Going getting rough? Count me out

It’s hunker-down time. Gather your skirts, trim your sails and grit your teeth.

Down in Richmond, even Va. Gov. Kaine’s office is cutting back because of the state’s financial travails. Stafford is also getting a chilling wake-up call beyond the chilly autumn mornings. County administrator Romanello wants to cut out some positions, but the supervisors don’t agree, perhaps figuring that we’ll somehow absorb the predicted $5 million deficit this fiscal year by wishing it away--and, by the way, trying to cut the schools’ budget by $2 million.

And now with banks going under amid a crashing economy, this long-time investor in the stock market can only sigh and admit that he would have been better off if, at retirement 12 years ago, he had simply kept having savings bonds deducted from the paycheck to continue adding to his retirement nest egg. Which at present frankly resembles a humming bird’s. Sorry, future beneficiaries.

I also hear even the feds are facing tough times. Washington Post’s federal column has bemoaned the fact that the Postal Service may actually have to lay off a few of its workers, adding that hard-pressed bureaucrat GS-15 bosses might lose a few retirement perks. And with VRE commuter rides costlier, what’s the world coming to?

But such dark financial clouds won't cool today’s raging political ardor, right? After all, the pundits say Virginia is a toss-up between Obama and McCain. Yet, courtesy of a recent windshield survey by yours truly, I’d question just how avidly our Stafford voters are about the election.

Earlier I had noticed very few political bumper stickers on vehicles in I-95 traffic while returning from Fredericksburg. I had presumed there would have been a lot, given the looming vote.
Few in fact: Cruising a nearby commuter parking lot recently, I counted 325 rear bumpers. Only 23 had patriotic-social-school stickers. Eight had political stickers, with five for Republicans, two for Democrats, and one for Paul.

In Stafford Marketplace, of 203 rear bumpers checked, 23 had patriotic, etc. messages, and just two had political stickers, both Republican.

What a white-hot partisan bunch of citizens we have here. Or perhaps merely very intelligent. Lollipop and I had a nice visit at Starbucks with Abilene's own Bill Allison, a roomie and best friend, long time. Bill said most Big 12 college stickers down there don't go on cars because when they venture to hostile environments like Lubbock (and Texas Tech) they'd otherwise get keyed and vandalized. How rustic of them.

The absence of stickers here may be because Obama looks to be a shoo-in. He’s incredibly lucky. And this campaign’s gift, the “October surprise” which all politicians pray for or against, surprised everyone. The stock market just up and crashed. Virtually any incumbent would have been booted by such a collapse so near to the election. This great gift to the Democrats is perhaps retribution for all those tacky things the GOP had once claimed about Clinton, Kerry and Gore.

Only one thing--that darkly feared bugaboo, rampant racism--could pull it out for McCain, I’d guess. And just imagine the media rage if Obama doesn’t actually win, for whatever reasons.

The market crash has totally pre-empted other hot-button issues like illegal immigration. It had dominated the news. Yet, here’s someone at Housing and Urban Development the other day saying that five million illegal aliens hold illegal mortgages. The mainstream media machine just yawns. Have you read anything about it other than here? HUD wouldn’t even discuss the subject.

Here’s another important story buried by the financial crisis. Astronomers tracked a new asteroid plunging toward earth over northern Sudan. It was only about 6 feet across, and it burned out before landing. But it’s the first one ever discovered before crashing into our planet. Officials say it highlights the need to better protect the planet from a future cosmic disaster. Nearly 1,000 asteroids have recently approached so closely that they are termed potentially hazardous. One, by the way, once wiped out the dinosaurs, I hear.

We can do something to deflect the real asteroid threats (unlike trying to prevent the global warming that‘s probably harmless), but probably won’t. After all, we’re broke. Sorry, environmentalists.

Besides, can’t you see? Our fiscal crisis is all that matters now, and it’s giving the Democrats the Senate, the House, and the White House. So to hell with illegal immigration and asteroids and climate change. Also DOA now, I almost forgot to mention, is Iraq hurrying towards peace, plus drill-drill-drill, gas pump rage, ACORN, etc.

