Weaver95

yup - that’s the count of how many banks we’ve closed so far this year. Here’s the latest/greatest update so far, since last night the Fed closed nine more banks.

We’re not out of the woods yet kids, and don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise. Even scarier is the rumor that the FDIC might be broke. I’m really hoping that rumor is false.  With all the bank closings we’ve already had, we don’t need to find out that bank deposits aren’t covered anymore.  A run on the banks would essentially destroy our economy.  well, not directly but it’d kick off a series of unfortunate events, to turn a phrase.  And that would be enough to do us in.

Of course, there are already rumors that the US dollar is on the way out as the world reserve currency of choice.  combine that with the collapse of the US economy and….well, it’s Mad Max time.  that’s a worst case scenario of course.  But there’s a lot of reasons to watch the piggy bank right now.  I’m just not sure if I should start to panic or if we’ll pull it out before we collapse.

I’ve been following this story for a while now.  In a nutshell, what happened was this - a couple of judges got a whole lot of bribes from the private corporation running kiddie prisons in the state of Pennsylvania.  Bad news, right?  welll the corruption gets worse.  District Attorney Jacqueline Musto Carroll wanted to put the kids back on trial.  See - it seems that old Musto girl is something of a ball busting ‘law and order’ type.  Or that’s what she wants us to all believe come election season.  But the State Supreme Court vacated the convictions because these judges blatantly violated the civil rights of the kids in question.  Musto knew that.  She *knew* that her office was complicit in this mess.  Perhaps not actively so but they knew the judges were ruling in favor of the prosecution so they looked the other way.  Musto Carroll has made quite the comfortable career locking up kids for crimes they did not commit.    And it took a Supreme Court ruling to get her to back off.

Now I know that some of you will make the claim that some of these kids did commit some of the crimes of which they were charged.  Granted, based just on statistical analysis alone at least SOME of these guys are guilty.  But the judges took bribes.  They sold their judgements.  Even if the kids might have been guilty, the corruption of the judicial process itself prevented a fair trial.  If we do not protect the integrity of the judicial process, then there is no reason for any of us to obey the law.  We might as well go back to lynch mobs and vigilante justice.  So even if a couple of these kids WERE guilty of some crime it doesn’t matter - even the guilty deserve a fair trial.  Since they didn’t get a fair shake, then the convictions must be overturned and the record expunged.  Because that’s how imp0rtant it is to protect the integrity of the justice system.

As for the rest of the people involved in this mess….most of them have yet to face any consequences for their actions.  The corporate guys haven’t even been charged yet.  The cops involved have walked away.  The prosecutors haven’t faced a single question about their actions.  The only people who’ve gone to jail are the judges themselves.  You have to wonder about that….these judges didn’t operate in a vaccuum.  They had cops hauling in kids left and right, the prosecutors stood there and watched as the judges blatantly violated court procedure and nobody did anything about it.  Why did the cops not question orders to bring in kids in a zero tolerance approach towards law enforcement?  Why did prosecutors ignore the ethics of their own profession and allow a fellow member of the bar violate the constitutional protections of defendants?  And why has nobody investigated how privately owned/operated prisons are run in this state?  Are there other people getting kickbacks?  Just how deep does the corruption run?  I have more questions than answers at this point, and I think that as a taxpayer I have a right to have those questions answered.

However, i’m just one guy.  True, i’ve got a blog.  But i’m one guy with a blog and maybe 5 readers.  None of us matter, not in the political process of this state anyway.  None of the questions we ask will matter.  Nobody in power will even hear them.  That said, i’ll continue to ask the questions.  Just because nothing I say matters doesn’t mean that the questions shouldn’t be asked.  Maybe eventually someone WILL hear, someone WILL listen.  And maybe we’ll get lucky and justice will eventually be done.

It used to be that if you were sloppy with your credit, didn’t manage your finances properly, then you got charged an extra fee.  Which made sense - credit card companies and banks had justifiable reason for that extra cash, since they were taking a risk on loaning you money, based on your history.  You could argue that the fees might be too high, but you couldn’t argue that they weren’t justified.

Well now none of that matters!   Even if you have perfect credit (quite a feat in these trying times), you’re still going to be charged extra by lenders.

The banks are starting to charge fees to reliable customers in response to a slew of new credit card industry regulations that will limit when banks can hike interest rates. Cardholders who get a new annual fee notice in the mail will be in a no-win situation.

Read over that first part again - ‘…in response to a slew of new credit card industry regulations…’.   Basically, Congress said to knock off all the evil and the lenders are saying ‘fuck off’.  Pardon my french, but most financial news just pisses me off these days.  Lenders can’t screw over their favorite whipping boys anymore so they decide to punish their responsible customers instead?  Not only is that asinine, it shows just how pathologically insane banks and lenders are these days.

