Jury Duty

I think this would be my reaction too if asked to participate in jury duty.




In case you're wondering what it says, I'll type it out for you:

"Apparently you morons didn't understand me the first time. I CANNOT take time off from work. I'm not putting my family's well being at stake to participate in this crap. I don't believe in our "justice" system and I don't want to have a goddamn thing to do with it. Jury duty is a complete waste of time. I would rather count the wrinkles on my dog's balls than sit on a jury. Get it through your thick skulls. Leave me the F_ _K alone."

I love it.

Food, hunger, the end of the world, etc

I recently watched a fantastic documentary on the realities behind Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), in particular food - GM food as it's called. The documentary is The Future of Food, and I highly recommend it to you. There are many interesting and valid issues that are brought to the forefront regarding the dangers of GM food, starting from how it is produced to its effects on the world ecology. In essence, corporate-style mass production of genetically modified seeds, e.g. using Round-Up seeds, is a dangerous path down the destruction of biological diversity. At one point, we had hundreds of different types of potatoes and corn. Today we have a handful. Most of the corn grown in the US can only be used to feed livestock because it produces an insecticide (BT) that kills the bugs that try to eat the plant. But the corn is eaten by livestock, which we then eat... you should watch the documentary. If you have a Netflix subscription, you can stream the movie from there using the Watch Instantly feature.

Coincidentally, the Scientific American's lead story as of this writing is "Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?'

This GMO issue adds to the mounting evidence of the wonders of rural life and is convincing me that I ought to move out of this crazy city ASAP, and go back to rural America where I left a large piece of my heart in the first place.

A New Adam

Remember the Adam and Eve from Genesis? The ones created by God? Well, forget them. Now, there's a new Adam and a new Eve. In this version "Adam is a prototype... [and] Eve is better designed and more elegant."

I'm not on crack.

"A laboratory robot called Adam has been hailed as the first machine in history to have discovered new scientific knowledge independently of its human creators" according to this article.

So, get ready to tell your kids to read Science and not Genesis to understand how it all began.

I find it funny that we're not even remotely close to creating a human-like being with thousands of people working together and millions of dollars being spent to come up with something. Yet, 'creationism' - oh no, don't say it.

Either way, it's fascinating.

It's all this man's fault

This is a fantastic (though a little long) read about a computer programmer who created the software that was used to trade securitized mortgage (and anything else) packages. It's a great insight into Wall Street and how it works (or does not work), the pigs that are scattered all over the trading floors, and about the angel of greed who looks over it. I highly recommend it. It's written by the programmer himself.

Link here.

*The* Financial Solution

The business section of St Petersburg Times asked readers: "How Would You Fix the Economy?" Here's an interesting idea:

Dear Mr. President,

Patriotic retirement: There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force; pay them $1 million apiece severance pay with three stipulations:

1) They leave their jobs. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.
2) They buy NEW American cars. Forty million cars ordered - auto industry fixed.
3) They either buy a house or pay off their mortgage- housing crisis fixed.

All national financial problems fixed and at a cost of only $40 billion rather than the $1 or 2 trillion the current and past administrations spent/proposed.

The math is wrong - it would cost $40 Trillion - but aren't we headed there anyway, and wouldn't this solve the problem almost immediately?!

Us vs Them

How does one get to be these people? Any insight is welcomed.

Snippets follow.


Lawrence Summers, director of President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council, earned millions working at a hedge fund and speaking to banks such as Citigroup Inc. that later received taxpayer bailout money.

David Axelrod, the chief strategist of Obama’s campaign who is now a senior adviser to the president, received $1.55 million in salary and partnership income from public affairs firms. He agreed to buyouts that will pay him $3 million over five years, his disclosure form showed.

Carol Browner, the White House energy policy coordinator, was paid $450,000 for her work last year with Albright Group LLC, a consulting firm founded by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Browner is still owed between $350,000 and $750,000 in Albright Group

White House Counsel Gregory Craig was paid $1.7 million by the law firm Williams & Connolly LLP, where he was a partner.

Desiree Rogers, the White House social secretary, was paid $1.8 million for less than seven months’ work as president of Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas. In July, she left the utility company to work for Allstate as president of social networking, and was paid $350,000 through the end of the year. She also was paid $150,000 for serving on the board of Equity Residential, a real estate firm and $20,000 for serving on the board of Blue Cross Blue Shield in Chicago. She owns between $250,000 and $500,000 worth of stock in Equity Residential.

Thomas Donilon, deputy White House national security adviser, was paid $3.9 million by O’Melveny & Myers LLP, his former law firm.

