Speculators are not "Investors"

I'm probably not alone in my view of the following statement by Neil Mellor, an analyst at Bank of New York Mellon.

Alongside the dismal outlook painted by leaders in the U.S. automotive industry, growing fears surrounding the drastic rate of disinflation across the globe and renewed fears for the U.S. banking sector, this has sent investors scrambling for cover once more.

If the "instruments" traded on Wall Street have no connection to a tangible economy, then what are they "investing" in? They aren't "investors," they are "speculators" in the worst sense of the term.

Let the speculative "instruments" die so that our society can rediscover an economics founded on fundamentals that benefit real people, not just the cuff-linked and spangled elite. There will be pain in the short run, but that sacrifice will build our character as a nation.

Sources:

Associated Press, Recession fears send world markets down, PAN PYLAS, November 20, 2008.

It's Not Just Bush

Here's a 1:19 min version of Ryan Harvey's song, "It's Not Just Bush."

It's not just Republicans either, "cuz you're voting for a class." This YouTube short doesn't quite do justice to the song, but it's a good teaser.



Check out Riot Folk

Our Veterans

For some reason I'm most deeply moved when ever I hear reporting about the situation of military veterans. I just listened to last week's podcast of Bill Moyers Journal hosted by Deborah Amos, which ended with a piece acknowledging Veteran's Day. At the end, I literally shed a tear.

I think my emotions relate to my sense of injustice. This is a sentiment that moves me on most issues, including the shaft the common working person is experiencing with an economic system that has been tilted in favor of the elite and a bailout that is also tilted that way.

Many military people aren't informed about the political factors that determine their fate. Some do, however, take the time to learn what Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler learned. They learn that most members of the military are pawns in a rich man's game. But that's not the theme of this essay.

Deborah Amos asked: "How should the rest of us who don't serve in the military honor the service of those who do?" She posed the question to veterans, and here are their responses.

JOHN CAMPBELL: Once the parades are over, then what happens? How do you fill in? How do you really continue to bring support for people that feel, in a lot of ways, so isolated? That's what we really think we're missing is this sense of community.

ANDREW ROBERTS: Putting the yellow ribbon in the window is great, but that's not supporting the troops. Right now- you know, if you look at World War II, there was all sorts of different things that were going on. There were little kids were running around collecting the rubber off their pencils to contribute to the war in some way. To support the troops in some way. And you just don't see that going on right now.

CARLOS LEON: First thing they could do is go to your local VA's and volunteer, or just go to say "hi" to a veteran. For a guy that's laying, or for a woman, that's laying in bed and can't really do much, and a total stranger comes by and says "I just wanted to come by and say good afternoon or good morning," that's a big deal.

DREW BROWN: Even just a handshake. Just "hey man, welcome home, and thank you for your service." That usually is enough. That warms my heart more than you know. And it's a huge thing, because veterans always feel this sense of separation from the society that they protect.
If you just take that little bit of time, you know, to just write a letter or, you know, get a care package or put little things in like, you know, a comic book for some of the guys or, you know, a magazine, that's more than enough. And it's very well appreciated.

KRISTEN ROUSE: A really important lesson that I learned in the military, is that you have to help people where you can. If you can do something for somebody, then do it. Whether that be, you know, serving the public in one way or another, military service, community service, political service, medical ser--, you know, whatever it is that you can do to help other people in this country and in other countries too.

ANDREW ROBERTS: There are many organizations out there that really work very hard, every single day, to support the troops in some capacity.

Sometimes just being a member of those organizations makes them more powerful. That's supporting the troops. That's actually doing something.

GENEVIEVE CHASE: The best thing people can do is be aware. Pick up the newspaper and read about what's going on.

ROMAN BACA: So many children are uneducated about the military, and I have kids walking up to me all the time and say "You're in the military? What's it like? What'd you do? Did you shoot somebody?" Parents need to get involved and educate their kids about a lot more.

ANDREW ROBERTS: I mean, I haven't even heard a call to service to join the military at all. So I think that that's an important first step to help galvanize the American population.

DON BUZNEY: I know when I came back from Vietnam, I was told that I could not be hired because I'd spent four years in the military. And my civilian counterparts had more civilian-type experience.

So, overcome that. Recognize the talent, the skills, the training that the men and women in uniform have and they bring back to. So, find a veteran. Give them a hug, and find them a job.

GENEVIEVE CHASE: I really encourage Americans who can to take a minute to write a letter to their congressman or to their senator, and say, "Can you please remember our vets?"

