Desktop Dynamo

Not your average cup of Joe...

First, let me start on an optimistic note. Yes, these are difficult times. They're going to get a lot tougher before they get better. But I agree with Warren Buffet. While he believes we are facing an "economic Pearl Harbor" he also says, "...it's never paid to bet against America."

Folks, I'll say it again...God Bless Warren Buffet. We've been blessed for many decades. We've had recessions, some ugly. What we're in the early stages of is something far more serious. Saying that, however, I think the long view has to be that we will get through this...just not as quickly as some would have us believe. We keep hearing about "second-half" recoveries. There will be...but in the second half of the next decade.

I believe the government is lying to us.

Not, perhaps, intentionally, but lying through omission. The bank bailouts and TARP programs were created and rammed through in an atmosphere of fear. The Gubbermint simply didn't tell us they were clueless on how to deal with this mess. They figured the best way to avert Apocalypse was to throw as much of our tax money as possible down a bottomless rathole and pray it somehow stopped the hemorrhaging.

You will read one day that there was an atmosphere of raw fear...panic, if you will...in Washington last fall. That big sack of fear was used as a weapon to extract bailout funds from our wallets for this generation and the next...and possibly beyond.

How bad was the fear-mongering?

Well, according to some reports I've read, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma told a Tulsa radio audience that Hank Paulson warned of such dire possibilities as martial law and a new...and more severe...Great Depression if the bailout bill to buy toxic debt wasn't passed last fall.

Yet as soon as the bill passed, Paulson shifted away from buying that same toxic waste dump of debt.

Why the sudden turn of course?

Panic.

What Paulson didn't say is that the air is out of the global balloon, and no one...no one...has a clue how to patch it and fill it again. And while the balloon deflated, America began to hemorrhage jobs.

I'll tell what will fix things: TPR. That stands for Time, Pain, and Reform. There is no quick fix.

But the Gubbermint doesn't understand that. While they bailed out banks with TARP funds...banks that continued, in some cases, to pay bonuses and fail to account for the money they'd been given...America hemorrhaged jobs.

While Congress publicly browbeat executives from the automobile industry before lending them money, banks were getting great gobs of cash after filing 3-page TARP applications and then using the money to buy other banks, give out bonuses, and gosh knows what else.

And meanwhile, America hemorrhaged more jobs.

I was thinking about all that when I went to bed last night, and it led to a curious dream. I was sitting in the booth of a coffee shoppe, a dreary little place with green walls and brown tables. I was working on a cup of coffee, and it was acidic and bitter. No matter how much cream and sugar I dumped in it, the burning bitterness wouldn't abate...in fact it intensified.

I peered up from my cup to see a fellow had joined me at my booth. I looked around...there wasn't a soul in the place. Just me and this poor fellow, who had the worries of the world etched on his brow.

"You don't mind?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"I just got some news, and I'm angry, and I need to get something off my chest."

"Go ahead, friend," I said.

"Well, I got a letter from the bank a few weeks back. They offered re-financing on my mortgage. They said the rates were rock-bottom. My wife lost her job a month ago and the mortgage is breaking our backs. I did some quick math and realized that if we refinanced we could just keep our heads above water."

"Well, that's great news," I said.

"So I thought," he sighed. "Well we applied, and I went to the bank today to get the word. They turned us down."

"Why, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Well, they say we're a bad risk. I didn't understand what they meant. We've never paid anything late, but we're stretched right to the limit. That's why we needed to refinance."

"Did you tell them that?"

"Yes, but they said with my wife out of work our income was suspect. But that wasn't what sunk us. The torpedo was our house. The value of our home fell through the floor. We owe more on the mortgage than the house is worth. They say we're toxic. Thanks for applying, there's the door, and don't let it spank your ass on the way out."

Something spilled on my leg. I looked down, and the coffee had eaten through the cup and table was pouring down the leg of my pants.

"What will you do?" I asked, reaching for a napkin as my leg began to burn.

"Mail the house keys to the bank, I guess. There's no jobs to be had for my wife. Maybe that American Dream we heard about all our lives is for some other folks somewheres. Maybe it's not for folks like me and my wife."

He stood and walked away. I tried to call him back, tried to tell him that the dream is alive, but my leg was burning and my eyes were watering. When I finished dabbing my eyes with my handkerchief, I looked up and the poor fellow was gone, the door of the coffee shoppe swinging closed behind him.

A waitress was standing next to me.

"More coffee?"

"No thanks, that cup about killed me. Just give me the check."

She handed me the slip. Seventy-five bucks.

"I've only got a twenty," I cried.

"We'll put it on your tab. You'll pay it for it eventually. It's a bottomless cup of coffee, you know."

"It certainly is," I retorted, picking up my cup and staring at her through the hole in its floor.

"Just be thankful you didn't order breakfast," she sighed. "Have a nice day!"

I looked down at my ruined pants, grabbed my coat and hat, and fled for dear life. Too many cups of coffee in that place might kill a fellow.