I will discuss my stats first. I am seeing a spike in readership for the most recent posts. I have checked the search terms that led them here and they do not match the posts that I have made recently. I believe some people are being redirected here by a browser program that hijacks your searches. For those who come here by accident, sorry, I have nothing to do with it. The last time this happened it was all because of one post and I deleted it as it was a meaningless one anyways.
NY Times - Break Up the Bank? It’s Not for You to Ask. Firstly I am going to talk about the article and then I will discuss why our corporations are no longer capitalistic or honest. The article is about how some shareholder in JP Morgan wants to have a vote on whether or not the company should be split along the lines required by the old Glass Steagle law which required commercial banks to be separated from investment banks. The article humorously (in my opinion) continues to insist that "JP Morgan" doesn't want to separate the activities and may not have to.
The corporation is one of the greatest things ever invented and is responsible for all the really great projects of the last 100 plus years. Two guys would want to share resources and make a partnership and would have to agree on what they would do in business and share in the return. You would hire your partners eldest son because he could end up your partner when his father died. As countries advanced they found that really large projects required large companies with lots of owners. Voting became more and more difficult and shares were given or sold to people outside of the community, that was the beginning of the real stock market. The owners began to give their voting rights to other owners who had the time to go to the elections and that they trusted. That is a proxy vote and that is what the article is about.
Now, what went wrong with proxy voting? Pretty simple, the people buying the stock became less and less interested in the companies and began to only focus on the return. They began pressuring the managers that they had hired to do anything they had to to turn a profit, that let in corrupt managers. Things got worse, when American companies stopped seeing as large a profit as they began to have to compete with low wage foreign companies, the stockholders began to only care about the stock valuation and that is when companies began getting split up just to be sold off. The people that actually cared about the business voted to give more and more power to the managers and gave up the right to vote on more and more control of the actual business. The response by shareholders who did not care about the underlying business was to pay CEOs and managers based on the increase in stock value. That was the final nail, now business owners no longer had a say in how the company is run and the managers get paid better if they increase the stock value regardless of how they do it, which led them to outsource and split up the company in ways that hurt the long term viability of the business but increased the immediate stock valuation.
I know there is a lot involved in that; but, I tried to keep it to the basics and in fact, the detail is not as important right now. The bigger issue has to do with JP Morgan itself. JP Morgan may be insolvent and fail. Over the past 6 months they have announced that they are getting rid of their commodities division (which has been very profitable), are laying off thousands of people although their profits are up, has had a number of suicides amongst it's highest levels and is being investigated for fixing the commodities and other markets. We could add to this the fact that in the last couple of years they have had to pay over $20 billion dollars in fines for corruption and fixing markets. There is one guy alone that lost the company over $5 billion, he was known as the London Whale and was one of their traders who did bad things.
Lets just say that it is possible that JP Morgan is preparing for when the bond markets fail and their bets get called and they go bankrupt, just like Lehman Brothers did. The leader, CEO, of JP Morgan is Jamie Dimon and he has recently left the head bank and become head of the companies "living will", that means that if the company went bankrupt, he would be paid to break up the company and split one part holding all the debt and another part holding all the assets. Bloomberg - JPMorgan’s Dimon Said to Relinquish Chairman Title at Bank Unit.
This all brings us back to the beginning or such. If the managers of JP Morgan believe the company will go bankrupt and they will be removed then why would they want it to split it's investment banks from it's commercial banking now. When the living will is activated they will be able to decide who gets the assets and who gets the returns without having to listen to the investors, you know, the real owners. The corporation is one of the greatest things ever created by man and has allowed us to advance even more than fire; but, the problem is how modern corporations ceased working for it's owners and was put under the control of managers who no longer reported to them.
Monday, March 3, 2014
Sunday, March 2, 2014
7 Keys to the Internet and some random thoughts
The Guardian - Meet the seven people who hold the keys to worldwide internet security. Firstly, I want to say that this is the first real news article I have read about the seven keys. While I had written about this years ago, it is only now that I have seen it openly discussed. While the article (and linked video within it) discuss the process for rebooting the internet as far as the security protocol, it does not explain many other things. In fact, the real question is where are the keys to be used and that is at a few American military bases, El Segundo is only for practice.
You see, El Segundo is where many military contractors in the Aerospace industry are located. A couple of miles away from El Segundo in Marina Del Rey is where ICANN is headquarted. In the article they ask someone about how this important ability, to reboot the internet, could be left in the hands of a private non-for profit and the person says that they don't know. The written article says the following, "The fact that the US-based, not-for-profit organisation Icann – rather than a government or an international body – has one of the biggest jobs in maintaining global internet security has inevitably come in for criticism." I consider this just silly words for the ignorant. In fact, ICANN gets it's authority because it has a contract with the military of the United States.
Now here is an unpleasant fact, how could we possibly restart the internet if someone did not have a complete copy of everything that has gone over the internet and that would be the National Security Agency or NSA. There are a number of people who freak out at the thought of the government having access to everything on the internet; but, they did create it after all. Would you accept someone having a complete copy of everything that was ever e-mailed or posted if the alternative was that everything could be lost?
