Many of the programs that have been reviled as bailouts and welfare were necessary to keep the financial system from collapsing. Except for the hard core let em fail economists we know that now. Now that the system has been stabilized time to end the programs. Yes it will bring a double dip recession but bring it on. For their own good Americans need to be taught a lesson about living beyond their means. I'm all for three hots and a cot, but the other handouts need to stop. As it is we are teaching people that haven't had the chance to screw up their lives that doing the right thing is the wrong thing.

Many of the investors snapping up properties are average joes with savings or a retirement account they can tap for cash. Makes you wonder how many took out home equity loans on their house to speculate in real estate. If we were to double dip how many of these "investors" will have to cut and run? Same with the investment pools. They may have paid cash but it doesn't mean it was mad money.

Haven't seen any posts from realclimate lapdogs. Can it be the recent revelations about the junk science alarmists have been using is causing them to keep a low profile and shut their mouths? Google "Climategate" and see how the information has been doctored to make the hoax of manmade climate change look real. Obama wasn't going to Copenhagen until the Climategate scandle broke last week. He's going because he knows once the public becomes aware of how bad they've been lied too any type of agreement is dead. Along with it their chances of sending this country and it's citizens back to the stone age. All except for a minority of intellectuals who will reap the rewards and power from their warped view that they are superior beings and the rest of us must suffer because we aren't.

You can thank the business tycoons of the world for creating this situation. As usual, instead of doing the right thing, they figured it was cheaper to buy extra insurance instead of putting security forces on their ships. Fast forward a few years to the present and we see this cheapskate policy has created a profitable and growing industry. What is really stupid and ignorant is that the navys of the world have all these huge expensive warships patrolling for non-existant threats around the world while ignoring the piracy here and in other areas.

So unclegig, your one of those little whimps who woundn't last 10 seconds on a job site and your jealous he gets paid more for actually producing something while you expect to get paid big bucks for screaming at people over the phone. Just because you have a piece of paper saying you accidently completed a course of study does not mean you are a valuable member of society. Having some Chinese guy write your term papers so you could party for 4 years only qualifies you as an expert in arrogance and ignorance.

Golf Snobchest, I mean Digest, recently had an article on Las Vegas golf and the water issues. One course, I don't remember which, used 320 million gallons in a year. That was almost half of what they used a few years ago. The author figured $42 of every greens fee in Las Vegas went to pay for the water. With almost 50 golf courses in Las Vegas, around 150 in Palm Springs, over 200 in the Phoenix area, and who knows how many others in the deserts of AZ,CA,NV,OR,WA,UT,NM. That's a lot of water for mainly well to do individuals to bust sod while their lazy hind quarters are planted firmly in their golf carts. Another example of the "overtaxed" rich driving up the costs of everyday life for the rest of us and creating future problems that will require more of the little guys money to fix. Which of course the rich people will make money by offering their expensive services to try and fix a problem they caused or by buying up water rights or futures contracts to skim off more riches for themselves.

I play golf so this isn't a rant about those who play the sport. Some of the most spectacular golf courses are in the desert, but it's pretty stupid to every day pour billions of gallons of a precious resource on grass or water hazards and then watch it evaporate along with your future.

Same goes for swimming pools. If you want to swim go to the lake.

There are problems facing businesses like higher taxes, costs, etc. that hinder businesses and make them look overseas. The biggest detriment is that leadership in business no longer is willing to risk their paychecks on innovation or do the hard work necessary to support a manufacturing presence in this country. They take the easy way out and buy overseas. It's amazing how our overpaid and over bonused CEO's are willing to overhire overpriced incompetent degreed brownnosers and analysts to fill elegant offices while shunning new machinery and processes for what few US operations they have left.

We all know who T Boone Pickens is. The uninformed think of him as an oil man, but he made his money raiding companies and trading energy contracts. His oil company, Mesa Petroleum, gave him the boot over 10 years ago when he almost put them under many times with his antics that had nothing to do with pumping oil. Back in the early eighties he was quoted as saying "It's cheaper to drill on Wall Street" and he did. When he got the boot from Mesa, he was a mere millionaire with about 50 million to his name. After he started his hedge fund trading energy contracts, his net worth grew to $4 billion at the height of the oil and gas prices in 2007. Made billions off the little people trading paper and never pumped a barrel of oil or gas. He's a poster boy for the current state of American management.

There is more to manufacturung flu vaccine than mixing a few chemicals together. It takes time to find the right mix, all flu strains are different and flu vaccine is not one size fits all, and when you consider hundreds of millions of doses need to be made and delivered it's a big project. slices is a typical ignorant instant gratification American. Everything is not available at the snap of your fingers as your warped mind thinks it should be so don't blame the government. Whether it be flu vaccine or that gallon of gasoline in your tank, if one bothered to actually research what it takes to get things manufactured and into our fat little hands they would not be so inclined to whine.

Many of the programs out there were needed to stabilize the banking system and the economy. Without that life support everything would have been so much worse. Possibly catastrophic. Many economists and politicians who were against life support now agree it was necessary.

The patient is now stabilized. Time to cut off the feeding tubes and get him out of bed. Wall Street and the bankers are back to stealing at will and getting bonuses for it. The in over their heads consumers are looking for a free payday so they can get back to living above their means. Time to take away the crutches and let the pain begin. Far too many people have not learned their lesson and it's about time they did.

There is more to the farm subsidies than paying rich farmers not to grow. Farming is a capital intensive and highly risky venture. Farmers can have their whole year wiped out in a matter of minutes, yet they stay on the job making sure the good people along with the whiners have plenty of food to shove in their pie hole. Look at what the free market did to the financial system. Do you want that to happen to your food supply? Subsidies level the playing field where Wall Street and the big agri players dominate the pricing. If you think farming is so easy, when can you start. Don't whine about farmers when your belly, cupboards, and grocery stores are filled with cheap high quality food.

Don't forget the snow and terrible driving conditions. Not to mention the cold. We can go 200 days plus between 70 degree days. Most of the winter it rarely gets above freezing and many times the lows are below zero. This is 100 miles north of Chicago so one can imagine what it's like in farther north. If this sounds good to you, grab a shovel and head north by east.