Happy Thanksgiving

If They Are Too Big To Fail, They Are Too Big.

During the last years corporate America has been allowed to consolidate into monopolies. Giant corporations exist today in Telecommunications, Health Care, Automotive Manufacturing, Financial Services and many other industries that are vital to U.S. national security.

Certainly, recent events have taught us that we need to expand our definition of “national security” to include the health and well-being of our financial structure. Washington now tells us that GM is “too big to fail”, that Citibank is “too big to let go” and that a failure of AIG would trigger a global financial disaster . Unfortunately this seems to be true and equally unfortunate is that there are corporations in other industries that are presumably “too big to let go” (Verizon?).

All this has come about because our government “let go”. The last 25 years has seen an unraveling of regulation in many industries and sectors as the idea that “all government is bad” ruled the day. This has been especially true of the Bush Administration which has left several of our governmental departments to atrophy or fall apart almost completely. We hear and see that the departments of Justice, Commerce, Treasury, Energy, Health and Human Services and others have become dysfunctional as ideologues have taken over and career officials have left in droves. Financial, and more to the point anti-trust regulation has deteriorated to a point that is dangerous to our society and our economy.

So the question begs “if it’s too big to fail, isn’t it just too big?”.

While “big” maybe better for upper management and occupants of executive suites (and their compensation) it certainly has not been good for the U.S. consumer and the American economy.

The United States is today 15th in the world in broadband penetration. Broadband is undoubtedly as important to our future as the Interstate Highway System was when Eisenhower envisioned an expansive highway network that would facilitate the ease of movement of goods and people to an unprecedented extent. In Japan it is easy to have a teleconference via cell phone speeding from Tokyo to Osaka on the “bullet train”. In South Korea wireless is ubiquitous and the entire country is covered. And in the United States, Verizon still sells DSL, an outdated 20th century technology, as broadband and the consumer, for the most part, doesn’t understand why the Internet runs so slowly.

While the U.S. has all but sanctioned monopolies our government has not ensured that these mega-corporations serve the public and invest in, build and deploy the latest technologies. Greed and lack of foresight has made us a second rate telecommunications power. And certainly, in the early 21st century, telecommunications, electronic commerce and general interconnectivity are issues of national security.

I believe that it is way past time to look at monopolistic practices in vital industries as a danger to our national security.

It is therefore incumbent upon our new President and his administration to immediatly strengthen national security by assuring modernization and enforcement of regulations that prohibit the growth of any business that is deemed “too big to fail”.

Time For A Re-definition: What Does National Security Mean?

Defining National Security

For far too long the U.S. has seen “national security” exclusively  as a military question.  American’s have been led to believe, certainly during the last eight years, that military superiority equaled national security.

The Bush Administration, and its “neo-con” policy influencers have denigrated the concept of “soft power”, repudiated long-standing and important bi-lateral and multi-lateral agreements (The Geneva Convention) and shunned any who opposed it as being “wimps” or lacking a vision of American Empire.

Many on the far right even speak of “decoupling” – the idea that what happens in the rest of the world doesn’t matter to us. They still seem to believe that the U.S. is the only super-power and that America doesn’t need to react need to concern itself with global events because as the only remaining super-power we can dictate to the rest of the world and create events rather than having to respond to them. What could be further from the truth.

Decoupling is a myth. Globalization has caused the global economy to integrate. As we've seen, events in the U.S. have far-reaching consequences that spread rapidly to the rest of the world. And vice-versa.

The American situation at the beginning of the 21^st century demands a redefinition of whatthe idea of “national security” means to us. We can no longer afford to live in an intellectual bubble that insulates us from knowing what the consequences of our, and other global players, actions are.

If the freezing of lending, the collapse of the mortgage industry, troubles in the Automobile industry, government bailouts and the specter of corporate CEO’s begging for huge sums of money have taught us anything it should be that many things can affect our National Security, not just military affairs. We must expand our definition of national security to encompass financial well-being as well.

The exercise of wise “soft power” oversees, and proper government regulation of key industries at home are integral parts of America’s national security.   

We are not used to being led well

It will be awhile before we get used to being led well again. This has been a long 8 years for the body politic. It will be interesting to see America respond to good governance again.

What's The Matter With Us?

Gary Becker & Richard Posner
The Becker Posner Blog

The Financial Crisis: Why Were Warnings Ignored?--Posner“

"Citi was heavily involved in derivatives, which have been described by Warren Buffett as ‘financial weapons of mass destruction.'

It should be clear by now to any rational person that the deepening economic crisis has it's origins in a total lack of oversight by the governments of the world.

