There’s a chill wind blowing through Casa Clinton tonight.
Last week Hillary Clinton was passed over – blatantly and callously by Obama - as THE obvious Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate. Then, adding insult to injury, the Republicans – the ‘boy’s club’ - stole the Democratic convention thunder by announcing a woman - Sarah Louise Palin - as the Republican choice for VP.
Ms. Palin’s selection piled salt into the already festering wound of Mrs. Clinton’s political ambitions and self-esteem.
The move by McCain not only accommodated the female voter - indeed checkmated the potential Democratic Party’s lock on it - it was done using someone with credentials that would be a mere footnote on Mrs. Clinton’s resume.
The boldness of the selection left many Democrats stunned, gasping like beached fish. Who’d have thought McCain could have come up with such a plan? Republics historically, despite having numbers of excellent female members, are known for their selection of women for administrative positions as mere window dressing, a la Rice, while the boys do the important jobs.
With the female vote already stirred up and with 50% of voter’s female, hiring a female VP was an obvious move that Obama missed. Did he think that by passing over Hillary that these motivated voters would simply go away? The stupidity of his lack of foresight is mind-boggling.
Democrats were stunned further in their horrified realization that the golden and historic opportunity to break two glass ceilings in one fell swoop had been lost forever. Gone. They had handed the victorious playing piece of the first female president to the opposition, gift-wrapped, with a bow.
Ms. Palin seems tailor made for the job.Pretty. A life member of the NRA (what are the chances?). The mother of a large Christian family. The all-American woman; well traveled. Pretty. A pregnant daughter does no harm; it proves she’s part of the real world. Sarah has killed her own meat, is an expert at firing an M-16 and drives big snow machines. Pretty. The Republicans must be salivating.
As long as she doesn’t prove to be as dumb as a pile of rocks, the Republican’s can start practicing singing “Hail to the Chief” tomorrow after lunch.
After Hillary’s speech at the Democratic convention last week it was glaringly clear to all that Obama had made a whopping mistake in selecting Biden. Here, throwing her clout behind him was a political giant; eloquent, wise, experienced, fierce and tough. With enough political momentum to bulldoze the Republicans out of the White House for 16 years – 4 terms. And in what will become know in history as the ‘mother of all screw-ups,’ Obama ignored her. He turned away a king maker. What a dope.
Speaking of which, Palin admitted to smoking the wacky-backy openly and without repercussion. Nobody cared. There are few Americans who have not wrapped their lips around a cracking dube, including a significant number of members of congress. Indeed it is alleged that our illustrious sitting President may have smoked a bale or two of Jamaican Gold back in the day, before he found Jesus and Dick Cheney.
Sarah, a seemingly pleasant governor from the largest, oil-rich, U.S. state, could well become what Hillary Rodham Clinton should have been - what had been Hillary’s manifest destiny; the first female President of the United States of America.
Good for her.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
How Bush can deliver the Presidency to McCain.
As the Presidential election draws closer, George Bush is keeping a not-so-well hidden October Surprise up his sleeve.
A little something that has Obama’s camp a smidge nervous and McCain's a tad smug.
No matter how good a campaign Obama runs, no matter what the 'hey, check out my teeth' Biden brings to the table, no matter how many babies are kissed, Bush has the power to take it all away in an instant.
And what is that Ace-in-the-Hole you ask? You already know what it is; an attack on Iran.
It is doubtful that America would switch political horses in the midst of an active military campaign, especially one with such potential destructive capability as a run-in with Iran has.
Military uncertainty has a way of uniting us behind a leader and as such the election could become not so much of a race as a relay as one Republican hands off to another.
Iran is a confrontation for which we are amply ready. We have enough steel, in the form of aircraft carriers and their accoutrements, off the Iranian shore to raise the anticipatory blood-pressure of local Middle East governments significantly. These dogs of war are straining on their leashes having missed out, for the most part, on the action in Iraq. Bush knows it, McCain knows it and so does Omama.
To counter, and perhaps in full realization of this, Obama has taken a more assertive professional stance since Biden has come on board. Obama has done this particularly with regard to making more effective the UN sanctions against Iran, to take the pressure off Israel.
Barack has to hone to perfection his Presidential 'acting-as-if' approach from now until Election Day if he is to have any hope at all at countering that dastardly spoiler to his chances of election.
More importantly, he should expect the Iranian incursion as a given so that it's no surprise for him or for us. He has a tough road ahead of him in convincing the voting public that he should be our leader if, perhaps when, Bush decides to play the Iranian card however late in the day.
A little something that has Obama’s camp a smidge nervous and McCain's a tad smug.
No matter how good a campaign Obama runs, no matter what the 'hey, check out my teeth' Biden brings to the table, no matter how many babies are kissed, Bush has the power to take it all away in an instant.
And what is that Ace-in-the-Hole you ask? You already know what it is; an attack on Iran.
It is doubtful that America would switch political horses in the midst of an active military campaign, especially one with such potential destructive capability as a run-in with Iran has.
Military uncertainty has a way of uniting us behind a leader and as such the election could become not so much of a race as a relay as one Republican hands off to another.
Iran is a confrontation for which we are amply ready. We have enough steel, in the form of aircraft carriers and their accoutrements, off the Iranian shore to raise the anticipatory blood-pressure of local Middle East governments significantly. These dogs of war are straining on their leashes having missed out, for the most part, on the action in Iraq. Bush knows it, McCain knows it and so does Omama.
To counter, and perhaps in full realization of this, Obama has taken a more assertive professional stance since Biden has come on board. Obama has done this particularly with regard to making more effective the UN sanctions against Iran, to take the pressure off Israel.
Barack has to hone to perfection his Presidential 'acting-as-if' approach from now until Election Day if he is to have any hope at all at countering that dastardly spoiler to his chances of election.
More importantly, he should expect the Iranian incursion as a given so that it's no surprise for him or for us. He has a tough road ahead of him in convincing the voting public that he should be our leader if, perhaps when, Bush decides to play the Iranian card however late in the day.
Crash a Boeing 777. Get a Medal from British Airways
They say that if it looks like a duck, flies like a duck and walks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.
And so it was when BA flight #38 crashed short of the runway at Heathrow Airport in England on January 17, 2008. It landed heavily and fortunately there were only nine injuries and no fatalities.
Initial thoughts were that it has run out of fuel – THE major ‘no, no’ for a pilot, THE worst of mortal sins, THE big Kahuna of screw ups – but British Airways insisted that we all wait for the investigation and promptly gave the pilots and crew medals.
In fact in the pre-launch days of ButlerReport our editor argued in a number of short articles strongly in favor of the ‘out of fuel’ theory based on considerable insider aviation knowledge from a friend of a friend who dates the sister of a pilot.
The BA reports that have been made available stated that on approach to the airport the autopilot ordered an increase of engine power and that none was available; first on one engine followed by a reduction in power on the second engine, eight seconds later. The pilots were left to coast - glide – and control-crash at the end of the runway. On crashing there was no fire or fuel leak emergency.
After seven months of testing, analysis and head scratching all of the obvious reasons for the crash have been ruled out. The fuels pumps tested well, the flight computer checked out as did the fuel management system, no water or contaminants in the fuel, no weather anomalies and the rest of the plane seems to have been working fine.
The smoking gun of running out of fuel lies in the fact that the engine power reductions were eight seconds apart - as opposed to both engines losing power at the same time - a typical response for fuel starved engines.
The investigation has taken a surprisingly long time to complete considering the plane had the good manners to land in Britain, right next to a British Airways facility and did not burn or get destroyed. Tools, technicians, equipment were readily available. It was, may I say, a technically perfect crash for the investigator. It could only have been better if it had slid to a halt in a hanger.
Major air crashes have been analyzed and their results released far more quickly than this one. One has to wonder why.
At risk of course is a potentially gigantic lawsuit if the pilots were indeed negligent and flew into London low on fuel, “on fumes” as we say in the car-driving business. Boeing certainly wants to rule out any liability on its part for the same reason.
The pilots - one of whom was featured as a bit of a ladies man in a racy newspaper article - who were praised as ‘heroes’ (who isn’t a hero these days?) have got to be biting their nails down to the quick. The consequences to their career and possibly their personal fortunes for this potentially major faux pas are unimaginable, except that future career options may include working for that Scottish sounding food company – McDonalds.
The investigation, led by the British Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), has kept the media apprised with the odd update now and again to keep the sharks at bay. One hopes there is nothing iffy going on and British Airways are not trying the public relations ‘last year’ tactic of letting the report slide into next year so the press will refer to it as “last year’s crash…” which makes it all the more disinteresting. Mere speculation on my part of course as the British establishment are well known for their fairness, humility and transparency in matters that have the potential to make them look bad.
We may as well wait a little longer and see what news waddles out of the final report.
Background:
British Airways Flight 38 (call sign Speedbird 38) was a scheduled flight from Beijing Capital International Airport which crash landed just short of the runway at its destination, Heathrow Airport, London, on 17 January 2008 after an 8100 kilometer (4400 nm) flight. There were no fatalities, but nine people sustained injuries. It was the first accident that resulted in a Boeing 777 hull loss.
Overview of results so far at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_38
And so it was when BA flight #38 crashed short of the runway at Heathrow Airport in England on January 17, 2008. It landed heavily and fortunately there were only nine injuries and no fatalities.
Initial thoughts were that it has run out of fuel – THE major ‘no, no’ for a pilot, THE worst of mortal sins, THE big Kahuna of screw ups – but British Airways insisted that we all wait for the investigation and promptly gave the pilots and crew medals.
In fact in the pre-launch days of ButlerReport our editor argued in a number of short articles strongly in favor of the ‘out of fuel’ theory based on considerable insider aviation knowledge from a friend of a friend who dates the sister of a pilot.
The BA reports that have been made available stated that on approach to the airport the autopilot ordered an increase of engine power and that none was available; first on one engine followed by a reduction in power on the second engine, eight seconds later. The pilots were left to coast - glide – and control-crash at the end of the runway. On crashing there was no fire or fuel leak emergency.
After seven months of testing, analysis and head scratching all of the obvious reasons for the crash have been ruled out. The fuels pumps tested well, the flight computer checked out as did the fuel management system, no water or contaminants in the fuel, no weather anomalies and the rest of the plane seems to have been working fine.
The smoking gun of running out of fuel lies in the fact that the engine power reductions were eight seconds apart - as opposed to both engines losing power at the same time - a typical response for fuel starved engines.
The investigation has taken a surprisingly long time to complete considering the plane had the good manners to land in Britain, right next to a British Airways facility and did not burn or get destroyed. Tools, technicians, equipment were readily available. It was, may I say, a technically perfect crash for the investigator. It could only have been better if it had slid to a halt in a hanger.
Major air crashes have been analyzed and their results released far more quickly than this one. One has to wonder why.
At risk of course is a potentially gigantic lawsuit if the pilots were indeed negligent and flew into London low on fuel, “on fumes” as we say in the car-driving business. Boeing certainly wants to rule out any liability on its part for the same reason.
The pilots - one of whom was featured as a bit of a ladies man in a racy newspaper article - who were praised as ‘heroes’ (who isn’t a hero these days?) have got to be biting their nails down to the quick. The consequences to their career and possibly their personal fortunes for this potentially major faux pas are unimaginable, except that future career options may include working for that Scottish sounding food company – McDonalds.
The investigation, led by the British Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), has kept the media apprised with the odd update now and again to keep the sharks at bay. One hopes there is nothing iffy going on and British Airways are not trying the public relations ‘last year’ tactic of letting the report slide into next year so the press will refer to it as “last year’s crash…” which makes it all the more disinteresting. Mere speculation on my part of course as the British establishment are well known for their fairness, humility and transparency in matters that have the potential to make them look bad.
We may as well wait a little longer and see what news waddles out of the final report.
