I read today that Joe Biden said that the reason America has a middle class, according to what he thought, was because of  organized labor.  I love it when idealogues from both sides make statements like this without ever backing it up with any proof.  They just go ahead and blabber about whatever they feel fits their vision of the world and history.  I am so glad that I do not have such closed minded thinking.  These progressives, liberals walk around as if they are so open-minded, yet in reality they are trapped within a very narrow way of thinking.  They always defer to the idea that government is good and that labor has saved the day from evil business.  It’s comments like these that really get my goat, because in reality, they are lies which are told for the sole purpose of maintaining votes and winning votes.  Organized labor has played a part in enriching a few people.  Their wins or gains come at the expense of everyone else who is not part of organized labor.  Their superior benefits come on the backs of the poor and uneducated.  Look at how the unions and their crazy benefits have ruined the Big Three auto makers and they want more.  They could care less that they have asked and received far too much for what they do.  Come on, they sit in a building and operate a screw driver for over $50 an hour.  That is ridiculous.  How long does it take to learn how to operate a machine… a couple weeks at tops.  America has been prosperous in the past because the government has stayed out of the economy, but for the last 100 years, the government has increasingly gotten involved in the economy and look what has happened.  People are in more debt than ever.  The government is in more debt than ever.  We are in another post bubble recession created by the government meddling in the financial sector and encouraging banks and other lending companies to lend to poor credit risks so that they could buy votes.  And now you have Joe Biden making ridiculous comments that organized labor has saved the day.  Ha.Ha.  What a joke.  Unfortunately there are a lot of people that fail to ask Joe to offer some proof.  Instead they blindly believe what he says, like turkeys going to slaughter before Thanksgiving.   Any, that was my koolaid moment of the day.

Back to Chile, what went on today here in Chile?  Well, I worked from home today which means I was on my computer doing project management until about 2 this afternoon.  I was watching my new favorite TV show called Buenos Dias a Todos.  It’s their version of Good Morning America, except with better looking hosts and it’s more of variety show.  Heck, it lasts 4 hours and it’s good Spanish listening practice.  I finally took a shower at about 2 and then walked over to my favorite restaurant for lunch and my weekly reinetta.  That place is so good and the waitresses are very friendly.  I had a lengthy conversation with one of the waitresses.  I think that she wants a boyfriend, but it isn’t going to be me.  She’s a nice woman though, but not my type.  The chef delivered my food and I shook his hand and told him that his food is my favorite food in Santiago.   I think he was shocked, but I just love their little restaurant and the food.  After lunch, I came home and finished working for a few hours.  My project seems to be going smoothly.  I’m just waiting for some bomb to drop and things to fall apart.  I think that is what every project manager fears.

I decided after work that I wanted to run up San Cristobal Hill.  I don’t run up it as much anymore, maybe twice or three times a month.  I have this nagging hamstring pull that I got last Saturday lighting it up on the basketball court and it just won’t go away, so running up that hill was a little more difficult, but it was so cool and beautiful on the way up because Santiago is so nice before sunset.  I really love working from home.  I wish I could do it more, but unfortunately, as with many jobs, the promises made before the job often aren’t kept or honored, and ultimately that comes back to haunt people.  I didn’t sign up to have to go into the office 4 times a week and most likely eventually that will be what drives me from this job, but we shall see.  Nothing is written in stone just yet.

Well, I essentially made it to my Friday because tomorrow I will be working from home and I’m not going to work that hard.  I’ve been working hard lately and I want to take a break.  I’ll get done what I need to get done, but I certainly am not going to bust my butt tomorrow.  Today was relatively quiet at work.  My project is going well, as well as it can go.  I’m a natural worrier, which means I’m a great planner, which  means I’m a great project manager.  Sure there are lots of things to know and do in this job, but once I get this down, it will only be a matter of executing the same thing over and over.  By the way, I have a good friend at work and today she was hanging out with this real cute, petite Columbian woman at work, so I hit my friend up for some 411 on her and it turns out she just dumped her long distance boyfriend back in Columbia, so I asked my friend to hook me up, so we shall see.

