Be afraid, a__holes. Be VERY afraid!

Have you heard the funny saying, "Some people are alive only because it's against the law to shoot them"?   I think they were referring to bankers.

Now and then I tend to get off on a vitreol-laced rant about The Banksters.*  Some have asked me why I get my panties in such a wad over them?  Fair question.  Here's why:

Back during the Great Depression thousands of banks went broke, with depositors losing their life savings in the collapse.  The misery was unimaginable.  To restore confidence in the banking system, FDR/Congress did things like create the FDIC (to insure that even if banks go broke in the future, the depositors will still get their money back), and passed the Glass-Steagall Act.  This separated the commercial banks (like the First National Bank of Gooberville) from the investment banks (think Shark Tank in a 3-piece suit).

Commercial banks were regulated, only allowed to loan to solid, credit-worthy borrowers, usually for things like homes or cars or small businesses.  These were usually to locals, and the borrowers were well known to the banks.  It was safe, but not all that lucrative for the bankers. Investment banks could gamble big on just about anything, but with their higher risks (they weren't covered by FDIC insurance) came much higher rewards, too.  This separation worked well, but by the 1980's the banks were wanting to be unshackled, and finally, after intense lobbying, Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999, and off to the casino they went.

They began an intense home loan campaign, and they had many well-qualified takers.  But after a while all the well-qualified borrowers who wanted a home had a home, so the banks lowered their standards and kept throwing out money.  Not long after, they ran out of even marginally-qualified borrowers, so they just kept loaning to anyone who could fog a mirror.  

If borrowers couldn't afford to make payments based on a 6% interest rate, they gave them a 2% loan....for 4 years, then it skyrocketed to make up for the early-years rate-break.  The banks frankly didn't care if the loans were paid back or not, as they had devised a way to pass along the risk to investors downstream.  They took all their loans, sliced them and diced them, and repackaged them as "derivatives".  These were essentially packages of 10,000 little pieces of 10,000 separate home loans.  

Problem was, the investors they sold them to (often employee pension funds, etc) couldn't easily figure out which homes they had an interest in or who owed them, which is exactly what the banks were hoping for.  The banks LOVE working in the dark!  The senior banksters made literally $$$BILLIONS of dollars for themselves personally with this fraudulent scam!

By 2008 the House of Cards collapsed, and investors worldwide were holding worthless paper.  But....haha....the banks were, too!  They still had BILLIONS in their loan portfolios waiting to be sliced and diced, but the collapse happened before they could get them all out the door.  Oops!

Here's where it gets personal for me:  In their typical bureaucratic knee-jerk over-reaction, the banking regulators pretty much told banks to say "NO" to any real estate loans.  Unless the borrower was solid gold and had a HUGE down payment...NO!  This applied coast-to-coast, regardless of whether an area participated in the fraud or not.  WTF?

Many in my industry were forced to close their doors, losing everything.  (We managed to stay afloat because over the years we had developed nice relationships with many affluent professionals who didn't need any bank financing.)  Plumbers who might once have had 20 employees could then only afford to keep 3 or 4.  The same with electricians, insulation and drywall contractors, etc.  It was to them like Armageddon.  Then it spread to our neighbors who might have needed to sell their homes for whatever reason, but couldn't because there was little mortgage financing available.  They were all defaulting on their homes and cars left and right, EVEN THOUGH THEY HAD NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH THE BANKSTER'S FRAUD!

Meanwhile, while millions of middle-class families were being devastated, the guilty bankers still had their ranches in Montana, their estates in the Hampton's, and their penthouse apartments on Fifth Ave.  They still vacationed in Europe, still bought Bentley's, still had their hundreds of millions of dollars hidden away from possible angry plaintiffs. AND  NOT  ONE  EVER  WENT  TO  PRISON!  Their lives didn't suffer one twit!

And they're still at it today.  They still put together fraudulent deals, pricing in a few hundred million bucks to cover the fines they know the Feds will slap on them....not bad considering the few $$$BILLION they scammed in the process!

I truly believe a day of reckoning is coming. At some point in time fed up middle class Joe's and Jane's will invade the Ivory Towers and haul these well-scrubbed criminals off in chains.  And there will be rejoicing in the streets.  :)

S  

*  Not all bankers are Banksters.  The little guys and gals at the local corner bank are NOT who I'm speaking of here.  I'm talking about the BIG BANKS....B of A, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, Capital One, Morgan Stanley, etc.

Competition is GOOD!

Competition

I just saw an American Express ad on TV urging its members to do business with small, local businesses and not just the mega corporations.  Awww....it's that nice of them, looking after the little guy like that?  How sweet.  What's that....ulterior motive?  Why yes, yes they do.

This reminded me of a conversation I had with a high-up-the-ladder marketing guy with Lowe's a few years ago.  He told me that consumers had the impression that, because of their volume, Lowe's (and Home Depot) received better pricing from appliance manufacturers than the smaller local retailers.  He said that was not true, and that they in fact paid a bit more.  I asked why that was?

