April 24th, 2010 by Max
I was just thinking, the two biggest threats to our Democracy are religion and money. People with both want things their way. So far we’ve done a fair job of keep religion at bay … ok, there’s the whole “In God We Trust” thing and the pledge of allegiance.
(Seriously just roll those words around in your head for a bit “pledge of allegiance”. Really? Swear an oath? What happened to free thinking?)
But the bigger problem we face right now is the corrupting influence of money on our politicians.
Our founding fathers, correctly, didn’t want a straight democracy. Too much mischief can happen when people’s emotions are riled up. Before long you could have 51 percent of the people saying someone doesn’t have the same rights as someone else.
So we elect representatives to speak, and hopefully think, a bit, for us. To at least spend their time working on issues that the farmers and shop owners couldn’t spend their time on.
Now, 4 lobbyists for each member of Congress? Are those lobbyists speaking for me?
Posted in Economics, Max's Theories | No Comments »
February 23rd, 2010 by Max
Two things.
Sunday night the USA played Canada in what was undoubtedly the most important hockey game in Canada in many years. The USA won.
This is not as big for the USA as the “miracle on ice” game of 1980. No American team filled with professional players can ever capture what was done then, when the USA college kids beat the Soviet Army team, which had already beaten 3 NHL teams and trounced the Americans earlier that year, all against a background of Cold War tensions.
But hockey is HUGE in Canada. Losing to the US, even if it is pro’s against pro’s, is unacceptable for Canadians, most of whom, tend to like America anyway.
But this is hockey.
The NHL stops it’s season for two weeks so that the pro’s can play. And NBC has the contract with the NHL to broadcast NHL games.
So why does NBC put USA vs Canada on the secondary channel, in favor of Ice Dancing?
The Canadians are so unhappy their pulling their best goalie ever in the history of the world, for the next game!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/winter-olympics/7297721/Winter-Olympics-2010-Canada-drop-goalkeeper-Martin-Brodeur-for-Roberto-Luongo-after-ice-hockey-defeat-against-USA.html
Posted in Economics, Politics, Social Commentaries, Sports | 2 Comments »
January 23rd, 2010 by Max
Here’s a snapshot.
http://www.answers.com/topic/santa-clara-county-v-southern-pacific-railroad
US Supreme Court:
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co
118 U.S. 394 (1886), argued 26–29 Jan. 1886, decided 10 May 1886 by vote of 9 to 0; Harlan for the Court. This was one of the legion of cases involving railroads and government agencies (at every level) that inundated the courts in the late nineteenth century. The State of California and certain affected counties sought to collect taxes that they claimed were owed by both the Southern Pacific and Central Pacific railroads. Argument focused almost entirely on whether the taxes were barred by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The U.S. Supreme Court did not address the constitutional issues posed by counsel. Instead, it based its ruling on a narrower issue: whether the fences on the railroads’ property should have been assessed by either county or state taxing authorities. Justice John Marshall Harlan held that such fences could not be taxed as property subject to taxation under California statute; the Court’s ruling upheld that of the California court.
Despite the Court’s narrow holding, the case was not without constitutional consequence. In an unusual preface, entered before argument, Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite observed that the Court would not consider the question “whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which forbade a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the Constitution, applied to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does” (p. 396). It followed that corporations enjoyed the same rights under the Fourteenth Amendment as did natural persons.
See also Due Process, Substantive; Private Corporation Charters.
— Augustus M. Burns III
Posted in Big Brother, Economics, Politics, Social Commentaries | 2 Comments »
December 20th, 2009 by Max
I’m with Howard Dean.
Months ago I told my old roommate Kevin that I was in favor of competition for health insurance companies. He told me the insurance companies only competition is to see if they can drop more sick people!
I thought about it and he’s right.
Then I learned that only Major League Baseball and the health insurance industry have an exemption from Anti-Trust laws. If you don’t know what an Anti-Trust law is … well it means they don’t have to compete with each other, they can work together.
I want to repeat that. The health insurance companies don’t have to compete with each other by law. That’s WAY too big an advantage for them.
And how would an insurance company compete anyway? Their job is to take in as much money and pay as little money out as possible. The best way to do that is to insure the healthy and dump the sick!
