Wow

This morning I rolled out of bed early for a Sunday morning in my new life. I got dressed, ate my nutritious bowl of cold cereal and made it to church by 8:00 a.m. Our church family was moving into their new sanctuary. This building had been years in the planning and at least a year in the building. Hurricane Ike gave it a good shake down, but it survived rather well.

So, today, for the first time in years, the whole church family got to sit in worship at the same time. Until this day, there was the early church and the late church. It is a challenge a lot of churches face.

The building was deceptively simple and small on the outside. Once one entered the building, it became obvious it's outside was an optical illusion. The building was huge and simply elegant. Now our church can combine all its Bible Study locations into two building and all its worship will be together.

It was a great service. Simple but spiritual, beautiful but powerful. The morning closed with two baptisms and folks stood around and admired what God had done.

It was another good day with the fellowship of believers.

Another tradition falls

Yesterday, I broke a 43 year tradition.

I bought my first non-American plated vehicle. Since I was 15 years old, every car I have ever purchased was an American plated car. I was a patriotic holdout refusing to walk off from the American automakers even though their autos were historically poorly designed, poorly made and poorly serviced by dealers who disappeared after the sale. Several years ago, I found a great dealer and would drive 90 miles to purchase my American plated auto. The cars were not any better, but this was a great family owned dealership which was run by the owners. They handled everything so a poorly made car could still have a chance to be a good vehicle with their relentless commitment to their customers.

But, for me it all changed when the auto makers made their way to Washington to tell Congress that what was good for American automakers was good for the nation. I guess Congress believed the lie and gave them a key to the treasury. "Just help yourselves, take all you need!" And they did, and have come back for more.

I decided that day, I was no longer a customer. I suffered through crappy cars, but I am not going to pay for them at least twice, first through a bank note and then through taxes.

If America and the automakers were joined at the hip, perhaps they should have thought a long time ago about their ongoing unpatriotic management of the Big 3 which shrunk the car industry causing layoffs and plant closings that many communities and families have not lived beyond. By their own hand, GM, Chrysler, and Ford have committed a maddeningly slow suicide by their arrogant refusal to make decent cars at decent prices serviced by decent dealers.

So, I threw in the towel and went looking for a work car that was "preowned" but had lots of life left in it. Yesterday I found it. The price was great, the body was super, the interior was spotless, and best of all, this eight year old car was designed and engineered for 500,000 miles. If I didn't know better, I would say I was sitting in a new car.

I value loyalty and I have been a loyal customer of the American automobile. When Detroit went to Washington, I finally got it. These guys did not deserve my loyalty. Truthfully, they don't deserve anyone's.

On the way to purchase my "preowned" vehicle, I passed a closed GM dealership. I shuttered at the things to come, but greed and arrogance always set up a day of reckoning.

She's wearing the blindfold on her ankle

The older I have become the more I feel this creeping sense the American way of justice is fundamentally unjust.

It is not because I am some kind of bleeding heart liberal I feel this way. Rather it is my horrible habit of going through life listening with my eyes open. I have been amazed how many folks move through life not listening and not seeing and sadly not thinking. Thinking has become a dying art that was at the best of times not well practiced or often practiced. Sadly in academia thinking has been frowned upon especially if the thinker came up with the wrong conclusions.

Why would I think our current system of justice is unjust? Well, the reasons are myriad.

I have never served on a jury. However, I have sat in the room to be picked for a jury more times than I care to remember. I knew my journey to the courthouse was always a waste of time because I inhabited one of those professions that lawyers labeled as "never, not even if they are the last living soul available." I have long known that lawyers preferred not to put pastors on the jury because the prosecution likes them for conviction, but the defense likes them for punishment and neither is comfortable with the prospects they might be unpredictable. So, I would mutteringly answer my jury summons knowing full well I was wasting time. Either a settlement would be reached and we would all go home, or I would be canceled out early because I had too many negatives.

So, I have a profound question about the meaning of "a jury of one's peers." The legal profession has turned that phrase on its ear. Juries are not composed of a collection of one's peers unless the whole country turns out to be biased in ways the attorneys want and naive and basically brain dead. If they aren't, testimony will take them there as trials are more theater than the theater.