There are those who called me a conspiracy theorist when I first began talking about ICANN, it is nice to finally have mainstream media admit it and film it. Sometimes I talk about things that are not "common knowledge" or conspiracy type things. I have written about globalism and a coming one world economic system with a universal pegging of currencies and I have talked about how the federal government is taking more and more control over transportation. Unfortunately, when I read the "alternative media", I find it filled with far right wing whack jobs. They are often anti-Semitic and they take ever bit of information and assume the worst case scenario.
The truth is very simple and sadder than what many fear. There is a growing movement on the far right that believes that Obama is a communist and wants to create Marshall law and throw people in concentration camps where they intend to wipe out 90% of us and turn the rest of us into slaves. I will not post a link to the stories or videos; but, there are thousands of them all over the internet. This same kind of fear has led people to not get their children vaccinated, I consider this a serious mistake on their part and a dangerous one.
We are going to have an electronic international currency and you will barely notice the difference. The truth is that most transactions are electronic in the world anymore already. Africa is the most advanced in this area in many ways. There is a coming economic crisis and you barely notice that as it has been taking place for years and very few have noticed. I wrote about the IMF plan for inflating all the currencies (The Chicago Plan Revisited if you want to search for it) and the truth is this is what all the nations have been doing already. All the important nations have been inflating their currencies at the same time by printing trillions and trillions of dollars each year; but, as they have all done this at about the same time and gradually, their values compared to one another have remained relatively the same.
I am not looking to see some great event that changes the world, the changes have already occurred. The change will be complete when there is a substantial event, not a cataclysmic one. In the end the change will be about the valuation of labor. It will go well for poor countries and poorly for rich countries. In my opinion gold will be worth very little as it has very few real uses. Consider this, if gold were truly needed, why would most of it sit in vaults? Gold is a stupid thing to base a currency on, it made sense hundreds of years ago because you couldn't forge it. With all the alchemists who dedicated their live into turning lead into gold, they could not do it. Even today we can make artificial diamonds; but, not gold. When we switch to an all electronic currency, gold will drop in value and it's market will crash. I will not go into how the crash of gold will benefit the United States; but, I bet it will.
You see, El Segundo is where many military contractors in the Aerospace industry are located. A couple of miles away from El Segundo in Marina Del Rey is where ICANN is headquarted. In the article they ask someone about how this important ability, to reboot the internet, could be left in the hands of a private non-for profit and the person says that they don't know. The written article says the following, "The fact that the US-based, not-for-profit organisation Icann – rather than a government or an international body – has one of the biggest jobs in maintaining global internet security has inevitably come in for criticism." I consider this just silly words for the ignorant. In fact, ICANN gets it's authority because it has a contract with the military of the United States.
Now here is an unpleasant fact, how could we possibly restart the internet if someone did not have a complete copy of everything that has gone over the internet and that would be the National Security Agency or NSA. There are a number of people who freak out at the thought of the government having access to everything on the internet; but, they did create it after all. Would you accept someone having a complete copy of everything that was ever e-mailed or posted if the alternative was that everything could be lost?
There are those who called me a conspiracy theorist when I first began talking about ICANN, it is nice to finally have mainstream media admit it and film it. Sometimes I talk about things that are not "common knowledge" or conspiracy type things. I have written about globalism and a coming one world economic system with a universal pegging of currencies and I have talked about how the federal government is taking more and more control over transportation. Unfortunately, when I read the "alternative media", I find it filled with far right wing whack jobs. They are often anti-Semitic and they take ever bit of information and assume the worst case scenario.
The truth is very simple and sadder than what many fear. There is a growing movement on the far right that believes that Obama is a communist and wants to create Marshall law and throw people in concentration camps where they intend to wipe out 90% of us and turn the rest of us into slaves. I will not post a link to the stories or videos; but, there are thousands of them all over the internet. This same kind of fear has led people to not get their children vaccinated, I consider this a serious mistake on their part and a dangerous one.
We are going to have an electronic international currency and you will barely notice the difference. The truth is that most transactions are electronic in the world anymore already. Africa is the most advanced in this area in many ways. There is a coming economic crisis and you barely notice that as it has been taking place for years and very few have noticed. I wrote about the IMF plan for inflating all the currencies (The Chicago Plan Revisited if you want to search for it) and the truth is this is what all the nations have been doing already. All the important nations have been inflating their currencies at the same time by printing trillions and trillions of dollars each year; but, as they have all done this at about the same time and gradually, their values compared to one another have remained relatively the same.