Background:
British Airways Flight 38 (call sign Speedbird 38) was a scheduled flight from Beijing Capital International Airport which crash landed just short of the runway at its destination, Heathrow Airport, London, on 17 January 2008 after an 8100 kilometer (4400 nm) flight. There were no fatalities, but nine people sustained injuries. It was the first accident that resulted in a Boeing 777 hull loss.
Overview of results so far at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_38
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Iraq: Bush's Blunder
I have to ask. Are we the dumbest nation on earth?
On one hand we impeach a president for a lying about having oral sex with an intern and on the other we allow a president and his henchmen to go to war in Iraq without a conceivable outcome, no personal or fiscal responsibility or exit strategy.
Let's take a quick look at the cost of the U.S. invasion of Iraq so far. The Iraqi numbers are a smidge elastic as we, to quote General Tommy Franks, "don't do body counts." As of today's date:
On one hand we impeach a president for a lying about having oral sex with an intern and on the other we allow a president and his henchmen to go to war in Iraq without a conceivable outcome, no personal or fiscal responsibility or exit strategy.
Let's take a quick look at the cost of the U.S. invasion of Iraq so far. The Iraqi numbers are a smidge elastic as we, to quote General Tommy Franks, "don't do body counts." As of today's date:
- US military deaths in Iraq war: 4,143
- Wounded: 30,509. Wounded includes maiming, head injuries, amputations, dismemberment.
- Iraqi civilian deaths from 86,658 - 94,553 civilian deaths in Iraq since the U.S. arrived there. Other estimates exceed 150,000 to 1.25 million.
- Iraqi Injuries: Unknown
- Iraqis Displaced: Unknown
- Cost estimate: $3 trillion for the cost of the war and the clean up afterwards including long term treatment of our soldiers, the wearing out and replacement of military equipment, rebuilding Iraq.
- Who pays the bill: US taxpayers.
- Who benefits? To be determined.
The mission on entering Iraq was changed from a search for weapons of mass destruction - when they were found not to exist - to a "war on terror." I've got news for you: there is no such thing as a war on terror any more than there can be a war on outrage or anger. Have a war on hunger, cancer, or poverty. At least those are tangible.
The people who are fighting us in Iraq, labeled as insurgents and terrorists, are in fact religious and cultural groups, fanatics perhaps, who are opposed to our being there. They have been in Iraq and the environs a lot longer than we. Their response to our presence is a perfectly normal and healthy response; one that we Americans would gladly give an invader to our country.
After his capture, Saddam Hussein told his interrogators that what he had said about weapons of mass destruction before the invasion was bluster to keep the Iranians - a very real daily threat - at bay. Bush accused him of massacring his own people. True, but compared to what we have done in Iraq, Hussein looks like a rank amateur. At the end of the day there wasn't even the slimmest of connections between weapons of mass destruction, 9/11, Al-Queda, Osama and Iraq.
One Man
The reality is that we are facing one man, Osama bin Laden, who, with a pocket-full of family cash and 19 highjackers, killed 2,974 people from 90 different countries, destroyed the World Trade Centers, four airliners and put, unimpeded, a large hole in the center of U.S. Defense, the Pentagon. Bin Laden, the brains of the operation succeeded in accomplishing what seven years of war, untold expense and loss of life have not repaired, unraveling the social fabric of the United States.
Bin Laden is linked to an organization that gave Bush a focus to respond to in his call for revenge because having just one person responsible, while true, would have been incomprehensible and a hard sell to the gullible (us); al-Qaeda (meaning 'database,' formed in 1988 to fight the Russians in Afghanistan).
Unfortunately due to its inherent secrecy and structure of semi-autonomous cells, al-Qaeda's size and degree of responsibility for particular attacks are difficult to establish if at all, its leaders and operatives geographically dispersed.
We fought groups we named as al-Qaeda's (they have no distinguishing marks or uniforms) - an unconventional enemy - with conventional methods and lost; much as the British did when our founders fought them. Silence doesn't signify that we've won the hearts and minds of the Iraqis, it means we've killed the opposition or they're waiting it our for us to leave. The more adequate response to catching Bin Laden would have been to allow our military - our special forces - to pursue their own actions in finding him using covert means.
Civil Rights
In doing all of this, we as Americans have seen our civil rights eroded, for example, when we transfer money, it's recorded and reported - lest we be terrorists or money launderers. Huge databases of information have been compiled on each and every one of us. At political rallies protesters are put in special 'protest pens.' We have now a special category of prisoner, for ones held on U.S. territory without charge, recourse to their detainment, without representation or hope of justice in Guantanamo Bay. Neither they - the prisoners - not we, know why there are being held. We use mercenaries to fight our wars and call them "Security Contractors," to whom we have paid $100 billion to date. Moreover, unlike our military, we made the mercenaries immune from prosecution. Torture is a routine practice for prisoners, condoned by our president. We no longer televise the return or burial of our soldiers and our war coverage is severely censored.
Of course even the most mentally challenged among us know that the country we should be invading is the self proclaimed 'in your face' soon-to-have-nuclear-weapons-that'll-fit-on-top-of-our-rockets Iran. Who knows? We may yet pay them a visit as it might help secure a Republican president.
Bushes inner circle included Cheney, Rumsfeld ("look at me I can stand at my desk for eight hours") , Karl Rove. Colin Powell disappeared after his mistruth to the UN. Condoleezza Rice was never one of the guys, and was, and still is, used as a runner for Cheney and Bush. Eventually public outrage got Rumsfeld the boot and Rove got out when the vultures began to circle. Cheney is hardly ever heard from any more. As a lame duck president Bush has become increasingly irrelevant. Just when we needed him the most. The war, however, goes on.
While the buck stops at Bush, and so it should, both Cheney and Rumsfeld are career politicians and knew exactly what they were doing. They lied to the American people and continue to deny it, hiding behind executive privilege and arguing about semantics much as Clinton did about the definition of the word "is."
Our politicians in the White House are a living example of absolute power corrupting absolutely; without any personal responsibility for their actions. Let's not forget: Our soldiers were sent into battle with piss-poor vehicle armor, low on ammunition and no personal protection. The President declared "Mission Accomplished," years ago. In January, when the as yet to be elected new president is sworn in, Bush, Cheney and their merry men - and woman - will pack up their stuff and quietly slip away, without any accountability.
So what have we achieved in Iraq? Bottom line - nothing. We have created a power vacuum which will be filled by Iran and Syria as soon as we leave.
Meanwhile, bin Laden remains at large.
[http://www.butlerreport.com/BREditorialBushesblunder.html]
10 reasons why Barack Obama won't be President
1. A percentage of people are emerging who say they won’t vote for a man of color no matter what.
2. Obama’s inexperience in politics and life is working against him. Being a nice guy isn’t a presidential qualification.
3. If McCain picks a great Vice President – like Colin Powell - the Reps have it in the bag.
4. Obama’s VP pick will sink him right away unless he picks Hillary Clinton. She is the only Democrat with the power, experience and votes to bring home the prize. No one else comes close. Current Vice Presidential balloons demonstrate that Obama is clearly out of touch with political reality - see elitism point below.
5. We’re off to war again – this time with Iran and we’re saber rattling with Russia. Incumbent parties at time of war generally stay in place. Who wants to risk our troops to a new, inexperienced, President?
6. Barack and his wife’s reported elitist statures are beginning to show through the veneer. Winning the Presidency is a down and dirty job; there’s no getting around that.
7. Obama's trip to the Middle East and Europe, while certainly educational and fun, did nothing to lift his poll numbers. A quick visit does not experience make.
8. John Edwards woes aren’t helping. Unless Condi Rice comes out of the closet in the next 60 days, that balance will stay decidedly against him.
9. The Jesus effect is wearing off. Obama's popularity peaked too early.
10. Ralph Nader is back. He will easily pick up 3 - 6% of Democratic votes which means Obama needs a double digit lead on election day. The ghost of 2000 isn’t out of sight yet.
There you have it - 10 reasons.
Of course, I could be wrong.
Or not.
2. Obama’s inexperience in politics and life is working against him. Being a nice guy isn’t a presidential qualification.
3. If McCain picks a great Vice President – like Colin Powell - the Reps have it in the bag.
4. Obama’s VP pick will sink him right away unless he picks Hillary Clinton. She is the only Democrat with the power, experience and votes to bring home the prize. No one else comes close. Current Vice Presidential balloons demonstrate that Obama is clearly out of touch with political reality - see elitism point below.
5. We’re off to war again – this time with Iran and we’re saber rattling with Russia. Incumbent parties at time of war generally stay in place. Who wants to risk our troops to a new, inexperienced, President?
6. Barack and his wife’s reported elitist statures are beginning to show through the veneer. Winning the Presidency is a down and dirty job; there’s no getting around that.
7. Obama's trip to the Middle East and Europe, while certainly educational and fun, did nothing to lift his poll numbers. A quick visit does not experience make.
8. John Edwards woes aren’t helping. Unless Condi Rice comes out of the closet in the next 60 days, that balance will stay decidedly against him.
9. The Jesus effect is wearing off. Obama's popularity peaked too early.
10. Ralph Nader is back. He will easily pick up 3 - 6% of Democratic votes which means Obama needs a double digit lead on election day. The ghost of 2000 isn’t out of sight yet.
There you have it - 10 reasons.
Of course, I could be wrong.
Or not.
To win Obama has to announce Hillary Clinton as Vice Presidential candidate. And soon.
Breaking News July 28, 2008 - updated August 11, 2008
After weeks of speculating, Barak Obama is to announce Hillary Rodham Clinton as his running mate for the upcoming Presidential Election, possibly as soon as this week. He has to.
Barak has little choice in the matter - the fact is he needs Clinton if he is to win the Presidency. He can't win the election alone or with an unknown VP candidate as his recent alarming dip in the polls have shown. Clinton brings the hammer-blow to the table; enough to convince skeptical voters that Obama as President is a winning proposition for the country.
Clinton also brings with her street-cred in Washington, the Democratic Party and indeed the world, as a tough, outspoken and seasoned politician. She has a lifetime of political experience Obama is so lacking, with eight years in the White House and as a two term Senator in one of the toughest States in the Union, New York.
Clinton has been quiet since suspending her own campaign, retiring her campaign debt and preparing her way for the forthcoming Democratic Convention. This writer believes that she knew this moment would come and it has.
Mrs. Clinton is at a point in her life where she knows that she will either be remembered as the Senator from New York or as the next Vice President of the United States. Having won such support during her own campaign she is very much focused on the latter. Mrs. Clinton is not going to walk away from the VP slot and pressure has been on Obama to pick her. Doing so will ensure his election as President. Not doing so will allow a unique moment in history to slip away as McCain picks a VP that the Republicans will rally behind and win the election.
Remember too that the Democratic vote is once again faced by critical dilution as Ralph Nader throws his hat in the ring. His candidacy risks absorbing those critical 3 to 6% of votes that could snatch the Presidency from right under the noses of even the best Democratic candidate. A lesson hard learned in 2000.
Hillary is the best and most logical choice. More so since Obama's Grand Tour in the Middle East and Europe which has had a disappointing return on investment and left voters relatively unimpressed. Unable to break out on his own, Obama needs to buy in his credibility as world leader and price of that ticket is Hillary Rodham Clinton.
After weeks of speculating, Barak Obama is to announce Hillary Rodham Clinton as his running mate for the upcoming Presidential Election, possibly as soon as this week. He has to.
Barak has little choice in the matter - the fact is he needs Clinton if he is to win the Presidency. He can't win the election alone or with an unknown VP candidate as his recent alarming dip in the polls have shown. Clinton brings the hammer-blow to the table; enough to convince skeptical voters that Obama as President is a winning proposition for the country.
