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POPSAlice Walker's Open Letter to Barack Obama Text (cont.)Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.
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POPSRevealing the complexity behind things we take for granted..astonishing forms "Viewed at extreme magnifications of 1,000 times or more, the natural world acquires a surreal beauty, rich with astonishing forms and spectacular patterns. A new book, Nano Nature, gives us a rare glimpse into this bizarre 'nano' world. Using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), which can view objects at extreme magnification, Nano Nature explores this hidden world, revealing the complexity behind things we take for granted - a butterfly wing, a polar bear's hair or a fruit fly's eye. The images are produced in monochrome and then hand tinted to enrich their detail.'
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POPSThe "Bailout" & The Banking Industry's Dirty Little Secret
. . . . still struggling. And I would not assume that we are done on the acquisition side just because of the Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns mergers. I think there are going to be some great opportunities for us to grow in this environment, and I think we have an opportunity to use that $25 billion in that way and obviously depending on whether recession turns into depression or what happens in the future, you know, we have that as a backstop.” Read that answer as many times as you want — you are not going to find a single word in there about making loans to help the American economy. On the contrary: at another point in the conference call, the same (anonymous) executive explained that “loan dollars are down significantly.” He added, “We would think that loan volume will continue to go down as we continue to tighten credit to fully reflect the high cost of pricing on the loan side.” In other words JPMorgan has no intention of turning on the lending spigot.
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POPSAs Economy Slows, Lenders Begin to Curb Credit Cards It's about time!!!! Even after my parents "declared" bankruptcy after years of using them for medical, motor vehicle, what they considered necessities....my Mom is still receiving offers from Credit Card companies. Stop it!!! The elderly and the 20-40+ use these things like there is no tomorrow. Well, tomorrow has come. While the card-holders have a responsibility to pay their debts, so do those who *throw* cards at an irresponsible market bear major responsibility for their practices.
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POPSThe "miracle" of securitization This quiet little piece is probably the sharpest analysis of what actually went wrong with our financial system that I've read. Here's a money quote: ``Securitization was based on the premise that a fool was born every minute,'' Joseph Stiglitz, a professor of economics at Columbia University in New York, told a congressional committee on Oct. 21. ``Globalization meant that there was a global landscape on which they could search for those fools -- and they found them everywhere.''
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POPSFinancial Crisis: Fed Becomes Rogue Power
The Fed under Bernanke does whatever it wants. There is little constraints on it by law, being a creature actually outside of government. The "central bank" is actually a consortium of private banks with authority to print money "from thin air", as it states here. The Federal Reserve is no more "federal" than Federal Express. The only reason the Fed Chairman Bernanke went to Congress for a Bailout Plan (by using Treas. Sec'y Paulson to front, and hiding behind Bush) was to cover his hindquarters, and gain "consent" (by fear and coercion) of Congress, and putting Americans on the hook with them. Note the article states that the Fed acted already on its own to bailout Bear Stearns and make other "loans" (print money) without Congress: The Bernanke Fed first invoked rarely used 1930s powers to intervene — with taxpayer backing — in March when it provided a $29 billion loan as part of JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s takeover of Bear Stearns. The Fed is now Czar.
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POPSLooking To Pooh For Foreign Policy So this is a bit old, but I just found it and had to share. All I have to say is, can you *imagine* what they would have done with this had Sarah Palin said anything close? Holy. Crap.
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POPSBe A Happy Camper "I love camping. You haven’t lived until you’ve cut your way out of a sleeping bag with a Swiss army knife." :lol:
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POPSThe $55 Trillion Dollar Question a University of Maryland law professor and former director of trading and markets at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. "If they couldn't keep passing the risk down the line, those guys would've been stopped in their tracks. The ultimate assurance for issuing all this stuff was, 'It's insured.'" Second, terror at the potential for a financial Ebola virus radiating out from a failing institution and infecting dozens or hundreds of other companies - all linked to one another by CDS and other instruments - was a major reason that regulators stepped in to bail out Bear Stearns and buy out AIG (AIG, Fortune 500), whose calamitous descent itself was triggered by losses on its CDS contracts (see "Hank's Last Stand"). "The big problem is that here are all these public companies - banks and corporations - and no one really knows what exposure they've got from the CDS contracts," says Frank Partnoy, former Morgan Stanley derivatives salesman.