I am not looking to see some great event that changes the world, the changes have already occurred. The change will be complete when there is a substantial event, not a cataclysmic one. In the end the change will be about the valuation of labor. It will go well for poor countries and poorly for rich countries. In my opinion gold will be worth very little as it has very few real uses. Consider this, if gold were truly needed, why would most of it sit in vaults? Gold is a stupid thing to base a currency on, it made sense hundreds of years ago because you couldn't forge it. With all the alchemists who dedicated their live into turning lead into gold, they could not do it. Even today we can make artificial diamonds; but, not gold. When we switch to an all electronic currency, gold will drop in value and it's market will crash. I will not go into how the crash of gold will benefit the United States; but, I bet it will.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Short Post and Heads Up
Yahoo - ‘Homeless Jesus’ sculpture stirring the pot in North Carolina. This is truly a sad story for all the wrong reasons. It begins with an artist who creates a sculpture of Jesus as a homeless person sleeping on a bench. The sad part is that this upset some people who think they are Christians. One person is quoted as follows, "Jesus is not a vagrant, Jesus is not a helpless person who needs our help. We need someone who is capable of meeting our needs, not someone who is also needy." Yet, in the bible it says that there will be many who call his name and he will say he never knew them. They respond that they never got the chance to be with him and he responds that when you help the poor and others in pain, you are helping him. Christianity is a wonderful thing; but, too many people forgot what it means.
Not long ago I corresponded with a lady who, along with her brother, was donating to charity a very expensive car in honor of her father. The family is well off; but, they could have kept the money. While I am not a liberty to discuss the details of my correspondence with her, I was very impressed by the attitude and strength of her and her family and their willingness to contribute to their community and others. Christianity is not about dressing a certain way or what you do not do, it is about what you do do to help and love one another and somehow in America that has gotten lost for many. If you are not helping the poor and downtrodden then if you do meet Jesus he will tell you that he never knew you. If you are imperfect and care about and help the downtrodden then he will know you. It is not sin that keeps us from God anymore, Jesus fixed that. It is our failure to have good in us that keeps us from God. None are good completely, there are none good but God; but, there can be some good in us even if it is imperfect and that comes from loving our neighbor as ourselves not from loving God. Loving God is the natural consequence of loving others.
Huffington Post - Florida Restaurant Charging Customers For Obamacare Costs That Don't Exist Yet. The short of the story is that some imbecile in Florida is showing a tax on the bills at his restaurant for costs for Obamacare. We will ignore that the restaurant will not be required to provide healthcare for it's employees until 2015 and we will ignore the fact that charging it as a tax is both fraud and illegal for the company. What it is, is childish. They could have chosen to show the cost of the Iraq war on their bills, that has cost us trillions. Maybe they could show that as the "Killing People for No Reason if Foreign Countries" tax. What about the trillions of dollars we spent to bailout banks under Bush, maybe they cold call that the "Paying Off Banksters for Stealing Our Retirements" tax. The point is simple, we need to town down the hysteria and lies and deal with the reality.
Huffington Post - Utah Governor Rejects Full Medicaid Expansion, Will Seek Federal Grant To Cover Poor. The governor of Utah has said that they will not expand Medicaid in his state unless the federal government pays for it and that he will seek to get a grant from them to cover it. If you are not rich, you don't matter.
Now the heads up. I have a lot going on right now and for the next week, so I might not post much. My health is oddly fantastic and everything is good, I just have some things going on that might require my attention. I don't know how I feel about this next part. I will be retiring this year from my job. This is weighing heavily on my mind. My business sense is stronger than ever; but, I no longer have the fire in my belly for it. The game has lost any surprises and I am bored. When I do retire, I will also decide what to do with this blog. I am considering starting a new blog when I retire, one that actually uses my name, my real name. I am considering telling much more than I do now, things I know; but, cannot prove with documentation, things I have been told in person. If I do, I will not be able to tell the readers of this site because that would be unfair to the fact that I have allowed anonymous comments on this site and have not identified people in my life. THIS blog will always be as it has been, anonymous for all parties who wish to be so. That means that if I do start a new personalized blog, I cannot reference this one or allow this one to link to the new one. I don't know what I am going to do yet, that is the beauty of my current life, I don't have to decide what the next step is.
Not long ago I corresponded with a lady who, along with her brother, was donating to charity a very expensive car in honor of her father. The family is well off; but, they could have kept the money. While I am not a liberty to discuss the details of my correspondence with her, I was very impressed by the attitude and strength of her and her family and their willingness to contribute to their community and others. Christianity is not about dressing a certain way or what you do not do, it is about what you do do to help and love one another and somehow in America that has gotten lost for many. If you are not helping the poor and downtrodden then if you do meet Jesus he will tell you that he never knew you. If you are imperfect and care about and help the downtrodden then he will know you. It is not sin that keeps us from God anymore, Jesus fixed that. It is our failure to have good in us that keeps us from God. None are good completely, there are none good but God; but, there can be some good in us even if it is imperfect and that comes from loving our neighbor as ourselves not from loving God. Loving God is the natural consequence of loving others.
Huffington Post - Florida Restaurant Charging Customers For Obamacare Costs That Don't Exist Yet. The short of the story is that some imbecile in Florida is showing a tax on the bills at his restaurant for costs for Obamacare. We will ignore that the restaurant will not be required to provide healthcare for it's employees until 2015 and we will ignore the fact that charging it as a tax is both fraud and illegal for the company. What it is, is childish. They could have chosen to show the cost of the Iraq war on their bills, that has cost us trillions. Maybe they could show that as the "Killing People for No Reason if Foreign Countries" tax. What about the trillions of dollars we spent to bailout banks under Bush, maybe they cold call that the "Paying Off Banksters for Stealing Our Retirements" tax. The point is simple, we need to town down the hysteria and lies and deal with the reality.
