So last week I mentioned the personal issues happening here.  A big thank to to all who emailed me!

The decision to write that musing was not an easy one.  I don’t like bringing my personal life to the blog very often.

First of all, it is easy to become whiny and needy ands self indulgent that way.  Sympathy is really nice sometimes, but it can be a drug.  Not that I shun people who express sympathy, as so many have.  Far from it!  I appreciate every person who felt compelled to express their thoughts.

But bottom line, my problems are mine and mine alone, and I have to deal with them myself, and while I can allow myself to be encouraged by my friends, I cannot allow myself to be propped up by their sympathy.

I don’t regard this as a failure, mind you.  I guess I am not quite that traditional.  Sometimes people move in different directions.  Sometimes being apart or with someone else is necessary.  I could go on for hours on marriage, and how societies corruption has devalued it, but what would the purpose be?  I am where I am, and  must deal with it.  Preaching to the choir won’t help.

All of my Sunday Musings^© share are essentially my attempt to make sense of life and and how I feel about various aspects of it, and how that ties me into the world at large.

This one is certainly no exception and pays tribute to the biggest shake up in my life in 19 years.

Mrs. LSU and I have separated. 

When a couple separates people generally react a couple of different ways. 

One, they walk on egg shells overly concerned for the well being of which ever person they are close to, or in some cases, both.  Sometimes their compassion is welcome indeed, but sometimes it allows one to become self indulgent, which is counter productive.

Sometimes they offer to take sides, or in far too many cases, they are expected to.  This helps assign blame, and continues hostility.

Sometimes they shun one or both.   Really helpful.

They try to analyze what went wrong, not realizing that sometimes it is not anything wrong, it is just change.

And more often than not, in my opinion, they do a combination of any or all of the above, because they don’t know what to do.

Padmé: [to Bail Organa] So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause…

The quote may be over the top, but the overall trend of this administration has been a serious power grab, and no we see that the Feds are moving to increase power in another area:

The Pitch for Expanded Powers: Geithner, Bernanke Seek the Authority to Seize Failing Firms Other Than Banks

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke pressed Congress yesterday to give the federal government unprecedented new power to seize financial firms beyond banks whose collapse could jeopardize the world financial system.

Inside a hearing room crowded with snapping cameras, petulant politicians and pink-clad protesters, the two men pointed to the troubled insurer American International Group as a cautionary tale, offering an ominous account of the global fallout that could have come if the company had collapsed in the fall.

“At best, the consequences of AIG’s failure would have been a significant intensification of an already severe financial crisis and a further worsening of global economic conditions,” Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee. “Conceivably, its failure could have resulted in a 1930s-style global financial and economic meltdown, with catastrophic implications for production, income and jobs.”

A moderately serious conflict of interest here, one fairly untouched by the media.  Chris Dodd who has taken more in campaign donations from AIG than any other Congressman also has a slightly more personal connection:

Dodd’s Wife a Former Director of Bermuda-Based IPC Holdings, an AIG Controlled Company

No wonder Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn) went wobbly last week when asked about his February amendment ratifying hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to executives at insurance giant AIG. Dodd has been one of the company’s favorite recipients of campaign contributions. But it turns out that Senator Dodd’s wife has also benefited from past connections to AIG as well.

From 2001-2004, Jackie Clegg Dodd served as an “outside” director of IPC Holdings, Ltd., a Bermuda-based company controlled by AIG. IPC, which provides property casualty catastrophe insurance coverage, was formed in 1993 and currently has a market cap of $1.4 billion and trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol IPCR. In 2001, in addition to a public offering of 15 million shares of stock that raised $380 million, IPC raised more than $109 million through a simultaneous private placement sale of 5.6 million shares of stock to AIG - giving AIG a 20% stake in IPC. (AIG sold its 13.397 million shares in IPC in August, 2006.)

LSU meaning me of course.

I have been sidelined with a sprained wrist and pulled tendons, leftover from my ATV accident, and aggravated recently.

It makes typing hard, so I have to type a paragraph…wait….type another…rest…etc ad naseum.

I am feeling somewhat better and hope to return to normal blogging tomorrow.  My hand cramps easily so I have to watch it.

But while I am here, I just have to make a few comments about the theater in DC over the AIG bonuses.  You know what I mean, how AIG got a bailout, signed a bunch of employees to a contract for the retention bonuses, and then got not one but two more bailouts, finally paying out 165 million in retention bonuses.

