Archive for May, 2009
Sunday Open Thread
What’s on your mind this Sunday?
Saturday Open Thread
What’s on your mind this Saturday?
The Economy Is Much, Much Worse Than Dr. Utopia Wants You to Realize
File this one under DUH, subheading, OBVIOUS, but the economy is much, much worse than what Dr. Utopia and the rest of the unicorn-riding Kool-Aid Gang want you to believe.
This week, you’ve noticed posts have been light as those of us here have been involved in a few large projects — some taking extra work now that summer’s here and there’s rare actual work to be had, and others attending a weeklong series of seminars on nonprofit financing solutions in a depression.
Much to our surprise, about 30% of the presenters this week actually used the word DEPRESSION to describe the state of the economy, in direct opposition to what the White House and Congress issue in their talking points to the MSM enablers and sycophants. Factoring inflation and the recently developed contract-worker/independent-freelancer so prevalent today into the unemployment numbers (a unique American worker who did not exist, for all intents and purposes, in 1929-1932), things are already worse in large cities today than they were during the Great Depression. The REAL unemployment figures in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and other freelancer-heavy cities is around 20-25%: higher numbers than existed between 1929-1932.
While the Dow is currently down 55% from its 1999 peak (adjusted for inflation), it still has to drop to 4,300 before it mirrors the 1929-1932 Great Depression crash of the stock market. However, one of the more terrifying things we learned this week is that the coming inflation tsunami, triggered by the massive deficit spending Dr. Utopia, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid have forced upon us (with Congress not even bothering to read its own spending bills), could potentially tank the markets the 3,700 points that would send the current 8,000 range Dow into a new Great Depression death roll.
7% inflation would drag the Dow down to 4,300 in about 8 years; the coming inflation tsunami, of which the MSM refuses to even talk about, could realistically bring about 11-12% inflation. That means 4-5 years from now could very well see this country in worse shape than 1929-1932.
Today, walking through Andersonville (the closest thing to a “Girlstown” in Chicago to mirror our home base of “Boystown) we stopped in Bon Bon, a little gourmet chocolate shop whose fortunes rose and fell in the last few years, along with the other high-end chocolate lounges in the city. Bon Bon’s proprieter was engaged in a passionate conversation with a customer when we walked in, telling her about losing the lease for the store and having to sell next May. The shop’s been losing money for two years, we learned, with the bottom completely dropping out in the last six months or so as gourmet (and, we realized, erotically-molded, karma sutra-inspired chocolates) dropped to dead last on the list of things people can afford to spend their money on these days, even in trendy, upper-income heavy Andersonville (home briefly to many lesbians before they partner up and head to the suburbs, and gay men who more often than not burn too many bridges in Boystown and then head north to colonize Andersonville like Puritans pushed off to the New World — which, we duly note, is the first time in history gay men in Boystown have ever been compared to Puritans).
The shopkeeper had a great attitude about it, though. She said she got a lot of buzz from an article Playboy Magazine did on her chocolates, which amounted to about three months of sales bonanza, and then things all basically fell apart. Playboy insisted she create a website for her shop, which she never bothered to have before, because they wouldn’t write the article unless they could link to a website with it.
The customer piped up and said she used to be a successful web designer, but that she lost her business in the last year because too many people bought web design software themselves: she made little money on creating new sites for people, and instead earned the bulk of her profit charging to keep sites going, refresh them, or add new information as business needs changed. She told the chocolatier that the easy to use web developer software people have been buying, like Dreamweaver, killed her business because once she created sites for people, they learned how to use Dreamweaver to cut out the middleman — in this case, her.
Bon Bon’s lease seems to be linked to a share in the net profits, so the building’s owner appears to think it can do better with some other shop in that space. Instead of making gourmet chocolates, the shop owner said she’s just make something else instead, something more down-market. The web developer has no idea what she’ll do, but thinks she’ll go back to school.
The vignette reminded us of something Billy Joel would have sung about if the whole thing had taken place in a Jersey bar and not an Andersonville chocolate shop.
It also made us think about all the small business owners we know who went out of business in the last six months — many of whom, like the two in the story above, are big Dr. Utopia supporters. Realtors, web developers, landscape designers, caterers, event planners, fashion designers, cupcake bakers, and freelances of all stripes. All of these people are very well-educated, and all catered to the needs of people with disposable income that suddenly became not so disposable after all. They are all now still waiting for all of their hope and change, and all the miracles they were promised by Candidate Utopia before he became our 44th President.