Huffington Post - Utah Governor Rejects Full Medicaid Expansion, Will Seek Federal Grant To Cover Poor. The governor of Utah has said that they will not expand Medicaid in his state unless the federal government pays for it and that he will seek to get a grant from them to cover it. If you are not rich, you don't matter.
Now the heads up. I have a lot going on right now and for the next week, so I might not post much. My health is oddly fantastic and everything is good, I just have some things going on that might require my attention. I don't know how I feel about this next part. I will be retiring this year from my job. This is weighing heavily on my mind. My business sense is stronger than ever; but, I no longer have the fire in my belly for it. The game has lost any surprises and I am bored. When I do retire, I will also decide what to do with this blog. I am considering starting a new blog when I retire, one that actually uses my name, my real name. I am considering telling much more than I do now, things I know; but, cannot prove with documentation, things I have been told in person. If I do, I will not be able to tell the readers of this site because that would be unfair to the fact that I have allowed anonymous comments on this site and have not identified people in my life. THIS blog will always be as it has been, anonymous for all parties who wish to be so. That means that if I do start a new personalized blog, I cannot reference this one or allow this one to link to the new one. I don't know what I am going to do yet, that is the beauty of my current life, I don't have to decide what the next step is.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Happines or Rightousness
Righteousness leads to Joy. Joy does not necessarily lead to righteousness. If this is true then should we seek joy more than being better. Jesus said love your neighbor as you love yourself. He did not say love your neighbor; "but, don't let it get in the way of taking care of yourself first."
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Where Did the Quantitative Easing (QE) Money Go?
Over a year ago, the Federal Reserve began QE3 which involved the purchase of Treasury Bonds and Mortgage backed securities. The securities were bought from the mega banks, this is public knowledge and I have written about it before; but, I forgot to ask the next question. Banks had hundreds of billions of dollars in mortgages and mortgage backed securities that were considered "toxic" because the loans that backed up these things will not and cannot be paid by the people who took them out. What I am talking about is sub-prime and other mortgages that were taken out by people who lost their jobs, had anticipated an increase in their house valuations or had loans which started low and increased as their interest rates reset or adjusted up after the first few years.
Having said all that, someone recently brought up a brilliant question. What did the banks do with the hundreds of billions of dollars they received from the Federal Reserve after they sold their mortgages to them? What one person is claiming is that the banks used those funds to buy treasury bonds. When the housing market crashed, a friend and I had a communication with the head of real estate for the Rockefeller organization. The issue involved the purchase of a large number of houses valued at over a billion dollars and the Rockefeller organization wanted to purchase the collection of properties and their stated price was 35 cents on the dollar. The deal did not go through. That dollar amount is what stuck in my head, I concluded that they had a reason for the number had chosen. Now, here is the question, what discount did the federal reserve get when they purchased the same mortgages?
Why is this important? Well, lets start with this, private investors were only willing to pay 35 cents on the dollar. The fact that it was the Rockefeller organization is not surprising as the family had made untold amounts of their income during the depression after buying all the houses and then renting them out to the people they bought them from. It would make sense for the wealthy to buy properties during a down economy; but, they did not because the Federal Reserve did. We must assume that the Federal Reserve paid more than banks would have been willing to pay for the same properties. Why would they pay more than market rates?
Let me simplify. If you owned mortgage backed securities, you would only sell them to the highest bidder, yet, the highest bidder was consistently the Federal Reserve. Are they just suckers and didn't care what they paid for them? What if the Federal Reserve didn't buy them at a discount and bought them at their face value? What would that mean and why do it? Nobody pays a new car price to buy a used car unless that is a collectors car and toxic mortgages are not a collectors item. Why would the Federal Reserve overpay for mortgage backed securities?
This is where the question I had forgotten to ask comes in. Who did they pay and where was the money spent? An example would be JP Morgan. JP Morgan sold billions of dollars of mortgage backed securities to the Federal Reserve; but, where did the money go once it got to JP Morgan? If the person I heard was correct, the big banks used that money to buy treasury bonds. Sure some went to bonuses for bankers and some went out in dividends; but, the amount is miniscule compared to the total. If the person I heard is correct, the banks used that money to buy treasury bonds. This is also interesting as banks are now required to keep more hard assets and cash on hand, I bet that treasury bonds count too.
If we look a little deeper we begin to ask ourselves another question. What happens to the banks if the government defaults on those treasury bonds? A while back I wrote about how a European country (Italy or France as I recall) was selling government bonds with a negative interest rate. At the time it made no sense to most of us; but, the bonds were sold. If we want an example of a government default, all we have to do is look to Detroit. Bondholders got a haircut and pensioners got a 90% reduction in their payments. This is why state governments are looking to cut pensions, this is the game.
