How Do You Kill a Blog?

How do you kill a blog?

Do you just ignore it and never post again? Do you hope that eventually the content becomes so dated that it fades into the obscurity of Google, buried somewhere on the one hundredth page of search results? Or do you simply take it down, and in an instant vaporize years of work, of visitor comments that have loyally followed your posts?

I never set out to be a political blogger. This blog was always more of an experiment (and a way to utilize a domain name I purchased while feeling the buzz of wine). And I’ve struggled with the anger politics builds in me as I set out on a personal quest to combat, what I feel, is Republican stupidity. I also had one other goal - to work in my own way, using whatever talents I had as an artist - to help a conversation that would get Obama elected.

And now November 4th is just days away.

If Obama is elected, I feel like moving on to a new chapter in my political activism, using my skills as a communicator to help others express important truths. I’m tried of my own voice, my rants, my petty arguments. And I feel November 5th will be time for change.

But what do you do about what you’ve already created?

A blog can start to become a monster. It’s like the Grizzly bear cub you stuck into the garage when it was no bigger than a small pup, and suddenly, a year later it’s eating everything around. You don’t simply unleash your blog into the wild and hope for it to survive on it’s own, do you?

I’ll likely keep blogging away in angry stupor if McCain somehow wins. And god only knows I’ll have enough material. But if Obama wins, I think going to call this my last post as PixelMarx the political, cartooning, opinionated blog. And if you have any suggestions on how a blogger gracefully, and with respect, euthanizes their blog, I’d greatly appreciate the feedback.

Vote Obama November 4

P.S. The term “kill” might seem a bit harsh, however, it’s a term used often in the old days of advertising, and is still used in design, and advertising. This is the reason a designer or illustrator might have a “kill fee”. No, this isn’t the fee they ask when being a hired gun, but it’s the fee that must be paid if the project is canceled, regardless of it’s completed state.

Powell’s Endorsement and Why You Probably Cried

On Sunday, Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama for President. And while Tom Browkaw remained his typical irritating self, I found myself choked up as Powell described this photo by Platon.

Here’s what Powell said as he described the photo, and why it shouldn’t matter if a person is Muslim in America:

“…And it gave his awards—Purple Heart, Bronze Star—showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a Christian cross, it didn’t have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life.”

Now it was pretty hard to sit there an listen to Powell without feeling something tug at you. And I’m even willing to bet that even the most die-hard Republican might have felt a tinge of guilt for disparaging being a Muslim. (See, I believe their might be some who call themselves Republicans that still have a bit of soul left.)

However, to anyone who thinks a large block of Republicans are sharing Powell’s view of what it means to be Muslim and American, you just need to listen to McCain’s response to a supporter a few weeks ago. As a stammering supporter held the mic, she proceeded to explain why she couldn’t trust Obama - he was an Arab. McCain, to his credit, took the mic from her and quickly corrected her. “No, no ma’am. He’s a descent man.”

Yes Obama is a descent man. But he’s not a descent man because he’s a Christian. John McCain could have as easily said, “No, no ma’am. He’s a Christian…” And as John McCain turns his full attention back to his crowd, [inject Powell's words]:

Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?

Wouldn’t that have been a turning point in this election? Wouldn’t that statement have started to turn Independent and Moderate Republicans in his direction?

It’s sad to see McCain go down this path, however, as he has chosen to follow the Republicans to the “gates of hell” I guess he’ll find himself face-to-face with Osama Bin Laden before he knows it.

Debating Joe the Plumber

For a moment, while watching the debate, I totally related to McCain, because while he was spouting off lies about Joe the Plumber’s taxes going up, I was rolling my eyes and fuming, doing everything I could to not have a Wii moment and accidentally throw the remote through the screen. Talk about an anger management moment.

What I don’t understand about this issue is how the American people, the media, the various political camps, how they can let this go completely unchallenged. Joe the Plumber is not going to be buying a business that brings in $250,000 as a salary. Period.

