Hummer
I watch Barack Obama give a brief announcement declaring America's suffering, naming the lay-offs by company+his green agenda. Detroit and the lobbyist are bitching, no doubt, about how new standards will ultimately be paid for by the government and you and me but to them I say: fuck you. If we don't get our country off this carbon addiction somehow the long-term consequences dire ranging from the Arabs to global melting. I have no problem buying a Japanese hybrid BTW and frankly the nips should take over Detroit and run our companies properly - it sure couldn't be any worse. Obama's green agenda include the states who will (finally) have greater authority to establish car milage and polluting standards. California has been at the fore-front of this movement aiming to raise MPG >20 but was sued by GM, Chrysler and Ford. No surprise. To high-finance: a WSJ covering story suggests that global bank UBS may have helped a further 17,000 Americans avoid paying taxes. Fuckers. Ken Lewis, CEO of Bank of America, may be on the chopping block for failing to disclose the disasterous Merrill Lynch acquisition - ML, of course, made loses >$15 billion the quarter immediately following the deal so presumably Lewis new what was in store. He did sack Merrill's Chief Exec John Thain for spending >$1 million of office-design work and lobbying his new BoA friends for a $30 million bonus AND front-ending $4 billion of bonuses to ML staff before the take-over complete while ML taking tax-payer support. Fuck faces, all. I look at Obama who really is the only ray of public hope - he is surrounded by scoundrels and rats who have harmed our country on par with any terrorist. The next four years are make-or-break.
Do recall as recently as last year those buying a mid-size to larger (loaded weights of 6000 lbs to 14,000 lbs) Truck or SUV for "business" were paid by our government. In 2008 Congress finally eliminated the accelerated expensing of the first $25,000 in the purchase-year of such a new behemoth (diesel or gas) and only those >14,000 lb now apply. Larger "soccer mom" SUVs are only allowed to expense $2,960. Hardship, man. Not to worry if you are a serious business person though - you can still take advantage of the full deduction if you choose wisely. Pick-ups with separate cargo areas of at least five-feet, "farm vehicles" and cargo-trucks and vans still offer the full accelerated amount. Bingo. Still, the suburban SUV loop-hole finally closed. Baby steps, dear reader. Baby steps.
Macho Hummer photo from Hummer.com. Fuckers.