As my readers may or may not know, I am of Irish decent. There is a little English in me; but, we don't talk about that much. LOL. In fact my ex was Finnish, French, English, American Indian and a whole bunch of other things. I used to joke that she had destroyed the purity of my bloodline when we had kids. In reality I consider myself American and I consider my ex and my children to be American. Having said that I will on occassion celebrate my Irish heritage in odd ways. I do not drink beer and no longer drink scotch so I am left with food.
Unfortunately, food was often scarce in Ireland and potatoes kept the country alive for a long time. Ireland has a long history of using fish; but, it never traveled well within the country. After the English took over Ireland, they also took all the beef. What was left was root vegetables and the worst of all beef cuts, which was used for corned beef. They were cooked by being boiled as it used less wood for the fire and a meal could be made in one pot. When the world gives you lemons, you learn to make lemonade and the Irish found spices and boiling made the food edible and okay.
Anyways, I have been feeling better and getting back into cooking from scratch. I decided that with Saint Patricks day coming up I would go old school and boil myself a corned beef. I went to the store and found some a 2 1/2 pound piece of corned beef for $4 and took it home to prepare. I didn't expect much; but, I had picked the best cut I could find and dutifully boiled it for about 3 hours. I intended to cut it extra thin and pair it with pastrami for sandwiches. That is not going to happen, it came out perfectly tender and delicious. I hate to say it; but, it is the best corned beef I have ever cooked. If I could have cut it thinner it would have been even better in a sandwich.
Our elders knew lots of ways to use the worst and cheapest things and still make good meals. Heck, ribs used to be budget food. As we enter tougher economic times we should try and remember how our parents and grandparents made due with what they had. Oh I boiled it with a red potato, a white potato and a carrot. Those will taste fantastic tomorrow.
CNN - Assange to SXSW: We're all being watched. The title speaks for itself.
CBS - DC - Massive Police Hunt For Bank Robbers Shuts Down I-270. You cease having a right to privacy the moment you travel. Whatever happened to probable cause?
Now the fun stuff; but, to understand what is happening you have to read them in order.
Yahoo - Reuters - Fannie, Freddie could send $179.2 billion to taxpayers: White House. It turns out that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the holders of over 60% of all mortgages and they themselves are owned by the Federal government, are not only returning all their bailout money ahead of schedule; but are also on track to make the government a tidy little income stream profit. The bailout cost taxpayers about $187 billion and they are about to repay approximately $202 billion. In addition to paying us back, over the next ten years they should pay the government back about $179 billion in profit. Just imagine, with that return we could fully fund Social Security for a very long time.
Bloomberg - Westhus Reaping Fannie Windfall to Rival Big Short: Mortgages. Okay so when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac looked like they would go bankrupt, a few knowledgeable investors bought up their preferred stock (which do not have voting rights, they are more like company debt than ownership). So the people that bought the preferred stock now know that there is a big payday coming to the Treasury and they want the money themselves. The Treasury has common stock and that allows it to vote on how and who gets paid when profits are made. It should be noted that Preferred stock does not usually share in the profits as much as the common stock which is now owned by the Treasury.
Finance & Commerce.com - Bill would eliminate Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac. The first two stories show that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are about to make $179 billion for someone and it should go to the taxpayer; but, private money wants it first. That is a lot of money on the table which might explain this move. Some congressman are now looking to fast track the idea of selling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while still keeping the government on the hook if the mortgages fail. Selling off all the value and keeping all the risk. These people are criminals. What is particularly interesting to me is how quickly the idea of selling off the stock came up after it was determined that the stock had value and our representatives willingness to guarantee our taxes to pay off any losses even once the stock is sold.
I believe the creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was a mistake. I believe it allowed the cost of housing go up more than it otherwise would have and I do not believe the government should be backing up any loans. I also don't believe in corporate subsidies or tax deductions. I believe everyone should pay the same percentage of their income regardless of how it was earned in the year it was paid to them. Now that we are past all of that, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac do exist and were going to go bankrupt and the taxpayers bailed them out.
