It has been four years since the economic implosion caused by financial derivatives, housing bubbles, and big banks putting trillions of dollars at risk on casino style bets for which there was no collateral. The result was the vaporization of untold trillions of dollars, an unprecedented bailout of the financial industry, the largest financial crisis since the great depression, and the loss of millions of jobs throughout the American economy.
Since then, our economy has been sluggish at best, crawling along through a painfully slow and anemic recovery. Now, as we start to see what may be the light at the end of the tunnel, the same exact thing is going to happen again, but this time it's going to be even worse.
I'm not talking about the fiscal cliff that Congress boxed themselves into with their inability to come to an agreement on something as mundane as raising the debt ceiling. I'm talking about a re-run of the entire economic collapse of 2008, with even worse results for our country and its citizens.
How could this happen so soon after the economic collapse of 2008? In order to answer that, let's take a brief look back at what caused the collapse four years ago.
The root cause of all of the problems that we are currently facing are the passage of two laws in 1999 and 2000 sponsored by Republicans in Congress and enthusiastically supported and signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton. These two laws, Gramm-Leach-Bliley and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, eliminated the Depression era separation of commercial banks, investment banks, and insurance companies, and insured that the complex financial instruments known as derivatives would remain unregulated. This was hailed as the beginning of a new financial golden age which would lead to unrivaled prosperity and wealth creation. In reality what it did was turn the world of finance into a casino and spread the risk throughout the economy so that even regular everyday banking customers with a passbook savings account were on the hook when everything went to hell.
The casino's main instrument was a derivative called a collateralized debt obligation (CDO) which is an investment wherein a bunch of consumer debt is purchased, combined, split up into tranches and sold to investors as securities. Any kind of consumer debt can be used for CDOs but the most attractive one in 1990s and 2000s was the residential mortgage.
In abstract, mortgages would seem to be a safe debt to use for these investments. Because mortgages traditionally used strict underwriting and financial requirements they were seen as a pretty safe investment. They also rarely had defaults because of these safeguards.
However, as we saw, the amount of money being made in these investments caused banks to create more and more of these types of investments requiring more and more mortgages to securitize. Combined with an official seal of approval from the president to increase non-traditional lending, mortgage lenders started giving mortgages to anyone with a pulse, throwing caution to the wind as the amount of sub prime loans started ballooning as lenders sold their mortgage loans as soon as they closed them. The lend to securitize movement erupted, sending housing prices skyward while at the same time eroding the very foundation of the industry making these once safe investments riskier and riskier.
In the end there were an awful lot of people with mortgages they couldn't afford and a lot of securities that were about to become worthless due to the high number of defaults that inevitably occur when you have people with no income owning $3 million homes.
There was another derivative product called a credit default swap (CDS) which made things even worse. CDS's were sort of like insurance in that you could pay a premium based on the risk that a particular CDO was assigned and if that CDO collapsed because the of defaults on the mortgages that made up the CDO, you would be paid the amount of the investment in the CDO. The only problem was, that these weren't insurance policies, they were derivatives and therefore required no reserves. The insurance giant AIG was bankrupted because they sold endless amounts of CDS's, believing that the real estate market would always go up and that these investments would never default. They had no money in reserve to pay claims in the event of a default. When the real estate bubble burst, AIG's entire worth was wiped out and the entire financial market put at risk as the investors in CDS's discovered that their investments were worthless.
So, how could this happen again? Weren't there reforms put in place to avoid this?
In a word: no.
The one grand financial reform bill passed by Congress in the wake of the 2008 economic collapse, the Dodd- Frank Act, really did nothing to prevent this same scenario from happening again. This is because Congress purposely adopted Wall Street's narrative of what caused the collapse of 2008 - that is that greedy and irresponsible homebuyers ran up too much debt causing the real estate market to collapse. This completely ignored the true causes of the collapse and failed to address the systemic problems in the financial industry itself. Therefore, Dodd-Frank's reforms were aimed directly at the mortgage industry and not at the derivatives market. In other words, they treated the symptoms while ignoring the disease.
There were some significant reforms put into place in Dodd-Frank that have made the mortgage industry safer -- especially reforms which took away incentives for banks and brokers to push riskier sub prime loans, and some higher reserve requirements for certain types of investments. These are good things for the economy and for consumers.
But it's what Dodd-Frank failed to do that creates the collapse that we are about to face. Dodd-Frank failed to do anything to reform the derivatives market, which remains for the most part unregulated. This wasn't by accident. Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, both Democrats and both chairs of their respective banking committees in the Senate and House were among the largest recipients of banking industry money in Congress. These two powerful law makers understood as well as anyone the root causes of the crisis and what would truly prevent it from happening again and yet they both chose to ignore real reform and instead protect the industry which had showed them such tremendous financial support over the years. So, suggestions that derivatives be traded on an open market rather than over the counter, that credit default swaps be regulated as insurance policies with reserve requirements and oversight, that large banks be separated into commercial and investment segments were ignored. The casino was reopened and now had the government's backing for its risk taking.
This brings us today. So how could this happen again? Mortgages have been reined in, housing hasn't recovered from its collapse, so how could a 2008 style collapse happen now?
Well, since nothing has been done to reform the derivatives market, Wall Street just needed a new market to pump up, securitize, and sell. Enter the ever increasing student loan market.
During the last several decades, tuition at four year collegiate institutions has increased exponentially. Just in the last ten years for which data is available from the U.S. Department of Education, tuition and room and board at public four year institutions has increased 37%, whereas tuition at private four year institutions has increased 25% during that same period. Average tuition in the 2009-10 academic year for public four year institutions was $14,870 and $32,475 for private four year institutions compared to $10,609 and $26,795 just ten years earlier when adjusted for inflation.
This huge increase in tuition, led to a huge increase in student loan borrowing as well. Again, looking at statistics available from the Department of Education, in the 2007-08 academic year, the average debt burden for students graduating with a four year degree from public institutions was $19,839 with 61.1% of undergraduate students at four year public institutions borrowing. For private four year institutions the amount was $27,349 with 70.6% of students taking out loans.