Clinton also brings with her street-cred in Washington, the Democratic Party and indeed the world, as a tough, outspoken and seasoned politician. She has a lifetime of political experience Obama is so lacking, with eight years in the White House and as a two term Senator in one of the toughest States in the Union, New York.
Clinton has been quiet since suspending her own campaign, retiring her campaign debt and preparing her way for the forthcoming Democratic Convention. This writer believes that she knew this moment would come and it has.
Mrs. Clinton is at a point in her life where she knows that she will either be remembered as the Senator from New York or as the next Vice President of the United States. Having won such support during her own campaign she is very much focused on the latter. Mrs. Clinton is not going to walk away from the VP slot and pressure has been on Obama to pick her. Doing so will ensure his election as President. Not doing so will allow a unique moment in history to slip away as McCain picks a VP that the Republicans will rally behind and win the election.
Remember too that the Democratic vote is once again faced by critical dilution as Ralph Nader throws his hat in the ring. His candidacy risks absorbing those critical 3 to 6% of votes that could snatch the Presidency from right under the noses of even the best Democratic candidate. A lesson hard learned in 2000.
Hillary is the best and most logical choice. More so since Obama's Grand Tour in the Middle East and Europe which has had a disappointing return on investment and left voters relatively unimpressed. Unable to break out on his own, Obama needs to buy in his credibility as world leader and price of that ticket is Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The World Owes China an Apology
When we are invited to a home as a guest we are obliged to behave in a certain way.The invitation is not an opportunity to criticize the host’s family. Nor to call into question the host’s culture, mores or morals. We should not criticize the host’s staff, their food, their home, their ways. To do so would make us unforgivably bad guests and brings shame on all involved.
That said, this is exactly what have done to China in response to their hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games.
President Bush this week, opening the new U.S. embassy in China criticized what he perceived as China’s populations inability to speak out. His comments were inappropriate, out of context and rude; and did little to forge a bridge between our two inter-dependent cultures.
Athletes arrived in Beijing wearing face masks. This was an immature gesture; a slap in the face to a welcoming nation. China has literally moved mountains to ensure clean air for athletes. If air quality offends these visitors they had the option of not attending.
China is not some insignificant country. It is the a world Superpower, second only to the U.S. but with less debt. Indeed China carries a lot of American’s debt and it’s investment in our currency keeps the ailing dollar afloat. It is the seat of one of the earliest human civilizations. It has its own space program – an undertaking enjoyed by only three other continents – the U.S., Russian and Europe.
China was a nation and a culture long before America was conceived. It used piped natural gas when Europe was Dark Continent. It had armada of ocean going vessels – a navy of 50,000 marines - in the 1100s, long before Europeans considered the notion that the earth might not be flat.
The Chinese invented gunpowder, paper, toilet paper, - a plethora of innovations developed centuries - millennia - prior to their discovery in the Western world. It is a home to 1.33 billion people – 1/6th of the world’s population; a country equal in size to the United States. China is a country in transition racing from ancient to modern times at breakneck speed. They are second only to the U.S. in military might.
Yet we speak of the Chinese as if they are barbarians, that their differences make them and their culture less than ours. How pompous and disingenuous - how rude of us.Respect is what is needed.
Respect for the country, its people and culture. We may not see eye to eye on some issues with China but now is not the time, the Olympics are certainly not the venue, to air those opinions.
We are in China to honor the country, the event and the athletes. And when in Rome....
That said, this is exactly what have done to China in response to their hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games.
President Bush this week, opening the new U.S. embassy in China criticized what he perceived as China’s populations inability to speak out. His comments were inappropriate, out of context and rude; and did little to forge a bridge between our two inter-dependent cultures.
Athletes arrived in Beijing wearing face masks. This was an immature gesture; a slap in the face to a welcoming nation. China has literally moved mountains to ensure clean air for athletes. If air quality offends these visitors they had the option of not attending.
China is not some insignificant country. It is the a world Superpower, second only to the U.S. but with less debt. Indeed China carries a lot of American’s debt and it’s investment in our currency keeps the ailing dollar afloat. It is the seat of one of the earliest human civilizations. It has its own space program – an undertaking enjoyed by only three other continents – the U.S., Russian and Europe.
China was a nation and a culture long before America was conceived. It used piped natural gas when Europe was Dark Continent. It had armada of ocean going vessels – a navy of 50,000 marines - in the 1100s, long before Europeans considered the notion that the earth might not be flat.
The Chinese invented gunpowder, paper, toilet paper, - a plethora of innovations developed centuries - millennia - prior to their discovery in the Western world. It is a home to 1.33 billion people – 1/6th of the world’s population; a country equal in size to the United States. China is a country in transition racing from ancient to modern times at breakneck speed. They are second only to the U.S. in military might.
Yet we speak of the Chinese as if they are barbarians, that their differences make them and their culture less than ours. How pompous and disingenuous - how rude of us.Respect is what is needed.
Respect for the country, its people and culture. We may not see eye to eye on some issues with China but now is not the time, the Olympics are certainly not the venue, to air those opinions.
We are in China to honor the country, the event and the athletes. And when in Rome....
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Georgia on our minds
There’s a saying that if you’re going to kick the tiger in the ass you’d better know where his teeth are. Georgia found that out over the past week.
I have to ask; what was Georgia thinking in taking on the imperial might of the Russian army? And why did a “U.S. Official” describe Russia’s response as ‘disproportionate’? Worse, why is our president, Vice President and presidential hopeful John McCain warning Russia about ‘consequences’?
Russia has more to show here than its wish to stop Georgia’s invasion – this is a demonstration for the world lest we forget what Russia is capable of. And the Russians are a tough bunch. They have been aching, according to recent news reports, to reclaim a place in the world as a superpower. Georgia’s aggression has obliged them well. And Russia has done nothing if not live up to its word that it would defend the breakaway provinces; it seems as though they have bulldozed much of the territories into the ground.
American’s response would better be left unsaid. There are no’ disproportionate response’s in war - war is an escalation of violence. Is the use of American military might – air force, bombs, artillery bombardment, cruise missiles, Apache helicopter strikes – a disproportionate response against an attack on a convoy by a militia armed with AK’s and RPGs? How about two nukes on civilian populations – events remembered by the Japanese recently. The fact is it doesn't matter whether you kill the fly with a swatter or a sledge-hammer; dead is dead. The notion of disproportionate response is, for the want of a better word, “silly;” there’s no such thing.
George Bush, Dick Cheney, John McCain would have been better off to have muttered ‘tut, tut, Russian problem…’ and gone back to whatever it is they do. Georgia is well beyond our sphere of influence and is frankly none of our business. This makes perfect sense when we remember that the U.S. has been quietly importing Russian oil for the past couple of years and Europe relies heavily on that Russian oil pipeline to stay toasty during the winter. ‘Consequences’ my (ample) ass.
What Georgia’s President, Mikheil Saakashvili, has done is a nothing less than a war crime. In attacking the breakaway province what did he expect as a response? Georgia has been playing brinksmanship with Russia for years and it finally came to a head with this confrontation. Russia warned Saakashvili that they would defend the breakaways. Saakashvili should be immediately charged with a war crime because of the innocent people killed by this futile and foolhardy attempt to do the impossible; for putting his people in harm’s way.
I have to ask; what was Georgia thinking in taking on the imperial might of the Russian army? And why did a “U.S. Official” describe Russia’s response as ‘disproportionate’? Worse, why is our president, Vice President and presidential hopeful John McCain warning Russia about ‘consequences’?
Russia has more to show here than its wish to stop Georgia’s invasion – this is a demonstration for the world lest we forget what Russia is capable of. And the Russians are a tough bunch. They have been aching, according to recent news reports, to reclaim a place in the world as a superpower. Georgia’s aggression has obliged them well. And Russia has done nothing if not live up to its word that it would defend the breakaway provinces; it seems as though they have bulldozed much of the territories into the ground.
American’s response would better be left unsaid. There are no’ disproportionate response’s in war - war is an escalation of violence. Is the use of American military might – air force, bombs, artillery bombardment, cruise missiles, Apache helicopter strikes – a disproportionate response against an attack on a convoy by a militia armed with AK’s and RPGs? How about two nukes on civilian populations – events remembered by the Japanese recently. The fact is it doesn't matter whether you kill the fly with a swatter or a sledge-hammer; dead is dead. The notion of disproportionate response is, for the want of a better word, “silly;” there’s no such thing.
George Bush, Dick Cheney, John McCain would have been better off to have muttered ‘tut, tut, Russian problem…’ and gone back to whatever it is they do. Georgia is well beyond our sphere of influence and is frankly none of our business. This makes perfect sense when we remember that the U.S. has been quietly importing Russian oil for the past couple of years and Europe relies heavily on that Russian oil pipeline to stay toasty during the winter. ‘Consequences’ my (ample) ass.
What Georgia’s President, Mikheil Saakashvili, has done is a nothing less than a war crime. In attacking the breakaway province what did he expect as a response? Georgia has been playing brinksmanship with Russia for years and it finally came to a head with this confrontation. Russia warned Saakashvili that they would defend the breakaways. Saakashvili should be immediately charged with a war crime because of the innocent people killed by this futile and foolhardy attempt to do the impossible; for putting his people in harm’s way.
One of my kids asked recently why violence has died down in the Iraq – were the insurgents finally accepting us? “No,” I responded, “we killed them all.” And we did so with ‘disproportionate response’.'
That's how wars are won.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Our morbid fascination with our Bits and bo(o)bs
Some people in America have a morbid fascination with their boobs and bits. In the event that you don’t know what I’m talking about I’m referring to breasts and genitalia (yeah, the stuff ‘down there’). This morbidity needs to re-adjusted and quickly.
When traveling the beaches of Europe or South America, you’ll notice that the sun swept sands are littered, nay piled high, with the oily glistening taut bare breasts of women of all ages. Skimpy bathing suits are ‘de rigueur’ for both men and women alike, if worn at all. Public breast feeding is normal. It is accepted as part of life.
On the other hand, in the U.S. men wear boxers to the beach; my extra-small Speedo’s are giggled at. Boobs MUST be covered yet people who should never let the sun see a square inch of their bloated bodies insist - and get away - with wearing a thong. Now THAT’S disturbing.
A bare boob on TV is taboo – shocking. Looked upon with horror as if the sight will turn viewers into rabid sex-maniacs. TV Channels get fined for showing one, let alone two. Take for example Janet Jackson’s be-tasseled appendage that was the cause of outrage and the backlash to which cost her a new album. It went unnoticed in Europe, while in American it was if a nuke had gone off in Central Park. That Justin Timberlake forcibly exposed it went – and there’s the real shame - un-commented on.
The mere mention or public sight of genitalia – even when we are children innocently running on beach - is treated as though the devil himself had arrived and announced the end of days. Areas of our bodies, with which we are intimately familiar on a daily basis from birth to death, are treated with puritanical distain.
Breasts are treated as sex objects as opposed to feeding implements for babies. Granted, cleavage is designed by nature to attract men by mimicking the curvature of the female posterior. Hiding them causes male infatuation. Showing them will garner compliments. Truly it will. Really.
On TV boobs and bits on shows are blurred out even when there’s science, childbirth or surgery involved. Or indigenous people running around in their proud nakedness who haven’t seen a need to cover up their bodies since time began.
What gives? What makes the human body so shameful to some of us? Doesn't the shame felt reflect more on the person feeling it rather than on the beauty of the bodies we're given? It’s not like we don’t know what our bits and bobs look like; you’re either a boy or a girl so there are only three accessory options; they’re all the same for the most part.
Let’s start with boobs which while designed to feed babies. How people find the most natural of human actions distasteful is beyond my comprehension. Babies love it.
And of course there are our bits which are used for ridding the body of waste, sexual relief and mating. All 100% natural. It how life thrives and survives.
