surge have not been exactly stellar. So what now? Secretary Paulson, asked beforehand, said “Well, it just has to work.” I’m guessing if you ask him now, he will say “Kneel! I mean, that’s Mr. Kashkari’s area, you should ask him.” We could commit another 700 or so B, but at some point the federal government will have promised to pay more than exists—anybody know how much the world is worth?—and the value of the US dollar will begin to approach parity with the Zimbabwean dollar. Which, if you are interested, is currently officially worth 1/6000th of a US dollar. And that’s after they knocked 13 zeros of the Zimbabwe currency, which they had to do because our dollar was worth more ZWDs than there were atoms in the universe. Something in the quintillions, I think. Now Fed chairman Bernanke is muttering about lowering interest rates because slow growth is a bigger concern than inflation. Is there anybody east of the Potomac who can get his head out of his ass long enough to think about what he’s doing? If it doesn’t work, try it again and again and maybe eventually it will be better. Isn’t that the definition of insane?

One thing I feel fairly confident about: Henry, Neel, and Goldman Sachs will come out of this OK. Warren Buffett knew what he was doing.

Postscript: In case you missed it on last night’s news, AIG execs--you remember AIG, the insurance giant, TooBigToFail, that we bailed out to the tune of $85 B--spent a half million of it on a party at the beach a few days later. And, in an unrelated note, the FBI is interested in why AIG officers, who knew what was coming, told investors everything was swell. Isn’t that what the guys at Enron said? Have I heard this song before?

I’m thinking of joining the NRA. I have a feeling I may be needing a gun before this is over. Let’s see now, how does it go? “When in the course of human events….”

October 7

I saw an ad in the paper for California bonds paying 5.5% for 10 years, tax-free. Rated AAA. This seemed like a pretty good deal, but I’m not so sure about that rating for California bonds right now, so I called my broker. He allowed as how it was a pretty good deal, but state bonds’ rates were going to be going up since the state needs make bonds very attractive to bring in the piles of money they need. He’s going to call me when he has something wonderful. “And don’t worry about the rating—California has the 5th largest economy in the world, it won’t default.” Does the term “too big to fail” ring a bell?

Meanwhile, back in Sacramento, the governor signed our budget into law two weeks ago, only 3 months late. A week later he announced that he might have to ask the federal government for a $7 billion loan to help us cover our nut. Gee, Arnold, how do you think that’ll go over in Washington, where our leaders just voted us $800 billion deeper into debt? (The media keep referring to the “$700 billion plan,” conveniently ignoring the $100 billion slab of bacon the Senate slapped on. But we know what it really is.) A federal judge has decreed that California must spend $3.5 B (it’s too hard to keep typing “billion,” so I’ll just call it “B”) on prison health care—wow, there’s a digression I’m not going to make today, but check back tomorrow—so maybe the fed would loan us the money for that, at least. Yeah, right.

Now the treasury’s tally for September is in, and the state collected a B less than they had expected. I should say “less than they had planned on,” since budget planning is generally an exercise in fantasy accounting with no basis in realistic expectation.

In any case, the budget is collapsing after only two weeks, even quicker than I expected, and the word “crisis” is back in the headlines. The State Controller says “we need to act immediately.” But he’s an alarmist, always saying stuff like that. I don’t believe the sky is really falling; that’s just your roof caving in. On the other hand, I haven’t heard from my broker but I’m thinking maybe California bonds aren’t such a good buy just now….

October 6

I assumed that Prince Valiant had died in one of his escapades or become king by now, but no, he has just moved north to San Luis Obispo, where I chanced to discover him in the Central Coast’s Sunday Tribune. He has a new artist, but the same goofy pageboy haircut that we laughed at when I was a kid. I never liked the strip then, but I have new respect for it now. (Was it like this then, too?)

Given California’s abysmal education system, I doubt many of our high schoolers could even read it, but it might be a good assignment. The language is a little overblown but Sunday’s strip contained “expedition,” “dreary” and “derelict,” and “eerie tableau,” not to mention “travails” and “potable.” Not a bad vocabulary lesson for a single morning, and not even a school day at that. Hats off to Gianni & Schultz, who may teach our kids something despite the schools’ prolonged effort to prevent it. If the kids can get over giggling at Val’s hairdo long enough to read the strip.

October 4

My neighbor Don is obsessed with wheels. He’s not a Car Guy—he doesn’t tinker with them or collect vintage automobiles. He just accumulates vehicles. At one point I think he and his wife had six—four cars and two trucks—between them. His idea of a fun weekend is washing cars—but only his own, unfortunately. They have a two-car garage and a three-car driveway. I don’t know where they kept the other one.

When he retired, Don got rid of most of the superfluous cars and bought a shiny new Army-green jeep. And a monster Winnebago to haul it. The RV is a step down in size from Willie Nelson’s french-fry powered tour bus, but it’s a small step. Naturally he couldn’t park it anywhere the Homeowners’ Association could see it, so he had to rent a place to store it as well.

I guess they finally got their stimulus check from the IRS, because yesterday afternoon the motor home was parked out front, and Don was up on a ladder washing it. “We’re going up to June Lake,” he shouted down. “I’m gonna catch me a two-hundred-dollar fish.”

It’s a six-hour drive, probably more if you’re lumbering up the road in Behemoth, towing a jeep with two bicycles and a skateboard hanging off the spare. I have a vision of them dropping the car at the RV park and then backing the ‘bago up to the lake, opening the rear and disgorging a cabin cruiser.