The stratospheric increase in tuition amounts and the amount of loans being taken out by students in order to pay for these increases has presented fertile new market for Wall Street to exploit through financial derivatives. As the real estate market has continued to sputter, the student loan market has taken the lead in consumer loans. As was done with residential mortgages, Wall Street is now carving up these new loans, securitizing them, dividing them into tranches and selling them as new CDO products to investors looking for larger returns than they can find elsewhere in the bond markets.
In a way, student loans are the perfect consumer debt from which to create CDO's. First, many of the loans are subsidized by the Federal government. This means that if the borrower defaults, the government guarantees payment. The other reason these are prime for derivatives is that all student loans, whether subsidized or private are not dischargeable in bankruptcy, making it more difficult for the borrower to escape responsibility for paying back the loans.
However, despite the apparent security of CDO's based on student loans, you still have the same problems associated with the residential mortgage CDO's that collapsed the entire economy in 2008. First, the fact that these are overtly subsidized by the government is a bad thing for the American taxpayer when you look at defaults on student loan backed CDO's. The nature of the subsidization means that a TARP style bailout of the institutions issuing and purchasing these investments is almost inevitable. Second, none of these safeties prevents default on these CDO's. Even though the loans are not dischargeable in bankruptcy, that doesn't make the borrower pay back the loan, and with the job market failing to return to anything near what would be expected in a healthy economy, the chances of default are becoming greater and greater every day.
But what should frighten the American taxpayer the most about these CDO's is that the requirements for student loans are even less stringent that the requirements for residential mortgages even in the boom days of the sub prime mortgage bonanza. Most of the individuals taking out these loans are teenagers with no credit whatsoever and little knowledge about finances. With nothing done in any of the reform legislation passed after 2008 to curb lend to securitize behavior, and therefore very little risk placed on the initial lender, there is no reason for lenders not to lend to any student applying for these loans.
If you are looking for the types of "liar loans" that earned such infamy during the sub prime boom, with migrant farm workers buying $350,000 homes with 100% financing, look no further than the growth in for-profit educational institutions. According to the Department of Education, in 2007-08 the average amount borrowed for a student at a four-year private for profit institution was $24,635, with a whopping 97% of students borrowing to pay for the for profit educational experience. So, nearly every individual attending a for profit undergrad school is borrowing money, while at the same time the only requirement for admission seems to be a pulse and the prospect for employment after graduation seems illusory at best. These are loans that are guaranteed to fail and end up in default.
Another frightening development is the amount students are borrowing for post-secondary and professional degrees. Again, according to the U.S. Department of Education, in the 2007-08 academic year, law students were graduating with an average law school debt of $80,081 and an overall academic debt of $92,937. Medical students medical school debt for the same year was $119,424 with an overall academic debt of $127,272. These continue to increase in the years since. The problem is that although the cost of professional schools has continued to increase, the job market for these graduates has dried up in the years since the 2008 collapse. Add to this that with the advent of for profit law and medical schools, more and more people are pursuing professional degrees and taking on an ever increasing debt burden to do so, you have a recipe for financial disaster.
What all of this leads to is that student loan market is about to bust and bust big time. So, why will this be worse than the near total collapse of the economy in 2008?
There are a number of reasons this will be worse. The first and most obvious one is that the result of the collapse in 2008, the emergence of the Too Big To Fail financial institution which rather than making the economy safer has put it more at risk. A more apt name for these institutions would be Systematically Dangerous Institutions. Because of their enormous size, the failure of any one of these institutions puts the entire economic system in danger. These huge institutions are so enormous, that the taxpayer has no choice but to bail them out if there was anything approaching defaults in the derivative markets like there were in 2008.
Furthermore, despite what the TBTF institutions claim, the U.S. government still owns a large percentage of these institutions as they have not been able to repay the loans that were forwarded to them during the last bail out. If these institutions collapse, the American taxpayer is on the hook, as both the Treasury and the Federal Reserve are still holding huge amounts of toxic investments that the banks could not get rid of. For the last four plus years the Treasury and the Fed have been propping up these institutions and yet requiring nothing in return for their investment.
Another reason that the coming collapse is going to be worse is that the Federal Reserve allowed the huge investment banks such as Goldman-Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley to restructure as bank holding companies following the bail out. This not only allowed these banks to have access to cheap Fed loans, but also allowed them to further delve into commercial banking and further eroded what little separation there was from commercial and investment banking. The FDIC simply doesn't have enough money to cover the collapses that could result from the bursting of the student loan bubble, even though they could be on the hook for just such an occurrence if and when it happens (just look at what Bank of America and its subsidiary Merrill Lynch did when they were concerned about a European debt crisis here).
This collapse is going to happen. I can't tell you when. It could be this week, or this year, or in the next couple of years. There is nothing that either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney are proposing that will stop it. While we debate whether to extend tax cuts to the rich or to the middle class, while we worry about fiscal cliffs, while both sides of the aisle play chicken beating their chests for political gain, the greatest threat to our economy, a giant ticking time bomb of debt, is being ignored and will be ignored by both Democrats and Republicans.
But it will explode. And the results will be disastrous. And both sides will say no one saw it coming. And will blame each other. And we, the taxpayers, will suffer the consequences.
Friday, August 10, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Where Is The Love?
Last Sunday as I sat in my church awaiting the sermon, I expected words of comfort for those of us seeking solace following the tragic events in Aurora, CO just a couple days earlier. Instead I was treated to a reminder of the difficulty all of us face to live up to challenge of being Christian.
This last week has not been a stellar one for the followers of Christ. As often happens following tragedies such as the inexplicable mass killing of movie goers at a midnight premier of the latest Batman movie, religious leaders came forth with various explanations for the shootings. Mostly, they went along the lines of the usual complaints about God not being allowed in schools, or religion being pushed out of the public square. Others took it further, blaming acceptance of gays and lesbians for a breakdown of our society. Even the usually respectable Billy Graham, who in his advanced age has grown further from his ecumenical love and respectful charm and has appeared to fall under the influence of his inept and crass eldest son, called American culture worse than Sodom and Gommorah, inferring that the shootings were somehow God's punishment for our sins.
This has sadly become the norm among Christians in America. It seems that the only difference between many of our mainstream churches and the Westboro "God Hates Fags" Baptist Church is the tactics, not the message. No wonder so many despise us.
