Category Archives: bankers finance

ALEC fighting open records

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This up from PR Watch on ALEC’s latest: asserting that its communications with public legislators is private….

Isn’t it amazing how the folks who insist on the Patriot Act and having the right to examine your private phone conversations, emails, library records, bank records, etc., are the same ones insisting that they have a right to privacy….??  The story states that there are cases where the communications can be private–in some states they don’t have to make their communications public knowledge…but it stops there and doesn’t explore that point further.

So…I went on a quick search and found this resource to each state’s open door laws.  As with any law, though, it’s only as good as the people behind it.  That is, if you have a group of people bent on keeping things secret with financial resources to keep their secrets, while those that try to find information lacking in financial resources…well, the law isn’t worth much…

With politicians like these….

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…who needs Bozo the Clown?

Did Walworth really ask if they were growing cultures that would become human beings?  OMG….these are the people deciding educational standards?  ::holds head from spinning::

Even more alarming (if anything could be more alarming) is this passage from Louisiana Voice:

Where others within the Department of Education (DOE) have alluded privately to data suppression and manipulation of school performance scores that artificially inflated graduation rates, Bassett, a band director who said he was “highly qualified” to teach math, publicly charged White, BESE and DOE of misrepresenting test scores and then covering up the lie by removing the data from the Louisiana Believes website. “This is data suppression,” Bassett said.

He said he was asked by his principal last October to look into his school’s score so that it could be improved in the future. “My subsequent research revealed deceit, distortion, manipulation of scores and data suppression,” he said.

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Further down, it goes into specifics about VAM and how the data was missing or manipulated.  Good God, these people have no conscience nor credibility…

Unfortunately, Louisiana is not alone.

Girl Scouts and Common Core Badge

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Diane Ravitch has a blog up on the Girl Scouts getting on the “Common Core Bandwagon” by issuing badges to girls for the…um…skill of Common Core…

Gah, whatever happened to learning how to build a campfire, going on hikes, helping the elderly, playing an instrument, identifying trees by their leaves,  and so on…?  Remember when it was about learning survival skills for being out in the woods?

I mean, when I was a Girl Scout we learned some actual skills that I use even to this day! (Okay, I’ve forgotten a lot, but not everything)

We camped overnight at the campground in the woods.  We used genuine outhouses with wooden boxes over holes in the ground.  Yours truly got stung on the rear end when a wasp from a nest located in the outhouse resented the invasion into its “territory”…I have never moved so fast in all of my life. :p

I remember singing “Kookaberra” and “Amster___ (shhhh…Scouts don’t cuss)”   haha. Great times.  So, now they want to award badges for unproven educational standards that have absolutely nothing to do with the outdoors?  Pfft.

Syria

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A really good piece here  on Syria and the general Middle East.  I like how it addresses the entire problem, not just the problem du jour.  Just in the last few days, have I heard of the Hezbollah connection to Assad’s side.  This is major news.  And helps one to understand why Israel suddenly starts launching an attack.  They can say what they want, but it would appear that Israel is in it for the entire conflict, not a specific target, as they claim.

On CSPAN this morning, a writer for daily beast/Newsweek (sorry, forgot the name) was addressing Syria and Benghazi.  A caller calls in with a foreign accent and speaks of how many in Syria have been against Assad, but are now so afraid.  He asserts (and I agree) that most Muslim people do not condone what Al Queda has done–they are aghast at the violence and will not participate in it.  But they are cornered–they are in fear for themselves and their families and they have to be able to get food and water and shelter.  The CSPAN host asks where he is from?  Answer:  Syria.  Do you still have family there?  Answer:  Yes.  How are they doing?  Answer:  They are afraid and want Assad out.  I believe he said they wanted democracy, too.

Another caller had said that we are broke.  We can’t afford to get into another war.  We need a war tax if we’re going to go in.

I have to admit I’ve been torn about Syria.  I feel strongly against letting some creep murder people.  At the same time, like the guy said, we’re broke.  We cannot afford to go in again to a country and wage war.  Only if they tax the rich can we afford to go in….because the middle class and the working poor can’t do it–they can barely put food on the table for their own families.

 

Tossed aside

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The suicide rate has skyrocketed for one particular age group:  the over 50 crowd….the Boomers…

Susie Madrak has a post up on it here.