Some very smart people, including Nouriel Roubini, Paul Krugman, and many others warned about what was happening. Why were they ignored?

Could it have been greed? Could it have been that the exact same people who had the most to lose or gain ignored what they didn't want anyone to really know?

I am unable to believe that the the very same people who still feed at the trough today-those who claimed that they actually were entitled to 7,8,9 or even 10 figure incomes because they were the smartest people around really didn't know what was happening. I believe that they ignored or refused to acknowledge the truth so that they could continue to suck huge salaries and bonuses out of the system. And they are still getting away with it!

Thomas Frank asked "What's The Matter With Kansas?"....it's time to ask, what's the matter with the American people?"

If a brilliant economist yells to the crowd, is it the people's fault if they don't hear? You betcha!

Paul Krugman
The few, the proud, the destructive

We are getting so screwed.....

what's worse is that these thieving greedy bastards are getting their pockets filled again...pockets that are already over-flowing with huge ill-begotten booty. It's our money folks....

Robert Reich
Citigroup Scores

"If you had any doubt at all about the primacy of Wall Street over Main Street; the utter lack of transparency behind the biggest government giveaway in history to financial executives, and their shareholders, directors, and creditors; and the intimate connections the lie between Administrations -- both Republican and Democratic -- and the heavyweights on Wall Street, your doubts should be laid to rest. Today it was decided the government will guarantee more than $300 billion of troubled mortgages and other assets of Citigroup under a federal plan to stabilize the lender after its stock fell 60 percent last week. The company will also will get a $20 billion cash infusion from the Treasury Department, adding to the $25 billion the bank received last month under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

This is not a particularly good deal for American taxpayers, but it is a marvelous deal for Citi. In return for all the cash and guarantees they are giving away, taxpayers will get only $27 billion of preferred shares paying an 8 percent dividend. No other strings are attached. The senior executives of Citi, including those who have served at the highest levels in the US government, have done their jobs exceedingly well. The American public, including the media, have not the slightest clue what just happened.

Meanwhile, more than a million workers in the automobile industry, along with six million homeowners in danger of losing their homes, and a millions of Americans who depend on small businesses and retailers for paychecks, are getting nothing at all."

Paul Kedrosky
Good Bank, Bad Bank, and Fucked Bank

Yves Smith - Naked Capitalism
WSJ: US Agrees to Bail Out Citi (Updated)

Paulson: Fighting the Financial Crisis

The Bush Administration has been distinguished by incompetence. It has been a circus. It continues to be a circus and will remain a circus until January 20, 2009. Why should they be expected to be competent now?

America elected Bush twice and now pays for choosing its leader based upon who they would rather have a beer with. Didn't someone not to long ago say something about "chickens coming home to roost"?

From The New York Times - Fighting the Financial Crisis, One Challenge at a Time

Fannie, Freddie, Phony

Paul Krugman points out that the noise coming from the Republican's and the conservative (bowel) movement (Fannie Freddie Phony) is mostly an alternative reality coming from the usual suspects (ready Limbaugh, Hannity and the rest) and couldn't be further from the truth (again).

Conservatives are screaming today that our current fiscal and monetary crisis's are the result of Congress having forced private banks to make sub-standard loans. The act did nothing of the kind. The act made the practice of "red-lining" illegal and forced lenders to standardize requirements across an entire community.

The cause of our current troubles are described by Paul Volcker today in an article in the Telegraph:

"There has been leveraging in the economy beyond imagination, and nobody was saying we need to do something," he said. "There are cycles in human nature and it is up to regulators to moderate these excesses. Alan was not a big regulator."

Even so, he said the arch-culprit was the bonus system that allowed bankers to draw forward "tremendous rewards" before the disastrous consequences of their actions became clear, as well as the new means of credit alchemy that let them slice and dice mortgage debt into packages that disguised risk."

Volcker Issues Dire Warning....

Paul Volcker is one of the leading economic thinkers of our time. He, as Chairman of the Federal Reserve (he was appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and reappointed by President Ronald Reagen in 1983), was instrumental in leading the United States out of the stagflation of the late '70's and early '80's. It seems that he is one of the leading contenders for the post of Secretary of the Treasury in the Obama administration. I think he is the right man for the job during times like these.

So it wasn't good news this morning to see Chairman Volckers warning this morning in the Telegraph

"Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, has warned that the economic slump has begun to metastasise after a shocking collapse in output over the past two months, threatening to overwhelm the incoming Obama administration as it struggles to restore confidence"

Like the man said "fasten your seat belts, it's gonna be a wild ride"

Stop These Greed Ridden Maggot Clowns NOW

These Bozo's continue to rob us. You need to help STOP THEM NOW.
Bonuses for Wall Street Should Go to Zero, U.S. Taxpayers Say
Here is a complete list of email addresses for all of the members of congress. Tell them not to let these thieves get away with this anymore. And while your at it why don't you tell them that all of these guys should be prosecuted...all of them.Not just the CEO's but anyone in a position to have known what what was going on. I say that they go down to the VP level. These people deserve to lose their ill begotten riches and go to prison too.