I went after to work to play soccer with some guys from the Elder Quorom.  I don’t know what it is with this group of guys, but they really aren’t that friendly.  It was fun to play football though.  Of course they picked the gringo last for teams.  It’s funny how they do that.  Actually it is stupid.  You have someone who is new to the ward and so the last thing you should do is insult them.  Bad move on their part.   The funny thing is that my team kept winning.  I think Latinos are funny because they think they are so good at soccer just because they are Latino, when the truth is that the USA has pretty good soccer and could beat most of the Latin countries on a regular basis, but I guess when this is the only sport they got, they got to believe they are good at something.

Hi folks.  Thomas Sowell just hit another home run.  If you are interested in a little truth read it here.  If you are not, enjoy keeping your head in the sand as the world burns around you.  Why can’t more people think more clearly like Thomas Sowell.

Well, it was another day in the life of Todd in Chile.  I think I’ve been fighting sickness for a few days now.  I’ve had a sore throat the past few days and I just felt tired today.  Today started at work with a pointless status meeting.  I don’t why bosses can’t see that everyone sitting around doing status is a waste of time for everyone else not talking.  If you want status, just have everyone email you.  You get more thorough status updates and everyone doesn’t have to sit through the crap.  A good boss would take those status meeting updates and then send out bullet points of things that would be good to know.  But I good bosses are few and far between.  They do status meetings because they think they aren’t in control if they don’t do them and they are lazy because if they had to consolidate the different status reports into an update email to everyone, it obviously would be more work, but it would be more productive for their direct reports.  Instead there was a total of 5 wasted hours of time in another pointless status meeting.  And you’d think that we’d all know better.  And then I followed up that winner of a meeting with a lame 2 hour HR career planning meeting in Spanish.  What a waste of time, but all companies do this stuff without thinking that it is such a waste of time.   Like I need a two hour presentation on how to plan my career.  We did do this interesting survey that basically told me what I already knew.  I like difficult challenges.  I like autonomy.  I like entrepreneurship.  In other words, I want to do my own thing and hopefully in the next few years, I will take that chance, but first I want to save up money and experience a few things in South America.  Hopefully that other stuff can wait a few years.

After work, I was supposed to go to a Spanish lesson, but I called her up and cancelled for today.  I wanted to go running instead.  I got home about 7:15 after a long day and didn’t feel like hopping back on the metro to go to a 1.5 hour lesson of Spanish.  So I slogged out a few miles instead and it felt great.  On my way home from work, a colleague of mine gave me a ride part way to home.  She is a really nice lady, married with 2 kids and 1 on the way.  She asked me if I had a girlfriend.  I told her no, that I thought I couldn’t find what I was looking for here.  I told her of my interests in politics, history, and government and that I hoped anyone that I dated would have the same kinds of intellectual interests.  She said that maybe I should just look for someone to have fun with, go to the movies, etc.   I agreed, but even that is hard to find these days, considering how loose and shallow many women are these days.  I do agree with her that life would be a little more fun with a good woman, even if it doesn’t lead anywhere other than good friendship, but I believe that that kind of woman is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.  Then we talked a little about the church.  I think that many people are interested about Mormons because of our values and emphasis on family.

Before I left work, I got this call from my bank here in Chile, Santander.  This lady wanted to explain my benefits of my credit card.  I had a little fun with her.  She mentioned that I have some kind of discounts on different items such as gas, etc.  I told her thanks for the 50 percent discount, which isn’t what she said, but I was just playing around.  Anyway, I told her thanks, but I really wasn’t interested.  I’m not planning on using it.  My credit card has like a 2,000,000 peso limit or something like that.  I’m sure that I will use it to travel.  So anyway, I’m a little tired, stinky from running, but I need to work on my other websites right now.  There were plenty of Kool-Aid moments in the news today and I’ve got several things that I want to write on.  I think I’ll be writing a bit this weekend.  Tomorrow our elder’s quorum will be getting together to play football and roast hot dogs.  Now that sounds like fun. 

Why are all the woman that I find attractive married?  I guess that is why they are married, because they are attractive.  Or is that a circular argument?  Anyway, it’s about 11 pm here tonight.  I’ve got Lord of the Rings on in Spanish and I’m writing in my blog.  Let’s see, what happened today?  I got up with a little bit of sore throat.  I’m not sure where it came from because it has certainly been hot here.  I went for my morning run, worked on some work, and went into work and did the usual work stuff.  There is this really cute secretary here at my office.  She always looks so good every morning when I walk into the office.  Anyway, work was work.  I actually took it easy today.  Things are going about as well as they can go on this project.  We’ll see how it turns out, but for now it seems pretty good.  Then after work, I caught a ride to a metro station closer to where I live from a friend at work.  There was a birthday party of a colleague of mine tonight, but I decided not to go.  I don’t want to spend 3 of the last 9 nights with my colleagues.  You know what… I work with them 5 days a week, why do I want to see them at night.  Not!!!!!  Then me and my friend Jeruen grabbed a burger and fries at the sports bar.  That certainly was very filling.  Finally, I’m going to leave you with a good bit from www.dailyreckoning.com.  It taught me something.

