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Cash for Clunkers

What a stupid idea.

  

This is like sticking your finger into a sucking chest wound and giving yourself a morphine shot while laying in a muddy war zone on the other side of the world. 

It may temporarily stop the external bleeding and numb the initial pain, but your probably still going to die.

The "Cash for Clunker Program" was intended to stimulate the economy by motivating people to purchase new vehicles and help the environment by getting gas guzzlers off the road.  That's what they told you...  I'm no economist, I'm just a working class Joe with a little common sense who has been blessed enough to keep my head above water during this down economy.  But here is the way I see it... 

Cash for Clunkers equals "bailout for the failed Bailout"...  Who does it really help?  The failing economy?  The government?  The American Citizen?  The environment? NO, NO, NO and NO....   I'll tell you who- The Banks and Automakers, but only temporarily.  It only helps them today, but it will implode on both of them too.  

All of these people take their so called clunkers to the dealers to get a new car. They take advantage of the Clunker program and buy a new car.  The old car now has to be crushed, it can not be resold, parted out or anything that might help anyone else- It has to be destroyed. That hurts future used car buyers and drives the prices up on pre-owned autos causing financial hardship on people who can't qualify for a new car loan but needs to purchase another car.  It also hurts the auto salvage market because they can't part the car out and sell used parts to help keep lower income peoples cars running.  It hurts the neighborhood mechanic because he now has less cars to work on. Not to mention the thousands of people in the auction business across the nation who's responsible for liquidating all of the trade-ins and used cars getting them back on the market.

Next is the fact that a large number of the people participating in the Clunker program couldn't afford a new car without the cash for clunkers... What are they going to do in 12 months when they can't afford the payments any longer? Let the car be repossessed??? Probably so... that hurts the family even more and they cant afford a replacement used car because the prices have skyrocketed up on any decent used cars.  Then there is the bank... they lost out too. They got the new loan written (stuck the unsuspecting buyer with a high rate too, I bet) but now they have the car back... They are owed "XX" amount on the car but it's only worth "x" amount now.  The consumer is screwed, the bank is screwed. The auto industry is screwed too... A big flurry of layoff recalls and new hires to help with the influx of car sales, then more massive layoffs when there isn't enough work after people realize its a farce and they really can't afford to buy and keep that new car with the monthly payment equal to their rent or house note.

So what is the payoff for the environment? When all of the after thought studies are done and the results are in, the sensible people will figure out that they spent $3 Billion dollars to effect a result that will do little to no good for the environment. The other people (non-sensible) will realize (but never admit) that it only benefitted a small select group of people for a short time and the "Oh Well, what's done is done- cant do anything about it now" attitude will come out.  

 I guess to a portion of the "give me, give me, take, take" population, the present administration in D.C. appears to have come off smelling like roses with this program.  Maybe to some they do, but for people who have some common sense, they can look at a situation and calculate the risks and examine possible outcomes.  Was it a gamble? You bet it was... did the American people win the bet?  It doesn't look good from here and it surly doesn't smell like roses to me. 

Spooks in the Closet

Yesterday afternoon one of my regular customers came into my shop and was acting kinda strange.  

Let me start by telling you about my customer.  For her sake, I'll call her Isadora... Anyways, she's about (I'm guessing) 42 -45 years old (acts like she's 25), about 5 feet tall and maybe weighs in at 90 pounds, soaking wet with a brick in her pocket. She usually comes in about once a month or so but on some months maybe 2 or 3 times.  She's married and has a couple teen age boys, 17 and 19. Her husband is an attorney and she is self employed in the high finance industry (trading and investments).  She appears to be of an Filipino, Italian, Lebanese, Jewish mix. Kinda an overseas type of Heinz 57 and her boys look it too.  No one in the family who I've talked with has any type of discernible accent.

Like I said she was acting strange... she finally said "We are going though the worst thing a family could possibly go through..." 

The way she said it, My mind went straight to the worse case scenario (I am a former investigator, you know).  Her husband left her for his gay Latin lover Raul... her financial identity was stolen... the older son knocked up a 12 year old handicap girl... the younger son was caught on video molesting sheep and granny was collared for drug runnin and prostitution.... all at the same time.   

So by this time my mind is full of all this odd ball crap and she leans over the counter and whispers five little words that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up....  

"We're under surveillance by NSA"   . . . and she didn't mean the Nevada Spittoon Association either...  She was referring to the National Security Agency!

