10/22/2008 – Editorials

We will not be accepting letters to the editor in next week’s newspaper which bring up new issues. We will accept letters to the editor for the October 29 issue which rebut letters or editorials which appear in the October 22 issue. We will not accept letters for the October 29 issue which rebut letters or editorials which appeared prior to October 22.

We do this in the interests of fairness because there will be no opportunity to rebut after the October 29 issue because the election will be held before our November 5 issue.

Don’t believe any of those attack ads on radio and television.

They’re lies and distortions almost without exception. If you believe those ads, you’re basing your vote on lies and distortions.

I find it almost impossible to believe that some people have not decided who they are going to vote for. The two candidates for president have very different views and solutions. I guess it’s too much trouble to find out where the candidates stand.

Let me simplify it for you.

If you’re happy with what’s happened in the past eight years, you should definitely vote for John McCain, who bragged that his votes in the senate have supported George W. Bush’s policies 90 percent of the time.

If you’re not happy with what’s happened in the past eight years, you should vote for Barack Obama.

It’s that simple.

One other issue is that John McCain is 72 years old. At that age he should be retired, not seeking a very demanding job. If McCain does become president we will face the prospect of Sarah Palin becoming president. An Alaskan state legislative committee, dominated by Republicans, concluded she used unethical behavior in trying to get her ex-brother-in-law fired as a state trooper. Her right-wing views scare me as much as Dick Cheney does.

Just think where we would be today if George W. Bush had been able to force down our throats his personal accounts scheme for Social Security which would have opened retirement funds for Wall Street to play with. Those who took part in it would find their nest eggs decimated by the recent stock market crash. John McCain, incidently, worked hard to get these personal accounts opened to Wall Street.

Thank goodness the terribly bad judgment of Bush and McCain was thwarted.

George W. Bush will go down in history as the worst president this nation has ever had to endure, but at least he won’t have the destruction of Social Security hanging around his neck with all the other albatrosses: unending, unnecessary war; unimaginable deficits and debt; torture; and subversion of the Constitution he swore to uphold and defend, to name a few.

Here are some definitions directly from Wall Street:

CEO — Chief Embezzlement Officer.

CFO — Corporate Fraud Officer.

BULL MARKET — A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius.

BEAR MARKET — A six to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance and the wife gets no jewelry.

VALUE INVESTING — The art of buying low and selling lower.

P/E RATIO — The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.

BROKER — What my broker has made me.

STANDARD & POOR — Your life in a nutshell.

STOCK ANALYST — Idiot who just downgraded your stock.

STOCK SPLIT — When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.

FINANCIAL PLANNER — A guy whose phone has been disconnected.

MARKET CORRECTION — The day after you buy stocks.

CASH FLOW — The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.

YAHOO — What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $240 per share.

WINDOWS — What you jump out of when you’re the sucker who bought Yahoo @ $240 per share.

INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR — Past year investor who’s now locked up in a nuthouse.

PROFIT — An archaic word no longer in use.

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Marriage counseling: A husband and wife came for counseling after 20 years of marriage. When asked what the problem was, the wife went into a passionate, painful tirade listing every problem they had ever had in the 20 years they had been married. She went on and on and

on: neglect, lack of intimacy, emptiness, loneliness, feeling unloved and unlovable, an entire laundry list of unmet needs she had endured over the course of their marriage.

Finally, after allowing this to go on for a sufficient length of time, the male therapist got up, walked around the desk, and after asking the wife to stand, embraced and kissed her passionately as her husband watched with a raised eyebrow. The woman shut up and quietly sat down as though in a daze.

The therapist turned to the husband and said, "This is what your wife needs at least three times a week. Can you do this?"

The husband thought for a moment and replied, "Well, I can drop her off here on Mondays and Wednesdays, but on Fridays, I go fishing."