It’s strange to hear these sorts of people complain about our illustrious president now. At Caribou Coffee today on Broadway in Boystown, we sat next to quite possibly the most annoying two people we’ve encountered in a while: two twenty-somethings clearly from wealthy families who are all about Green Peace and saving all those poor, ignorant people in Africa (just waiting for two white Midwesterners to rescue them from their many plights) and telling all the foolish Americans how terrible they are and how they are all destroying the planet with their consumerism and economic self-determinism. One of them was South African, and had the most grating and irritating accent, which was employed loudly complaining about America and how she was being asked to leave since her visa was not being renewed, but noting that “this isn’t what was supposed to happen. Everything was supposed to be different now. Obama is president, for crying out loud, why aren’t things different?”. The Iowa farm boy turned neo-hippie she was with, the kind of guy who tries to guilt trip you about the steak you’re eating (while he’s wearing a leather belt and largely using an interest in environmentalism as a wildly effective (from what we hear) way to score with girls like the irritating South African in front of him – who, we should note, had a certain hunger and desperation in her eyes that made us wonder just how well she was working out plans to trick the farm boy into some kind of arrangement where she could stay in the country she seemingly hates but is so angry about being asked to leave).
It’s funny to see the neo-hippies realize 2008′s Hope/Change-palooza was all a load of crap, just as ultimately in their 40s, if not sooner, these same twenty-somethings quite often realize they’ve truly wasted the last 10-15 years of their lives on leftist nonsense, that patchuli smells terrible, and no one ever wants to listen to people with grating South African accents lecture about all the many problems America has (while simultaneously whining about no longer being able to live here, and going on and on and on about what’s going to happen to the cat she’s had for a year that South Africa won’t let her bring with her when she’s deported).
But, it’s sad and frustrating, more so than funny, because slowly we see people waking up and realizing what we warned about back in 2008.
This is why, once Hillary Clinton suspended her campaign, we fought tooth and nail for John McCain first, and ultimately with our whole hear for Sarah Palin.
None of Dr. Utopia’s promises were real — but his determination to push this country onto a destructive Marxist track was VERY MUCH REAL, and could very well be the end of all of us.
On the streets of Boystown and Andersonville in the last several days — we kid you not — we saw nicely dressed people, just a little dirty, but wild-eyed and desperate looking, digging through trash bins on the street or dumpsters behind restaurants. One man yesterday looked like one of the random, slightly overweight, middle-management accountant types indigenous to every cubicle farm in America (and obsessed with red Swingline staplers on occasion). He still had the ubiquitous nylon badge holder/key ring straight out of central casting dangling around his neck, the kind his ID used to be on when he swiped in at Aon every day (the name of the insurance giant on the nylon, given to him at orientation his first day or as some worthless prize at a training seminar or other event, we’re sure). And, there he was, in The Golden Age of Hope and Change, in dirty khackis, excited to find a styrofoam cup with a lid still on it in the trash outside Potbelly’s. Feral-like, he scooped that cup right up to his mouth and slurped up its contents, savoring it as the only food he’d had that day, most likely.
It was stunning and sickening and heartbreaking and TERRIFYING all at the same time, because when we were kids and asked our grandparents what the Great Depression was like and how they first realized there was inescapable trouble coming, THIS IS WHAT THEY SAID THEY NOTICED FIRST.
Office workers eating garbage in broad daylight on the street. Former business people prostituting themselves on Craigslist or giving handjobs to strangers in alleys for twenties. People selling their big screen TVs to pawn shops for $100 to try to make their rent and avoid eviction.
Another friend of ours, Brian, used to make $140,000 a year selling window treatments around Chicagoland. He was a sales leader, winning countless company awards, raking in all those commissions since every time a condo was flipped in Chicago, the flippers bought all new window treatments for each sale. His business still soared as the real estate market tanked, because condos that weren’t selling prompted their increasingly more desperate owners to change window treatments, paint schemes, and staging options repeatedly as they kept trying and trying to close deals. But, things started to go downhill for Brian last December…and not having any savings (living always beyond his means, blowing most of his money on nights out at Sidetrack’s, and spending more than he ever brought in, even when he was sitting on a gold mine), he actually lost his condo last week and is now nomadically staying a few nights here and there with friends, before crashing on another couch until he gets back on his feet, whenever THAT will be. Thankfully, Brian has friends to keep him from having to slurp chili out of Potbelly’s trash, but not everyone is so lucky.