Health insurance is something that everyone should have. Something everyone needs. Where we all pool money together to insure that we can get well if we get sick. 100% of people need it.
So why should there be competition. Its not like everyone has a choice. You will get sick, or injured or your family will, at sometime, you hope it is a while away, but you want the opportunity to get well when you do. The problem is, insurance has an incentive to take your money, and an incentive to not pay it out.
And I believe in incentives.
I believe that everyone has an incentive to pay health insurance, and I believe that people should receive service for the money they pay.
The insurance company has an incentive to NOT pay for your medical treatment.
Along comes this bill.
In it is a mandate, that’s MANDATE, that 30 million more people sign up for health insurance.
In it, insurance companies can charge up to 300% more to sick people, who, remember, are mandated now to join at the rates for which the insurance companies have requested (read lobbied).
The insurance companies get 30 million new subscribers.
The people get no public option. The public option would be an insurance pool run by the government to compete with the for-profit insurance companies. It would provide competition.
As it is configured today in the Senate, the insurance companies have gotten what they lobbied for, 30 million more “must pay” clients. But they don’t have the same “must pay” obligation.
Lobbyists win again. Insurance wins again.
Howard Dean says this Health Care bill is fatally flawed and the Congress should start over.
I agree.
Howard says “The House bill is quite a good bill”. So maybe they can resolve a bill in conference committee where the “public option” is IN the final bill. Cuz right now, as Howard says “The insurance companies essentially wrote the bill” in the Senate.
Posted in Arts, Economics, Other People's Theories, Politics, Social Commentaries | No Comments »
October 29th, 2009 by Max
So here we have people, good hard working Americans, who pay their premiums, get sick, go bankrupt … and when they get sick again do they just die because they can’t afford care?
Who are we trying to protect? Right now, it seems all the little guys are crying “No Socialism” and protecting the insurance companies.
The insurance companies, are protecting the insurance companies.
The Congress is protecting the insurance compannies – I just learned that the Insurance Compnaies have an antitrust exemption!
Who’s protecting Mrs Bankupt? We need to protect the people not the businesses. Who is the government for after all?
http://www.mrsbankrupt.com/no-insurance-no-doctor-youre-screwed-part-2/
Posted in Economics, Other People's Theories, Politics | 1 Comment »
October 25th, 2009 by Max
ALBANY — Deteriorating economic factors have propelled New York State’s projected budget deficit to $4.1 billion, according to the state’s comptroller, who warned on Wednesday that state leaders needed to do more to address an increasingly dire situation.
[NY Sate comptroller] Mr. DiNapoli’s bleak assessment came a day before Gov. David A. Paterson … called for budget cuts to close the deficit for the current fiscal year, which ends in March.
MEANWHILE …
Goldman Sachs, which has paid back its bailout money, has said it earmarked $16.7 billion for compensation so far this year, more than $500,000 per employee. Citigroup is paying $5.3 billion in bonuses to its employees and Bank of America $3.3 billion.
I have a solution. Make up the budget deficit for NY State (Which was most badly hurt by the Wall Steet mess) and then you can keep the rest!
Posted in Economics, Politics | No Comments »
July 8th, 2009 by Max
New York Times
Published: July 7, 2009
WASHINGTON — Reacting to the violent swings in oil prices in recent months, federal regulators announced on Tuesday that they were considering new restrictions on “speculative” traders in markets for oil, natural gas and other energy products.
The move is a big departure from the hands-off approach to market regulation of the last two decades. It also highlights a broader shift toward tougher government oversight under President Obama.
Since Mr. Obama took office, the Justice Department has stepped up antitrust enforcement activities, abandoning many legal doctrines adopted by the Bush administration.
The Obama administration is also proposing an overhaul of financial regulation that would include tougher capital requirements for big banks, tighter regulation of hedge funds and a new consumer protection agency with broad power to regulate credit cards, mortgages and other consumer lending.
