The robocalls are becoming incessant. I don’t even want to look at the phone, much less pick it up. Who’s calling? Why are they bothering me?

I’ve found a new site to check mystery numbers out at www.reportphonenumbers.com. It’s better than some sites of the sort that I’ve seen–type in that number, and report them, and see who else has been harassed. And it’s easy: I just did it myself. Typed in the number, filled in the captcha information, and put in my comment. Fast and easy! (As it is no one else had put in that particular number–but as people do, there’ll be a list of what that number is all about.) (The only thing I wish was different about the site was a way to search for numbers that worked more easily.) This is a pretty timely resource, considering (a) the financial times we live in, and (b) the ridiculous amount of politcal calls being made these days. Forewarned is forearmed!

Because I did ask.

Apparently, the Obama plan includes rewarding a vote for him with stimulus checks . . . and next tax cycle, more refundable tax credits, for the mortgage, for lower income people generally, for college tuition, and increases on the EIC. This would seem to push more of the tax burden onto fewer people up the ladder. I suppose that I wouldn’t mind checks coming in the mail from the government, in theory, and I would never say, to this point, that the rich were taxed enough–but isn’t this a kind of welfare? And a kind of socialism? McCain’s not wrong there, maybe–and more ominous, what if elections now turn into a bidding war–I’ll give you $1000 in new tax credits, but my opponent will only give you $750–Vote Smith!

This is a dangerous, and very Roman, direction to head.

not to create more internet rumors, but some sort of “stimulus” is plainly need, as this CNN/Fortune article observes:

Yet despite the mounting bills and the limited effectiveness of the spending to date, economists say policymakers have little choice but to send out more cash, in the name of stabilizing the job market and boosting the economy as a whole.

“Investors have been reluctant to admit that this cycle, unlike 1998’s credit crisis, is imbedded in the real economy,” Merrill Lynch investment strategist Rich Bernstein wrote last week. “The government can come up with any number of refinancing and liquidity plans, but households are likely to increasingly default on mortgages and other debts if cash flow is not stabilized via employment.”

This will probably not come as a direct payment to the consumer–a bribe to spend, since the last two stimuli seem to have produced anemic results, probably through people wisely applying them on paying off debts. It is more likley to be spent on (badly needed) infrastructure projects to put people to work.

Nor is anything likely to happen soon due to the election. Neither party would relish being in an unethical bidding war for the American public’s vote through rival stimulus packages in the next three weeks.

Or would they?

Meanwhile the big rally petered out, and the Dow ended down 76 points. No surprise.

Dmitri Pokrovsky Ensemble, originally uploaded by sparrowsfall.

The dirge-like music of the Dmitri Pokrovsky Ensemble (The Wild Field) is appropriate accompaniment. The Dow’s gone down, what, 900 some-odd points in two days. That’s only a nine percent loss for the week.* I guess throwing a few trillion of funny money at the problem won’t do any good.

I am beginning to suspect McCain can’t win in this environment. The question is, will there be an economy when Obama is President? At least the Bush administration will ahve done the heavy lifting of nationalizing the banks and the markets be the end of October. Whoda thunk a Republican Administration would have turned us socialist in less than two months? Karma’s a bitch, folks.

___________

*So far . . . . . . . .

First, in the spirit of things, a bit of disclosure. I have never voted for a winning presidential candidate. I voted for Michael Dukakis–hence Dukakis, our number four cat. I voted for Ross Perot, not once, but twice. I voted for Al Gore. I voted for Michael Badnarik, just because Bush and Kerry both filled me with deep distaste. Now I’m in a bit of a quandary.

Why? you ask. Well, because I take a certain amount of pride in my failure to back winning horses. This was easy to do in light of the fact that three of these election cycles I backed third party candidates, and only once did one of them have the faintest chance in hell of winning. Now I have no idea who is going to win. National polling is somewhat ambiguous. Barack Obama leads most of these polls by a comfortable six to seven percent: or does he? If you inject the third, fourth,and fifth parties his lead diminishes into what I would call the margin of error territory. This falls within the so-called Bradley effect, so-called for Tom Bradley’s runs at the California governorship in 1982 and 1986. Are respondents to polls completely honest? Are all persons who say they will vote for Obama actually going to do so, or will enough of them bleed off to inaction or to McCain that Obama will narrowly lose–perhaps again to the Electoral College’s fabled silliness? Will the aspirations of America’s first potential half-white, half black President of African immigrant descent be stymied by secret racism? Or will the underreporting of the cell-phone-wielding youth-vote make up the difference? Or will the youth-vote be sucking on their bongs or vote for McKinney or Nader instead on election day?