People who have never struggled with anything and have always had high-paying, great jobs have been unemployed for MONTHS with no prospects.
People who never heard the word “No” for anything are being rejected for jobs that are three or four levels below what they’d typically be paid fortunes for are being reduced to taking unpaid internships to diversify their resumes and make themselves more marketable.
Some people are just giving up on finding work and have moved back in with their parents while they go to law school or go get MBAs, deciding to ride out the new depression in school while the gilded world around us implodes on itself in this the most historic and excellent Golden Age of Hope and Change.
Speaking of Sidetrack’s, an actual gold mine if ever there was one, we ran into one of the owners over Memorial Day, a big force for LGBTQ Equality in Illinois and a genuinely nice guy (even though we criticize him for allowing his VJs to misogynistically attack Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, etc. — and don’t think we will ever let him forget it, no matter how much we do like him), who honestly is probably the most positive and upbeat person we can think of. We have never, EVER heard him say anything not 100% upbeat. But, when we chatted and he asked one of us how we had been and Robby said, “Oh, I’m working hard to make this a great summer, there’s a lot of great opportunities and I’m giving it my all”, we were stunned when the normally positive bar owner said, “That’s good to hear because we need some optimism for a change, things are so bad, it’s depressing and everybody’s always so down”.
Wow.
Empty bars that are normally packed.
Deserted restaurants practically giving meals away trying to entice business.
Being able to find a table and occupy it for hours and hours on end in a normally jam-packed Caribou’s.
All because no one has the money to spend on the whole Boystown keeping-up-with-the-Brendans whirl.
And so, so many Brendans are leaving Chicago each month, no longer able to afford their rent and life in the big city. Back home to Iowa they go, or across the border to Indiana for longer commutes to work (if they still have jobs) but much, much cheaper rent.
Adios Boystown, hello Hammond.
The MSM and White House continue to tell us, every day, how historic Dr. Utopia’s presidency is and how happy we all must be that we have a black president now.
We hear over and over again how glamorous Mrs. Utopia is and how everyone should look like her and dress like her (and wear sofa upholstery and old coffee filters sewn by drag designers as couture evening wear).
Hope!
Change!
Middle-management slurping old chili out of the garbage!
People losing their homes!
Talented professionals going almost a year without finding jobs!
Welcome to Dr. Utopia’s America, people. It’s the man the MSM claims is the new Lincoln, the one who’s taken over and nationalized the car-making industry…the man who reminds us not of Lincoln, but of Hoover…and we all not only know how terrible government-made cars are, but also how much Hoovers SUCK.
And we hate to tell you this, but it is all only going to get worse for the rest of Dr. Utopia’s term.
Friday Open Thread
What’s on your mind this Friday?
The Gay Community Is So Incredibly Stupid We Really Don't Know What Else To Say Anymore
On Tuesday, walking back to Buzzquarters here in Boystown, we passed the Center on Halsted where a demonstration and march against the Prop-8 court ruling in California was just starting — one of those moments in life where we watch grown men and women behaving like kindergarteners.
Because, honestly, that’s what this “march” felt like: Field Day at the end of the school year where all the kids come out together en masse at the direction of their teachers, but none of them really know why they are there, what they are doing, what the point of any of it really is, only that they need to make as much noise as possible and wear lots of bright colors.
We turned over in our heads what we wanted to say about the Prop-8 court ruling and the LGBTQ community’s reaction to it for the last two days, and we keep coming back to the cluelessness of a grade school Field Day — because almost no one at that march had any idea what the court ruling was about, who really passed Prop-8, and why they are all complete and utter fools for voting the way they did in November 2008 but expecting different results today.
First of all, fools, the courts in California are not the enemy. Courts do not legislate, no matter what Sondra Sotomayer thinks. Courts decide, based on the rule of law, whether legislation passed by the voters or enacted by elected legislators is constitutional and valid. That’s what the court in California did: affirming the constitutionality of a measure Democrats in California passed in large numbers while electing Dr. Utopia president.
Yes, fools, DEMOCRATS, not Republicans, are to blame for Prop-8.
No matter how many times Tom Hanks and the Hollywood crowd tries to tell you differently, Dr. Utopia won California by a healthy margin in 2008. Prop-8 passed on the same day by a healthy margin. 85% of Dr. Utopia’s black supporters also voted for Prop-8, more than any other group who supported the measure. 95% of those black voters in California are Democrats.
