"The government doesn't have any money."

Everyone seems to take offense at the "Cali-Banger" moniker these days.

Let's get this straight: Cali-Bangers are more about lifestyle than place of origin, although the two are correlated eerily most of the time.

Cali-Bangers lead a life of excess, of excess in almost all aspects of their life. Their motto, "I can sleep when I'm dead", seems appealing on some levels, squeezing every last drop out of life & such. Seems even admirable, on some level.

But Cali-Banger excess has no limits. It leads to competitive excess, a need to "out do" everyone, in everything. You got a big house, mine's gotta be bigger. You make big money, I gotta make more. You got a hot wife, mine's gotta be hotter & younger, even if it means surgery. And on and on.

What does this have to do with Bend & it's housing? Well, think about the Coasts, in contrast to the Mid-West. The Midwest is priced where it is because large chunks of the Midwest population simply refuse to work 2 jobs, and have their kids working too. They care less about $800 iPhones than Cali-Bangers. They care more about raising their kids than yanking out their wifes C cups & stuffing in double D's. They care more about human decency than Botox.

And this might sound high-falutin', holier-than-thou bullshit, but actually it will lead to the Coasts, and Cali-Bangers especially, falling farther than anywhere else in the Country with respect to housing.

Think about it: Say you're a Midwest family, Dad working, making blah money in some blah town. OK, your house cost $75K. Everythings OK, making ends meet.

Then the shit hits. Dad gets injured, car wreck, or something. What to do?

Well, in that case, Mom can work. She won't make a fortune, but she really doesn't have to. They aren't the vassal's of their possessions. They own little, they owe even less. Mom will get them by, and Dad has friends who will help & they're insured. Their means are modest, but so are their needs.

Enter the Cali-Banger. They own 3 huge SUV's, plus a sports car despite being a family of 3. Their house is too big for them. They simply don't even comprehend that they didn't need all that room, they needed to keep up with the Joneses. Same with the cars. Same with the gadgets. Same with their bed sheets, clothes, jewelry, and everything else.

They are making a TON of money, and they work all the time for it. They own a lot, and they owe far more, because they don't buy anything that appreciates, only depreciation. Boob job & Botox, and fat sucked out here & blown back in there. They only value their lives in terms of what they have IN EXCESS of what their friends have.

What's wrong here?

I'll tell you; There is no slack in the system. There's nothing left. The engine is running at max, and it can't give anymore.

The Cali-Banger is self-destructing. It has mortgaged it's life for more. The Cali-Banger is 150% maxed out. It's not just fueling all the possession-obsessed idiocy it can, it's borrowed ALL IT CAN. There's not a penny that isn't already spent, whether earned today or in the future.

This is why I hate Cali-Bangers. Their morals are repugnant, but so are many whitey-ass hillbillies. So are many blacks. But Cali's are worse.

Cali-Bangers will ultimately self-destruct. They will ultimately be carried out. California will suffer like no where has ever suffered in the ANALS (yeah, I said ANALS) of financial history. It's no coincidence they have suffered the first BANK RUN in our lifetime.

California is self-destructing, and it is The Cali-Banger that is their undoing. The hypocrite that preaches Green living & business from their 8mpg SUV. That is a Cali-Banger. Excess, hypocricy, competition, ego, and consumerism gone completely berzerk. THAT is the Cali-Banger lifestyle.

And one other thing: A Cali-Banger will ALWAYS DEFEND, and will never understand why anyone could possibly want to live any other way.

Look at where home prices are the highest. The Coasts. Why? Cali-Banger lifestyle. 2 1/2 incomes. Work more to spend more. Keep up with the Joneses. Period. Midwest? 1 income. There's slack in the system. There's capacity. There's breathing room, financially & otherwise.

Where has this brought us? Besides kids unable to communicate besides txt msg, people working themselves to death? Nothing. This country has adopted the Cali-Banger lifestyle. What is our ONLY REAL ASSET? Our ability to work. And that resource is 150% tapped out; We are not just spending 105% of what we make, we have mortgaged our future consumption to the hilt. And beyond. We have almost NOTHING left to give. Our only Real Resource, OURSELVES, has been SOLD.