He told me that the two large box stores combined already accounted for something like 50% of all appliance sales.  The appliance manufacturers understood that if they allowed the small retailers to disappear, and Lowe's and HD had it all to themselves, the two big boxes would effectively OWN the appliance makers.  They would bark "jump", and the manufacturers would have to reply, "how high, sir?"  Therefore they gave the small retailers a slightly better price to keep them competitive and in business. 

Until recently American Express was the only credit card the giant members-only store Costco accepted.  Ten percent of all Am Ex cards were issued thru Costco, and 20% of Am Ex total loan portfolio was with Costco.  Feeling like they had the power to pull American Express's strings, Costco demanded that Am Ex cut their processing fee and raise their rewards program, both benefitting Costco and hurting Am Ex.  

American Express realized the folly of having too many of their eggs in one basket and bid Costco adieu.  Now they're trying to boost their business with thousands of small retailers so as to never be held hostage like that again.  And that's, as Paul Harvey would say, "The rest of the story."

So with this in mind, please tell me why we let the Big Six banks (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley) control roughly half of all American banking, with the other half divided up among roughly 6,000 "others"?  Tell me again why we shouldn't break up the Big Six?

Who do YOU bank with?

S

Hillary's worst nightmare

Saturday Night Live's Hillary Clinton: "You have a choice in this election.  You can vote for a Republican, or you can vote for Donald Trump."

Hillary Clinton is enjoying an embarrassment of riches.  She has her limited hard-core base of traditional Democrats, the support of maverick Democrat (?) Bernie Sanders and most of his millennials....and the support of much of corporate America.

Wikileaks has given us the transcript of what Hillary told a group of Goldman Sachs VIPs in a speech they paid her a cool QUARTER MILLION $$$ to hear.  That is....big shock....that she is a two-faced politician.*

During her primary campaign against Bernie Sanders she wanted us to believe she was a progressive's progressive.  Even after she took him out she enthusiastically embraced Bernie's "break up the big banks, no (TPP) trade deal, free college for everyone, etc" agenda.  She even agreed to make it a part of the official Democratic Party platform.  But what about what she told Goldman Sachs, and by inference the business community?

She told them that she had a face for public consumption, and a face for behind the magic curtain, and it was the latter that they should pay attention to.  Yes, she would push for "banking regulation", but the banks would have a say in writing it.  Which really meant "don't you guys lose any sleep."

At the time she said that Republicans were firmly in control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.  If she could some day become President she could deliver on her promise to her progressive friends to champion their traditional Democratic values, all while knowing a Republican controlled Congress would never go along with any meaningful change in the status quo.  Win/win....votes from traditional Democrats, money from traditional Republican business interests.  SWEET!

As it now turns out several years later she appears to be coasting to a presidential victory, and the odds are pretty good that she might, just might, get a Democratic Senate, too.  

But what if the Democrats could pull off a modern miracle and win the House of Representatives also?  Her Democratic faithful/Bernie Sanders coalition would then expect her to live up to her promises to them....she would have the votes in Congress to do pretty much whatever she wanted....while the business community would still be expecting her to stand aside for them, too, and they don't take kindly to being stiffed for a couple of hundred million $$$.  YIKES!

Hillary's "happy dance" could well turn into a "tap dance".  Hey, stranger things have happened.

S

* I know, I know.  I used "two faced" and "politician" in the same sentence.  It goes without saying, huh?  :)

Pinterest...it isn't just for girls anymore

I've really gotten into this Pinterest thing.  So far here are my favorites by category:

 America's Cup

 Small Houses 

  Autumn

 Dogs

House Boats

 Doors

 Cool Cars

 Europe

 Eyes

Leaders

 Girls and Guns

 Mountain Drives

 James Bond

Knives

 Guns

  Cool Airplanes

 Rugby

Winter

Scandinavia

 Watches

Paris

 Politics

Do you have any Pinterest favorites?  Share them, please?

S

Geeks to the rescue!

I just read in Popular Mechanics that scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have discovered a chemical reaction that will turn carbon dioxide into ethanol.  As best as I can understand it this is a legitimate report taken from the journal ChemistrySelect. 

They were hoping to find a method to turn CO2 into a useful fuel, but they thought it would be a very complex process that might (or might not) have a practical application.  Instead they found that by simply arranging copper and carbon into "nano-spikes" (some sort of "hocus pocus" geek speak) on a silicon surface the desired chemical reaction would take place.  They say it is fairly simple, uses common materials, can be done at room temperature (not requiring any massive refining process), and can quickly be scaled up to enable the removal of CO2 in large quantities from the atmosphere (the evil airborne stuff responsible for global warming).  At the same time the process can produce lots of ethanol, already used as a fuel for generators and vehicles.

