The Midas Press Conference

I didn’t think it would be possible, but it is indeed Christmas in November.  Now I’ve been talking about gagging Hank Paulson, but the guy keeps turning up on TV every few days to drive the market down.  But thankfully, there is a solution, America.  It’s call Obama.  Now, I watched this for three days just to be sure, but as you might have noticed, Wall Street pretty much had a winning week.

You might wonder why that’s the case, well, it’s simple, my friends.  Because every day the market has been up, Obama has been announcing something from the Office of the President Elect.  And I really applaud him for a job well done.  Is this all a coincidence?  Well, let’s look at the evidence:

Friday, Dow Jones is up 494 points; after words comes out that Obama is making up his cabinet appointments, Hillary is going to be Secretary of State.

Monday, Dow Jones is up 397 points; and here is the first Obama news conference, he names his Treasury Secretary.

Tuesday, Dow Jones is up 36 points; and here is another Obama announcement, talks about budgetary responsibilities and cuts, and appointing his budget director. Now, the reason it wasn’t up triple digits?  You guessed it, Paulson was blabbing away earlier in the day.

Wednesday, Dow Jones is up 247 points; and what do you know, Obama has yet a third announcement, with yet another team of advisers.

So all in all, every time Obama opens his mouth, it’s like the Midas touch, or rather, the Midas appearence, and Wall Street goes up.  I for one am happy.  You go, Barack, count me your number one male fan.  America, congratulations, change has come.

No More US????

I have to say there are all sorts of entertaining things in the works around the world if you know where to look for it.  Take this nugget for example, this is really interesting.  First, I didn’t even know that Russians had any scholars.  I thought they were just a bunch of dumb pissants being ruled by a psychopathic maniac.  But guess I was wrong, if Russia is full of scholars like this one, then I can leave office happy knowing that Russia will catch up to may be France in terms of capabilities sometime in the turn of the next century.  I’m just glad that my original opinion about that country after I looked into Putin’s soul wasn’t too far wrong.

However, there are interesting possibilities if you look at Professor Igor’s theories.  So, the Pacific country would probably be the West Coast plus Hawaii. Hey… Texas is a nation all by itself, may be I can be president of Texas.  Although according to this, I better ally with the so called Central States, since they’re the ones who will have all these ICBMs and nuclear bombers.  Then there are the Atlantic Coasts, Northern and Southern states… hmmm, I wonder who’ll be presidents in those areas.  I can figure that Arnold would want to be leader of the Pacific country, and probably some bible thumper for the Central States.  Oh, this could be so much fun.

But you know what the Russians really want, Alaska… heh heh, ever since Seward bought it from the Czars for a couple of quarters, the Russkies have been bellyaching and wanting it back.  Sorry guys, you don’t get to drill out all the oil and natural gas in Alaska.  That belongs to us.  Just be happy we didn’t buy Siberia back then too.  But I love the last part of Igor’s thesis: “China and Russia will become the world’s great regulators.”  China I can see, but Russia??? You may as well say China and Iran if you keep spouting non-sense like that.

Seriously though, days like this I do need the laughs.  Did anyone see that Hank Paulson shot his mouth off again?  And of course the Dow took a nosedive right afterwards, didn’t we have a gag order in place on Paulson?  Geez, well, it’s a miracle the street ended up in positive territory today.

Fourth in Line

I’m on my way to Peru, and I get a call from Bill.  He was not his usual effusive self this day, his first words were, have you heard?  Hillary is going to take the sec state job on Obama’s team.  This is not going to be a good thing.

I was a bit surprised given my conversation with Karl, I didn’t think Hillary was quite that desperate to be in the executive branch at that level, so I asked Bill what he thought.  He said he thinks this means that the money train ride he’s taken so far might be over.  Definitely not a good thing.  He didn’t want to write yet another book, because then he’d be stuck at home and miss out on all the partying.  But more than that, since she serves at the pleasure of Obama, it means he can fire her after two years or however long it takes.  That’ll put Hillary down for good, and she’ll never be happy being Barack’s mouth piece, and that means she’ll take out all her anger and frustration on him.

