The Balboa Island Underground!

The undergrounding of utilities is perhaps
the greatest way of increasing land values on the planet.
Little Balboa Island, by the way, has already completed its
undergrounding. So, what is up with those on Balboa Island
that wish continue to fight the good fight against the devil
"undergrounding"?

The people on Balboa Island have always been wrapped a little
different. Balboa Island people become Republican when the
Democrats are in, Democrats when the Republicans are in and
Independent whenever it serves their purposes. Balboa Island
has a Ferry to the peninsula, A cute little Clubhouse, A Main
Street with shops, two major cross streets, one of which has
lovely trees. Balboa Island even has funny street names for
various stones and crystals....Like; Diamond, Garnet and even
Crystal. They have Little Balboa Island and Big!

Anyway, they had a nice turnout down at City Hall last night
according to the Daily Plot, all about "Undergrounding".
They had a whole bunch down there on one side saying: "Too
expensive!" and the other group saying: "Too ridiculous!"
In any event, the patriotic thing to do for Balboa Island is:
Underground your utilities! My goodness, on one hand they
contend that they are "elitist status which deserves the best".
Like their expensive Fire Station, an Annual City Wide July
attended Parade, Three Boat Parades, Three fix up your homes
for the holiday events, a business improvement district and
even a bridge! They have yachts, they have sea walls, they
have beautiful homes on North and South Bayfront. They have
cute little houses and wonderful little streets in the middle.

What is wrong with doing away with all those drooping
telephone and power lines? "The Cost, you idiot!" they do
protest! $5,000 dollars to $35,000 each. Well, what we
might mention is that this could be the only time that
anyone will be able to refinance their homes for quite some
time during these tough economic times! They might even get
lucky and get a reduction in their current monthly payments.
Hey, this could be a lot more complex than most thought..huh?

Well, we stand firmly for "undergrounding" all utilities in
Newport Beach. We are supposed to be a wealthy, intelligent,
beautiful city that invites travelers and visitors from all
around the world. We are not San Francisco....we need our
utilities "undergrounded".

We invite your comments....

Why Michael Phelps needs to move to Newport Beach!

Hey Mikey, how come you don't come to live the life right
here in Newport Beach? Haven't you heard of us? What's
wrong....we have ReHab Homes? You could probably buy a
few for your friends and pals from the East Coast, as
week-end crash pads. It would be a great place to just
veg out between endorsements and prime time spots on
"Entertainment Tonight" or "The View".

How in the world could you ever be caught up in some
dumb drug bong deal "gone bad" in South Carolina? Those
people are real old school....and the only things cool
in South Carolina are their historic architecture, mint
juleps and those lovely "Game Cocks" and Steve Spurrier
who continue to never make it to the big show at the
end of every college football season.

No, Mike....you are prime meat for Newport Beach. Hey,
most of the people that had money on the Newport Coast are
now buried in unending debt. Most of the bigtime, prime
time players are all under indictment or have terrible
divorce issues. Hey, Rodman is gone while Kobe and Tiger
are here. Hey, you might even run into Carly Fiorina at
Trader Joe's on the Newport Coast. You should be attracted
to older women anyway. So sorry Amanda Beard ran off to
get married on you....oh, but you weren't really interested
anyway...huh?

OK, lets talk turkey here Michael. Even though Kellogs has
unceremoniously dumped you....you will always have Nike....
and Subway. In any event, you just need a place where you
can kind of melt into the woodwork....but still have some
very elitist and powerful posers around you. You need some
cool babes too that are impressed by wealth, power and
celebrity. Of course, we know you are no Kanye West or Bobbie
Brown...but hey, you can kind of scoot around the local
Newport Beach gin joints like the "Landmark" in CDM....or
go to private events at the Pacific Club...so you can get
those necessary kudos and the meaningful praise that you so
rightly deserve.

Michael Phelps right here in our town! Wow, how impressive
would that be? If you get busted again...think about it...
you will have a "jury of your peers". Where else could that
happen? Maybe Irvine.....they have lots of swimmers there
too....but no one of the heft of a "Bong Toter", eight Gold
Medal....Michael Phelps.

One last thought...Mikey...we need your mom to move here too.
Think about her being elected to the Newport Mesa School Board
.....what a deal! Zero Tolerance...you've got to love it! Maybe
you could also make a donation to a couple of our NB city council
members...so they can fix up their rental properties! Face it,
Newport Beach has got to be perfect for you!

The Senate Stimulus Bill, Newport Beach, and all America stands for

I am not the type of person to mope around very long. I believe I have a pretty resilient spirit, and I am a deep believer that the only long term realism is optimism. I can not recall a time that very bad news personally, professionally, or ideologically has kept me down for more than a short while. I confess that since the inauguration of this new President, a tidal wave of reality has hit me that has tested my long-term optimistic resolve. Thankfully, I am a person of faith.