If states and local governments bought mortgage backed securities (as Detroit did)that were sold at inflated prices, why should the organizations that sold them to the governments be paid off when the bankruptcies in municipalities continue? If JP Morgan sold your state a billion dollars in mortgage backed securities and they lost 70% their value, while at the same time JP Morgan owned a billion dollars of your state's bonds, be paid for the state bonds at full value? Read that as many times as necessary to understand what I just asked.
JP Morgan sold mortgage backed securities to states, local municipalities and public pensions that it then bet against. They then took that money and bought state and local bonds. They expect the states and municipalities to pay them on the bonds at 100% and not have to pay the states and municipalities for the hundreds of billions of dollars they lost by buying the mortgage backed securities from them. The banks would like to see the difference paid for by raiding public pensions to pay them.
I will move onto other things now.
Yahoo - Reuters - Thirteen billboards, one paint-shop worker helped defeat union at VW plant in Chattanooga. My regular readers should be able to read the article and dissect the lies by themselves; but, I will give a quick shot at it. The title alone tells you the authors perspective, the UAW was defeated by a few billboards and ONE paint shop worker. It doesn't matter that the governor of the state told people that they would lose their jobs if they voted for collective bargaining and contracts with employees, it didn't matter that Volkswagen itself said that they were okay with unionization. Nope, it was someone in the paint shop that is responsible for people voting against having a united say in their salary negotiations. It does not matter if you are for or against unions, the question is whether or not the article and the statements are just garbage and propaganda. You can agree with the outcome; but, understand when you are being lied to.
Having said all that, someone recently brought up a brilliant question. What did the banks do with the hundreds of billions of dollars they received from the Federal Reserve after they sold their mortgages to them? What one person is claiming is that the banks used those funds to buy treasury bonds. When the housing market crashed, a friend and I had a communication with the head of real estate for the Rockefeller organization. The issue involved the purchase of a large number of houses valued at over a billion dollars and the Rockefeller organization wanted to purchase the collection of properties and their stated price was 35 cents on the dollar. The deal did not go through. That dollar amount is what stuck in my head, I concluded that they had a reason for the number had chosen. Now, here is the question, what discount did the federal reserve get when they purchased the same mortgages?
Why is this important? Well, lets start with this, private investors were only willing to pay 35 cents on the dollar. The fact that it was the Rockefeller organization is not surprising as the family had made untold amounts of their income during the depression after buying all the houses and then renting them out to the people they bought them from. It would make sense for the wealthy to buy properties during a down economy; but, they did not because the Federal Reserve did. We must assume that the Federal Reserve paid more than banks would have been willing to pay for the same properties. Why would they pay more than market rates?
Let me simplify. If you owned mortgage backed securities, you would only sell them to the highest bidder, yet, the highest bidder was consistently the Federal Reserve. Are they just suckers and didn't care what they paid for them? What if the Federal Reserve didn't buy them at a discount and bought them at their face value? What would that mean and why do it? Nobody pays a new car price to buy a used car unless that is a collectors car and toxic mortgages are not a collectors item. Why would the Federal Reserve overpay for mortgage backed securities?
This is where the question I had forgotten to ask comes in. Who did they pay and where was the money spent? An example would be JP Morgan. JP Morgan sold billions of dollars of mortgage backed securities to the Federal Reserve; but, where did the money go once it got to JP Morgan? If the person I heard was correct, the big banks used that money to buy treasury bonds. Sure some went to bonuses for bankers and some went out in dividends; but, the amount is miniscule compared to the total. If the person I heard is correct, the banks used that money to buy treasury bonds. This is also interesting as banks are now required to keep more hard assets and cash on hand, I bet that treasury bonds count too.
If we look a little deeper we begin to ask ourselves another question. What happens to the banks if the government defaults on those treasury bonds? A while back I wrote about how a European country (Italy or France as I recall) was selling government bonds with a negative interest rate. At the time it made no sense to most of us; but, the bonds were sold. If we want an example of a government default, all we have to do is look to Detroit. Bondholders got a haircut and pensioners got a 90% reduction in their payments. This is why state governments are looking to cut pensions, this is the game.
If states and local governments bought mortgage backed securities (as Detroit did)that were sold at inflated prices, why should the organizations that sold them to the governments be paid off when the bankruptcies in municipalities continue? If JP Morgan sold your state a billion dollars in mortgage backed securities and they lost 70% their value, while at the same time JP Morgan owned a billion dollars of your state's bonds, be paid for the state bonds at full value? Read that as many times as necessary to understand what I just asked.
JP Morgan sold mortgage backed securities to states, local municipalities and public pensions that it then bet against. They then took that money and bought state and local bonds. They expect the states and municipalities to pay them on the bonds at 100% and not have to pay the states and municipalities for the hundreds of billions of dollars they lost by buying the mortgage backed securities from them. The banks would like to see the difference paid for by raiding public pensions to pay them.
I will move onto other things now.
