Rick Raw: Wall Street Machinations Lead to Disaster –Bailout Reaches 700 Billion

By Rick Grant rickgrant01@comcast.net www.rickatnight.com

The shameful financial disaster of last week led to the staggering 700 billion and possibly up to a trillion dollar taxpayer bailout of the Stock Market. This ugly cancer had been festering in backroom machinations and unrestrained naked greed for some months. At first, Treasury Secretary Henry (Hank) Paulson urged the honchos of the ailing companies to work it out–there would be no bailout. However, the impending market implosion cast a dark shadow over
Paulson’s decision to hang tough.

Then, the market plunged like a BASE jumper off Angel Falls and Paulson had no choice but to capitulate and reverse his decision. An unprecedented bailout was the only option to prevent the complete collapse of the Stock Market and America’s economic health.

How did this happen? Where was the SEC and Paulson when things were going wrong? Well, W’s policy of laissez faire (non-interference) had not stopped the greed addled Wall Street gambling junkies from overstepping their boundaries by running fast and loose with their credit versus their income. Suddenly, Lehman’s credit rating dropped and they couldn’t get the credit they needed and it set off a chain reaction. Merrill Lynch was rescued by Bank of America in a $50 billion takeover. Lehman filed for Chapter 11 and laid off thousands of bitter employees.

The excrement hit the fan when AIG dropped into a gigantic blood bath of red ink. Now Paulson was sitting on the atomic bomb of bailouts. Where would it end? Would a trillion be enough? It couldn’t have happened at a worse time. The Iraq War is eating up multi- billions of dollars a month and the national debt clock is spinning faster than Eva Longoria on Dancing with The Stars. "Hell, print more money and load up the taxpayers’ burden," the fat cats yelled

The deepening crisis hits the average person in the gut. It’s our hard-earned dinero that is bailing out these money grubbing swine on Wall Street. Throwing money at the problem without new regulations does not make sense. Clearly, these cowboy investors can’t be trusted with triple A credit. Indeed, the complex nature of this crisis is rooted in Wall Street’s insider culture. Most people just worry about their 401Ks or invest in mutual funds for retirement.

Over the long haul, those diversified investments will ride the market caprices well but make less money. Now, the government will step in to safeguard investors money but it will throttle the brand companies by imposing strict regulatory limits. Instead of mutual fund managers pushing to get 18% percent for their customers, investors will have to settle for a meager 7%–and be happy it’s safe.

After this debacle, the brand investment houses will become like regular banks with FDIC backing, but lousy interest. Many conservative investors are touting gold as the safe bet. But, there are conflicting opinions about the wisdom of investing in precious metals. The bottom line:

Ordinary people (you and me) can’t trust the big brokerage houses to give us unbias information. E-trade is a new model of safe but higher interest than one’s hometown bank. And, one can move one’s money back and forth between E-trade and one’s bank. Fluidity is a necessary advantage in these hard times.

Frankly, I’ve been burned in the markets and when I got out to save my plummeting bottom line, I paid a price. I was left vulnerable to the IRS weasels, who went for my jugular. Hell, the way I see it, one might as well go to Vegas rather than invest one’s money in the Stock Markets.

The only people that win at the markets are experienced traders who know how to make back losses. But these guys are gambling addicts, just like the glassy-eyed chip holding junkies one sees in Vegas. The lesson: Stick with FDIC protection. At least one knows one can get back one’s original investment plus paltry interest.

Rick Raw: OJ Simpson Trial 2.0–Bumbling Gang of Thugs Robbed Other Thugs

By Rick Grant rickgrant01@comcast.net www.rickatnight.com

It was a heist that only a bunch of wannabe mobsters led by OJ Simpson could bungle. Now OJ is back in court facing charges that could land him in jail for life. Of course, I knew that given time, OJ would screw up again. His monumental ego and megalomania delude him into thinking he’s above the law. "Dammit, I’m OJ Simpson, don’t mess with me."

Having beat a murder rap, OJ was confident that he could burst into a hotel room with a bunch a two-bit thugs with guns drawn and get his memorabilia back without causing a stir. Wrong. What happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas when you’re OJ Simpson and there are people who want to see you locked up forever. Now the Vegas prosecutors are salivating. This could reverse the last infamous jury nullification, setting OJ free despite a pile of evidence against him.