The only result of these new charges is to discourage the use of credit cards.  After all, if i’m going to be punished even if I’m responsible with my money - then why would I bother with credit cards?  I’ll adjust my life style and finances to avoid the use of credit as much as I possibly could manage.  Which is going to hurt credit companies business even more.   The obessive pursuit of short term gains at the cost of long term damage to their industry seems to be a hallmark of corporate leadership in the financial sectors these days.

Making matters worse, of course, is that many of the names involved in this extraordinarily bad management decision are the Usual Suspects: Bank of America and Citigroup.  both of whom also took federal bailout money and are looking down the barrel at CEO pay cuts and other backlash from the Federal government for their less than consumer friendly business practices.  BoA in particular is looking to be spanked in public.  How they expect to generate the public sympathy necessary to avoid Obama’s plan of executive pay cuts while instituting a ‘rape a customer every day’ business plan is entirely beyond me.  Either BoA is run by people who really do not have any clue what they’re doing, or they’re all insane.  And by ‘insane’ I mean ‘insane’.  As in pathologically and clinically nutball.  It’s like the guys running the show there are sociopaths who really don’t understand human emotional responses.

Ah well, so be it.  If the US financial sector does end up imploding later this year then it’ll be the fault of people like BoA President, Ken Lewis. Way to go kenny. keep up the good work!

y’know, every now and then Rush says something and I really have to stop and wonder if he’s just pulling our collective leg. Take this story for example…I honestly don’t know if Rush is being serious.  Like this statement:

I never said I supported slavery and I never praised James Earl Ray. How sick would that be? Just as sick as those who would use such outrageous slanders against me or anyone else who never even thought such things. Mr. Wilbon refuses to take responsibility for his poison pen, writing instead that he will take my word that I did not make these statements; others, like Rick Sanchez of CNN, essentially used the same sleight-of-hand.

I find that statement brings me to the edge of insanity.  Rush Limbaugh complaining about media figures distorting statements, making up lies and giving out false information in support of a political agenda.  Rush is no stranger to such tactics himself.  In fact, lying on air is the basis for his entire career.  And yet here is an editorial from the man himself, where he laments the use of the very tactics that earn him over $400 million dollars a year.

Sorry Rush, but I don’t think you’re gonna get much sympathy.  You’ve betrayed the Republican cause, and have poisoned the political debate for decades.  If someone wants to step up and use your own tactics against you, well then I’d consider that poetic justice.  I suggest you take it like a man.

However, back to my original point - I honestly don’t know how Limbaugh can make statements like these and keep a straight face.  I mean he COULD just be mocking society.  He could see this all as one big, giant joke on the voters.  It could be his way of showing us all that he’s in the position to demean and degrade everyone on the Right wing and does things like this merely because he can do it and get away with it.  Its like one giant, open air public demonstration of a dominant/submissive relationship.  Rush standing there in his dominatrix suit and the Freepers on a short dog leash licking his boots.

now there’s a mental image you aren’t gonna get out of your mind any time soon.  I think I’ll leave you with that and end this entry here.

This one has the corporate world up in arms.  See - basically, the corporations want to slap a meter on the internet.  Ideally, the telecommunications industry wants to be able to go to every website online and hit them up for service charges and operations fees.  If you don’t pay up, you get your bandwidth throttled down.  If you do pay up, then you don’t get boned quite as heavily.  What the government is saying is that corporations don’t get to make that sort of decision….it’s not their call to make. here’s one article on the subject. Note this part:

The vote came despite a flurry of lobbying against the net neutrality rule by telecommunications service providers like AT&T Inc (T.N), Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) and Qwest Communications International Inc (Q.N), which say it would strip them of the ability to manage their networks effectively and would stifle innovation and competition.

Did you catch what they just said there?  ‘…stifle innovation and competition…’.  Ponder that for a moment - the telcos are saying that if they are forced to treat everyone the same then it will ’stifle innovation’.  Mind boggling isn’t it?

The right wing, of course, is absolutely against net neutrality.  A free and open internet isn’t exactly in line with their pro-corporate/anti-individual political agenda.  Actually, it’s not really something the democrats are in support of either, but in this case the Democrats have decided that if a Republican is voting for something, they have to vote against it.  Oddly enough, the Democrats might end up doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.  One of life’s little ironies.  At any rate, here’s an editorial from the right wing and their viewpoint on the whole matter.  As you can see, the Republicans are choosing to equate net neutrality with ‘the fairness doctrine’.  Which is not only inaccurate, it’s mind boggling in it’s stupidity.   Check it out:

Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) spoke against net neutrality regulations today at an event put on by the Safe Internet Alliance. Representing the songwriters, singers, actors, producers and other entertainers in Memphis and Nashville, she said the creative community does not want the federal government to interfere with how they are able to get content to consumers via the Internet.

