Telling it like it is

Okay I understand that the stock market dive equates to 'paper loss' for us - we don't need to remortgage the house, we're not retiring soon. But even so it's still disconcerting to see so much value go down the toilet. I know we need a big financial adjustment, and this is it, but even so... What I don't agree with is why I, a law-abiding taxpayer, with very little debt other than the house, am being punished for the idiocy of corporate greed and people with bad credit. Why should I pay higher taxes to bailout the losers who have defaulted on their mortgages? Our neighbour works with a 21-year-old who has a $500,000 mortgage on a 6000 sq. foot house, and a $40,000 brand new truck, with a motorbike, a jetski and a powerboat. The only one he owns the title for is the truck, because he took out a home equity loan to pay for it. So he owes $540,000 on his house, and by his own admission, hasn't made a payment in over a year. Why am I having to pay for this per...

Down another 700 points today. We're passing through the previous low in 2003 and continuing down. Only three more days of losses like this and we'll rocket through the low set after Sept 11th 2001.

Cause: Banks and fed perform emergency interest rate drops. Effect: Markets crash by another 200 points. Ben Bernanke and the Fed need to keep their fucking mouths shut.

Stock market was down another 500 points today. It's below 10,000 now. That's on top of yesterday's 800 point drop and the 700 point drop last week. In other words, it's in freefall. But we were told that this just would not happen if the bailout was passed. I'm shocked, Shocked - I tell you - that Bush and McCain lied. I mean really - who would have expected it?

Who knew. Bush's method of ruling is actually best described as 'demagogy' or 'demagoguery', even though 'terrorism' is definitely part of it. From Acme Online Word Lookup (inc): demagogism, demagoguism, demagogy The art and practice of gaining power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people. A demagogue is "one who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." As George Bernard Shaw said: "But though there is no difference in this respect between the best demagogue and the worst, both of them having to present their cases equally in terms of melodrama, there is all the difference in the world between the statesman who is humbugging the people into allowing him to do the will of God, in whatever disguise it may come to him , and one who is humbugging them into furthering his personal ambition and the commercial interests of the plutocrats who own the newspapers and support him...

It seems Microsoft's multi-million dollar campaign to teach us that Vista doesn't suck hasn't gone so well. In fact it's gone so badly that they've now extended the end-of-life for XP almost far enough that people can skip the godforsaken Vista and move on to Windows 7. I wonder what'll happen if/when Windows 7 doesn't work? Vista sucks . XP lives for at least another 6 months.

I got back from my little weekend away in Idaho on my motorbike a couple of hours ago. 868 miles in three days, dodging thunderstorms and rain clouds all the way around. I was well pleased - didn't get properly wet at all. I did have one thunderstorm encounter but I'd already suited up with full waterproofs by the time I got to it. Rain so thick I couldn't see the road, hail stones, lightning and thunder. Hail stones really hurt when you're rushing through them on a motorbike at 80mph. The trip was a success - I spent most of the time plugged in to my iPod shuffle. I took the new Legacy Highway out of Salt Lake City, up to Logan, then on to Preston in Idaho for lunch. (Home of Napoleon Dynamite). There's some backwards people in that town, that's for sure. Quick pit stop in Pocatello for petrol then on to Twin Falls for the overnight stay. On saturday I went up to Boise to get the bike serviced at Big Twin motorcycles, then rode back to Twin Falls for another o...