I also know that justice is all about the right attorney at the right price. The more you pay, the more they play. So slimy corporations and morally substandard insurance companies pay well and their attorneys play well and hard.

I have also been introduced to the world of the incarcerated.

I am not naive enough to believe the rich never commit crimes, but it amazes me how few rich people are in prison. In fact the only ones I have met aren't but insist they are and by the way, CNN is out in front of the prison doing stories on them every week.

In these days of our ever worsening economy, I know that if anyone were to go to prison, it will most likely be some poor soul who did what he was told and changed some people's mortgage documents to misrepresent their income or the rate of interest they would pay. The boss who schooled them on those techniques will never see the inside of a cell.

Little people serve time, big people pay lawyers. Such is the tragic American way of justice.

Justice is not blind, she is badly broken. Tragically for all, the break has been set by the blindfold that should have been around her eyes.

The Word for the Times

President Obama did a masterful job of speaking to the Congress and through that address speaking to the nation and the world. I have often marveled that politicians who make their livings selling their ideas and causes do it so poorly through the spoken word. During the previous campaign, I came to the conclusion the United States did practice torture but generally on its own citizens by turning politicians loose to speak often without end and more often without point.

The President is powerful in his prose and through his prose calling our nation to hope and hard work. In a time when words are powerful, our President is powerful in words. I really like that, admire that, and appreciate that.

There was one thing I was listening for last night and was not surprised not to hear. There was one word I yearned to hear in the proper context that was strangely absent.

That word was "Accountability." While the President did speak of coming accountability for the billions of dollars being accessed by banks, auto makers, and the like, I heard nothing of calling to account those who helped precipitate this financial meltdown.

Frankly, there are three lines of accountability I want to hear about. First, I want to hear about legal accountability. Documents were forged, laws were broken, frauds were perpetrated, regulations were violated. Such people need to be prosecuted.

Now there are two reasons for that. First, in my mind is the nature of the crime. Our gross national wealth has shrunk by over 40% during this meltdown. These are not just abstract figures, they are retirements, savings, incomes, small businesses, endowments. People have been deeply hurt by these criminal acts. In my mind this is nothing short of robbery. Someone needs to be prosecuted.

There is another reason for this as well. Every weekday I go to work in a Mental Health unit at a maximum security prison. It is the largest single gathering of incarcerated innocent offenders I have ever been around. I know they are innocent because they tell me they are innocent. They didn't do it or they didn't do it like that, or they couldn't have done it then, and on and on. Some make the case for living in a society where there is one justice for the rich man and one for the poor man.

If there are no charges, no trials, no jail time for those who are at the heart of this financial debacle, I will have to say that some of the offenders are right: there are at least two kinds of justice in America--and frankly that is not justice.

There is another level of accountability we need to see. Not every one who helped push us over the financial cliff did things that were criminal in the legal sense of the word. However, they are guilty of greed, arrogance, and gross mismanagement. Under their negligence, we have lost our lead in so many areas. Millions have lost their jobs because of the failure of leadership, CEOs, COO's and CFO's. Governing board did not govern and when things got to be too bad, leadership was cut loose to drift away in "golden parachutes." Again, people lost jobs, investments, retirements because lazy minded and lazy butted boards and company officers were too busy building their fortune instead of minding the store. Two things must happen to restore accountability to American businesses. Executives need to be fired without any compensation of any kind. Let the bastards take the company to court for breach of contract. Let the company lawyers pull out the records of mismanagement and stupidity and let the executive plead his case before a jury. Let his crocodile tears persuade the folks who work two jobs, can't afford decent health care, and have watched their meager savings evaporate while this executive went to Washington and got a billion or two or 20 to tide his mismanaged company over until they can lay off more workers and raise executive pay. Let them sue.

Governing boards also need to resign or be fired. Both executives and boards need also to have an unavoidable legal liability for the lack of oversight while they and their executives were at the wheel. It is called fiduciary responsibility which they failed to exercise. They need to be held accountable and their fortunes need to be in financial jeopardy similar to the jeopardy everyday people have endured as this economy has gone south.

