An Interesting Letter Regarding the Occupy Movement

Couple of minor points first. Recently it was announced that the government was considering eliminating options trading. Didn't I mention that over a year ago? Yes, I said that this would happen. I am not patting myself on my back for knowing what would happen, it just proves to me how fixed and planned the system is.

A letter has come to surface, it is very interesting. It is from one of the lobbying firms, it asks the American Bankers Association for almost a million dollars to conduct "opposition research" in order to discredit the Occupy movement. I will post a link to the MSNBC article which has a link to the letter.

Why would a lobbying firm offer to discredit the movement and any politicians who support it when as the media regularly reports, nobody knows what they believe. Why discredit a group that the media says has no unified agenda or leaders? And why send the offer to the American Bankers Association?

Well, to begin with the lobbying firm must have made two assumptions. The first was that the bankers saw the movement as an attack on how they do business. The second was that the bankers would pay almost a million dollars just to do an initial study of the movement, that is a lot of money.

MSNBC - "Exclusive: Lobbying Firm's Memo Spells Out Plan to Undermine Occupy Wall Street (VIDEO)"

I just had to post this because I thought my readers should know what is going on. I care about what I write and I care because people read my words. This may not be the most read blog in the world; but, it is read and I do care about those who read it. I want it to be informative.

I have to out myself about something unrelated to this post. Not long ago I posted about how I was thinking about dating again. I let myself look at women again, I gave myself that permission. I went to an event tonight celebrating the life of a friend of mine who passed away and I hate to say it; but, I found myself looking at some of the women. I know, at a wake, really Pimpernel. Sorry, but it is true. I did not hit on any of them; but, I thought about how attractive women can be. Now, I will sound like a real jerk, one of the women was the daughter of my friend and I happen to know she is single. There is nothing to be concerned with, she lives very far away and I don't expect to see her again; but, I feel pretty bad about even having thought about how attractive she was. Am I a complete jerk for that?

I sort of feel dirty for having appreciated the beauty of a lady who was in morning. Yet, I am human and we have thoughts as we have thoughts. A pretty woman is a pretty woman and I am straight so I like pretty women. No, she was not just pretty, I happen to know that she is also very accomplished in her field. If you can understand what I just wrote then I ask you to not hate the lobbying firm for presenting a proposal to the bankers. It is a lobbying firm, it is their job to find out if people want them to push for someone's agenda.

Please understand that it is okay for industries to make sure that their interests are heard and they should be allowed to hire people who can present their side of the story in the best manner possible. I know, I support the Occupy movement, sort of, and then support the bankers having a right to promote their side of the argument. I believe in free speech for all.

My problem with the article is that the lobbyists were willing to misrepresent the truth and work only off spin rather than honest arguments. Law school presented many challenging questions. One moral question we had to address (if we were honest with ourselves) was whether or not it was right to represent people who were guilty. A friend of mine who was a famous attorney, told me the answer. He told me that it was not the job of the attorney to be the judge or jury, it was his job to make sure that the person had a coherent response. It was not a lawyers job to lie for a client; but, it was their job to make sure that they put forth their clients best arguments in order to make the opposition prove their case.

It is not wrong to have feelings. My friends daughter was attractive to me. What would have been wrong would have been to acted on such thoughts in such a situation. Same is true for this lobbying firm. What they did wrong was not that they sought business, what was wrong was that they openly sought to portray others in a negative light regardless of the issues. They basically acted like ambulance chasing attorneys and that is not productive for the nation. It is cookie chasing regardless of the consequences to anyone else.

In every situation our minds toss around a variety of possible responses. We are human, it is how we work; but, we can choose to not act on every impulse. We can choose to eliminate some possibilities because we can choose to act on intent rather than impulse. We can choose to do that which is best for all rather than just act in selfishness. We can choose to matter, to make a difference an to exercise free will with responsibility rather than with only self interest.

Okay, I think that is it for the day. So much has gone on and I am going to listen to some music and drink some wine in a toast to a friend, heck, maybe a friend and another. Be well.

Saying Another Goodbye

As I think I had previously mentioned, a friend of mine passed away recently. Tonight there was a celebration of his life, I think he would have liked it, it was very classy and appropriate. I had tried not to think about his passing too much until tonight, I can only handle so many deaths at a time.

At the celebration of his life I had a chance to speak to one of his children who is taking over his company. We go through life and take on different responsibilities. If we are successful we take on more rather than fewer responsibilities. His son will be responsible for the lives of many people and their families, he has been given a great honor and great responsibility at a time when he has just lost his father. That is a lot to have happen in a day.

Everybody wants to be in charge; but, few want the responsibilities that go with it. I personally think my friend will find he will grow into the role quite naturally so this is not about him. If you have read my writings for any amount of time it should be apparent that I use real life events to highlight issues. It is possible that I become more analytical at times in order to avoid emotional pain and if so, so what. LOL.