Bernanke Paints Himself Into a Corner

By Daily Reckoning Contributor

01/27/09 Unfortunately, Bernanke has gotten himself into a position where the only way to prevent massive price inflation is to cut-off the financial sector’s life support and to jack up interest rates.

 

First, we should define some terms. The monetary base consists of currency in circulation, plus bank reserves held on deposit with the Fed itself. The base is the narrowest definition of money, and is directly controlled by the Fed. This is why economists often look at the monetary base to gauge whether the Fed is loosening or tightening.

 

If we broaden the scope of our definition of money, we have M1, which consists of currency in circulation, demand deposits (i.e. checking account balances), traveler’s checks, and a few other extremely liquid assets. For our purposes in this article, the essential differences between the monetary base versus M1, is that the base includes bank reserves with the Fed (while M1 doesn’t), and M1 includes checking deposits (while the base doesn’t). We’ll see in a minute why these differences are important to understanding the danger of the current situation.

 

At the risk of triggering nauseating flashbacks to mandatory college lectures, let’s review how the Fed creates money which in turn leads to price increases. Normally, when the Fed wants to engage in “loose” monetary policy, it engages in open-market operations by buying assets from the public. For example, the Fed might buy $10 million worth of government securities from private-sector holders. In the transaction, the Fed acquires the $10 million worth of Treasury debt, and writes a check on itself for $10 million.

 

This is the precise spot where money is created “out of thin air.” When the Fed writes a check on itself, the recipient deposits it at his bank, and the bank in turn deposits it with the Fed. So the Fed bumps up that particular bank’s account balance by $10 million; in other words, that bank’s reserves with the Fed have gone up by $10 million. Yet there is no counterbalancing debit anywhere else in the system.

 

When Joe Smith writes a check for $10,000 to Bill Jones, total deposits haven’t changed; Jones’ checking account goes up by $10,000, while Smith’s goes down by $10,000. Yet when the Fed writes a check for $10 million, some bank’s reserves go up by that amount, while no other bank’s reserves fall. The additional $10 million in reserves was created by changing the 0s and 1s in the Fed’s computer system.

 

As readers may recall, the process does not stop there. Because of the fractional reserve nature of our banking system, an injection of new reserves can lead to a multiple increase in the overall money stock. For example, if the reserve requirement is 10%, then the bank depositing the $10 million is able to make new loans of up to $9 million. Businesspeople may come in and win approval for loans, and receive new checking accounts with a total of $9 million in their balances. They can go out into the community and start writing checks on these balances, pushing up prices. At the same time, the original person who sold Treasurys to the Fed, still thinks he has $10 million more in his checking account too. Thus, while the monetary base has increased by $10 million (i.e. that’s how much total bank reserves have increased), M1 has increased by $19 million.

 

And the process continues. The merchants who receive payments from those taking out new loans will in turn deposit the checks with their own banks, and some of the “excess reserves” (i.e. the $9 million that the original bank held over and above the legal minimum needed to back up the first person’s deposit) are transferred to other banks. They in turn can now make new loans, because the 10% reserve rule applies to their new reserves as well.

 

In the end, if we assume a 10% reserve requirement, and that all of the banks are fully “loaned up,” then the original purchase of $10 million in Treasurys will yield an increase of $100 million in total checkbook balances in the community. Prices for goods and services will be higher than they otherwise would have been, because there is now an extra $100 million in household “cash” chasing them.

 

The process works in reverse, too. If the Fed grows concerned about price inflation, it can slam on the brakes by engaging in open-market operations to sell off assets from its balance sheet. When the public buys an asset from the Fed, the transaction ultimately reduces the reserves that member banks hold with the Fed, meaning that they will need to contract the total outstanding checking balances of their customers. (We are assuming the banks had originally been fully loaned up, i.e. that they held no excess reserves.) Assuming a 10% reserve ratio, if the Fed sold $10 million of securities that it had been holding, that could lead to a reduction of $100 million in the quantity of money held by the public.