ANDREW ROBERTS: We just have to continue to remind our leaders that these are our veterans, and they've made tremendous, tremendous sacrifices for our nation. They ask for very little in return. But we owe it to them to make sure that we get them what they need when they come back.

Sources:

Bill Moyers Journal, Honoring Our Veterans, November 14, 2008.

Stop Blaming the Community Reinvestment Act

The right wing talking points, blathered by establishment media pundits, say that all those mortgages forced upon poor black people by the Community Reinvestment Act caused the bubble that caused the financial mess. Basically, it's all Bill Clinton's fault.

Well, Bill Clinton might share the blame as leader of the corporate wing of the Democratic Party, but it wasn't the Community Reinvestment Act that did it; that law was enacted in 1977. According to Aaron Pressman who blogs on Newsweek:

University of Michigan law professor Michael Barr testified back in February before the House Committee on Financial Services that 50% of subprime loans were made by mortgage service companies not subject comprehensive federal supervision and another 30% were made by affiliates of banks or thrifts which are not subject to routine supervision or examinations.

Hard for CRA to be the majority of the subprime problem when it wasn't even a majority of the subprime market. CRA loans had more regulatory supervision, required recipients to receive counseling before and after receiving the loans, CRA Banks were more than twice as likely as other lenders to retain originated loans in their portfolio and the CRA loans were lower intrest rates making them easier to pay (less subject to defaults). This is what the Traiger & Hinckley Study finds (PDF file here).

Paul Krugman provides us the data to show it also wasn't Fannie and Freddie. As I've explained, the hyper profits being made on Wall Street by selling bonds backed by everything, including new mortgages, and all the derivatives of those bonds (basically things like insurance on the bonds, bets on future prices of the bonds and the insurance, and other crazy poker game gizzmoes), generated GREAT DEMAND on Wall Street for new mortgages (like Ross Perot's great sucking sound). When you build profits on a house of cards, you can predict the outcome.

The regulators in Washington let the bubble grow and should have predicted the outcome. They are truly to blame, because regulators should know something about a history rife with speculative booms and busts.

And we know something about insiders walking off with the windfall profits. Our mission, if we choose to accept it, is to claw back those profits from the swindlers.

Sources:

BusinessWeek blog, Community Reinvestment Act had nothing to do with subprime crisis, Aaron Pressman, September 29, 2008.

Obama White House Staff

Updated December 1, 2008

Chief of Staff: Rahm Emanuel will serve as Obama's chief of staff, a position that is in charge of the White House operations. Emanuel steps down as an Illinois Congressman. He's considered very conservative on foreign affairs with particular note in ardent support of Israel.

Mona Sutphen will be deputy chief of staff under chief of staff is Rahm Emanuel. A member of Obama's transition team staff, Sutphen has been managing director of Stonebridge International, a strategic consulting firm based in Washington. Sutphen also was a foreign service officer and worked on the National Security Council in the Clinton White House.

Advisers and Assistants: Pete Rouse will be a senior adviser. Rouse was Obama's Senate chief of staff, a post he also held while working for former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

Jim Messina will be another deputy chief of staff. He is now director of personnel for Obama's transition team and was national chief of staff during the presidential campaign.

Philip Schiliro will be assistant to the president for legislative affairs when the new administration takes over Jan. 20. Schoilior is a longtime Capitol Hill aide.

Valerie Jarrett Klain will be a senior adviser and assistant to Obama for intergovernmental relations. She is a longtime Obama friend and supporter.

Cecilia Muñoz will serve as Director of Intergovernmental Affairs. Muñoz currently serves as Senior Vice President for the Office of Research, Advocacy, and Legislation at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), where she supervises all legislative and advocacy activities conducted by NCLR policy staff. Muñoz is the Chair of the Board of Center for Community Change, and serves on the U.S. Programs Board of the Open Society Institute and the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Philanthropies. [2]

Economic Policy:

Lawrence Summers will be Director of the National Economic Council (NEC), which serves as Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. Summers was Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton and recently served as President of Harvard. Summers is controversial as leaning strongly toward free market fundamentalism, for making statements about women being fundamentally less capable than men and for having a conflict with African American professor Cornell West that contributed to West's departure from Harvard.

Communications: In addition to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, several staff have been named.

Ellen Moran will be director of communications at the White House — in charge of getting Obama's message out. Considered an "outsider," she comes from being executive director of the EMILY's List — a Washington-based organization that backs female candidates who support abortion rights. She also has worked for the AFL-CIO.

Dan Pfeiffer will be deputy director of communications under Ellen Moran. He is communications director for Obama's presidential transition team. He helped managed the press operation on the Obama campaign.