My friend that passed away had created a company worth quite a lot. You can never really know how much until you see what others will offer to buy it and that changes on a daily basis, so, lets just say lots of money. His family could have sold the company and lived comfortably for the rest of their lives. I believe it is only because his son learned the business and cared about the company that they did not. Heck, they could have done an IPO, kept 51% of the stock and hired someone to manage it; but, they didn't. Instead they kept it in the family and his son is going to take on more responsibility.

One of the problems with American business anymore is that the people who run the companies don't care about the companies or the people who they employ, it is just about the value of the stock and how much the CEO makes. That is a big part of why our economy came apart. Ford didn't go bankrupt; but, family members still control the company.

For any organization to be sustainably successful it must be about the organization and not about the self. It has to be about shared success and shared accomplishments, it has to be about the people. Somewhere around 35 years ago we lost sight of this. Companies stopped thinking of employees as family and leaders stopped thinking about the company as meaningful beyond what they made personally. That was the beginning of the end.

It has been a tough month for me. I am really getting tired of people dying on me. In the last five years I have buried over 20 people, family and friends, mostly family. Each person I said goodbye to was a part of my life, a part of my growth and experience. That is how we effect each other, we become intertwined in each others lives for good or ill.

Though it used to frustrate my daughters, I try and have a positive impact on everyone I deal with, I try and remember that our interactions are always personal on some level, that I am dealing with real people with real emotions and real challenges even when it is the clerk or teller who I will never see again. Those moments are what make up our life.

I dealt with my friend, his son and others at his company for about ten years. I have been blessed to have enjoyed many conversations with my friend and he had a very keen mind and good business sense. I never dated dumb women for a reason, I like a keen mind. I will miss our conversations and miss him, he was and always will be a part of my memories and my life. I preach on the weekends so expect this. My prayers go out to his family and I ask that God kindly receive him to heaven. None of us are perfect, none is good but God; but, some of us actually care about others and he did. He was a blessing in my life and did some good things and I will miss him. Be well, I have one more thing that I must post tonight.

Something Lighter

I have posted quite a bit about government and politics lately. I would like to post something not related. As I had mentioned previously, my childhood sweetheart died. It really got me thinking. My ex-wife asked for the divorce four years ago and it has been finalized for over a year and a half. I dated a handful of women for a bit and then stopped dating at all. Instead I used that time to unburden myself of my house and most of my possessions and move.

Anyways, after the death of my childhood sweetheart (and we have not spoken in over 30 years), it got me thinking. I think my life is my own again, I am settled and what has happened is over. I have a feel for which direction I am heading and believe that now I can tell a woman what I intend to do with the rest of my life, more or less (we have to leave room for adjustments and learning).

So, I think I might be willing to date again. Now the question is how do I go about doing this? I mean do I actively pursue finding someone or wait till they find me? Do I date anyone who says yes if I ask them? How do I decide who to ask? What am I looking for in a partner? I think these are all questions that I have to answer before embarking on a change in my life and the truth is that I am still enjoying my relative solitude. I feel I have had chains on me all my life and only now do I feel free.

There has been some time that has passed since I wrote the last paragraph. Hey, I got 9 days off and I haven't in a long time. I am in no hurry, I can write all night. I have made a decision, I will consider dating after Valentines Day has begun. Perhaps, I shall meet a woman on Valentine's Day who is in the same predicament. Tomorrow I go to a wake for a friend who has passed on. It is important to let his family know the lives that he has touched and he touched mine.

For my part, I can still touch more lives including that of a lady who wishes to have me touch her life, even if we don't know it yet. That is how life is, so many opportunities to find relationship and the real requirement is that we know ourselves and that they know themselves.

I think that if I start dating again, I will give the lady my blog address and let them read and understand me before going further. I think that this blog gives people a pretty good idea of what I believe and who I am. More than meeting me, it shows how I think. I think any woman who chose to date me should be forewarned about what kind of psychotic I am. LOL.

I ask people if they know what the number one thing is that I look for in a woman is and then I tell them that it is poor eyesight. Thankfully, the Lord has given poor eyesight to many so I have a chance. But, a chance for what? What should I look for in a woman and how will I know if I have found it? Tough questions, questions that everyone should ask themselves before engaging in such an endeavor. At a minimum, they should like a writer.

So dear readers, what sort of crazy lady would be able to handle and appreciate dating a man such as me? ROFL. Perhaps we shall find out next year. In the meantime, time for myself to figure me out and appreciate my intent for my life and allow another to appreciate their intent for their life.

