Yes, it’s that time again…

Okay, so I figure it’s been a month plus since the last Mandelman’s Monthly Museletter, but the last one was so darn long, mostly because I had so much fun writing the piece about the homeowner meeting held in Phoenix, by the Arizona Housing Department, that I thought I’d bounce back with something much more, shall we say… pithy.

So, here goes… pithy… Mandelman style… enjoy!

1. Oregon Woman Accuses Vice President Al Gore of Sexual Misconduct in 2006

She’s a Portland massage therapist and she has accused the Vice President of “unwanted sexual contact,” during her visit to the Veep’s room while he was staying at a hotel in 2006.  Vice President Gore responded immediately when he told reporters in no uncertain terms: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

Asked why she’d make such an allegation, Gore replied that he wasn’t sure, but that it likely depended what the definition of “is,” was.

Actually, the truth of the matter is that the DA has declined to file charges due to a lack of evidence, officials said last week.  But, it was just too good for me to overlook.  Some things write themselves, you understand.

2. Fear Deflation, Pray for Inflation Bloomberg, June 7, 2010

According to figures released by the Labor Department on May 19^th, The consumer price index dropped 0.1 percent in April, the first such decrease since March 2009, Take out gas and food and what is referred to as the “core rate” of inflation was unchanged, the smallest 12-month gain in 40 years.  This is what’s referred to as deflation, and here’s a definition:

Definition of Deflation:

A decline in general price levels, often caused by a reduction in the supply of money and/or credit.  (A reduction in the supply of money or credit?  Sound familiar?) Deflation can also be brought about by direct contractions in spending, either in the form of a reduction in government spending, personal spending or investment spending.  (Well, I wouldn’t bother looking for any reduction in government spending, but the other two?  Hell, yes we have.)  Deflation has also had the side effect of increasing unemployment in an economy, since the process often leads to a lower level of demand in the economy.  (I’d say it’s a pretty good match, how about you?)

Meanwhile, the U.S. debt has almost doubled to $7.96 trillion from $4.4 trillion in mid-2007.  The Obama administration is financing the spending that was intended to spur the economy, and our increasing budget deficit.  So, we spent trillions to spur the economy last year, no secret there.  How’d it work out for you?  I’m not feeling that spurred.

Below you’ll find out how well it worked in the housing market.  While the incentives were there, we had a little bit of activity, but as soon as it stopped… and all stimulus stops eventually…  sales fell off a cliff.  Cash for clunkers cost about a billion bucks… how’d that go?  Any residual effect, other than there are fewer buyers now cause we pushed them all into the special sale days then?  Nope, none.  We stimulated nothing in the way of actual demand… we just borrowed from future demand.

And on top of foolishly spending trillions to stimulate nothing, except maybe banker bonuses, now we’re financing that spending… putting it on our favorite national credt card: American Excess.  Perfect, so now we can pay for the Cash for Clunkers program with interest over the next Lord knows how many years all the while getting no benefit from the amount being spent.

Michael Silverstein’s Ode to Deflation

Deflation’s become

The Fed’s new concern

Prices are sinking

They say they discern

But about this new thinking

I’m way out ahead

In deflation’s cold realm

I’ve long had to tread

My whole life’s deflated

It’s lost it’s old puff

What used to be easy,

Has now gotten tough

By a host of deep downturns

I have been beset

The only thing rising

Is my credit debt

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3. And now the latest from Nobel Prize Winning Economist, Paul Krugman

“We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.”

Krugman went on to say that he plans to supplement his own personal income in the years to come by working as a motivational speaker, and through sales of his new exercise DVD, “Sidestepping Authority,” featuring Paul’s new iTunes playlist, “Songs to Commit Suicide By.”

Order today for $19.95, but if you order next month, it’s only $14.95, and by Christmas… we’re hoping for $9.95 OBO!

4. HAMP’s Supplemental Directive Issued May 11, 2010, announced the details of the new Home Affordable Unemployment Program, or “UP”.

As of July 1st, unemployment income can no longer considered income for HAMP purposes because unemployed borrowers will have to be considered for the UP program.  The “UP” program… is that someone’s idea of a joke?

A borrower who is unemployed and requests assistance under HAMP must be evaluated for and, if qualified, receive an UP forbearance plan before the borrower may be considered for HAMP. For borrowers being considered for trial period plans with effective dates on or after July 1, 2010, servicers may no longer consider unemployment insurance benefits as a source of income when evaluating borrowers for HAMP. For purposes of this Supplemental Directive, the term “borrower” includes any co-borrower.