Jonathan Favreau will serve as Director of Speechwriting. Jon Favreau served as Director of Speechwriting during the 2008 presidential campaign. He has worked for President-elect Obama since February 2005, when he joined Obama's United States Senate office as Speechwriter. Previously, Favreau served as Deputy Director of Speechwriting on John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.[2]

Vice Presidential Staff:

Ron Klain will serve as the Vice President's chief of staff, the same position he held for Vice President Al Gore.

Sources:

[1] Associated Press, Obama leaves Senate, names more White House aides, November 16, 2008.

[2] Change.gov (Obama's President-elect Web Site) President-Elect Barack Obama names two new White House staff members.

Who Caused the Cookie to Crumble?

The Associated Press coverage of the historic economic summit in Washington, DC the last two days summed up with this sobering indictment of US economic policy under both Republican and Democratic Party leadership:

Talk of blame was kept to a minimum, though many still hold the belief that the primary fault for the cascade of ruinous events lies with a U.S., where it has become the norm to offer easy credit, outsize rewards for high-risk investing, and lax oversight to the whole process.

Also remember: It wasn't an accident, as if they thought the bottle wouldn't break when they threw it on the ground. The economic policies were designed to create speculative expansion (a phony economic bubble). Insiders knew how to reap huge profits before the inevitable bubble burst. They also knew that the vast majority of people would get hammered, but some like to argue that "the economy grew a lot during the expansion." It grew alright, for a small slice of insiders (it's that 'wealth distribution' detail that is so easy to overlook). And "the insiders" include Democratic Party people too, not just Republicans.

On a more specific here's who's responsible for the collapse.

Sources:

Associated Press, Econ summit vows action — takes few concrete steps, November 15, 2008.

Obama: Get Beyond Clintons

The Clintons represent the corporate wing of the Democratic Party. They're the ones who have made windfall profits while driving the economy into the ground: NAFTA, 1996 Telecommunications Act, allowing speculative investment banks to merge with commercial banks (roll-back of the Glass-Stegal Act).

Obama needs to avoid Clinton era people as cabinet members, like Larry Summers being considered for Treasury. We want change, and Hilary Clinton for Secretary of State would represent the status quo.

It is OK to have Clinton era people help with the transition, given their practical experience with the mechanics of how the White House works. There are also any number of ways to benefit from Clinton era people for advice without giving them Cabinet posts. But Obama has to get beyond the Clinton era people if his message of change is to have legitimacy.

Fuck'n Funny Joe

His wife is worse than the FCC, Joe Scarborough's use of the word "Fuck" on the air, and his colleagues' responses, is really funny. A must-see:

"Oh shit, I didn't say "fuck" on the air did I?"

The commentary on "the steady nature of Barack Obama," and his campaign, is interesting to hear on establishment media aside from the f-word.

Other copies of the Clip:





Spoof Version:



Sources:

Ahhhh... Fall

Sources:

Photo Credit: Boodie

US Auto Industry Demise

OK. Lets face it. The US Empire is crumbling as evidenced by the business failures of GM, Ford and Chrysler. It's not as if they didn't have a warning, twice, with two gasoline price shocks in the 1970s. Big gas guzzlers are dopey.

Unfortunately, Empires are dopey, which is why history is littered with tales of their demise. But I get ahead of myself.

Just as many of us saw this bubble burst coming, we also saw the unpopularity of the Proud American gas guzzler coming. I'm convinced that picking up the phone and talking to the people in charge, if you can get thru to them, is what we need to do. They are firgg'n out of touch. Any one of us could waltz in, learn the administrivia and be 10k ahead of them on the Big Picture. So, we could call. Offer our advice. Make Friends. Influence the idiots... er, I mean, the Titans of Industry (Financial for the most part).

ERrrr..... Anger is an acceptable response in this historic moment. Now is when we must reflect on the wisdom of the Ghandis and Kings.

And now, and ad from our Sponsors: (note how I capitalize "Sponsors" because they are SOOOOOOooooo important [sic.], which is why they're being bailed out with the banks):


Sources:

Honor Smedley Butler on Veteran's Day

Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, USMC,

• 1881 - 1940
  
• Two-time recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor

"I spent 33 years and 4 months in active service as a member of our country's most agile military force--the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to Major General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I suspected I was part of a racket all the time. Now I am sure of it." -- Smedley. D. Butler

How to Stop Wars of Empire:

"A few profit – and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war." -- Smedley. D. Butler

It is for this reason that the US Congress must investigate, without immunity, war profiteering during the Bush years. The findings must be prosecuted. The ill-begotten profits, tax-payer dollars, must be clawed back and returned to the US Treasury. I urge veterans to join the broad-based movement to make this happen.