I’ve got news for you. The bits, while momentarily attractive due to catastrophic hormone releases during arousal, sex, teenage-hood and male life in general, are not all that interesting off hours.
Lighten up, it’s what we’re made of.
When traveling the beaches of Europe or South America, you’ll notice that the sun swept sands are littered, nay piled high, with the oily glistening taut bare breasts of women of all ages. Skimpy bathing suits are ‘de rigueur’ for both men and women alike, if worn at all. Public breast feeding is normal. It is accepted as part of life.
On the other hand, in the U.S. men wear boxers to the beach; my extra-small Speedo’s are giggled at. Boobs MUST be covered yet people who should never let the sun see a square inch of their bloated bodies insist - and get away - with wearing a thong. Now THAT’S disturbing.
A bare boob on TV is taboo – shocking. Looked upon with horror as if the sight will turn viewers into rabid sex-maniacs. TV Channels get fined for showing one, let alone two. Take for example Janet Jackson’s be-tasseled appendage that was the cause of outrage and the backlash to which cost her a new album. It went unnoticed in Europe, while in American it was if a nuke had gone off in Central Park. That Justin Timberlake forcibly exposed it went – and there’s the real shame - un-commented on.
The mere mention or public sight of genitalia – even when we are children innocently running on beach - is treated as though the devil himself had arrived and announced the end of days. Areas of our bodies, with which we are intimately familiar on a daily basis from birth to death, are treated with puritanical distain.
Breasts are treated as sex objects as opposed to feeding implements for babies. Granted, cleavage is designed by nature to attract men by mimicking the curvature of the female posterior. Hiding them causes male infatuation. Showing them will garner compliments. Truly it will. Really.
On TV boobs and bits on shows are blurred out even when there’s science, childbirth or surgery involved. Or indigenous people running around in their proud nakedness who haven’t seen a need to cover up their bodies since time began.
What gives? What makes the human body so shameful to some of us? Doesn't the shame felt reflect more on the person feeling it rather than on the beauty of the bodies we're given? It’s not like we don’t know what our bits and bobs look like; you’re either a boy or a girl so there are only three accessory options; they’re all the same for the most part.
Let’s start with boobs which while designed to feed babies. How people find the most natural of human actions distasteful is beyond my comprehension. Babies love it.
And of course there are our bits which are used for ridding the body of waste, sexual relief and mating. All 100% natural. It how life thrives and survives.
I’ve got news for you. The bits, while momentarily attractive due to catastrophic hormone releases during arousal, sex, teenage-hood and male life in general, are not all that interesting off hours.
Lighten up, it’s what we’re made of.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Pete Townshend banned from the U.S.?
On May 7th something quiet but quite remarkable happened. Pete Townshend (63), guitarist of the band the WHO, was scheduled to have his Sexual Offender status dropped from the British Violent and Sex Offender Register (ViSOR). A confirmation of the action is pending.
Mr. Townshend was arrested in January 2003 as part of Operation Ore, the largest investigation into child pornography in the UK. He admitted using his credit card to access child abuse images but claimed they were for "research" for a book in 1999. (Emphasis added by the Guardian Newspaper - see link below). Mr. Townshend was one of 1,600 people arrested in the UK from details given to an American child porn website.He avoided a charge but was cautioned by the British police and his name placed on the Sexual Offender Register for five years. No evidence of downloaded child pornography was found on his home computers. He did admit that he accessed the child porn site.
The British National Children’s Home (NCH) charity said it was not satisfied with Mr. Townshend's defense.
John Carr, its internet safety advisor, said: "We hope that anybody else out there who might be looking at using the internet to get child pornography for the purposes of research is now properly warned. It is not an acceptable defense and it only helps keep the child porn industry going."
And a spokesman for Phoenix survivors, a group that represents victims of child abuse, said it was appalled at the "leniency" of the punishment.
He said: "He (Mr. Townshend) still insists that curiosity is a fair excuse for the sexual exploitation of children."
When asked, a spokesman from Florida's Tampa Bay Police Department's Child Abuse Unit told this writer that “research” is one of the most commonly used excuses by perpetrators of child pornography site visitation.
You be the judge.
Why bring this up? Because despite all of this the U.S. allows Mr. Townshend entry into the United States against published INS regulations.
The US Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) specifies numerous grounds on which a consular officer can find an applicant ineligible for a visa and inadmissible to the United States. Applicants excludable on criminal and related grounds are the following: "Aliens convicted of, and those who admit having committed a crime involving moral turpitude (or an attempt or conspiracy to commit such a crime)." Many have fallen foul of these regulations.
Take, for example, Lilly Allen, the British singer, who was refused a visa after she assaulted a photographer some time ago in London. A Welch acquaintance of the writer was arrested in New York on a DUI in 2000. His next trip back to the US resulted on his being turned back at the Immigration desk in New York.
Pete Townshend on the other hand comes and goes from the U.S. with impunity. Why is he allowed to do this when his admitted offense - for which he was arrested and cautioned - resulted on his being placed on a Sex Offender list? In the U.S. we punish child sex crimes with draconian ferocity and rightly so.
Mr. Townshend is no exception. Why should being a celebrity give him a free pass?
The WHO, featuring Pete Townshend, are playing nationwide in October.
###
Evin Daly is a staff writer for ButlerReport and is also a child advocate in the 15th Judicial Circuit in Palm Beach, Florida, where as a Guardian ad Litem he represents abused, neglected and abandoned children’s interests in court.
Mr. Townshend was arrested in January 2003 as part of Operation Ore, the largest investigation into child pornography in the UK. He admitted using his credit card to access child abuse images but claimed they were for "research" for a book in 1999. (Emphasis added by the Guardian Newspaper - see link below). Mr. Townshend was one of 1,600 people arrested in the UK from details given to an American child porn website.He avoided a charge but was cautioned by the British police and his name placed on the Sexual Offender Register for five years. No evidence of downloaded child pornography was found on his home computers. He did admit that he accessed the child porn site.
The British National Children’s Home (NCH) charity said it was not satisfied with Mr. Townshend's defense.
John Carr, its internet safety advisor, said: "We hope that anybody else out there who might be looking at using the internet to get child pornography for the purposes of research is now properly warned. It is not an acceptable defense and it only helps keep the child porn industry going."
And a spokesman for Phoenix survivors, a group that represents victims of child abuse, said it was appalled at the "leniency" of the punishment.
He said: "He (Mr. Townshend) still insists that curiosity is a fair excuse for the sexual exploitation of children."
When asked, a spokesman from Florida's Tampa Bay Police Department's Child Abuse Unit told this writer that “research” is one of the most commonly used excuses by perpetrators of child pornography site visitation.
You be the judge.
Why bring this up? Because despite all of this the U.S. allows Mr. Townshend entry into the United States against published INS regulations.
The US Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) specifies numerous grounds on which a consular officer can find an applicant ineligible for a visa and inadmissible to the United States. Applicants excludable on criminal and related grounds are the following: "Aliens convicted of, and those who admit having committed a crime involving moral turpitude (or an attempt or conspiracy to commit such a crime)." Many have fallen foul of these regulations.
Take, for example, Lilly Allen, the British singer, who was refused a visa after she assaulted a photographer some time ago in London. A Welch acquaintance of the writer was arrested in New York on a DUI in 2000. His next trip back to the US resulted on his being turned back at the Immigration desk in New York.
Pete Townshend on the other hand comes and goes from the U.S. with impunity. Why is he allowed to do this when his admitted offense - for which he was arrested and cautioned - resulted on his being placed on a Sex Offender list? In the U.S. we punish child sex crimes with draconian ferocity and rightly so.
Mr. Townshend is no exception. Why should being a celebrity give him a free pass?
The WHO, featuring Pete Townshend, are playing nationwide in October.
###
Evin Daly is a staff writer for ButlerReport and is also a child advocate in the 15th Judicial Circuit in Palm Beach, Florida, where as a Guardian ad Litem he represents abused, neglected and abandoned children’s interests in court.
Guardian Newspaper Article ('Pete Townshend put on sex offenders register' - May 08, 2003)
Back to ButlerReport
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Terminal decisions
I’ve got news for you. We all die. Of something. In 110 years from now every single person in the world today will be deceased. No longer in a state of physical being. Gone. Departed.
Life kills us. Smoking kills. Cancer also. Alcohol; yup. Drugs; uh-huh. Heart Disease; absolutely. Injury; eventually. Stroke; often. Pneumonia; frequently. Murder; 100%. Everything we do will eventually kill us. The act of living is the ballet of dying.
How we live is the only real control we may have on our final passing. Even then there’s no guarantee. A perfectly healthy soy-sucking vegetarian may be killed stepping off the sidewalk just as easily as the weight-challenged leaving McDonalds.
Is there a good way to die? Soldiers will tell you that buddies dying for each other is tops. So does the bible “no man hath greater love for another than he who lays his life down…” It’s been a while since I perused the good book so I may be paraphrasing – you get the point.
I am one of a number of death experts. Not because I am myself a killer, I have been a witness to death and dying. After the hideous death of my friend’s son from cancer, I became a front line care-center volunteer for a very busy hospice. 3,500 people a year were well taken care of in the facility. I, in my time there, was with 2,500 people who died or were dying during my watch. The number is guess only - I didn’t count, but I do still see many of their faces.
What did I learn from the experience? A number things. First no-one should die alone. By that I mean no-one should die without the company of another physically by them. Whether that’s a person dying in their bed of a disease or an accident victim at the side of the road. We arrive into the world into the arms of a loved one, that’s how we should we leave.
Second, there is no dignity in death. It is a process, sometimes quick, many times slow. It drags us to our most vulnerable state and leaves us completely at the mercy of others. On death we become – our remains at least - a dependent object. Jews show as much care and devotion to the corpse as they do the living out of respect for the person. When cleaning a body they pray and ask forgiveness for any indignity they have shown to the person during their tending. Unfortunately the rest of the world, most of it in fact, is not so kind.
Third. I am a believer in assisted suicide; in the hastening of the inevitable; in the alleviation of suffering even if it causes death. By doing we are not acting as G-d, we are using tools that G-d has given us. There no cure for cancer around the corner. No one is going to call to say that a dying person’s prognosis will change because of a just-discovered drug. It doesn’t happen and if it did, it would be used for someone in an early stages of a fatal decline. To think so is a cop-out and does nothing to help the dying. It merely abdicates responsibility, for moral or religious reasons, from those who can help, from those who should help, for the quality of the dying person’s passage. G-d, in whatever form you believe in, has helped us in every other aspect of life, why not death?
Without grossing the reader out I can tell you that I have seen many different types of deathly suffering. Some are downright “shoot me right now” horrible. Even with the best medical care available what I have seen would shock you. It could - should - have been avoided.
Dying is an area that continues to be taboo; we leave it in the “hands of G-d” to take care of the dying, unwilling - perhaps unable - to realize that hastening inevitable death for the right reason is in itself a G-d-given gift.
Life kills us. Smoking kills. Cancer also. Alcohol; yup. Drugs; uh-huh. Heart Disease; absolutely. Injury; eventually. Stroke; often. Pneumonia; frequently. Murder; 100%. Everything we do will eventually kill us. The act of living is the ballet of dying.
How we live is the only real control we may have on our final passing. Even then there’s no guarantee. A perfectly healthy soy-sucking vegetarian may be killed stepping off the sidewalk just as easily as the weight-challenged leaving McDonalds.
Is there a good way to die? Soldiers will tell you that buddies dying for each other is tops. So does the bible “no man hath greater love for another than he who lays his life down…” It’s been a while since I perused the good book so I may be paraphrasing – you get the point.
