Monthly Archives: December 2009

Randomness: Naughty and Nice Style


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah
Jack Frost roasting on an open fire....Chestnuts nipping at your nose...

Jack Frost roasting on an open fire....Chestnuts nipping at your nose...

Naughty List

Captain Kirk eats his Wheaties.

Captain Kirk eats his Wheaties.

Nice List

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Meet Tony Soprano, New CEO of First Premier Bank


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah

First Premier Bank is making the leap into legalized loan sharking with a new credit card offering a $300 credit limit for $256 in first year fees, a $29 late fee, and a $75 annual fee thereafter. Oh, and they want to charge 79.9% interest on the outstanding balance just to sweeten the pot.

First Premier – who’s already paid a $4.5 million out of court settlement for preying on bad credit borrowers – said they designed the program for high risk, sub-prime borrowers and needed to “price [their] product based on the risk associated with this market.” Since these types of cards and loans – albeit at much lower rates – are a big part of our financial mess, it’s firstpremierloansharknice to see they’re moving to a risk-based model.

But, isn’t this risk management with extreme prejudice?

Potentially charging much more than $300 for a $300 loan is a counter-intuitive way to encourage borrowers to pay the money back. It makes it makes it dead-solid certain they’ll default. First Premier might just as well have sent mailers to potential customers telling them to fork over the money now and avoid the inconvenience getting your $300 bucks now and having their knee caps meet a baseball bat up close and personal-like later.

Of course, First Premier is only making this tremendous deal available out of their concern about their least credit-worthy customers. “Even when the cost of credit is astronomical, for people in true emergencies, it’s much better than not having access to credit,” said Odysseas Papadimitriou, CEO of credit card search firm card-hub.com.

So, correct me if I’m wrong here Ody. If these borrowers need a quick $300 for an “emergency”, they probably wouldn’t have $256 to set up the account. Moreover, the prospect they’ll have an additional $29 per late payment, $75 for next year, and 79.9% to cover the outstanding balance just defers an “emergency” today into a big bigger “emergency” tomorrow.

Ody, you’re a real CPA (Certified Public Asshat).

Passing out huge executive bonuses is bad. Using TARP money to lobby for a loosening of regulations is loathsome. However, it takes some big stones – Gibraltar-sized ones – to be this greedy and arrogant.

With any luck, those huge stones will come together and roll swiftly down the mountain, directly onto your crapulent asses.

And, we’ll only charge you 79.9% on the balance of all your assets to dig you out.

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Don’t Blame Obama, America Did It To Itself


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah

In the heat of a political campaign, otherwise intelligent people s0metimes lose their common sense. Whether floating away on clouds of lofty oration or by willful disbelief of the situation before them, the country ends up with a leader who’s not the candidate supporters think or is less monumentally incompetent than their man.

Obama BusWith George Bush, voters misjudged just what a stupendous mistake he was to become. Bush came into office, depending on your opinion, via a stolen election or the thinnest of margins – either way there were a lot of people who simply held their nose and pulled the lever.

No one could accuse the ex-Mushmouth-in-Chief of being a capable orator, but he was a capable fear monger. Borne on the sanctimonious wings of his hyperbole, many Americans took off the Breathe Right™ strips and poked their chads with somewhat more conviction. However, a few years of disastrous management can change a lot. Had he been able to run again, the ass-whupping McCain got would have more than doubled for him. However, knowing what you’re not buying isn’t the same thing as thinking you know what you are buying.

Barack Obama ran a sputtering campaign during much of the overly long campaign season, finally finishing strong against the War Hero and the Rogue. The O-Man is a superb orator and his calls for hope and bipartisanship exuded a confidence the nation desperately needed after eight years of the Carbuncle- in-Chief.

Most conservatives fell in love with Sarah and loved and voted for the ex-POW, while calling Obama a liberal, socialist, or communist, depending on how deeply they were sunk in Texas hill country muck.

The Obama supporters had such stars in their eyes, they completely lost the ball. After some small dalliances with other candidates, the liberal faction of the party came around and started believing the McCain hype that he was some sort of Messiah.

A non-scientific poll around the neighborhood shows that many voted for him because he wasn’t McCain, or were scared by the Hokey Mom, or just because Obama wasn’t in any way part of the nutcase Republican party or in any way Bushian.

Today we have a President loathed by the right because he’s too liberal and a left that would like to tear him a new one after seeing serial betrayal in each of his actions.

The independents? They got someone sufficiently non-threatening. They can go back to politics via remote control, without fear they will be directly or personally affected by much of anything.

Ten percent unemployment is just another way to say 90% employment – damn good odds if you’re playing PowerBall. Continuing Bush’s dismantling of the First Amendment is just hunky dory because it involves “enemy combatants” and wiretapping someone other than them. The rest of the daily crap is just way too taxing when you’re engrossed in DWTS.

“Hey, fella. Fix that problem and make me a PB&J while you’re at it. It’s still three years to the next commercial and I don’t want to miss anything.”

Obama, flush with his surprise Nobel, gives himself a B+. Conservatives who still think he’s a liberal because they stand somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun by comparison beg to differ. And just ask Howard Dean about that B+. He’ll be a lot easier to reach now that  he won’t be campaigning for Obama again. Independents are just giving Obie an incomplete so far.