Even those that showed some semblance of God's compassion offering prayers and remembrances for the victims missed the point. As was pointed out quite eloquently by Mother Valori from the pulpit last Sunday, where were the prayers for the shooter?
At first I was taken aback by the idea. Why should we show sympathy and love for someone who has shown such a manifestation of evil? The answer when you think about it is quite simple. Because that is exactly what we are called by Christ to do.
Christ's call for all of us is to love. Love each other as God loves you. Love your neighbor as yourself. Even love your enemies. This is the radicalness of Christ's love. The only acceptable reaction to anything or anyone for a follower of Christ is to love.
Where was the love from any of those preachers who sought out blame as an explanation for an inexplicable act? Who looked to find scapegoats and targets to attack and hold responsible? Is this what we have been called to do?
Being a Christian - that is living like Christ - is at once the simplest and most difficult thing to do. The late Catholic priest and radical activist Phillip Berrigan said "If enough Christians follow the Gospels they can bring any state to its knees." This is the power of love.
Christ commanded us to love. This is the only way we can truly practice our faith. We must meet hatred with love. And when we are beat down, shot, killed, beaten, we must show more love. For that is what it means to live like Christ.
So why are we doing such a piss poor job of it?
This last week has not been a stellar one for the followers of Christ. As often happens following tragedies such as the inexplicable mass killing of movie goers at a midnight premier of the latest Batman movie, religious leaders came forth with various explanations for the shootings. Mostly, they went along the lines of the usual complaints about God not being allowed in schools, or religion being pushed out of the public square. Others took it further, blaming acceptance of gays and lesbians for a breakdown of our society. Even the usually respectable Billy Graham, who in his advanced age has grown further from his ecumenical love and respectful charm and has appeared to fall under the influence of his inept and crass eldest son, called American culture worse than Sodom and Gommorah, inferring that the shootings were somehow God's punishment for our sins.
This has sadly become the norm among Christians in America. It seems that the only difference between many of our mainstream churches and the Westboro "God Hates Fags" Baptist Church is the tactics, not the message. No wonder so many despise us.
Even those that showed some semblance of God's compassion offering prayers and remembrances for the victims missed the point. As was pointed out quite eloquently by Mother Valori from the pulpit last Sunday, where were the prayers for the shooter?
At first I was taken aback by the idea. Why should we show sympathy and love for someone who has shown such a manifestation of evil? The answer when you think about it is quite simple. Because that is exactly what we are called by Christ to do.
Christ's call for all of us is to love. Love each other as God loves you. Love your neighbor as yourself. Even love your enemies. This is the radicalness of Christ's love. The only acceptable reaction to anything or anyone for a follower of Christ is to love.
Where was the love from any of those preachers who sought out blame as an explanation for an inexplicable act? Who looked to find scapegoats and targets to attack and hold responsible? Is this what we have been called to do?
Being a Christian - that is living like Christ - is at once the simplest and most difficult thing to do. The late Catholic priest and radical activist Phillip Berrigan said "If enough Christians follow the Gospels they can bring any state to its knees." This is the power of love.
Christ commanded us to love. This is the only way we can truly practice our faith. We must meet hatred with love. And when we are beat down, shot, killed, beaten, we must show more love. For that is what it means to live like Christ.
So why are we doing such a piss poor job of it?
Sunday, July 15, 2012
If I only had one wish for the media...
Only one? But there are so many things that could use changing or tweaking. False equivalency of views in an effort to seem fair, corporate control of news shows, the increasing focus on ratings rather than substance, the fourth hour of the Today Show, all the stories about side boob on the Huffington Post. You know all the things they rail against on The Newsroom.
But all of these fall to the wayside when I think about the single most outrageous thing I see in the news media and that is how they continue to equate rape and abuse with sex. It is appalling and it needs to stop.
Quite frankly I thought we had already fought and won this war a couple of decades ago. In my years as a student anti-rape activist all those idealized years ago, it seemed that I spent half my time speaking with the news media educating them on this very point. And for the most part they got it.
Fast forward to present day. I don't know if I stopped paying attention to the way media stories were reported, or things have really regressed in this area, but it seems that I can't look at news story about child trafficking, rape or other abuse without seeing a certain degree of prurient titillating equation of these horrific nightmares with sex.
Thanks to the evolution of tracking software, an increased focus by local and federal law enforcement agencies, and pressure by lobbying groups such as the National Association for the Protection of Children (protect.org), there have been an increasing number of high profile busts of child pornography and trafficking rings resulting in numerous arrests of the adult purveyors of this evil and rescues of the children enslaved in these unspeakable horrors.
The most common and shocking of the media's errors in reporting on these stories is the repeated referral to the victims of these crimes as teenage or child prostitutes. This term implies that somehow the victims of these unspeakable crimes were willful participants in the acts in which they were forced to participate. Whereas the media could refer to these children more appropriately as "teenage victims" the term prostitute is repeatedly foisted upon them, in essence victimizing them once again.
Recently, The Huffington Post inexplicably ran a story with the headline "Former Teen Prostitute's Racy Lingerie Show" complete with a picture of a young girl wearing a bikini top which looked like two facial tissues covering her small breasts. Besides wondering what the news value of this story was, the story's apparent exploitation of child slavery and its wink wink, nudge nudge tone was enough to make one sick to their stomach.
When the victims are older, the coverage is no less sensational, and even less compassionate. The recent scandal involving the systematic rape and harassment of female officers and enlisted members of the Air Force at a base in Texas offers a perfect example of this. Almost every story I read about this refers to it as the "Air Force Sex Scandal." Referring to a culture in which women are constantly subjected to the threat of rape and degradation on a daily basis, and an atmosphere where these crimes are either ignored or worse excused is not a "sex scandal." Using the word "sex" in describing this belittles the suffering these servicewomen have suffered and furthermore promotes an attitude wherein the perpetrator's actions are excused and the victims are blamed. This isn't a racy Friday night soft porn flick on Skinemax, it is a violent, devastating, dehumanizing crime and should be treated as such.
In fact, we rarely even hear the word rape anywhere in the media anymore. Instead we hear "sexual assault" or simply "assault." Rape is an ugly word, I admit. It should be an ugly word. It is an ugly crime. The word is viscerally violent and carries with it all of the pain and destruction that it denotes. Replacing it with a term that is more palatable softens the crime and lessens its impact on society.