My dear readers, wish me luck and wish any woman dumb enough to date me grace and good fortune. How did I get here? Pretty simple, I lost my wife and the love of my life (my childhood sweetheart). My ex said she hoped that I would find someone else (for all the wrong reasons) and my childhood sweetheart let me go decades ago for all the right reasons. I am free and do want companionship; but, picking the right companion matters.

Perhaps we should have a survey on what type of person I should be with and should be with me; but, that is not going to happen. We all have to find out for ourselves and I wish you all good luck on your journey. See, no politics and I could have turned this into a political discussion. Be well.

Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez Video

I am not providing a link to it and I am not posting it here, it is merely the subject of the post. Apparently, the police believe that Oscar is the person who attempted to shoot President Obama, even though he was in another state at the time.

According to reports, Mr. Hernandez-Ortega shot from a half mile away from inside his car and hit the white house with two bullets. He managed to do this without anyone noticing and drove away. His car apparently had broken down or had an accident and he left his car with the rifle inside it. He then apparently left on foot to only be found in the last two days.

I watched a 20 minute video that he had recorded of himself. In the video he promotes marijuana, claims to speak to God and says that he can stop war and improve the world. They are saying that he had some trouble with the law, he states that he had been involved in gangs and his family report that they have been worried about him for a year since he disappeared.

My observation from the video is that he needed help. He seems confused and erratic. He does not make any threats to anyone in the video nor did I hear him mention the President. Reports say that he told others that he believed that Obama was the anti-Christ.

My question is how will this be used by the media to justify some new law. It will be. Let the circus begin as politicians scramble to pass a law that will prevent "this from ever happening again". Of course nothing can prevent crazy people from doing crazy things. The media already attempted to connect this guy to the Occupy movement; but, that didn't work well. He will be used to vilify something. We can wait and see what it is. He talked about Oprah; but, I doubt she will be blamed. He talked about a lot of things; but, only the ones the media dislikes will be the subjects that are blaemd.

Random Thoughts in a Random World

It came out today that Homeland Security had worked with police in Portland regarding the Occupy movement, no kidding. Meanwhile CNN has published an article saying that America is not on a decline. It sure looks and feels like one, what am I missing? If this is things getting better than someone needs to tell me what better means.

Warren Buffet has been telling people for years what direction the nation is headed in and what is wrong with the way that Wall Street and big business are failing us as a society. I think it is important that people go back and read what he said; but, I will give some of the essentials. The biggest problem is that we set up a system of rewards for Wall Street and CEOs that was not based on how well a company performed within it's industry. Instead, we have set up a system that rewards people based on how it's stocks perform, not dividends; but, the value of the stock. It promotes short term trades rather than true investment in stocks. That is why CEOs can get bonuses even when the company if failing or in bankruptcy.

I wrote a very long time ago how option trading could be halted. Now, people are actively looking at ending such trading. I read an article about it today. The way business works today has a lot to do with insurance. People who don't have insurance for their decisions often make riskier decisions.

AIG insured bad investments. High risk and high return go together and that is fine; but, you shouldn't insure high risk investments because it promotes bad investments. Let us be very clear, that is not good capitalism. I personally believe in capitalism, though it is not about democracy, those are two different concepts.

Capitalism is the idea that individuals should be rewarded for their efforts if they result in improvements or production that is valued by others. Our system is not capitalistic and hasn't been for a long time. Instead we have a ponzi capitalism where government backed insurance protects those who are big investors and it is paid for by your taxes.

The housing bubble was backed by tax dollars as insurance, because of that the banks profited by lending to anyone regardless of their ability to pay. You see, the second aspect of real capitalism is that you have to live with the consequence of your bad decisions and that didn't occur for the wealthy that own the big banks.

What we really have is a form of oligarchical socialism for a few and an insurance class totalitarianism for the rest of us. Same for our so called democracy, our political class represents not the people; but, the privileged. After all they were the ones who got bailed out. People on both the left and the right understand this, they just differ on some of their solutions.

Who is against having a level playing field and having the rules apply to everyone equally? I was not a big supporter of the Tea Party because I saw how quickly it was overtaken by monied interests. One of the biggest supporters of the Tea Party was the Koch brothers and their history is a little questionable to say the least.

MF Global is an excellent example of how we are not living in a capitalist society. MF Global invested other people's money in commodities, if the value went up then the company benefited even more than the people whose money they invested. If the commodities dropped in value then the people who invested had to pay the debt. There was no risk for MF Global itself unless people couldn't pay the companies debt.

Here is a Huffington Post article that sums it up - The Koch Brothers and MF Global - Friends to the End. The reason I support the Occupy to any extent is firstly based on their right to air their grievances and secondly (and as importantly), it is an opportunity to identify what the problems with the system are rather than thinking that electing "new" politicians will change the system because it has not.