However… I’m told that subsequent to that directive, on June 3^rd, or thereabouts a waiver postponing UP may have been issued, so please check it youself before driving anyone from the plan.  Check with the Vice President of Modification Prevention at your favorite HAMP serivcer, or call the new Office of the Obstructionist at 800-BITE-ME.

President Obama, when asked what he wanted unemployed people to remember about the new plan to help the unemployed, said: “It’s for YOU!”

So, just remember, the president said to the millions unable to find work… “UP… YOURS!”

5. Sales of new homes in May hit record low

Tax credits end and straight to a 33 percent decline

Many pretended to be surprised about the collapse of new homes sales in May, which sank 33 percent reaching the lowest level on record in the U.S.  Experts say that potential buyers stopped shopping for homes because of unusually pleasant weather during the month in most parts of the country, and maybe some stopped because they could no longer receive government tax credits, but no more than a handful fell into this category, according to a study published by someone claiming to have published a study.

The Commerce Department said that it’s just another sign that the housing market, which was destroyed a few years back largely by millions of lying, irresponsible sub-prime borrowers, many of whom had brown skin, is still struggling to recover, and could weaken the broader economic recovery that is already being enjoyed by tens of elitists employed by the banking industry.

There was also a disappointing report issued earlier in the week showing sales of previously occupied homes had dipped in May, but industry analysts, paid to make statements on television said that we don’t remember seeing what and who and whatever we’re talking about, so sha na na, and there we go.

Some still wanted to link the sudden precitipious drop in new-home sales to the expiration of federal tax credits of up to $8,000, but others say that near 20% unemployment and no job growth are also factors that can impact the market.  With mortgage remaining at rates that are near-historic lows, however, many still blame the pleasant weather and any rain or wind that may have taken people’s minds off buying a home in May.  Some said they wanted to buy homes in May, but were simply too busy fastening the cords attached to their bodies to 100-pound boulders before jumping into lakes and rivers in all 50 states.

Paul Dales, U.S. economist with Capital Economics,” paraphrasing what he is said to have wrote in a note to his clients:

“We fear that the appetite to buy a home has disappeared alongside the tax credit, after all, unemployment remains high among poor people, and job security… or rather security guard jobs are still few and far between… and and credit conditions are still a tad on the tight side for those with FICO scores under 900.”

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke continued to express his total confidence that the nation won’t fall back into a “double dip” recession. At the same time, the recovery remains vulnerable to threats and chief among them is a fragile housing market.

New-home sales fell to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 300,000, the government said last Wednesday, the slowest sales pace on record dating back to 1963. It also was the largest monthly drop on record.

Sales have now sunk 78 percent from their peak in July 2005, but 1963 was a good year in other ways, a government spokesperson was quick to add.  For example, the weather was quite nice that year as I remember it.

6. BMO Capital Markets: Go to Cash – In Plain English and My new view of the U.S.A.

Before I even print the tiny little bit of what BMO Capital Markets has to say about our economic situation, I’ve got to tell you… BMO and this document were like a slap in the face… the USA no longer feels like #1 at anything to me.

And I was born and raised during the wonder years so that’s a big deal.  I was allowed to stay up late to watch American Superheroes land on the damn moon, for heaven’s sake.  I watched John Wayne tame the West and almost singlehandidly win WWII week after week after week after week.  We had Howard Hughes, comic books like Richie Rich, JFK, and the New York Hilton.

We were the land of Cadillacs and Lincolns, Harvard University and MIT, riding lawn mowers, Mickey Mantle and US Steel… heck, even our mid-range family motels had Color TVs and Pools.  We had a black family that moved on up to the East Side and had as much or more than the rich white family, and we had Shaft.  We were THE country where not only was anything possible, it was probable, and maybe even inevitable.

The rest of the world didn’t have anything to compare to what we had over here, and I knew that to be the case, because I had seen it for myself.  You want to talk culture shock?  I knew culture shock.

The first time I went to London it was 1970.  The Age of Acquarius had only recently dawned.  We flew over on a 747, by itself the epitome of America the superpower, JFK International to Heathrow.  London in 1970 had, in many ways, just cleaned up the rubble left by WWII; in fact you had the impression that there were still a few piles left about here and there.  You could close your eyes and hear the air raid sirens and see the flames and fire hoses.  They wrapped your fish and chips in yesterday’s day’s Times, and you ate it with a mixture of salt, vinegar and newspaper ink.