Democrats, Democrats, Democrats.
So, we don’t know what to say about all the people at the march here in Chicago on Tuesday who were screaming and yelling about the Republicans taking aim at the LGBTQ community and generally being up to all sorts of cliched evil. When the Republicans do evil things, we certainly call them on it, and truly believe they deserve heat for whatever bad things they get up to. Condoning the religious zealots on the right certainly earns Republicans criticism (just as Democrats deserve flak for enabling the loons of the left).
But, Democrats passed Prop-8 and so Democrats need to educate themselves on the separation of powers in state and national government because courts cannot overturn legitimate and well-crafted legislation that Democrats voted for and passed just a few months ago.
So, this is the first reason the “March on Halsted” this Tuesday was farcical.
The next broken record we’ll play this morning is the old chestnut “You will never win if you keep using the word marriage, dummies”. This is one of our least favorite of all our many repetitions – mainly because we truly do realize that absolutely no one in the LGBTQ community will ever listen to common sense and practicality on this. We know that rebranding “gay marriage” as “equal partner rights” or “spousal equality” or “cromulence” would all solve the problem at hand. It’s the word “marriage” that people object to — reasonable, rational, normal, non-hateful people — who, for whatever reason, get stuck on the word “marriage” and never move forward. They don’t want people to suffer financially. They don’t want two people to not be able to buy a house together if they want. They don’t really want to pry into anyone’s lives. But they just have a knee-jerk reaction to the word “marriage”.
It’s like when, a few years ago, the fruit companies selling “prunes” realized they had a branding problem and started packaging their product as “dried plums” (or at Whole Foods and other more fanciful places, “sun-kissed plums” or “sun-loved plums”). People who shouted YUK! at the thought of PRUNES happily snatched up the DRIED PLUMS — because they are intensely stupid and never realized they were hung up on a word. Loved the dried plums and crammed as many into their pieholes as they could, but hated, hated, hated those prunes.
People, and we’re talking mainly to the LGBTQ community here, a demographic that includes many marketing execs, graphic designers, and all manner of consultants of various stripes and abilities, why on Earth is an entire “movement” ignoring the simple fact that over 100 years of solid consumer marketing data proves that BRAND IDENTITY MATTERS, in America in particular.
Companies rise and fall on the strength of their brands. Billions are spent a year tweaking copy in the seemingly most miniscule and relatively unimportant marketing materials because of the simple fact that WORDS MATTER to people more than the actual products themselves.
Couching financial and spousal equality in terms of “marriage” is as stupid as trying to get a pack of yuppies at a bar to snack on a big bowl of something they associate with geriatrics and the grandparents they never want to visit down in Boca. But stick some “healthy, sun-kissed plums” in expensive Japanese bento, jack up the price by half, and tell these fools there’s a very limited supply and not everyone can have them, and you’ll lose a finger or two if you don’t get away from those plums fast enough.
It is all about the marketing, but the LGBTQ community refuses to see that.
Maybe there are conspiracies involved here — finally resolving the “gay marriage” issue will put a lot of people out of work, like the people who organized this “spontaneous demonstration” that was professionally coreographed, complete with well-spaced cheerleaders, people with bullhorns, and enough professionally-made signs for anyone who would carry one. There is a whole cottage industry comprised of people who keep the “gay marriage” battle running — an industry on both sides of the aisle, actually.
These people do not want peace. Peace is bad for business. Sensible marketing and an approach that will actually resolve the matter once and for all is bad for business. Screaming and yelling and ignoring basic facts while berating Republicans for no good reason is what this “movement” is all about.
If they really and truly wanted “marriage equality” now, they’d rebrand what they are asking for so people wouldn’t get hung up on the word “marriage”. If what you are asking for is equal financial, legal, and other couples’ rights, ask for those, in a way that gets your argument across rationally without needlessly flaring up emotion against you.
If it worked for prunes, it can work for you too.
What's Hillary Clinton Doing Today? May 28th, 2009
900am – Sign condolence book for former South Korean President Roh at Embassy of the Republic of Korea
1150am – Meeting with visiting Egyptian Democracy Activists
445pm – Meeting with Dr. Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority
Special Briefing to take place at 200pm by senior State Department official to review plans for Hillary Clinton’s May 31st-June 2nd trip to Honduras and El Salvador.
Thursday Open Thread
What’s on your mind this Thursday?