 

Now back to the current situation. The chart below shows the banking system’s total excess reserves, meaning how much banks are holding that could be used as the base on which to pyramid loans to customers.

 

http://www.ezimages.net/DR/Murphy012709-1.PNG

 

The above chart is startling. Notice that the timeline goes back to 1929; nothing even remotely close to our current situation has occurred, even during the depths of the Great Depression.

 

What is happening is that the Fed has allowed its balance sheet to explode during the last year, from $920 billion in December 2007 to $2.3 trillion in December 2008. (See this excellent summary article.) Yet because of general fear, as well as various gimmicks (such as paying interest on reserves held with the Fed), the banks are sitting on these huge injections of reserves, rather than granting new loans to their customers. This is why prices have been falling, even amidst this unprecedented expansion in the monetary base.

 

Another way to see the discrepancy is to contrast the growth in the monetary base with the growth in M1. Remember that the Fed directly controls the base, whereas it is M1 (a measure that includes checking deposits) that most accurately captures how much money the public has available for immediate spending. Look at how much more the base has grown, compared to M1:

 

http://www.ezimages.net/DR/Murphy012709-2.PNG

 

Sometimes when economists focus too much on the supply of money, it leads to a neglect of the demand for money. As the second chart above illustrates, M1 has indeed grown remarkably in the last year, even while prices have been fairly stable. This is because the recession and general panic has led the public to demand greater cash balances. In other words, people want to concentrate much more purchasing power in extremely liquid assets (including Treasury debt as well as currency and FDIC-insured checking accounts). Thus, even though the total stock of money has risen considerably, prices haven’t followed suit.

 

The general price level is the flip-side of the dollar’s strength, and so if the demand to hold dollars goes up, then its “price” goes up too, meaning its exchange value versus real goods and services goes up. In the summer, one U.S. dollar traded for a quarter-gallon of gas. Now that the dollar has considerably strengthened against gasoline, one dollar fetches (say) three-quarters of a gallon. The “gas-price” of a dollar has risen, meaning that the dollar-price of gasoline has fallen. The same is true – to a lesser extent – with other goods and services.

 

Even though increases in the demand for U.S. dollars can offset increases in its supply – so that its market value doesn’t plummet – this observation is no cause for comfort. Using back-of-the-envelope calculations, the year/year growth in demand deposits (i.e. checking account balances) was about 38% in December. In contrast, the year/year growth in reserves was more than 1,400%. If the banks became optimistic about the future of the economy and began loaning out their excess reserves, right now there is enough slack in the system for the public’s money supply to increase by a factor of 14.

 

There is nothing conspiratorial about the points I have made above. (Indeed, I have run these thoughts by other economists who are experts on the banking system and they generally endorse the analysis.) Analysts simply assume that once the recovery begins, Bernanke will wisely suck the excess reserves back out of the system, in time to tame price inflation.

 

But is that really going to be politically feasible? The federal government is currently borrowing money at amazing rates: if we include not just the on-budget (cash flow) deficit, but also the government’s overall long-term financial liabilities, then the total federal debt increased by more than $1 trillion in 2008 alone. When we consider that Bernanke and Paulson have extended more than $5 trillion in new taxpayer exposure with all of their bailouts, the pressure on Uncle Sam in the coming years could be enormous.

 

Why is the federal debt relevant to our discussion? Well, recall that in order to soak up excess reserves from the banking system, the Fed will need to sell off its assets. If it uses its vast holdings of Treasury debt to do so, then the massive dumping will raise U.S. interest rates, just as surely as if the Chinese government decided it no longer thought the U.S. government were creditworthy and dumped all of its Treasurys. Bernanke will therefore be reluctant to go that route.

 

But his other options won’t be pretty either. The Fed has acquired all sorts of dubious assets in the last year, in an effort to provide “liquidity” to the financial sector. Is Bernanke really going to paralyze the big banks by throwing billions of mortgage-backed securities onto the market, just as the economy limps out of recession and into recovery?