Sorry to break this to you Joe Wurzelbacher, but in this economy, with building down, and people losing their jobs, if a person could purchase a $250,000 salary by buying a plumbing business it would have already been sold.

No Joe, you need to be aware, before you sign on the dotted light, that you’re buying a business that may “gross” $250,000. Then from that you take out your salary, the pay to your employees, gas, truck expenses, advertising, social security taxes, health care expenses, and in the end you’re going to be getting a nice little income of around $60-$80,000, maybe $100,000. And it’s on this $100,000 that you’ll be taxed.

So guess what Joe, you’re going to be paying more under a McCain presidency then under an Obama administration.

And even if this business you want to buy gives you this great salary of $250,000, you’ll only be paying 4% more on a tiny fraction of that money. Not all of it!!!! Do you not understand Joe, that inflation, and rising health care expenses, gas prices going up, the cost of people being laid off from their jobs - all of these factors act as a hidden tax on your profits?

I’m sorry Joe - you didn’t really ask for national attention - and likely never wanted to be in a debate - but if you do, please comment, defend how you feel you’ll be getting the short end of a plunger in an Obama tax plan. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

By the way, if you didn’t actually watch the full discussion Obama had with Joe the Plumber, you should, because it’s much more enlightening then the tiny soundbyte about “class warfare” McCain clipped out.

Vote Posters from AIGA

There were some great “get out the vote” posters from AIGA. The RNC, and the McCain campaign is doing whatever they can to make sure people don’t get out and vote for Obama. They’re also working overtime to try and dissuade a political campaign built up by small donations from average Americans. By calling for an investigation into some small examples of donation fraud - it’s just outright pathetic. I mean, I want to know that the donations to the campaign are legit - don’t get me wrong, but the timing of this, in their desperate hour as the polls show McCain trailing is pretty sad.

God Bless American Stupidity

No artist understood Main Street America better than Norman Rockwell. His painting, “The Connoisseur”, is a perfect analogy for Main Street’s understanding of economics. The average American thinks they understand economics. Why should the tax payer bail out the rich cats on Wall Street? It makes no sense to a sound bite mentality.

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but the $700 billion is intended to buy bad assets. This isn’t a handout. While it’s not a good deal, if you believe America has any kind of economic future, it should work itself out.

Let me see if I can explain this in as simple of terms as possible.

Imagine the hypothetical scenario where in three years ago, the Smith family, making $50,000, purchased their very first home. They’ve been told that home ownership is part of the American dream, and that real estate appreciation has historically meant that owning your own home is a great way to build up net worth. So set about and purchased this home at 2005 prices.

Now the Smith’s didn’t have a large down payment. They’re not rich. They had to rely on some creative financing to buy into the American dream. They did this by paying 80% with a conventional mortgage and financing the 20% down payment with a second mortgage (although at a higher interest rate, or what would be considered sub-prime).

For the next year they feel good. Home prices continue to climb, and although they show signs of tapering off, the future seems bright. Everywhere they look, they see signs of new housing development.

Then bad news hits. Home prices start to drop. For Sale signs in their neighborhood go up and never come down. It’s not long before these signs start getting “Price Reduced” stickers. Now it turns out the Smith’s house is worth less than they borrowed.

But the slowing economy isn’t the only thing worrying the Smiths. With a new kid on the way, the Smiths realize that the home they purchased won’t fit their growing family. They can’t sell because they can’t pay off the difference that they would owe. They are stuck.

Eventually they decide to let the house go back to the bank. They hate the fact that there will be a foreclosure on their record, but renting is the only way they get a bigger house. And when they look at the specifics, they’re really not out any cash because they didn’t put any down. You do what you have to do.