No President in the last one hundred years has had a more disastrous first two weeks than President Obama. The massive amount of centrist voters who voted for him have had their hopes for a Clintonian pragmatism shattered in a matter of days. "Change" has proven to be an entire cabinet of tax evaders and scandal-ridden creeps, or in the better case, Clinton administration re-treads. Bipartisanship has meant a 100%/100% divide on his very first piece of legislation ever submitted (every Democrat voting affirmatively, and every Republican voting negatively). In fairness, Obama does not deserve to be associated (that we know of) with this debacle in the Illinois gubernatorial matter, but it is not at all what he wanted to see happen in his first month as the President-elect. The whole country seems to be feeling the vibe that this man is not quite done campaigning, and nothing seems to bother the American electorate more than people in office who feel the need to eternally campaign. It is a necessary evil, as far as us Americans are concerned, when running for office, but when one governs and speaks in office as Obama has the last two weeks, the reality kicks in that some people are better at sales than management. I have seen even some of my own friends "sold" by this guy, and I think they are about to start the slow, humble crawl back to principle.

The truth is, I am not nearly as worried about Barack Obama as I am the state of the American dream. There is no person in America who is currently more loathed and discriminated against than the "wealthy". When George McGovern was decimated in the 1972 election after running a perversely populist and class envy-driven campaign he famously said, "Our pollsters knew how many people in America were not rich. They just apparently did not know how many people in America wanted to be rich."

The quotes below were delivered by our President and Vice President in recent weeks, describing their perspective on class struggle in America.

"Over the course of America's last economic expansion, the middle class participated in very few of the benefits. But now in the midst of this historic economic downturn, the middle class sure is participating in all of the pain. Something is seriously wrong when the economic engine of this nation -- the great middle class -- is treated this way."

"The things that affect people's daily lives. I will be the guy honchoing that policy ... There is a great divide in this country between the rich and the middle class. The affluent have their social lives, their mansions, their millions and their prosperous friends. The wealthy prance around like they are better than the rest of us. The wealthy have connections that get them what they need. We see the rich using their connections to receive at no cost, what the rest of America has to buy with their own hard earned dollars."

I wish that this was just rank political rhetoric, because at least then I could take the familiar position of having no respect for a politician because they lacked principle and integrity. Unfortunately, there is a chance these guys actually mean this nonsense, and as far as I am concerned, the utterly false and libelous notions shared above represent the death of the American experiment. It is imperative that we take our stand, now.

The issue of executive compensation will end up being a defining moment in our country's history. TARP has teed up the greatest opportunity for wealth-distributors the Democrats ever could have dreamed for. The very definition of naivete is one who believes that the steps taken by the Obama administration this week represent the end of this discussion. We are just getting started. I actually stated the other night that I wonder if the economic conservatives in this country are now having their "Roe v. Wade moment", a reference to the awakening that took place in social conservatives in 1973 after the passing of that insidious law. This is not a TARP issue at all, for if it were, why did Claire McCaskill, who I would now rather see thrown out of office than any Senator in this country, state that all employees of these companies should be capped at total compensation of $400,000, because no one "deserves to make more than the President" (except for the President, apparently, who made $1.7 million in 2006). Why did Barney Frank just say yesterday that these limits ought to be applied to non-TARP companies as well? Why has the government told firms like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JP Morgan, that they can not pay back the TARP funds that they never asked for to begin with. Class warfare is alive and well, and this issue may seem palatable to people who hate Wall Street, and hate the rich. Their egregious violation of the 10th commandment notwithstanding, do people not understand what the broad effects of this mentality are going to be? No one will be more decimated by this evil than churches and non-profit organizations who depend upon donor dollars (despite Barack Obama's $7,000 of charitable giving off of $1.7 million in income, the fact of the matter is that 80% of non-profit giving comes from the evil wealthy; only Al Gore and Barack Obama sit in their limousines and plot the destruction of other rich people's futures).

I have no interest in this article becoming an apologetic for the rich and elite. It goes without saying that I like the rich and elite, for the same reason that it goes without saying that you do too. Your paycheck has always come from someone presumably richer than you. The economic system you function within has always worked off of people taking risks and investing capital and labor into endeavors that create wealth. This is basic economics, but it is also America. Any and all discussions right now of the need for charity and public assistance are unhelpful, as long as we affirm that assistance for those in need is better addressed by strategies that acknowledge the dignity of human beings, and disavow the theft and inefficiency of wealth redistribution. What we are becoming is a country that's DNA is being re-programmed, and this is more evident in our rhetoric about successful people than any other area I can think of.

The stimulus package the Senate will vote on (and barely pass) next week is a travesty. It is a pork-laden fiasco, and a blatant contradiction of nearly all economic wisdom we collectively developed over the last 80 years. Not even Lord Keynes himself would approve of this debacle.