It's time for the news media to get with the program. Stop conflating rape and sex. Stop conflating the enslavement of children with cheeky, exploitative juvenile bawdiness. Just stop. You are doing the public and yourself a disservice.
But all of these fall to the wayside when I think about the single most outrageous thing I see in the news media and that is how they continue to equate rape and abuse with sex. It is appalling and it needs to stop.
Quite frankly I thought we had already fought and won this war a couple of decades ago. In my years as a student anti-rape activist all those idealized years ago, it seemed that I spent half my time speaking with the news media educating them on this very point. And for the most part they got it.
Fast forward to present day. I don't know if I stopped paying attention to the way media stories were reported, or things have really regressed in this area, but it seems that I can't look at news story about child trafficking, rape or other abuse without seeing a certain degree of prurient titillating equation of these horrific nightmares with sex.
Thanks to the evolution of tracking software, an increased focus by local and federal law enforcement agencies, and pressure by lobbying groups such as the National Association for the Protection of Children (protect.org), there have been an increasing number of high profile busts of child pornography and trafficking rings resulting in numerous arrests of the adult purveyors of this evil and rescues of the children enslaved in these unspeakable horrors.
The most common and shocking of the media's errors in reporting on these stories is the repeated referral to the victims of these crimes as teenage or child prostitutes. This term implies that somehow the victims of these unspeakable crimes were willful participants in the acts in which they were forced to participate. Whereas the media could refer to these children more appropriately as "teenage victims" the term prostitute is repeatedly foisted upon them, in essence victimizing them once again.
Recently, The Huffington Post inexplicably ran a story with the headline "Former Teen Prostitute's Racy Lingerie Show" complete with a picture of a young girl wearing a bikini top which looked like two facial tissues covering her small breasts. Besides wondering what the news value of this story was, the story's apparent exploitation of child slavery and its wink wink, nudge nudge tone was enough to make one sick to their stomach.
When the victims are older, the coverage is no less sensational, and even less compassionate. The recent scandal involving the systematic rape and harassment of female officers and enlisted members of the Air Force at a base in Texas offers a perfect example of this. Almost every story I read about this refers to it as the "Air Force Sex Scandal." Referring to a culture in which women are constantly subjected to the threat of rape and degradation on a daily basis, and an atmosphere where these crimes are either ignored or worse excused is not a "sex scandal." Using the word "sex" in describing this belittles the suffering these servicewomen have suffered and furthermore promotes an attitude wherein the perpetrator's actions are excused and the victims are blamed. This isn't a racy Friday night soft porn flick on Skinemax, it is a violent, devastating, dehumanizing crime and should be treated as such.
In fact, we rarely even hear the word rape anywhere in the media anymore. Instead we hear "sexual assault" or simply "assault." Rape is an ugly word, I admit. It should be an ugly word. It is an ugly crime. The word is viscerally violent and carries with it all of the pain and destruction that it denotes. Replacing it with a term that is more palatable softens the crime and lessens its impact on society.
It's time for the news media to get with the program. Stop conflating rape and sex. Stop conflating the enslavement of children with cheeky, exploitative juvenile bawdiness. Just stop. You are doing the public and yourself a disservice.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
The Beauty of Hardware Stores
There is no smell quite as wonderful as the smell of a hardware store. It is a scent you will only find in a hardware store, and no Lowe's or Home Depot do not have this smell, as they arent really hardware stores As soon as you step foot inside, it hits you and for me, it brings me back.
There were really only two places I always wanted to go to with my Dad. The hardware store and the Millbrook Bread factory store. Both of these were for completely selfish reasons. At the Millbrook store, I could get a Peanuts coloring book, one of the most cherished prizes for a child in single digits. At the hardware store, it was my other most prized possession - a Tootsie Roll Pop of which the owner always kept a bag to give me and the other kids who tagged along with their fathers when they came to the store.
Everything about these trips was exciting for me. Riding in the car with my Dad in the old blue VW bus to the store in Lakeland, seeing the Winnebago parked in the driveway of the residence located behind the store, anticipating the sweet lollipop that would be mine at the end of the trip. While my dad would talk with the store owner, I would wander the aisles looking at Toro lawn mowers and Snapper trimmers, nails, drill bits, and power tools. During the 1979 World Series I even won an entire bag of Tootsie Pops from him betting on the Pirates to win it all. He was as happy handing over that bag as I was receiving it.
I had forgotten much of this from my childhood until the first time walking into the Shelby Hardware store several years ago. I had done most of my shopping for hardware and home repair items at Lowe's or the other big box stores for years, but on this one occasion I decided to go to the local hardware store to pick up an item and there it was - the smell. It took me back immediately to those cramped, dark aisles of the store in Lakeland and those trips with my Dad.
Since then, I have made it a habit to go to the local hardware store as often as I can. First it would be Shelby Hardware and now at my current house McSwain's True Value in Boiling Springs. The prices are a little bit more and you can't always find everything you need, but the service is superior and there is something you can't put a price on - the sense of community and the memories that you build when shopping at a local merchant.
Recently, a friend of mine organized a cash mob at a local merchant's store. The idea was to pick a deserving local merchant and have as many people show up at the same time and spend ten or twenty bucks to help boost their bottom line. The turnout was good and the impact was positive.
A colleague of mine couldn't attend the event, but donated $40 to it by dropping it off at my office. The mail in my office being what it is, I didn't receive it until after the event was over. I tried to return it, but my colleague told me to use it for the next one.
As things go, there hasn't been another one. The forty bucks was burning a hole in my desk drawer. So I decided to conduct an experiment with it. I would do my own cash mob by using the money only on locally owned businesses until the money was gone. I thought it wouldn't last long. I was wrong.
The money lasted almost a month. And during that month, I enjoyed fresh meats and vegetables from farmers markets, great meals at local restaurants, delicious coffee from local coffee houses, and other items from local businesses in and around my community. Not only did I enjoy wonderful things, but I met all sorts of new people, began relationships that will hopefully grow and last for years, and shared a little bit in their lives and they in mine.
I learned after planning this very article that this week is Shop Small Business week. I encourage everyone to start a new habit - spending whatever you can at a locally owned small business. Ten or twenty dollars a week may not seem like a lot, but if it is money you can reinvest in your local community rather than giving it to Starbucks or Wal Mart or Lowes, it is an investment that will go a long way toward saving jobs, families, and the very existence of your town.