Now, thirteen years after OJ Trial 1.0, interest in the OJ Trial 2.0 has waned. Only a few nut-jobs could be seen outside the Vegas courtroom in 100 degree heat. The lure of Vegas’ casinos trumps the OJ Trial 2.0. But a Vegas courtroom seems to be the perfect venue for OJ’s second fall from grace.

In this second version of OJ’s felonies, the prosecution has some problems to overcome. OJ’s defense attorneys are expected to argue that he was merely trying to recover property that had been taken from him years earlier. However, ownership of the memorabilia in question will be difficult to prove. On the other hand, OJ’s witnesses against him all have criminal records and cut deals with the prosecution. So their credibility is in question.

Still, there are the breaking and entering and kidnaping charges which will be difficult to overcome since the so called memorabilia dealers had guns to their heads. The issue of who owns the memorabilia will mean nothing up against these serious felony charges. Perhaps the Teflon has worn off OJ. The question is: Will the jury care about any of these bozos in the hotel room. It’s like the gang who couldn’t shoot straight robbing a mob poker game. Who cares?

Well, we care after watching OJ Trial 1.0 and hearing the avalanche of evidence against OJ nullified by a jury that hated Marcia Clark. The prosecution seems confident they can get a conviction since they have audio tapes of conversations between OJ and some of his co-conspirators, which chronicle the events before, during, and after the caper. We ask, how could OJ be so stupid as to implicate himself in this ill-advised heist. For the same reason he allegedly slaughtered Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman–OJ is a psychopath.

If OJ is convicted in this trial and thrown in jail for a long stretch, will the scales of justice be equaled? No! OJ’s acquittal for the murder of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman was the miscarriage of justice of the Century. However, it will put OJ behind bars where he belongs and go a long way to healing the traumatic emotional wounds the Brown and Goldman families have had to live with for the past thirteen years. Alas, it won’t bring back their loved ones.

Rick Raw: Large Hadron Collider–Revving Up the Big Bang Machine

By Rick Grant rickgrant01@comcast.net www.rickatnight.com

In the dark forest near Lake Geneva, Switzerland, engineers and astrophysicists have constructed what amounts to a Big Bang Machine called the Large Hadron Collider, which is a cyclotron 17 miles in circumference that, with the aid of gigantic magnets, will accelerate subatomic particles to the speed of light and collide them, revealing new particles.

These new discoveries promise to solve some of the biggest mysteries of the universe. One of these particles is the highly touted Higgs boson, (particle) flippantly dubbed the God particle. All sorts of crackpots and doomsayers have speculated that when they crank up this mother of all cyclotrons, it will create a black hole and suck up earth. Nonsense, sayeth the learned scientists.

Today’s astrophysicists ponder such far-out concepts as what is dark matter and dark energy? Are they one in the same? Long ago, they discovered strange anomalies in distant galaxies, such as solar systems in which objects and planets orbited faster further away from its star. This would insinuate that there is variable gravity (which was nixed as being too unlikely). They speculated that there was another force besides gravity that is driving planets around other stars in ways that defy our astrophysics. In our solar system, planets closest to our sun orbit faster than far away objects or planets, which jives with our physics.

Dark matter is a term the LHC brainiacs use to describe the stuff (black matter/energy) that holds galaxies together besides gravity. Prominent astrophysicist have proposed the theory that dark energy and dark matter are composed of the same thing. Yes, dark energy could be called God or the higher energy, but astrophysicists keep their speculation secular.

Clearly, these scientists are close to defining how the universe works and how we are connected to it, that is, if the average person is paying attention. In today’s apathetic society, we know more about Britney Spears underwear, or lack thereof, than advances in science. Mention Large Hadron Collider to someone you just met, and their eyes will glass over. They just hit the disconnect switch in their brain. I see that often!

Nonetheless, The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will recreate conditions that existed a millisecond before the big bang, enabling scientists to identify the undiscovered particles that will hopefully explain the niggling mysteries of the universe. Besides the massive LHC structure and magnets, there is 30,000 tons of electronics that work without anyone messing with them.