England’s middle class families were storing food in “larders,” slightly cool closets, as if the refridgerator was yet to be invented.  In terms of clothing, everything was itchy.  And let me tell you… when you checked into a hotel, you walked up nine flights, and slept on sheets that smelled of someone old.  The view out the window of the narrow iron fire escapes and service entrances were something out of Oliver Twist.  And I won’t even describe what was served for breakfast, except to say that just because it comes from a pig and has been packed in salt, doesn’t make it bacon.

You went down the hall for the W.C. (Water Closet) when you needed the bathroom.  I spent a good half an hour once looking for the handle, only to be told by my father that it was hanging from a chain over my head, which was just about the last place on the planet I would have thought to look.  In fact, I would have looked for the handle down the hall in another room before I’d thought that perhaps it was hanging from the ceiling.  You’d pull it, and basically an atom bomb would explode.  My parents probably don’t fully appreciate how lucky they were that I didn’t fall eleven stories to my death in a panicked attempt to save myself when the bomb went off.

There was no Color T.V. or Pool, but even where there was a black and white television set, there was nothing on it to watch, save maybe an hour or two a week, when if you were lucky, John Wayne was still kicking someone’s ass.  And the cars… we Americans could put their cars in our trunks, and don’t even think about FM radio or air conditioning.

If you had brought a Lincoln Mark IV to London in 1970, the power windows alone would have been the equivalent of having a jet-pak personal flying device.  And this was England… France was worse.  You want to know why in Paris they’re always sitting outside in cafés on the Left Bank or walking at night along the Champs-Élysées?  Because no one wants to go inside their hotel room, that’s why.  Three nights in a hotel in France will make you kiss the television set’s screen when the BBC comes on in London, and then you can watch three hours of some old guy sitting in a chair talking about the chemical makeup of Dover’s white cliffs.

Of course, all that was before we lied and lost in Viet Nam, saw and sang of four dead college students gunned down in O-hi-o, and then watched Nixon spend his Saturday night firing the Attorney General before being run out of town on a rail.  When Gerald Ford pardoned him after being sworn into office we knew the fix was in.  We stopped caring right about then, if we hadn’t already.  Besides, we were more concerned about whether our license plates ended in an odd or even number to see if we’d be allowed to wait for two hours in a line to fill up with gas.

It would be another decade before Ronald Reagan would make us feel truly proud to be Americans once again.  It always seemed to me in many ways, the Great Depression, which had begun in 1929, had really ended in 1984, but at the same time I also knew with certainty that we were the United States of America, and with all of our problems, the rest of the world was only trying to catch up… and much of it wasn’t coming up fast.

Then I found the document, published by BMO Capital Markets, from which I pulled the two short paragraphs characterizing today’s economic conditions below… and wow, I tell you what… WOW! I knew we had lost most of out lead over the last twenty years, but I hadn’t realized just how bad things had become.  There’s a link at the beginning of this diatribe that will tale you to the BMO Capital markets document.  You’ll have to do some clicking around, but if you like the subject matter, it’s damn impressive.

My point about this country is that when I was reading the BMO report, it occurred to me not only how thorough and objective it was, but how meticulously prepared and presented it clearly was as well.  Like, I realized that for one thing, if it were made in the USA, it would likely be more one sided, more salesy, and comparatively, well… flat.

Like, no one here would have taken the time to attend to the details, or include the number of sources because, hey… who has time for that crap anymore?  I mean, in this country we can’t even answer the phone anymore… it’s press eight to hear a duck quack, no matter where you’re calling because we’ve squeezed every nickel of profit, we’ve maximized every efficiency, we’ve reengineered every quality improvement initiative all in the name of shareholder returns and Wall St. banking fees of one kind or another.

Just think of how many people in this country’s C-Suites have learned to avoid being the one who leaves the meeting for a conference call without the action item belonging to them.  They essentially make their living talking on the phone and producing nothing.

Okay, that’s enough… I think I’ve made my point.  Here are the reasons for my ranting on about this… we’re in big trouble, economically speaking, and here’s what BOM Capital Markets has to say.  When you’re done, check out the document… it may be a little too technical for a lot of people, but some will probably love it.

We advocate switching out of equity positions and going to cash.

The European sovereign debt crisis appears to be nowhere near over. The global credit environment is worsening. Cost of capital is going up and availability is going down. There are large gaps between where the credit market prices risk and where the equity market is priced. Equity is lagging the deterioration in credit conditions. Moves in currency, equity and commodity markets are mirroring the moves in the credit market. Global growth, in a credit-constrained environment, will slow. Profits will be squeezed by the higher cost of capital.