Oh, and bring your kid along. You may just be planting memories that will bring a sudden smile decades from now.
There were really only two places I always wanted to go to with my Dad. The hardware store and the Millbrook Bread factory store. Both of these were for completely selfish reasons. At the Millbrook store, I could get a Peanuts coloring book, one of the most cherished prizes for a child in single digits. At the hardware store, it was my other most prized possession - a Tootsie Roll Pop of which the owner always kept a bag to give me and the other kids who tagged along with their fathers when they came to the store.
Everything about these trips was exciting for me. Riding in the car with my Dad in the old blue VW bus to the store in Lakeland, seeing the Winnebago parked in the driveway of the residence located behind the store, anticipating the sweet lollipop that would be mine at the end of the trip. While my dad would talk with the store owner, I would wander the aisles looking at Toro lawn mowers and Snapper trimmers, nails, drill bits, and power tools. During the 1979 World Series I even won an entire bag of Tootsie Pops from him betting on the Pirates to win it all. He was as happy handing over that bag as I was receiving it.
I had forgotten much of this from my childhood until the first time walking into the Shelby Hardware store several years ago. I had done most of my shopping for hardware and home repair items at Lowe's or the other big box stores for years, but on this one occasion I decided to go to the local hardware store to pick up an item and there it was - the smell. It took me back immediately to those cramped, dark aisles of the store in Lakeland and those trips with my Dad.
Since then, I have made it a habit to go to the local hardware store as often as I can. First it would be Shelby Hardware and now at my current house McSwain's True Value in Boiling Springs. The prices are a little bit more and you can't always find everything you need, but the service is superior and there is something you can't put a price on - the sense of community and the memories that you build when shopping at a local merchant.
Recently, a friend of mine organized a cash mob at a local merchant's store. The idea was to pick a deserving local merchant and have as many people show up at the same time and spend ten or twenty bucks to help boost their bottom line. The turnout was good and the impact was positive.
A colleague of mine couldn't attend the event, but donated $40 to it by dropping it off at my office. The mail in my office being what it is, I didn't receive it until after the event was over. I tried to return it, but my colleague told me to use it for the next one.
As things go, there hasn't been another one. The forty bucks was burning a hole in my desk drawer. So I decided to conduct an experiment with it. I would do my own cash mob by using the money only on locally owned businesses until the money was gone. I thought it wouldn't last long. I was wrong.
The money lasted almost a month. And during that month, I enjoyed fresh meats and vegetables from farmers markets, great meals at local restaurants, delicious coffee from local coffee houses, and other items from local businesses in and around my community. Not only did I enjoy wonderful things, but I met all sorts of new people, began relationships that will hopefully grow and last for years, and shared a little bit in their lives and they in mine.
I learned after planning this very article that this week is Shop Small Business week. I encourage everyone to start a new habit - spending whatever you can at a locally owned small business. Ten or twenty dollars a week may not seem like a lot, but if it is money you can reinvest in your local community rather than giving it to Starbucks or Wal Mart or Lowes, it is an investment that will go a long way toward saving jobs, families, and the very existence of your town.
Oh, and bring your kid along. You may just be planting memories that will bring a sudden smile decades from now.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Stop Giving Obama a Pass Already
In the aftermath of 9/11 when every politician on either side of the political aisle was drunkenly falling over themselves to see who could out macho the other and pass legislation even more outlandish and freedom restricting than the last, I had a conversation with a particularly conservative friend if mine. She stated, between sips of her extra fiery Bloody Mary, that she felt uncomfortable with some of the powers that were being given to the executive branch under the newly christened Patriot Act and wondered what my thoughts were. I agreed with her and told her that the best way for her to look at any grant of Presidential authority was to ask herself if she would be comfortable giving that power to Bill Clinton, and if she wasn't then it probably wasn't a good idea to give it to Bush, either.
That conversation seems particularly poignant to me now since I see those on the left repeatedly giving the Obama administration a pass as they grab more and more power for themselves at the expense of our freedom and the rule of law.
Just this week we saw the latest in an ongoing saga of stupid decisions on which the left continues to give Obama a pass. When the President invoked Executive Privilege in an attempt to avoid turning over subpoenaed Department of Justice documents my head hit my desk for about the hundredth time. But sure enough there was Democrat after Democrat lining up on this, that, and the other network news show to defend the President's misguided decision. And apparently none of them saw the irony.
Add this to the continued and expanded powers of indefinite detention which now apply to US citizens on US soil, the expanded drone program, the redefining of enemy combatant to include any male of fighting age who happens to be in the area of a drone strike in order to reduce reports of civilian casualties, a program of assassination of not only foreign enemies but US citizens the President himself deems worthy of being killed, and on, and on, and on, you start getting the idea that those on the left are simply willing to let the President do anything as long as he or she is someone for whom they voted.
Take the invoking of Executive Privilege for instance. I would have hoped for at least one elected person in the Democratic Party to have stood up and criticized the President for choosing very tenuous exercise of an extraordinary legal privilege in order to stymie a Congressional investigation into a legitimate subject of Congressional inquiry. The same elected officials who came to this President's defense were decrying GWB's use of this privilege in blocking the investigation into the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, even though Bush's decision, while still improper, was a more legitimate exercise of Executive Privilege than Obama's.
The more we allow this President to expand on the power grabs given to the previous administration without criticism, the more we are ceding our rights to an ever more powerful executive at the cost of our own freedom, and the more we lose any credibility we have to criticize any expansion of governmental power by this or any future administration.
I have no problem with anyone who likes Obama or wants to vote for him because of the many good policies he has implemented. But just because you like his stand on health care, or gay rights, or immigration, doesn't mean you have to sit idly by while he sets fire to Constitution on everything else.
This is why I have such great admiration for people like reporter and author Chris Hedges or Icelandic Parliamentarian Brigitta Jonsdöttir who are two of the Plaintiffs in the groundbreaking lawsuit challenging the Obama administration on the indefinite detention powers granted under NDAA. By refusing to stay silent on a matter of such incredible importance to our basic liberties as Americans, they were able to expose the utter baselessness of the government's justifications for such expanded powers. They won a preliminary injunction against the government using indefinite detention under the NDAA.