Everything's amazing, everyone's unhappy

A must watch right here.

Enjoy!

The magic of the market

I got this from here.

There's a lot of truth in it!

IRS: A Taxing Problem

The WSJ reports that the yet another cabinet nominee - Kathleen Sebelius (whom I have met by the way) - had to pay additional taxes because she missed them the first time.

I think this means one thing and one thing only: our tax system needs an overhaul.

This is not the first time, or the second time. It seems like every time someone is nominated, they have some tax issue. Keep in mind that these are not foolish people who just don't get it - these are smart, motivated, ambitious and generally wealthy individuals who can afford to get the help they need. But yet they fail. The only explanation is that our tax system is way too freakin complicated and needs to be simplified. How about a flat tax! Or, close all loopholes. Earn a dollar, pay .20 in tax. Don't care where it's from or how you got it. Deductions, rebates, credits... blahblahblah... do away with it! Instead, give people good incentives to do well - pay for education, give incentives to stay healthy.... Get a 3.5 in high school and you're in the 90th percentile of SAT/ACT? Guess what! Go to any college and the Feds pay your tuition as long as you maintain a 3.2 every semester, etc. Go to the doctor every year and maintain your weight, stay off drugs, excessive alcohol, etc... you get $500, etc. This nonsense about how many miles do you drive to work and do drive a hybrid or an electric car... whatever, create a better system by focusing on tomorrow, not on today!

Anyway, this is a call to abolish the IRS in its current form.

Thoughts?

Ad absurdum

CNN reports "General Motors' outgoing chief executive Rick Wagoner is eligible to receive more than $20 million in his retirement package, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission."

Let me rephrase that: $20 million bucks for running GM to the ground. Let's see if he takes it.

Oh America, you are truly great. Just not fair.

You see the pattern, though, reader? If I worked at a big firm right now, let's say a phone company for example, my goal would be to get to the top, borrow huge amounts of money and buy out every other company, give phones out for free, employ 30 million Americans... voila, too big to fail. Then, it's simple: f*ck the company up. You're guaranteed to receive more money than 10 generations after you will need!! Sweeeeet! Oh, don't forget to sing "America the beautiful" in the process.

Seriously, though, you know what we call this in developing countries? Corruption. Here? "Benefits!" Tis truly absurd.

Do you Tweet/Twitter?

By the way, I'm on Twitter.

Down 98% but still over a million bucks

What's wrong with the following statement?

"CEO's pay drops 98%" - nothing, right?

Wrong. Allow me to finish... "to $1.11 million... down from $70.3 million a year earlier."

Want to know the name of this very poor CEO? It's none other than Lloyd Blankenfein of Goldman Sachs.

GS, by the way, is a public company. Kudos to him for not robbing shareholders more than they have already been destroyed by the collective actions of GS and its cohorts. Want to bet his salary plays catch up in the coming years? We have a deal: 98% of your salary.

Source: here.

How much is $1 trillion?

I would like to illustrate how much a trillion dollar is to you, thanks to this website. I'm copying their info.

Let's start with a $100 dollar bill - you know what that looks like, right?



Now, let's look at what $10,000 looks like when bundled in $100 bills:



Still with me? Good. Now let's put it in perspective. Literally. If you looked at a cool million bucks, it would look like this:



Not too bad eh? So how about $100 million, i.e. the amount CEOs of public companies take home regularly?



Impressed? Good. It gets better. Let's see $1 billion now in the same way.



Pretty sweet eh? According to Forbes, there are around 750 or so people who can do that! But, wait, what about ONE TRILLION dollars? Keep your eyes wide open:



So, there you have it. If you ever wondered how much $1 Trillion really is, now you know. Too bad you and I owe 10 times that much!

USA: A rogue nation?

What does the US have in common with China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and even Sudan? You'd think we'd like to think of ourselves as far off from some of these countries as one can get. But, in reality, perhaps we should brand ourselves the now-defunct phrase "axis of evil." Geez, we must be bad, you're thinking. Indeed we are. Why? Because we join these aforementioned nations in one of the few to allow execution, i.e. legal murder by government aka capital punishment.

With China, four other nations -- Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States -- accounted for 93 percent of the 2,390 executions, according to the group's report "Death Sentences and Executions in 2008."

A disproportionate number of death sentences were handed down to the poor and minorities in Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Hmmm... maybe we should attack ourselves and start digging for these graves. Urgh Republicans. Some day they'll understand that a life in the womb is the same life they like to torture and kill a couple decades later.

Source found here.

