Short Memory.

Some Imaginary Friends

While at a party,
A friend asked me how my 401k was doing. I said not as bad as it could have been. I lost about 10%.
She said hers was way down. I said I have mine now mostly in cash and bonds now.
My thought was, I treated my investments like it was my only income.
She treated her investments like it was her supplemental income.
I watched mine a lot closer.

She said some politician took his eye off the ball.
I said "Barney" Frank and Christopher Dodd certainly did.
As a matter of fact Frank said last July that Fanny Mae going forward was in good shape.
She said No! George Bush.
I said Bush tried no fewer than 17 times, by White House count, to raise the issue of Fannie-Freddie reform.
But the Democrats had control of Congress the last two years.
I still believe Bush should have been more forceful.

Then she said if we didn't have that illegal war and not invaded another country we could have saved billions of dollars.
We could have spent it on national health care and roads and such things.
I said it was bad intelligence.
She said it was a willingness to ignore more Intel.
I said the idea was to stop the spread of Communism in the region.
It is criminal that we left after more than over 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam.
She said NO! I'm talking about Iraq and Bush's willingness to ignore more Intel.
I said do you know that Iraq was known to be working with terrorist?
And that many other countries said Iraq had WMD's not just the US.

She said do I think it is right for a president who was never in the military to send troops to war?
I said do you mean Obama sending more troops to Afghanistan or do you mean Bill Clinton sending troops
to Bosnia, or perhaps FDR sending troops overseas in WW2.
She NO! I mean Bush sending troops to Iraq. I said Bush was in the Air National Guard.

Then she said how about a president holding people against their will without trial.
I said you must be talking about FDR interning the American citizens of Japanese accessory during World War 2.
Maybe you mean Abe Lincoln suspending Habeas corpus during the civil war. As did FDR during WW2.
She said no, Bush holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay with out trial.
I said they are enemy combatants and not US citizens.
And some that have been released have gone back to fighting against the US.
And no other country wants them.
And we don't have any place in the US to put them.
The US did consider putting them at the Super Max in Colorado but the ACLU said that was worse the Gitmo.
Nobody wants them in their back yard.
The ACLU wants them treated to milk and cookies.
Than put them on US soil so the ACLU will send their lawyers in, treat them like US citizens and sue the US.
I said why does the ACLU hate the US so much? She did not have an answer.

She then said Bush ordered the Gitmo prisoners tortured.
I said I am not sure that waterboarding is torture.
It sounds more like a fraternity initiation, hazing.
But it is not torture compared to what the Japanese did during WW2. And it is not torture compared to what the North Vietnamese did to the American during the Vietnam war.
Besides it was right after 9-11 and thoughts of people jumping out of the 80Th floor windows, to their
death was still fresh in peoples minds.
Can you still hear the "thump" from people landing?
If it meant saving thousands of American lives what would you do?
She said nothing.
I said would you waterboard someone if it meant it would save your sons life?
She said "I'm not sure". I said if you are his mother you would not hesitate.
And you would do a lot more than just waterboarding.
I said torture to me is having to listen to Nancy Pelosi lie.
She didn't know what to say.

Then she changed the subject to Social Security, saying it was going broke and no one has done anything about it.
I said Bush tried to have part of your Social Security invested but couldn't get through Congress.
Even with a Republican majority, because it was not filibuster proof.
She said with the stock market down people would have lost almost everything.
I said it would only be a small percentage of your Social Security and that could be
invested in government bonds and cash. The Democrats bashed Bush about it.
But the Government is of thinking doing something similar to Bush's idea but with your 401K.
And it will get a free pass because the Democrats control everything.
Don't be surprised if they cut benefits and/or increase taxes and the age you can collect.
Maybe even a means test.
Wait until you see what they do with Medicare.

She mentioned GM going broke.
I said no one had any foresight when they allowed the foreign car maker to build here.
GM would not be going broke if it wasn't for the financial market downturn last year.
And GM has more retirees than workers.
It is not GM's fault they have been building cars
and putting people to work for almost 100 years.
Whereas the imports have been here 20 years or less.
And people don't need new cars as often as they used to.
The average age of a car on the road is ten years old.
The auto makers are making cars so well they may put them self out of work.
That the import car makers got tax breaks worth hundreds of millions of US dollars while GM got tax increases.
She said the UAW is at fault.
I said the hourly wage is about the same with GM and the imports.
But some of the benefits are better for GM workers.
[BTW I was not a member of the UAW.
I was in a skilled trades union.
I had to have eight years experience to get a job with GM.]
I don't agree with some of the UAW's shop rules and benefits e.g. Jobs banks.
But that was only a part of the problem.
Remember GM also signed the contract.
Everything was stacked against GM.
I said did you ever notice Liberals mostly drive foreign cars.

She said the stimulus plan will get the economy going.
I said the economy will take off if we get cost under control.
It is not as bad as it has been in the past.
Do you remember when unemployment was 10% and interest was 10%
and inflation was high. Back in the late 1970's.
Now we have low inflation, low interest and unemployment at 8.9%.
But if we have to keep printing money to pay the bills inflation may come back.
And what you don't want is high inflation.
I have not seen a stimulus check, has anyone?
If it was up to me I would give an across the board tax cut.
She said 95% of the people will see a tax cut.
I said I have not seen it yet.
And when in the past when we had high income tax on the wealthy(85%) the country was deep in dept.
And remember it was Obama who told ABC's Charlie Gibson that "I would look at raising the capital-gains tax for purposes of fairness," even if hiking the tax would ultimately result in shrinking federal revenues.
Just remember Marx’s Proposal Number Five: government control of capital.
This is not the same as the great depression. We now have unemployment, food stamps, Social Security and many
other things in place that we didn't have in the 1930's.
The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 gave the Federal Reserve responsibility for setting monetary policy.
It is to say laissez-faire capitalism never existed.

So thing's are not as bad as some would have you think.
These same people that have been saying for over two years how bad things are, maybe their wish came true.
Now all they do is complain. But because they are in power it will get better.
It would have gotten better regardless who is in power. But they won't tell you that.

I think at this point it was hurting her head to think.
And she walked away.

I wanted to ask her about meeting with Iran with "no preconditions" and why it hasn't happened.
And Afghanistan and did she think it will be Obama's Vietnam?
How Obama kept talking about Afghanistan like he was some kind of military genius.
Now not only does he have Afghanistan to worry about he has Pakistan also. And Iraq is getting worse as troops pull out.

And what about N Korea and China?
And why it seems like every country in Africa has problems.
And what she thought about Obama's opposing the release of prisoner abuse
photographs and support for indefinite detention for some detainees.

And did she think the next Supreme Court nominee will be a pro abortion woman?

And did she think it was right that Obama gets a pass on the gay marriage
issue but Miss California, Carrie Prejean does not?

So many more questions so little time.

Many things don't have simple answers.
But that is what she was looking for.

But I never got the chance to ask her more.
She was obviously left leaning.
I think she was a professional woman, of some type.

She didn't seem to be well informed on world affairs.