In the 50's, we were poor. Sort of. But our expectations were not huge & we saved. Then it was realized that there was HALF this country that wasn't earning. So women began working. On the Coasts. Largely. Then kids.

And so now, to adopt a Cali-Banger lifestlye of 100% gadgets & Paris Hilton dogs that we see on TV, we've mortgaged our lives beyond the hilt. We can thank The Cali-Banger. California is the Detroit of tomorrow. We are digging a hole so large it will bury us all.

The Cali-Banger has made it NECESSARY that EVERYONE MUST WORK to even afford a house. How many people have had to start working in Bend because the Cali-Banger lifestyle has been so whole-heartedly adopted. More for everyone, right? Sounds great!

We all get gadgets, and little dogs, and cars, and big fake titties, and all sorts of great stuff. We've become slaves to Our Stuff. We are living for The Stuff. We'll die to get more Stuff. We have spent everything we will ever earn to live for today. Our government has likewise done the same.

Concern grows over a fiscal crisis for U.S.

Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Thursday, July 17, 2008

(07-17) 04:00 PDT Washington - -- As the Bush administration proposes backstopping mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with a $300 billion line of credit and Congress contemplates another economic stimulus, the question is who will bail out the government?

"People seem to think the government has money," said former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker. "The government doesn't have any money."

A rare consensus has developed across the political spectrum that the government's own fiscal affairs are precarious, with an astonishing $53 trillion in long-term liabilities, according to the Government Accountability Office.

To put that number in human terms, the debt has reached $455,000 per U.S. household. As that debt grows, the United States increasingly relies on foreigners, including China and Middle East oil producers, for financing.

"The factors that contributed to our mortgage-based subprime crisis exist with regard to our federal government's finances," said Walker, now head of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a group established to raise alarms about the nation's budget. "The difference is that the magnitude of the federal government's financial situation is at least 25 times greater."

Baby Boomers

This year's presidential election coincides with the first retirements of the 78 million people born between 1946 and 1964. The first of this Baby Boom generation may now collect Social Security. In three years, they will join Medicare, the giant health care program whose finances are commonly described as out of control. Medicare accounts for the bulk of the nation's long-term liabilities.

The presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, have not addressed what the aging of the Baby Boom generation means for the federal government. Their brief forays - Obama's suggestions to raise the payroll tax on high-income earners to buttress Social Security and McCain's description of Social Security's financing as a disgrace - have been met with furious attacks.

Both promise to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on new tax cuts and spending programs. Their health care proposals concentrate more on expanding access than controlling the soaring costs that are driving the federal budget problems and squeezing workers and businesses.

Health care costs

"Health care costs are just amazing," said John Shoven, director of Stanford University's Institute for Economic Policy Research. Total health care costs now consume 16 percent of the economy and are headed quickly toward 30 percent, Shoven said. "Social Security is a big problem, but it's dwarfed by health care. Even the housing problem is dwarfed by health care."

Just the built-in rise in spending on programs for the elderly will cost about 25 percent of workers' payrolls over the next generation, said Richard Jackson, director of the Global Aging Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Robert Greenstein, director of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, agreed that "the nation faces large, persistent, long-term deficits that ultimately risk damage to the economy. We agree that policymakers have to make tough choices soon."

There is consensus, too, on what needs to be done: Cut spending and raise taxes. A bigger problem is how to contain health care costs, but some form of rationing is necessary, experts said.

Only disagreement

The only real disagreement is whether the government's fiscal condition will lead to a financial meltdown, or whether the U.S. economy is strong enough to right itself without a sudden loss of confidence and a flight of foreign capital.