Of course, the bank now has two loans on a house that isn’t worth what they’re owed. Except, the bank doesn’t own the Smith’s mortgages any more. These mortgages were long ago sold off, and now belong to some investment bank that invests in real estate as part of their diversified portfolio. They’ve grown increasingly reliant on real estate for stable returns as other segments of the economy have never recovered. Now the real estate market is tanking and they’re worried.

And the investment banks are starting to realize that the real estate assets backing these investments are worth cents on the dollar. They’re in trouble. They can no longer borrow money backed by their collateral. Their ability to invest on margin freezes up. Gains diminish. The 401Ks and insurance companies, the investment banks big investors, want to know what’s going on. It turns out that they aren’t really sure, but it doesn’t look good. Who can help?

It turns out the only one willing to help - partly because the US Government isn’t required to report quarterly to stockholders, but can take a long term, 30 year perspective - is the US government. The US government can afford to purchase these assets and hold them until they regain some of their value. And by doing that, they then allow the focus to not be, how can some investment bank sell bad assets on the open market that no one will buy, leading to financial meltdown - but instead it can start making good investment decisions with regulation and oversight.

Now you could place blame on the investment bank that bought these bad mortgages, or you could place blame on the mortgage broker who lent the money to the Smiths who were really not in a position to own a home. However, in the end, all the blame in the US economy does not fix the problem of credit freezing. And when a credit economy has a credit freeze, everyone is worse off. No longer can the good business idea find money to launch. Or a new market can’t be explored. Or inventories for the Christmas season can’t be purchased.

So this is a plea to Americans - and hopefully Liberals can pull themselves away from their conservative bed buddies on this issue - and quit being so stupid and emotional and reactionary. Take some time to grasp that we’re in this situation equally, rich or poor, and its one of those instances where we’re going to have to get ourselves out of this, both rich and poor. And Obama is the only candidate who’ll make sure that over the next eight years, the rich pay their fair share for this mess.

That’s my final line on this “bail out”.

Why The Bail Out Must Happen

UPDATE: Well, it appears that the bail out bill failed to pass. So much for the great leadership of John Ass Wipe McCain. With the DOW plunging close to 600 points, I find it interesting that the House Republican’s really think they did their savior John McCain any favors. Oh well. I’d also like to ask, what parts of the current bill did John McCain advocate and get? None as far as I know. So if this whole market goes south, we know where we can firmly place the blame.

There’s a lot of angst on both sides of the isle about the $700 billion dollar bail out package being voted on today. While this is a pretty painful vote and difficult for the average taxpayer to understand, in the end, it has to happen. For those that say, “But we aren’t the ones that caused this,” I can only say, “the average American, while not a direct cause, has benefited from the poor regulation and speculation by Wall Street.” Here’s why.

Sub Prime Lending Allowed Housing Prices to Climb at Historical Rates. By greatly increasing the demand for housing by making it easier to qualify for a housing loan, housing prices overall grew by record levels each year. And despite the downturn in 2001 by most of the market, the real estate market continued on a trajectory that would only make the crash that much greater. Any time you allow someone to qualify for a loan that will require 50% of their take-home income to pay, and not require a 10-20% cash down payment, you run the risk that the borrower will default. However there were a lot of people that cashed out and made bank during this time - average tax payers - and funded lifestyles beyond their previous dreams. Let’s not forget that.

The economic recovery from 2001 until 2006 that drove stocks hiigher was largely fueled by easy credit and low interest rates. The days of easy credit are over - as they should be. But let’s not place the blame entire on Wall Street. How many people have bought into the 24 months no interest, no payment mentality on crap like flat screens, vacations, furniture and new cars. This is stuff that can’t be resold, loses it value almost instantly, and in end, suffers from a high emotional fall-off factor.

During my brief stint as a credit counselor  I would talk to 6 to 7 families every day, and their story was always the same - they spent, spent, and spent, without saving, and then something unexpected happened, and they were stuck paying credit with credit (not much unlike the current Bush administration).

