Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Deeply-Religious Pirate Crew

Incongruences make me laugh.

Check this out. A group of Somali Pirates hijacked a ship loaded to the hilt with weapons while they were fasting for Ramadan and have now entered negotiations for the return of the ship for a ransom of $5 million, but the talks were recessed for the celebration of the Holy feast of Eid il'Fitur, the official end of the fasting season.

What?

Somali Pirates
Thievary during the Fast
Thievary of Weapons during the Fast
Pirate Negotiations
Ransom for a hijacked ship
Oh, and this is the best part, the pirates really want a large sum of money, but they have to wait until they are done loading the deck of the ship with fresh fruits, vegetables and livestock to be sacraficed for the Feast before they can collect it.

Amazing!

Monday, September 29, 2008

Welcome to the Real World America.

Writer and Blogger for Skirt! magazine , Rhi B. posted a warning to great America about the consequences of not persuing a bailout. Great thoughts and I appreciate her industry insights thoroughly.

The reality is, however, that Democrat or Repubican, rich or even poor, everyone has reeped the ill-deserved rewards that you described so eloquently in her post. Even myself - a recent graduate in debt to my ears with no assets and a job that doesn't pay me enough to live without the support of my parents. I benefited through the my parents and the overspending I was entitled by the preditory lending of credit card companies (financial pimps who really started this thing even though no one is looking at that).

We have all ridden high on the bubble of unpaid debts, credit cards and loans. And now that the bills are in collections, everyone is looking at who should shoulder the burden. We all share responsibility for this debt.

BUT, the bailout does nothing to solve the problem, it merely delays the inevitable... like finding a debt consilidation service for the obnoxiously rich.

And whether we take our medicine now like good little kids by, as Rhi said, "tightening our belts" and not living lavish lifestyles that are grossly beyond our means, or we proceed with the bailout and pass on the debt to future generations, the fallout will surely come sometime.

By going forward with the bailout, the government will, in essence, be rewarding corporate greed - paying off the corporations who, according to Rhi, the politicians are in bed with for running their businesses into the ground. There will be resignations and rediculously large severence packages, and once again, the rich get richer. Count on it... Any deal that is overseen by the same people who caused the problem in the first place is sure to benefit the overseers even more.

This package stands as the first step in the socialization of the American economy. It will further shrink the middle class (without the tax exemptions that the wealthy in this country enjoy, they will be the ones to shoulder the burden once again)... so they got screwed in the consumer market, and now they look to be screwed in the investment market as well as banks continue to claim they cannot lend and interest rates plummet even further.

As it stands today, the investment market is actually functioning rather normally. Yes, it tanked today. But not at an irrepairable level. This is certainly not the Crash of 1929.

Personally, I say give the American middle-class the right to do what they do best: Stay resilient, be creative and entreprenuerial in their spending, work hard and preserve the market themselves through continual investment made with legitimate funds rather than lies and stated-incomes. This is the only way to preserve the American middle-class and our way of life.

Welcome to the real world America: We must suffer the consequences for the people to prevail.

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