"People on Wall Street think I'm Dr. Doom & Gloom," said Kent Smetters, an economist at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and a former Bush Treasury official. "I believe we could have a financial crisis like we've seen in South America or Asia. It could easily happen, and under current policy will happen in the United States. People say, 'Gee, give me a date.' Obviously, that's impossible, but the longer we wait, the higher the probability. Could it happen in the next decade? Absolutely."

Alice Rivlin, budget chief in the Clinton administration, discounts the possibility.

"We're a much stronger economy than Argentina," Rivlin said. The government "can handle borrowing in the range that would be necessary in a recession," she said. "What we can't handle is the cumulative long-run obligation."

Financial markets are often fixated on the short-run, and the government's finances are far from transparent. Unlike corporations, the government is not required to state its long-term obligations. Crises of confidence, like today's banking problems, strike suddenly when a tipping point is reached and investors decide to flee.

The government's fiscal problems are "like termites in the house," said Jackson. "You don't notice it until foundations are eroded."

"I had such a frustrating meeting the other day on the Hill, where one staffer said, 'We don't have a problem until Wall Street tells us we have a problem,' " said Maya MacGuineas, head of fiscal policy at the nonpartisan New America Foundation. "By the time the financial markets tell us we've gone too far, it will be too late to fix this in any rational way. We are the toad in boiling water, where it's getting hotter and hotter and nobody's really noticing."

Will they still buy?

The key is whether foreigners will continue to buy U.S. debt. They now hold 45 percent of U.S. Treasury securities, and in all about $11.5 trillion of U.S. public and private debt, say UC Berkeley economists Ashok Bardhan and Dwight Jaffee.

Chinese entities, including sovereign wealth funds that invest government savings overseas, own about 10 percent of U.S. Treasury securities. Even a minor change in China's investment policy could have a major effect on the dollar's value and cause "a sizable increase in interest rates," the economists said.

Still, because of a shortage of creditworthy debt instruments worldwide, and the large role of U.S. institutions in global credit markets, foreigners have little choice but to invest in the United States, they said, predicting "slim chances of abrupt change."

Action needed soon

Whoever's right, all agree that the sooner the problem is tackled, the better. "Like almost any financial problem, if you don't work on it, what happens is it compounds with interest," Shoven said. "There are lots of ways to fix it, and what we pick is none of the above."

The staggering U.S. debt

The federal government's finances are in worse shape than its annual budgets show, because the government is not required to state its long-term obligations, which work out be about $455,000 for every household in the nation.

Breaking down the numbers

Current liability:

Social Security: $6.7 trillion

Medicare: $34.1 trillion

Total long-term government liability: $53 trillion

Source: Government Accountability Office, Long-term Fiscal Outlook, Jan. 2008

Where it goes

U.S. debt held by foreigners as of mid-2007:

-- Foreign holdings of U.S. equities: $5 trillion

-- Foreign holdings of U.S. corporate bonds: $3 trillion

-- Foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury securities: $2 trillion

-- Foreign share of U.S. Treasury securities: 45 percent.

We are a country on the precipice of utter destruction. It is due to The Cali-Banger. The 3 hybrid SUV-driving, fake tan & fake tits, 3 iPhone, celebrity-worshipping, self-obsessed, self-consumed, 4 mortgages, hideous Cali-Banger. And they've come to Bend. And they are remaking it in their image. And everyone seems to think this is fine.

Our one past savior is productivity. The rate at which a static amount of work yields still more output due to efficiency & improved tools we use.

But we have always grown at faster than this rate, because we were on a slow but continuous borrowing slope. We consumed more than we produced by borrowing. The crisis you are seeing today is the result of that lifestyle. So we produced extra purchasing power with 2-3% productivity gains each year, but we also borrowed 3-4% from future earnings, which is essentially negates our future earnings.

You might think that some slimey bastard you know, who's just moved in and brought all his heinous Cali-Banger toys with him is The Ultimate Cali-Banger. No. No, the Ultimate Cali-Banger would need to continuously spend so far beyond their means, it is literally unbelievable. The Ultimate Cali-Banger would actually FIGHT to spend money on the utterly ridiculous. The Ultimate Cali-Banger would be REVILED The World over, and looked upon with complete disgust.

