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Collateral Damage- The Individual Investor

How Boaz Weinstein and Hedge Funds Outsmarted JPMorgan

The New York Times

| 27 May 2012 | 02:02 AM ET

Boaz Weinstein didn’t know it, but he had just hooked the London Whale. 

It was last November, and Mr. Weinstein, a wunderkind of the New York hedge fund world, had spied something strange across the Atlantic. In an obscure corner of the financial markets, prices seemed out of whack. It didn’t make sense.

Mr. Weinstein pounced.

As the financial world now knows, what was out of whack was JPMorgan Chase & Company . One its traders, Bruno Iksil, the man later nicknamed the London Whale for his outsize trades, was about to blow a multibillion-dollar hole in the mighty House of Morgan.

But the resulting uproar, in Washington and on Wall Street, has largely obscured a simple truth of the marketplace. Yes, Morgan lost big — but, as Mitt Romney has pointed out, someone else won. And that someone or, rather, those someones, turn out to be Boaz Weinstein and a wolf pack of like-minded hedge fund managers.

In the London Whale, these traders saw a rich opportunity, and they seized it with both hands. That, after all, is the way hedge funds roll. His cool calculus has made Mr. Weinstein a very rich man: he is in talks to buy the Fifth Avenue co-op of a reclusive heiress, Huguette Clark, for $24 million.

It might seem remarkable that someone like Mr. Weinstein, a man virtually unknown outside of financial circles, could deal such a stinging blow to one of the world’s largest, most respected banks. Jamie Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan and a face of the banking establishment, is struggling to contain the damage from what he has called a “terrible, egregious mistake.” The loss — JPMorgan put it at $2 billion, but it may turn out to be $3 billion or more — has renewed calls for stronger financial regulation.

Given the secretive nature of the business, few on Wall Street, including Mr. Weinstein, were willing to speak publicly about how the hedge funds harpooned the London Whale. But interviews with more than a dozen hedge fund managers, investors and traders pull back the curtain on the ways of this band of traders, and on what really happened.

One thing is sure: Mr. Weinstein, 38, played a central role in this, one of the biggest trading blowups since the financial crisis of 2008. Mr. Iksil and his colleagues in the chief investment office at JPMorgan may have lighted the fire, but Mr. Weinstein and his cohorts fanned the flames. In the hedge fund game, a business in which ruthlessness is prized and money is the ultimate measure, Mr. Weinstein is what is known as a “monster” — an aggressive trader with a preternatural appetite for risk and a take-no-prisoners style. He is a chess master, as well as a high-roller on the velvet-topped tables of Las Vegas. He has been banned from the Bellagio for counting cards.

From offices on the 58th floor of the Chrysler Building in Midtown Manhattan, Mr. Weinstein runs a $5.5 billion hedge fund firm called Saba Capital Management. (“Saba” is Hebrew for “grandfatherly wisdom,” a nod to his Israeli roots.) It was there, last autumn, that he noticed an aberration in the market for credit derivatives. He knew from experience what it was like to lose a lot of money at a big bank. Before starting Saba, he was responsible for a team that lost nearly $2 billion, in the depths of the financial crisis, at Deutsche Bank. Others lost even more. Last November, however, he saw that a certain index seemed to be trading out of line with the market it was supposed to track. He and his team pored through reams of data, trying to make sense of it.

Finally, as Mr. Iksil, the London Whale, kept selling, Mr. Weinstein began buying.

At the time, traders in London had no real idea that JPMorgan was behind the trades that were skewing the market in credit derivatives. In fact, they weren’t even sure that it was a single bank or trader. But soon the City of London, Europe’s financial hub, was buzzing. Whoever the mysterious trader was, he or she kept selling derivatives intended to rise in value in the event that certain corporate bonds became riskier. The volume of trades was off the charts. Who could possibly sell so much? And, what if the trade reversed, as it inevitably would?

And so the battle lines were drawn. On one side was JPMorgan, the American banking giant that had weathered the financial crisis far better than so many of its peers. On the other were hedge fund managers, including Mr. Weinstein at Saba.

Such standoffs are not uncommon on Wall Street. An aggressive trader makes a wrongheaded bet, then doubles down to scare off competitors on the other side of the trade. Market rivals often get slapped down, unwilling to keep buying as the other side is selling, or vice versa. For traders with the backing of a major bank, like JPMorgan, the task is much easier.

But not always. Sometimes, the other side sits tight, then hits back in force. And it does so in numbers.

By January of this year, the trade against the London Whale was not going well for the hedge funds. The price of the index, as well as others, was still falling, and the losses were mounting for Mr. Weinstein and the others. But by February, it was clear that a single, big player was behind the selling. On trading desks in London and New York, everyone was talking.

It had to be JPMorgan.

 

Boaz Weinstein has always played the wild card in the markets. He grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in relatively modest surroundings, the son of an automobile insurance salesman and a translator, both regular watchers of “Wall Street Week.” As a student at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, he entered a contest to see who could pick the best stocks. He won — by selecting an assortment of the fastest-growing stocks he could find from newspaper charts. He studied philosophy at the University of Michigan — he was partial to Hume and Camus — but today favors behavioral finance, particularly the work of his friend Dan Ariely, a professor at Duke. Mr. Weinstein is married to Tali Farhadian Weinstein, a rising lawyer in the Justice Department.

Last February, at a conference organized by another hedge fund manager, his friend William A. Ackman, Mr. Weinstein was hailed as one of the savviest credit traders in the business.

The February conference was held, ironically, in JPMorgan’s offices on Madison Avenue. Workers at the bank milled about as Mr. Weinstein and others offered investment tips.

Dressed in a sharp blue suit, Mr. Weinstein stepped up to the microphone and opened with a joke that only a financial wonk would appreciate. He showed a slide comparing the cost of credit default swaps on various government debt to the percentage of young men in those countries who live with their parents. The slide titled “Mamma Mia!” suggested that, by that measure, Greece, Portugal and Italy were in trouble.

But what really got people’s attention was his second-to-last slide. It was his pick for the “best” investment idea of the moment. Mr. Weinstein recommended buying the Investment Grade Series 9 10-year Index CDS — the same index that Mr. Iksil was shorting.

The crowd, 300 or so investment professionals, began buzzing.

“Once he came out in that meeting and was so specific, others jumped in,” one hedge fund manager said.

But the London Whale was so big that, for months, the hedge funds betting against him simply got steamrolled. One of Mr. Weinstein’s funds at Saba was down 20 percent heading into May.

Then the tables began to turn, as news reports about Mr. Iksil, fed by the hedge funds, began to surface on both sides of the Atlantic. Suddenly, everyone was checking out the obscure index that Mr. Weinstein and others had seized upon.

By May, when fears over Europe’s debt crisis again came to the fore, the trade reversed. The London Whale was losing. And Mr. Weinstein began to make back all of his losses — and then some — in a matter of weeks.

Other hedge funds were also big winners. Blue Mountain Capital and BlueCrest Capital, both created by former JPMorgan traders, were among those winners. Lucidus Capital Partners, CQS and a fund called III came out ahead, too.

Inside the hedge fund world, some joked that Mr. Weinstein had been able to spot the London Whale because he himself had been a whale once, too.

Mr. Weinstein was a pioneer in complex credit derivatives, latching onto them early in his tenure at Deutsche Bank, before they became the financial weapons of mass destruction that worsened the financial crisis. He was a profit machine at the bank, notching earnings in 10 of his 11 years trading there. At 27, he became one of the youngest managing directors in the bank’s history. Before his book blew up, Mr. Weinstein was reportedly pulling down about $40 million a year. He exploited price discrepancies and piled leverage into his trades.