How does this affect me? Well, how can I vote for the losing candidate if I don’t know who it is? Do I vote for McCain assuming the the polls are telling the truth? Do I vote for Obama assuming the worst of my fellow Americans–i.e., that they are racist liars? Either way is a crap shoot. The security of saying that I voted for the loser so I am not responsible for the winner’s idiot policies may be denied to me.

I am not happy about this. The third parties are no lure this time. I won’t vote for any of them on principle. (Part of the rules of the game is I will not vote for a candidate that I could not stomach to see President.) McKinney is a lunatic, and the Greens bear heavy responsibility for Bush’s election in 2000. Nader is now half a lunatic, who ran Green that fateful year. How can I vote for Bob Barr, seeing as he was one of the point men in the Great Clinton-hunt of 1999. The rest of them are just bonkers.
The only real option may be not voting.

In my line of work we do a lot of sign and banner graphics setup. This includes the use of full color outdoor vinyl banners and material of that sort. Honestly I have not seen a whole lot of banners–scratch that, any banners–done out of our location for politicians.

This puzzles me, and professionally I think it’s a mistake. Like fall leaves, political banners are a true sign of the season. Walk down any street and you’ll see them–yard signs, banners hanging from porches, banners in store windows and over sidewalks, along the sides of cars. Vote for Smith, Vote for Jones. It really couldn’t be more American. The red, white and blue fairly jumps out at you. The voters, I’d say, react well to such strong, tidy messages. Positive words, and simple ones. It’s comfort food for the eyes, a confirmation that, even now, things are normal, and going the right way.

These things can be costly if you go to some places, and maybe that’s our problem. But where does the campaign on a budget go? Ah, my political friend, I will tell you. For a clean interface and excellent pricing you can’t do much better than a place like BuildASign.com. You choose your template, you customize it, you choose your material . . . and you are off to the races! And all for reasonable–trust me!–prices starting down in the $40s.

After all, you are you going to remember at the polling place–the whats-his-name hack who ran all those nasty ads on tv, or the upstanding citizen with the sturdy red white and blue banner standing for a plain-spoken American message?
I wouldn’t want the other fellow to get the drop on me that way.

blah de blah blah blah.

not much going today. i went to vote after work, which is quite a trudge going up the hill to swinney school. i felt like an ant under a magnifying glass once i got there. just ahead of me in line for a ballot is this chap . . .

‘what is your name?’

‘dick bicker.’ (i’m making this up, half-way, but it was something like this.)

‘ . . . i don’t find your name in the register.’

‘it’s in there.’

‘no–’

‘i’ve voted here for years, it’s in there.’

‘do you have your voter ID?’

‘here’s my driver’s license.’

uh oh, think i.

‘ok,’ said the election judge slowly. ‘is this your current address?’

‘no, no,’ says mr chap. ‘that’s a post office box. i have my post office box on my driver’s license, but i vote here. i have for years.’

you can just hear everyone’s eyebrows raise, mine included. mr chap is directly in my way, in my line, i can’t vote, so i have to watch this transpire. i take a good look at him. i’ve seen his type at my counter at the place that must not be named. i know exactly where this is going, and i don’t have to wait long.

‘do you have a voter ID card with your current–’

‘no, no, i don’t, sir‘ (dripping with condescension,) ‘i’ve voted every election for six years, so don’t tell me my name isn’t in there.’

‘where’s your current address?’

‘there’s my ID.’

‘that’s a post office box, what’s your address?’

dick bicker gives an address on walnut.

‘no one on walnut votes in this precinct, sir.’

dick bicker is getting real argumentative now. i take a good look at him. suit (ugh, in this heat?) tie, glasses, balding, good shoes, white face turning red–yeah, i know him, and a thousand like him. if he says it, it is true. why would it not be? he said it, didn’t he? of course you had that kind of paper last time. of course you print things out that size on cardstock. i want it that way, so it must be that way.

yammer, yammer, yammer, goes dick, and the election judge has had enough, he’s dialing election headquarters to find out who this tard is and where he should be voting. the other election judges look bored, staring off in other directions while bicker explains how he just moved and has always voted here, and how, if they just look in that white space between bicke and bickworthy, they will certainly find bicker. he is going to vote there, the law be damned.

while the call is being handled, they slip me in ahead of him (he looks deathrays at me,) and i vote, and get out, long before it’s settled. the old man manning the ballot box winks, and i grin. what an ass, we both think.

i voted against light rail. i didn’t want to, but hyde park is up in arms. the rail will certainly knock down houses, and lots will be seized to make room for business that likely will never come. i want rail, but this city kills neighborhoods, razes them, and replaces them with nothing for five, ten, fifteen years. they won’t answer any questions, so how i can believe them when they say they have no such plans?

i want rail, but not this way. better to have nothing at all. better to have no renewal of the urban core, and have the leedys and david fords do it, store front by store front. this city is like The Place That Must Not Be Named: never miss a chance to fail.