Now lets watch and see if the commercial interests that have $$$Billions to gain trying to solve the global warming problem, and keeping the world hooked on fossil fuels, will somehow get this new technology squashed.

Is this what Merle Haggard was singing about when he said the day would come when "We'll all be drinkin' that free bubble up, and eatin' that rainbow stew"?

S

Mama, she stole my ballot. Make her give it back, mama!

Donald Trump is saying the upcoming Presidential election is rigged, that there will be massive fraud at the polling places, and that the Party of the Donkey has conspired with the media to defraud him of his rightful victory.  'Cause, you know, The Donald is a winner, never a loser.  Sounds to me like he's preparing his excuse when/if he loses  does not win  comes in second...DOH!  Truth be told, though, he's sorta right.

No, I don't think there will be hearse's lined up at the polling places bringing the dead back to vote one last time.  That's not how the system is rigged these days.  Today the two...2...lemme say it again...TWO political parties who have any chance of winning (they've conspired to make sure a Third Party will be stillborn) have rigged elections by insuring only one of their Good 'Ol Boys / Girls gets nominated in the first place.  (Or as a last ditch nuclear option, withhold their allowance.)  If you're not "in", you're out.

Here's the deal:  Both parties are beholden to their Sugar Daddy special interests.  They took their (campaign) money, so now they must deliver the goods (favors).  If their candidate can't make a strong showing, their benefactors will jump ship in a New York minute.  Who would have ever thought the banks and health insurers and pharmaceutical companies, etc would be lined up behind Hillary Clinton?  But that's what they do when their preferred party's candidate is in freefall. 

After several of their Presidential candidates (Mondale / Dukakis) crashed and burned badly back in the '80's, the Democrats perfected their system of "pledged super-delegates" to make sure no renegade / hopeless candidate ever became their standard bearer again.  

The People might have wanted Bernie Sanders, but the Party wasn't sure they could control him if he won, so they took him out with the big hook (aka pledged super-delegates), and crowned Hillary instead.  Pledged super-delegates = veto power.

"But wait" you say.  "Didn't Hillary get more popular votes during the primaries?"  True, but with the ever-present pledged super-delegates making the outcome clear from day one, how many voters just succumbed to the inevitable?  We'll never know.

And just to make double / triple / quadruple sure, the Democratic National Chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her staff threw roadblocks in front of Sanders at every opportunity.  We know this because her leaked emails said so.  Busted!

So how then did renegade Donald Trump walk away with the Republican Presidential nomination?  Where was their hook?  Ahhh....they didn't have one because their candidates didn't crash and burn back in the '80's.  They never thought they needed one.  But you can bet the farm that when election season 2020 rolls around they WILL have some sort of fail-safe system in place to insure only one of their Chosen Few will ever be on the final ballot.  No more Trump's for the GOP!

But for now the Republicans are stuck with him.  Most will pay Trump lip service, but little more than that.  Without their active foot soldiers or $$$$, The Donald is finished.  THAT is how you rig elections today.

Oh, and the media is biased towards the Democrats.  As a voter who will NOT be voting for either major party candidate this year I can give you a unique, un-biased view of reality.  Hillary's leaked emails and other assorted scandals don't get anywhere near as much negative press as The Donald's philandering.   Of course, more people like reading "Fifty Shades Of Gray" than "The Complete Unabridged History of ZZzzzz", too.  :)

S

Opposition research

Ever hear of "opposition research"?  No?  Apparently neither has Donald Trump.  Actually he has, but he vetoed the idea when his two previous campaign managers brought the idea up to him.

Opposition research is the common practice of having the past history of a political opponent investigated.  It's always helpful to know if they have a mistress, have any DUI's or a criminal record, have any mental health issues, who they've stiffed in business, what their tax return looks like, who they've donated to, if they are on the payroll of some underworld character, etc.

It's also common practice for candidates to have the same investigation done on themselves so they'll know what the opposition will find and might make public in the heat of the campaign.  That way they can have wet-wipes at the ready regardless of the mud that's slung their way.

Opposition research was suggested to Donald Trump early-on by his professional political managers and he nixed the idea.  He must have known his tax returns would show contributions to special interests that he no longer wished to associate with, or to hot button groups like Planned Parenthood, the NRA (unlikely) and others, or that he hadn't paid taxes in years.  Maybe there were building trades he finally paid at less than the contracted price, or deals made with foreign "undesirables" who just happened to own properties with magnificent views.  Or women he found inappropriately appealing.

That's his problem today.  Donald Trump either honestly thought his bank account made him Teflon coated, or that he had properly covered his tracks and no one could ever find anything on him.  Or maybe in his mind he was pure as the driven snow.  I dunno.  Regardless, he grossly underestimated Washington politics.

Lesson learned:  When you try and keep your past hidden, everyone ASSUMES the worst about you, whether you're guilty or not.  "You can run, but you can't hide" applies to politics, too.  Especially politics.

S