I am one of a number of death experts. Not because I am myself a killer, I have been a witness to death and dying. After the hideous death of my friend’s son from cancer, I became a front line care-center volunteer for a very busy hospice. 3,500 people a year were well taken care of in the facility. I, in my time there, was with 2,500 people who died or were dying during my watch. The number is guess only - I didn’t count, but I do still see many of their faces.
What did I learn from the experience? A number things. First no-one should die alone. By that I mean no-one should die without the company of another physically by them. Whether that’s a person dying in their bed of a disease or an accident victim at the side of the road. We arrive into the world into the arms of a loved one, that’s how we should we leave.
Second, there is no dignity in death. It is a process, sometimes quick, many times slow. It drags us to our most vulnerable state and leaves us completely at the mercy of others. On death we become – our remains at least - a dependent object. Jews show as much care and devotion to the corpse as they do the living out of respect for the person. When cleaning a body they pray and ask forgiveness for any indignity they have shown to the person during their tending. Unfortunately the rest of the world, most of it in fact, is not so kind.
Third. I am a believer in assisted suicide; in the hastening of the inevitable; in the alleviation of suffering even if it causes death. By doing we are not acting as G-d, we are using tools that G-d has given us. There no cure for cancer around the corner. No one is going to call to say that a dying person’s prognosis will change because of a just-discovered drug. It doesn’t happen and if it did, it would be used for someone in an early stages of a fatal decline. To think so is a cop-out and does nothing to help the dying. It merely abdicates responsibility, for moral or religious reasons, from those who can help, from those who should help, for the quality of the dying person’s passage. G-d, in whatever form you believe in, has helped us in every other aspect of life, why not death?
Without grossing the reader out I can tell you that I have seen many different types of deathly suffering. Some are downright “shoot me right now” horrible. Even with the best medical care available what I have seen would shock you. It could - should - have been avoided.
Dying is an area that continues to be taboo; we leave it in the “hands of G-d” to take care of the dying, unwilling - perhaps unable - to realize that hastening inevitable death for the right reason is in itself a G-d-given gift.
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Tuesday, July 22, 2008
When “tumbling” doesn’t mean Jack; to Joe
“Oil prices tumbled more than $3 a barrel Tuesday…” The choice of words the press uses when talking with oil prices are hilarious; “tumbling…plummets” are but two recent examples of single figure drops in price. You’d think from reading these announcements that oil had dropped by $120 a barrel back to where it should be. Alas that is not the case.
Who fooling who? Are these words the media pick up from the oil companies or are they words the media use to get us to read the article? You’re talking to someone who’s used to paying 0.98 cents a gallon and who thinks $1.38 is expensive. We were led up the garden path a few years ago when the water was tested with gas slowly moving into the mid-$2 mark before retreating. It was done gradually as if to condition us. Then it slid into the $3 range and now to $4+. It’s as if the suppliers were trying to find the point of diminishing returns, which I believe that have found.
The big “however” is that the gas revenue stream back to the producers is now taking in over 3 times revenue per gallon for the same gas quantity as five years ago. Even with reduced consumption, the increase in fortunes for the oil ‘folks’ is giddying. Instead of relying on market elasticity for revenue growth with bigger cars and additional consumption, the price itself has become elastic – in one direction only. And someone’s making a lot of money. At a cost to others.
Is there a snapping point? Granted most people have fixed incomes and cannot afford infinite price increases. That said, the essential driving that people do is to work, school and shopping. Longer trips are expensive; and optional. Aside from changing to public transport, walking or riding a bike, the essential consumption can’t and won’t be curtailed. And that is the consumption line below which we –as a nation - will not go.
Despite all of the hype many ‘folks’ are not hurting. Take the middle class soccer mom who brings the kids to school everyday, shops, plays tennis, and swings by Starbucks. She probably fills her gas tank every two weeks whether she’s driving a minivan or a Hummer. Her gas price has nearly trippled but a bi-weekly additional $60 doesn’t make much of a difference. Similarly for the executive driving to work. It’s the cost of a cheap dinner for two. Worst comes to worst they can do a takeout.
The people who are really hurting are the lower paid workers. And here in America, there are a lot of them. The same ones who get shafted when the price of cigarettes goes up, who got the sub-prime mortgage deals with variable interest rates, who can’t make ends meet with the estimated 20% increase in the price of food. The same people whose sons and daughters are fighting our wars and whose families at home are surviving on food stamps; the average Joe.
I don’t think he, or she, would disagree with my laughing at the words “plummet” to describe what really is a bad joke. The very obvious reality is that the poor are getting slammed yet again.
Just a thought.
Who fooling who? Are these words the media pick up from the oil companies or are they words the media use to get us to read the article? You’re talking to someone who’s used to paying 0.98 cents a gallon and who thinks $1.38 is expensive. We were led up the garden path a few years ago when the water was tested with gas slowly moving into the mid-$2 mark before retreating. It was done gradually as if to condition us. Then it slid into the $3 range and now to $4+. It’s as if the suppliers were trying to find the point of diminishing returns, which I believe that have found.
The big “however” is that the gas revenue stream back to the producers is now taking in over 3 times revenue per gallon for the same gas quantity as five years ago. Even with reduced consumption, the increase in fortunes for the oil ‘folks’ is giddying. Instead of relying on market elasticity for revenue growth with bigger cars and additional consumption, the price itself has become elastic – in one direction only. And someone’s making a lot of money. At a cost to others.
Is there a snapping point? Granted most people have fixed incomes and cannot afford infinite price increases. That said, the essential driving that people do is to work, school and shopping. Longer trips are expensive; and optional. Aside from changing to public transport, walking or riding a bike, the essential consumption can’t and won’t be curtailed. And that is the consumption line below which we –as a nation - will not go.
Despite all of the hype many ‘folks’ are not hurting. Take the middle class soccer mom who brings the kids to school everyday, shops, plays tennis, and swings by Starbucks. She probably fills her gas tank every two weeks whether she’s driving a minivan or a Hummer. Her gas price has nearly trippled but a bi-weekly additional $60 doesn’t make much of a difference. Similarly for the executive driving to work. It’s the cost of a cheap dinner for two. Worst comes to worst they can do a takeout.
The people who are really hurting are the lower paid workers. And here in America, there are a lot of them. The same ones who get shafted when the price of cigarettes goes up, who got the sub-prime mortgage deals with variable interest rates, who can’t make ends meet with the estimated 20% increase in the price of food. The same people whose sons and daughters are fighting our wars and whose families at home are surviving on food stamps; the average Joe.
I don’t think he, or she, would disagree with my laughing at the words “plummet” to describe what really is a bad joke. The very obvious reality is that the poor are getting slammed yet again.
Just a thought.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Al Gore, the climate expert?
I felt sorry for Al when he walked away from the 2000 election, having come so close to being the next U.S. president. To have come so close, to have touched the mantle…to live with what could have been. The disappointment must have been numbing.
After a period of isolation, Al decided on a personal mission of promoting awareness of climate change. Why is anybody’s guess.
Perhaps his therapist suggested it as a way of countering the crushing self loathing he felt every time he turned on the TV and saw the man who snatched away his chance at immortality. Perhaps his bruised ego demanded another chance to achieve global recognition. Climate change was a mission that would allow Al to speak on a world stage. Doing so – like a president but not quite - not as the guy who could have been the president of the most powerful nation in the world but as someone that should be held in similar esteem because of the critical importance of his world saving assignment. Al was to be the Jesus of climate change.
Al made a movie, a documentary that was greeted enthusiastically by public and tree huggers alike. He made speeches all over the place. Al even won a Nobel Prize for his efforts. But there was a feeling of something wrong, something missing.
It goes back to the “why?” question. It can’t have been that Al was really worried about the changing world’s climate. He made no effort to live the life he promoted – no bike rides from home to office, no electric powered limo for Al, no solar-powered headquarters.
Al flies to his speeches and venues in a gas-guzzling, carbon pluming, private corporate jet. It is reported that his home uses as much power as a small Mid-Western city. While the therapy may have worked for Mr. Gore’s self preservation, he’s taken us for fools. Having Al promote climate change awareness with the accoutrements of living that he has, is akin to our being lectured on the evils of alcohol abuse by the head of a liquor company.
He would have been better off building houses with JimmyC.
After a period of isolation, Al decided on a personal mission of promoting awareness of climate change. Why is anybody’s guess.
Perhaps his therapist suggested it as a way of countering the crushing self loathing he felt every time he turned on the TV and saw the man who snatched away his chance at immortality. Perhaps his bruised ego demanded another chance to achieve global recognition. Climate change was a mission that would allow Al to speak on a world stage. Doing so – like a president but not quite - not as the guy who could have been the president of the most powerful nation in the world but as someone that should be held in similar esteem because of the critical importance of his world saving assignment. Al was to be the Jesus of climate change.
Al made a movie, a documentary that was greeted enthusiastically by public and tree huggers alike. He made speeches all over the place. Al even won a Nobel Prize for his efforts. But there was a feeling of something wrong, something missing.
It goes back to the “why?” question. It can’t have been that Al was really worried about the changing world’s climate. He made no effort to live the life he promoted – no bike rides from home to office, no electric powered limo for Al, no solar-powered headquarters.
Al flies to his speeches and venues in a gas-guzzling, carbon pluming, private corporate jet. It is reported that his home uses as much power as a small Mid-Western city. While the therapy may have worked for Mr. Gore’s self preservation, he’s taken us for fools. Having Al promote climate change awareness with the accoutrements of living that he has, is akin to our being lectured on the evils of alcohol abuse by the head of a liquor company.
He would have been better off building houses with JimmyC.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
The U.S. Economy: Chicken Little was Right
Here in the U.S. we’re days – maybe weeks - away from a true financial meltdown.
The president knows it – hence his speech today; Congress knows it. Wall Street knows it. And consumers - who control the destiny of the economy - are slowly beginning to realize it.
Gas is selling at $4.50 + a gallon. Winter heating cost is a monster lurking on the horizon. Home prices are tumbling and with it valuable equity. There is a list of dangerously close-to-failure banks published today. Foreclosures are running at an unprecedented rate as are personal bankruptcies. Our largest mortgage financial institutions, Freddie Mac and Fannie May, are described by Goldman Sachs as “insolvent.” We’ve got a war costing us $3 trillion. Another war, this time with Iran, hanging over our head by a frayed thread.
The holders of our currency in the Middle East, who use the dollar as the oil trading currency, are showing impatience at their losses, holding their earnings in US dollars that lose value daily. They may step away – as Iran has already done and Venezuela is calling for - and spread their earnings in a basket of alternative currencies. The dollar is worth less and less and its southern trend shows no sign of slowing - $1.60 for a Euro today. A $1.60. A run on the bank at IndyMac despite reassurances from the Fed. A full blown Bear market. A prediction that a number of airlines will fail. Consumer essentials price rises. Consumer debt at an all time high; default rates growing.
What’s holding the house of cards together? Consumer confidence. That’s it. That’s all that holds this ball of wax we call an economy together at the best of times.
American consumers, known for their balls-to-the-wall attitudes, are getting fidgety. Bush today looked nervous as he stumbled through his press conference trying to tell us that the economy is growing. Wall Street is scared; petrified that the US consumer will see through their repeated reassurances and realize that not only are they being lied to, but the smoke they’re seeing in the financial market is in fact their net worth, their life savings, their pensions, their future, burning.
If the consumer herd thinks for a second that any of the banks, that are reportedly on the precipice, are going to collapse – Citibank, Wamu, Wachovia – they will stampede to get cash out of the banks, heralding a depression and the end of the economic world as we know it today.
What’s the trigger? The collapse of a major financial institution. The disappearance of the once familiar into oblivion – an airline perhaps. A war in Iran that causes oil to double, triple. A banker or politician with the balls to tell the American public the truth; that we’re broke and our economy is in the toilet.