I understood Bill’s dilemma, and asked why she just didn’t turn the offer down outright?  Bill told me she had this idea that as a Secretary of State, she could make a lot more connections which could eventually make her eligible to run as secretary general of the UN, and besides she is 4th in line of succession, so you never know.  I thought that sounded rather desperate, Bill responded that he thought the same way, but there wasn’t much he can do about it now.  So, he’ll make the best of it, and hope she can get him some connections that may be get him on the board of Wal-mart or something like that.

Poor Bill, he hasn’t been the same since Hillary started the campaign for presidency.  I hope he can keep his sanity if she becomes the Secretary of State.

Show me THE MONEY

Or at least the plan…. that’s what ma Pelosi is saying to the auto industry.  Show us a plan, and then we’ll show you the money, so crows Pelosi and Reid.  Hmmm, I can think of the plan that GM, ford, and Chrysler will come up with.  Send in Gettelfinger, or was it Sticky Fingers, or was it Butter Fingers.  I can’t keep it all straight any more.  He will threaten the Dems with no more support from the UAW if the Democrats can’t get a package through next month.  Then of course, ol’Gettelfinger has to say the right things to the media, like its critical for my administration to reach an agreement with Congress.

Buddy, you got that right, for the next two months, you still need me to move things along.  I think I’ve been clear what I want.  Pass the free trade agreements with Columbia, and South Korea, guarantee that the secret ballot for unions will be preserved, and we can get a deal to save your job and your union.  So, you and your three CEO pals can push through those agendas for me with Ma Pelosi and Pa Reid, and I think I can use my persuasive powers on the Republicans in Congress.  Yes, I know it must rankle you to have to do my bidding, but that’s life.  Either that, or you can go the way of the Yugo.

But you guys could always wait until Barack comes in and hope that the automakers don’t collapse before two months from now, and that he’ll immediately sign off on the money.  But then I digress, there has to be a plan come December 8th according to Ma Pelosi, so you guys in Detroit better start up on those power points.  Hey, there must be a few MBAs there that can come up with decent power points right? I personally can’t wait to see the plan, you know, with my executive MBA training, I could probably even help the auto industry for the right fee.

The three stooges and friends

Another interesting day in Washington with the three stooges of the auto industry.  But it seems that  things are finally coming to a head.  But the problem is that ma Pelosi and pa Reid just can’t figure out how to do the right thing other than play politics.  Case in point?  Immediately after it became obvious that their attempt to get this thing passed on the Hill is going to fall apart, here comes pa Reid charging to the microphone saying the ball is in our court.  Guys, I told you what the quid pro quo is.  If you don’t like it, well, screw you.  The price is simple, give me the Colubmia free trade deal, and now I want the South Korean deal too.  Then we get the UAW and their lackeys in Detroit their bailout money.  It’s against my principles to prop up a failed business unless their is systemic risk.  But I’m willing to deal, you guys just have to know that I will get the last laugh no matter what.

The truth of it is it won’t be just $25 Billion this month, mark my words,six months down the road, the same thing will happen all over again.  Then it’ll be Barack’s problem.  But again I digress too much, I’m not here to cast blame because we already know it’s Congress’s fault.  Instead, I’m going to offer a solution, you see, you bozos in Congress apparently aren’t the only ones worried about bankruptcy of the big three.

The solution therefore is simple, let one of the foreign automakers take over one or all of the big three.  Hell, it already happened once when Daimler bought out Chrysler, why not let it happen again?  What are the benefits involved here?  You can restructure the business into lean models, or if you don’t know how, there are a few companies that could help, no, I’m not talking Japanese or German or Korean, try these guys.  They’ll find ways to make Detroit profitable, trust me.  In the long run, if you’re taken over by these guys, they’ll whip things into shape, and in ten years or so, probably less, they’ll give the Japanese a run for their money, and it’ll bring the US auto industry back into shape.

But for this to happen, the three stooges would have to go.  I think I can persuade my friend Hu to help make a deal, but time is limited, and you need to act now, think about it, I’m offering the long term solution.  The stooges won’t last forever.  Alternatively, you could give me my free trade agreements, I’ll sign away $25 billion, but we all know that’s a short term solution.

Why can’t he shut up????