 

The Federal Reserve under Ben Bernanke’s leadership has painted itself into a very tight corner. He has cleverly managed to stave off utter disaster so far, but he is running out of options. Ironically, the effects of his incredible injections of new reserves have been masked simply because the financial sector is still paralyzed. If and when the economy begins to improve, Bernanke will have to decide whether to allow double-digit price inflation or instead contain prices by strangling the incipient recovery.

Well, it’s back to the grind of work.  I got up about 7:30 today, went running for about 30 minutes at 8:00, then got back and started working from home.  I got ready for work about 10:30 or so, worked a little more after that, caught the metro and bus to work and got to work about 12:15 pm.  Even though I really dislike going into work, I’ll have to admit that it sure is nice to be able to work from wherever and to show up to work whenever I want to.  Now if I could get to work from home everyday like I thought they originally promised.  Eventually, I will expect them to live up to these expectations, but for now, while I am learning the job and growing, I will just work and keep my mouth shut.

Today, I pretty much ignored my co-workers that ticked me off at the party this past week.  I did let one of them know that I thought they were rude.  He apologized.  I think that when people get drunk that they do stupid things, so I told my colleague at work that I just would not attend these kinds of activities after a certain time in the evening.  I’ll always keep my escape options open.  Why anyone enjoys drinking is beyond me because it appears to be a waste of time and money, but I think people do it for 2 reasons basically.  They do it to relax themselves in social situations and they do it because of peer pressure.  Anyway, my colleagues are allright, just not when they get a little drunk.  It actually isn’t too bad working that late.  Santiago is rather cool, temperature-wise, when the sun sets.  I guess that we are in the second part of summer now.  I guess that means fall is around the corner and then winter.  Yikes.

So I got home about 9 this evening, ate some chips, had a couple of cheese sandwiches, and here I am watching Chilean news so I can listen to a little Spanish for the day.  During the weather report, there was a line for Antartica.  I guess that Antartica these days is about 35 degrees all day and night long.  I bet there aren’t too many places in the world that report on the temperature of the Antarctic everyday.  I will be starting up Spanish lessons again every Wednesday for an hour and half with a new teacher.  We’ll see how that goes.  I wish I had something great and profound to say politically, but I don’t.  I will ask you all a question that maybe you can answer and it’s kind of a long question.  How did a once proud nation that was founded in liberty and freedom become a nation that believes that security and big government is the best solution for any problem?  What happened?  Where did it change?  Will we be able to turn it around?  I think that most Americans know that we have gone way off track and that it is primarily the problem of the government, but for whatever reason they blindly fall into the Republican or Democratic camp and fight each other instead of the government, the real enemy of us all.

And finally, enjoy this article.

Today is like all the rest of my Sunday, quiet and restful.  Next weekend I am determined to change that in a very specific way.  For most of you that know me, you know that I am generally an introverted guy.  I’ve learned to function really well doing my own thing when I want to do it.  I’ve learned in many ways how to live alone, yet still have people around me.  So I’ve decided to try and change that and try to open up a bit to people.  I’m going to try and create my own little Sunday evening dinner experience every Sunday with friends, just like my family always used to have in Hawaii.  I’d, of course, always bring the watermelon.  Now you might ask, why am I goint to do this?  It’s simple.  I want to enjoy my Sundays with other people as well, make friends, and build something that is memorable.  Now the side benefits will be that I can improve my Spanish, of course, but I figured that the least I could do is be friendly.  There is always someone out there in the world who is lonely or looking for a friend.  This is my opportunity to serve, have a good time, and hopefully make some life-long friends.  So this week, I will plan for the first, of hopefully many, dinners at my place.

There wasn’t much else to report on today.  I’m just getting ready for a crazy week of project management.  I did start a couple of new sites.  Anyone can contribute to them if they’d like.  They are www.koolaiddrinkersunited.com and www.notanexpertbut.com.  Koolaid drinkers united is for anyone that wants to post their favorite koolaid drinker moment, primarily anything that is unconstitutional or smacks of big government.  Big government lovers are definitely koolaid drinkers.  So vent if you must, but write please.   No An Expert is a site for regular folks to write regular articles about what is wrong with America and how to fix it.  The problem, as I see it, in America right now is that their are too many experts who are really nothing more than big government lovers who want to control people ultimately for their own financial gain and to stroke their egoes.  Chief among them now is President Obama and his staff of do-gooders.  Before him was Bush, Clinton, Bush, and all the way back to before Roosevelt I.  Well, look at how well all these so-called experts have done.  We now have a debt over $10 trillion and they want to keep giving us some of their expert advice.  Well, I think that their chances at advising have pretty much ended.  So if you want to write about your non-expert opinion, by all means, go ahead.