So count me out, just so on election night I have a goodly supply of booze at hand and my pup Lollipop on my lap.

Can't bank on anything now

Merciful heavens, my favorite bank is about to change its name, again.

Never mind that our local Wachovia Bank branch near Wawa on Garrisonville Road has been known as the friendliest place around, or at least as friendly as it’s possible for those traditionally cold bank lobbies to get. (Aside: Wachovia and Wawa: What language is that? Add Wahaha, a Chinese beverage company.)

Unfortunately, friendly doesn’t count for squat today. For Wachovia is in the process of becoming a branch of Citi, a familiar bastardization of Wall Street banking monikers. But wait! Riding to the rescue is Warren Buffett and Wells Fargo. Back to the drawing ,er, sign board, as lawsuits fly.

This kind of evolution of bank ownership is nothing new, of course. Except that the current one is the result, not of the customary greed and the gobble-up mentality we’ve seen before, but the threat of Wachovia’s going belly up, like many others in the current financial crisis we’re trying to see our way through.

For local historians trying to keep score on our bank branch’s changing labels, recall that 30 years ago when I first moved into Aquia Harbour, it was Peoples Bank of Stafford. I became a client when it was the only place nearby with safe-deposit boxes available to rent.

In short order, its name got changed, first to Jefferson National Bank and then to Wachovia. And now to something else. Say tuned.

Thank goodness the tellers have remained pretty much unblemished, as far as I can tell. They all still love Lollipop, my little old Yorkie dependent, and they dole out doggie bones to her every time we visit--an appreciated dividend.

The outside world, however, has been crashing around us, like many others, it seems. Explanations? Don’t ask me--although I’m a true treasure trove of knowledge a mile wide and an inch deep. Others far more erudite and learned will be doing that endlessly and confusingly over the coming months and years of our darkening recession.

Just don’t expect any illumination on the crisis from Congress. (Pardon me while I throw up.) The Democrats and Republicans alike stood around twiddling their thumbs while allowing, yea forcing, Fannie and Freddie to promote outrageously dangerous home loans until it was too late to do anything to fend off the resulting foreclosure fiascos.

Others have long warned of the foolishness. As I recounted last March in this space, billionaire Mort Zuckerman--editor of US News and World Report--was one of the early predictors of the events that are unfolding, before everyone else chimed in. He wrote: “[T]his financial crisis is the worst since the panic that led to the Great Depression.” --The last time I dared sneak a peek, the stock market was down over 33 percent from a year ago. That spells major trouble.

But enough of the recriminations. Another of our local bank branches also deserves name-change mention. Bank of America‘s new North Stafford branch is across from Wachovia in Stafford Marketplace. B of A is the nation’s biggest acquirer rather than an acquire-ee. Fate has had me also tied to its fortunes.

Let me start at the beginning. Way back in 1963 in my Falls Church neighborhood a new bank opened, featuring no-charge checking accounts. I signed up. Soon, although tiny Commonwealth National’s free feature remained, the bank sequentially got gobbled up by Virginia National Bank, then Sovran, then Nations Bank, and now B of A--which by the way has even gobbled up much of Merrill Lynch.

Even so, over the course of nearly 50 years and through all the name changes, my no-charge checking account status remains. Is America great or what?

Still, the current financial situation is dire, to put it mildly.
As Instapundit blog’s Glenn Reynolds summed it up recently: “It's clear that the federal government can't spend as much as it's committed to spending, and can't raise taxes enough to make up the difference without killing the economy. And the economic bailout-and-regulation talk now doesn't make me think that we'll see enough economic growth over the next five or 10 years for this problem to fix itself, which was never likely and seems less so now.”

Not that stalwart Stafford residents like yours truly would have all that much to worry about. We federal retirees, with our guaranteed pensions and health plans, are sitting pretty, regardless. That’s true unless extreme hardships were to force our former little chicks to come back home to the nest. I do love my grandkids, one and all, and even more so my great-grandchildren. But standing in line to go to the bathroom, given the recently increasing urgency of my visits, isn’t my vision of a happy retirement.