I’m sure there are a million other reasons for our economy reaching a point like this. The main thing I want to note, is that the taxpayer crying that this wasn’t their fault, is unfair, considering we’ve all enjoyed the economic house-of-cards that the Bush years have built. Next time we might be more wary when housing prices are climbing by 15% a year and it’s easy to get 0% interest on an Caribbean cruise, after outfitting our living rooms with Dolby 7.1 and 62″ of plasma.

What Paulson Wants for Wall Street

I’m not a genius. My doctorate in economics from Stanford is a fake. Allen Greenspan is no hero of mine. He should be tried for war crimes - like every other Republican that profited from war and has sank the ship.

No, I’m just a pissed tax payer who’s spent the day listening to the idiot Paulson try to explain why he should be given $700 billion to bail out his friends, approximately $2300 of which will be mine.

Why don’t we just admit it right now, once and for all, we are not a capitalist society - not in the sense that you might think? In fact by the end of the week, the government very well may own a good chunk of the shitty finanical assets on bridges to nowhere for all we know. No, we are a socialist economy but one that operates on a fucked up model of rewarding a small 2% with huge bonuses, and screwing the other 98% with unstable job growth, no healthcare, no energy plan, and no retirement plan.

Here’s the basics of what it appears Paulson is proposing. I’ve broken this down into a simple, straight forward outline that makes absolutely no sense to me - and if it makes sense to you - then check in with your doctor.

Paulson wants…

You to feel sorry for the rich. Wall Street made a bad mistake - in fact a series of really bad mistakes. These mistakes made Wall Street very rich for a time. Hedge fund managers flourished in a world where they could move and grow money that they didn’t own, that had no assets backing them, all while avoiding paying any significant taxes. Now it looks like fate is calling. The house of cards is going to fall, and suddenly the prospect of these new rich bastards jumping out of their buildings - well, that reminds us just a bit too much of 9/11. 9/11 is something we want to avoid repeating. So we need to bail Wall Street out. Of course, this is preemptive. These rich bastards haven’t actually lost all of their money just yet, they just face the prospect that they will - by Friday of this week, if we don’t act now, on Monday. Paulson’s plan that he’s presented Congress, asks for $700 billion dollars. He wants no strings attached. He wants to be able to hire and award money to people based on his own discretion. Basically, he wants Paul Bremer powers to do to Wall Street what Bremer did to Baghdad. No one should be looking over Paulson’s shoulder. He’s terribly sorry that the taxpayer has to deal with this and of course, he can’t guarantee that this plan will work, but we have no alternative. If we don’t act now, every one’s 401K, money markets, retirements, insurance, life savings, bank accounts will all be down the drain. And if you’re not scared shit-less by the end of that list - well, Iran’s gonna get nukes and use them on everyone very soon. Now of course, Paulson is also warning against any restrictions that might say, if you get bailed out of your bad debt, the taxpayer might want the CEO to make no more than, say $500,000. No that would be unfair - to the CEO. A CEO of a company that hasn’t failed, but will fail if not bailed out, should be able to be paid whatever his or her board of directors feels is appropriate.

Here’s my thought - and this is why my major in economics is phony - why not let all of these guys go bankrupt. Keep our tax payer money for a few weeks, and then get an awesome deal in bankruptcy court as these assets get auctioned off? This means we avoid any issues of CEO pay. And everyone knows you get a much better deal at a bankruptcy auction, then you do the first day of the “Going Out of Business Sale.” With all of these huge corporations bankrupt, suddenly it might be easier for the little guys to compete. Capitalism is spread, and jobs are created. Now I realize this might hurt a lot of “rich” people but the truth is, there are already a lot of people hurting. And isn’t it time we spread a little bit of that hurt to Wall Street.

UPDATE: I just recieved an email from the people at ImpeachBush.org. Sign the petition at www.votenobailout.org and make sure Congress doesn’t just hand free money over to Wall Street.

Next Page »