A solution? Why ask me? This fiasco’s been in the works for years. Politicians, the White House, business leaders watched and let it happen. And they’re expecting us, the average Joe to bail them out. We don’t have any more to give. Frankly I think that Chicken Little might be right after all; the sky is falling.
The president knows it – hence his speech today; Congress knows it. Wall Street knows it. And consumers - who control the destiny of the economy - are slowly beginning to realize it.
Gas is selling at $4.50 + a gallon. Winter heating cost is a monster lurking on the horizon. Home prices are tumbling and with it valuable equity. There is a list of dangerously close-to-failure banks published today. Foreclosures are running at an unprecedented rate as are personal bankruptcies. Our largest mortgage financial institutions, Freddie Mac and Fannie May, are described by Goldman Sachs as “insolvent.” We’ve got a war costing us $3 trillion. Another war, this time with Iran, hanging over our head by a frayed thread.
The holders of our currency in the Middle East, who use the dollar as the oil trading currency, are showing impatience at their losses, holding their earnings in US dollars that lose value daily. They may step away – as Iran has already done and Venezuela is calling for - and spread their earnings in a basket of alternative currencies. The dollar is worth less and less and its southern trend shows no sign of slowing - $1.60 for a Euro today. A $1.60. A run on the bank at IndyMac despite reassurances from the Fed. A full blown Bear market. A prediction that a number of airlines will fail. Consumer essentials price rises. Consumer debt at an all time high; default rates growing.
What’s holding the house of cards together? Consumer confidence. That’s it. That’s all that holds this ball of wax we call an economy together at the best of times.
American consumers, known for their balls-to-the-wall attitudes, are getting fidgety. Bush today looked nervous as he stumbled through his press conference trying to tell us that the economy is growing. Wall Street is scared; petrified that the US consumer will see through their repeated reassurances and realize that not only are they being lied to, but the smoke they’re seeing in the financial market is in fact their net worth, their life savings, their pensions, their future, burning.
If the consumer herd thinks for a second that any of the banks, that are reportedly on the precipice, are going to collapse – Citibank, Wamu, Wachovia – they will stampede to get cash out of the banks, heralding a depression and the end of the economic world as we know it today.
What’s the trigger? The collapse of a major financial institution. The disappearance of the once familiar into oblivion – an airline perhaps. A war in Iran that causes oil to double, triple. A banker or politician with the balls to tell the American public the truth; that we’re broke and our economy is in the toilet.
A solution? Why ask me? This fiasco’s been in the works for years. Politicians, the White House, business leaders watched and let it happen. And they’re expecting us, the average Joe to bail them out. We don’t have any more to give. Frankly I think that Chicken Little might be right after all; the sky is falling.
Monday, July 7, 2008
An update from Butler Report
ButlerReport is due to end beta testing at the end of August after a few technical and design issues are resolved. What these issues are have not yet been discussed. In fact we don’t even know what they are exactly; we just know that our timetable says we have to talk about them, whatever they are.
Butler Report has landed in the right place at the right time. Hard media - real newspapers - are under tremendous pressure to make a buck and are laying off people all over. Much of the advertising revenue they relied on is now being spent online and Google has vacuumed up a large portion of it. For clients looking for a measurable return on investment (ROI) for their advertising dollars this shift makes sense.
There are two side effects of this shift: loss of employment in the newsrooms, and the erosion of the news reporting mechanism, reflected in the reduction in quality news reporting. Those ad dollars paid for the reporters to go out in the field and gather news. It paid for editors to review the raw news and make it readable, researchers to check accuracy. Online news publishers aren’t in any rush to replace them BUT they want the same quality of news for their readers – the upside without the costs.
The dynamics of news readership have changed dramatically over the past 10 years and that in itself is a tale for another time. I know of two people in my vast circle of acquaintances who purchase and read a newspaper daily – both are retired doctors. Their habits are echoes from another time.
My source of news is in researching the ButlerReport therefore online sources, a smattering of CNN and the BBC on PBS in the evening. I never read magazines. Traditional print media news is outdated before the ink has dried; even sooner. However the means of gathering news has not changed, nor will it. We still need feet on the ground, investigators, reporters, photographers. We need editors, interpreters, researchers – all of the vehicles that turn a raw story into factual news. Without them, news will become Wiki-news – a collection of fuzzy facts mixed with opinion and served as gospel. Not at all kosher.
Our readership has grown exponentially since our launch. This is due to a number of factors; good planning, viral and organic growth (what great words), word of mouth, promotions, online and common sense marketing. Our technical guru, Bill, pooh-poohs all of this and told us recently that our growth has to do with a device that he installed on our servers. I may be as dumb as a bag of rocks when it comes to electronic happenings but even I know that a flux capacitor doesn’t work without a capacitor drive and we don't have one of those. What we do have are a curiously large number of images of Danica Patrick on the walls of our server room, reflecting our tech's intense – near obsessive - interest in motor racing. All this said we have quite a way to go before we even the scratch of the surface of Matt Drudges Drudgereport 19million monthly visitors.
Our format has been fluid by design and will remain so until we get it right. We get to examine hundreds of different formats from our weekly news gathering. Our news coverage is as good as - perhaps better - any we've seen worldwide. Compared to most, Butlerreport has more worldwide news coverage, the ability to make great headlines, news sections, large image formats and the other bits and bobs you see on the site. We have readers – a growing number – in practically every country of the world - the doohickey tracking software tells us so. That’s where our audience lies.
We’re open to suggestions and comment and welcome constructive criticism. Please contact me at directly at edaly@goldcoastmedia.net. And thanks for visiting.
Read more great news at the ButlerReport: www.butlerreport.com
Butler Report has landed in the right place at the right time. Hard media - real newspapers - are under tremendous pressure to make a buck and are laying off people all over. Much of the advertising revenue they relied on is now being spent online and Google has vacuumed up a large portion of it. For clients looking for a measurable return on investment (ROI) for their advertising dollars this shift makes sense.
There are two side effects of this shift: loss of employment in the newsrooms, and the erosion of the news reporting mechanism, reflected in the reduction in quality news reporting. Those ad dollars paid for the reporters to go out in the field and gather news. It paid for editors to review the raw news and make it readable, researchers to check accuracy. Online news publishers aren’t in any rush to replace them BUT they want the same quality of news for their readers – the upside without the costs.
The dynamics of news readership have changed dramatically over the past 10 years and that in itself is a tale for another time. I know of two people in my vast circle of acquaintances who purchase and read a newspaper daily – both are retired doctors. Their habits are echoes from another time.
My source of news is in researching the ButlerReport therefore online sources, a smattering of CNN and the BBC on PBS in the evening. I never read magazines. Traditional print media news is outdated before the ink has dried; even sooner. However the means of gathering news has not changed, nor will it. We still need feet on the ground, investigators, reporters, photographers. We need editors, interpreters, researchers – all of the vehicles that turn a raw story into factual news. Without them, news will become Wiki-news – a collection of fuzzy facts mixed with opinion and served as gospel. Not at all kosher.
Our readership has grown exponentially since our launch. This is due to a number of factors; good planning, viral and organic growth (what great words), word of mouth, promotions, online and common sense marketing. Our technical guru, Bill, pooh-poohs all of this and told us recently that our growth has to do with a device that he installed on our servers. I may be as dumb as a bag of rocks when it comes to electronic happenings but even I know that a flux capacitor doesn’t work without a capacitor drive and we don't have one of those. What we do have are a curiously large number of images of Danica Patrick on the walls of our server room, reflecting our tech's intense – near obsessive - interest in motor racing. All this said we have quite a way to go before we even the scratch of the surface of Matt Drudges Drudgereport 19million monthly visitors.
Our format has been fluid by design and will remain so until we get it right. We get to examine hundreds of different formats from our weekly news gathering. Our news coverage is as good as - perhaps better - any we've seen worldwide. Compared to most, Butlerreport has more worldwide news coverage, the ability to make great headlines, news sections, large image formats and the other bits and bobs you see on the site. We have readers – a growing number – in practically every country of the world - the doohickey tracking software tells us so. That’s where our audience lies.
We’re open to suggestions and comment and welcome constructive criticism. Please contact me at directly at edaly@goldcoastmedia.net. And thanks for visiting.
Read more great news at the ButlerReport: www.butlerreport.com
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Beauty in jewelry is in the eye of the beholder
Jewelry designer Coco Channel once said that jewelry should enhance the wearer, not the other way around. Actually what she said was the jewels should not be used to make the wearer look rich; their purpose is to give them a air of elegance or adornment.
You don’t to be rich to wear beautiful jewelry. You can go to Tiffany and for a fraction of the price of a gold or platinum piece get a silver replica that’s recognizably Tiffany. Avoid the overused pieces like the heart or the “Return to Tiffany” and look for an unusual item of which there are many.
Silver is the brightest and most affordable of the precious metals. Silver, white gold (which is a misnomer for rhodium plated yellow gold) and platinum all share the same characteristics: bright, silver colored, semi-reflective finish. Except that silver looks the best, reflects the most light and costs the least.
Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder when purchasing jewelry. My advice to clients is, if you love it and can afford to, buy it. Jewelry is sometimes unique, available to the shopper only once – at an airport store (there’s a great one in Newark, NJ), at a market or at a department store.
I have handled and valued jewelry ranging from $1 to $70 million. My favorites are well-cut diamonds which are to be found in Graff who only sell flawless diamonds. Their specialty is fancy yellow diamonds and they are indeed magnificent if you have the ability to purchase one of their beautiful products. Bvlgari also make exquisite jewels at a much lower cost that Graff serving a different market. A 2 carat engagement ring from Bvlgari for $50,000 is truly a beautiful and prized possession, exquisitely cut and mounted. Cartier on the other hand has a style all their own; a prerequisite of which is that you must like their style and have the funds to value their goods. I have also seen top quality diamond engagement rings at Macys for a fraction of the cost of the specialty stores if you are willing to shop around a little.
At the end of the day jewelry is a body adornment made to enhance you. It makes good sense not to wear too much. Good advice when dressing up is to put on the jewelry you want to wear and then remove one piece. And that term “one piece” is something I advise clients on. Better to wear one good piece of jewelry than many mediocre pieces. The observer’s eye should be drawn to that piece whether it is a ring, bracelet or pendant. It should make them look twice. The overall effect of a plethora of jewelry is clutter and a transparent nouveau-riche attempt that screams “look at me I've got money!” So unless you’re a jewelry broker flaunting your goods at a show or work in a pawn shop don’t wear it all at one time. Tacky and tastelessness behavior does not impress those who matter.
If you have a very beautiful ring, set of earrings, a pendant even a silver bracelet, try wearing just that and little else. Nothing else you have on should distract from the piece, it should only serve to enhance it. Less says more; volumes more, about the person, their taste and sophistication.
You don’t to be rich to wear beautiful jewelry. You can go to Tiffany and for a fraction of the price of a gold or platinum piece get a silver replica that’s recognizably Tiffany. Avoid the overused pieces like the heart or the “Return to Tiffany” and look for an unusual item of which there are many.
Silver is the brightest and most affordable of the precious metals. Silver, white gold (which is a misnomer for rhodium plated yellow gold) and platinum all share the same characteristics: bright, silver colored, semi-reflective finish. Except that silver looks the best, reflects the most light and costs the least.
Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder when purchasing jewelry. My advice to clients is, if you love it and can afford to, buy it. Jewelry is sometimes unique, available to the shopper only once – at an airport store (there’s a great one in Newark, NJ), at a market or at a department store.
I have handled and valued jewelry ranging from $1 to $70 million. My favorites are well-cut diamonds which are to be found in Graff who only sell flawless diamonds. Their specialty is fancy yellow diamonds and they are indeed magnificent if you have the ability to purchase one of their beautiful products. Bvlgari also make exquisite jewels at a much lower cost that Graff serving a different market. A 2 carat engagement ring from Bvlgari for $50,000 is truly a beautiful and prized possession, exquisitely cut and mounted. Cartier on the other hand has a style all their own; a prerequisite of which is that you must like their style and have the funds to value their goods. I have also seen top quality diamond engagement rings at Macys for a fraction of the cost of the specialty stores if you are willing to shop around a little.