The crisis has exposed the decline of USA hegemony across the globe.

Apart from the credit freeze, spending by consumers will also decrease in the forthcoming months because of falling property value, the end of withdrawing money from equity (that had shot up during the boom years), increasing unemployment and falling income. All the ingredients are mixing together to make for an intense and severe depression. Meanwhile thousands of homeless have taken to the streets as foreclosures increase.

Washington has not remained an idle spectator while the drama unfolded. It has taken vigorous action to prevent further worsening of the situation. In the short term it has been modestly successful but how far that will be sustained in the long run, time alone can tell.

About BMO Financial Group

Established in 1817, as Bank of Montreal, BMO Financial Group is a highly diversified financial services organization. With total assets of CAN$388 billion / US$359 billion as at October 31, 2009, and more than 36,000 employees, BMO provides a broad range of retail banking, wealth management and investment banking products and solutions.

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WELL THAT’S IT FOR THIS ISSUE OF MANDELMAN’S MONTHLY MUSELETTER…   DON’T MISS ANOTHER ONE WHEN YOU…

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And, always remember…

The church is near, but the road is icy.

The tavern is far, but we will walk carefully.

ERGO BIBAMUS!

President Obama, delivering yet another speech, this time at Brookings, announced his plan to create jobs and I feel like I live on a different planet than he does… and it’s starting to feel lonely, frankly.

I’m not trying to be difficult, Lord knows the man has plenty of people giving him a hard time these days, but… he’s hard to listen to at times, is he not?  I start out listening, try to focus… and then he says stuff and everyone claps and I feel like my hearing aid must not be working… and at 48, I don’t wear a hearing aid.

He said that government could set the stage for private businesses to start hiring again, which I thought sounded pretty good, and then he talked about small business being the engine that drives the country… blah, blah, blah.  Okay, so fine.  What’s he going to do?  Glad you asked.

Obama kicked it off proposing a new tax cut for small businesses that hire someone in 2010, and the elimination, for one year, of the capital gains tax on profits from small-business investments.  Everyone clapped.  Yay!

Okay, so now he’s in favor of tax cuts to stimulate the economy?  Damn it, I was sure that last January when he was talking about his economic stimulus bill, that it was the Republicans that were… oh, never mind, he’s just getting started.  Better give it a chance.

The thing is, I happen to be a small business owner, have been for the last 20 years or so.  And I thought I knew something about small businesses in this country as a result.  So… why would a small business hire someone because of a tax cut next year?  Isn’t the reason we’re not hiring because people aren’t spending?  Like, if we give Best Buy a tax cut will they build more stores and hire more people?  Because I thought the reason Best Buy hasn’t been expanding had something to do with people not buying stuff.  No?  It’s a tax-related reason that’s holding Best Buy back?  Fascinating.  I hadn’t heard.

Oh yeah, and if you’re a small business owner and you have any investment profits this year on which you’re being burdened by the capital gains tax, could you please write to me and tell me what I’m doing wrong.  I’d really appreciate it.

Obama also proposed an elimination of fees on loans to small businesses, coupled with federal guarantees of those loans through the end of next year.  What loans to small businesses is he talking about?  Where are the loans?  I don’t know a single small business owner even talking about a loan.  Again, it’s probably me… I’ve been busy and perhaps I missed a flyer or something.

After that, he called for more government spending on infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges and water projects.

More spending?  Didn’t we just pass his $787 billion economic stimulus bill at the end of last January?  Wasn’t that supposed to be for all that infrastructure stuff?   How many bridges are broken?  How many have been fixed at this point?  We need more fixing?  I’m getting scared to drive anywhere there’s a bridge in this country.  Besides, I thought we hadn’t even spent the $787 billion yet.   Shows you what I know…

Next, Obama said he wanted new tax breaks for homeowners who invest in energy-efficient retrofits in their homes.  Administration officials have referred to it as a “Cash for Caulkers” program, so it has a cute moniker.  Let’s just hope it’s not modeled after the good old Cash for Clunkers program where people were supposed to trade in cars for more fuel efficient models, but instead mostly ended up buying pick-up trucks that didn’t get much better mileage than the car they traded in.

He also said that he and congressional Democrats took “a series of difficult steps” to try to stabilize the financial system and pull the economy out of a deep recession, and I guess that it probably was difficult to do exactly what the banking lobby wanted at every single turn.  Must make you feel like Wall Street’s bitch.