The list of actions that I set forth above would have liberals taking to the streets in droves had the Bush administration even thought of implementing them. So, I ask to my liberal brethren the same thing I asked to my conservative friend ten years ago, would you feel comfortable granting these powers to Bush? If the answer is no, as I am sure if you are honest it is, then stand up and offer the same criticism to Obama.
If you won't, then you have already lost.
That conversation seems particularly poignant to me now since I see those on the left repeatedly giving the Obama administration a pass as they grab more and more power for themselves at the expense of our freedom and the rule of law.
Just this week we saw the latest in an ongoing saga of stupid decisions on which the left continues to give Obama a pass. When the President invoked Executive Privilege in an attempt to avoid turning over subpoenaed Department of Justice documents my head hit my desk for about the hundredth time. But sure enough there was Democrat after Democrat lining up on this, that, and the other network news show to defend the President's misguided decision. And apparently none of them saw the irony.
Add this to the continued and expanded powers of indefinite detention which now apply to US citizens on US soil, the expanded drone program, the redefining of enemy combatant to include any male of fighting age who happens to be in the area of a drone strike in order to reduce reports of civilian casualties, a program of assassination of not only foreign enemies but US citizens the President himself deems worthy of being killed, and on, and on, and on, you start getting the idea that those on the left are simply willing to let the President do anything as long as he or she is someone for whom they voted.
Take the invoking of Executive Privilege for instance. I would have hoped for at least one elected person in the Democratic Party to have stood up and criticized the President for choosing very tenuous exercise of an extraordinary legal privilege in order to stymie a Congressional investigation into a legitimate subject of Congressional inquiry. The same elected officials who came to this President's defense were decrying GWB's use of this privilege in blocking the investigation into the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, even though Bush's decision, while still improper, was a more legitimate exercise of Executive Privilege than Obama's.
The more we allow this President to expand on the power grabs given to the previous administration without criticism, the more we are ceding our rights to an ever more powerful executive at the cost of our own freedom, and the more we lose any credibility we have to criticize any expansion of governmental power by this or any future administration.
I have no problem with anyone who likes Obama or wants to vote for him because of the many good policies he has implemented. But just because you like his stand on health care, or gay rights, or immigration, doesn't mean you have to sit idly by while he sets fire to Constitution on everything else.
This is why I have such great admiration for people like reporter and author Chris Hedges or Icelandic Parliamentarian Brigitta Jonsdöttir who are two of the Plaintiffs in the groundbreaking lawsuit challenging the Obama administration on the indefinite detention powers granted under NDAA. By refusing to stay silent on a matter of such incredible importance to our basic liberties as Americans, they were able to expose the utter baselessness of the government's justifications for such expanded powers. They won a preliminary injunction against the government using indefinite detention under the NDAA.
The list of actions that I set forth above would have liberals taking to the streets in droves had the Bush administration even thought of implementing them. So, I ask to my liberal brethren the same thing I asked to my conservative friend ten years ago, would you feel comfortable granting these powers to Bush? If the answer is no, as I am sure if you are honest it is, then stand up and offer the same criticism to Obama.
If you won't, then you have already lost.
Friday, June 15, 2012
The Vagina Demogogues
If you haven't been following the news, Michigan is in the midst of a right wing legislative man-gasm. They have passed a series of laws, many of which immediately became law illegally (thanks Rachel Maddow for being the only person to realize this), which have taken power away from voters as well as infringing on citizens rights, especially if those citizens happened to be women.
The most recent in these series of laws would outlaw all abortions past 20 weeks without any exception. You were raped? Sorry. Your baby has a severe birth defect which renders it incapable of surviving outside the womb? Tough. You may die if your pregnancy continues to term? Well, that's just a chance you're going to half to take, because the men of the Michigan legislature say so.
Needless to say there were a few members of the fairer (and saner) sex that also happened to be members of the legislature who were more than a little upset about this legislation. One of these, Barbara Byrum proposed an amendment which would apply a requirement that men prove to a doctor that the procedure was necessary to save the man's life in order to have a vasectomy performed. A vote was taken denying the amendment without any debate. When Rep. Byrum attempted to address the amendment and speak, she was ruled out of order. I guess turn about is fair play everywhere but the Michigan legislature.
Later, Rep. Lisa Brown gave an impassioned speech about the law on the chamber floor. In part of the speech, in response to those members who had argued that this was a matter of religious liberty for them as devout Christians, that she was Jewish and that her faith dictates that when there was a conflict between the health of the fetus and the health of mother, the health of the mother wins, and that the abortion would not be recommended, but would be required. She further stated that since she was not forcing her religious beliefs on the Christian members, why were they forcing their beliefs on her. She ended her speech by saying "I'm flattered you're all so interested in my vagina. But no means no."
The next day both Brown and Byrum were informed that they would not be allowed to speak on the floor of the legislature because they "failed to maintain the decorum of the House of Representatives." Huh?
Apparently the dispositions of the male members of the Michigan House of Representatives are so sensitive that they simply can't be subjected to words like vagina or attempts by women to actually speak on their amendments to a bill that actually affects their health and lives.
It was pointed out by Brown that her male counterparts had actually engaged in fisticuffs on the House floor recently and had suffered no such similar action.
Has "vagina" somehow become verboten? Should Representative Brown said hoo-ha? Or coochie? Or blossoming flower? Or are the bastions of male dominated Michigan law dudes so sensitive that they would prefer "private part" or "area" or better yet "down there?"
Perhaps they are threatened by powerful women who aren't afraid to use medically correct anatomical terminology when talking about their feminine parts. I did notice that each of the women was loudly gaveled down by the presiding male of the chamber and that gavel he was hammering was awfully big. Maybe there are some shortcomings amongst the male members of the male members of the House.
What else would explain such action for saying "vagina?" I guess not only are the men of the Michigan House of Representatives operating on a third-grade level of intelligence, but also a third-grade level of maturity. I guess next we are going to ban women from serving in the legislature altogether because, as we all know, girls have cooties.
What it all really comes down to is that the men running the Michigan legislature simply can't handle women who speak loudly, proudly, and angrily in defense of their rights, especially when those rights are under constant assault by those same men. The Michigan men would prefer that their women be demure and compliant, laying back and accepting the daily volleys lobbed against them.
