Welcome, to the Great Recession.  That's the latest buzzword for the fix we are in. 

For those of us that are old enough to remember the Great Depression or know somebody who does, I suspect we have a ways to go yet.  Sometimes it's hard to know where one stage ends and the next begins.

But the best way to tell is:

In Boom Times you can afford a car. 

In a Recession you can only afford the gas for the car, providing the car is already paid for. 

In a Great Recession you can't afford the gas even if you still had the car, which has been repossessed.

In a Depression you hope you know a friend who has a car and will give you a ride. 

And in a Great Depression your friend's car stopped running three years ago.

Posted by donburnshomepage at 10:48 AM EST

Updated: Friday, March 20, 2009 9:32 PM EDT

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Well what do you know.  AIG has done it again.  They have lost more money.  At this point they seem to be losing it faster than the government can replenish it.  Probably the parties.  The government is shoring up Citibank too.  Seems they are running a contest with AIG to see who can lose the mostest the fastest.

And then there is GM and Chrysler waiting in the wings to spend our money too. Probably waiting in their planes.  They don't drive their cars.  

Of course the big Kahuna looming in the background is "what happens if and when the government runs out of money?"  Not to worry, they're insured with AIG.

Posted by donburnshomepage at 9:14 AM EST

Updated: Wednesday, March 4, 2009 10:32 AM EST

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One might have hoped that with a new President, a Democratic Congress, and the Republican inspired financial meltdown that put Democrats in power that the Republicans would have learned something.  Doesn't appear to be the case, at least not if you listened to Rush Limbaugh, the self appointed leader of the Conservative  wing of the Republican Party (translation: what's left of The Republican Party).

Speaking at the National Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Limbaugh who previously stated he wanted the President to fail, which sort of implies that the rest of us will go down with the ship too, railed at Democrats, Liberals and the remaining moderates in the Republican Party (all two of them, there used to be three but I left in November) about how the country was going to go to hell in a handbasket with the President's economic policies.  His message seems to be that Conservatism failed only because it wasn't conservative enough.  Translation: the cure for poisoning is stronger poison and more of it.

Considering that for six of the past eight years the Conservative Republican Party had the Presidency, the Supreme Court that elected him, both houses of Congress and most of the governorships and state houses and have managed to just about duplicate 1929 all over again, pardon me for being skeptical. 

I can't tell you that what the President is going to try and do will work, but I can tell you what hasn't worked and what got us in this mess to begin with and if he should meet Mr. Libaugh's hopes and expectations and fail because the hole was too deep to begin with, Limbaugh's solution will be in 2012 to turn the government back over to the clowns that dug the first crater because they know how to dig better holes?

Posted by donburnshomepage at 8:44 PM EST

Updated: Wednesday, March 4, 2009 9:20 AM EST

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I see where the President was quite taken with himself today in how he deftly dodged two 30mph fastshoes from an Iraqi reporter at his news conference in Baghdad.  Personally, anybody that can chuck an oxford with that kind of accuracy and reload speed has my admiration any day.  Another 20 mph and he'd have gotten his man.

George convinced himself that the fellow was just looking for notoriety.  So, as usual, the point that was being made was about thirty miles over his head.  It hasn't yet dawned on him that this Iraqi fellow doesn't like him any more than we do, he is just a little more creative with the tools at hand.  

It would just never occur to an American that a Tom McCann penny loafer had any other use than walking.    

Posted by donburnshomepage at 12:20 AM EST

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The President deplores the Russian invasion of Georgia and rightly so, but where does he think they got the idea.

Their argument is that they are saving the people of South Odessa (a breakaway Georgian province) from the Georgians, just like we saved the Iraqi's from the other Iraqi's.

Unless President George plans to send in troops, and at this point in time about all he has left is the Girl Scouts, he tends to sound a bit naive and doesn't have any moral ground to stand on.

Perhaps he could convince the American people that the Russians might be developing weapons of mass destruction and intend to launch a nuclear attack on Peoria or Brooklyn and we need to invade Russia and get them before they get us.  After all, it worked before.  Only problem is....this time they have and they could, so don't bet that he's going to do anything but talk.....I hope.

Posted by donburnshomepage at 11:36 PM EDT

Updated: Saturday, February 28, 2009 11:11 PM EST

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With the primaries and concession speeches over the country can get back to normalcy under the Bush Administration.  Normalcy is defined by a falling dollar, rising gas prices, falling home prices, rising unemployment, falling confidence in the government, rising floodwaters in the Midwest ect., ect.  You get the picture.