Face it, Obama is neither liberal nor conservative. He’s the chicken crossing the road, caught on the white line with the events of history bearing down on him like an out of control semi. We got here because voters simply didn’t examine the goods closely and got hornswoggled for their trouble.

In short, we did it to ourselves.

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It’s Time to Put Droopy Dog Out


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah

Stupid political question of the day: Should Joe Lieberman be “punished” for his role in obstructing the democratic agenda?

”HELL YES!” Moreover, the next heads to roll ought to be the democratic leadership and The Messiah for enabling the dopily grinning weasel as he causes no end to trouble.

Joe "Droopy Dog" LiebermanThe dems thought a shovel-ready alliance with a man who bolted the party after finding a political shiv placed there by them was just the thing to grab a filibuster-proof Senate majority. Harry Reid, as our Don Knotts Impersonator-in-chief, I ask you, “If your compatriots threw you under the bus as you did Joe, would you crawl back without a smidge of hate in your quaking ancient heart?”

I thought not.

Lieberman quit and formed his Party of One and has given more grief to the dems than Yertle the McConnell could while rolling downhill with a stiff wind at his crippled old back.

Joey cajoled his old overlords into letting him keep his valuable chairs and other party favors. Since then he’s used every opportunity repay the largesse by acting the spoiler in an on-going game of keep-away using his allegedly filibuster-proof vote. If Olympia Snowe quit to form her own party, do you think the republicans would allow her to let bygones be bygones?

Attila the Rove would titter like a schoolgirl over the question.

It’s time for Joe to stop rubbing the dems’ naive noses in it and start being serious about supporting his constituents and helping the country climb out of the hole that shenanigans like his dug us into. If not, heave him into a lifeboat with no food, water, or oar. The skeevy, lying little bastard deserves no less.

It’s time for the dems to understand he’s not a help, but a huge liability. They should use every opportunity to politically stomp him like the maggot he is and spend a little effort trying to entice Oly Snowe over the fence.

Even if the dems can’t seduce Oly, it’s time to remedy a lose/lose situation. An iffy filibuster-proof vote from a man who continuously threatens filibusters is simply worthless. The longer they cave to Joe’s ever-increasing and unreasonable demands, the longer they’ll take getting anything done and the faster they’ll roll toward the scrap heap of history. By allowing him to caucus with them, they’re letting the man frustrate them ad-nauseum. They’ve let him set up shop as some sort of one-man shadow senate who gets to wield power well-past his right or aptitude.

And, the Bipartisan-in-Chief isn’t blameless either. Coming through the door with a proposal and offering to immediately eviscerate the thing isn’t the politics of change, it’s the politics of disaster. That goes double when you lean on your party to capitulate to any demand he makes like he’s James Frickin’ Cameron screaming “I’m King of the Worrrrrrld” at the Academy Awards.

Say goodbye to Joe. He’s over-stayed his welcome.

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Contents May Have Settled During Advertising


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah

swedishbikiniteamMy employer describes itself as “the most loved…”. Now, I like my company. I’d like to think people find us somewhat useful.

But loved?

Isn’t that a tad hyperbolic? Sort of, “Drink Miller beer and the Swedish Bikini Team will indulge your wildest fantasies…even the one with the peanut butter and feather duster!”

So that’s why they call it Miller High Life.

I love my daughter. I love my wife. I even love my dog, but I can’t think of a single product or service I love.  I’m usually satisfied if products deliver 50% of what they promise – in a tangible way – not in the way an overwrought ad writer promises things. I suppose this says as much about me as the companies and products I use, but it’s a fact of modern life:

You only have to suck marginally less than your competitors to seem outstanding.

My last company wanted to “delight” their customers. It was a credit card company. I ask you, have you ever been the slightest bit delighted about anything a credit card company has done?

I don’t recall getting a bill and thinking, “Dang, I’m just tickled pink to hock the watch I just bought with their credit card so I can pay their 22% interest this month!” I’ve never thought, “Hmm, if I take this little plastic card into the shower and use it to whip up some serious Herbal Essence shampoo suds, I’ll have a frickin’ orgasm just like the woman on TV does.”

“How delightful!”

I’m only mildly annoyed at what I call “No Shit” ads. For example, running a TV ad to tell your customers that you’ve changed the design of your packaging – usually by playing around with the fonts on the detergent box.

Or, running a TV ad to tell customers to see your ad in a print publication. I’m thinking if your product is so complex it needs a four-page spread in Marie Claire to explain it, additional advertising is the least of your worries.

Big Pharma ads are really stumpers. Several of them run ads that never mention the disease it will cure so miraculously. If I knew enough about the drug to know what it was for, wouldn’t I already have considered it?

I know it’s required by law, but hearing 28-seconds of a 30-second ad taken up by descriptions of side-effects – almost all less pleasant than the underlying disease – doesn’t engender a buying response in me.

BTW, what’s up with the anti-jiggly leg drug causing gambling addiction or pills so dangerous that “women, especially those expecting” can’t even touch them for fear of turning into toxic waste pits with boobs?

But my all time favorite hard sell is the suddenly jumbo-sized box that visually implies more, but that actually contains less than the older, smaller box.

You know what they say, “Contents may have settled during shipping advertising.”

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