Yahoo - Reuters - Thirteen billboards, one paint-shop worker helped defeat union at VW plant in Chattanooga. My regular readers should be able to read the article and dissect the lies by themselves; but, I will give a quick shot at it. The title alone tells you the authors perspective, the UAW was defeated by a few billboards and ONE paint shop worker. It doesn't matter that the governor of the state told people that they would lose their jobs if they voted for collective bargaining and contracts with employees, it didn't matter that Volkswagen itself said that they were okay with unionization. Nope, it was someone in the paint shop that is responsible for people voting against having a united say in their salary negotiations. It does not matter if you are for or against unions, the question is whether or not the article and the statements are just garbage and propaganda. You can agree with the outcome; but, understand when you are being lied to.
Business News or Propoganda?
I was watching the is video about a new pizza chain on Fox Business News and I couldn't believe how biased it was. The pizza chain was created by a multimillionaire with experience with franchises, he was the founder of Wetzel's Pretzels and decided he wanted to create a new chain. He started by creating two stores and then expanded to 11 with plans to expand to 45 by the end of the year. He had a good idea, tested, worked it out and began franchising it. That in itself is a good story; but, what is really interesting is how the "reporter" approaches him and the story.
Lets start with this, about 23 seconds in the reporter says that "you can't tell us the economy is so bad". She then says, "so your not blaming the weather and your not blaming the economy, your doing as well as you would like to". After going over the large number of big time people who are looking to franchise the pizza company, the reporter then asks how increasing the minimum wage might affect him.
Fox - The recipe for pizza success.
I really want you to watch the short news story. At some point in time I will probably try the pizza and the owner of the company seems pleasant enough. He certainly has managed to get lots of investors because of his past track record. In fact after watching another article about his company on Good Morning America the number of stores going up is already around 200. That is a pretty good start for any franchise. What was intriguing was how she seemed to want to use the story, not to help his stores; but, to achieve a political view which he smartly chose not to get tricked into.
Having said all that, lets get back to the reporters perspective. She began by saying that you can't tell her the economy is bad because some people are making lots of money. I question who this reporter spends her time with, I am guessing it is with people that have lots of money. That is the saddest part, she may really not understand what life is like for people who make minimum wage. There was someone rich guy recently who complained that the poor in America are better off than 99% of the world's population and needed to stop whining. The person who said that clearly had no idea how bad things are for many.
In Australia, the richest woman in the world (she inherited the money from her father) said that Australians should be willing to work for $2 a day, currently they have a minimum wage of $16 an hour and by and large the country was not damaged by the international economic downturn. This same woman called for sterilizing everyone that makes under $100,000 a year. I guess some of the wealthiest actively want to see the western world become like some 3rd world nation except even more restrictive.
Lets start with this, about 23 seconds in the reporter says that "you can't tell us the economy is so bad". She then says, "so your not blaming the weather and your not blaming the economy, your doing as well as you would like to". After going over the large number of big time people who are looking to franchise the pizza company, the reporter then asks how increasing the minimum wage might affect him.
Fox - The recipe for pizza success.
I really want you to watch the short news story. At some point in time I will probably try the pizza and the owner of the company seems pleasant enough. He certainly has managed to get lots of investors because of his past track record. In fact after watching another article about his company on Good Morning America the number of stores going up is already around 200. That is a pretty good start for any franchise. What was intriguing was how she seemed to want to use the story, not to help his stores; but, to achieve a political view which he smartly chose not to get tricked into.
Having said all that, lets get back to the reporters perspective. She began by saying that you can't tell her the economy is bad because some people are making lots of money. I question who this reporter spends her time with, I am guessing it is with people that have lots of money. That is the saddest part, she may really not understand what life is like for people who make minimum wage. There was someone rich guy recently who complained that the poor in America are better off than 99% of the world's population and needed to stop whining. The person who said that clearly had no idea how bad things are for many.
In Australia, the richest woman in the world (she inherited the money from her father) said that Australians should be willing to work for $2 a day, currently they have a minimum wage of $16 an hour and by and large the country was not damaged by the international economic downturn. This same woman called for sterilizing everyone that makes under $100,000 a year. I guess some of the wealthiest actively want to see the western world become like some 3rd world nation except even more restrictive.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
All kinds of news and thoughts
Clearly I am feeling better than I have in the last couple of weeks, in fact I am almost feeling normal. I have been saving up articles for when I could explain myself better; but, have found that I saved too many so I will do an information dump.
Rolling Stone - The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks' Most Devious Scam Yet
. The author, Matt Taibbi, has just left Rolling Stone and he will be missed. He is one of the few true investigative journalists out there and I wish him well. In this article Mr. Taibbi shows how in the 1990s the big banks were allowed to purchase the industrial system and the self-regulationary groups it had created. Here is where I believe he missed the boat, while attacking the banks being allowed to buy the industrial cycle, he forgot that we had already outlawed companies from doing the exact same thing when we passed laws against monopolies.
Let me explain. During the early 1900s as the industrial revolution really took hold, companies such as the Rockefeller's Standard Oil was able to buy 95% of all the oil production in the United States and then used this power to force everyone to do what they wanted, they were able to coerce all the other companies to pay more than they should have and destroy companies that did not go along with them. This was true in steel production, the railroads and later in the utilities industry. The effect of the monopolies was to destroy competition which is the heart of capitalism. Eventually it got so bad that monopolies were outlawed. Now we have monopolies; but, they are created by the banks being allowed to do what industry was not allowed to do.