In the case of oil and gas trading, regulators made it clear that they were willing to move, without waiting for Congress to act on Mr. Obama’s overhaul, invoking their existing powers.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said it would consider imposing volume limits on trading of energy futures by purely financial investors and that it already has adopted tougher information requirements aimed at identifying the role of hedge funds and traders who swap contracts outside of regulated exchanges like the New York Mercantile Exchange.
for the rest of this article go here
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/business/08cftc.html?hp
Posted in Economics | No Comments »
March 23rd, 2009 by Max
“But some executives at private equity firms and hedge funds, who were briefed on the plan Sunday afternoon, are anxious about the recent uproar over millions of dollars in bonus payments made to executives of the American International Group.
Some of them have told administration officials that they would participate only if the government guaranteed that it would not set compensation limits on the firms, according to people briefed on the conversations. The executives also expressed worries about whether disclosure and governance rules could be added retroactively to the program by Congress, these people said.”
Yes. Everybody is upset that people who gambled away all of their own company’ money (AIG) effectively bankrupting it, get to have millions of dollars in bonuses. Its clearly wrong by weight of obvious moral standards. You shouldn’t get a bonus for wrecking the company. And in their case they wrecked the country too!
But for Congress to say that we can create a special burden just for them. A special tax written so specifically that it only affects companies who have received at least 5 billion of bailout money and only affects employees of those companies making over $250,000, is way too powerful a tool for the government to have. I suspect it is illegal, [Pat Buchanon called it a Bill of Attainder, which, while I don't remember what it is, I do remember that the Constitution says that you shall not make any of them!]
We don’t want Congress having this power. They’ll change it just slightly and then use it again on someone not so obviously deserving.
Surprisingly Elliot Spitzer was on the TV today on CNN’s Faried Zacharia show and Spitzer said that he would do what I was thinking that I would do. Don’t pay it, and make them sue to get it. Leave it in the hands of a jury to see if they can extract their ill gotten gains.
Spitzer said he would sue them under a legal principle called Unjust Enrichment. He said he didn’t know if he’d win but it would be a valid path to try. Like I said. Ask a jury if these jamokas should have 200 million for their own pockets!
Spitzer also said that we could just say [as 80 percent stakeholders, the people of the US own AIG] there IS no money. So you don’t get none! [My emphasis added].
I think he’s right and I think he’s right.
As for the opening quote. Mr Geithner wants to bring private money, which is now on the sidelines, into the saving of our financial system. It won’t help him to have Congress going all Ex-Post-Facto on these AIG execs. Even though there is no moral ground for these bastards to stand on … the execs, not Congress.
This is a wild eyed distraction based on the righteous indignation of the people and Congress’ desire to look righteous and relevant in the midst of them having passed the legislation that allowed the payments in the first place.
Yes. The administration should have stopped the payments and dealt with the lawsuits, but the real task right now is putting to work the money that is sitting on the sidelines.
Posted in Economics | 2 Comments »
February 22nd, 2009 by Max
I’ve been listening really hard to all manner of media, especially Planet Money podcast and NPR and the news channels including CNBC, about what to do to fix the worlds money problems. America’s money problems.
I don’t know the answer.
But more and more I hear “nationalize the banks” including an openness to that from none other than Peter King (R) New York.
Would our pain have been less if we had just let them all fail?
I would really like to know.
Posted in Economics | No Comments »
February 10th, 2009 by Max
I’m on the leader board. I’m in the Top 11~
http://www.thebailoutgame.us/
Hint: SAVE Lehman Bros!
Posted in Economics | No Comments »
February 4th, 2009 by Max
Ok. So now I’m taking an informal survey. Its economics.
1. Tax cuts? How much? 300 Billion? 1 trillion?
2. Spending on Infrastructure? What if that takes 2 years to hit the economy?
3. Mortgage support for single home homeowners?
What about the bailout? How do we (the United States government) handle the banks? I heard on Planet Money podcast tonight http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/, an expert say that we should “get tough” with the banks. Be he didn’t say what that meant.
The one thing I don’t want to hear is cut down on CEO bonuses. Or anything about bonuses or CEO pay scales. I’m in with you on that. We ALL agree.
Seriously. Somebody. Pick one. Help me understand economics!.
Posted in Economics, Other People's Theories | 2 Comments »
January 30th, 2009 by Max
Car adds run all year around. Beer adds and Drug adds run all year too. Between now and the superbowl, check out all the food adds!