Isn't it funny how right after it was announced that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would pay a return to the Treasury (the taxpayers who bailed them out), the fight became over who in private finance would steal the profit from the taxpayers and keep it for themselves and neither of the last two articles really showed any concern over the value of this asset to taxpayers.
Don't trust the mainstream media, they are nothing other than a puppet for the wealthy. And don't trust the alternative media as they tend to be busy trying to sell you stuff like gold that has no real value. We are flooded with garbage, lies and deception so that the wolves can take advantage of the sheep and we are told we deserve to be taken of advantage of because people are sheep, it is all a lie to fulfill greed and selfishness with a justification our abusers like.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Being Home and News
I have been away from home for the past few days to see my new grandchild. I could have driven home each night; but, decided to rent a hotel near the hospital. I stayed at a nice hotel, had some lovely meals and took care of a lot of business (including getting my cars maintenance done), best of all, I got to hold my grandchild and she is lovely. Having said all that, it sure is great to be home. I came back exhausted, I just don't travel as well as I did when I was younger. While I was gone I saved some links to news stories I thought might be of interest.
Yahoo - The Exchange - Wealth rebounds — but mostly for the wealthy. The bottom line is that the total wealth of the nation has increased since the financial crisis; but, all the increases only went to the wealthy and the rest of us lost out, there has been no trickle down and no job creation. There has only been a transfer of wealth to those who caused the financial meltdown.
NBC Bay Area - NASA Admits to Selling Discount Fuel to Google Execs. Bottom line, Nasa was selling jet fuel to Google at half price. The question is not why Google would buy the fuel; but, why NASA would sell it to them at half price. To really understand that we would have to know what Google was doing for the United States.
Yahoo - Business Insider - Scientists Scanned A Woman's Brain During An Out-Of-Body Experience — And What They Found Was Amazing. Another case of garbage science trying to prove a point. A woman who claims to be able to cause herself to have out of body experiences has a brain scan while going through an episode and some "scientists" extrapolate that her brain activity is therefore the same as people who have a near death experience. One glaring problem, aside from the fact she was not dying, is that if the two things were the same then we would see the same parts of the brain activated during a near death experience; but, we do not because the near death experience has been recorded in people with NO BRAIN ACTIVITY.
Reuters - Man called Bitcoin's father denies ties, leads LA car chase. I love this story, someone managed to find the guy behind Bitcoin; but, he says he cannot talk about it. In addition, the people who actually worked with the person who created Bitcoin say they never met him and all communications were electronic. Doesn't it make you wonder why, if it is true. My answer is simple, this guy was merely feeding information to some programmers so that they would create Bitcoin and then use it to test out how people would use an electronic currency.
Mail Online - It's very hard to know why people go to food banks, claims Tory welfare minister Lord Freud
. A great example of how dissociated the wealthy are from the rest of us. One of the people responsible for taking care of the poor in England cannot figure out why people might go to food banks.
Bloomberg News - Global Debt Exceeds $100 Trillion as Governments Binge, BIS Says. I find it interesting that global debt is up 40% since the crash and yet the debt is claimed to be government debt at a time when governments are providing less and less services to it's citizens. Where did the money go.
Bloomberg News - Carney Faces Leadership Test as Currency Scandal Snares BOE. The central Bank of England (similar to the Federal Reserve) has been caught fixing financial markets again.
Well, I am exhausted and going to bed. Have a great week.
Yahoo - The Exchange - Wealth rebounds — but mostly for the wealthy. The bottom line is that the total wealth of the nation has increased since the financial crisis; but, all the increases only went to the wealthy and the rest of us lost out, there has been no trickle down and no job creation. There has only been a transfer of wealth to those who caused the financial meltdown.
NBC Bay Area - NASA Admits to Selling Discount Fuel to Google Execs. Bottom line, Nasa was selling jet fuel to Google at half price. The question is not why Google would buy the fuel; but, why NASA would sell it to them at half price. To really understand that we would have to know what Google was doing for the United States.