Obama did not say how much his new proposals would cost, although Yahoo News reported that congressional Democrats are looking at a $70 billion package to help create jobs and to provide aid to hard-pressed state and local governments.  The administration apparently added that the roads, bridges and other infrastructure component could total about $50 billion.

Okay… time out.  Another $50 billion for roads, bridges and other infrastructure?  I’m so confused.  Wasn’t a big part of the $787 billion stimulus supposed to go for roads and bridges.  I feel like all we’ve done since he’s been president is pay for roads and bridges.  And the help state and local governments again too?  Wasn’t that like almost half of the economic stimulus.

What about the housing crisis?  What have we spent to stop the flood of foreclosures that have made my home worth half what it was two years ago?  Is he fixing the roads and bridges because he knows we’ll all soon be homeless and therefore living on the roads and sleeping under the bridges?

He referred to the bank bailout, or Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), as “galling,” saying:  “There has rarely been a less loved — or more necessary — emergency program.”

The problem I have with this statement should be obvious.  Since the TARP chief, Elizabeth Warren has made it clear that we’ll NEVER know where the money went or what it was used for, how can he be so damn sure that there has rarely been anything more necessary?  And what does he mean by “galling”.  Galling for who, exactly?

Then he went over the line.  He claimed the TARP program is costing taxpayers at least $200 billion less than expected, which is weird since I had thought that we were expecting to get ALL of our money back at some point.  I thought we might even make a profit, wasn’t that what everyone was saying about the TARP way back when, a year ago?  How could it cost $200 billion less than we thought, when we thought it wouldn’t cost anything in the long run?  It wasn’t a gift, was it?  (Don’t answer that.)

Talking about the $200 billion unexpected savings on TARP, which I don’t believe a frigging word of, Obama said: “This gives us a chance to pay down the deficit faster than we thought possible and to shift funds that would have gone to help the banks on Wall Street to help create jobs on Main Street.

OKAY, FINE… so how are we going to create the jobs on Main Street, damn it?  I’ve listened to an entire speech once again and I don’t have a clue what he thinks he said… as everyone claps.  Where are the jobs coming from?  From the painting of the bridges?

He closed his speech by saying that he’s backing the initiatives he outlined, because “they will generate the greatest number of jobs while generating the greatest value for our economy.”

I think I need to go lie down.

The $1 billion Cash for Clunkers program was designed to offer people $3,500 – $4,500 for their old crummy cars when they traded them in on new, spiffier and allegedly more fuel efficient models… you know, the kind often manufactured overseas.   And that alone would have easily provided me with more than enough material for a treatise on incredibly stupid ideas.  It could almost write itself.  But my government has apparently decided that I deserve more.  Maybe they’ve noticed how hard I’ve been working lately and wanted to make my life a little easier.

So, in addition the program, which was to was start last week and end November 1st, instead lasted only a few days before running out of money and being shut down.  And that by itself would also have given me plenty of ammo with which to fire off a burst of zingers in reference to the intellectual capacity, or lack thereof, of our elected representatives.  But, God bless them, they didn’t stop there either.

The government wasn’t happy with winning only the Daily Double of Stupidity, they knew they could take home the Trifecta of Sheer Idiocy.  So, they created a program that would succeed in spending as much as just a scosh over $45,000 on each clunker… that wouldn’t have been traded in anyway, that is.  Very nicely done fellas, by the way. Very shrewd.  Who helped you with this?

You want the math on this? It’s easy, don’t worry.

The government’s published estimate is that the program will generate 250,000 sales.  However, over the next 90 days, according to Edwards, 200,000 of those low milage clunker cars would have been traded in on new models anyway… without the program… and its billion dollar price tag.  And that means the $1 billion program will only generate 50,000 incremental sales, at a cost of $20,000 each!

Blogger, Avery Goodman, whose math and analytical skills are beyond reproach in my book, presents the case this way.  Some buyers will qualify for the $3,500 government handout, and others will qualify for the $4,500.  If everyone qualified for the $4,500, then 222,000 vehicles would have just been sold through the program, and if everyone qualified for the $3,500,  you come up with 286,000 total program sales.

If the program results in 222,000 cars sold as a result of the $1 billion dollar program, only 22,000 were incremental sales.  The rest would have occurred by November anyway.  One billion divided by 22,000 and you get $45,354 per car sold as a result of the Cash for Clunker plan.