Posted in Economics | No Comments »
January 27th, 2009 by Max
On a scale of natural disasters, last night was a tremor. Plus I still have my job, which puts me ahead of 20,000 people at Caterpillar and another 184 who work for the same company that I do.
But when its January. Its cold. And when you’ve already had a “pipes bursting” disaster in the house you bought 4 years ago, it can be a bit eerie when you walk into the house and the temperature is 48.
1 $90 handyman visit and a night getting off the couch every 15 minutes to restart the furance and the erieness is gone. An 88 cent sensor and the cats are warm again. The pipes the pipes are no longer calling.
Come to think of it, it wasn’t natural, and it wasn’t a disaster … but it still sucked!
Posted in Economics, Max's Theories | No Comments »
January 1st, 2009 by Max
I’ve been meaning to do my year in review stuff, but was just sick enough to need to lay on the couch and not think. So here is the first installment now. Money. How bad did it get? The world lost 30 TRILLION dollars in market value. That’s how bad it got. Actually I take heart in that number, after having heard the story in April on NPR of the worlds “giant pool of money”, something on the order of 55 trillion dollars, available for investment, I’ve feared that this was still hanging out there in the name of “Credit Default Swaps” and “Collateralized Debt Obligations” [see David Bowie] I felt that there was more insubstantial structure that was waiting to collapse. Now I think, maybe most of it has collapsed.
Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) — It has been a year of record misery: the largest bankruptcy, bank failure and Ponzi scheme in U.S. history; $720 billion in writedowns and losses by financial institutions; $30.1 trillion in market valuation wiped out.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=ataVotdLreS0&refer=home
There is really understandable reporting on this at NPR’s Planet Money. Its worth while to go back and listen to all of their shows since the show just started around September. You can get a little understanding about what has happened.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/
If you really want to get behind the story, listen to this. “The Giant Pool of Money” from “This American Life”
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355
Posted in Economics | No Comments »
December 4th, 2008 by Max
We had a strange day at work yesterday.
9 a.m. my boss held a staff meeting. She’s normally very professional. Composed. Organized. In charge. Normally. One thing I like about my boss is that she will relate to her people on as humans. Sounds strange but ask yourselves. How about your boss.? Is it “do this!”? Is it shouting? Is it because I said so? She gets things done without making people feel like machines.
So yay. Right?
Well the point is that yesterday despite her typical composure she almost lost it in our meeting. They, and by they I mean some vague term of upper management people, terminated 50 of the people I work with.
Now, as I have said here in the past, I like the people I work with. I’ve worked at a lot of different jobs. Hmm. That might make a whole ‘nuther category for this blog. Places I’ve worked.
Anyway, this place has less assholes per thousand than any place ever. In fact, the asshole rate is nearly zero. (I’ve worked alot of places. There usually a couple people who seem to go out of their way to make other people uncomfortable. A couple people who get in your face, JUST to give you a hard time.)
In this place, everyone makes eye contact. Everyone says hello. There is virtually no arrogance among the managers. In fact the upper management at least once a year … the “leadership team” if you will … spends a day literally serving, ice cream, or coffee or some thing, in part, just to remind them of the humanity of the people they work with. Its a little cliche’ to say that this is a family. Its not. But anyone can stop the site manager in the hall and have a real conversation. Everyone talks to everyone. Everyone says “Hi”. Nobody made eye contact yesterday. Or if they did, in their eyes was always the same question. “Did you get it?”
I thought it was upright, under the circumstances for the site manager, to not only make himself available by being in the hall and eating in the cafeteria, but to instruct his managers to make themselves visible. Maybe that’s a safety and security thing. In case someone went nuts or something. But it was a stand up thing to do. If someone did want to get in his face, he was there. They all were. And they allowed anyone who was laid off, to take the rest of the day.
I know. Big whup right? Big whup if you got laid off and had carpooled in, that they’d find you a ride home. Still they did that.
The people got severance. They’ll get training. They’ll get counseling. Big whup.
Its a cold hard world out there. Maybe it’ll be me next. For now I have a job. Some loooong time employees at my company, don’t.
Of course, I blame the “W”. I heard a woman, whom I disagree with on every political issue and who hates to hear me talk politics, say that she thought this all started with the gas prices. May be!