Rolling Stone - Matt Taibbi - Ex-Morgan Stanley Chief Jams Foot in Mouth, Complains of CEO Abuse. An example of another person complaining that by talking about corruption in the financial industry, we are picking on the poor CEOs that benefited from completely corrupting the financial system.
Business Insider - The 'Internet Of Things' Will Be Bigger Than The Smartphone, Tablet, And PC Markets Combined. Let me summarize this quickly, business is thrilled at the opportunity to observe everything you do so that they can market things to you and increase the costs to you based upon your individual usage, this is basically the use of the internet to destroy the capitalistic view of purchasing things in bulk as a community. The war that is being waged is against the individual. Here is how it will work. If you buy toilet paper every week, you will get a discount for buying a particular brand more than others. Sounds good, right? If you buy toiler paper once a month, you will get less of a discount. It is about targeted pricing and not targeted discounts. Why do you think all the large markets now give you Rewards discounts and offer you individualized coupons? It is also a violation of the Constitutional concept of treating all people the same. The consequence is even worse for the average American and destroys the idea of working as a group. What if, those who spend a $100,000 a year on groceries were given a 10% discount on everything they bought and everyone who spent less got no discount, who would be subsidizing whom? By the way, that is exactly the reason why Rewards cards were created.
Yahoo - AP - Minimum wage report puts Democrats on defensive. A report by the Congressional Budget Office claims that if we increase the minimum wage, roughly 25%, we will lose about half a million jobs. I guess those jobs will be outsourced to communist China because anything that makes a profit and has to be located here will continue to be located here. If you thought the report was accurate, lets make a deal. I want congress to promise me that if we don't increase the minimum wage, we will not outsource anymore jobs to communist China or allow more immigration. If we lose another 500,000 jobs then we should automatically double the minimum wage. That would be fair. The report is insincere in that it does not have the guts to follow it's own logic. If we eliminated any minimum wage and allowed people to work as slave labor, how many more jobs would we be able to create? What if we just went back to slavery, would we have more manufacturing jobs? Sure we would.
New York Times - The Bank Rescue, Five Years Later
. This is an amusing article, the author liked the bank bailouts and defends the stimulus program, both of which primarily benefited private industry; but, dislikes the Affordable Care Act. The author would prefer giving away your tax dollars to bail out the banks that destroyed the economy and the stimulus program that primarily benefited large construction companies by paying them to do "shovel ready" jobs that didn't need to be done in the first place more than requiring people who use medical services and pay nothing to have to have insurance.
New York Times - Outrage Over Wall St. Pay, but Shrugs for Silicon Valley?
. Yes, we should be mad about people taking money away from investors and our pensions for their making risky investments and going bankrupt at the expense of others and not be mad at people who created real products that we can use to save us time and money. We should not be mad at silicon valley computer and software designers for giving us useful products and being paid for it; but, we should be mad at Wall Street and the financial sector for stealing our money and giving us nothing in return. Here is a crazy capitalistic concept, what if we paid people based on how much they contributed to society and not on how much they steal from the rest of us and the damage they do?
intellihub - 8th international banker to die in a month jumps off building in China. One of the suicides involved a banker who shot himself in the head 8 or 9 times with a nail gun and it wasn't deemed suspicious. Another involved a man who had just e-mailed his girlfriend that he was headed home and then jumped off the 33rd floor of a JP Morgan building in London.
Yahoo - AP - NYSE stocks posting largest volume decreases. A 95% decrease in the amount of shares of stock being traded on the NYSE while prices increases means that the big investors are not trading, yet; but, it also means that the market prices are being manipulated. I think the end is near and we should question whom the bell tolls for.
Yahoo - Obama: Ukraine, Syria are not pieces on ‘some Cold-War chessboard’. Of course they are pieces in a game and the game is simple. Either the Ukraine will fall in line with Russia or come into the European Union. The people want to join the European Union and the elected officials want to put them back under the control of Russia. It really is that simple.
I don't like communism where you are not rewarded for your individual efforts and own nothing. I don't like fascism where corporations control everything and you are prevented from owning anything because someone else already owns it all. I don't like any system that denies you a chance to succeed because the game is already rigged, that just means a system where you are born into it a slave. I like the society we used to all believe in, the one where if you kept your nose clean, worked hard and helped the nation as a whole, you were rewarded individually, that is the true American dream. Oh, and if you were a good citizen you could retire with dignity and security because you had earned it.
Rolling Stone - The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks' Most Devious Scam Yet
. The author, Matt Taibbi, has just left Rolling Stone and he will be missed. He is one of the few true investigative journalists out there and I wish him well. In this article Mr. Taibbi shows how in the 1990s the big banks were allowed to purchase the industrial system and the self-regulationary groups it had created. Here is where I believe he missed the boat, while attacking the banks being allowed to buy the industrial cycle, he forgot that we had already outlawed companies from doing the exact same thing when we passed laws against monopolies.