It’s official, I have a rogue on my hand.  I mean what the hell, I told Paulson that we should make sure Obama has some leeway and money when he comes into office.  Keep some of the $700 billion available so that Barack has some maneuvering room when he gets in on the 20th.  The next thing you know, this thing is front page news.  Hank, you know, I told you to hold off on the money, I didn’t tell you to fucking blab to Congress. That seive of losers are nothing but a bunch of media whores that love to blab.

In fact, didn’t I order you explicitly to keep your goddamn mouth shut?  Haven’t you seen what’s happened?  The market goes down every time you open your mouth.  The economy is already bad enough, you don’t know to weigh it down with more of your words of wisdom.  You know, I’m really tempted to fire your ass and have one of your deputies take over with all the trouble you’re causing.   Now, since you started talking, we have to go spend that money, poor Obama will have less leeway and then we’ll get mired down in this Congressional bullshit for the rest of the year while these bozos argue that instead of holding the money, we ought to save the dinosaurs of the auto industry.

Come to think of it, this is probably your original intent isn’t it?  Make sure GM, Ford, and Crysler, the three stooges of the auto industry gets bailed out.  Ok, what the hell is the kick back you’re getting from these guys, have they promised you a consulting position for the US automakers after you leave office.  This just really pisses me off, you bald commie.  That’s it, mandatory order, I’m going to have the Secret Service march you down to the Naval Observatory, and then have you go hunting with Cheney.  Heh heh, two go out, and only one come back.  Heh heh heh heh.

The Last Hurrah

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I think this picture of me at the G20 meeting says it all.  I am ready to go.  As you might expect, this summit was mostly about platitudes and nothing more than a feel good session.  The only reason that I even came along was because I had a few buddies who showed up like Hu, and Gordon.

I never liked all these funny organization, and the G20 is one of the prime example of having too chiefs and not enough Indians.  Now some of you might ask who is exactly in the G20.  Well, to be frank, I had to look it up myself, but it includes 19 countries and the European union is also represented as an independent entity.  The 19 countries include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom and of course, the good ol’ USA.  The EU was an oddball entity, you’d expect that with four of the European countries represented, having the EU is like double dipping.  But some say that the EU is an independent entity… whatever, just an excuse for some bureaucrat to take expensive trips.

I remember it was just the G7, back then it was the seven industrialized nations, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, and US.  It kind of made sense for that partly because it was based a good deal on GDP, and of course political alliances.  Then we expanded the stupid thing to include the Russians so they wouldn’t feel excluded, so it became the G8.  Now, this thing feels more like a United Nations.  It’s just stupid.

Membership should’ve been based on individual contribution to the world economy, or may be based on average GDP or GNP of the last five years.  That way, things are done with less bickering and may be a bit more action.  The countries that would form this type of G7 today would be: US, Japan, Germany, China, UK, France, and Italy.  May be we can toss a bone to the Russians and have them in because they need to have their egos stoked even though their formal ranking wouldn’t put them in a G8, much less a G7.

But I think frankly beyond my time with the individuals and exchanging a few words, this G20 meeting is just a big waste of time that got nothing done.   May be the smarter thing to do is to just go back to a G7, keep it small, and have another meeting like the one fat boy Hugo is carping about where all these other guys can go to.  Think Iran, Syria, North Korea, and so on.  Anyway, I’m glad it’s all over, at least this time I didn’t have to leave the comfort of home.

Revenge… a dish best served as soon as possible

Team Obama has struck once again and it seems the Health czar idea that Karl came up with months ago has been modified.  Now the plan is becoming clear, Obama is trying not to just neutralize Hillary, but Bill too.  I talked to Karl this morning before the G20 started up again, and Karl was quite impressed with the move to drop Hillary’s name in for Secretary of State.

Karl thought that the whole process was about trying to kill two birds with one stone, in this case the stone is the dead weight Secretary of State position.  The way it works, if Hillary accepts the role, she’ll have to copt poor Bill as a goodwill ambassador for her based on her campaign pledge, effectively making him a tool for the Obama White House.  On the other hand, if Bill doesn’t play ball, he’ll essentially be trying to dance around Hillary’s foreign policy role as dictated by Obama and risk confrontation at home.  That way, the trap is set up so that Bill becomes marginalized permanently either way.  As for Hillary, well, no need to worry about her in 2012, and since she’d essentially become Obama’s bitch, no one will ever hear from her again.

