From the land of the absurd known as the United States.
The Sequester has just been allowed to slash 85 billion dollars out of the economy. It will reduce economic growth by as much as 1.5 percent. The projected growth was only 2 percent. It may throw the country back into recession while at the same time loses 750,000 jobs just when the employment picture was just getting better. The dazed part is that all the pundits, politicians, and business people said that the Sequester was so terrible that no responsible legislator would let it happen. Now it has happened. And the Republicans are saying, " ah, no big deal. The cuts can be managed with minimum pain." I guess their paychecks are safe. I'm certainly glad it is no big deal. The myths of recession, high unemployment, and bad economic growth are just figments of imagination in the minds of the 99%. Or is it the minds of the 47%? Forgive me as I'm still a little confused. Or, maybe dazed?
See, just a few months ago there were these big election campaigns. And I was sure that everybody on both sides swore that the economy and jobs were the main concerns of both parties. Each candidate said he could do a better job than the other guy at producing jobs and growing the economy. Whoever won would surely add more jobs and do nothing to hurt the economy anymore.
Heck, it's been tricky living through the last five years. There was a world-wide economic crash when crafty, low income homeowners tricked poor, trusting bankers into giving out loans to them they had no way to pay back. Homeowners had used the strategy of the dreaded NINJA loan. Those poor guys from Wall Street had watched Bruce Lee movies and were properly concerned about the idea of physical safety. They didn't want to piss off a ninja by refusing his loan application. When it was later explained that NINJA stood for No Job, No Income Application, the financiers were a little sheepish but the damage was done and the money was gone. After all, they were just simple bankers and no match for the devious cooks, teachers, and other criminal masterminds who made up the low and middle wage homeowner cabal.
When the big banks said they had too many bad loans and couldn't make anymore new ones, technology came to the rescue. A thing called a Credit Default Swap was discovered on the internet. I had a cousin who got an email about it in his inbox. It was right next to the one from Princess Anajee who needed help in in regaining her 20 million dollar inheritance stolen by the current dictator. She offered my cousin 5 million dollars if he would help her smuggle it out of her country. He was leery of the Credit Default Swap idea but he sent the princess his bank account number and $1,000 to get the ball rolling on that deal. But he couldn't buy into the Credit Default Swap idea. It was a little too far out. But it was right up the bankers' alley.
See, the Credit Default Swap used leverage to turn a bad loan into many bad loans. I missed some of my higher math lessons and the one where you put together enough negatives together and all of them suddenly turn positive was one I missed. So, the bankers used this idea and put all their bad loans in a pile, said the magic words, and poof! The batch of bad loans had turned into a tranche! You may wonder what a tranche is? It is an alchemical financial construct created by strict formulas. One of the bankers affectionately referred to them as "Sh*tbag investments." Or, maybe that was a CDO tranche which was begat by a CDS. I have trouble with begits and begats in the Bible, too. Now, if you have a tranche and grind up some good loans and sprinkle them on top you come out with something the bond rating agencies will certify AAA approved and ready to be served up to hedge funds as good investments. After all, the rating agencies knew these Wall Street guys drive Porches and must know what their doing.
When the economy blew up, somebody said it was all the fault of the sneaky, low income, wanna be homeowners. And the bankers had to be bailed out by the 47%. Or the 99%? I'm a little confused but I think(higher math again) they're one in the same. And those guys, the ones without Porches, could start paying off the bail-outs as soon as they finished paying off the two foreign wars that someone had slipped onto the national credit card. That credit card thing happened way back in the good old days when deficits didn't matter. And for the embarrassment caused to the bankers being made to accept those nasty NINJA loans, bankers would be given large bonuses so they could buy more Porches and pay for Mixed Martial Arts Training so that it would never happen again!
After years of working hard to pay for those sneaky homeowners' swindle by working two jobs at minimum wage, everyone not of the 1%(the other 99%) were feeling pretty tired. They felt good that the economy and jobs were going to be number 1 on all sides whichever side won the election. Until the Sequester rolled onto the scene. What we hadn't been told was that tax breaks and loopholes took precedent over jobs and the economy. Maybe we should have guessed, huh?
So, my lazy moocher friends and I are looking for a third minimum wage job after we pee into a cup to prove we and our families need food, not drugs. It is good to know the Sequester won't be too bad. I read it in the Jackson Hole Daily. The Wyoming legislators told me so.
I've been told by spiritual people that I need to walk a mile in another's shoes before I can understand them. I guess I'll never understand the 1%. I can't see myself ever having the opportunity to fill their shoes. Because their shoes are always on my neck along with the other 99%. And if the only way to do understand them is to stand on the necks of the ninety-nine percent, I never will. I refuse. I'll never understand cannibals either.
Dazed and confused with no drugs to blame it on. I took a test to prove it.
The Dow just hit an all-time high. Reality is different on Wall Street.