For those of you that don't know, the NSA is a government agency that is a operated by the Department of Defense (DoD) and to a lesser degree incorporates a small portion of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and is responsible for almost all of the electronic surveillance that our federal government does overseas and also in suspected threats inside the United States as well as being responsible for our government and military's electronic security and defense against hackers and other threats.  It uses the FBI to assist in it's investigations within the United States and utilizes military intelligence officers and CIA operatives to operate outside the US. 

The 1998 movie "Enemy of the State" starring Will Smith, Gene Hackman and Jon Voight is an action adventure flick about the NSA going rogue inside the US while trying to cover up their assassination of a high profile US government official.  Good movie but the in reality I don't think they really have all the technology available that the movie uses... but I could be wrong.

Anyway... Back to Isadora.  She is convinced that some spy has been in her house.  She said a couple weeks ago she woke up in the middle of the night and found her front door wide open and assumed her oldest son left it open when he came home late.  She made him wake up and go close it, she then milled around the house for awhile before returning to bed.  On her way to the bedroom she decided to get something out of the hall closet but couldn't get the door open, gave up and forgot about it and went back to bed.  Isadora said the next morning while thinking back about the closet door that it felt like someone was inside the closet holding the knob. She went and tried the closet door and it opened right up with no problem.... She thinks he (a spy) was hiding in the closet that night, and didn't expect her to wake up.   She tells me that she has since arranged little things around the house during the day and also at night and found these things moved and her other little tale tale signs she has set up has convinced her someone is coming into the house at night and during the day while everyone is at work or school. 

She told me she spends a lot of time outside working in the yard and flower bed and knows all the dog walkers, joggers, bicyclist and people in her neighborhood.  But recently noticed a male jogger she has never seen before. He seems to slow down and look at her house and on one occasion actually stopped and milled around her garbage that was waiting for pick-up.  Isadora said on another resent occasion while driving home, she saw that same man jog slowly down her street and slowed to a near stop in front of her home and then watched him jog around the corner and get into a car with another man and then drive away. 

Isadora said that last week they paid a private investigator over $800 to come into their home and sweep it for bugs, wire taps and video surveillance devices, but he found none and didn't even check the family computer.

There are a few problems with that... here's what I told Isadora.

Any equipment NSA/FBI would use would probably not be picked up by any bug/listening device locator/sweeper that is commercially available to private investigators or anyone else. The devices used would be on higher or lower restricted frequencies.  These sweeper/detector devices only work on 'wireless' commercially available devices like video cameras or listening bugs.  If the devices are hard wired- it wont find them.  

Government agents/spys would not pick their way into a location on multiple times, they would pick the lock the first time and make a key to the lock at that time to use later.  Then they would only go back maybe once a month or as needed to service or move around the devices, and they wouldn't do it when anyone was home.  

I asked why would NSA be investigating you? She told me because our whole family looks like terrorist because our skin and hair color.  Neither her nor her husband were born in the US and her son was emailing a friend in Israel late last year.

I had to tell her it's highly unlikely that NSA is the culprit, unless you really appear to be a threat.  That doesn't mean its not the FBI or another agency. It could be anyone from NSA, FBI, Securities and Exchange Commission (because of her occupation), state or local authorities or any rogue PI working for anyone looking to get dirt on you or anyone in your family.

Finally I suggested she just go to Bass Pro Shop and get a few 'Game Cams' and set one aimed at the front door and one at the back door and one or two inside the house.  These cameras are small and easily hidden and use infrared flashes for night pics and motions sensors to take pictures. They are 100% digital and images are stored on a card that is removable and can be plugged into most computers to view the pictures...  That way she can see who is coming in, if anyone really is coming in....

Over the years I've encountered several nutty people who think government agents were coming into their homes.  Most were outright lunatics, but on the occasion I come across someone who appears to be well balanced normal persons of society who probably has had people coming in, I don't know if it was gov. agents but it does happen.

I remember one nut bag a few years ago that thought the FBI was getting into her trailer house and planting child porn evidence on her computer and hiding the same kind of pictures all around her house.... I remember the confused look on her face as I asked her "Are you sure your husband isn't bringing that crap into the house?" She said "NO, they are trying to frame him!" . . . . . OOoooK.  I still sold her high security locks, and the kiddie crap still turned up and she accused me of selling gov. agents copies of her security keys. She was a true NUT BAG.

As for me... I'm sure I'm on someones radar screen too... prior military, pro life, anti-illegal immigration, redneck, patriotic, NRA member, vote Republican and very Christian, Catholic at that.  But I don't have anything to hide.  I'm not plotting anything against anyone or anything, hell, I have trouble plotting my next meal.  They can listen to my phone calls and read my emails if they want, they are just doing their jobs.