Oh, How You Can Get Stucco

"Cocoanuts" starring the Marx Brothers was released in 1929. A real estate boom that you've probably heard about was roaring. We all know how that one went....

Groucho: "You can have any kind of a home you want. You can even get stucco. Oh, how you can get stucco."

Negative equity in US widespread

"Nearly a quarter of all homes with mortgages in the US are in negative equity, figures have showed.
First American CoreLogic, a real estate data company, found 7.6 million properties in the country were worth less than the mortgage as of September 30, while another 2.1 million were within striking distance."

Radiance and Rosebud

The Secret Service assigned code names to the First Family today. Radiance and Rosebud, what perfect names for two fabulous first daughters.

I am the father of two gorgeous wonderful young women. They have become everything that I could ever hope that they would be.

It fills my heart to see the love in the First Family and what wonderful girls Sasha and Malia are. We should all be thankful that they will be shared with us. We, the people, are truly blessed.

Not The Obama Agenda, The American Agenda

Paul Krugman writes "The Obama Agenda".

Barack Obama has a mandate to begin a new paragraph in the American commentary. It need not contain comma's or semi-colons.

Remember This?

If you are a boomer, like me (I was born in 1947), you'll remember these small flag decals that people put on their cars during the '60's and '70's "love or leave it" period. I went looking for one today (see below) and I couldn't find one. I'm betting that they become a hot item again....

A few weeks after 9/11 my daughter, then a college student, asked me "Dad-when is this flag stuff going to stop?", I told her I thought it would last awhile.

Honey, I can tell you today that it has just begun again. Not to divide us, but this time to unite us (does anyone know where I can get one of those waving flag decals to put on my car?).

Changing The World...One Great Leader At A Time.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln - where in Washington will the Barack Obama Monument be?

This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land

During the summer of 1961 at the age of 14 I spent a week in the San Bernardino (CA) mountains at a camp run by an organization called, at the time, The National Conference of Christians and Jews. The camp was called “Brotherhood USA”. This was a special time in my life, it was instrumental in forming the opinions, feelings, belief's, faith and instincts of the man I became.

The camp brought together kids from all over the Los Angeles area. Hispanics, blacks, whites, Jews and Christians (there weren't too many Muslims in LA in those days that I know of - I probably did not know one).

This was a week of “Kumbaya”, “We Shall Overcome (some day - ay, ay ay....)” and “This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land” and the experience had a profound effect on me.

I was young and impressionable and at the end of that week I was greatly inspired. “Civil Rights” seemed a completely normal state, discrimination repugnant and racial division unnatural.

As the bus bringing us back into the LA basin approached the parking lot where our parents were to pick us up, a black guy and a white girl, both about my age who had met at the camp and fallen in love were told by one of the counselors that they’d need to stop holding hands. I will never forget that counselor’s words; “you need to stop that" he said, "we understand - but your parents won’t”. Hearing this shocked me.

Sometime later I told my parents that I was going to join The Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced “snick”). My parents were shocked and forbade me from joining (it wasn’t that they were bigots; they remembered the McCarthy hearings of just a few years before when association with the wrong groups led to big trouble). That was the last I thought of it.

On September 15, 1963 the nation was shocked when four little girls were killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama.

It was Later that year, just before Thanksgiving, a Friday mid-morning during my junior year of high school; at around 11 AM we all became aware that something terrible had happened, President Kennedy had been assassinated.

One evening the next summer my best friend and I were “cruising” Van Nuys Blvd. near the famous Bob’s Big Boy drive-in restaurant. The news of the “Gulf of Tonkin Incident” came over the radio and my friend and I both agreed that if America went to war because we’d been attacked that it was our duty to enlist in the Army to defend our country.The Civil Rights Act of 1964 became law that year.

1965 was a tumultuous year. Dr. Martin Luther King led the Selma to Montgomery March's and the nation was shocked at the brutality of the reaction of Sheriff Jim Clark and the Alabama State Troopers.

I graduated high school and turned 18 in that year, the year that The National Voting Rights Act became American law. Think of it - 43 years ago we needed to enact a law that guaranteed every American their God-given natural right to vote in a free election.