But the President, in response to this latest series of national disasters is finally taking action and doing something to rebuild our confidence in his ability to meet a crisis and handle it successfully..........  He is leaving the country. 

Says he's going to Europe.  He sent wife Laura to Afghanistan.  He didn't need to go there, they already have trouble.  But Europe is another matter.  They have been peaceful, or at least have been so since his last European tour when they were throwing rocks and protesting him in the streets.  They're all asking, 'what did we do to deserve this."  Pat Robertson should come forward and explain to them that it is retribution from God.

Meanwhile, we have Dick running the country.........somewhere in the United States.....maybe.

Posted by donburnshomepage at 7:40 AM EDT

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It just gets curiouser and curiouser.

Republican Presidential candidate John McBush has invited Senator Obama to go to Iraq with him to bring himself up to speed on what is going on there.  Obama so far has not accepted and probably won't because he thinks it will appear as if the wise old man is instructing the young upstart on the ways of the world.  In other words, Political Gamesmanship.

 Of course that runs counter to Obama's claim that he would meet with "our" (or his ) enemies without any preconditions.  But assuming McBush is in that group of enemies, he probably should take him up on the offer. And with no preconditions he could argue no armed Hummers, no military escorts, no Blackhawks overhead, no flak jackets or helmets and no Iraqi police in sight.   Just scepticism, serenity and sand.

The McBush Victory Tour as choreographed by the "W Administration" would go something like this. 

A liesurely stroll  through Sadr City at 2 AM with John, Fox News and Blackwater "natives" in Arab garb to see how the Iraqis live in freedom.  (No mention of the freedom from running water, sewer and electricity). 

A daytime parade through downtown Bahgdad with lots of American flags hanging in the windows.  Truckloads of Hershey Bars for John and Barack to toss to liberated children.

Maybe a stop in one of the local produce markets to purchase a decommissioned RPG as a souvenir to bring back to Congress as proof that there no longer is a need for such things in Iraq.  Make sure to get one stamped "made in Iran" for the Appropriations Committee's upcoming military budget hearings.

And as a grand finale to the "McBush March to Forced Freedom" they could pay a congenial visit  to the Abu Grahib Education, Recreational and Rehabilitation Center.  Of special interest would be the guided tour of the Dick Cheney Watersport and Information Gathering Room.

All of this would be followed by a return to the US with a joint declaration by both candidates of "Mission Accomplished" .......................again.

Posted by donburnshomepage at 11:28 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, June 2, 2008 11:54 PM EDT

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Scott McClellan, former Bush White House Press Secretary has stunned all the people in the President's inner circle with his candor about the Bush Presidency in his new book "What Happened".  They're all saying, "It's not the Scott we knew".  Of course not.  He's honest, and if you really knew that about him, he'd have been gone before he got there.

For the rest of the world's population, it merely confirms what we already suspected.  For the past seven years the country has been run by an opinionated short-sighted simpleton with visions of grandeur about himself and his role in history and that has allowed him to be blinded and  manipulated by a couple of plump and balding, clever and unscrupulous political hacks who could never have gotten elected dogcatcher on their own.

And when it is all over next January and the President is no longer in office and without any power or influence and therefore no longer useful, these political parasites will dump him like a hanging chad that has outlived it's election day.........................  And he's not smart enough to know it.

Posted by donburnshomepage at 9:10 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, May 29, 2008 9:13 PM EDT

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The talk is "to talk or not to talk, that is the question".  

Obama says he'll talk to anybody, even the enemy.  Just set the date.

McCain says,  "talking to the enemy is out of the question without strict preconditions and precautions". 

HIllary and Bill want a campaign donation first, then we'll talk. 

'Course, I always wondered what you talk about with people you don't like.  The weather only goes so far and pictures of your kids won't hold 'em long either.

I suspect they talk about what's wrong with each other.  It plays good at home, insures that nothing will get done and sets the schedule for the next meeting.  Amazing what some people will do to get another free lunch.

Posted by donburnshomepage at 11:11 PM EDT

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The squirrels were out on the political trail this past week.  

Hillary was drawing yawns from the fellow behind her on camera at one of her speeches.

 John McCain dumped Reverend Hagee from whom he sought an endorsement last month.  Reverend Hagee returned the compliment by dumping John McCain.

Barack Obama believes the National Anthem should be replaced with "I'd Like To Teach the World to Sing" from the Pepsi commercials.

And Karl Rove may be arrested and locked up by Congress?

Meanwhile, George W. Bush is still trying to explain that appeasement really doesn't mean what he said it meant last week and President Cheney is still missing,......... but no one cares.

Posted by donburnshomepage at 12:01 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 12:35 AM EDT

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