Yahoo - Business Insider - Scientists Scanned A Woman's Brain During An Out-Of-Body Experience — And What They Found Was Amazing. Another case of garbage science trying to prove a point. A woman who claims to be able to cause herself to have out of body experiences has a brain scan while going through an episode and some "scientists" extrapolate that her brain activity is therefore the same as people who have a near death experience. One glaring problem, aside from the fact she was not dying, is that if the two things were the same then we would see the same parts of the brain activated during a near death experience; but, we do not because the near death experience has been recorded in people with NO BRAIN ACTIVITY.
Reuters - Man called Bitcoin's father denies ties, leads LA car chase. I love this story, someone managed to find the guy behind Bitcoin; but, he says he cannot talk about it. In addition, the people who actually worked with the person who created Bitcoin say they never met him and all communications were electronic. Doesn't it make you wonder why, if it is true. My answer is simple, this guy was merely feeding information to some programmers so that they would create Bitcoin and then use it to test out how people would use an electronic currency.
Mail Online - It's very hard to know why people go to food banks, claims Tory welfare minister Lord Freud
. A great example of how dissociated the wealthy are from the rest of us. One of the people responsible for taking care of the poor in England cannot figure out why people might go to food banks.
Bloomberg News - Global Debt Exceeds $100 Trillion as Governments Binge, BIS Says. I find it interesting that global debt is up 40% since the crash and yet the debt is claimed to be government debt at a time when governments are providing less and less services to it's citizens. Where did the money go.
Bloomberg News - Carney Faces Leadership Test as Currency Scandal Snares BOE. The central Bank of England (similar to the Federal Reserve) has been caught fixing financial markets again.
Well, I am exhausted and going to bed. Have a great week.
Saturday, March 8, 2014
I am a grandfather
I have no intention of posting anything useful tonight; but, I have saved some links and will discuss them at a later time. I am a grandfather now, the Pimpernel is pleased to announce the birth of his first grandchild.
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Short news post including genetic modification.
New York Times - Study Gives Hope of Altering Genes to Repel H.I.V.. That sounds pretty good doesn't it? A real cure to aids and a technology that can cure other diseases on a genetic level. This same technology could be used to make us susceptible to certain diseases. Earlier today I watched an interview with a Chinese scientist talking about how they were almost ready to find the "genius" gene and that they would be able to let parents select to have smarter children by choosing which of their eggs they chose to allow to fertilize. A brave new world indeed.
FoxNews - Calif. man denies he's Bitcoin founder after Newsweek report. Interesting that the principal behind creating Bitcoin worked for a defense contractor.
FoxNews - Calif. man denies he's Bitcoin founder after Newsweek report. Interesting that the principal behind creating Bitcoin worked for a defense contractor.
News of things to come
Yahoo - Reuters - Global super rich eye office blocks over mansions as wealth hits $20 trillion. Suddenly the super rich are buying more and more commercial properties at a time when commercial properties are losing value; but, it is better to own real assets then hold paper money. Remember this, when they did the bail ins in Cyprus, they didn't take property or assets, they just confiscated your cash.
The Washington Times - Cop-killer case sinks Obama Justice nominee. A nominee to be in the civil rights division of the Department of Justice. He was turned down by the senate because he defended a "cop killer". That is what defense attorney's do. John Adams, our second president (who, by the way, always opposed slavery) was the defense attorney for the British soldiers who shot Americans in the Boston Massacre. Adams also helped write the Declaration of Independence. How can we trust someone to lead the legal system if they refuse to defend people in court so they can get a job for the Justice Department?
When I was in law school, I had a family friend who was a relatively famous attorney. One day he invited me to his beach house for the weekend and took me out for a lovely dinner (in fact, when I graduated, he allowed me to use his beach house for a family celebration). At dinner I mentioned that I was not interested in being involved in defense work and he asked me if I believe in the idea of due process. He asked how we could have a fair legal system if only bad attorneys were defense attorneys and said that it was not an attorney's job to decide guilt or innocence; but, the judge and jury's job. What kind of legal system would we have if your attorney acted as your judge? Think about it.