Sadly, for so many years, many would not exercise their right to vote and many would still be denied that right because of continued discrimination, ignorance, greed and immorality.

Turning 18 that summer I was obligated to sign up for the Orwellian misnamed “Selective Service”, otherwise known as “the draft”.

In September of that year I started college while the U.S. was pouring troops into Vietnam. By 1966 opposition to the war was raging, America was divided and my father, who had served in World War II (and came home after 18 months in a German prison camp with a Purple Heart), like the fathers of so many others, was furious with me for not enlisting and going off to “defend your country”, something that by then I had no intention of doing. "Your country right or wrong" and "Love it or leave it" seemed absurd ideas to me.

By 1968 I was an anti-war activist, marching in local protests and doing everything I could to avoid the draft. I supported Eugene McCarthy the “anti-war” candidate for president and continued to appeal against my draft board’s repeated attempts to conscript me.

On April 4, 1968 Martin Luther King was assassinated. Bobby Kennedy had announced his candidacy for president and I had become an ardent supporter of his. Then on June 6, just after accepting his victory in the California presidential primary, Bobby was shot down in the kitchen of The Ambassador Hotel, then a Los Angeles landmark. That night was a turning point for me. That was the night I became totally cynical politically and lost faith in the U.S. government and in the American people's ability to self govern rationally and fairly. I hadn't lost faith in our system as it was intended by our forefathers, but in our ability as a people to do the right thing.

Then came Tricky Dick, Watergate, the continued bombing of Vietnam and the disclosure of the secret bombing of Laos and the invasion of Cambodia. My cynicism stiffened.

On the evening of May 4, 1970 I met my father for dinner at The Sizzler Steak House on Wilshire Blvd. in West Los Angeles. I was distraught as 4 students had died and 9 others wounded that day, shot on the campus of Kent State University by Ohio National Guardsmen during a campus protest against the invasion of Cambodia. Dinner with Dad didn’t last long; shortly after we sat down at the table he made the statement that “they should have shot more of them.” I left the restaurant, a wound having been cut between my father and myself that would never be healed.

The war ended in April 1974 after thousands upon thousands of American's were killed and wounded both physically and emotionally. The emotionally wounded included those like my father and me who’s relationship would never heal from the bitterness that terrible mistaken war had created. But the war did not end that day, it raged and raged on in the discourse in America and continued to pervade our society and politics for years and years to come.

I commented recently to my partner that I thought the Vietnam war would not end until our generation died out.

These were painful times for so many. For me, the loss of Bobby was a seminal event in my life. It would be 40 years before I was inspired again by a candidate for president.

For forty years, while always voting, there has not been one candidate that I could really believe in. I thought Al Gore would have been a great president but that didn’t work out well and the way it ended made me even more of a cynic. The last eight years has only reinforced what I already believed and felt.

About a month or two after September 11, 2001 an employee of mine asked me why I wasn’t displaying the American flag on my car. I explained to this person that back in the late ‘60’s and early '70's the flag was used as a club by some people; it was the time of “America, love it or leave it”, a time of great turmoil in our country and great bitterness amongst our people. We all know what has happened since-how our political leadership intentionally divided us for their own selfish, misguided, evil political gain.

But I think the Vietnam war has finally ended tonight. I think we have overcome our racial and political divisiveness tonight. Tonight I am proud to be an American again. Tonight I believe in the American promise again. I didn’t think that I would ever see what I’ve seen today. “God Bless America” - our flag belongs to all of us again - not just to those who would use it to divide us.

Tonight I am moved. I am moved by the grace of the American promise. I am moved by where we have come from and what we are as a people. Tonight I am truly proud to be an American again.

God Bless America. God Bless The American People. And God Bless Barack Obama. Tonight "someday" has come. Tonight, we have finally overcome.

I'm taking a break

It is not time for my opinion, it is time for all of us to express our opinion a the ballot box - PLEASE VOTE. I'll be back on Wednesday.

Recycle Your Jack 'O Lantern

Don't throw it away, recycle it!

Sean Hannity Is A Liar: A Master of Deceit, Innuendo, Half-truth and Straw-man Arguement

A Surge on One Channel, a Tight Race on Another??????
As anyone who has listened to Sean Hannity knows he rails about Barack Obama and the democrats advocating a huge transfer of wealth...Thomas L. Friedman quotes, in his column today, that Michael Mandelbaum, in his book "Democracy's Good Name: The Rise and Risks of the World's Most Popular Form of Government" says that George Bush has been responsible for the greatest transfer of wealth since the Bolshevik Revolution.