Seismic Shifts in US Economy to last 2+ Decades

30 years from today, I'd like to come back and re-read this particular post.

UMB Scout Funds recently had an excellent market commentary on their perspective on the recent financial blow up and the longer term implications. Here are snippets. It's truly brilliant and I agree with their analysis.

From a longer-term view, we feel that the economy is beginning a debt super-cycle contraction. We stand firmly in the camp that a secular shift is occurring within the U.S. economy which will have significant effects on the sustainability of final demand and a shift away from debt-created consumption towards investment.

...

we expect the growth in consumption to be negatively affected both by baby boomers attempting to increase savings and consumers struggling with debt repayment. This is likely to lead to less growth stability than we have seen for the last 20-25 years.

...

Longer term, we believe a seismic shift has begun where the soil which spawns capital and wealth creation will be more fertile in many overseas economies than in our own. That being said, we maintain our view that, over the long run, the dollar will continue to weaken against many foreign currencies. The dollar’s reserve currency status may not be under attack within the immediate future, but it may be forthcoming, adding pressure for investors to favor foreign holdings.

Source: Click here.

True?

Senator to AIG: "Resign or Go Commit Suicide"

"The first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards them if they’d follow the Japanese model and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things — resign, or go commit suicide." - Senator Grassley, R, Iowa

The Bastards of AIG

You think I'm done with AIG, eh? No way. Here's more cool stuff that you and I are working our rears off for (ok, I'm not working right now, but I am accumulating massive amounts of debt to work later).

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo confirmed in a letter to Congress that AIG paid 73 employees bonuses of more than $1 million each.

Cuomo also wrote that 11 of the employees no longer work for the company. The largest bonus paid was $6.4 million; seven other people also received more than $4 million each.

$1 million for *ucking up. $6.4 million for *ucking up more?

Welcome to the new America. I mean, the old America. The America that's always been there... on Knockturn Alley. In times good and bad for each other, enriching neighbors and robbing tax payers of their hard work.

So my numbers weren't too bad - they did make off like robbers. Jerks. I really hope Senator Schumer's idea to tax the bonus recipients for the entire amount works. But you know what, I bet you nothing happens. I bet there's some stupid privacy law in which AIG can't release their names. This sort of bull$hi+ where corporations screw the government (and hence tax payers) has been at the crux of deals for decades. I really hope there are wrestling matches in heaven/hell/whatever-it-really-is, and I get to wrestle these people, WWE style.

Bonus nightmare

The Jayhawk is happy to see that the AIG bonuses are a big deal - people are finally paying attention!

Along the same lines - enjoy this cartoon from the Washington Post - sent by the wonderful yellowgondola.blogspot.com

By the way, Wall Street's name should be changed to Knockturn Alley (if this doesn't make sense to you, read Harry Potter).

AIG = American Imbecilic Greed

This just in from the WSJ:

American International Group Inc. will pay $450 million in bonuses to employees in its financial products unit. That division was at the heart of AIG's collapse last fall, which compelled the U.S. government to provide $173.3 billion in aid to keep it running.

Those payments are in addition to $121.5 million in incentive bonuses for 2008 that AIG will start making this month to about 6,400 of its roughly 116,000 employees. AIG, which was rescued in September as it faced potential bankruptcy, is also making over $600 million in retention payments to over 4,000 employees.

Together, the three programs could result in roughly $1.2 billion in retention and bonus payments to AIG employees.

Let's do some math:

Incentive bonuses: $121.5 million + $450 million = $571.5 million
Employees receiving bonuses: 6,400
Bonus per employee: $89,296.88 - each person! a bonus! bonus!!

Since English is my fifth language, I sometimes wonder if I don't know what words really mean, so I looked up "bonus" at Merriam-Webster. It says:

bo·nus
Pronunciation:
\ˈbō-nəs\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Latin, literally, good — more at bounty
Date:
1773

something in addition to what is expected or strictly due: as a: money or an equivalent given in addition to an employee's usual compensation b: a premium (as of stock) given by a corporation to a purchaser of its securities, to a promoter, or to an employee

Okay, so my English is not that bad. Let's move on and see more American Imbecilic Greed financed by you and me:

Retention bonus: $600 million
Employees receiving: 4,000
Retention bonus/employee = $150,000

So, you run a company to the ground, take tax payers down with you and you make out rich! I love America - it really is the greatest nation on earth - I bet AIG bonus recipients love America more though. The only adjectives that come to mind: corrupt, vile, evil, disgusting, unethical.

Is there really any argument in favor of these figures? Anyone?