Occupy.com - Web of Debt - The Stone that Brings Down Goliath?
. I wrote about this when it first came up but I don't remember what I said, it doesn't matter. The short of it is that one city has determined that it can take over properties with bad mortgages through the use of eminent domain from the banks. Many people love this idea; but, they miss the point as did the article. You cannot take from the banks that which they do not own. The banks do not own the mortgages. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (both government entities now) own over 60% of all the mortgages and the Federal Reserve most of what remains. Cities, states and counties cannot use eminent domain against the Federal government, it is all a joke. While the left and the right argue over the right of cities, counties and states to use eminent domain to take over these properties to "help homeowners", it is irrelevant as the Federal government owns the properties and does not need the same chain of title.
Yahoo - 5 futuristic ATM features we can't wait to check out. The article makes me sick. Basically it is all about how losing your privacy and having to use biometrics to access money is a really exciting and fun thing to do.
The Blaze - Obamacare Architect: ‘Be Prepared to Kiss Your Insurance Company Good-Bye Forever’. Firstly, Glenn Beck is just another Ayn Rand type moron to me, an extremist. His organization is bemoaning the fact that medical insurance companies will change and cheaper ones will replace them. The reason medical costs have risen so much is because medical insurance companies wanted them to so that they could charge more in premiums, it was not to their advantage to keep costs down, only to push higher premiums and co-payments and that is why they allowed costs to raise.
NY Times - DealBook - In Banking Overhaul Fight, a Ruckus Over an Obscure Product. The article, like many others is so uninformed on the big issues. The article claims that JP Morgan and two other big banks own 71% of all Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs)which is basically subprime loans to small businesses bundled in groups. The banks hold them and created them; but, usually sold them to pension funds and other countries or hold them at face value (rather than marked to market - current valuation) as an asset in lieu of holding real assets. It is an accounting trick.
New York Times - Study Gives Hope of Altering Genes to Repel H.I.V.. We can change your genetics now, we are god or foolish.
If we love more than we hate, if we forgive more than we accuse, have we not added to the totality of love and forgiveness? The universe is big and we are small; but, we do contribute to the overall experience of the universe. We can add love and forgiveness or add hate and condemnation. Jesus said to love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. Don't hate your enemy, don't hate those who abuse you, don't hate.
The Washington Times - Cop-killer case sinks Obama Justice nominee. A nominee to be in the civil rights division of the Department of Justice. He was turned down by the senate because he defended a "cop killer". That is what defense attorney's do. John Adams, our second president (who, by the way, always opposed slavery) was the defense attorney for the British soldiers who shot Americans in the Boston Massacre. Adams also helped write the Declaration of Independence. How can we trust someone to lead the legal system if they refuse to defend people in court so they can get a job for the Justice Department?
When I was in law school, I had a family friend who was a relatively famous attorney. One day he invited me to his beach house for the weekend and took me out for a lovely dinner (in fact, when I graduated, he allowed me to use his beach house for a family celebration). At dinner I mentioned that I was not interested in being involved in defense work and he asked me if I believe in the idea of due process. He asked how we could have a fair legal system if only bad attorneys were defense attorneys and said that it was not an attorney's job to decide guilt or innocence; but, the judge and jury's job. What kind of legal system would we have if your attorney acted as your judge? Think about it.
Occupy.com - Web of Debt - The Stone that Brings Down Goliath?
. I wrote about this when it first came up but I don't remember what I said, it doesn't matter. The short of it is that one city has determined that it can take over properties with bad mortgages through the use of eminent domain from the banks. Many people love this idea; but, they miss the point as did the article. You cannot take from the banks that which they do not own. The banks do not own the mortgages. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (both government entities now) own over 60% of all the mortgages and the Federal Reserve most of what remains. Cities, states and counties cannot use eminent domain against the Federal government, it is all a joke. While the left and the right argue over the right of cities, counties and states to use eminent domain to take over these properties to "help homeowners", it is irrelevant as the Federal government owns the properties and does not need the same chain of title.
