Barack Bluster Bingo

Having seen or read several presidential speeches, I reflected Tuesday that Obama's style invites a drinking game along the lines of the "Hi, Bob" game popular when I was a coed. [This, for the uninitiated, required a television set tuned to The Bob Newhart Show and a supply of adult beverages still legal on campus back in my day. The trick was to have a drink every time a character addressed the principal with a cheery, "Hi, Bob!" Inebriation could usually be accomplished within the half hour.] So I started working on one while listening to Tuesday's "State of the Union" address, and came up with this:

Take a drink every time Pres. Obama ...

...pronounces doom on the economy.
...refers to the "deficit we inherited."
...makes a backhanded jab at the previous administration.
...promises to, "...save or create (insert number) million jobs."
...promises a tax cut to 95% of citizens.
...promises a tax cut to everyone making under $250K--nope, $200K--no, make that $150, no, $100K...
...promises to hold some entity "fully accountable."
...plugs "health care reform," (and we all know what that means.)
...describes budget as "free of earmarks."
...promises some punishment for corporations that ship jobs overseas.

Apparently I wasn't the only one thinking along those lines, as our brother-in-law sent the nifty O-Bingo card below yesterday, courtesy of Americans for Tax Reform.
I think it's a great idea, with the added benefit that getting schnockered is optional. I'll definitely have a printout on hand in time for the next speech.

Okay, so I'm hair-splitting

Did I just hear the prez correctly? Something about "the country that invented the automobile" needing to be kept in the auto-making game?

Sheesh. I'm not even terribly mechanically minded, and I knew that was wrong.

For the record, the Library of Congress gives that distinction to Karl Benz of Germany, who built the first true automobile in 1885 (and importantly, patented it in 1886.)

The LC page explains that the answer is not really that simple, citing designs by Leonardo Da Vinci as precursors to the modern auto. Still, American inventors only come up fifth and sixth on its table of automotive "firsts," and only the second of those (the Duryea brothers) actually built an automobile.

The "first" automobiles, according to the LC page:

Cugnot--steam-powered vehicle--1769--France
Anderson--electric--1832-9--Scotland
Benz--gasoline--1885-6--Germany (patented)
Daimler--gasoline--1886--Germany
Selden--(gasoline powered engine combined with carriage-never mfg.) 1876 (pat 95)--US
Duryea bros.--gasoline--1893--US

Collapse-o

Economic times being what they are, the minor premise continues to console itself with an overactive parody department. Fortuntately, the tune for this one should be familiar to those who know the a cappella group Rockapella.

In this installment, the minor premise parody department addresses a phenomenon that crawls from the swamp of toxic assets, unnaturally animated by what some would call a distant, sinister force, feeding on financial flesh but yielding very little. It's. . . .

A Zombie Bank
by Dminor
(to the tune of Jumbie Jamberee, better known as Zombie Jamboree; apologies to Winston O'Conner, also known as Lord Intruder)

It was a zombie bank, you see
And a moribund fiduciary.
It was a zombie bank, you see
Caught in contracting economy.

You know it was caught mortgage bond buyin'
when the housing market started dyin'.
Since the debtors were in default
it ended up with an empty vault.
Its bottom line was . . .

In the red, fool! My knees are jelly!
Oh it don't have a dime 'cause it's tapped out already.
In the red; prospects are smelly:
It's a zombie bank, you see.

Real estate market, it wouldn't behave
So my bank's assets went to the grave.
The bank's left holding, when it's all done
A foreclosed house built in nineteen forty-one.

You know the president vowed to make his plan
The undisputed supreme law of the land.
One taxpayer, he had this to say:
"We will be paying still on our judgement day."
Sha! The bottom line is . . .

In the red, mon! My knees are jelly!
The bank don't have a dime 'cause it's tapped out already.
In the red; prospects are smelly:
It's a zombie bank, you see.

In the red, everyone we sing!
In the red, the prospects are smelly.
In the red - one, two, three, four

Hey! It's a zombie bank you see.
Someone must call out the FDIC!
Can't make a loan -- zombie bank, you see.
Whoa, whoa, yeah, yeah.

There are zombie stock brokers making bad trades
And Bernie Madoff doing the Ponzi-gate
The effects are felt from Tokyo to Rome,
Because we were buying too much home.

Huh? What'd we do? We're
In the red, We lost the mêlée.
We can't bum a dime -- the bank's tapped out already.
In the red, nothing is selling;
It's a zombie bank, you see.

Its bottom line was . . .
In the red, fool! My knees are jelly!
Oh it don't have a dime 'cause it's tapped out already.
In the red; prospects are smelly:
It's a zombie bank, you see.

It's in limbo!
In the red, mon! My knees are jelly!
The bank don't have a dime 'cause it's tapped out already.
In the red; prospects are smelly:
It's a zombie bank, you see.
Ha Ha Ha Hah!

Miscellany

Following is a really, really bad segue that should be avoided by every responsible radio dj, but that I heard anyhow yesterday:

"Ohio" by Crosby, Stills and Nash
followed up by
"Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen.
Auugghh!!!

As last weekend was the Great Backyard Bird Count, I submit the stats from our backyard feeders:

Saturday, 2/14--1:45-2 pm

dark-eyed juncos-15+
goldfinches-2
northern cardinals-2 (a pair)
Carolina wren-1
chipping sparrow-1
tufted timouse-1
Carolina chickadee-1
white-throated sparrows-2
house finches-2, both males
mourning doves-3

Sunday, 2/15--around 9:30 am

goldfinches-6
chipping sparrows-3
dark-eyed junco-1
Carolina chickadee-1
Carolina wren-1
tufted titmouse-1
house finches-2 (the guys again)

To my chagrin, the great thundering herds of assorted finches and the yellow-rumped warbler didn't show themselves until Monday, after the official count ended.