I got up kind of late today because of being out so late last night.  I went for a run up to the basketball court that we play at on Saturdays.  It was unseasonably cold and cloudy this morning, so it was a nice run.  Then we played basketball for a couple of hours.  I was on fire.  We played against this group of Chileans who you could tell played a lot together and I was smoking them from long distance during all the games we played.  It was funny.  Every game that we played them, they would switch defenders on me.  The next guy thought he could do a better job against me and it never quite worked out for them.  It was a fun time.  I never play basketball that much, but for whatever reason, I can still shoot.

I don’t know where the rest of the day went.  After basketball and running, my body hurt.  I read some Oracle docs for work, studied some, and then went to play some soccer in the evening, but unfortunately the Elder’s Quorom forgot to tell some of us that it was cancelled.  I met another fellow member of the elder’s quorom.  Nobody let him know it was cancelled either.  It turns out that he is a massage therapist and I need one of those, so I’ll be visiting his office soon.  My body hurts from basketball.  Anyway, that’s all for today.  By the way, I started two new websites so if there is anyone out there not wants to contribute to them, just let me know.  They are www.koolaiddrinkersunted.com and www.notanexpertbut.com.  The whole idea of the first is to make fun in a fun way of liberal koolaid drinking thoughts.  The last one is a place for regular people to write about their experiences on anything in life that the experts tell them they should do.  For example, all these so called experts in finance sure missed the boat on this mess, yet no one tells them to shut up.  They are still considered experts even though they have failed.  So what do the so-called non-experts have to say about anything the experts say from health care, to the war, to the borders, to whatever.  It’s painfully obvious that the experts really aren’t experts.  They are just using the system to stroke their egos and make more money than the could make in any other field.  You see, there are two types of people in the world, those who produce and pull their weight an those who don’t.  Politicians, bureaucrats, and lawyers fall into the latter category.  They leach off of others and use the system to get more money than they normally could for what they do.

It sure is fun to check out your bank account and see a couple million more pesos in it.  Today was pay day.  I worked from home today, but I didn’t work too hard because I worked my butt off Monday through Thursday and I really didn’t have it in me to continue working hard on Friday.  I had to run to the Policia Internacional to get a document from them.  They asked the usual questions.  Are you married or single?  Where do you work?  What do you do?  Where do you live?  It was a really short process.  The law firm that helped me get all my papers in order had a gentleman take me to the place and then to get my cedula de identidad, or identity card.  I guess that I am now officially a Chilean resident for 2 years.  That should be enough time, then it will be time to move on.  Life is too short to not take some chances and experience different countries.  So I spent my morning until 10 or so running around town taking care of the final steps to getting my resident card.  Then I came home and worked for a bit, but I was so wiped out that I took a nap and then met a friend for lunch at my favorite little lunch spot.  These people are so friendly to us gringos and they make such food.  That is why they are so successful.  I am so grateful when I find a place that has such good customer service and food.  I hope God blesses them with continued success because it really is a special place and they are special people.  After that, I came home and worked some more and took a longer nap before going for a run in the 90 degree heat.  It was the only time of the day that I could go, so I had to do it.  Luckily many of the streets have old trees on both sides so there is some shade.  That is one great thing about Santiago is that they have many mature trees that provide lots of shade.  It is a pretty city, I think.  After my run, I had to get ready for a fiesta at a colleagues house.  They live in the country side in this beautiful house with a huge yard.  I’m thinking a place like this only costs maybe $200000 including land and house.   They barbecued and it was basically a Spanish night.  I forced my colleagues to speak Spanish to me.  I will have to say that night was rather irritating after midnight.  I was quiet as I listened to them speak Spanish.  It’s a natural thing to do.  They kept misinterpreting that as me not enjoying myself, so a few of them kept irritating the crap out of me.  I eventually used a choice swear word and told them to shut up.  They were bothering me and it just wasn’t right.  I think part of the problem was they were drinking and they were speaking Spanish and expecting me to join them, but I was just listening.  And then they brought out dessert and I, as well as the lady next to me, did not want any because it was pudding and I hate pudding so I said no.  Well, this one guy bothered me about this and I asked him why he was bothering me.  He wasn’t bothering the other lady.  Anyway, they eventually got the point that they were being rude.  I decided that there will be no more parties for me with my colleagues because they drink too much and they become irritating as crap.  In Chile, there is so much pressure to go along with what they do.  I think it is so immature.  But ultimately, I try to avoid people like that and situations like that.  If I go again, I will only go to parties that I can leave anytime I want.  They are nice people, but to put it politely sometimes Chileans can be complete punks and idiots when you want to do your own thing.  In Chile, it is not polite to say no.  It is a foreign word to them, but in America we are much more direct.  Anyway, life is still good.  I’ve just learned what to avoid and not avoid, when to go and not go.  I’ve learned that some of my colleagues will just stay colleagues, because that is what they have earned and others can be friends.  It’s really that simple.  You don’t have to hang around people that irritate you and annoy you.  I got home about 2 am and went to sleep.  It was a long night.  For the most part it was enjoyable, but then it wasn’t.  I hate pie holes.