“W” said it was not an emergency!! I think he really didn’t understand, the damage $4.21/gallon would do.
Asshole!
So, there we were, with the boss, and she’s telling us 50 people will be let go and we’ll have to take up some of the slack.
This is where the problem comes in. They laid of one of my friends. Dan the wire man. Dan does every kind of wiring in the place, phone, electric, and data. He’s the only one. Dave could do it. Dave doesn’t have time. Only Dan does all of these things for us. They immediately asked him to stay on a couple of extra weeks and finish the project he was working on.
DO YOU THINK MAYBE IT WAS A BAD IDEA TO LET DAN GO???
Shit.
And they laid off Kathy, a manager on the manufacturing side. Kathy makes things work. Kathy does whatever they ask. Kathy is always friendly but most importantly Kathy is effective. Kathy always wears hawaiian shirts! Kathy likes birds. Kathy solves problems, gets things done and treats people like they were her equal.
This is not about “its not fair”. Its not fair. Life is not fair. This is about two things. They laid off people they need. People with vast amounts of experience, and really good necessary useful skills. That’s one.
And they laid off people I liked.
They laid off Mary Jo. Sometimes I think where I work is like a giant high school. If this were true, Mary Jo would have been the prom queen.
I spent a day, having a harder-than-usual time concentrating yesterday. They laid off my friends.
Posted in Changes in the World In My Lifetime, Economics | 3 Comments »
November 23rd, 2008 by Max
Where did all the money go?
I’m loving the fact that oil is now below $60/barrel. Remember it was $19 when the W took office, but that’s old news. What I want to know is who put the money in their pockets when it was almost $150/barrel?
I know where the money came from. It came from my pocket. Who has my money now and why did they stop taking it? I had to drive. I had to give it too them.
Somebody got really really rich being greedy. They should be in jail.
Posted in Economics | 1 Comment »
November 14th, 2008 by Max
This is how dumb George W Bush really is: He “let The Market” determine oil prices all the way up to $150/barrel. But now that his buddies, the Saudi’s, are feeling the pinch from “The Market”, he seems to have no problem with OPEC, which as an Economic Cartel [the last two letters in OPEC stand for economic cartel] would be illegal if there could have been such a thing in these United States … Now that OPEC has agreed to limit oil prodcution to keep gasoline prices artificially high, he doesn’t open the Strategic Petrolium Reserve (AGAIN) to fight this anti-free market activity!
When OPEC made this decision, oil went up $2/barrel.
When we REALLY needed him. When we were all spending twice as much money on gasoline as the year before, George failed us. Part of this economic turn down is related to high oil prices. Last WEEK we lost 516,000 jobs. 516,000 jobs in a week!
Jan 20th can’t come too soon!
Posted in Economics | No Comments »
November 6th, 2008 by Max
Ok, now you can’t just say “The economy”. You’d have to say, the banking crisis, or the recession, or possibly trade or jobs. And you can include such vagueries as Hope, what would you say is the biggest problem that President Elect Obama should tackle first? Here’s a list I just made up. It may get changed.
1. Banking – without money flow, everything shuts down.
2. Guantanamo Bay – (As suggested by Bob Doty) Its illegal, its immoral, it hurts us in many ways.
3. Energy developement – let’s get out of the middle east completely
4. Get us out of Iraq
5. Recession
6. Infrastructure – another bridge collapse
7. International relations – speaking of bridges
8. Imigration
9. Manufacturing
10. Oil prices – Heating our homes. Its a terrible tax on all Americans and the drop in prices proves this was mostly about proffiteering. And this isn’t last and may be should be part of something else.
What do YOU think this list should look like? What did I forget?
Posted in Changes in the World In My Lifetime, Economics, Max's Theories | No Comments »
October 12th, 2008 by Max
The Great Depression. We’ll we’re not there yet, although it IS possible. Black Friday? The S and L scandal. Ha. A mere $150 billion!
We’re looking at the biggest, or potentially the biggest financial crisis in the history of the world! And what do we call it? The Credit Crunch!
It doesn’t have enough weight. We need to name this problem something really scary like The World Economic Collapse!
Got a name? Write to us. We’ll pass along any good ones.
Posted in Economics, Other People's Theories | 2 Comments »