So… besides the fact that increasing the demand for clunkers by offering a government check in an inflated amount for purchasing a car made in South Korea is a monumently stupid idea… And besides the fact that the clowns in charge created and launched, with much fanfare, a three month program that ended up lasting only a handful of days… On top of those well laid plans, we’re paying as much as $45k a pop?

If we were in Vegas, there’d be lights flashing and sirens going off… WINNER, WE HAVE A WINNER.

Then there’s the question of the target audience created by the trade-in requirement.  Think about it.  If what you’re trying to accomplish is to get old cars off the road and new cars on, you could offer $100 or whatever for the old ones and then give anyone $4,500 or whatever towards the purchase of a new fuel efficient car.  People driving old cars are likely to trade them in at some point anyway, so you’re really borrowing buyers from future sales, but if anyone was able to take advantage of the government program, you might get people buying who would not have otherwise done so.

I’ll run it down one more time so it will really crystalize:

GOAL: To take older, less fuel efficient cars off the road and replace them with new fuel efficient models, thus benefitting the environment, the demand for foreign oil, and the economy through automobile manufacturers.

SOLUTION:

Pay $45,000 for a car worth $500, over a 3-4 day period, so that someone can buy a car that may not even be made here, and then only target those who would have likely purchased a car to replace their old one at some point in the future without the program.

And here’s the piece d’ resistance…

When the program ran out of money, the response was simply delightful… they proposed making an additional $2 billion dollars available in order to keep the program going… or in keeping with the gambling metaphor I’ve been working with so far, they decided to split sixes and double down on each.

Send in the clowns… there ought to be clowns…. well maybe next year…

Did you hear that?  Where’s that music coming from?

“Isn’t it rich?  Aren’t we a pair?  Me here at last on the ground, you in mid-air…

Hey, cut that out… Stop fooling around.  Who’s playing that song?

Okay, Who’s the Clown Behind the Curtain?

The program is officially called the Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act of 2009, and the “Car Allowance Rebate System,” or… these guys are killing me… every little thing they do wipes me out laughing for minutes at a time… C.A.R.S. for short… either way!

I wish I had been there when they came up with that matched set of acronyms, don’t you?  Like watching a young child the first time they draw a red nose on the clown in their painting.  I’ll bet you they fast clapped, grinned from ear to ear, and kicked their feet… before getting on the short yellow bus, some licking the windows as they headed home.

The genius inspiration behind this Cash for Clunkers strategic solution, and I swear that the following has not been embellished in any way,  was an op-ed in the New York Times written by an economist named “Blinder”.

You see how straight I played that, right?  Not one word about the billion dollars spent as a result of an article  written by an economist named “B-L-I-N-D-E-R”.

See… that’s over the top.  This isn’t even fun anymore.  I don’t need hand outs like that.  I’m a good enough writer to find my own funny lines, I don’t need their charity.

Besides, I’m in favor of the whole thing now anyway… And as to who in Congress is responsible for it… well, bless their hearts.

I’m even okay with Obama going a step beyond… he needs to get money into consumer hands so they can at least pretend to be interested in spending it.  How’s this for the next one:

“Bring the government your old hair dryer this week and pick up a check for $750.  First come, first served.”

It could be like Monty Hall at the end of the old “Let’s Make A Deal” television game show.  Monty would walk out into the audience among his adoring fans.  All of a sudden he’d stop at one of the women, look at her and say:

“Give me a hard boiled egg and I’ll give you $100.”

I was young, maybe 11 or 12 and it was the most amazing scene I’d ever seen… not that Monty would give away $100 for a hard boiled egg, that was the norm on Let’s Make A Deal.  No, I learned about the difference between men and women watching that show.  Why?

Because the woman would begin searching frantically through her purse, her pockets, anywhere to find a hard boiled egg… and then she WOULDN’T FIND ONE!   And I used to think… see, if Monty ever offered me $100 for a hard boiled egg… I wouldn’t need to check because I always know when I’m carrying a hard boiled egg.  It’s the sort of thing that never slips my mind.

To this day, anytime you see me… go ahead… ask me if I’m carrying a hard boiled egg… and watch how I tell you with complete confidence one way or the other.

Anyway, I’m off track here… and it’s no matter.  That whole “Blinder” thing made it too easy and now I really feel it’s beneath me to jest.  I’d just like to say one thing to our fearless leaders in Washington D.C.:

Lo Siento.  Que se mejore pronto.

It means: “I’m sorry, and I hope you get better soon.”