Let’s see, another day has just blown by.  It is a lot of work to keep up with my project that I am working on.  It seems like I’m juggling ten things at once.  It is rather interesting managing projects from a distance.  I will never meet the people that I work with.  All I know is their voice.  They are all very competent, professional, smart people scattered primarily over the US, UK, and India.  I can’t even remember anything of note that happened today.  It was the same old same old.  Get up, go run, do some work at home so I can miss rush hour traffic, then catch the metro and bus to work and continue working until 7.  I had to go visit my landlord to ask her how to pay the gas bill.  She has the cutest set of twins.  My landlord is a very petite, skinny lady.  She just had twins a year ago and they look exactly like her.  There look like little dolls.  Then my friend, Jeruen, and I went to get some food, french fries (Chilean style) of course, and a burger along with some sweet fresh strawberry juice.  I just love their juice here.   Then it was back to home to continue some work for about an hour.  As I was travelling on the metro today, I realized that while it is nice to have a metro, I am sure that it is a huge waste of money, because it moves a fraction of the people that come to work and if it breaks down, it juts snarls the thing.  Really, a rail system is nothing more than a work project for the construction industry, which by the way is the most powerful lobby in Washington.  I wonder if President Obama will ignore that lobby as well, like he pledged to do.  Somehow I doubt the man that calls for unity will ignore one of the unions and the lobbies.

Finally, I hopped online today and the following link caught my eye right away.  It was a New York Times article entitled, “Rejecting Bush Era, Reclaiming Values”.  I shouldn’t be too shocked that a piece like this came from the most liberal newspaper in the nation.  Can you imagine a conservative newspaper printing something like that.  I can’t.  I love it when liberals call conservative values, no values.  They are so closed minded.  Conservatives generally are very accepting of allowing people to live their values.  They don’t want to use the government to force people to believe as they do, yet liberals resort to name calling and using the government to enforce their world view.  That certainly doesn’t seem to liberal to me.  The title of the article was only the beginning of the fun that existed within this printed word.

The first paragraph of the article launches the first salvo by saying,

• Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address on Tuesday was a stark repudiation of the era of George W. Bush and the ideological certainties that surrounded it, wrapped in his pledge to drive the United States into “a new age” by reclaiming the values of an older one.

First, don’t liberals such as Barack have the same level, if not more, of ideological certainty in their belief system, yet Bush being ideologically certain is some kind of sin.  So when President Obama’s economic plan to save America via big government spending fails, can we go ahead and slam him for his ideological certainty that it was going to succeed.  Will the New York Times do us that favor?  I don’t think so.  The truth is that liberals love to chide conservatives and religious people for holding onto their ideology, while never realizing that they themselves are just as ideological, if not more, and not only are they ideological, they are also willing to use force to push their ideology on others, making them much more dangerous and harmful to this nation.  But then again, I think it was Christ who said it best when he said why do you worry about the little stick in your neighbors eye, yet you don’t see the huge log in yours. 

The article continued with the following,

• At times, Mr. Obama seemed to chastise the nation, quoting Scripture to caution that “the time has come to set aside childish things.” It seemed a call to end an age of overconsumption and the presumption that America had a right to lead the world, a right that he reminded “must be earned.”