At the end of the day jewelry is a body adornment made to enhance you. It makes good sense not to wear too much. Good advice when dressing up is to put on the jewelry you want to wear and then remove one piece. And that term “one piece” is something I advise clients on. Better to wear one good piece of jewelry than many mediocre pieces. The observer’s eye should be drawn to that piece whether it is a ring, bracelet or pendant. It should make them look twice. The overall effect of a plethora of jewelry is clutter and a transparent nouveau-riche attempt that screams “look at me I've got money!” So unless you’re a jewelry broker flaunting your goods at a show or work in a pawn shop don’t wear it all at one time. Tacky and tastelessness behavior does not impress those who matter.
If you have a very beautiful ring, set of earrings, a pendant even a silver bracelet, try wearing just that and little else. Nothing else you have on should distract from the piece, it should only serve to enhance it. Less says more; volumes more, about the person, their taste and sophistication.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Feeling sorry for the banks? Don't.
A number of the nation’s banks are on the verge on bankruptcy if indeed they are not already there. Fear not, they’ll survive on a combination of foreign investment and your tax dollars spent to bail them out.
Why would a foreign investor be interested in our banks? US Banks can print money from the fees they charge their customers, many of whom can ill afford it. They do so with a smile and a promise of “no fee checking.” Banks are in trouble not because of an economic downturn so much as they pushed the envelope in their lending strategies. They were so enamored by their returns on sub-prime high risk loans that they couldn’t help themselves.
To set the stage let me first tell you that the number of Americans with bad credit depends on what socioeconomic group you belong to. The average number of people with bad credit drifts between 50 and 66% + during good years. A 2000 study by Freddie Mac found striking race-credit correlations: percent of group whose credit record is:
Racial Group
African Americans: "bad” 48% "indeterminate” 16% “good” 36%
Hispanics: "bad” 34% "indeterminate” 15% “good” 51%
Whites: "bad” 27% "indeterminate” 12% “good” 61%
These "bad credit" numbers trend higher during times of economic uncertainty and recession. Either way we're talking about the majority of American consumers.
Banks and lending institutions instead of helping people with bad credit with lower interest rates – instead set them up to fail. The sub-prime crisis is caused not by an unwillingness to repay a loan but by the inability to pay based upon the excessively high interest rates and fees. The same monthly loan repayment for a prime customer is over double for the sub-prime customer. Double. For the same loan.
The banks caused this problem themselves. The argument banks use is this: people with poor credit cost more to manage, have a high rate of loan failure and therefore carry more risk and therefore the loans should cost more.
However there is no cure to the bad credit issue in these high interest loans just a deliberate exacerbation of the problem starting from the moment the borrower signs for the loan. Low down payment? Higher signing and closing fees. High interest rates, sometimes in excess of twice the going rate. Late payment? Add 10%. It’s like for the consumer like pushing a large boulder up a steep hill. And when they falter the banks cut with a sharp knife.
Loan rates should be the same for everyone good credit and bad. The same rules apply to everyone in the event of default because the truth is that it doesn’t cost more to lend to poor credit applicants; the banks just see the opportunity to make more money.
How about other sources of bank income?
Banks in the US collected $17.5 billion in overdraft fees in 2006. These fees are a major source of income for the banks. These fees are wrong both in concept and application.
Banks charge an average of $32 per overdraft item – anything that overdraws the customers account. These, in reality, are forced short term loans payable within 30 days. The actually cost of an overdraft to the bank is between $2.80 and $5 on a bad day.
Consider this: The minimum wage in the US is $5.80. To pay for an overdraft or a returned check costs a worker on minimum wage over 6 hours of labor.
“If the consumer managed their money properly these fees wouldn’t apply,” is a typical response from a bank when the subject is brought up. Real life doesn’t conform to ideals. Banks know that, otherwise they wouldn’t have set up the overdraft trap that generates nearly $20 billion a year in near pure profit. When it comes down to it the only difference between a loan shark and a bank is that the bank has an office and tends not to break your bones if you don’t repay them. They do, however, ban you from opening an account in any other bank for five years if the amount remains unpaid in addition to banning you from reopening an account in their banks again in your lifetime. Ever.
Just a month ago consumers in the UK sued and won a suit against Barclays Bank for the excessive costs that they were charged for overdraft fees. Barclays settled – despite pressure from other banks not to do so - because of three distinct issues.
One, the consumers are morally correct and the public was on their side. As bank customers they deserve better.
Second is the issue of cartels and price fixing. Both are punishable in the U.S. by Federal Regulations. How come no banks charge $8 an item for an overdraft? Name one that breaks away from the $29.5 to $32.50 pack. I can’t either.
Finally is the issue of repayments and punitive judgments. Should a consumer group win a case against the banks for overcharging and cartel price fixing, the banks may be forced to repay every single incident of overcharging going back five years – about a $100 billion. Plus the jury awarded punitive charges which could amount to many times that. Oh, plus interest.
Why would a foreign investor be interested in our banks? US Banks can print money from the fees they charge their customers, many of whom can ill afford it. They do so with a smile and a promise of “no fee checking.” Banks are in trouble not because of an economic downturn so much as they pushed the envelope in their lending strategies. They were so enamored by their returns on sub-prime high risk loans that they couldn’t help themselves.
To set the stage let me first tell you that the number of Americans with bad credit depends on what socioeconomic group you belong to. The average number of people with bad credit drifts between 50 and 66% + during good years. A 2000 study by Freddie Mac found striking race-credit correlations: percent of group whose credit record is:
Racial Group
African Americans: "bad” 48% "indeterminate” 16% “good” 36%
Hispanics: "bad” 34% "indeterminate” 15% “good” 51%
Whites: "bad” 27% "indeterminate” 12% “good” 61%
These "bad credit" numbers trend higher during times of economic uncertainty and recession. Either way we're talking about the majority of American consumers.
Banks and lending institutions instead of helping people with bad credit with lower interest rates – instead set them up to fail. The sub-prime crisis is caused not by an unwillingness to repay a loan but by the inability to pay based upon the excessively high interest rates and fees. The same monthly loan repayment for a prime customer is over double for the sub-prime customer. Double. For the same loan.
The banks caused this problem themselves. The argument banks use is this: people with poor credit cost more to manage, have a high rate of loan failure and therefore carry more risk and therefore the loans should cost more.
However there is no cure to the bad credit issue in these high interest loans just a deliberate exacerbation of the problem starting from the moment the borrower signs for the loan. Low down payment? Higher signing and closing fees. High interest rates, sometimes in excess of twice the going rate. Late payment? Add 10%. It’s like for the consumer like pushing a large boulder up a steep hill. And when they falter the banks cut with a sharp knife.
Loan rates should be the same for everyone good credit and bad. The same rules apply to everyone in the event of default because the truth is that it doesn’t cost more to lend to poor credit applicants; the banks just see the opportunity to make more money.
How about other sources of bank income?
Banks in the US collected $17.5 billion in overdraft fees in 2006. These fees are a major source of income for the banks. These fees are wrong both in concept and application.
Banks charge an average of $32 per overdraft item – anything that overdraws the customers account. These, in reality, are forced short term loans payable within 30 days. The actually cost of an overdraft to the bank is between $2.80 and $5 on a bad day.
Consider this: The minimum wage in the US is $5.80. To pay for an overdraft or a returned check costs a worker on minimum wage over 6 hours of labor.
“If the consumer managed their money properly these fees wouldn’t apply,” is a typical response from a bank when the subject is brought up. Real life doesn’t conform to ideals. Banks know that, otherwise they wouldn’t have set up the overdraft trap that generates nearly $20 billion a year in near pure profit. When it comes down to it the only difference between a loan shark and a bank is that the bank has an office and tends not to break your bones if you don’t repay them. They do, however, ban you from opening an account in any other bank for five years if the amount remains unpaid in addition to banning you from reopening an account in their banks again in your lifetime. Ever.
Just a month ago consumers in the UK sued and won a suit against Barclays Bank for the excessive costs that they were charged for overdraft fees. Barclays settled – despite pressure from other banks not to do so - because of three distinct issues.
One, the consumers are morally correct and the public was on their side. As bank customers they deserve better.
Second is the issue of cartels and price fixing. Both are punishable in the U.S. by Federal Regulations. How come no banks charge $8 an item for an overdraft? Name one that breaks away from the $29.5 to $32.50 pack. I can’t either.
Finally is the issue of repayments and punitive judgments. Should a consumer group win a case against the banks for overcharging and cartel price fixing, the banks may be forced to repay every single incident of overcharging going back five years – about a $100 billion. Plus the jury awarded punitive charges which could amount to many times that. Oh, plus interest.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Economists can park my car
Economic theory was never a strong point for me. Despite my best efforts at undertanding money supply, M1 will always remain - in my mind - a busy motorway in England.
Over the years a few concepts have sunk in. Supply, demand, price indexing, inflation, opportuntiy cost and the ostrich effect that is practised by economists and their government foogies alike.
Economists are the camp followers, the Monday morning quarterback. They can explain a past economic event but they won’t put their balls on the anvil and predict the future or admit to the present.
We, in the US, are in the midst of a recession. It’s obvious even to a my dead cat who never even studied economics during his lifetime. People are being layed off, prices have gone up for basic needs, gas prices are high. Consumer expenditure is being constricted. Banks and the auto industry have imploded. Foreclosures and bankrupsies are at an all time high. For the love of all that’s Holy Starbucks is CLOSING 600 STORES. Forget a recession; it’s the end of the world as we know it. According to our economists however, who continue stare intently at their navels, we may or may not be in a recession. Sweet Mother.
Smoke is pouring out of the house and the fire chief is standing there scratching his nuts unwilling to agree that the house is on fire. Economists will tell you about economic change after the event. When the house is lying in smouldering ruins, they’ll nod and say. “How about that? There was a fire.”
So what good are economists? The average Joe - I include myself here - really doesn’t understand what they’re talking about with their big words (“slowdown, macro-this and micro-that”). Nor do we quite know what it is they actually do for a living. I don’t believe that economists know what they do either but have managed to hide this important fact behind their credentials and stern, intellectual prowness that people equate with doing something important. And if people think that they do something important then who are the economists to argue?
Ecomomists don’t produce a product. They don’t perform a service that you can put your finger on: their advice is vague, their consultations murky. They’re like slow soothsayers with a crystal ball who won’t tell you your future until it’s happened and then they take the credit no matter what the outcome when it does. That I believe is a fair assessment.
Next time you meet an economist toss him your car keys and tell him to wash your car and park it. You’ll be doing both of you a favor.
Over the years a few concepts have sunk in. Supply, demand, price indexing, inflation, opportuntiy cost and the ostrich effect that is practised by economists and their government foogies alike.
Economists are the camp followers, the Monday morning quarterback. They can explain a past economic event but they won’t put their balls on the anvil and predict the future or admit to the present.
We, in the US, are in the midst of a recession. It’s obvious even to a my dead cat who never even studied economics during his lifetime. People are being layed off, prices have gone up for basic needs, gas prices are high. Consumer expenditure is being constricted. Banks and the auto industry have imploded. Foreclosures and bankrupsies are at an all time high. For the love of all that’s Holy Starbucks is CLOSING 600 STORES. Forget a recession; it’s the end of the world as we know it. According to our economists however, who continue stare intently at their navels, we may or may not be in a recession. Sweet Mother.