From the comments, which are really sobering:

dogjudge • 3 hours ago 

September, 2011. I get a phone call from friends of my (then) 83 year old aunt. She had just been saved by two friends. Both are nurses. She had sliced both arms about 35 times. When the dust settled, we found out that she had gotten over 10 grand in debt. Why? She and her husband had lost all of their money paying for hospital bills for his heart condition. He died about 10 years prior. Her only income was Social Security. Couldn’t afford to live on that. Long story short, she now lives with my wife and I.

And we get the Republicans wanting to make that situation worse for millions and a President who thinks that cutting Social Security is fine so that the wealthy in this country still don’t have to pay their fair share.

Isn’t this a great country, or what?

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The comments are heartbreaking.  And very telling.  There’s a lot of pain out there….and not a lot of hope that things will get better.

Are you listening, members of Congress? President Obama?

….probably can’t hear over the loud voices of lobbyists and campaign donors….

Obama and Education

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Diane Ravitch has a link up to the discussion on the Washington Post.  You can’t let President Obama off the hook, as is discussed–he picked Arne Duncan and actually praised No Child Left a Mind while slobbering over Bush at the dedication to the *cough* library.

No one who cares about public education and children can endorse No Child Left a Mind.  Only someone with a narrow view and narrow mind can believe it is a success.  Those with $$ in their eyes, that is….

I just want to cry

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…at what they have done to our schools….

Little ones who are now exposed to the constant fear of some bad person coming into their school and killing them or their teacher…

Schools being locked down every day instead of just when there is a possible suspect in the area…

…and No Child left a Mind continuing to be regarded as some sort of successful program, when all arrows point in the opposite direction…

…and the ones that care, the teachers and principals who give a rat’s behind about the children and not just earning a paycheck, well…they’re the ones that are leaving the profession.

I just want to cry.

FDA drops the ball…so what else is new?

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(As I first started reading this, I thought of a pun with the title:  “Something’s fishy”  but PR Watch beat me to it in their write up. Heh.)

(So…I’ll have to settle for the boring title of FDA drops the ball…so what else is new?)

Note in the comments section the paid flack who attacks the article not based on facts, but wild accusations….um-hmmm…

There are a million souls who do not want frankenfish.  (and probably millions more would be protesting if they only knew what was going on) .

What does it take for American citizens to be heard?  And why is this garbage science of Genetically Modified organisms released without a) thorough testing by independent research labs with no financial/political gain;  b) without follow-up by independent research to investigate the damage that they have caused; and c) why isn’t the entire ecological system considered when making these decisions…?

 

 

 

Ending Too Big To Fails…?

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Center for Media and Democracy has this up at PR Watch.org.

From the site:

These banks enjoy an implicit government guarantee that has been quantified by economists as a hidden taxpayer subsidy that disadvantages smaller banks. Bloomberg recently pegged this subsidy at some $84 billion,

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The Brown-Vitter bill wants the banks to be ready to give themselves a bailout when there is another shock to the financial system. The bill significantly raises the amount of high-quality (equity) capital that the big banks must hold – foreign banks operating in the United States included. Community banks would stay under the current rules, mid-sized and regional banks would be required to hold eight percent in capital to cover their assets, and megabanks – institutions with more than $500 billion in assets – would be required to meet a new 15 percent capital requirement, virtually double their current requirements.

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Ab-so-freaking-lutely.

If you click on the Bloomberg link, the question of the year:  Why Should Taxpayers Give Big Banks $83 Billion Per Year?

From Bloomberg:

The top five banks — JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. – – account for $64 billion of the total subsidy, an amount roughly equal to their typical annual profits (see tables for data on individual banks)

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Now, these banks wouldn’t be getting these NICE dividends because of campaign donations and lobbying, now would they…?  Nah, we *know* they are too honest, too upstanding, too ethical to do that…right…?  Pfft.

When I clicked on the massive bailouts to foreign banks, as well link, the site wasn’t that informative, and that is something I would reeeeallly like to know…how much are we paying out for other countries’ banks??

The bill is supposed to force the banks’ hand:  they either come up with the capital to cover their assets or they start divesting their mega corporations into smaller banks, which is what they should have done immediately after the crash in ’08.