Then his team at Deutsche Bank lost $1.8 billion during the 2008 financial crisis. The trading losses ruined bonuses throughout the bank, and ruffled more than a few feathers.

He would later leave the bank and, along with 12 of his colleagues, set up Saba. Mr. Weinstein started it with $140 million — a pittance by hedge fund standards. In the intervening years, he has outperformed his peers and managed to vacuum up assets at a time when most growing hedge funds have been struggling to hold on to what they’ve got. He now controls more than $5.5 billion.

The similarities between Mr. Weinstein and Mr. Iksil still resonate in the market.

“It was one whale versus another whale,” one hedge fund manager said.

Those who have traded against Mr. Weinstein describe him as an aggressive trader who bets big and moves fast. He values a deal more than old-fashioned etiquette. Traders tell tales of losing money to him because of split-second price differences he picked up faster than they did. While that kind of behavior doesn’t win a lot of friends on Wall Street, these traders concede that Mr. Weinstein is too big and powerful to ignore.

At a lot of large hedge funds, the top dogs bark orders to underlings, but Mr. Weinstein is almost always the one doing the trading at Saba. He calls around to the banks daily. His confidence and willingness to take on risk, however, leave some worried that he’s never too far away from another Deutsche Bank trade — from, in essence, becoming the whale.

 

“If you hand me a list of the top-performing guys in the space, I’d expect to see his name on it,” said one bank executive who works closely with hedge funds. “If you hand me another list of hedge funds that might blow up, I’d expect his name to be on that, too.”

Others disagree, saying that Mr. Weinstein has a long record as a steady performer.

Like many hedge fund traders, Mr. Weinstein is comfortable with risky pursuits, particularly those that require spot calculations and a cool head. A gambling enthusiast, he has an affinity for blackjack and poker. In 2005, Mr. Weinstein won a Maserati by competing in poker in a tournament sponsored by a unit of Warren E. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. Mr. Weinstein still drives the car. He plays with celebrities like Matt Damon, too.

Not everyone is enthusiastic about Mr. Weinstein’s playing style. A few years back, on a trip to Vegas, he was banned from the opulent Bellagio casino for counting cards while playing blackjack.

Much has also been made of his prowess as a chess player. He earned the chess master designation at the age of 16, and has remained a lifelong fan, though he plays less these days. At a charity auction in 2010, he paid $10,500 to play alongside the chess legend Garry Kasparov and the young chess sensation Magnus Carlsen.

Mostly, he sneaks in quick games online, sometimes with Peter Thiel, a hedge fund manager and Silicon Valley star who was an early investor in Facebook.

Both chess and playing the markets require a mind that can see several steps ahead of the next man — a fact that has not been lost on Wall Street. Privately, Mr. Weinstein tells friends that while skill at chess is great to have, it’s hardly a requisite for being a good trader.

Whatever the case, chess helped him gain his first real shot on Wall Street. At 18, after failing to land a summer job at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Weinstein ran into a senior partner in the bathroom on his way out. The partner, David F. DeLucia, a chess expert, had played Mr. Weinstein numerous times, and quickly arranged more meetings for him.

Now Mr. Weinstein is practically a featured attraction on Wall Street. He attends galas and charity events, and is sought out to speak at big events. Pictures of him clasping a drink at last night’s party appear with regularity on business Web sites.

And, financially, the payoff has been enormous. Last year, he earned more than $90 million and, by some estimates, landed on the rich lists of the hedge fund industry. Such figures aside, he is described as someone who doesn’t flash his wealth. Before he won his Maserati, he didn’t own a car.

At another recent investor conference, Mr. Weinstein strolled among the crowd in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Accompanying him was his mother, Giselle, with whom he watched “Wall Street Week” as a child.

While hedge fund managers, investors and analysts mingled over cocktails, Mr. Weinstein appeared buoyant. His trade against the London Whale was finally paying off, a vindication — and a profitable one — of his hunch months earlier. That same day, news reports said Mr. Iksil, the London Whale, would soon be leaving JPMorgan.

This story originally appeared in The New York Times

New York City Parking Spot Goes For $1 million

By Martha C. White

In many parts of the country, a million bucks will buy you a mansion. In New York City, you can get a 12-foot by 23-foot slab of concrete. Yes, Manhattan's first $1 million parking space is scheduled to go on the market this fall.

This seven-figure private garage is in an eight-story, prewar loft building in the city's Greenwich Village neighborhood. It previously had been converted into a parking garage and is now being turned into half a dozen new luxury condominiums, according to the New York Post.

The parking space, dubbed "the city’s gaudiest garage" by the Post, will have a separate deed and sales contract. Based on an average 6 percent commission, this means a real estate agent could earn $60,000 — roughly $10,000 more than the average annual income in the U.S. — for selling this parking spot.

The largest unit in the building will be an 8,000-square-foot penthouse with a 3,000-square-foot terrace that will be listed for just under $39 million, the newspaper reported. Only buyers of that penthouse or another 8,000-square-foot unit in the building will have the chance to buy the parking space. In addition to the seven-figure price tag, the owner will be charged maintenance fees on the parking spot.

So what does the owner get for a million bucks plus maintenance fees? Direct street access thanks to a curb cut in front of the garage door, along with 15-foot ceilings. The ceilings are high enough that the spot can be "duplexed;" that is, an elevator can be added so the owner can stack two cars in the space.

This two-for-one capability might make $1 million seem like a little bit more of a bargain, but the owner would still have to get a $115 parking ticket every single day for 24 years straight to equal the cost of the spot, the Post calculated.

The Language of Success

It has been said that Wall Street guys are the smartest guys in the room.  The recent $2Billion+ trading loss at J P Morgan Chase is another example that shows just how tenuous is the thread that binds them to that description. When the cards are stacked, the rules are broken, the cost of funds is negligible and profits are pocketed while risks are covered, it is hard to fathom why they are not smarter than they are.  They cannot even manage the instruments they create.

This brings me to the reason that the Wizards of Wall Street have always been held in such high estimation.  It is the proprietary language that is used in all the areas that make up finance. Trading, analysis, real estate, M & A, IPO'S,  derivatives .. they all use a proprietary language that separates them from the investing public.

 Edison once said, "success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration".  This may well be true for inventors or people engaged in a solitary endeavor, but for people working in one of the many occupations, whether it's science, or finance or politics, or any other occupation, each discipline has at it's core a language.  Unique to itself and never completely understood by people outside of that occupation.

 Success is achieved by having a good knowledge of the language and having an ability to utilize it in a given situation.  Usually the more complicated the language the higher the opportunity for great rewards.  Engineers, computer programmers and stock market traders have their own languages.  Brilliance is not necessary in achieving a high level of success.  Rather an academic or practical background that brings you in touch with a working knowledge of the language specific to the occupation you are pursuing.

Dusting Off Glass Steagall

Are our stock, bond and money market investments vulnerable to another financial crisis?  Can high frequency traders jeopardize the integrity of our financial markets?  Is a systemic risk still present in the markets?  Too big to fail was a major issue that emerged during the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009.  Through consolidation the major banks are even larger and more subject to counter party risk than before.

The back and forth fight over regulation of the major financial institutions goes on daily.  Are the regulations in Dodd-Frank too onerous to small businesses?  Is the Volcker Rule too restrictive and costly to the bottom line of major Investment banks?  Tweaking these regulations may provide the necessary common ground. 

It will take some time to sort these questions out, and an unbiased opinion may never be drawn, but one thing is certain, large financial institutions do not self govern themselves well.  Maybe it's time to revisit a post I originally wrote in October,2008, titled This Little Piggy Went To Market. 