The problem with the system is that is it unfair, undemocratic and fixed so that some have no risk and others bare the risk for them. AIG went bankrupt; but, Berkshire Hathaway did not and their biggest investment is in insurance. So why didn't Berkshire Hathaway go bankrupt? The answer is simple, they didn't insure bad investments to an insane amount.

The highest purpose that the Occupy movement can cause right now is not in proposing legislation, it is in awakening the nation to how we were taken advantage of and how our system is no longer capitalistic. My question is how the protesters will now find a way to start consolidating on what needs to be fixed and in what manner, the same is true for the Tea Party and Cain is not the answer.

Here is an article from Market Ticker - Oh Oh. "Regulated" Derivative Markets About To Blow Up? I like the part where the investment broker says that the market is fixed the best.

More Media Spin

We have a new story. ABC News - DC Shooting Suspect Could Be Threat to Obama, Police Say As you read the story wait till you get to the part where it says that "U.S. Park police say Ortega may have spent time blending in with Occupy D.C. protesters." Really, based on what, the fact that he was in D.C.?

Turns out the guy is 21, from Idaho and has a history of mental instability. Jeez where have I heard that before. Now, why say he may have been with the Occupy movement? He may have been with the Republican movement or the Tea Party too, he may have been anything; but, shouldn't there be some evidence before the media makes such assertions?

I have been in front of the White House, how the heck did this guy manage to fire at it and hit the window is way beyond me. Reports say that the shots came as he jumped out of a car and fired. He must be an amazing shot. There are snipers on the roof of the White House, even terrorists who are willing to kill themselves haven't achieved this. They want to eliminate open carry of guns and this is going to be used to do that. They will start by making it illegal in Washington D.C., one step at a time kids.

On a lighter note, a group of millionaires went to Washington to ask the people making more than a million dollars a year be taxed a little more. They were ridiculed by the politicians. Associated Press - Millionaires on Capitol Hill: Please tax me more!

Do you understand how crazy are legislators are? Put the pieces together, the politicians have figured out how to steal money by making stock investments (as reported by 60 minutes and others) and they don't want to be taxed on it because most of the people in congress are millionaires. The lunatics truly are running the asylum. I forgot something, certain news sources are now reporting that Homeland Security may have been the people who organized the mayors to take out the Occupy encampments at the same time.

Not every millionaire is crooked or evil; but, our political class is out of control. Here is a YouTube Video - Amazing video of violence at #OccupySeattle Unprovoked assault by police. Is this the kind of nation we want, one where the police pepper spray people for standing on the street in peaceful protest? They are protesting a system that is corrupt as proven by our politicians using insider information to make investments and enrich themselves and this is in Seattle a pretty liberal city.

How about this, in New York the police are keeping people out of Zuccotti Park even though there is a court order allowing people in during the day and as previously mentioned by their mayor himself, the park is private property and the City had previously passed laws requiring it to remain open to anyone at anytime. The law does not apply to the police in New York as they explained when they said they had a right to fix tickets for family members and it doesn't apply to the mayor.

Now here is something that will make it easy to understand. How many cities across the U.S. that are facing shortfalls have cut the salary of the police and how many have given them raises as we did in Los Angeles. Why did they get raises and why do they get paid overtime to watch peaceful protesters and pepper spray them? Because if you cut the salary of the police then they might side with the protesters.

The NYPD has become part of the Occupy movement, they are Occupying Zuccotti park to make sure that nobody enters it. The protesters surrounded them. Do you not see that our nation is occupied by morons and corrupt politicians? The people in charge don't know what lie to tell, things are moving too quickly and not following the established patterns. Their actions are dangerous and ill advised. Common sense doesn't seem that common right now.

What use is a political class that is supposed to represent the people when 90% of the people feel that they are not being represented? I really do want to know what type of idiot looks at this economy, this blatant corruption and thinks this country or this world for that matter are working?

Now a little history. Remember the movie "Braveheart", I have another for you to watch it is called "Zulu". Many people do or have seen other such films. The kids today know military techniques, they play fricking video games like "Call of Duty". Think they won't figure out how to respond to the police tactics? I don't wish to see violence in our streets, not from the cops and not from the protesters and the police and politicians are pushing them to respond violently.

This can either come down as shared sacrifice and we get things back in order or it can be where a few benefit and everyone loses. I prefer the first choice. Why don't our politicians and why are the police supporting violating the law in New York? Think about this, people who were hippies in the 60s are preventing their grandchildren from protesting and ridiculing them for doing so.

I Have Inspired Someone

My best guess is that it is cl. Perhaps they will say. Responding to a comment that will not be posted; because it was not meant to be posted by the sender.

Be well all and don't believe in the spin that anyone, including the alternative sources, give you. Define yourself and be you.