What nerve does he have in chiding the nation for the problems that the federal government and Congress, including him, have created.  They are the ones that created the Federal Reserve, a monopoly on money.  They are the ones that allow the Federal Reserve to print money from nowhere.  They are the ones that run up the national debt.  Noone forces them to do so.  Yet, Obama stands up there all sanctimonious and chides us for being childish.  How dare he?  If anything, the childish ones here are the politicians that have been running Washington.  And overconsumption, what is that?  Please define that.  Is he saying that he should be the judge of how much I consume?  Why is that even his call?  It isn’t.  As long as someone is willing to let me consume something, don’t I have a right to consume it without interference from the government.  Obama fails to realize that the fault for our current situation lies with the Federal government and the liberal/socialist/progressive policies of no responsibility that have been invading Washington since before Franklin Delanore Roosevelt.  So Mr. President, please save your chiding for your children, because judging by my lack of debt and ability to personally take care of myself, I certainly don’t need you or any other lying politician to tell me how to run my house.  You guys set up the rules of the system.  You guys were monitoring the banking.  It’s a monopoly for heaven sakes.  You knew what was going on, but everyone was making so much money that you guys didn’t care.  Then the whole thing pops and you blame the banks who were doing nothing more than the bidding of the politicians and the central bank for the problem.  Excuse me while I laugh at this.  Let’s see.  You control the rules.  You regulate the banks.  Yet, when they fail or the system of monopoly banking and financing (you control the money supply just in case your forgot) breaks, you refuse to take any responsibility and you blame greed, capitalism, and businesses.  Ha.Ha.  Are you really that silly and blind or do you just speak the same Marxist blather that has been eminating out of Washington for decades. 

Finally the last little bit that disturbed me was

• Mr. Obama never rose to the heights of Kennedy’s “pay any price, bear any burden.” Instead, he harked back to the concept that gave birth to the Peace Corps, noting that the cold war was won “not just with missiles and tanks,” but by leaders who understood “that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please.”

I’m not sure what the author was smoking, but what is the author talking about and what is Obama trying to say.  Is he saying that our military strength wasn’t the reason the Cold War was won.  And why can’t our power alone protect us?  If you can kill and maim and disrupt your enemies, then doesn’t that protect you.  And when did America do what is pleases?  I know of no time in history where we did what we pleased.  We went into Iraq and Afghanistan after going before the UN.  So what Obama is referring to is beyond me.  It is a nice sound bite, but it just isn’t based on any truth.  America doesn’t run around forcing countries to do things.  We are not cowboys.  We went into Iraq and Afghanistan based on intelligence that other countries corroborated.  We liberated countries and killed terrorists, dictators and murderers.  Now tell me exactly how this is us doing whatever we want.  If those countries wanted us out of their countries now, we would have to leave, yet they keep us around to help them fight their battles and wars with terrorists and thugs.

In summary, Obama has a warped view of reality.  He speaks from soundbites that he learned over the last 30 plus years of his life.  It is rather easy to dissect the falsity of his statements.  President Bush presided over a rough presidency.  He made many mistakes, but let’s not forget that this government is a three headed government.  The legislature shares an equal share of the burden of guilt for any mistakes made because they authorize the money.  They make the laws.  So it is disingenuous to blame one man for the faults of many.  It is downright disgusting and intellectually weak, but then again, that is always what idealogues do.  They attack the messenger with slander, name calling, and the like and never really back up what they are saying.  If you get them alone and go through what they say word by word, you can catch them in a trap of their words.  They can back up none of it.  It’s just pure drivel.  How an ideologue like Obama can unite the country is beyond me.  Most of us don’t believe in gay marriage, yet he wants to force it upon us.  How’s that for uniting folks?  It’s Obama’s way or the highway.  If you disagree with him, he’s bound to call you childish.

And finally, isn’t it rather convenient that the official version of history that the government always teaches us is the version that paints the government in the most positive light, as the savior and protector of the people.  Yet, isn’t it also true that we have the biggest debt ever.  We have a broken financial system run by our government.  We have a broken family caused by government interference and the forced indoctrination of progressive values.  The government blames the ills of capitalism for everything under the sun, yet fails to acknowledge that we haven’t have economic freedom for almots a hundred years in this country, ever since the introduction of progressive taxation and central banking, two central tenets of socialism.  The governemnt is lying to the people and the people are believing the big lie, so far.  Maybe someday they will wise up.