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"There is no doubt that the current financial crisis can be linked back to the elimination of the Glass Steagall Act in 1999. The Glass Steagall Act, otherwise known as the Banking Act of 1933, disallowed the combinations of commercial banks and other financial entities, i.e. investment banks and insurance companies.

Once the barriers to conflicts of interest and un-bridled greed were lifted, many financial companies in this country and around the world were free to embark on a campaign of greed, speculation, and risk-taking the likes of which we have never seen before.

Senator Phil Gramm introduced a bill that repealed the portion of Glass Steagall that was meant to curb speculation and excesses such as were experienced in the 1929 stock market crash, the banking collapse in 1933, and later in the financial meltdown of 2008.

In 1998, a year prior to Senator Gramm's bill, Sandy Weill, through a loophole in Glass Steagall, merged his company Citicorp with the Travelers Insurance company. This action along with $200 million in political contributions from the banking, insurance and real estate industries, prompted Congress to repeal Glass Steagall.

Robert Rubin was the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1995-1999, and the most influential man in finance in the country. Later in 1999, Mr. Rubin took an executive position with Sandy Weill's company, Citicorp, and was paid $126mm over the next eight years.

Mortgaged backed securities, collateralized debt obligations(CDO's), and Structured Investment Vehicles(SIV'S), could now be packaged by the banks and sold throughout the world. The leveraging by the financial institutions at 40-1, is a major contributor to the financial morose that we are all experiencing.

Special purpose entities( SPE's), with names like Raptor and Talon that brought about the Enron collapse, were sold by Citicorp and many of the other large international banks. Citicorp was fined $1.66 billion for it's part in the fraud.

After the scandals Mr. Weill was pressured to step down from his CEO position in 2003 and as chairman in 2006. He left the company a billionaire. From a high stock price of $55 per share on 12/28/06 to a low price of $12.85 per share on 9/18/08 Citi lost more than $250 billion in value.

Phil Gramm, you may remember as the author of the bill repealing Glass Steagall, left the John McCain presidential campaign this year after making a public pronouncement that we were only going through a mental recession and that America has become a country of whiners. Phil Gramm's wife, Wendy, was a member of the board of directors of Enron when it went bankrupt and a Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The lobbying efforts that caused deregulation, the lax response by the regulators, the greed of the financial community, and the corruption of many politicians, have jointly formed our current meltdown.

After the dot-com bubble burst (2000-2001), a strong President would have taken greater action against those financial institutions at the root of the illegalities. The current crisis was preventable. We needed a President with the resolve of a Teddy Roosevelt. We did not have one."

Money And Security

Identity theft, computer hacking, customized consumer advertising, and personal data accumulation, by every company we do business with, has become a part of every day life as tying our shoes or going to the store.

Billboards have facial recognition and can change what they advertise to appeal to whoever is passing by them at the time.  Every institution from Amazon to social networking wants us to store all our personal information on one of their computer clouds.  GPS in our cars and on our phones can locate us at any time.  Google watches and stores what we look at on line.  Medical records, tax records and employment records to name a few, are also on line. 

If this sounds paranoid, it isn't.  The level of vulnerability is different for everyone.  If this doesn't sufficiently concern you about the integrity of your personal information and financial assets, there is a best seller book that I guardedly recommend called the Fear Index, by Robert Harris.

This is the age of computer tablets that combined with other technology, do just about anything you can think of.  There is a computer in Japan that performs over ten thousand trillion* computations a second.  Over half of all stock transactions are executed in milliseconds, not based on fundamentals, but on an advantage in speed that technology makes possible.

* Also known as ten quadrillion.

Rush Limbaugh, Mitt Romney, and Bain Capital

Ever since RL issued his now famous tirade against Sandra Fluke, A Georgetown law student, calling her a slut and a prostitute, there has been a huge uproar by the media, women's groups and democratic women members of Congress.  There has been a clamour to prosecute him for slander, for the sponsors to withdraw their advertising and for Clear Channel, the operators of the radio station he works for, to take him off the air.

There have been numerous comments made by members of the media including Chris Matthews and Bill Maher, as to why Mitt Romney didn't grab this opportunity to speak up for women and against Rush Limbaugh.  They both thought it was the perfect opportunity for Romney to move away from the vitriolic comments that have been made during this campaign.

What has not been brought forward is who owns Clear Channel and is ultimately Rush Limbaugh's boss. Bain Capital owns Clear Channel.   Mitt Romney ran Bain Capital and has a major financial stake in it.  Enough said. 

 By the way, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck also work for stations owned by Clear Channel.

New Orleans Saints- How Low Can You Go

Offering players cash bonuses if they can inflict a bad enough injury on an opponent to knock him out of the game.  This didn't take place during one game, but went on for three seasons.  These players are paid millions to play at their very best.  To think they needed extra incentive to injure an opposing player is sinking about as low as you can get.

We all know about all the chatter about player safety, but I guess that only applies to your own teams safety.  It's naive to think this is an isolated case.   What happens when a player is cut from the team  or traded to another team?  Does he keep the secret?  What if he has a friend or relative on the other team?  Does he condone intentionally inflicting a possibly career ending or life threatening injury?   

Tom Benson, the owner, should be fined something in excess of a $million, with the fine going to the retired players disability fund.  This is not the first time something like this has taken place in the league.  The head coach should be fined  250K and suspended for five games without pay. He can deny knowing, but that doesn't get him off the hook.

Greg Williams was the defensive coordinator and the architect of the pay for injury bonus plan.  He has made a statement admitting his participation. He is now the defensive coordinator for the Rams.  The investigation will center around him and should uncover all the other participants and mete out proportional fines and suspensions.

The Saints gave their city a great lift after Hurricane Katrina. Everyone appreciates the intensity with which the game is played, but where do you draw the line.  Is hiding a razor blade In your glove or squirting an irritant in the opponents eye going to far?  It appears the players all kneeling down and crossing themselves after an opponent has been hurt is not as sincere as they would have you believe.   

 

 

Jeremy Lin- The Everyman Warrior

       GO- JEREMY- GO

Relief for the long suffering Knicks fans has come from a most unsuspecting place.  The Lakers got their relief with a great trade for Gasol, but this relief came off the bench.  Never-mind a $20M a year contract for a superstar, this relief is in the form of a young guy who loves the game, loves to compete, grabbed his chance and did it his way.

There has never been this kind of instant turnaround for a team or a city.  Although the city just celebrated the superbowl with their beloved Giants, the excitement, energy and money that has been created by this young athlete is phenomenal.  Attendance around the league when the Knicks come to town and attention around the world has spiked in an unparalleled way.

If the Knicks can coalesce into the great team they have the potential to become, they will be a force for some time to come.  But one thing is certain-- the excitement and pride New York has experienced already, can never be taken away from it. 

Super Bowl And Other Great Quotes You Might Never Have Heard

The Music Business is a long and shallow hallway lined with crooks and thieves... and then there's a bad side... Hunter S. Thompson

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“There is a Talmudic saying, "No one is the owner of his instincts," “But controlling them, that is civilization.” quoting Elie Wiesel

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Gov. Jerry Brown- "I believe in the Hernando Cortes approach. When you hit the shore, burn the ships. There is no plan B”.

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As Joe Harris, a linebacker with five teams from 1977-82, says: "I know I had nine or 10 concussions, because I played through them. A lot of times, I'm out there and I was dazed, and I heard guys say, `He's knocked out, and he don't even know it.' And then you talk to your coach, and they bring out smelling salts. `Give him a hit of that, and put him back out on the field.' And they show you fingers, and you say it's three when it's two. And they say, `Get back out there. Just hit the one in the middle.''                    