Smoke is pouring out of the house and the fire chief is standing there scratching his nuts unwilling to agree that the house is on fire. Economists will tell you about economic change after the event. When the house is lying in smouldering ruins, they’ll nod and say. “How about that? There was a fire.”
So what good are economists? The average Joe - I include myself here - really doesn’t understand what they’re talking about with their big words (“slowdown, macro-this and micro-that”). Nor do we quite know what it is they actually do for a living. I don’t believe that economists know what they do either but have managed to hide this important fact behind their credentials and stern, intellectual prowness that people equate with doing something important. And if people think that they do something important then who are the economists to argue?
Ecomomists don’t produce a product. They don’t perform a service that you can put your finger on: their advice is vague, their consultations murky. They’re like slow soothsayers with a crystal ball who won’t tell you your future until it’s happened and then they take the credit no matter what the outcome when it does. That I believe is a fair assessment.
Next time you meet an economist toss him your car keys and tell him to wash your car and park it. You’ll be doing both of you a favor.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Now's the time to check out Mac
As we’re being forced to change to the new Microsoft VISTA this is a great time to think about changing to an Apple.
Adopting Vista demands that we purchase new versions of all of our software to use on the new system; a boost for Microsoft and other software provider sales. The old stuff that’s lasted years won’t work anymore. VISTA however is a system that has been the subject of consumer frustration and a push back by business and consumers alike who have asked - begged - Microsoft (MS) to continue supporting XP. MS has refused and stopped selling the system today.
Since we have to spend a considerable amount of money to acquire new software, this is the time to explore the better of the two systems, the Mac. MS won’t mind, you have to purchase your MS Office again anyway. Mac is user friendly, easier to use and has a graphics capability that far surpasses what you've been taught is a "good system." The Mac has been an imortant part of Microsofts success. Without Mac, MS would have been subject to tighter trading restrictions worldwide as it would have owned the market with just one operating system available - Windows. They would have had monopoly in its truest sense which many claimed it has has anyway. Macs have been the only alternative system for nearly three decades. Here’s a little history.
At the beginning of the 1980s the personal computer market was just beginning to develop. IBM running DOS and Apple had an equal opportunity to conquer the emerging market. Apple had innovation, imagination and energy on its side – the key ingredients that Microsoft had in the 1970s.
Then Apple made a grave mistake and hired a blithering idiot as a CEO, John Scully. Scully was a dipshit who worked for Pepsi with some success selling soda. During his 10 year tenure at the Apple (’83 – ‘93) Scully single handedly took Apple from a position of competitive market dominance to that of a minor player. He did this by confusing consumers with an array of product lines, not listening to feedback from business market, giving away part of the Apple Graphic User Interface (GUI) license to MS. Worse, he traded short term shareholder gain with high per-unit prices and profit margins against aggressive market share acquisition. The Mac became a niche market product.
You may think “hey, he was up against Big Blue, IBM.” They were but despite all the hoopla, IBM nearly turned its back on the PC in the early ‘80s. They didn’t see the market potential as they owned the computer market at that time lock, stock and barrell. The personal computer was a pet project developed with third party off-the-shelf parts in the Boca Raton complex. This was an opportunity that Apple – Scully - missed to soak the market.
Scully lined his own pockets doing something that a spastic monkey could have done because Apple sold itself. He was the highest paid executive in the US in 1987. He should have sat back and let the money roll in and left what wasn't broke alone. Instead he did everything he could to screw up Apples market share through his "innovative" management style. Eventually the board of directors saw through his "style" and they dumped Scully and re-hired Steve Jobs in 1996 by paying $430 million for his failed NeXT computer company. The rest is history. Hello profitability for Apple and hello (eventually) iphone. Jobs saved the day.
Check out your local Apple store and decide for yourself. You might be glad you did.
Comments about John Scully are the opinion of the esteemed author and do not reflect the opinion of Gold Coast Media, our sponsors, advertisers or media partners.
Adopting Vista demands that we purchase new versions of all of our software to use on the new system; a boost for Microsoft and other software provider sales. The old stuff that’s lasted years won’t work anymore. VISTA however is a system that has been the subject of consumer frustration and a push back by business and consumers alike who have asked - begged - Microsoft (MS) to continue supporting XP. MS has refused and stopped selling the system today.
Since we have to spend a considerable amount of money to acquire new software, this is the time to explore the better of the two systems, the Mac. MS won’t mind, you have to purchase your MS Office again anyway. Mac is user friendly, easier to use and has a graphics capability that far surpasses what you've been taught is a "good system." The Mac has been an imortant part of Microsofts success. Without Mac, MS would have been subject to tighter trading restrictions worldwide as it would have owned the market with just one operating system available - Windows. They would have had monopoly in its truest sense which many claimed it has has anyway. Macs have been the only alternative system for nearly three decades. Here’s a little history.
At the beginning of the 1980s the personal computer market was just beginning to develop. IBM running DOS and Apple had an equal opportunity to conquer the emerging market. Apple had innovation, imagination and energy on its side – the key ingredients that Microsoft had in the 1970s.
Then Apple made a grave mistake and hired a blithering idiot as a CEO, John Scully. Scully was a dipshit who worked for Pepsi with some success selling soda. During his 10 year tenure at the Apple (’83 – ‘93) Scully single handedly took Apple from a position of competitive market dominance to that of a minor player. He did this by confusing consumers with an array of product lines, not listening to feedback from business market, giving away part of the Apple Graphic User Interface (GUI) license to MS. Worse, he traded short term shareholder gain with high per-unit prices and profit margins against aggressive market share acquisition. The Mac became a niche market product.
You may think “hey, he was up against Big Blue, IBM.” They were but despite all the hoopla, IBM nearly turned its back on the PC in the early ‘80s. They didn’t see the market potential as they owned the computer market at that time lock, stock and barrell. The personal computer was a pet project developed with third party off-the-shelf parts in the Boca Raton complex. This was an opportunity that Apple – Scully - missed to soak the market.
Scully lined his own pockets doing something that a spastic monkey could have done because Apple sold itself. He was the highest paid executive in the US in 1987. He should have sat back and let the money roll in and left what wasn't broke alone. Instead he did everything he could to screw up Apples market share through his "innovative" management style. Eventually the board of directors saw through his "style" and they dumped Scully and re-hired Steve Jobs in 1996 by paying $430 million for his failed NeXT computer company. The rest is history. Hello profitability for Apple and hello (eventually) iphone. Jobs saved the day.
Check out your local Apple store and decide for yourself. You might be glad you did.
Comments about John Scully are the opinion of the esteemed author and do not reflect the opinion of Gold Coast Media, our sponsors, advertisers or media partners.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Iran plays Russian Roulette
Iran is playing Russian roulette and the hammer is about to fall on a loaded chamber.
The wheels of war have started in motion and they are of such power and complexity in the U.S. that they are near impossible to stop. Iran, it is reported today, is now under U.S. covert attack with top level Iranian military commanders disappearing or being killed. The U.S. is preparing the way for hammer blow attack on Iran. This war will be different.
Iran has been amply warned by just about anyone who they would listen to - China, Russia, France and the US - of the need to comply to international concerns over their nuclear program. America may be criticized for many things but you can never say the Uncle Sam doesn't give notice of intent to wage war.
Sadaam learned this the hard way. He too was given lots of warnings and he laughed them off. More warnings, pleas, sanctions – same response. And then Hell came to visit: twice.
An attack on Iran will be of a higher level of devastation than the two unleashed on Iraq. The attack will have to be overwhelming, with the element of surprise and the majority of targets attacked will have to be destroyed simultaneously because of the very real counter-threat.
Iran is equipped with a plethora of anti-ship missiles – French Exocet and Chinese Silkworms - all aimed at the large oil tankers that contain our next tank of gas. The tankers are particularly vulnerable to attack as they pass through the Straights of Hormuz, a 21 mile wide channel where 20% of the world’s oil leaves the Gulf.
The Iranians are also equipped with intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting anywhere in the Middle East and Europe. That’s right - I said Europe. We’re not talking about your Sadaam-era porta-Scuds here. These are the real McCoy developed with the North Koreans and have a minimum range of 1,200 miles. Iran cannot be allowed to light off even one of these as it will bring immediate, far-reaching and terrible consequences.
What might the consequences be?
Most certainly there will be a nuclear response. Last year France gave Iran an unequivocal warning that they would nuke them in the event that France felt it was under attack. I can't imagine the rest of Europe feels any way differently. And then there’s Israel.
Israel will respond to the first wisp of smoke, the first splutter of flame, from those missiles. Why? Because Israel - and the world - has no idea what the intended target is or what the payload consists of: conventional explosives, chemical weapons or nuclear in the form of bits and bobs (dirty bomb) or the whole enchilada? Nobody, anywhere, wants to wake up and find that their back yard will be uninhabitable for the next 30,000 years because they didn't react quickly enough to an Iranian missle. Any sign of a missile attack on Israel will set off a nuclear response from Israel.
Iran has a substantial air force that provides a threat similar if delivered a smidge more leisurely than the missiles. Same reaction should they near Iraq, Afghanistan or go out to threaten Gulf shipping. As you read this, be aware that all of the nukes in Europe, Israel and even Russia have been wound up, fully fueled and targeted.
This war could be the one where nukes are not the deterrent or the side-show. They could be the main attraction.
The wheels of war have started in motion and they are of such power and complexity in the U.S. that they are near impossible to stop. Iran, it is reported today, is now under U.S. covert attack with top level Iranian military commanders disappearing or being killed. The U.S. is preparing the way for hammer blow attack on Iran. This war will be different.
Iran has been amply warned by just about anyone who they would listen to - China, Russia, France and the US - of the need to comply to international concerns over their nuclear program. America may be criticized for many things but you can never say the Uncle Sam doesn't give notice of intent to wage war.
Sadaam learned this the hard way. He too was given lots of warnings and he laughed them off. More warnings, pleas, sanctions – same response. And then Hell came to visit: twice.
An attack on Iran will be of a higher level of devastation than the two unleashed on Iraq. The attack will have to be overwhelming, with the element of surprise and the majority of targets attacked will have to be destroyed simultaneously because of the very real counter-threat.
Iran is equipped with a plethora of anti-ship missiles – French Exocet and Chinese Silkworms - all aimed at the large oil tankers that contain our next tank of gas. The tankers are particularly vulnerable to attack as they pass through the Straights of Hormuz, a 21 mile wide channel where 20% of the world’s oil leaves the Gulf.
The Iranians are also equipped with intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting anywhere in the Middle East and Europe. That’s right - I said Europe. We’re not talking about your Sadaam-era porta-Scuds here. These are the real McCoy developed with the North Koreans and have a minimum range of 1,200 miles. Iran cannot be allowed to light off even one of these as it will bring immediate, far-reaching and terrible consequences.
What might the consequences be?
Most certainly there will be a nuclear response. Last year France gave Iran an unequivocal warning that they would nuke them in the event that France felt it was under attack. I can't imagine the rest of Europe feels any way differently. And then there’s Israel.
Israel will respond to the first wisp of smoke, the first splutter of flame, from those missiles. Why? Because Israel - and the world - has no idea what the intended target is or what the payload consists of: conventional explosives, chemical weapons or nuclear in the form of bits and bobs (dirty bomb) or the whole enchilada? Nobody, anywhere, wants to wake up and find that their back yard will be uninhabitable for the next 30,000 years because they didn't react quickly enough to an Iranian missle. Any sign of a missile attack on Israel will set off a nuclear response from Israel.
Iran has a substantial air force that provides a threat similar if delivered a smidge more leisurely than the missiles. Same reaction should they near Iraq, Afghanistan or go out to threaten Gulf shipping. As you read this, be aware that all of the nukes in Europe, Israel and even Russia have been wound up, fully fueled and targeted.
This war could be the one where nukes are not the deterrent or the side-show. They could be the main attraction.
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