As I said - mind bogglingly stupid.  But that’s the Republican party these days - ignorant and fearful of technology and damn near everything else.  I wonder how the right wing bloggers will react to this push to limit their ability to blog?  Probably vote for it, if i’m any sort of judge.  Luckily for them they’ll get to ride on the coattails of the rest of the blogosphere who understand that corporations are not our friend on this issue.

At any rate, i’m going to watch this debate unfold.  Should be an interesting fight indeed.  Let’s hope comcast (which as I type this is delivering it’s usual crappy cable service and dropped my signal yet again) and the others lose this fight.  sorry guys - you don’t get to control everything.  Not yet anyway!

Oh yes - yes he is indeed going to force pay cuts on the senior executives who took federal bailout money.

Y’know, at first I was like ‘no wai!’.  I was thinking ‘how dare he do that to the private sector!’ and then I realized something: none of these guys *had* to take the bailout money.  They made a deal with the devil.  They took the federal bailout money and then then behaved very, very badly.  Layoffs among the rank and file, pay cuts for those who remained (and weren’t executives), fees got raised.  The whole bit.  Then after taking public money they gave themselves pay raises.  Call it what you will - stupidity.  arrogance.  whatever.  It was a very bad idea to give themselves bonus checks.

So Obama is cutting them off.  They made a deal with the Fed and the Fed is calling due one of it’s markers.  And you know what?  I have zero sympathy for these companies.  Sure, it’ll probably hurt these companies (maybe…possibly…), and you can make all kinds of allegations about how this will cause ‘quality people’ to flee these companies in droves.  But at the end of the day, the fact of the matter is that they struck a Faustian bargain with Obama.  It’s too late for them to back out of the deal now.  They gotta pay the piper and dance to the tune the devil calls.

I hope Obama really puts the screws to these guys.  I hope he follows through on his plans to cut their pay checks by 90%.  I *want* this to hurt them.  I want this to be personal.  And I want everyone on wall street to know about it.  I want all this to happen because I want *everyone* to know the consequences of poor management.  I want every last investor to know down to their bones what happens to a company that takes federal bailout money.  For too long corporate bigwigs have managed to avoid the consequences of their bad management.  They ran their companies into the ground and gave themselves pay raises while the rest of us scramble to find new jobs in an ever shrinking job market.  I want every CEO out there to know that if they tank their company and take a bailout then they won’t get out of it scott free.  They WILL face consequences, and it will hurt them.  Hurt them personally.  Hurt them in the only place they care about - their bank accounts.

Once they all know what the consequences of a bailout are for their personal bottom line, maybe those high priced CEOs will pay closer attention to their jobs.  And maybe wall street will finally start weeding out the weak and forcing real competition once again.

yup - ’tis true, we’re gonna see more layoffs here in Harrisburg.  Fast Eddie must really want to get himself shot…he didn’t pay state workers there for almost two months, now he’s going to start in with more layoffs.

I’ll bet Fast Eddie doesn’t lay off anyone in philly though.  Call me cynical if you must but Ed only seems to care about his buddies back home and doesn’t give a damn about the rest of the state.  He certainly doesn’t care about the state workers.  Or about infrastructure either for that matter - seriously Ed, what the hell is up with all the bridges around here?  they’re covered in rust stains and are badly in need of a new coat of paint.  I was driving back from Annapolis this weekend and every bridge I drove under had rust spots from stem to stern!

*sigh*

Why do we keep electing people like this?  You’d figure we’d be smart enough to avoid electing a phily street thug into office.  And then we act all surprised when he steals money from the piggy bank and screws up the budget every year.  wake the hell up people!  stop voting for philly Democrats!

yep - they’re really gonna do it. Data mining blogs, comments and whatnot from all over the Internet.  The goal is to, in theory anyway, identify sites used by terrorists for getting their word out to the masses.  Then the CIA can track down these terrorist aggregator sites for more aggressive intel gathering operations.  Sounds scary, don’t it?  The CIA out there, combing through masses of data and then doing the nasty to their political rivals…but really, think about it for a moment.  Just how many social gathering sites are out there right now?  Not counting my tiny and ignored blog of course…there are MILLIONS of people from all over the world all talking to one another about every subject imaginable all at the same time.  The signal to noise ratio is enormous!  And the CIA is going to process all that garbage?  good luck with that guys.

Oh, and lest we forget - what happens to the CIA’s plan when the 4Chan goons get wind of this?  Because you just KNOW those motherfuckers will want to jack with the CIA’s intel gathering efforts.  Why?  well…why not?  it’s 4Chan.  it’s kinda what they do.  So if any of my 3 readers get the urge and have a connection with Anonymous (or anyone over at 4Chan forums) let ‘em know the CIA is begging to be played the fool.  Just let me know about it so I can break the story once they’re done!