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Golfer Lee Trevino, on what it means to win a major championship:

"I played the tour in 1967 and told jokes and nobody laughed.  Then I won the U.S Open the next year, told the same jokes, and everybody laughed like hell."

Workman Publishing Company- Page A Day

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Following his third defeat at running for the Presidency,William Jennings Bryan told the story of a drunk who tried several times to get into a private club and was thrown out after each attempt.  After being thrown out the third time, he picked himself off the sidewalk and concluded: "They can't fool me.  Those fellows don't want me in there."

Transcribed from Theodore Roosevelt A Life, by Nathan Miller

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The challenge of statesmanship is to define the components of both power and morality and strike a balance between them.

 Henry Kissinger

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Just as the hand, held before the eye, can hide the tallest mountain, so the routine of everyday life can keep us from seeing the vast radiance and the secret wonders that fill the world.

 Chasidic, 18th Century

              

　

MCDONALD'S- WHERES THE BEEF?

In case you missed this story that ran on MSNBC yesterday, Mcdonald's admitted that they have been treating beef with ammonium hydroxide.  In addition to being used in fertilizers, household cleaners and homemade explosives, ammonium hydroxide has been used to extend beef products as well as an additive in other food products.

The USDA classifies it as [generally recognized as safe], so food companies are exempt from listing it on labels.

Jamie Oliver, a well known British chef began a campaign to get this chemical out of our food chain and said that, "The use of treated scrap meat "to me as a chef and a food lover is shocking," Oliver said. "... Basically we're taking a product that would be sold in the cheapest form for dogs and making it 'fit' for humans."

In a statement, McDonald's clarified that it stopped using "select lean beef trimmings" — its preferred term for scrap meat soaked in ammonium hydroxide and ground into a pink meat-like paste — at the beginning of last year.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/31/10282876-mcdonalds-drops-use-of-gooey-ammonia-based-pink-slime-in-hamburger-meat

Newt Gingrich- Throw It Against The Wall See If Any Of It Sticks

Newt the suit is up to his old tricks again.  Say anything and hope that nobody checks his facts.  During the South Carolina debate, Newt was blasting the Carter administration. Newt was saying that Government was all wrong. That many jobs were lost and inflation was high. 

He contrasted this with the Reagan administration, that did everything right and created 16 million new jobs.  But Newt wasn't satisfied with that . He had to embellish the contrast, by stating that the unemployment rate during Carter reached 10.8%, when in fact it never rose above 7.8%. The unemployment rate did reach 10.8% , but that was not until almost two years into Reagan's administration.

http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/20/10198231-fact-check-history-flubs-in-republican-debate 

 

Harry Reid Taking A Page Out Of The Republican Playbook

                                     This morning, on  Meet The Press, Harry Reid said,"the current Congress has been the most productive Congress in history".

This Congress's inability to address many pressing issues, is well known to even the most reclusive of the electorate.  For the leader of the Senate to publicly brag about the accomplishments of his Senate, whether he believes it or not, shows the kind of disregard for the intelligence of the American people that we usually only hear from Republicans. 

The tactic of publicizing an untruth, with the aim being to have some believe it, has been used successfully many times over the past ten years. 

You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."*  It seems as though Politicians still think they can benefit by distorting the truth.  It is our jobs to hold them accountable.

* Attributed to Abraham Lincoln, alternatively to P.T. Barnum.  Later paraphrased by Bob Dylan in his 1963 song "Talking World War Three Blues". 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/vp/46004838#46004849

Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain

No one ever gave Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain a shot at winning the nomination,  but don't all candidates at least owe the public a degree of candor and english literacy.

First Herman Cain, and last night, Michele Bachmann announced suspensions of their campaigns.  They did not suspend their campaigns, they terminated them.  They withdrew from the campaign.  A suspension is temporary.  They are not re-entering the campaign at a later time. 

Is their addiction to spin and euphemistic language so pervasive that they cannot see the difference between temporary and permanent or do they really think the public thinks more of them if they announce a suspension rather than a termination.   

John Boehner And His Merry Little Band Of Obstructionists

The latest rhetoric coming from House leaders is that they want to fix the payroll tax extension on a more permanent basis.  That is why they are rejecting a two month extension in favor of a one year extension.

When did one year become long term or permanent?  The passage of a two month extension was a short term relief, but the Senate plans are to keep working at it to come up with a more permanent fix.  This latest rejection appears to be more ego display and lip flapping, that has become the hallmark of Speaker Boehner's tenure over the past year.

Donald Trump- An Embarrassment of American Culture

C'mon man;  In his latest act of buffoonery, Trump has pulled out of his moderator's role in the Republican debate which all but two campaigners refused to attend in the first place. 

Self promotion is what gets Donald Trump out of bed each morning. The fact that he initiated the debate to coincide with the release of a book is just the latest example of this.

The excuse he has given for dissolving his moderator's role is that he may run for President as an Independent.  If you are not laughing yet, maybe you haven't had your morning coffee yet!! 

Congress And Other Things That Should Be Corrected

 

Super PACS or Political action committees have no restrictions on the amount of money they can spend on political campaigns.  Advertising companies profit from this, but it gives great power to the special interest groups that raise the money and it greatly increases the amount of negative advertising.

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Cereal boxes half full.   Cereal companies use larger boxes than necessary, just to market the product. 

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Free Score.com.  The free report is only issued if you subscribe to a regular, costly, unnecessary service. 

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This conversation may be recorded for quality assurance.

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TV commercials that are so much louder than the regular programming.

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Football- Instead of counting all interceptions against the quarterback, if the receiver is at fault for the interception it should be his stat.

                                  *****

Congress's reliance on a fixed orthodoxy as the key to the voter's hearts.

                                   *****

Inflation measured without the inclusion of food and energy.  It doesn't appear that health Insurance and auto insurance are added in either. 

                                   *****

Opt out of charges.  If you don't specifically opt out of an ancillary charge you will be charged. Extra travel insurance is an example. Similar to protecting your privacy.  If you don't specifically notify credit card and financial companies that you want your personal information kept private, they will either use it, sell it, or share it.  Privacy protection should be a given, not something we have to go out of our way to obtain.  

                                   ***** 

This one probably won't be corrected, but 35 collegiate football bowls are too many.

                                   *****

Politicians who continue to use their titles years after they are out of office.

                                   *****

The selfish attitude that allows consumers to buy larger and larger SUVs and trucks that they don't need for their work.  They pollute more, consume more gasoline and block the sight of drivers in regular sized vehicles.

                                   *****

Insider trading by members of Congress.

                                  *****

The Northern Mockingbird is the state bird of five states including  Florida.  No state claims the Great White Egret as it's state bird.  Make the Great White Egret the state bird of Florida!

Bob Dylan- Excerpts of Interview 2010

"A song is a prismatic thing, nonlinear. Writing songs, you are looking for rhymes that feel right—things that come to you even as you are singing. They come to you quick-like. Sometimes even in a scatological way. You don't have time to distill meanings or ideological fallout. You want to make sure that the feeling is there, but you can create feeling out of tone, texture, and phrasing, not only words. You want to make sure that there's camaraderie between the lyric and the rhythm. That just has to be, or you wouldn't have much of a song. All that profound meaning stuff—that comes later. And truthfully, that's for other people to experience. Believe me, the songwriter isn't thinking of any of those things.

Back then all sorts of elements were mixing together—jazz, folk music, filmmakers, photographers, Robert Frank, Jack Smith, Monk and Coltrane, the Clancy Brothers, dancers, dance groups, off-Broadway theater, Julian Beck and Judith Molina, the beat poets, civil rights, Vietnam, the Cold War. Battle lines had been drawn between the old and the new, and there was a lot going on. Everything was pretty interconnected. This was before corporate-sponsored culture. The walls Andy was busting down were from a different planet than the walls I was busting down, but it was in the same solar system. He was a maverick, like myself, I guess, so there would be some kind of affinity.