And hoe congress knew about them at the final bailout, but removed any restriction on the bonuses at Geitner’s request.

And then how they turned on the moral outrage and went ballistic on AIG, and now are intent on taxing those who got the bonuses at a whopping 90% rate.

It is disgusting…no, not the bonuses, congress.  Congress intends to use legislation and the IRS to target citizens who engaged in a legal contract for employment.

_{^{Note: I still have a sprained wrist and arm, and typing is extremely painful.  Most of my posts this week will be brief as a result.}}

We hear a lot about failure these days, thanks to Barack Obama and Rush Limbaugh.  Rush made his failure comment about Obama and the whole world became convinced he was either the devil or the head of the republican party, which to some is the same.

The reality is that Rush is the most honest man in America if you are brave enough to face up to the reality of his comments.  He said what he felt.  He evaluated the plans Obama was putting into play, and he determined the result would be bad for America in his opinion.  At that moment, his desire to see Obama fail was the most honest and patriotic position he could take.

His critics assume something that Rush has not bought into, that Obama’s plans might work and make America great.  In Rush’s estimation, Obama’s plans could easily succeed, but their success would mean something bad in the long run for America.

I am a bit under the weather today, and will make this brief.  I will return to my long winded self tomorrow.

I personally am sick of the outrage emanating from congress over the bonuses. 

Bad enough how many of our elected leaders took donations from these companies, but now we find out that the exclusion of the bonuses was inserted by Dodd for Geitner.

So anyone saying this was a surprise is likely lying, including the president, though his people are lining up to protect him, as expected.

But now, now we see congress acting strongly and harshly by trying to pass a bill to tax the bonuses of these people at 90%.

First of all, if a million is bad, a $100k is still bad.  If the standards is that they should get none then make it none.

But the real problem, what scares me dry, is that congress is passing legislation to target private citizens from receiving money they were owed for completion of a legally binding contract.

This is a horrible abuse of power and frankly I expect litigation to stop it.

A good friend of mine is much more attuned to the financial world than I have and he has been increasingly more and more alarmist in the last couple years.

While I think some of his pessimism is extreme, he has also been right enough time that I pay attention.

So today he sent me this gem, that I present for your consideration.  With all the outrage being staged over the AIG bonuses, he thinks far more dangerous activities are happening, hidden in plain sight:

Federal Reserve Press Release

To provide greater support to mortgage lending and housing markets, the Committee decided today to increase the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet further by purchasing up to an additional $750 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities, bringing its total purchases of these securities to up to $1.25 trillion this year, and to increase its purchases of agency debt this year by up to $100 billion to a total of up to $200 billion.

Moreover, to help improve conditions in private credit markets, the Committee decided to purchase up to $300 billion of longer-term Treasury securities over the next six months.

I huge win for veterans today as the Obama Administrations backs off of its asinine suggestion billing private insurance companies for veterans care.

Congrats to all vets and people who truly support them for a job well done.

Obama drops disputed vet medical plan

The Obama administration dropped a proposal to require some disabled veterans to pay for medical treatments through their private insurance companies, heeding a chorus of outrage from veterans groups and Capitol Hill lawmakers who said the idea was immoral, unconscionable and un-American.

The White House decided to scrap the plan after meeting with a contingent of veterans and military advocacy groups on Wednesday for the second time this week.

“In considering the third-party billing issue, the administration was seeking to maximize the resources available for veterans,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

Translation:  They were seeking to be cheap skates and penny pinch a half billion dollars.

“However, the president listened to concerns raised by the [veterans groups] that this might, under certain circumstances, affect veterans and their families’ ability to access health care.”

That is such a horrible understatement.

Like most people, I find the recent information that AIG paid out 165 million dollars in executive bonuses fairly outrageous.  For a company to claim to be on the verge of death and to take Billions in tax payer dollars to remain afloat, for our own good of course, then to shower some of that cash on the top execs is arrogant and condescending.

I mean, the bonuses are supposed to be a merit bonus, yes?  So where is the merit in being on the verge of corporate failure.  Well….I guess you could say they were a success in sucking us. 

But while gross, that is not the worst outrage over the situation.  (I will deal with the fact these were contractural bonuses, and what this means if the government starts interferring with legal contracts later.)

Worse is the fact that we had to bail them out, twice to the tune of many Billion dollars in the first place.  Worse yet is that the Federal Government has become the teat for corporate America to suckle at.

But in something even more outrageous, maybe we ought not act so surprised.