It seems obvious that The Ultimate Cali-Banger is:

The US Government

Our government, AT OUR BEHEST, is pissing away our efforts at a catastrophic rate. We are at war, yet again, and The Spoils? Right, the spoils are basically a Huge Toilet. The Worlds Biggest Outhouse. The Spoils of War are CRAP.

We are The Worlds Colonialist. Duck & Cover, cuz Here We Come. And as just about any Colonialist can tell you, COLONIALISM IS HIDEOUSLY EXPENSIVE. It costs much, and yields next to nothing.

We are worth LESS now than at any time in recent history.

How much oil it'd take to buy the US

At the recent price of $140 a barrel, it turns out to be a mere 400 billion barrels, or just about the combined reserves of Iran and Saudi Arabia.

By Scott Burns

Most of us view the world through dollar glasses. It's perfectly reasonable. Dollars, after all, are the currency we use in daily life. And those lenses, until recently, were distinctly rosy.

When we asked, "How much is that in dollars?," we usually liked the answer.

But it may be time to ask another question: "How much is that in barrels of oil?"

Trust me, others are doing exactly that.

That's when the world starts to look very different. It also looks more than a little scary to the U.S. Today, the net worth of the entire country is equivalent to a mere 400 billion barrels of oil. That's a smidgeon less than the proven reserves of two Middle Eastern countries: Saudi Arabia (264 billion barrels) and Iran (139 billion barrels).

At more than 40 times its 1970 price, oil has outstripped the value created by a full working generation of Americans in a period of dramatic technological change and innovation. During the same time, the value of American business shares, as measured by the S&P 500 Index ($INX), has risen only about 15 times above its 1970 level.

I find that hard to believe. After all, in 1970 the Internet was only an arcane toy for academics. Computer memory was desperately expensive. Intel had just been formed and was introducing the first dynamic random access memory chip. Bill Gates had yet to enter (or drop out of) Harvard and was five years from founding Microsoft. Steve Jobs was years away from creating the Apple II and was decades from launching the iPhone. AT&T was still a single national company, owning all of the regional Bell companies.

No one was yet thinking the U.S. post office was a quaint institution, soon to be treasured for its many buildings that could be converted to trendy condos. Phone calls were expensive. Sears, Roebuck was an important retail stock, not a real-estate play by a hedge fund manager. All surgery was invasive. And it was still believed that stomach ulcers were caused by stress. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin had not yet been conceived, let alone applied to Stanford, where they would create Google.

All of that dynamism and creativity pale against the price of oil. Looking as far back as 1970, America has never been worth less in barrels of oil.

I learned this by measuring the net worth of all U.S. households and nonprofit organizations in barrels of oil. Every three months the Federal Reserve estimates the value of our collective tangible assets, financial assets and liabilities to arrive at our net worth. It's the whole enchilada -- all our cars, our houses, our durable "stuff," bank deposits, stocks, bonds and mutual funds. Everything. Then it subtracts all our mortgages, consumer credit and other debt to arrive at our net worth.

This year's floods in the Midwest are projected to reduce the corn harvest by 700 million bushels. Look for higher prices on meat and soda, and more ethanol imports from Brazil.

At the end of March, for instance, our collective net worth as a nation was $56 trillion, the second straight quarter it had dropped. Divide $56 trillion by the recent $140-a-barrel price of oil and you get 400 billion barrels of oil as the value of America, a fraction of our national value in 1998, 1995 or even 1990.

Either oil is too expensive or America is too cheap.

Year	Household net worth*	Price of oil	Barrels to buy America
1970	$3.4 trillion	$3.18	1.1 trillion
1975	$5.1 trillion	$7.67	670.3 billion
1980	$9.5 trillion	$21.59	438.6 billion
1985	$14.2 trillion	$24.09	589.7 billion
1990	$20.3 trillion	$20.03	1.1 trillion
1995	$27.7 trillion	$14.62	1.9 trillion
1998	$37.4 trillion	$11.18	3.3 trillion
2004	$48.1 trillion	$42.00	1.1 trillion
2007	$57.7 trillion	$120.00	481 billion
2008	$56 trillion**	$140.00	400 billion

The last time we worth this little, was 1980. We were practically just hobbled by an oil shock. We were mired in a quagmire of stagflation.

