Take Back Politics

President Obama noted last night that his housing rescue plan will not help those who were irresponsible when they took out a loan for a house they could not afford, and on CNN today people are continuing to beg for their bailout. While the government has already noted it will help these irresponsible people (since you can’t tell who will be in true need), and those who knew they were buying something they could not really afford, the government should place liens on those houses that receive assistance. Why should those who are in need of a bailout be any different than the banks who have to give the Government ownership via stock? If a homeowner recieves a bailout for X% of their loan value, the government should get a lien on the house for that same precent.  That way when the market recovers, those who should not have been in those houses will not reap potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars while their responsible neighbors do not.

In the new American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, money has been made available to help those who are upside down in their mortgage and to prevent further foreclosures. The question that many people are beginning to ask is, “how does this help those of us who have not gotten ourselves into a house we could not afford?” The answer is that it does not, unless you factor in the lower foreclosure rate in your area, which MAY help keep housing prices higher. There in lies the problem.  First, people who should never have been given a loan are able to keep a house they should not have.  Instead of “free” money for these individuals, the government should put a lien against their house so that the government gets the money back, not the individual. Also, in many areas it was the over inflated housing prices that are part of the problem, and a reset in the housing values would be a good thing. Finally, those who did not over extend themselves should be rewarded as well via a tax credit.

It would appear that even in the mist of the “Obama Stimulus” the negative economic news has trumped the possible results of the stimulus as the market has opened much lower on Tuesday, February 17th. Maybe getting money out there faster than the projected six months would be a better idea.  Large infrastructure projects can’t help the economy over night.  Now we wait…

While standing on the corner waiting to cross the street, three college age “Justice for Darfur” advocates were overheard asking each other, “hey want to go to Starbucks?”

Now there is nothing wrong with Starbucks, it’s just the stereotypical college kids heading to Starbucks while saving the world that is great.

As noted per the Constitution, Barack Obama became the 44th President without actually taking the oath of office today, since the ceremony is running 7 minutes behind.

As Circuit City announced on Friday, that they were not able to find a new buyer for their stores, and as a result they were closing all 567 stores.  While Circuit City blamed the bad economy and too much competition, they don’t do a good job of accepting the blame.  If they wanted to emerge from bankruptcy, they really should have worked to improve the core problems which are most likely a poor store layout, poor customer service, and high prices.  If you have ever been to a Circuit City, you might have noticed that the stores felt like going to a Goodwill Second Hand Store to buy a new TV vice something like Best Buy.  They also have some of the worst customer service in the industry, and their prices have always been too high.  On top of that, during ongoing clearance the prices do not actually seem much better than normal, and in fact they are not displaying what the normal price was so you might not be getting much of a deal right now at all.  We checked out the prices, and they were the same as Best Buy’s current prices and higher in some cases.

A while back McDonald’s announced that the cost of cheese would lead to changes with the double cheeseburger for $1.00.  Take a look at how their menu sits now — and then ask yourself, if the cheese costs so much, why is the beef so cheap?

McDonald’s Cheeseburger - $0.99

McDouble (the old double, just one slice of cheese): $1.00

Double Cheeseburger: $1.19

So, let’s get this straight - cheese costs $0.19 per slice, but the additional meat patty is only 1 cent?  That makes one wonder.  While you could say it is the quality of beef being very poor, we speculate they had to keep some type of double burger on their dollar menu to compete with Wendy’s and the rest who have a double burger on their value menus.

Recently it was announced that McDonald’s is considering the removal of the double cheeseburger from the Dollar Menu citing the rising cost of cheese.  Meanwhile other franchises have been offering only one slice of cheese or raising the price of the burger.

This leaves one wondering — is it really the cheese?  What does that say about the quality of the beef that McDonald’s uses in their burger.  With all meats and dairy products seeing an increase in price, shouldn’t beef be the cause of the decision to remove the burger from the Dollar Menu?  Between July 2007 and Jul7 2008, beef prices have gone up 38 percent.

This makes one wonder about the quality of the beef that McDonald’s uses…

“I didn’t mind $4 gas, I just thought I would be getting better gas..”

– Stephen Colbert

Below are the current popular vote counts for each candidate. If American politics counted the votes that actually mattered, yours, the race would be almost a dead heat. If Clinton does have a couple of blow out wins on Tuesday, she could be even with Obama. Isn’t it about time the media focuses on your vote?

The current standings in the popular vote tally are:

1. Obama - 15,721,312 votes (including the “uncommitted” votes from Michigan
2. Clinton - 15,609,152 votes