The particle detector itself weighs thousands of tons. The ring magnets serve to bend particles zipping around the collider ring at the speed of light. The funny thing is: The cadre of astrophysicists and other scientists will hit the start switch on Wednesday, Sept 10, 2008. It could be the Century’s biggest anticlimax. Well, it wasn’t. They turned it on and it worked! Hallelujah!

The idiots that think the LHC will create a humongous earth-eating black hole based their conclusion on speculation that the LHC could create small black holes in the detector chamber. These baby black holes would pose no threat. "The gravitational force is so weak that you’d have to wait many, many, many, many lifetimes of the universe before one of these black holes could get big enough to pose a problem," said John Huth, professor of physics at Harvard University.
In 2009, the LHC will begin smashing particles into each other by sending two beams of protons around the tunnel in opposite directions, operating at higher intensities in the next year. These experiments could produce new discoveries by late 2009. But will the masses care? No, but a few of us will watch with keen interest at what’s happening at the LHC.

You can sign up for Google Alerts on the Large Hadron Collider by going to Google Alerts and type in "Large Hadron Collider." Then follow the prompts.

Rick Raw: Attack Ads are the Cesspool of Politics

By Rick Grant rickgrant01@comcast.net www.rickatnight.com

Presidential candidates spend millions on television advertising, most of which degenerates into negative or attack ads as the campaigns drag on. This disgraceful fall from grace smears dung on the entire campaigns of both parties, reducing the political process to a stinking cesspool. Why do the candidates continue to use this low ball tactic? It works! Then the next logical question is: Why does it work? Well, the obvious answer is: Voters are brainwashed by their partisan media to believe these lies, half truths, and rumors. In other words, the ads are preaching to the choir.

However, the psychology behind these ads is crafted by brainy sociologists and savvy political strategists to play to the fears and anxieties of the target audience.
For example: In a recent attack ad from the McCain camp claims that Obama will raise taxes on the middle class. It’s a boldfaced lie, but this is the same tired rhetoric that the Republican party has been preaching for years, characterizing Democrats as tax and spend liberals. The ad plays to the Republican voting block’s fears of raised taxes.

On the other hand, Obama runs ads that accuse McCain of aligning himself with W’s policies. That ad is not really true. McCain is much more left leaning that W, a fact that the crazed evangelicals have complained about. McCain is more of a centrist than the Bush league of undistinguished gentlemen. And so it goes.

Political strategists know that the ads work and when one party begins the mud slinging, the other party has to retaliate or slip in the polls. For deeply psychological reasons, the rise in poll numbers is directly proportional to the cleverness of the attack ads. If the other side ignores the attack ads and doesn’t retaliate, they end up losing significant ground.

The truth is: The ads work because they reach the voters on an emotional level like the famous LBJ ad, featuring a little girl picking the petals off flowers and in the background a mushroom cloud. Of course, this was playing to the public’s fear of bomb during the cold war. It ignited the masses’ irrational dread of a full blown global thermonuclear war with the USSR.

Other psychological elements factor into the attack ad equation. The unending tongue wagging of conservative talk show hosts spewing unsubstantiated opinion blasting Obama chips away at Obama’s "change" image. This claptrap riding the radio waves is a significant threat to Obama’s popularity. With very few liberal talk show hosts countering this barrage of negative opinion, the McCain camp uses the radio as back up artillery to bolster their attack ads.

And I ask: Are people that naive as to believe these highly paid blowhards? Well, the ratings tell the story. Rush Limbaugh leads the pack, commanding a vast audience of millions of listeners. In Limbaugh’s case, he just says what he wants, regardless of the facts. Again, he’s yapping to a partisan audience of conservatives who agree with him. So, he’s only reinforcing his audience’s beliefs. Then the attack-ad infantry is called in to further clear the battlefield.

Let’s face it, American politics is a dirty game and as the election gets closer, the war escalates into hand to hand combat. Candidates will do anything or say anything to win. Any semblance of a candidate running an honest and clean campaign disappears in a cloud of attack ad explosions. Soon, the television is burning up with attack ads from both parties-- insinuating, accusing, and claiming the other guy is a no-good rotten son-of-a-bitch not worthy of being president or a janitor for that matter.

It’s up to the voter to tune-out attack ads and talk show hosts. Assume they are unmitigated liars and vote for the candidate of your choice based on your own research.