There is one other arena of accountability we must see. Congress has given itself the task of regulating so many aspects of our daily, financial life. There are all kinds of "oversight" committees in the House and Senate. Last night I watched as the cameras panned the august gathered crowd and I was struck at how many of our elected leaders were stuffed full of their own importance and taxpayer food and money. Several looked like toads slowly drifting off to sleep lazily resting on a pond log. That has been the problem. Too many frogs sleeping.

So, if there is a single molecule of character, a single cell of integrity, a corpuscle of self respect, those entrusted with the oversight responsibilities they so quickly coveted should now resign, apologize to their constituency and the taxpayers of America and go home.

I deeply respect our new President and his determination to move us out of this fiscal mess years in the making. My problem is the people in the room listening were largely responsible for ignoring the warning signs down through the years. I have little confidence they have learned anything that will help us move forward.

Mr. President, don't expect the anger to go away until we see some of the shakers and movers of this debacle locked away, pushed away, and/or simply go away.

That will mean someone up there and out there is "truly getting it!!"

Who is Minding the Store?

Today, another breaking story about a Texas firm that may have bilked investors out of $8 B.

Now we need to ask the question, "Who was minding the store?"

The answer is "Apparently, not a living soul!!"

I am not known for being naive, but--well, I thought that all these regulatory agencies and Congressional Oversight Committees were for regulating and overseeing. Alas, yet again, I was wrong. Stupid me!

I guess Congressional Oversight is just that, they overlooked what they were to oversee. Which then begs the question, "So what are they having all these meetings for?" I guess Congress is meeting to investigate the efficacy of rutabaga on the health of earthworms. Or the pressing concern regarding whether cotton or nylon should be used on Athlete's jock straps.

They are not discussing whose doing what with the money they are extorting or gathering from citizens. And apparently, neither are the regulatory agencies. So what are they regulating? Perhaps hemlines--which may be the folks providing inservice for school principals and their dress codes.

They certainly aren't much regulating anything else. These unstable, risky loans, funds, and schemes don't have anyone checking them out, or asking questions, or investigating, or monitoring. So what are we paying these folks to do?

I'm thinking party. They must be spending their days partying. Meeting nice people who are representing a great fund that will pay money out the wazoo! Now, they must be partying, because drunk is the only way these folks must be believing these Ponzi schemes.

And then, Congress must be partying, because they certainly aren't working for us, so they must be drinking, and smoozing with the big dogs who are funding their campaigns. Whatever they are doing, what they are not doing is looking after our interests unless like GM of old, they think that what's good for them is, of course, good for us.

So here we are. Our tax dollars are supporting agencies that are sleeping through their day job, and our tax dollars are supporting Congresspersons who are suffering with such poor sight, they are not seeing a lot except and until the 18 wheeler puts on the air horn and starts the skid.

Then, it is too late.
Sadly,I am afraid, what ever we do now, will be too much,way too much but not enough and much too late.

How Much Down the Rat Hole?

Chrysler and GM have come back to Washington to ask Congress for another $14 B bringing the tab the car companies are running with the US Taxpayers to a cool $39 B.

Apparently, Chrysler and GM are convincing Congress they can do something on our dollar they could not do on their own dime. They have made the argument:

First they finally get it! Now that is a major step for these oil burning, gas guzzling behemoths. What do they get? What we have been trying to tell these arrogant bastards for 30+ years. Their crappy overpriced cars are junk compared to alternatives available down the street at the Toyota or Nissan dealer. Each year Americans have bought fewer and fewer American plated automobiles while the talking management teams ignored the reality that was creeping up the walls of their ivory towers. Course they didn't much care what we thought because they jetted around in their "not Detroit made" planes. If any jet manufacturing company made jets like Detroit made cars, no one would fly them, and those who did would generally be dead. The fall that happened when the engines quit working wouldn't kill them. It would be the sudden stop at the end.

Apparently, Detroit finally gets it that they can't go on like this. This is the part apparently Congress doesn't get. Congress has crafted a boogie man that is scaring Congress to death. God love them, they are so easily scared about everything. So, in order to keep an unrepentant industry going, our elected officials are going to let them burn through our cash. I haven't heard one single word, not one, from the company management team about building cars America needs or wants: cars that are built to last longer than the 6 year note it takes to pay one off; cars that don't suck up all the gasoline in the world to get them out of the drive way; cars that don't go down the road rusting and dropping parts off as they merrily sputter to their destination; cars that actually have warranties that are largely unneeded because this vehicle isn't a high school experiment pulled before it was ripe. Or, that owners don't have to chase dealers to honor.