Yahoo - 5 futuristic ATM features we can't wait to check out. The article makes me sick. Basically it is all about how losing your privacy and having to use biometrics to access money is a really exciting and fun thing to do.
The Blaze - Obamacare Architect: ‘Be Prepared to Kiss Your Insurance Company Good-Bye Forever’. Firstly, Glenn Beck is just another Ayn Rand type moron to me, an extremist. His organization is bemoaning the fact that medical insurance companies will change and cheaper ones will replace them. The reason medical costs have risen so much is because medical insurance companies wanted them to so that they could charge more in premiums, it was not to their advantage to keep costs down, only to push higher premiums and co-payments and that is why they allowed costs to raise.
NY Times - DealBook - In Banking Overhaul Fight, a Ruckus Over an Obscure Product. The article, like many others is so uninformed on the big issues. The article claims that JP Morgan and two other big banks own 71% of all Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs)which is basically subprime loans to small businesses bundled in groups. The banks hold them and created them; but, usually sold them to pension funds and other countries or hold them at face value (rather than marked to market - current valuation) as an asset in lieu of holding real assets. It is an accounting trick.
New York Times - Study Gives Hope of Altering Genes to Repel H.I.V.. We can change your genetics now, we are god or foolish.
If we love more than we hate, if we forgive more than we accuse, have we not added to the totality of love and forgiveness? The universe is big and we are small; but, we do contribute to the overall experience of the universe. We can add love and forgiveness or add hate and condemnation. Jesus said to love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. Don't hate your enemy, don't hate those who abuse you, don't hate.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Random News and Waiting for My First Grandchild
My eldest is pregnant and a week overdue. It is quite frustrating just waiting. Now, to the news.
New York Times - In Search of a Stable Electronic Currency. When I was an undergraduate in college studying for my degree in Political Science, one of my teachers required us to read either the New York Times everyday or the Christian Science Monitor (he was not of that faith), he claimed they were the two best and most objective newspapers. He required that we read it everyday from cover to cover. He would then give us tests which included issues that were in all the different sections.
The above article is interesting in that it discusses how Bitcoin will fail; but, has led the way in showing us how to adapt to an international electronic currency. Here is a quote from the article, "And there could be a “trills” unit — a concept that Mark Kamstra of York University and I have been advocating — that represents one trillionth of a country’s most recently estimated annual G.D.P. There should also be a unit that grows or retreats with per-capita daily consumption. This could be used for pension and Social Security payments as a form of intergenerational risk-sharing: The idea is that payments to older people would rise and fall with overall consumption. With many kinds of baskets, it will be easier to set prices and make contracts that are sensible for the long term."
Remember that quote, in the end, in my opinion, Bitcoin has been nothing more than a dry run for instituting and international, GDP based currency exchange and I have said that more than once.
Huffington Post - Wall Street Has Found Its Latest Dangerous Financial Product, Activists Warn. The story is pretty simple, hedge funds and investors have been buying up all the houses and paying cash. The article is complaining that is keeping good people from getting mortgages and buying the houses themselves and forces people into rentals. That is garbage. The real propaganda in the article is to get you to believe that the companies that own these homes are less likely to take care of them once they are rented out. I live in a rental owned by a family I know, it is a small building and fairly old. There are lots of families and people that own rental properties, I owned one. It can be a fairly passive income for retirees. What is coming is that increased pressures will be put on small owners of rental properties and they will be forced to sell their properties to these hedge funds and larger investors. The real beneficiary will be the federal government which owns Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as they own 70% or so of all the mortgages and the Federal Reserve. They are going to continue putting more and more regulations on rental properties, watch and see.