Let me explain. During the early 1900s as the industrial revolution really took hold, companies such as the Rockefeller's Standard Oil was able to buy 95% of all the oil production in the United States and then used this power to force everyone to do what they wanted, they were able to coerce all the other companies to pay more than they should have and destroy companies that did not go along with them. This was true in steel production, the railroads and later in the utilities industry. The effect of the monopolies was to destroy competition which is the heart of capitalism. Eventually it got so bad that monopolies were outlawed. Now we have monopolies; but, they are created by the banks being allowed to do what industry was not allowed to do.
Rolling Stone - Matt Taibbi - Ex-Morgan Stanley Chief Jams Foot in Mouth, Complains of CEO Abuse. An example of another person complaining that by talking about corruption in the financial industry, we are picking on the poor CEOs that benefited from completely corrupting the financial system.
Business Insider - The 'Internet Of Things' Will Be Bigger Than The Smartphone, Tablet, And PC Markets Combined. Let me summarize this quickly, business is thrilled at the opportunity to observe everything you do so that they can market things to you and increase the costs to you based upon your individual usage, this is basically the use of the internet to destroy the capitalistic view of purchasing things in bulk as a community. The war that is being waged is against the individual. Here is how it will work. If you buy toilet paper every week, you will get a discount for buying a particular brand more than others. Sounds good, right? If you buy toiler paper once a month, you will get less of a discount. It is about targeted pricing and not targeted discounts. Why do you think all the large markets now give you Rewards discounts and offer you individualized coupons? It is also a violation of the Constitutional concept of treating all people the same. The consequence is even worse for the average American and destroys the idea of working as a group. What if, those who spend a $100,000 a year on groceries were given a 10% discount on everything they bought and everyone who spent less got no discount, who would be subsidizing whom? By the way, that is exactly the reason why Rewards cards were created.
Yahoo - AP - Minimum wage report puts Democrats on defensive. A report by the Congressional Budget Office claims that if we increase the minimum wage, roughly 25%, we will lose about half a million jobs. I guess those jobs will be outsourced to communist China because anything that makes a profit and has to be located here will continue to be located here. If you thought the report was accurate, lets make a deal. I want congress to promise me that if we don't increase the minimum wage, we will not outsource anymore jobs to communist China or allow more immigration. If we lose another 500,000 jobs then we should automatically double the minimum wage. That would be fair. The report is insincere in that it does not have the guts to follow it's own logic. If we eliminated any minimum wage and allowed people to work as slave labor, how many more jobs would we be able to create? What if we just went back to slavery, would we have more manufacturing jobs? Sure we would.
New York Times - The Bank Rescue, Five Years Later
. This is an amusing article, the author liked the bank bailouts and defends the stimulus program, both of which primarily benefited private industry; but, dislikes the Affordable Care Act. The author would prefer giving away your tax dollars to bail out the banks that destroyed the economy and the stimulus program that primarily benefited large construction companies by paying them to do "shovel ready" jobs that didn't need to be done in the first place more than requiring people who use medical services and pay nothing to have to have insurance.
New York Times - Outrage Over Wall St. Pay, but Shrugs for Silicon Valley?
. Yes, we should be mad about people taking money away from investors and our pensions for their making risky investments and going bankrupt at the expense of others and not be mad at people who created real products that we can use to save us time and money. We should not be mad at silicon valley computer and software designers for giving us useful products and being paid for it; but, we should be mad at Wall Street and the financial sector for stealing our money and giving us nothing in return. Here is a crazy capitalistic concept, what if we paid people based on how much they contributed to society and not on how much they steal from the rest of us and the damage they do?
intellihub - 8th international banker to die in a month jumps off building in China. One of the suicides involved a banker who shot himself in the head 8 or 9 times with a nail gun and it wasn't deemed suspicious. Another involved a man who had just e-mailed his girlfriend that he was headed home and then jumped off the 33rd floor of a JP Morgan building in London.
Yahoo - AP - NYSE stocks posting largest volume decreases. A 95% decrease in the amount of shares of stock being traded on the NYSE while prices increases means that the big investors are not trading, yet; but, it also means that the market prices are being manipulated. I think the end is near and we should question whom the bell tolls for.
Yahoo - Obama: Ukraine, Syria are not pieces on ‘some Cold-War chessboard’. Of course they are pieces in a game and the game is simple. Either the Ukraine will fall in line with Russia or come into the European Union. The people want to join the European Union and the elected officials want to put them back under the control of Russia. It really is that simple.
I don't like communism where you are not rewarded for your individual efforts and own nothing. I don't like fascism where corporations control everything and you are prevented from owning anything because someone else already owns it all. I don't like any system that denies you a chance to succeed because the game is already rigged, that just means a system where you are born into it a slave. I like the society we used to all believe in, the one where if you kept your nose clean, worked hard and helped the nation as a whole, you were rewarded individually, that is the true American dream. Oh, and if you were a good citizen you could retire with dignity and security because you had earned it.
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