Detroit's approach to getting back to profitability is to lay off workers and then? Well, they are going to sell them a piece of junk they can't afford. Now the person is unemployed thanks to Detroit looking after the big hats, and they really think they are going to run out and buy a car from the very folks who put them in the unemployment line. Now, why am I the only one who thinks this is poor economics?

Let me tell you what I think Detroit and perhaps even Washington don't get. I think the miserable sales is a dire prediction of what is to come. Taxpayers are mad. They are mad at mortgage companies, overfat predatory banks choking on their own greed now running to Uncle Sam for relief. I think folks are tired of car companies ripping them off in the showroom and now ripping off tax dollars because they have been too arrogant, too lazy, too self-absorbed, too stupid to see that America is not some island in the sea that can insolate itself from the rest of the world. So, now, what is almost a native American industry or at least a Western industry is done better by nearly everyone but America--well with the possible exception of YUGOslavia, which is no longer a country, as I recollect.

I need to buy a second car. It won't be new, and sadly, it won't be American. I have finally decided I can drive Detroit and drive crap.

Or, I can finally drive something dependable. I have been a loyal Detroit guy until now.Twelve automobiles. Now, I refuse to do any more to help an industry that has been so unpatriotic as to destroy the economies of individual American families and then run to Washington and rob us again.

Goverment by Dummies 101

Apparently, Congress is more stupid than the greedy bankers that got us into this financial mess.

Our gridlocked Congress is moving at a glacial pace to shore up the financial system that is in shambles because of their previous lack of oversight. But not to worry, as long as taxpayers pay their taxes and young taxpayers arrive to take their places, the money can still be foolishly spent on Congressional Cronies and their foolish schemes.

The latest thought seems to propose suckering investors who have already lost their shirts, pants, and socks in the last greedy go round, to wager their last pair of underpants on "bad investments" that have already sunk the Banks' liquidity. The government would pass out guarantees like postage stamps, that if the investments go below worthless, they will step in and make good on the bad investment. The thinking, or lack thereof, seems to be that if there are more suckers than just the banking executive suckers, who could be cajoled into buying worthless investments for real dollars, then the really talented bankers could right their boats and keep their bonuses and we could all sail merrily along awash in more debt than we have ever been in. Bad investments could be dumped off on us and the government we middle Americans fund. Bankers, mortgage companies, and fund managers around the world could now slither back into the sunlight and buy themselves another penthouse and resort home in the Bahamas.

My personal opinion is that we need to start at the beginning. If we can round up suspected terrorists and put them in a makeshift jail on an island in the Gulf, perhaps we could do the same for those who have destroyed our world's economy. Bankers and mortgage brokers within America have done what Muslim terrorist have been unable to do in their holy war against the West-sink our way of life and make us pay for the privilege!

Let them go to jail while we sort it all out. Then let's round up the salespeople who had so little integrity and scruples they could sell their fellow gullible and greedy citizens down the river for a bonus. Let them be gathered into one place to prey on each other.

Then, lets gather up the politicians who broadened their sorry butts on taxpayer money while neglecting to oversee the economy they were elected to manage. They can organize constituency groups in the prison and try to get elected.

I would suggest prisons that look like zoos. Folks can go there and view the offenders in their natural habitats. Of course we would want to bring in their mohogany desks and their cell phones. We might even let folks feed the lot, and perhaps have their pictures made with the more docile. While people who have lost everything might want to throw rocks, we could limit them to unshelled peanuts.

The bottom line is that now is not the time for taxpayers to sit back and watch. Rather, if we ever made noise about anything, now is the time. It is time to communicate with your slumbering representative, and your lethargic Senator. It is time to dump the corporations who have run to the government for a bailout. Get Citi Bank, Bank of America out of your wallet. Move your Countrywide mortgage. It is time to quit buying GMC and Chrysler cars of any kind. It is time to say, "Enough is enough." Substandard cars, predatory practices are over.

The fact is, all of these folks are going to fail. It is just a question of how much taxpayer money you want them to make off with before they bite the dust.