Yahoo - GMA - $10M Gold Coin Hoard Found in Yard May Have Been Stolen From Mint. This article is just amusing and gets people so emotional. A couple in California claims to have "found" $10,000,000 worth of gold coins. When this came up, I told some people that in the end the couple would not be allowed to keep any of the coins and guess what, it looks like they won't get to keep any of the coins as they "might" have been stolen back in the 1800s.
Here is the real issue, if you own gold you better be able to prove how you obtained it. A few years back the law was changed and any sale of gold valued at more than %500 must be reported to the federal government. None of the purveyors of fear of an economic crash who also sell gold bother telling people that, I don't sell anything. Don't waste your time buying gold and there will still be a complete breakdown of the current economic system which will lead to a new financial model that is all electronic and based on a countries Gross Domestic Product.
Los Angeles Daily News - Los Angeles City Council votes to regulate e-cigarettes as strictly as tobacco. It should be apparent that this type of regulation is not about harming others, it is about controlling what you do outside. E-cigarettes are not tobacco and they don't burn and they don't have a secondhand effect.
Wired - The Next Big Thing You Missed: How Starbucks Could Replace Your Bank. Here is what you need to take away from the article, traditional banking will be dead once we go to all electronic currencies. The real question is what will replace it for the average person and who loses when the big banks finally fail completely and are broken up into little local banks.
Mail Online - Turn your entire room into a SCREEN: Microsoft tool lets you browse the web and beam videos onto the walls of your home. I wrote about this over a year ago. Just imagine what kids will be like when they grow up in a safe, virtual world. They will be completely out of touch with real world risks and consequences.
Huffington Post - Obamacare Just Made Americans Richer Without Anyone Noticing. My first response is who cares as it is not about increasing the GDP, it is about making sure everyone has health insurance if they are to have access to healthcare. The first line is my favorite line, "Glenn Beck once said Obamacare would mean "the end of prosperity in America forever." LOL. Most of Europe and Canada have true government healthcare, we just force you to buy insurance, yet apparently that is going to prevent us from making money. Think about that, if you get healthcare, it means it costs your employer money. You know why, because they can't steal it because you will notice when you don't have your pills.
Huffington Post - Warren Buffett: Here's What We Need More Than A Minimum Wage Hike. I am not sure if I agree with him, he believes we should raise the tax deduction for low income earners instead of increasing the minimum wage. I think I like my idea better, what if individuals didn't have to pay anymore in taxes as a percentage of their income than companies pay or investments pay in taxes? What if rather than getting tax breaks and subsidies for corporations that outsource, we only gave companies tax breaks for investments they made in America and jobs they created in America?
Daily Beast - British Prime Minister’s Child Porn Adviser Arrested Over Child Porn. The Jimmy Saville case has exposed the political support for child molesters in Britain. There are many questions to be asked, why were these things covered up for so long, how can they be committed by the most powerful people in government and finance and why is this all coming out now; but, the most important question is how will these revelations be used to change societies? The end game explains the purpose to the other questions.
Well, that all folks, have a great week.
New York Times - In Search of a Stable Electronic Currency. When I was an undergraduate in college studying for my degree in Political Science, one of my teachers required us to read either the New York Times everyday or the Christian Science Monitor (he was not of that faith), he claimed they were the two best and most objective newspapers. He required that we read it everyday from cover to cover. He would then give us tests which included issues that were in all the different sections.
The above article is interesting in that it discusses how Bitcoin will fail; but, has led the way in showing us how to adapt to an international electronic currency. Here is a quote from the article, "And there could be a “trills” unit — a concept that Mark Kamstra of York University and I have been advocating — that represents one trillionth of a country’s most recently estimated annual G.D.P. There should also be a unit that grows or retreats with per-capita daily consumption. This could be used for pension and Social Security payments as a form of intergenerational risk-sharing: The idea is that payments to older people would rise and fall with overall consumption. With many kinds of baskets, it will be easier to set prices and make contracts that are sensible for the long term."
Remember that quote, in the end, in my opinion, Bitcoin has been nothing more than a dry run for instituting and international, GDP based currency exchange and I have said that more than once.