Film is a great art form, but it's not comparable to a live musical performance. There really is no reason to equate the two mediums. They're vastly different. There's nothing tactile about film. You can't smell it or touch it. It's an illusion. A magic trick. A film is abstract. A great painting or musical performance is visceral.

Yeah, sure, but everything in life, directly or indirectly, has a great degree of mystery. To paraphrase Warren Zevon, "Some days I feel like my shadow's casting me." Persons, places, things … time itself is a mystery. You know, like, who can explain it? It's really difficult to define anything. What's slow can speed up. Love can turn into hate. Peace can turn into war. Pride can turn into humility. Anger to grief. There's plenty of mystery in nature and contemporary life. For some people, it's too harsh to deal with. But I don't see it that way."

Taken from an interview with John Elderfield

Occupy Wall Street Two Months In

As one of the self appointed spokesmen for the 99%, I want the banks and brokerage houses to make a lot of money, but I want them to do it using talent and experience, not extreme leverage and shaky products that the public has to bail out if they don't work out. 

The public is backstopping banks' massive risk taking without reaping any of the rewards. 

It will be hard for the movement to grow because at it's core is a distrust of authority.  Without leaders it is hard to organize, although move-on.org has no designated leaders and has succeeded in becoming a force in modern politics.

The moral success of the Occupy Wall Street philosophy would be for Big Business to no longer think that they should do whatever they want just because they can.

Mark Cuban Comments and Takeaways

Mark Cuban's Business Outlook.

World Series News

A pregame riot delays Game 3 of the first modern World Series(10/3/1903), played at Huntington Grounds in Boston with the Americans (the future Red Sox) facing the Pittsburgh Pirates. It's estimated that about 25,000 fans are inside the ballpark, which has 9,000 seats. Attempts are made to keep the overflow behind ropes in the outfield, but the crowd surges forward and soon occupies the infield. Police try to drive the mob back into the outfield, but their efforts are useless. A reserve force of police eventually restores order by swinging billy clubs indiscriminately. The game takes place with the crowd only about 50 yards behind the infield and within 15 feet of home plate. The Pirates win, 4-2.

Workman Publishing Company

 

 

 

Millionaires and Billionaires

 
The president has taken it upon himself to try to rally the American populous, by frequently mentioning millionaires and billionaires as individuals who should be paying higher taxes.  Most Americans agree with this in principle.  However there is some blowback to this.

It is in the American cultural fiber to admire millionaires.  The term millionaires signifies the success of the American Dream in it's highest form.  To denigrate this term has a negative effect on the American psyche. 

The President should be calling for high income tax advantaged individuals to pay a fair and proportionate percentage of their income as one of the many measures necessary to bring our financial house in order.

 

 

Winston Churchill- A Few More Quotes From The Master

I hope these spur you to look up other of his quotes.

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. 

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.

Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities... because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.

Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter.

My wife and I tried two or three times in the last 40 years to have breakfast together, but it was so disagreeable we had to stop."

 --Winston S. Churchill

Bush Tax Cuts- Lets get real

 
The President's deficit reduction proposal is meant more to establish the platform for the 2012 election than to realistically pass new legislation.  This is not completely his fault.  They have seen the light.  Republicans are betting all that by not permitting the President to pass any legislation that he favors, the Republicans can still win in Nov./2012.  The race is on.  Governing has been put on hold and campaigning the order of the day.

In his deficit reduction proposal the President said that "the Bush tax cuts could expire".  He should have said they are expiring.  Action is needed to continue them, not to do away with them.  I don't believe all the tax cuts are that one sided.  The lower rate for capital gains could be extended.  This benefits a broader group of the population. The estate tax exemption and the lower dividend tax rate should be discontinued.  They are not necessary and benefit far fewer individuals.

The Bush tax cuts were passed to benefit wealthier Americans and the decade that followed showed a tremendous increase in the inequality of wealth and well being between the middle and lower economic groups and the wealthiest members of our society.

These tax cuts were established with a Sunset Provision, which meant that they were not meant to be permanent.  The Sunset Provision provided for a predetermined expiration date(end of 2010).  This has already been extended for two years.

Republicans will tolerate a deteriorating economic condition and hold the public economic health hostage if the President pushes for the repeal of these tax benefits.  They are betting this strategy will win the White House in 2012.

The argument that allowing these tax breaks to expire will not cure all our ills is a diversion from the point.  They should be allowed to expire as one of many measures in an attempt to put our fiscal house in order.

The wealthy will stop investing if their tax benefits are taken away from them.  This is the battle cry of the Republicans and if we are going to move forward, they will have to develop a newer less divisive battle cry.  The wealthy are not going to stop investing just because they are paying a little more in taxes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1904 Olympics

The marathon was the most bizarre event of the Games.  It was run in brutally hot weather, over dusty roads, with horses and automobiles clearing the way and creating dust clouds.  The first to arrive at the finish line was Frederick Lorz, who actually was just trotting back to the finish line to retrieve his clothes, after dropping out after nine miles and hitching a ride in a car for the next 11 miles.  When the officials thought he had won the race, Lorz played along with his practical joke until he was found out shortly after the medal ceremony and was banned for a year by the AAU for this stunt, later winning the 1905 Boston Marathon.

Thomas Hicks (a Briton running for the United States) was the first to cross the finish-line legally, after having received several doses of strychnine sulfate mixed with brandy from his trainers.  He was supported by his trainers when he crossed the finish, but is still considered the winner.  Hicks had to be carried off the track, and possibly would have died in the stadium, had he not been treated by several doctors.  

A Cuban postman named Felix Carbajal joined the marathon, arriving at the last minute.  He had to run in street clothes that he cut around the legs to make them look like shorts.  He stopped off in an orchard en route to have a snack on some apples, which turned out to be rotten.  The rotten apples caused him to have to lie down and take a nap. Despite falling ill to apples he finished in fourth place.

The marathon included the first two black Africans to compete in the Olympics; two Tswana tribesmen named Len Tau (real name: Len Taunyane) and Yamasani (real name: Jan Mashiani).  But they weren't there to compete in the Olympics, they were actually the sideshow.  They had been brought over by the exposition as part of the Boer War exhibit (both were really students from Orange Free State in South Africa, but this fact was not made known to the public).  Len Tau finished ninth and Yamasani came in twelfth.  This was a disappointment, as many observers were sure Len Tau could have done better if he had not been chased nearly a mile off course by aggressive dogs.

Reference: Wikipedia

Excerpt from Workman Publishing company

American Jobs Act

 
The day after the President proposed his $450B American Jobs Act, Congressman Cantor objected to the formation of an Infrastructure Bank and instead said that he would favor funnelling infrastructure funding through the States. I haven't heard any Democrats comment about this shift to the States control over the allocation of the funds. 

Is this another example of States rights vs. big Government?   Is this an example of one Party finding any excuse they can to disagree with the other Party with the American public caught in the middle?   If it were to hold up the implementation of a much needed program is this meaningful government or nitpicking?

Republicans call any kind of stimulus spending this Administration has tried a failure.  They characterize it as a temporary Keynesian measure.  They use this as the premise for why they will not vote for any kind of stimulus spending.  Isn't the truth that the past stimulus spending, while not creating new jobs in any great numbers, did prevent the economy from slipping any farther.

Or are they right?  Did the stimulus programs fail to provide businesses with enough confidence that would spur them to increase expansion? 