There is more money (cash) on the sidelines than any time in world history. There is absolutely no reason for government spending to "stimulate" anything. All they have to do is set policies in place that will motivate companies to "stimulate" their own balance sheets. A variety of tax credits will do exactly that. Technology credits. R&D credits. Energy credits. Labor incentives. I pray my readers can understand how counter-intuitive what present policy is to actual effective action - government is incapable of optimally allocating capital, by definition. Not only are markets the best arbiter of how to allocate capital, they are presently in a position to do so very, very well. This cash on corporate balance sheets will "stimulate" economic growth beyond our wildest dreams with the proper balance of pro-growth policies (credits, tax cuts, incentives, etc.). I could get into extensive detail of what policy measures would bring about positive effects in the short term, and the long term, but it would distract from the point of this writing. No sane person believes that the government is in a better position to allocate capital than the free market (yes, I do believe Robert Reich and Paul Krugman ought to be considered insane).

The government is in a position to do a few things better than the private sector, and those things are: (a) Re-allocate capital along the lines that are most effective for political and special interest purposes; (b) Place the current generation and future generations in unfathomable amounts of debt; and (c) Redistribute the wealth that has been created by the most productive people in society to less productive people, thereby creating incredible moral hazard, and de-motivating wealth creators from future productivity.

So, I ask you, what exactly are we hoping Uncle Sam is going to accomplish with this bill? The ideological divide is spreading, and the present administration is cognizant of this horrifying fact. We are at a tipping point. The DNA of our country is on the line, and I mean that as much as I have ever meant anything I have written.

Despite everything, I am a long term optimist. I believe God has smiled upon this country. What I am pleading with my readers for now is to stand taller than ever against the horrid onslaught of socialist legislation and rhetoric you are inundated with on a daily basis these days. The idea of a center-left politician being President who passed NAFTA, cut capital gain taxes, and instituted massive welfare reform (read: Bill Clinton), are over. This man is no Bill Clinton. Obama will be gone in 4 or 8 years, but for the sake of your children and grandchildren, we have to make sure this politics of envy and theft go with him. In this turning point of our country - stand tall for freedom, prosperity, and morality. I have no intention of letting this issue go. I hope you will join me. It is time to bring to fight to them.

Visions of Newport Beach's Impending Doom?

While Newport Beach is bickering with Irvine, bickering with their residents, and bickering with the state, the expansion of John Wayne Airport continues...

Best part of the OC Register Article (I'm at it again, poaching original stories from news sources and just commenting on it)?

"Officials expect a new parking structure to debut in fall 2010, and the terminal should premiere by early 2012."

When does the Settlement Agreement end?

A cap of 10.3 Million Passengers a year until 2011.

Cap of 10.8 Million Passengers a year until 2015.

Curfew limitations expire in 2020.

Gee...do you think the Newport Beach will be able to curb the amount of Commercial Flights and limit the hours when they can take off and land, RIGHT AFTER THE AIRPORT EXPANSION IS DONE?

Wanna see what pictures of the beginning of the End looks like?

Here you go...Enjoy...

Bail Out the World...

Funny stuff...when you think about it. Hank Paulson, Ben
Bernanke and most of the Republican leadership....all voted
for the first $700 Billion dollar giveaway. The money has
gone down the big black hole of Wall Street. Bank mergers
became all the Vogue. Investment Banks all wanted to go
as regular....banks! Bank of America is about $65 Billion
under right now....after getting $35 Billion from the TARP.
The list of who got what and when is Top Secret Information.
Even the FBI, CIA and IRS haven't figured out where all this
cash went off too!

Our dearly departed Republican Majority/Minority has switched
without premise from "Go Bail Out....to Kill the Bail
Out!" David Drier and John Campbell are touting the
negatives this time as opposed to their first time back in
September of 2008. What has changed? Isn't this $900 Billion
dollar Obama bail out...just Bush Light? Hey, they have a
motivated Inspector General guy...they have rules....they
have "earmarks"! They have programs to fix bridges, and of
course infrastructure and secure jobs - something wrong with
that?

The Republicans are saying: "Tax Cuts!" Whew, that's new!
When did they come up with that issue? 1979? OK, maybe 1959
when Goldwater ran...maybe after 1964..with Wallace. All in
all....this is not exactly new news is it? Our economy is
on its knees.....this Bail Out package is more or less
designed to Bail Out....States, Counties and some of the
larger cities who are verging on the edge of a cliff.
California is supposed to get about $8 Billion up front
cash...which will still leave them about $34 billion upside
down. It might be enough however to pay citizens their
State Tax refunds...rather than offering those lovely IOU's!

So, here we are in a World Economy that is about $163
Trillion dollars short. Commercial and Real Estate values
that need to be written down to 1993...to be sure that
stability will work. The jobs plan has to be to keep the
infrastructure of the nation, state and municipalities
able to continue. All will be forced in the near term to
reduce the size of government about 30%.

We have entered Post-Communist Russia "Shock Therapy". As
the Republicans change their allegiances from the bankers
the ones that are left) to the out of work citizen...buyers
should beware! The devils are always in the details.

One thing is certain: We need to keep every elected's feet
to the fire! We want results...and we want them now! Save
your partisan tripe for when you get back to your district.
One last word of advice: It will be better to find
solutions than to require the voters to seek one!