WHO HAS MY MONEY?

I checked on the values of my various IRA and 401K plans. It appears I am a victim of the Wall Street mess to the tune of a near six figure loss. My question is, who got my money? I sure would like to have it back. The government chose to bail out the big banks using the rational they are too large to fail. What about guys like me who are too small to survive?

Some politicians are tossing around the idea of letting us little guys withdraw up to $10K from our IRA/401K's without a penalty to cover mortgages and other financial losses. The trick here is they failed to mention you still have to pay taxes on the withdrawal. On the average, the government will get $2800 of my $10,000. I guess they will use that to cover the 700 billion dollar loan to keep the wealthy bankers from loosing any of the their money. Thanks again, pal.

The Financial Mess

I ran across this while reading the Washington Post this morning. It was in the comment section of an article describing how Bush has lost the respect of the American people. The commentor did not give his name, but I thought it summed up how I feel about Bush and Congress.

Bush the Criminal President said:
"I recognize this is a difficult vote for members of Congress. Many of them don't like the fact that our economy has reached this point, and I understand that. But the reality is that we are in an urgent situation, and the consequences will grow worse each day if we do not act."

TRANSLATION:
"I know you Republicans who have supported every criminal action I asked you to support will probably be voted out of office in a few weeks. I know that you are upset because you were not able to grab as much cash for yourselves as we were able to push through to our corporate supporters and war profiteers. But the reality is that we have gone as far a we can in keeping this financial house of cards afloat on the taxpayers back and we are in an urgent situation. The consequences of inaction will be that our good old boy supporters on Wall Street who are starting to see their multi-million dollar bonus dry up before the year end need our help. Otherwise there will be no more cash filled envelopes or behind the scene political action committees, which will result in our inability to buy elections. This will grow worse each day if we do not act and commit to cover the billion dollar life styles of our rich friends. They have lived well off the savings of the little people (aka American Tax Payers) which is our administration's way of life, but it seems like the little people want some of their money back, and those kooks overseas who brought up all those bad loans that their companies bundled and sold as "High Paying Investments", (He-He-He that was so unbelievable) now want some of their money back. Our friends on Wall Street certainly don't want to dig into their own pockets to try and fix the mess they made while taking millions out of their own companies. They certainly don't want to give anything back. They want to skate with the billions they got while the pickings were good, and leave us holding the empty bags! We can not allow this to happen. It will mean no last minute campaign slush funds just 6 weeks before the election which we will probably loose. So we must act now while we still have the power to keep using tax payer's money to support and protect our self interests. We've already hocked them into debt that their grandchildren will still be trying to pay off. Let's take one more bite of the pie and hock their great-great-grand children, but we must act now before they find out what we are really doing! So, keep doing what you do best. Don't ask questions. Dont read the fine print. Just rubber stamp my proclamation and let me get on with our Conservative agenda. (He-He-He!)"

OWO MIA no more!

I apologize to readers. Two hurricanes, a business trip and a operations review at work totally consumed the month of September for me. Now that all this is behind me, I hope to get back to regular posting.

Charlie WIlson's War

I do not want to make this a movie review, but I watched the 2007 movie Charlie Wilson's War. It is a true story about the CIA's covert involvement leading to Afghanistan repealing the Soviet Union's long standing war to take over the that country. The defeat ultimately led to collapse of the Soviet Empire. Even though the Soviet Union was our bitter cold war enemy, the Regan Administration had shown little interest in defending a non-Christian nation for fear of upsetting Israel. At some point, a liberal Congressman, Charlie Wilson, from East Texas and known for his immoral behavior became involved in the cause of the Afghanistan people. He was drawn after visiting a refugee camp and hearing horrible stories of the Soviets near genocidal attacks on civilians. Wilson, through his Congressional Committee positions, was able to covertly fund weapon supplies to Afghanistan and we all know the rest of the story. What is not widely known is something I believe significant to our recent history. Following the end of the Soviet/Afghanistan war, Charlie Wilson warned his fellow Congressmen that we needed to fund the rebuilding of Afghanistan or it stood to be taken over by Islamic fundamentalists. Congress turned down this request because they had little interest in assisting a non-Christian country and could care less about Islamic fundamentalists - what a mistake that turned out to be. Afghanistan was left to fend for itself. Because everything was covert, the Afghans believed that America did nothing for them in their fight with the Soviets. Many of the men armed by the CIA went on to become the Taliban's enforcers and Osama bin Laden's protectors.

I am all about keeping our money home, but I have to think we missed the boat on this one. Had we provided more assistance to Afghanistan following the soviet war, we might have prevented the 9/11 attacks. Think of the money spent and human lives lost since 9/11 and our war on terror. A little money spent in foreign aid might have saved us that expense. We need to think about this next time we criticize money being allocated for foreign aid.

In the movie, the CIA agent who worked with Wilson told him a parable of the Zen master.

In a village, a boy got a pony, and all the villagers said, “That’s good.” The Zen master said, “We’ll see.” A couple of years later, the boy fell off the pony and broke his leg. All the villagers said, “That’s too bad.” The Zen master said, “We’ll see.” Then a war came and all the other young men went to war, but the boy couldn’t because of his leg. All the villagers said, “That’s good.” The Zen master said, “We’ll see.”

So it is with Afghanistan. As we look back, we see that the victory over the Soviets was not the end of the story.

The movie credits began with this quote:

“These things really happened. We changed the world, then we [blew] the end game.”

Yes we did.

Ask Old Wise One

Back on August 10th, I suggested an "Ask Me" article and asked for questions. Several readers responded.

James in Hot Springs asked: "How do I determine who is the best person to vote for?"

