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.

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.

AFL-CIO President Says Everything That Needs to Be Said

Watch this video.

After watching this video, you’ll likely realize that there’s really not much more that needs to be said about whom you should vote for.

Either you agree with AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, and you’ll be voting for Obama on November 4th. Or you’re a Republican.There’s no being Independent this year.

And if you’re a Republican, if you’re a really honest Republican, a Republican guided by principles, you’ll examine your life, your job. And if you find that if you have health care, and a pension, you’ll go in to work on Monday and throw those back at your boss - because they’re the product of the Labor and Union movement you despise.

And if you’re retired, you’ll look at your Social Security check, and you’ll tear it up, because that check is an example of socialism, the new deal, and taxes.

And you’ll yank your kids out of public school, and stop wearing seat belts when you drive because those are silly regulations put in place by liberal leftists consumer advocates and educators. And you’ll go looking for a new job, a job that pays far less than a livable wage because you wouldn’t want to bargain for better pay.

Yeah, if you’re an honest Republican, you’ll do all those things.

But the truth is…if you’re a Republican still reading this far…I’m going to bet you won’t do any of those things, because the catch is honesty in a Republican.

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”.

Is Zapatero Part of McCain’s Axis of Evil?

A McCain advisor stated that the McCain snub to Spain’s Zapatero was because he wouldn’t commit to meeting with the NATO ally. If this is truly the case, then this demonstrates the complete ass that McCain is, and why he’s dangerous to our national security. He’s basically saying if you’re not with us, then you’re the equivalent of Iran’s leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, another leader McCain’s unwilling to meet with.

The Fundamental Truth About McCain’s Economic Lies

McCain is a liar. I’m not referring to any attack ad he used against Obama. No, I’m talking about his statement today, when he stated, “…the fundamentals of the American Economy are strong.”

Ironically, McCain made this statement on the day he launched a new ad about the economic crisis facing the Americans, and when the DOW dropped 500 points. This follows a weekend when Allen Greenspan describe the economy as the worst in his lifetime, and the Lehman Brothers Bank filed the largest bankruptcy in US history.

To try and recover from his gaffe (if you want to give him that) McCain later clarified. By fundamentals, he meant the hard working, ingenious, American worker.

Whatever he meant, in both cases, its a flat out lie - and one only the most idiot of economic students would make.

The truth is, the American economy is fundamentally about regulated capitalism. Congress and the White House do the regulating. American businesses do the capitalizing. For most of the last eight years the congress and the White House has been controlled by Republicans. This economy is the fundamental result of their regulating making it easy for businesses to capitalize unregulated.

The American worker works just as hard in a good economy as a bad one - maybe even harder in a bad economy, because they don’t want to lose their job. However the fundamentals - money liquidity, inflation, unemployment, tax policy, spending, deficits, trade agreements - these fundamentals are not strong.

People can’t get money - not because they can’t pay it back, but banks are afraid to lend. Liquidity has tightened. The economy is slowing. Layoffs will follow. Interest rates will rise to combat inflation that’s been created by pumping billions and billions of new money into the economy.

More and more of America is actually owned by oil producing countries, and other economies like China.

These are all fundamentals, and they are not sound.

If we are to believe McCain, and take his word for it, that he really meant the American worker as the fundamental economic foundation, well where does he stand on that. Does he not know that over 600,000 jobs have been lost? These are jobs that belonged to hard working Americans? Jobs that are no longer here. That is not a sound fundamental.

Does McCain not understand that while the average American worker continues to lead in productivity, their actual income has dropped by nearly $2000 over the last eight years? And does McCain not understand that by deciding to tax health care benefits as if they are income, which is a tax most heavily on the middle class, that he’s raising taxes on the middle class, while asking little of the most fortunate (and hardly working) rich?

My Republican and Independent friends - what McCain means by the “fundamentals of the economy” is not the American worker. No, he means the fundamentals of the Republican economic policy are sound. This is a policy that reduces taxes, preaches about shrinking government, but really means, using government as a funnel for money to their lobbyists interests. Republicans believe that fundamentally, you are on your own, that regulation is bad.

No, I’m sorry, the fundamentals of the American economy are on shaky ground. The next president will face the toughest economic situation any president has faced since FDR. The one thing Americans need is a President that at least understands the fundamentals are not sound.

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