However, I have one last thing to say to those that are trying to silence Michigan women figuratively through their laws and literally through their punishments against female members of the House. If you can't talk about vaginas on the House floor, should you really be passing laws that affect them so much?
The most recent in these series of laws would outlaw all abortions past 20 weeks without any exception. You were raped? Sorry. Your baby has a severe birth defect which renders it incapable of surviving outside the womb? Tough. You may die if your pregnancy continues to term? Well, that's just a chance you're going to half to take, because the men of the Michigan legislature say so.
Needless to say there were a few members of the fairer (and saner) sex that also happened to be members of the legislature who were more than a little upset about this legislation. One of these, Barbara Byrum proposed an amendment which would apply a requirement that men prove to a doctor that the procedure was necessary to save the man's life in order to have a vasectomy performed. A vote was taken denying the amendment without any debate. When Rep. Byrum attempted to address the amendment and speak, she was ruled out of order. I guess turn about is fair play everywhere but the Michigan legislature.
Later, Rep. Lisa Brown gave an impassioned speech about the law on the chamber floor. In part of the speech, in response to those members who had argued that this was a matter of religious liberty for them as devout Christians, that she was Jewish and that her faith dictates that when there was a conflict between the health of the fetus and the health of mother, the health of the mother wins, and that the abortion would not be recommended, but would be required. She further stated that since she was not forcing her religious beliefs on the Christian members, why were they forcing their beliefs on her. She ended her speech by saying "I'm flattered you're all so interested in my vagina. But no means no."
The next day both Brown and Byrum were informed that they would not be allowed to speak on the floor of the legislature because they "failed to maintain the decorum of the House of Representatives." Huh?
Apparently the dispositions of the male members of the Michigan House of Representatives are so sensitive that they simply can't be subjected to words like vagina or attempts by women to actually speak on their amendments to a bill that actually affects their health and lives.
It was pointed out by Brown that her male counterparts had actually engaged in fisticuffs on the House floor recently and had suffered no such similar action.
Has "vagina" somehow become verboten? Should Representative Brown said hoo-ha? Or coochie? Or blossoming flower? Or are the bastions of male dominated Michigan law dudes so sensitive that they would prefer "private part" or "area" or better yet "down there?"
Perhaps they are threatened by powerful women who aren't afraid to use medically correct anatomical terminology when talking about their feminine parts. I did notice that each of the women was loudly gaveled down by the presiding male of the chamber and that gavel he was hammering was awfully big. Maybe there are some shortcomings amongst the male members of the male members of the House.
What else would explain such action for saying "vagina?" I guess not only are the men of the Michigan House of Representatives operating on a third-grade level of intelligence, but also a third-grade level of maturity. I guess next we are going to ban women from serving in the legislature altogether because, as we all know, girls have cooties.
What it all really comes down to is that the men running the Michigan legislature simply can't handle women who speak loudly, proudly, and angrily in defense of their rights, especially when those rights are under constant assault by those same men. The Michigan men would prefer that their women be demure and compliant, laying back and accepting the daily volleys lobbed against them.
However, I have one last thing to say to those that are trying to silence Michigan women figuratively through their laws and literally through their punishments against female members of the House. If you can't talk about vaginas on the House floor, should you really be passing laws that affect them so much?
Monday, June 4, 2012
Why the Democrats Will Lose in 2012
We heard it from three different voices. All of them acting as surrogates of the Obama campaign. They're message was as clear as it was disturbing. "Lay off Wall Street."
No sooner was Cory Booker walking back his now infamous "nauseating" comment about Bain Capital that two other Democratic titans were letting loose with the same criticisms of Obama 2012's milquetoast critique of their opponent's record of destroying American companies for profit. Deval Patrick, the current occupier of the only political office Mitt Romney ever held and none other than former president and current Wall Street stooge Bill Clinton joined in with their own version of the "Lay off private equity" argument.
Of course none of this should surprise us. The same wizards of finance who shipped off American jobs overseas, bankrupted our economy with complex and destructive derivatives, and are living off of the teat of the Federal Reserve's promise of free money in exchange for nothing are also currently footing the bill for the up and comers in the Democratic Party.
Without contributions from private equity, Booker would never have been able to break the machine of corrupt Newark politics which dispatched him with ease in his first election. Patrick would not be able to maintain his governorship in a state which has become more and more of a toss up. And of course Clinton would have nobody to pay his six figure speaking fees to appear at Wall Street conferences where he gets to rub elbows with financial high rollers (and in some cases, recently, porn stars).
And these Democrats know on which side their bread is buttered. In return for their handsome campaign treasuries paid for by private equity, not only do these donors get incredibly favorable treatment across the board in the form of beneficial laws and tax codes, they also buy themselves the luxury of being free from any criticism at all.
Obama is learning this the hard way. In 2008, the Obama campaign raised more money from Wall Street than any campaign in history. Their money paid off handsomely for the financial sector of our economy as the new administration bypassed any criminal penalties for the 2008 crash, passed what amounted to very weak reforms that were essentially useless in changing any of the behavior that led to the collapse, installed all of the architects of the financial bail out as his Treasury Department, re-appointed Ben Bernanke to keep the free money flowing, and even stated that the underhanded practices and scheming that led to our financial meltdown were legal. Not bad for a few hundred million dollars.
But all of that wasn't enough. Because Obama occasionally would break out his populist rhetoric from the campaign, referring to Wall Street as a casino or the CEO's reaping twenty million dollar bonuses financed by tax payer cash "fat cats" Wall Street has chosen not to fill Obama's coffers quite as much as they did four years ago. The message was clear: if you hurt out feelings, we will hurt your bottom line.
So, when the campaign rolled out long form documentary style ads on the Internet criticizing Mitt Romney's time at private equity firm Bain Capital, the surrogates had to be called out. And of course in cunning fashion, Wall Street's surrogates happened to be Obama's surrogates as well.
Let's take a minute to look at what Bain Capital, and their cohorts in private equity do, shall we? Private equity firms, also called derisively "vulture capitalists" target struggling companies, buy them out, load them with debt, more often than not then strip them of their value, selling off the remaining assets, thereby profiting off of the remaining carcass. The result is a boon to the private equity company and usually a modest profit from the company's shareholders. The other result, inevitably, is the loss of jobs for the company's workers.