Thus would a recession quickly become a depression here at home.

Stand right up and get down and dirty

As a public service of this page in presenting fair and balanced political coverage, your humble columnist reminds readers that his is the only right-leaning commentary here versus two by those of the Democratic persuasion.

Thus, in these latter days as the presidential election becomes a matter of throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the opposition, I feel it’s my civic duty to right the balance, to stand up now for all that’s right and good and get down and dirty.

Throw the bums out: That’s the essence of the Obama campaign. Of course, he refers only to the White House, which has a substantially better reputation than the Democrat-controlled Congress. So, let us throw all those bums out. And vote for reform, as epitomized by John McCain and Sarah Palin. So there.

Need I mention that they are the only nonlawyers in the GOP-Dem presidential contest? ‘Nuff said. If not, consider that McCain has led the fight for victory in Iraq, a war America is now clearly winning. And Palin has governed Alaska with a maverick’s touch against the entrenched politicians.

Critics charge that McCain has been for Bush 90 percent of the time. Well, Obama has voted with his fellow corrupt Democrat senators 97 percent of the time. That’s not leadership, it’s tagging along. As Mark Twain once observed, “...there is no distinctly native American criminal class, except Congress.”

To wit: "The Democratic-controlled Congress, acknowledging that it isn't equipped to lead the way to a solution for the financial crisis and can't agree on a path to follow, is likely to just get out of the way,"-- Bloomberg reports. Precisely.

Energy has been a major concern, but our do-nothing Congress has done nothing to let us drill for oil and relieve the price pressure at the gas pump. Window-dressing legislation may advance. However, “The Democrats' strategy [on drilling won’t] clear away the thicket of regulations and litigation...They will then count on their allies in the plaintiffs' bar to tie up any oil production for years,...”--Powerline blog

Now let’s get political, and so to the Internet.....

* Seen on a sign in Louisiana: A taxpayer voting for Barack Obama is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders

* And there’s this public service announcement:
The person elected will be the president of all Americans. To show our solidarity, let's all get together and show each other our support for the candidate of our choice.
If you support the policies and character of John McCain, please drive with your he adlights on during the day. If you support Obama, please drive with your headlights off at night. Thank you for your participation in this patriotic endeavor.

But enough of such high-minded stuff. Let’s get to the red meat. I’m talking about those sizzling letters to the editor, an October custom that newspapers love in a presidential election. So, let me provide my fellow Americans a ready-made letter to send to the news outlets of your choice. Free. I’ll be much obliged.

Dear Editor:
I bet you won’t print this letter. I know why. That Obamer fellow has paid you off. You won’t say anything bad about him, or mention his full name or his color.

Big deal. Anyone can see for hisself. And just look at his wife. Shoot. That is plain as day if you have seen them on TV, provided it’s a color TV.

Nobody no more watches a black and white TV anyhow. Uh, oh. Some politically correct big shot is going to fine my butt for writing that. Maybe I should of called that old TV an “African-American and white” set.

Get the joke? Of course not, since you Liberals got no sense of humor at all.
Regardless, we real Americans have gotta swallow hard. Because it sure looks like them big-city voters want to throw the rascals out. Too bad it’s the only way Washington will change, and clean up the home mortgage mes s and silence those Wall Street crybabies.

Trouble is, no way can they all get sent home. But just look at the presidential race. You see, three of the four major party candidates are already senators and to blame for most of the trouble.

What to do? Maybe we could write in for president the name of the only one who doesn’t know beans about Beltway stuff, but who can shoot straight. She‘s no lawyer, either.

I know you won’t print this. It’s proof that in today’s world, nobody no more can just talk plain out loud. Too bad lots of us hard working Americans are never allowed the freedom of the press. All because tiptoeing sissies like you are scared of us average voters and readers of your MILK TOAST paper.

Your loyal reader and friend,
____________(Do NOT print my name)

**************