OWO: That's an important question James. My short answer would be to look at all the issues and choose the candidate whom you agree with the most. Never let a single issue determine your vote. As it gets closer to the fall election date I am going to do an article on this topic, so stay tuned. Thanks for asking.

Jacob in New Orleans asked: "I am a Tulane student. All my friends have student loans. Should I borrow money for my education."
OWO: I don't think it is a good idea to start out your independent life in the hole, especially when you have no idea what your future annual income will be. It is easy to run up a ton of money in loans which payment is deferred until you leave school. Let's say your borrowed money brings a monthly payment of $750 when you get out of school. You will have to earn $750 before have a single dollar for yourself. That could smart on most beginning salaries and cause you to drive a clunker, live in a dump and have nothing left over to charm your little lady or support a family. Work your way through school as much as possible. Thanks for asking.

Married Girl in Ms asked: "Is is OK to fake orgasms?"
OWO: Two thoughts. 1) I hope this isn't my wife concealing her identity and 2) I really didn't want this blog to go in this direction. However, in the interest of a readers sanity I will take a stab at this one. I would say no. While your husband is bragging to his golf buddies about being a real Casanova, you are going to live a life disappointment and frustration. I say force him to perform to your needs. You might find some better advice by tuning to the Sex Talk show on the Oxygen Channel on Sunday nights. That little old lady offers some great advice. She even has gadgets to demonstrate her answers. At least that is what I hear from others. Thanks for asking.

That's all I have for now. I hope these answers have helped. Keep the questions coming.

Antivirus XP 2008, Not Your Friend

Well I guess Tropical Storm Fay saved me from having a REALLY lousy day. I suppose it could have been worse had it been a pretty day. While Fay was dumping buckets of water on us, someone figured I had nothing better to do to than spend the day ridding my computer of a vicious Malware. I did manage to make it to Mass and Walmart. At Mass I learned that the average person commits 7 confessional sins a day. Between my computer problem and the trip to Walmart, I am sure I am way over the average.

It seems that while I was doing "research" a rogue program loaded itself onto my computer. Once it did its thing, it sent me a message that spyware was on my computer and I should click to let Antivirus XP 2008 repair my system - for a fee of course. It also didn't give me any options to decline or close the window. It then hijacked my control panel, hid access to my C drive, bombarded me with popups, and changed my wallpaper to constantly remind me Antivirus XP 2008 could repair my spyware problem. It also removed the tabs that allow the screens wallpaper and background to be changed. If that was not enough my computer slowed to a crawl or nothing at all.

I did a little research. Antivirus XP 2008 is a malware, a bogus antivirus application that mimics Microsoft Windows and other legitimate alerts. It is downloaded automatically by redirecting users internet browser to its predefined website to purchase its licensed software to clean up the mess it just dumped on your computer. If that is not bad enough, it never actually fixes its mess and has a history of repeated billing your credit card. Sounds like extortion to me.

Lets put what just happened in perspective. A rogue pest control company breaks into your house and releases roaches, termites, and rats. He sits back and waits for you to return home. As you arrive home and become stunned by the utter chaos, the pest control villain knocks at your door and announces he just happened to be in area looking for new customers. Just sign a contract and your pest will go away, only they never do really go away despite the money you paid him.

The assholes operating Antivirus XP 2008 have been traced to Singapore and Russia. Complaints have been filed with government agencies, but no action has been taken. (I guess they are too busy reading all of our email.) While billions have been spent converting our society into a police state to prevent another unpreventable attack by a handful of neo-medieval wackos, the problem of spam, spyware, malware and serious computer viruses has gone unchecked. Granted these problems are nothing compared to the mass death caused by terrorist, but I would wager the losses causes by attacks on computers is in the billions. The present administration probably considers those billions as money pumped back into the economy.

I'd like to thank precisesecurity.com for posting some great free advice on fixing this problem. They recommended this free malware remover which did the trick - I hope.

Russia, Our Friend?

A decade or two ago Americans witnessed the fall of the Soviet Union. Our number one enemy collapsed and was broken up into Russia and number of smaller countries it had gobbled up during it's rise. The world could rest easy. Russia was now militarily inept and was forced to become our friend, a democracy, and develop free enterprise. President Bush pronounced, then president and now Prime Minister, President Vladimir Putin "a good man."

Out of sight out of mind, right? Russia has taken advantage of America's war on terror and the Bush Administrations failed foreign policy to quietly rearm themselves. A year or so ago, Russia resumed flying their Bear Bomber missions which tease US defenses and force us to scramble our Air Force fighters to intercept and shoo them away from our boundaries.

While the world was visiting our "other friend," China, to focus on the 2008 Olympics, Russia boldly invaded Georgia. When the world leaders threw their arms up and cried foul, Russia said they stopped their attack. However, it soon became apparent this was a lie as news reports showed Russian troops advancing further into Georgia. Two days ago after another agreed upon cease fire, Russia blew up a key railroad bridge. This not only cut off Georgia's ability to supply themselves, but it was also a vital link for supplies and commerce to several other breakaway Soviet states. In the coming months we will see if this was a slapping of one state or an all out offensive to a return of world leadership by force.

How did we figure Putin would let his country become a lap dog? Putin is too proud of a man to settle for ineptness. The timing makes sense. The rise comes at the gap between the end of a US presidency of lousy foreign policy and the beginning of an uncertain new president. America's military is bogged down in two conflicts, flirting with a third (Iran), and therefore unable to respond to Russian aggressions. After invading Iraq against the will of the rest of the world, it is kind of difficult for us to tell Russia to stop their aggressions. It is the perfect time for Russia to use its weaker military. How did we miss this?

Here's a word from a couple GOP experts on the subject. (Their CD can be purchased from Itunes, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and various retail outlets)