On the other hand, if  someone else beat Hillary out for the position.  She is going to be humiliated one more time, and one more payback for the way the primaries went down.  Either way, Obama gets to put down one of the Clintons.

So I asked Karl what would be the best move for the Clintons?  Karl thought that was simple, Hillary should flat out reject the role by saying her duties to her constituents in NY is too important.  That way, it insulates Bill, keeps the possibility of being humiliated by someone else beating her out.  But it would have to happen soon.  The longer she waits, the more likely that Obama will pick someone else for the job or she gives the perception that she’s so desperate she is willing to be the bitch.  I asked Karl who would be the likely choice for Obama if Hillary declines, and Karl’s money is on a Republican.

The Communist

One of the thing that has been said about my administration is how we dramatically increased the size of the government.  I am ashamed to admit it, but it’s absolutely true.   Looking at the current financial crisis, it’s only fair to say, we’re much more like the Soviet Union than we are like the United States.  My biggest regret is some of the people I appointed to in my administration, one person in particular comes to mind.  I nick named him, the communist, and that person is Hank Paulson.

Now, everyone knows I’m a big believer in the free market, a company should survive or fail on its own merits.  So naturally, I picked a Secretary of Treasury that I thought would embody that belief, and Hank fit the bill well.  Head of Goldman Sachs, took it public, great resume, and even better networks.  I figured if anyone understands the market and how to keep it growing on a nice steady clip, he’d be the guy.  Talk about disappointing.  I think I might have been better off if I picked John Corzine instead.

Hank has turned into essentially a bailout artist.  Instead of heading off the problem at the pass before this credit crisis ever got started, he didn’t do anything but bail out his buddies on Wall Street.  Now, it’s going beyond Wall Street, and I don’t even think he has a plan.  I mean this bailout… errr, I mean rescue package called TARP was originally supposed to be used to buy up bad mortgages, now Paulson wants to use the money to support consumer credit.  On top of that, he is suggesting I go along with Congress to bail out the big three auto companies.

Those three are like the definition of corporate dinosaurs, instead of adapting lean business practices and taking on the challenges like unions, and competitive pressures early on, they decided to ignore the problems, and stick with business as usual.  They have this too big to fail mentality that is just ridiculous, so of course, if we don’t save them today, it’ll cost millions of jobs tomorrow, why?  Because they’re too big to fail.  You know, there is a another word for this kind of bailout, it’s called nationalization.  Paulson essentially want me to start the first step toward a bunch of state owned industries like the old Soviet Union.  I almost want to ask him what next, may be bail out Yahoo?  How about the furniture industry, or the textile industry.

If it wasn’t for the fact that I only have another two months left, I would fire this guy.  Oh well, another two months, hope Barack pick a winner for his Secretary of Treasury.

Hunting Buddy

So, on Monday I had Barack over at the White House for a visit, and today, it was Dick’s turn to have Joe Biden over for a short visit.  I talked with Dick afterwards to see how it went.  Dick told me about as well as I could’ve expected.  Basically since Joe was more of a foreign policy expert like Dick, the two kept the focus on small talk rather than anything important.  I asked Dick if that meant he dropped the F bomb a lot and called Biden names.  Dick laughed it off and said not at all, in fact he made a very generous offer to get better acquainted with Biden during Thanksgiving and get Biden more up to date on some of the things that’s going on with Iraq and Afghanistan that aren’t exactly on the daily briefs.  Dick said he offered a hunting trip in Wyoming over the Thanksgiving weekend.  Of course, Joe declined the generous offer citing existing commitments.

Cheney had one heck of a laugh after he delivered that line.  He told me that all he wanted was to show that he’s a rather nice fella, and not what Biden has called “the most dangerous vice president in the history of the US.”  Dick was very frank, he said if Joe was worried about get shot, the Secret Service will be there to make sure it doesn’t happen.  That thing in Texas was really an accident and totally blown out of proportions by the media.  The response?  Joe supposedly said in a rather formal tone, thanks Mr. Vice President, but I’d really rather there be no misunderstanding or any accidents.  Thanks for having us over.  Then he hightailed it out of the Naval Observatory.

I have to give it to Dick, he can be really funny when he wants to be.  It’s too bad I don’t like hunting myself, otherwise, going quail hunting might be really a good way to unwind after eight years in DC.