They spent most of the day packing for the trip. Then early this morning—some would say late last night, but they woke up the birds—they were ready to go. My eyes aren’t open at that hour, but I listened. I heard the front door shut. Then “THUD—oof!” At first I thought Don had had a heart attack and dropped dead on the sidewalk, but I guess he just forgot to turn sideways carrying boxes through the door of the RV. Those doors are pretty narrow. He started up the engine and let it idle for about ten dollars. More doors closing. He put the truck in gear and drove up to the cul-de-sac and turned around. And stopped in front of his house. More doors. Muttering. Sounds of hammering. Hooking up the jeep? Engine starting. “Bee, bee, bee” as he put it in reverse. Engine stopping. “Bong, bong”—the door’s open. More hammering. More muttering. Stage whisper: “other side. OTHER SIDE!” “Bee, bee.” “Bong, bong, bong.” And then, just out of synch, “beebong, bee bong beong.” The front door of the house opening. Drawer rummaging. Door closing. “Bee, bee, bee.” Engine starting. Stopping.

More. It took them an hour and a half, but they finally got on the road, heading straight for the gas station. I sure hope he catches that fish.

October 3

The Dismal Scientists have been debating for a year or more over whether we are “technically” in a Recession. Now that I am a self-anointed Economist myself, I can declare the debate officially over and we can get on with other questions. Like what is the definition of Depression?

But I don’t want to talk about that; I need a rest. So instead, let's talk about the Middle East. I guess this isn’t going to have a major impact on my life or yours, but I think it’s interesting to learn that Iran’s Interior Minister, Ali Kordan, apparently bought his Oxford degree from someone who had never been there. He has the diploma, all right, but several of the words are misspelled.

His Oxford credentials helped him get his job, where one of his duties is to make sure his boss, Ahmadinejad (pronounced “Omigod—er, Armageddi—um, you know” if you believe McCain. OK, cheap shot, but he did have a hard time getting the name out of his mouth. Palin, on the other hand, said it several times in her debate, just to show off. She didn’t know the name of the commander in Afghanistan [equal time: neither did Biden], but she pronounced “Ahmadinejad” like nobody’s business. But I digress...) wins without fraud or forgery in the upcoming election in Iran.

Ali claims he didn’t know the degree was a fake but, hey, what would you think when a guy steps out of an alley, pulls open his trenchcoat and says “Psst! Buddy! You wanna buy a degree? I got Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard….”

October 2

The tuition is pretty high, but it’s not an elective course so, little by little and mostly against my will, I’m learning Economics.

The Senate passed a minimally modified version of the bailout, so the House gets another crack at it when they get back. (The House took two days off for Rosh Hashana but apparently there are no Jews in the Senate.) If I understand correctly, here’s how the Senate changed the bill: to make it look like they care about the average Joe, they will increase federal insurance on bank deposits from $100,000 to $250,000.

Now there’s a real weight off my shoulders.

I don’t think it’s the guy who has $250,000 in cash lying around who needs help. Personally, I wasn’t really worried about that anyway. Whenever I find myself with piles of cash exceeding $100,000, I find another bank. That will work until there is only one Bank of the Universe left and by then it won’t be a concern, since BOTU will have reached the ultimate Wall Street goal: Too Big to Fail.

But until then, if you only have one bank, and you have a quarter of a million in it, the Senate is looking out for you. Under the new rules, when your bank collapses, you are protected. If the bank runs out of money, the government will pay you back up to $250,000. The government—hey! That’s me! And Uncle Kenny and you and your mom and the mailman. Why, that could increase the $700 billion projected cost of this thing to …oh, wait. The only reason this new concession won’t be worse than the original plan is that it won’t actually do anything. Okay, then, never mind.

There’s another change the Senate made that should help keep the banks and brokerage firms from collapsing: doing away with the “mark to market” rule. Right now, they are required to value their assets at the price they would get if they sold them today. They say this is a problem, since nobody is willing to buy mortgage-backed securities at any price and that makes valuation “difficult.” It isn’t difficult for me here on Main Street—if I can’t sell it, it isn’t worth anything. But on Wall Street, the result is that the financial institutions have to report enormous losses, which has the same effect on the paper shuffling they call The Economy as sugar in your gas tank has on your car’s engine. So under the new plan, the bankers won’t have to do it that way—they can make up a value for the assets. This worked quite well for Enron, as I recall. For a time.

But that’s for (or against) future problems. For the immediate problem we—that’s you and me again—are going to buy up those “toxic assets” (you know it’s serious when “troubled” becomes “toxic”) to save the asses of the asses that currently own them.

Secretary Paulson emphasizes that we won’t be paying face value for them, but will buy them at the “distressed” price so maybe they will eventually go up and we won’t lose the whole bundle. I’m not sure how they will calculate the distressed price but I don’t doubt that they will come up with something. They could get advice from Jeff Skilling and Andy Fastow—they should be easy to find…

While they were at it, the Senate added some sweeteners to the bill. What they actually did was tack on an old tax bill that the House had already rejected. It gives new tax breaks for making movies, revises the law to help people avoid the Alternative Minimum Tax, and a few other things. I think Ted Stevens may have a bridge in there, too, but I’m not sure.

Oh, and it’s not called “the $700 billion bailout” any more. Now it’s “the rescue package.” The $800 billion rescue package.