Huffington Post - Wall Street Has Found Its Latest Dangerous Financial Product, Activists Warn. The story is pretty simple, hedge funds and investors have been buying up all the houses and paying cash. The article is complaining that is keeping good people from getting mortgages and buying the houses themselves and forces people into rentals. That is garbage. The real propaganda in the article is to get you to believe that the companies that own these homes are less likely to take care of them once they are rented out. I live in a rental owned by a family I know, it is a small building and fairly old. There are lots of families and people that own rental properties, I owned one. It can be a fairly passive income for retirees. What is coming is that increased pressures will be put on small owners of rental properties and they will be forced to sell their properties to these hedge funds and larger investors. The real beneficiary will be the federal government which owns Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as they own 70% or so of all the mortgages and the Federal Reserve. They are going to continue putting more and more regulations on rental properties, watch and see.
Yahoo - GMA - $10M Gold Coin Hoard Found in Yard May Have Been Stolen From Mint. This article is just amusing and gets people so emotional. A couple in California claims to have "found" $10,000,000 worth of gold coins. When this came up, I told some people that in the end the couple would not be allowed to keep any of the coins and guess what, it looks like they won't get to keep any of the coins as they "might" have been stolen back in the 1800s.
Here is the real issue, if you own gold you better be able to prove how you obtained it. A few years back the law was changed and any sale of gold valued at more than %500 must be reported to the federal government. None of the purveyors of fear of an economic crash who also sell gold bother telling people that, I don't sell anything. Don't waste your time buying gold and there will still be a complete breakdown of the current economic system which will lead to a new financial model that is all electronic and based on a countries Gross Domestic Product.
Los Angeles Daily News - Los Angeles City Council votes to regulate e-cigarettes as strictly as tobacco. It should be apparent that this type of regulation is not about harming others, it is about controlling what you do outside. E-cigarettes are not tobacco and they don't burn and they don't have a secondhand effect.
Wired - The Next Big Thing You Missed: How Starbucks Could Replace Your Bank. Here is what you need to take away from the article, traditional banking will be dead once we go to all electronic currencies. The real question is what will replace it for the average person and who loses when the big banks finally fail completely and are broken up into little local banks.
Mail Online - Turn your entire room into a SCREEN: Microsoft tool lets you browse the web and beam videos onto the walls of your home. I wrote about this over a year ago. Just imagine what kids will be like when they grow up in a safe, virtual world. They will be completely out of touch with real world risks and consequences.
Huffington Post - Obamacare Just Made Americans Richer Without Anyone Noticing. My first response is who cares as it is not about increasing the GDP, it is about making sure everyone has health insurance if they are to have access to healthcare. The first line is my favorite line, "Glenn Beck once said Obamacare would mean "the end of prosperity in America forever." LOL. Most of Europe and Canada have true government healthcare, we just force you to buy insurance, yet apparently that is going to prevent us from making money. Think about that, if you get healthcare, it means it costs your employer money. You know why, because they can't steal it because you will notice when you don't have your pills.
Huffington Post - Warren Buffett: Here's What We Need More Than A Minimum Wage Hike. I am not sure if I agree with him, he believes we should raise the tax deduction for low income earners instead of increasing the minimum wage. I think I like my idea better, what if individuals didn't have to pay anymore in taxes as a percentage of their income than companies pay or investments pay in taxes? What if rather than getting tax breaks and subsidies for corporations that outsource, we only gave companies tax breaks for investments they made in America and jobs they created in America?
Daily Beast - British Prime Minister’s Child Porn Adviser Arrested Over Child Porn. The Jimmy Saville case has exposed the political support for child molesters in Britain. There are many questions to be asked, why were these things covered up for so long, how can they be committed by the most powerful people in government and finance and why is this all coming out now; but, the most important question is how will these revelations be used to change societies? The end game explains the purpose to the other questions.
Well, that all folks, have a great week.
Monday, March 3, 2014
JP Morgan is up to something and my stats
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)