And guess what? Things got really great after that. Well, mostly. Reagan-omics itself almost crippled this area in the 80's. But the country as a whole experienced HUGE wealth gains. Times were good.

So it'll happen again, right? Great time to buy, right?

I don't think so. Back then, we weren't leveraged to nearly the extent we are today. We were still coming into the Great Computer Revolution, and the Chinese were still yet to become the HUGE producers (not consumers) of junk beloved the World over. Oil & commodities entered into massive price declines.

Of these things, we can at best look forward to some unknown technological revolution, which is at best in it's infancy today. And even if we do find it, it's gains have been largely spent by a pattern of government individual borrowing. We are tapped out. That's why it really is different this time.

And it's a Global Phenomenon. Everyone (except for the Chinese & Middle East) is tapped out. In a planet of Cali-Bangers, we are clearly the Head Banger.

Producers will out.

Producers will win, consumers will get crushed, and we are the ultimate self-medicated (on debt) consumer. And I'm sure the Chinese & Iranians are chuckling everyday, KNOWING that capitalism has had it's run. And it's finally going to collapse in the Ultimate Minsky Moment.

And if the US is the Ultimate World Cali-Banger, then Bend is the Penultimate Cali-Banger town. I've never seen a place so consumed with it's own munificence. Celebrating & wallowing in it's own glory. Holding up a mirror to behold it's own beauty.

Fucking pathetic.

Listen, being a Cali-Banger doesn't mean you have to come from Cali, it's just a hell of a correlation. But it has been known that Cali-refugees were literally born in the wrong place, and they knew it. Like a transvestite, they knew they were inhabiting the wrong body right away. Here is a test to compute your Cali-Banger Quotient:

1) Do you own a Denali, Yukon, or Escalade? If yes, and you are a 2 person household, add 10pts. If you have 2 kids, or haul crap in it in a true work-related fuction, add 5 pts.

2) Are you from Southern Cal? Add 10pts. Did you arrive between 2003 and right now? Add another 10pts. Did you BUY anything (home, townhome, doesn't matter) on the Westside? Add yet another 10pts.

3) Did you start up your own business when you got here? Add 10pts.

4) Eaten at Merenda, Deep, or anywhere in The Old Mill in the past month? 10pts.

5) Fake titties anywhere in your family or bloodline? Add 20pts. Realtor? Make it 30pts Botox? 40pts.

6) Bend Athletic Club? 10pts. Juniper Center? Subtract 10pts.

7) Did your last bike cost over $1,500? 10pts. When you roadbike do you where spandex? 10pts.

8) Did you sell a Cali house, move here & pay cash for you first Bend home? 20pts.

9) Own a iPhone or Blackberry? 10pts, I don't care if it's for work. I know an iPhone doesn't work here. Cali-Banger don't care.

10) Are you pro-"Green"? Have you bought Yet Another Automobile, parked a gas-hog, and started driving a Prius or some shit to work? Add 20pts, you fucking idiot.

You pass the Cali-Banger threshold by scoring a 50 on this test. Actually a true Cali-Banger will get a zero on this test. They simply refuse to listen to reality.

Cali-Banger isn't really a person. It's a code for what's wrong with this country. We're all of us turning into these wretched monsters. It's our tolerance that allows it.

We have started to tolerate this horror. We glorify it. We glamorize it. We worship it.

I, for one, have not. I HATE Cali-Bangers. I don't suffer their bullshit in silence. I don't fall for their wounded puppy bullshit. I loathe them. They ARE WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY.

Go back to your shithole & corrupt your own kind. Fuck you & Get Out.