This is the modern version of the corporate raiders like Ivan Boesky and Michael Millkin in the 1980's. The only difference is that Boesky and Millkin ended up serving long prison sentences after being prosecuted by the justice departments of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Now, the raiders get to potentially run their own justice department.
After seeing the fall out from 2008, the resulting recession/depression, the enormous crises in home foreclosures and unemployment and the still stagnant economy, attacking Romney's record in private equity should be a no brainier. But the Democrats are apparently still unwilling to bite the hand that feeds it.
Look, a growing number of people both across the country and across the globe are waking up to the fact that the financial sector and its growing influence on our politics, is the enemy of free and democratic process. This has been the spark that has led to uprisings across the Middle East, Europe, Canada, and in the US in the Occupy movement as well as the breathtaking protests in Madison against the anti-worker Scott Walker administration. People realizing that their livelihoods and futures are being sacrificed for some kind of corporate kleptocracy are refusing to lie down and accept it.
But the Democrats stubbornly refuse to believe in this movement, or for that matter refuse to show any real beliefs at all. By refusing to attack Mitt Romney on what is likely his most vulnerable issue, the Democrats will once again avoid what should be a reasonably easy win against a remarkably unlikable opponent. The same goes for the unwillingness if the DNC to aggressively campaign against Walker in his recall election in Wisconsin and the lukewarm support they are showing anti-Wall Street crusader Elizabeth Warren in her bid to unseat Scott Brown in the US Senate race in Massachusetts.
Of course by not fully representing their own true constituents, the Democrats deserve to lose, and by continuing to support front men for Wall Street running for office as Democrats, we all will end up with the government we deserve.
No sooner was Cory Booker walking back his now infamous "nauseating" comment about Bain Capital that two other Democratic titans were letting loose with the same criticisms of Obama 2012's milquetoast critique of their opponent's record of destroying American companies for profit. Deval Patrick, the current occupier of the only political office Mitt Romney ever held and none other than former president and current Wall Street stooge Bill Clinton joined in with their own version of the "Lay off private equity" argument.
Of course none of this should surprise us. The same wizards of finance who shipped off American jobs overseas, bankrupted our economy with complex and destructive derivatives, and are living off of the teat of the Federal Reserve's promise of free money in exchange for nothing are also currently footing the bill for the up and comers in the Democratic Party.
Without contributions from private equity, Booker would never have been able to break the machine of corrupt Newark politics which dispatched him with ease in his first election. Patrick would not be able to maintain his governorship in a state which has become more and more of a toss up. And of course Clinton would have nobody to pay his six figure speaking fees to appear at Wall Street conferences where he gets to rub elbows with financial high rollers (and in some cases, recently, porn stars).
And these Democrats know on which side their bread is buttered. In return for their handsome campaign treasuries paid for by private equity, not only do these donors get incredibly favorable treatment across the board in the form of beneficial laws and tax codes, they also buy themselves the luxury of being free from any criticism at all.
Obama is learning this the hard way. In 2008, the Obama campaign raised more money from Wall Street than any campaign in history. Their money paid off handsomely for the financial sector of our economy as the new administration bypassed any criminal penalties for the 2008 crash, passed what amounted to very weak reforms that were essentially useless in changing any of the behavior that led to the collapse, installed all of the architects of the financial bail out as his Treasury Department, re-appointed Ben Bernanke to keep the free money flowing, and even stated that the underhanded practices and scheming that led to our financial meltdown were legal. Not bad for a few hundred million dollars.
But all of that wasn't enough. Because Obama occasionally would break out his populist rhetoric from the campaign, referring to Wall Street as a casino or the CEO's reaping twenty million dollar bonuses financed by tax payer cash "fat cats" Wall Street has chosen not to fill Obama's coffers quite as much as they did four years ago. The message was clear: if you hurt out feelings, we will hurt your bottom line.
So, when the campaign rolled out long form documentary style ads on the Internet criticizing Mitt Romney's time at private equity firm Bain Capital, the surrogates had to be called out. And of course in cunning fashion, Wall Street's surrogates happened to be Obama's surrogates as well.
Let's take a minute to look at what Bain Capital, and their cohorts in private equity do, shall we? Private equity firms, also called derisively "vulture capitalists" target struggling companies, buy them out, load them with debt, more often than not then strip them of their value, selling off the remaining assets, thereby profiting off of the remaining carcass. The result is a boon to the private equity company and usually a modest profit from the company's shareholders. The other result, inevitably, is the loss of jobs for the company's workers.
This is the modern version of the corporate raiders like Ivan Boesky and Michael Millkin in the 1980's. The only difference is that Boesky and Millkin ended up serving long prison sentences after being prosecuted by the justice departments of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Now, the raiders get to potentially run their own justice department.
After seeing the fall out from 2008, the resulting recession/depression, the enormous crises in home foreclosures and unemployment and the still stagnant economy, attacking Romney's record in private equity should be a no brainier. But the Democrats are apparently still unwilling to bite the hand that feeds it.
Look, a growing number of people both across the country and across the globe are waking up to the fact that the financial sector and its growing influence on our politics, is the enemy of free and democratic process. This has been the spark that has led to uprisings across the Middle East, Europe, Canada, and in the US in the Occupy movement as well as the breathtaking protests in Madison against the anti-worker Scott Walker administration. People realizing that their livelihoods and futures are being sacrificed for some kind of corporate kleptocracy are refusing to lie down and accept it.
But the Democrats stubbornly refuse to believe in this movement, or for that matter refuse to show any real beliefs at all. By refusing to attack Mitt Romney on what is likely his most vulnerable issue, the Democrats will once again avoid what should be a reasonably easy win against a remarkably unlikable opponent. The same goes for the unwillingness if the DNC to aggressively campaign against Walker in his recall election in Wisconsin and the lukewarm support they are showing anti-Wall Street crusader Elizabeth Warren in her bid to unseat Scott Brown in the US Senate race in Massachusetts.
Of course by not fully representing their own true constituents, the Democrats deserve to lose, and by continuing to support front men for Wall Street running for office as Democrats, we all will end up with the government we deserve.
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