Famous Butler Essay: War is a Racket

Post Script: Smedley Butler also exposed a group of wealthy industrialists who plotted a military coup to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934 [1].

Sources:

History Today, An American coup d'etat? (plot against Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1934) November 1, 1995, vol.45, Issue 11, Clayton Cramer.

Relax to Nordic Beauty

The Beauty of the Nordic Countries

Sources:

YouTube Channel: Elindomiel

Next Steps

Like FDR said after he was elected in 1932, "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it." -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

What do we want?

• Out of Iraq with No Permanent Bases
  
• No Escalation in Afghanistan (It's a dry quagmire)
  
• Universal Health Care with No Insurance Middle-man
  
• Election Reform One person, One voice, One vote, no corporate speech nor money
  
• Fair Trade not Corporate Free Trade
  
• Spread the Wealth down to the people from whom it was taken over the last few decades
  
• Enforce Environmental Laws
  
• Investigate and Prosecute the Crimes of the Bush Administration
  

That's just for starters.

Unity: Is it Possible?

I've been an advocate for holding Bush administration officials accountable for their criminal acts. Impunity begets a culture of high crimes and misdemeanors, a general erosion of civility.

This nation faces a serious challenge of balancing accountability while trying to spawn enough unity to solve some serious challenges.

My recommendation would be for a few select members of Congress to take on the issue of accountability with deep probing investigations. The information will come out and speak for itself. The natural course of action will be revealed.

The Obama White House can stay above that fray.

Early Exit Poll Presidential Results

First news in from Kentucky, which goes to McCain with 8 electoral votes. Obama take Vermont with 3 electoral votes.

Update:

Then the bottom fell out for John McCain. ;-)

Sources:

MSNBC Exit Polls updated every two minutes.

Four Key States to Watch

If Obama wins any two of the following states, then it is over for McCain.

• Florida
  
• Ohio
  
• Pennsylvania
  
• Virginia
  

Early Exit Polls 2008

Early exit polling information released to the public is limited to voter demographics and their general opinions, rather than results of how people voted. This is to avoid influencing the perceptions of voters who vote later in the Western states.


Early Exit Poll Results Favor Obama:

• It's the Economy Stupid: Six in 10 voters picked the economy as the most important issue facing the nation. Many people associate the economic troubles with the deregulatory ideology of the Republican Party.
  
• To Repeat, "It's the Economy": 5 in 6 people are very or somewhat worried the current economic crisis will harm their family's finances over the next year.
  
• Health Care: wo-thirds of voters said they're worried about being able to afford the health care. This issue generally breaks in favor of the Democratic Party.
  
• New Voters: One in 10 voters said they were voting this year for the first time, and that group was disproportionately young and nonwhite.
  
• Survey Under-Estimates? A quarter of new voters said they don't have landline phones at home, only cell phones. Most surveys are conducted by landline phones, suggesting that polls might have under-counted these people who are likely Obama voters, due to age and voter registration efforts by Obama's campaign.
  

Early results the Might Work Against Obama:

• White Evangelical Turn-out: One in four voters were white born-again evangelical Christians. It is important to note, however, that Obama is an evangelical and there is a strong tradition of progressive evangelicals who take seriously their stewardship of the Earth.
  
• Offshore Drilling: Two-thirds favor drilling for oil offshore in U.S. waters where it is not allowed now.
  

Sources:

Nov4

Sources:

Photo Credit: Boodie

Blog Modifications Underway

Please Excuse the "Read More" goofiness. I'm trying to sort it out. The approach I'm trying to use forces every page to have a "Read More" note even if there isn't anything more to read.

Chrysler Sold!

It's true. Lets not pretend that America hasn't been in decline for decades. We recently hear "Chrysler might be sold" as if it still has any semblance of an American icon.

Yes. Chrysler has been sold.

"In 1998 Chrysler was sold to Daimler-Benz, forming DaimlerChrysler AG. Chrysler Corporation then was legally renamed DaimlerChrysler Motors Company LLC, while its total operations began doing business as Chrysler Group. This was initially declared to be a merger of equals, but it quickly became evident that Daimler-Benz was the dominant partner." [1]

"DaimlerChrysler announced on 14 May 2007 that it would sell Chrysler to Cerberus Capital Management of New York, a private equity firm that specializes in restructuring troubled companies."

Sources:

1. Thanks to who ever loaded this onto Wikipedia.