How will we lessen the bickering, the ideological differences, and most important the animosity one Party has for the leader of the other Party?    

Full Black

 
 
Doesn't develop his characters as well as he could, but for action and technical innovation it's top notch.  

Will History Repeat Itself?

 

The following is an excerpt taken from the book 'Franklin Delano Roosevelt', by Alan Brinkley.  

Most damaging of all to the administration was a serious recession that began suddenly in August 1937, which seemed to be a direct result of Roosevelt's own actions. For years, goaded by his secretary of the treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Roosevelt had urged his colleagues to balance the federal budget. But the crisis of the economy had consistently thwarted such hopes. In 1937, however, Roosevelt decided that the economy was strong enough to justify cutting government spending so as to reduce the national deficit. In reality, the recovery of 1937 was fragile and incomplete, and the spending cuts contributed to a deep recession that wiped out nearly all the economic gains of the New Deal's first four years.

Unemployment rapidly grew from a Depression low of 14.3 percent in 1937 to 19 percent in 1938. The gross national product, which had grown by 5.5 percent in 1937, declined by 4.5 percent in 1938. The crisis was especially traumatic to many New Dealers because it came at a point when they had begun to believe that the Depression was over. Now, confronted with the hollowness of those claims, the president joined in an agonizing reappraisal of his policies and eventually launched two important new initiatives.

SOUND FAMILIAR?

Global Financial Missteps

 

Can you imagine if European lawmakers went on a five week vacation during a financial crisis, the outcry that would come from our lawmakers in Washington would be deafening.  The fact that they left town one day after passing an abysmal deficit reduction package and have made no attempt to return to Washington to pass legislation that would deal with the issues at hand is gross incompetence.  

Much discussion today revolves around the the S & P downgrade of U.S. Treasury debt to AA+ and whether that was irresponsible, politically motivated or a face saver in light of their missing the whole financial collapse of 2008-2009.

The truth is this downgrade is one of today's catalysts, but in the big picture, just a comment on the rising levels of Govt. debt and the weak approach taken to cut U.S. deficits.  The problems in the U.S. and world economies are a hangover from the over leveraging, over spending, greedy appetite for poor and fraudulent financial products that shook the global financial markets in 2008-2009.

Combined with the financing of two avoidable wars and the unadvised opening of the housing market to unbridled greed, poor regulation and under-funded would be homeowners. 

At the core of europe's problems lies the belief that the Euro-zone would thrive as a single entity.  Europe needed strong trade cooperation among the European nations, but the combination undertaken to form one entity with a single currency was misguided from the beginning.

August 8,2011

 1:00pm

Gold is up 62$ at $1713 an ounce.   J.P. Morgan has raised their target price for gold to $2500 going out twelve months, with an average price of $2100 an ounce.

This forecast, whether just jumping on the momentum bandwagon, or foreseeing a recession and chaotic global financial markets begs the question of what is their forecast for the stock market.  If they are right about their gold call then the outlook for stocks is very bleak. They won't tell their customers to sell all their stocks, although they see great losses on the horizon!!! 

This goes to the heart of what kind of value can be put on advice from the financial firms.

. 

Goldman's Shame

 
August 5, 2011

The Dow Jones Averages are trading between plus 170 and minus 140.  Goldman Sachs comes out with an announcement mid-day downgrading U.S. growth to the 2-21/2% range.  They also give the economy a one in three chance of falling into another recession. 

Neither of these projections is particularly new.  We have heard these exact projections before. 

The market responded quickly by going down 240 points adding on to a week that has already seen the Dow lose 760 points in the preceding four  trading days.

This is a Friday during a very volatile time for the global financial markets.  In particular it is a very vulnerable day as news coming out of Europe is causing great concern. The market is already hard pressed to rally on Fridays during volatile times. 

For Goldman to come out with this kind of announcement on a day like this, immediately brings up the question "How much were they short"?  They know that these comments in this market would have a negative effect.  Goldman could make tens of millions of profit in a matter of minutes on a quick move in the market.

Goldman made predictions of no great importance, during a very vulnerable trading session, designed to create a reaction in the markets. Shame on them.  With Goldman's expertise it would be very hard for the regulatory agencies to prove the connection, but it is hard to miss it. 

Rupert Murdoch and Plausible Deniability

 
Rupert Murdoch is the C.E.O. of News Corp., the global parent company of the now defunct British newspaper, News Of The World.  Mr. Murdoch was questioned by a Member of Parliament this morning, regarding the hacking scandals brought about by News Of The World.

Mr. Murdoch was asked if he knew of settlements of £600,000 and  £1,000,000, made to victims of the phone hacking.  Mr. Murdoch answered he was not aware until a few days ago.  Mr. Murdoch was then asked if these settlements were ever brought to his attention during his regular conversations with the Editor of News Of The World.  Again Mr. Murdoch said there was no mention of them made.

Mr. Murdoch was then asked what kinds of things were discussed during these conversations.  Mr. murdoch said he might say, "Whats doing"?  In response the Editor might reply about a story of special interest, or expanded football pages or nothing special could be a reply.

You might wonder what priorities governed the exchange of information between the Editor of the paper and his senior employer.  What information was considered good to convey or what would not be conveyed as to create an atmosphere of plausible deniability?

Unusual Moments In Baseball History

 
 
On May 9,1961, Orioles first baseman Jim Gentile hits two grand slams in the first two innings of a 13-5 Baltimore triumph over the Twins in Bloomington. In the first inning, Minnesota's Pedro Ramos loads the bases on a walk, a double and another walk.  
Next up is cleanup hitter Gentile, who wallops a homer deep over the center field fence to score Whitey Herzog, Jackie Brandt and Brooks Robinson.  With Paul Giel on the mound in the second, Herzog, Brandt and Robinson are again on base when Gentile comes through with another home run, this time to right field.  It's a career year for Gentile—he'll end up with 46 homers, 5 of them grand slams, and a .302 batting average.*

                            *************************************************

 On May 19,1999, in a game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Colorado Rockies, a combined 81 men reached base.  The final score was Cincinnati 24- Rockies 12.*

                             ************************************************  

4/25/66,  Larry Jaster of the St. Louis Cardinals shuts out the Los Angeles Dodgers, 2-0, setting in motion one of the strangest sequences in baseball history.  Jaster will make five starts against the Dodgers in 1966 and pitch five shutouts.  They're the first five shutouts of his career and the only shutouts he'll pitch this season.  He becomes the only major league pitcher to register five consecutive shutouts against one team in a single season, and he does it facing the defending National League champions.  He'll play in the majors until 1972 and pitch only two more shutouts.*

                                        **********************************************

 On May 15,1919, in a game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers,  Al Mamaux pitches 12 scoreless innings before giving up 10 Cincinnati runs in the 13th. *

                                          ***************************************************

 

Harvey Haddix pitches 12 innings of perfect baseball only to lose 1-0 to the Braves in Milwaukee. Haddix retires the first 36 batters to face him, but his Pirates teammates are unable to dent the plate against Lew Burdette, who scatters 12 Pittsburgh hits while pitching 13 innings. Felix Mantilla leads off the Milwaukee 13th by reaching base on a throwing error by third baseman Don Hoak, Eddie Mathews bunts Mantilla to second and Hank Aaron is intentionally walked. Joe Adcock then delivers over the center field fence for an apparent home run, but he's declared out for passing Aaron between second and third during the jubilant celebration by the Braves. Adcock earns a double and the Braves get the win.-5/26/1959* 

* Excerpts from a page-a-day

 

 

 

 

 On May 19,1999, a combined 81 men reached base in a game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Colorado Rockies.