Today’s catchup day for us after what turned out to be a very adventurous week. Here are some of the things on our minds that we’ll expand on later today:
(1) What does picking Sonya Sotomayer for the Supreme Court say about Dr. Utopia and his belief in his own possible re-election? How will moderates take it when they hear, over and over, Sotomayer in her own words, on video, saying she believes the Court’s role is to legislate from the bench? That, and the racist comments she’s made in the past will be very interesting. Is it good strategy for 2010 and 2012 for Dr. Utopia to push moderates away hoping Sotomayer solidifies Hispanics? From our own dealings with the Hispanic community — of which we are certainly no experts on — we’ve seen bread and butter issues trump identity politics. The Hispanic community believed Hillary Clinton would do more for them in the primaries and voted for her in larger numbers than for Dr. Utopia, instead of race-voting like the black community for a fellow minority. It seems the Hispanic community will not follow lockstep behind Dr. Utopia because of a Hispanic Justice if the economic situation has not improved for Hispanics by 2010 and 2012. We can hear them say, “Yah, about time we had a Hispanic Justice, but that was 2009 and this is 2010 and I still don’t have a job and things aren’t better even though he promised us they would be, so why should we support him just because he put Sotomayer on the Court?”. In the meantime, on the Court, Sotomayer has a chance to show everyone the bad behavior she’s become famous for, and put on display what some call a stunning lack of serious intellectual depth in her opinions and rulings. The nastiness towards those who have appeared before her in her courtroom could very well come out in the confirmation hearings as well — during which she will be surely confirmed, as there are not enough votes to stop her. But, in the end, what will Dr. Utopia have really gained from this? It sure feels like he doesn’t think there will be a second term for him, or many more chances to put radicals on the Court so he’s taking every opportunity presented instead of going with sensible moderate choices like our favorite for the Court, Ann Claire Williams.
(2) The attacks on Senator Roland Burris yesterday were ridiculous. The local news here in Chicago is savaging him. We’ll go point by point later in the day as to what’s going on with that, but essentially they are saying Burris bought or tried to buy his Senate seat for the whopping sum of $1,500. Now, Jesse Jackson Jr. offered $500,000 for that Senate seat, but had trouble coming up with the funding for it or it would have been his. The local media is saying Blagojevich thought this was a valuable prize to be auctioned off — so he opens up bidding and then shouts SOLD! at $1,500? That makes no sense. And, quite frankly, if we had caught word that the Senate seat could have been bought for just a few thousand dollars, we would have pulled together all of our pennies and bought that Senate seat for $2,000 at auction for one of us here. The local media is ridiculous, and are operating on marching orders from the White House to take Burris down so Dr. Utopia’s friend and basketball buddy Alexi Giannoulias, scion of the mob-backed Broadway Bank family, can take the Senate seat. More on this later…but ask yourself critically if the media’s attacks on Burris make any sense at all.
(3) North Korea and Iran. Weren’t all of our enemies supposed to love us the moment Dr. Utopia was elected president? Doesn’t Dr. Utopia want to surrender all of our nuclear weapons and usher in a Golden Age where America is defenseless against all threats foreign and domestic? Apparently, Pyongyang and Tehran don’t get MSNBC
(4) WordPress has been acting strange lately, hence the lack of posts. We’re not sure what the problem is, if it’s their servers or more trouble using a Mac with WordPress. These are all problems we hope to have resolved with a site of our own on a new dedicated server later this summer. It’s hard not having the ability to post on various things throughout the day, but in a way it forced us to focus on some other things and take a much needed hiatus from the computer…so sometimes the universe brings you the wrong French toast.
Wednesday Open Thread
What’s on your mind this Wednesday?
Tuesday Open Thread
What’s on your mind this Tuesday?
Happy Memorial Day
Today we think the focus should be on the men and women in uniform, past and present, who kept this nation safe and protected our freedoms. So, in that spirit, that’s what we want to be about today. We had our barbeque fun yesterday, and today have a bunch of little American flags we saved from various campaign events last year; we’re taking those to the cemetaries around us here in Chicago to make sure as many veterans as possible get a little posthumous recognition as we enjoy what we hope will be a lovely sunny spring day.
Whatever you are doing today, whether it’s a barbeeque or a party or whatever, try to work the national anthem in there for a moment, and pause briefly to remember this is indeed not just “a pretend holiday”, but something that matters a great deal. Memorial Day is not “party day”, as much as we want you to enjoy it.
