Updated Follies PodKast: the Transcript

Posted by LK on 7/05/10 • Categorized as Blog, Business, Conflict, Environment, Featured, Foreign Policy, Military, Politics, The Economy and Markets

editor’s note: with the aid of Dragon Naturally Speaking, a wonderful piece of software, we’re now able to easily transcribe LK’s PodKasts for those of you who still have the attention span to read material that’s longer than a twitter. Our guess is that, thankfully, the vast majority of this site’s visitors fall into that category. So, with a few revisions to deal with what’s transpired since LK posted his most recent Kast, we present the transcript for the fond of reading and the hard of hearing.

Good evening. This is LK of LooseKannon.com; that’s Kannon with a K, recently named to the Talkers Magazine Frontier 50, a selection of outstanding talk media webcasters.” Talkers Magazine, of course, is billed as “The Bible of Talk Radio and the New Talk Media”, and, in the words of Muhammad Ali, “it ain’t bragging if it’s true”.

First, before we get going this morning, I wanted to thank those of you who inquired as to the state of my voice, and let you know that it’s coming back strong. Again, I thank you for your concern and good wishes.

Today, I want to look in briefly on the major events screaming at us from the front pages of our newspapers, our cable channels, and our favorite websites, but before dealing with these specific issues, I have to point out that one of the things that hits me over the head is that these major events are all tied together; tied together by a massive disconnect between the elected leaders driving the bus, and the passengers, namely us, who elected, or if you’d like, hired them. We the people programmed a destination into the GPS, let’s call it the intersection of security and prosperity, but the drivers, who promised to take us there, now insist on ignoring the directions and instead, they seek out dead ends and detours. Maybe it’s a nefarious plot. Maybe it’s a tragic example of the Peter Principle, in which they’ve all reached their levels of incompetence. Maybe it’s a bit of both. What’s clear to me, is that we’re being governed right into the ground.

That said, let’s do what we try to do here, and connect the dots, dots that many folks, sadly, don’t even see. On the menu tonight are today’s follies du jour, the absurdities of the day.

Let’s start with Afghanistan-I remember Bush introducing Karzai the peacock at his State of the Union address in 2002. The guy was dressed like Huggy Bear from the old Starsky and Hutch TV show, or the film re-make, depending on your generational reference, and Karzai turned out to be every bit the pimp and pusher he was decked out as. Wouldn’t be surprised if the Afghan state limo had leopard spotted upholstery and big fluffy dice hanging from the rear view mirror. And Obama, he’s no better. He turns a blind eye as well. Unless they’ve both been in bed with Heroin Hamid all along. Something to think about. And in a further developement, Representative Nita Lowey said she wouldn’t give one more dime to those first degree felons. Good for her.

It won’t matter whether the commander is loose lips McChrystal, the saviour Petraeus, George Patton, or Genghis Khan. Get our men and women out of there. It’s a wheel spinning war; it’s like fighting an infestation of phantom-like roaches. You can’t kill them one by one. You can only clear the room and release a spray that kills everything in the room, not just the roaches. And since we’re not going to stand for collateral damage, which is a fancy term for dead civilians, we’ve simply got to get out. Any politician who wants to save face and stay, rather than save lives and bring home the troops deserves to be deployed themselves. Check out the piece I wrote back in December, and then updated in April that outlined how only a clown of a military strategist, or a politician who deals with notions rather than 3-dimensional flesh and blood, could lead his troops into the Afghan death trap.

Let’s turn to financial regulation. What a joke. The fact that it ran into some roadblocks last week is meaningless. Do you think for a second that the watered down and easily circumvented rule changes in the bill being considered can stop the hot shot hedgies from finding ways to steal from the poor and give to the rich? Let’s put it this way: Do you think for a second that if they changed a rule or two of chess that Garry Kasparov or the ghost of Bobby Fischer couldn’t still beat the pants off the rest of us?

When oversight on auto loans is overruled by lobbyist lackeys disguised as Senators, and no cap is put on the rate of interest that credit card companies can charge, we have new rules and regs in name only. If you believe in paying for the sins in the afterlife, you can take some small comfort in the usurers, the lenders, going straight to hell.

And then there’s the gaffe in the Gulf. As I tweeted about a day and a half before the mainstream media recognized it and then belatedly came out with a slew of articles about the psychological toll the spill was taking, the despondency over a way of life that evaporated is as great a burden in many cases as the loss of a paycheck. And they feed on each other, creating, literally, a snowball in hell for the people down there. And there’s no guarantee that the relief wells are going to be able to thread the 6000 foot needle later this summer.

It’s been one false hope after another, and I can’t help but wonder if every attempt thus far; to cap the well, capture the oil, contain the spill, and clean the coast was one big dog and pony show meant to keep us all, and particularly the folks directly affected, pacified enough that they didn’t draw and quarter BP’s Tony Hayward when they had the chance.

And what review would be complete without a few words on the economy. Would someone with more common sense than degrees from some fancy business school please tell me how, with industries not increasing their capital spending or hiring, and unemployment benefits being cut off, we’re going to see anything but a rise in the same type of despondency I already talked about, rather than a rise in people working and spending again? Increasing the taxes on a depleted workforce is like squeezing water from the proverbial stone, and drastically cutting money for schools and teachers is insuring that the next generation has a whole lot more low wage or no wage jobs, decreasing the tax base even further. That’s one vicious spiral. As I tweeted this morning, it’s no wonder that consumer confidence took a vicious hit in the face of, not only zero no job creation, but no extension of unemployment benefits. And still there are optimistic, idiotic talking heads on CNBC whose sole purpose is to get you to put your money into their funds, so they can collect a sweet management fee regardless of your plunging assets.

And yet it brings to mind an idea so clear headed and productive that it’s no wonder our elected officials haven’t thought of it yet, because clear headed and prouctive just ain’t there thing. What’s the idea? Take the hundreds of billions we’d save from our debacle in Afghanistan and Iraq, the same Iraq, by the way, that’s going to erupt in renewed violence the moment we’re gone, let’s take that money we’re wasting in the Persian Gulf, and spend it instead, on, of all things, the well being of our own future generations. For one thing, cut out the education cutbacks, then take part of the windfall we gain from spending less on bullets, medics, and caskets and use that money to reduce the debt, and take yet another part to strengthen homeland security, because God knows that wasting our resources searching for Osama as a way to prevent terror attacks is exactly what extremist Islam want us to do. They’ve become far more sophisticated. Death to the infidels, yes, but no longer by dramatic beheadings. Rather, by a slow attrition of manpower and resources.

I could go on, but you’ve got a life to live and there’s a fine line between being informed and being overwhelmed to the point where catatonia sets in.

To end on a brighter note, when I turned on the TV the morning before I recorded this Kast to catch some news and financial info, the cable box was on a channel that was showing the end of Apollo 13, which displayed an example of the very best of what we human beings can accomplish, regardless of the odds. I’m going to get hold of a copy of the movie and watch the whole thing, maybe more than once. Might even have a party and invite some friends over for a much needed dose of optimism, in the face of the day to day drek we’re dealing with.

It’s clearly time to grab hold of the reins and get rid of the bottom feeders disguised as leaders. I’m tired of having the truth get me down.

Alright, this is LK, of LooseKannon.com, and that’s Kannon with a K, signing off. I’ll be away from the LK studios for a week, but will be posting and tweeting on a regular basis, so you check on a regular basis, and drop me a line at lk@loosekannon.com, again, Kannon with a K.

Be well, speak with you soon.