                            **************************************************

Cloud Computing--Don't Know What It Is---Read This

        
 
 Excerpt from an article in the April 2011 edition of CFO Magazine.

Will cloud computing save you money?  There is broad consensus that cloud computing will save money.  But, Bruce Schuman, group controller for IT at Intel adds that, "while Intel has saved tens of millions of dollars, the prime motivation was not just about cost but also about flexibility and agility."

Before the cloud, Schuman says,"an internal customer would come to us and say,  We need support for a new application.  And it would take us three months to load the application on a server, test it, and then add security.  That's pretty horrible customer service.  Now, with our private cloud, in some cases we can do it in less than three hours."

A recent Booze Allen Hamilton report,"The Economics of Cloud Computing," estimated that over a 13-year life cycle (3 years to prepare, 10 years of operations), the cost of implementing and sustaining a cloud environment may be as much as two-thirds lower than maintaining a traditional nonvirtualized IT data center."  

What is cloud computing?  The "Cloud"  simply describes a system for accessing computing capabilities at a distance via the internet.

  

                             

 

 

Japanese Response to March 11, 2011

 
 
 
I think it's time someone heralded the efforts of the Japanese people, especially the workers trying to contain the damage at the plants.

They are confronted with a situation no one has even remotely experienced.  A massive earthquake, a tsunami of epic proportions and damage to nuclear plants and the subsequent explosions and leaking of radioactive material into the ground, air and water.

Add to this the loss of thousands of lives, the search for the survivors, and the effort to rebuild the damaged infrastructure.

These reactors were scheduled to be decommissioned in February.  Instead they were given another ten years.*

That the reactions and pronouncements by the Japanese government were less than perfect, is in some ways understandable and predictable. They were and are dealing with a situation in which they were getting information from the plant operators, who were themselves operating in un-chartered waters.  Add to this the volatility of the situation and the potential for widespread fear and panic and the opportunity for second guessing and criticism was too easy for some to pass up.

Shortly after the tsunami damaged the plant, the head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the U.S. said that the core was at least partially melted and that the Japanese government wasn't revealing the real facts.  As far as we know these were over-stated pronouncements.  Did the Japanese level the same kind of criticism at our government after the Katrina hurricane?  If our representatives are going to snipe at them then they better be right. 

You would think that the Japanese response was totally abysmal. I think that their Prime Minister was making a credible effort to tell what he knew, and at the same time to prevent panic.  I think that any responsible government leader would do the same.

The fifty plus plant workers who worked tirelessly to contain the damage and avert a much worse catastrophe are heroes of the first order. They are men, many of them lost families and friends in the earthquake and tsunami.  They knew that their continued work put them at great peril and they persisted under incredibly difficult circumstances and living conditions.  Our hats are off to them, our hearts reach out to them and our hands extend help to them.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_I_Nuclear_Power_Plant

          

Enough

      


Enough

That's the title of Vanguard founder John Bogle's fantastic book about measuring what counts in life.

The title, as Bogle explains, comes from a conversation between Kurt Vonnegut and novelist Joseph Heller, who are enjoying a party hosted by a billionaire hedge fund manager.  Vonnegut points out that their wealthy host had made more money in one day than Heller ever made from his novel Catch-22. Heller responds: "Yes, but I have something he will never have: enough."

Passed along to me by my friend Aezaz Hussain.

The State of our Affairs

 
 
I don't want to alienate my Republican brothers and sisters, but c'mon, this is not the party of Lincoln and Roosevelt. 

An elite group of right wing broadcasters, including Limbaugh, Beck and O'Reilly, who while counting themselves as members of the highest wage earners in the country( Limbaugh was paid $54M in 2009*), initiate attacks on unions, government workers, and recipients of entitlement programs.  All the while expounding the need to extend the Bush tax cuts as necessary for future growth.( ie:maintain 0% estate taxes and lower tax rates for recipients of stock dividends, 92% of which go to institutions and wealthy individuals).  Another bulwark of Republican lawmakers is the continuation of $30B in subsidies for oil companies. 

                              ******************************

The GOP is so worried that the Government will bailout the financial industry should another meltdown occur, or intervene with more regulations, while at the same time wanting an unfettered industry, that can charge ahead at full speed using the full bag of tricks( modified 2011 versions), that got us into trouble in the first place.  

Most of the major financial entities have already taken measures to circumvent capital requirements, by transacting business in foreign subsidiaries and by U.S. branches of foreign banks changing their legal classification. 

                            **************************************

As troubling as these economic biases are, the personal and social biases that have crept into the mainstream media and right wing rhetoric are extremely worrisome.  We are all familiar with a lot of the outrageous rhetoric made by members of the Tea Party, establishment Republicans and the Republican media.  There has been a malicious racial and religious subtext to much of the Republican rhetoric aimed against President Obama. 

 Most recently, former Arkansas Governor and Presidential wannabe, Mike Huckabee said "if you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather".  Official records show that President Obama lived in Hawaii and for a short time in Indonesia, never Kenya.http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/03/huckabee-asserts-hes-not-a-bir.html 

                   ********************************************

Michele Bachmann, first term Congresswoman from Minnesota and Alan West, first term Congressman from Florida, have publicly addressed the possibility of their running for the Presidency in 2012.  Bachmann saying that she hasn't decided yet and West after floating the rumour, held a press conference in which he didn't disavow such an idea.  Are the credentials for being President so thin, or is it merely the conceit and arrogance of some of these newly minted demagogues that lead them to such lofty opinions of themselves. 

                      *******************************************

Hopefully the next time the President wants to pass health reform, he will make sure guidelines are in place to prevent insurance companies from preemptively raising premiums.  My health insurance premiums went up 12% on Jan 1, 2011, and I know of other insurance companies that raised premiums by even larger amounts. 

 

                           ************************************************

 "But it is the banks that matter most; and, in banking, it is remarkable how little has changed. Many banks are still “too big to fail” and the casino side of their activities remains mixed up with the mundane business of deposit-taking. Bankers are once more earning huge bonuses. How could this be?"--Excerpt from an article in the Sept. 16, 2010 edition of the Economisthttp://www.economist.com/node/17039091?story_id=17039091

 

"In this case, U.S. branches of foreign banks, frustrated by capital requirements that weigh on profitability, are not surprisingly changing their legal classifications in order to avoid more stringent lending rules set by the Dodd-Frank law. Had politicians and regulators done their homework, they could have foreseen this. Capital reserve requirements have been tried before, and they failed."

*http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/53/celebrity-09_Rush-Limbaugh_YNXQ.html

A Creed With Some Teeth In It

 
Advice from basketball's Tim Duncan on how to achieve success:

"Good, better, best.

Never let it rest.

Until your good is better

And your better is best."

Workman Publishing Company

 

 

        

Stranger Than Fiction

 
A feat of legal strength

Inmate seeking kosher meals cites belief in Festivus holiday from 'Seinfeld' — and wins!

 

A convicted drug dealer in California thinks so. He cited his adherence to the holiday celebrated on a famous episode of "Seinfeld" to get better meals at the Orange County jail.

Judge Derek G. Johnson demanded a religious reason for Malcolm  King to receive the meals. Defense attorney Fred Thiagarajah cited his client's devotion to Festivus.

Keeping kosher is not one of the tenets of Festivus, which was depicted on "Seinfeld" as celebrated with the airing of grievances and the display of an aluminum pole, but Judge Johnson granted the inmates request.

Sheriff's spokesman Ryan Burris says King got salami-free meals for two months before the county got the order thrown out in court.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40661042/ns/us_news-weird_news/

Great Epitaphs

 
 
~ Fields, W.C.
Here lies W.C. Fields. I would rather be living in Philadelphia.