A Travis-ty We Can Ill Af-Ford, part II

Back in September the parody department produced a ditty on the financial meltdown. The music department, being a little slow, has only now produced the video. Enjoy

Sixteen Funds
by DMinor
(Apologies to Merle Travis, or perhaps to George S. Davis)



Some people say a man must own his own house
With two-odd kids and a trophy wife spouse --
House and wife and cars and yard
A paycheck a-week and a credit card.

You buy sixteen funds, what do you get?
Another man's mortgage and second-hand debt.
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go;
My IRA plan's down a really big hole.

I awoke one mornin' and the radio said,
The darn banking system had a-ended up dead.
I watched my sixteen funds of financial gold
Turn to paper junk: "Well, a-bless my soul!"

You buy sixteen funds, what do you get?
Another man's mortgage and second-hand debt.
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go;
My IRA plan's down a really big hole.

I awoke one mornin', in a financial pain --
Fightin' and trouble without any gain.
Rhetoric in the campaign by an Obama hack
Cain't make-a flat-broke banker give my money back.

You buy sixteen funds, what do you get?
Another man's mortgage and second-hand debt.
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go;
My IRA plan's down a really big hole.

All you CEOs, better step aside:
No golden parachute, if you have some pride.
Your sub-prime loans have emptied the till--
If the right wing don't a-get you
Then the left sure will!

You buy sixteen funds, what do you get?
Another man's mortgage and derivative debt.
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go;
My IRA plan's down a really big hole.

Called to Account

The minor premise presents its version of American Idol:

Accountancy Idol!

Our two contestants vying for the coveted green eyeshade trophy are:

Jim Dubois and Ethan Chandler from the Bank of America in Manhattan, New York, New York

and

The Accountant Rappers from the 12Stones Church in Lawrenceville, Georgia

Vote for your favorite (or least favorite) in the comm box!

First, BOA (thanks to Cool-Mo-Dee )



Next up, 12Stones (thanks to the Ironic Catholic, Crazy Christian Clips, and Vitamin Z)

Stimulus and Response

Minor Premise at the movies (or at least at the videos) presents a twin bill -- two YouTube videos brimming with economic excitement and political thrills.

The first is a "commericial" for Stimulus, apparently the current drug of choice in Washington DC:



I noticed that there was no warning of the possibility of the medicine being habit-forming. It was probably an oversight. A Hat Tip to The Big Picture. "Stimulis" is written and produced by Ted Balaker, and edited by Alex Manning.

For our feature presentation, we have economic megastar Milton Friedman in a 1979 classic. His costar, Phil Donohue, plays the role of clueless liberal daytime talk-show host.



Thanks to Red State for the video.

Graphic Content, or Noise from the Speaker

I found the following graph on The Gavel, the blog of the U.S. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.



As can be seen from the green line, the graph attempts to portray the employment situation in catastrophic terms. However, I was struck that the graph dealt in absolute terms, despite the fact that three different sets of years were portrayed. So I decided to see what data I could pull from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The workforce as a whole as been, in general, steadily growing over the past 19 years; 100,000 jobs in 1990 meant more to the economy than 100,000 jobs do now. So is the speaker's graph another edition of "Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics?" Let's look at another measure: Unemployment rate.

This graph shows that, at least in terms of unemployment, 2008 has a whole lot in common with 1991 than the years of the Great Depression (double digit unemployment as high as 25%).

Employment as a percentage of the U.S. population has been consistantly above 60% since 1984. The recessions of 1990 and 2001 did little to change that ratio.


The 2001 recession still has employment above 60% of the population.





The percentages for 2008, amazingly, stay within the 60%+ band, albeit on a declining slope.






For the present, at least, it looks like we are headed to 1991 instead of 1929. That is not to say that the economy isn't in some difficulty, but hysteria never helped anyone make good decisions.

Peachy Keynes

From the supposed founder of the porcine feast, comes a prescription for payroll tax cuts:

In correspondence with the economist James Meade in 1942 Keynes says he is “converted” to Meade’s idea of altering the social security payroll tax over the business cycle. Here are Keynes’s words:

I am converted to your proposal…for varying rates of contributions in good and bad times.

(June 16, 1942). Keynes, Collected Writings, vol. 27, p. 208.


Hat tip to Greg Mankiw's Blog.

Sounds like a plan to me.

John Maynard Keynes, in addition to being a major proponent of pump-priming economics (government fueling demand), gave the immortal line "In the long run we are all dead." (A Tract on Monetary Reform, 1923.)

Advice for the Overtaxed

Poor Tom Daschle. He could have testified before the Senate and had no problem, if he had only consulted Steve Martin for advice:

You.. can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes! You can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes! You say.. "Steve.. how can I be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes?" First.. get a million dollars. Now.. you say, "Steve.. what do I say to the tax man when he comes to my door and says, 'You.. have never paid taxes'?" Two simple words. Two simple words in the English language: "I forgot!" How many times do we let ourselves get into terrible situations because we don't say "I forgot"? Let's say you're on trial for armed robbery. You say to the judge, "I forgot armed robbery was illegal." Let's suppose he says back to you, "You have committed a foul crime. you have stolen hundreds and thousands of dollars from people at random, and you say, 'I forgot'?" Two simple words: Excuuuuuse me!!"


Does anyone have a copy of Timothy Geithner's testimony? Is it at all similar?

I heard the the President's "Performance Czar" also had to bow out because of tax problems. I've never heard of a performance czar before, but I have heard of performance art. Perhaps the next nominee should be Laurie Anderson.



Laurie's Fiscal Message:


Steve Martin quote found on SNL Transcripts.