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POPSWall Street Executives Scored $3 Billion as Banks Rose and Fell ......per employee, including an average bonus of $211,849. The five firms had combined net income of $93 billion during the five years through 2007. CEO Pay Doubled The $3.1 billion paid to the top five executives at the firms between 2003 and 2007 was about three times what JPMorgan spent to buy Bear Stearns. Goldman Sachs had the highest total, with $859 million, followed by Bear Stearns at $609 million. CEO pay at the five firms increased each year, doubling to $253 million in 2007, according to data compiled from company filings. Corporate Governance Rather than government regulation, the solution is in better corporate governance, Elson said. Companies should negotiate more aggressively with executives and should establish rules that encourage shareholders to protest excessive pay. The rescue package is not the place to have that debate, he said.
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POPSHow the democrats Created This Financial Crisis It is rediculous to see the democrats trying to blaime the GOP for this mess. It is clearly their fault by opposing this bill which would have prevented the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapse. And to vote for ZerObama would assure more blunders at home and abroad.
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POPSRussia Not Immune to American Influence Perhaps to undermine the Russian Bear and China, this crisis will benefit some of the architects of doom. If the energy market of Russia and China's relentless expansion are threatening American interest, ie, oil, so why not create a crisis that takes most down and rewards the few we all know?
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POPSWhat is more important the stock market or the economy? The premise here is daytrading (which I do for a living), naked short selling, and other forms of speculation among the wall streeters have created a drag on the economy and the real stock market. I wonder if raising the capital gains tax would shut down some of the unhealthy speculation which helped cause the current mess we're in.
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POPSSheeple Blinded by the Babe Factor It's disgusting the way this whole Palin jazz is unfolding. Any objective person would see right thru her facade. A reat Mom? Maybe...but her teen daughter is pregnant out of wedlock. Not such good parenting there, is there? Popular in Alaska? that's great, but I live in Alaska and it's a racist filled state with some very strange (some wonderful, most not) people. And the politics there are stuck in the 50's, with a weird fringe twist. Finding a Progressive in Alaska is like findin a Polar bear in Arizona.
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POPSPalin For Vice President: Palin on the Issues SMALL BUSINESS – “As Mayor and CEO of the booming city of Wasilla, my team invited investment and encouraged business growth by eliminating small business inventory taxes, eliminated personal property taxes, reduced real property tax mill levies every year I was in office, reduced fees, and built the infrastructure our businesses needed to grow and prosper.” MILITARY - “I respect our military personnel and understand the importance of Alaska's National Guard. As I watched our military men and women being deployed I recognized how important it is for their families to know how much Alaska and America support them.” HEALTH CARE – “I support flexibility in government regulations that allow competition in health care that is needed, and is proven to be good for the consumer, which will drive down health care costs and reduce the need for government subsidies. I also support patients in their rightful demands to have access to full medical billing information.”
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POPSGov. Sarah Palin: On The Issues New Alaska Governor Is Strong Conservative Economy: She supports reducing property taxes and taxes for small businesses to grow the economy. Climate: However, she has been a vocal critic of scientists who suggest that climate change is leading to the decrease in polar bears in Alaska. She has also threatened to sue to have polar bears not listed as a threatened species. Immigration: Being that her state only borders Canada and is thousands of miles from the Mexican border, Palin has not often expressed her views publicly on illegal immigration. Health Care: According to her campaign Web site, Palin supports flexibility in government regulations that allow competition in health care. She believes it will drive down health care costs and reduce the need for government subsidies. Palin also feels patients should have access to full medical billing information. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXzY1FvYpnE YouTube: 10:19
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POPSA new Swiss park for feeding the bears Until the debut of BearPark, Pedro and Tana can be seen in their more modest open-air enclosure every day from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the summer, during which time they accept gifts of bear food that are available for purchase from bear guards. Bern's relationship to bears can be traced back to the city's birth: The city founder, Berchtold V von Zãhringen, is said to have killed a bear on the peninsula where the city now stands. The capital's name comes from Bãr, which is German for bear, and the animal graces the Bern's coat of arms.
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