Sean Hannity is a master of deceit, half-truth, innuendo, straw-man argument and outright lies. He is not to be trusted on any subject at anytime, like the rest of his ilk including Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Michael Savich, Michael Reagan and the rest who only promote their own narrow self-interest to keep their narrowing listener ship.

It is apparent that these guys are panicked. Their influence has, and continues to, diminish and only the most uneducated amongst us still pays any attention except for a laugh and out of boredom. These guys know it too. Their callers are pathetically uninformed and Hannity and the rest work hard to keep it that way. Most of their listeners/viewers get their information from one or two sources only: WABC Radio New York and Fox News. They are only taken seriously by the same 23% who still approve of George Bush's performance in office.

These are serious times and we have serious issues. Democracy, in order to function, requires an educated populace.

For two presidential election cycles America has voted based on who they'd rather have a beer with or because they have allowed themselves to be influenced by fear. As we know making decisions based on fear is highly likely to produce the wrong decision.

Tom Friedman:

"all I can suggest is that you vote for the candidate with these character traits:

First, we need a president who can speak English and deconstruct and navigate complex issues so Americans can make informed choices. We have paid an enormous price for having a president who could not explain and reassure us during this financial meltdown. We wasted a huge amount of time pretending that we could punish Wall Street without punishing Main Street — when, in fact, they are intricately intertwined.

A major money market fund — Reserve Primary — failed in September because the extra interest it offered customers derived, in part, from the $785 million in high-yielding Lehman Brothers commercial paper and notes it was holding. Depositors who told their congressmen to just let that greedy Lehman Brothers fail were shocked to discover this meant that their own money market would be frozen. No, we don’t need a president defending greed on Wall Street, but we do need one who can explain that we are all in the same boat, that a leak at one end can sink everyone and that while we must regulate, we don’t want to kill risk-taking and the rewards that go with that — which are essential to growing our economy.

Second, we need a president who can energize, inspire and hold the country together during what will be a very stressful recovery. We have to climb out of this financial crisis at a time when the baby boomers are about to retire and going to need their Social Security and eventually Medicare. We are all going to be paying the government more and getting less until we grow out of this hole.

Third, we need a president who can rally the world to our side. We cannot get out of this crisis unless China starts consuming more and unless Europe keeps lowering interest rates. Everyone is interconnected, and everyone is still looking to America to lead.

So, bottom line: Please do not vote for the candidate you most want to have a beer with (unless it’s to get stone cold drunk so you don’t have to think about this mess we’re in). Vote for the person you’d most like at your side when you ask your bank manager for an extension on your mortgage.

Vote for the candidate you think has the smarts, temperament and inspirational capacity to unify the country and steer our ship through what could be the rockiest shoals our generation has ever known. Your kids will thank you."

This Woman is Just Breathtakingly STUPID (and an embarrasment to any thinking America), Sen. McCain, how could you?

(Sarah Palin, fashion victim.....so what is the Vice President's clothing allowance anyway????)
Utterly clueless -- the Masked Avengers' comically bad accents and pop culture and pornography references going straight over her head -- Palin blathers for what seems like hours, giving giggly answers and offering the slimmest possible analysis of her candidacy and the significance of campaign figure Joe the Plumber. At one point, she was led even to agree that FOX News broadcasts unfair critiques of her and is just another part of the the media bias in this country against muddle-headed winking Christian hockey moms.

Alternate Realities

"

On any given night, there are two distinctly, even extremely, different views of the presidential campaign offered on two of the three big cable news networks, Fox News Channel and MSNBC, a dual reality that is reflected on the Internet as well."

.....we shall see, and see....

We must rejoin the world

From Nicholas Kristoff at the New York Times

Mr. Bush’s presidency imploded not because of any personal corruption or venality, but largely because he wrenched the United States out of the international community. His cowboy diplomacy “defriended” the United States. He turned a superpower into a rogue country.

Huh? An Authority On Such Matters In O'Reilly's Mind..

Thanks For Keeping Us Informed Bill...

The Republican Party - 21st Century Version

With the country poised for its second wave election, Republican supporters are on a different page and disconnected from the rest of the country.

‘Hussein’ Chant at Palin Rally

From The New York Times: “John McCain! Not Hussein!”

Golly Gee Wiz - If It's A Good Enough Source For Sarah, It's A Good Enough Source For Me - Starbuck's Cup Quote of the Day, You Betcha!

"I used to think that going to the jungle made my life an adventure. However, after years of unusual work in exotic places, I realize that it is not how far off I go or how deep into the forest I walk that gives my life meaning. I see that living life fully is what makes life - anyone's life, no matter where they do or do not go - an adventure." --- Maria Fadiman Geographer, ethnobotanist and National Geographic Emerging Explorer.