 

~ Marx, Karl
Workers of all lands unite. The philosophers have only
interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.

 

"The body of
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Printer,
Like the cover of an old Book,
Its contents torn out,
And stript of its Lettering and Gilding
Lies here, Food for Worms;
Yet the work itself shall not be lost,
For it will (as he believed) appear once more
In a new and more beautiful edition
Corrected and amended, by
The Author."
(Benjamin Franklin on himself, composed many years before his death)

 

H.L. Mencken---"If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner, and wink your eye at some homely girl."

 

Arthur Conan Doyle

  
                                     

                          STEEL TRUE
                          BLADE STRAIGHT
               ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
                                 KNIGHT
              PATRIOT, PHYSICIAN & MAN OF LETTERS

Mark Twain on Biographies

 
"What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words!  His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself...His acts and his words are merely the visible thin crust of his world...and they are so trifling a part of his bulk!  A mere skin enveloping it.  The mass of him is hidden--it and it's volcanic fires that toss and boil, and never rest, night nor day.

These are his life, and they are not written, and cannot be written...Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man--the biography of the man himself cannot be written."   

Excerpt from Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1, by Mark Twain 

Known for Greatness, Admired for Humanity

  

          

 

" I never guess. It is a shocking habit destructive to the logical faculty." 
 
"Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones." 

"My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation."

"Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old loves are the worst."

"I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children." 

"Any truth is better than indefinite doubt." 

       

Voting Outside The Party

 
There is an interview with historian Garry Wills, in the New York Times today. He was asked whom he would vote for. His answer " I always vote the party. It's ridiculous not to. You may like a person who is Republican, but if you vote for that person, you're voting for all the apparatus that comes along with it." 

I find a flaw in this way of thinking.  If you find a candidate whom you like better than your party's candidate, who is more appealing to you, or better expresses your points of view, even if that candidate belongs to a different party than you do, you should be open to voting for that person. 

Lincoln joined the newly formed Republican party because the Southern Democrats were so staunchly pro slavery and would resist any moves to amend it.  We would not have a Scott Brown (a Republican with an open mind) in the Senate now if people from all party's didn't vote for him.

There is a time when voting the party may have a stronger pull. If you think that candidate will shift the balance of power in the particular chamber, then a true party member may have to reconsider their vote.

Money Market Fund Ripoff

 

If you thought the return in your money market fund was low, read this.  I have had cash balances in the  Bank of America Cash Reserves Daily Fund for some time.  The rate of return was very low and eventually reached nothing. 

I was just informed that that this fund has been charging me .75% in fees and expenses for the right to get a zero return. 

I was never given any other option in regard to the cash in the account.  I'm sure the bank would say, in it's behalf, that the details were spelled out in that little prospectus they send out every year.  Do you read everything you get in the mail?

Interesting Factoid

 

SEPTEMBER 20

MONDAY

THIS DAY I IN HISTORY

1873: Panic closes NYSE

On this day in 1873, the New York Stock Exchange closed for ten days. The closure was enacted two days after one of the nation's most prominent brokerage firms, Jones Cooke & Co., declared bankruptcy. The Panic of 1873, as it was called, wreaked havoc on the economy, and the NYSE decided to close to wait out the crisis. In response, the secretary of the treasury pumped $26 million of new currency into the economy, which increased the amount of money in circulation to $382 million.

Is Networking The New Religion

I like to look at and read about the people that show up on the find friends page on facebook.  If I find someone, even if I don't know them, that I think is interesting and doesn't have five thousand friends already, I will request they join my little group of disparate comrades.

I have noticed a lot of people list conservative and christian as their two main points of info.  I don't remember seeing anyone list democrat and  christian or democrat and jewish as their main points of info.

They are not necessarily evangelicals, but they like identifying with the core philosophies of the group.  Our society is becoming increasingly polarized by this non secular influence.  Demagogues thrive in this type of environment.

The Week Of The Takebacks

 
Pastor Jones rescinded his plans to cancel the burning of Qurans.  Or maybe he didn't.  Imam Musri said he never told the pastor that the imam in New York told him they would move the Mosque or that he would see the pastor on Saturday.  Oh what a tangled web we weave. 

Iran cancels planned release of American hiker.  The semiofficial Iranian Labour News Agency announced today that Saturday's scheduled release of detained American hiker, Sarah Shourd would not take place as scheduled, because the judicial process has not been completed.

Fidel Castro disavowed the comments attributed to him that the Cuban model doesn't work, instead claiming that he was misinterpreted and misunderstood.

Trump claimed to have made an offer to buy the planned Mosque building in downtown New York.  He refused to buy it because they were exploiting him on the price.  He appeared on all the usual tv shows to explain what happened.  The new season of his tv series "Apprentice" starts this week.  He didn't have to make public his offer.  Who's doing the exploiting here? 

The take-back of don't ask don't tell.  U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips declared the ban unconstitutional today and said she was going to issue an order to stop the government from enforcing the policy.  Hasn't this policy existed for two decades?  Where has she been and why make this pronouncement today.

 

 

 

Politics Out Of Control

 
 
There's been alot of craziness in politics recently, we all know that. I am living in Florida now and when I hear a Democrat, Alex Sink, running for Governor in Florida, refer to the President by his last name three times in thirty seconds in a recent tv ad, I am insulted. 

I can not think of a Republican, let alone a Democrat, referring to "Kennedy" or "Johnson", or any other President while they were in office, by their last name.

There is a strong element of racism and and religious exploitation in the current political landscape.  We will just have to see this play out and hope that objectivism and decency win out. 

There may be no documentation to prove what his religious beliefs are,  but the continuing malignant accusations that the President was not born in the U.S.can be put to rest by making public his birth certificate and any corroborating evidence there may be to the fact that he was born in the U.S..  

If It Works Use It

 
Advice on how to forget something painful. 

"The mind is like a basin.  Pull the plug and the memory drains away."--from the novel,"The Rembrandt Affair", by Daniel Silva.  

Spend Money to Make Money

 
 
"Dinner for Schmucks",  Steve Carell's newest comedy, is a remake of a 1998 french film "The Dinner Game".   Opening July 30, with a premiere comedian in his prime and a professional supporting cast, the picture may be significant for another reason.

The producers of "Dinner for Schmucks", reportedly paid one & one half million dollars for the right to use the Beatles song "Fool On The Hill". Paramount now says the actual amount was less than a million, a hefty sum nevertheless.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2010/07/how-did-jay-roach-get-a-beatles-song-for-dinner-for-schmucks.html

A Little Can Go A Long Way

Seniors are taken it in the rear and it is not a colonoscopy. 

As most seniors are retired and living off income from their savings, they have been hit on both sides.  They have been suffering with a return near zero in their money market accounts, and those lucky enough to have stock market holdings have seen their values greatly depreciated, causing many seniors to liquidate at low prices during the crash.

It is only those seniors that have bond holdings that are getting any kind of a positive cash flow, however they are at risk of losing principle once interest rates turn up.  Many are of poor health and encounter rising medical costs and lower home values.  

There has been no major discussion, either in the press or by the politicians to bring any relief to this the largest segment of our society.  AARP, the largest of the groups of senior advocacy has been quiet and ineffective in bringing about any relief for it's constituency.

A liquid savings account paying higher than the 1/4% return in a money market account should have been established by the government.  Of course you will ask where would the money come from.  As part of the stimulus program the political will should have been strong.

Quote of the Week

"If anything I have said this morning has been misconstrued to the opposite effect, I want to apologize for that misconstrued misconstruction."

"Rep. Joe Barton, attempting to apologize for apologizing to BP for the "shakedown" it got from the White House."

Newsweek, June 28 & July 5, 2010