MORALITY AND THE LAW CLXVIII
By Stephen Ellis
A FOND FAREWELL
Nobody asked me, and that’s the problem…
I’ve been writing this blog for 168 consecutive weeks. When it was published by American On Line (AOL) I had approximately 3,000 readers per week. But, a few months ago, AOL discontinued publishing blogs and I had to open a new site: moralityandthelawakanobodyaskedme.blogspot.com
The trouble is that I no longer have any readers…and it doesn’t make any sense to write a blog every week that nobody reads. So, this will be my final blog called “Morality and the Law”
For those few of you who like the way I write, I am writing another blog called Explaining Life’s Mysteries at “explaininglifesmysteries.blogspot.com” on my favorite topic, “the paranormal”.
If you really want to know what happens when you die…what UFOs are…what the mystery of “ghosts” or “communicating with the dead” is really about, I suggest you look up my blog and read it. I’ve had a number of paranormal experiences in my life and met a lot of other people who have, too. Every one of us has a one or more déjà vu experiences such as knowing, when the telephone rings, that it’s someone you haven’t seen or heard from in years…or…you have a specific dream or premonition about something happening…and it happens…or you are visited by a dead love interest or a dead family member...or you go someplace for the first time and yet you know you’ve been there before…and lots of other things that add to life’s mysteries.
What I try to do in my blog is explain these things in a very practical and logical way. I’m not a UFO freak or a ghost hunter. I simply look at things that do exist and try and give them rational explanations. In the case of religious “mysteries”, I try to document my explanations with historical records, wherever and whenever they exist.
It should be a very interesting blog to anyone who does not accept the fact that life is merely as we see it and that our scientists have explained everything there is to explain.
Insofar as “Morality and the Law” is concerned, I’ve covered a very tumultuous period of American History. The eight years of incompetence of the Bush Administration, the nomination and election of the first Black President of the United States; the near-demise of corporate giants such as Lehman Brothers, AIG, General Motors, etc.
The task facing Obama when he takes office next month are totally Herculean. I believe he will be a good president…maybe even a great one. Certainly he has amassed the most intelligent Cabinet in the years that I have been alive. How he handles the economy the jobless rate, etc. will be a matter for history to judge. But please…save your criticism of him until he has had a chance to do something. Those attacking him now, before he even takes office, are not good Americans.
Obama is going to need the help of American citizens who are fed-up with the graft and corruption that has become synonymous with American politics and corporate greed.
To anyone and everyone who reads this, I wish you a Very Happy Holiday Season. Have faith. America is strong and will survive the Bush years.
As I said…nobody asked me.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
MORALITY AND THE LAW CLXVII
By Stephen Ellis
NOBODY LOVES AN AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURER
Nobody asked me, but…
Even with the verbal support of President-Elect Obama…even with a Democratic majority in the Senate...even with the support of Republican President George W. Bush…the United States Senate again displayed the corruption and “I don’t give a damn” attitude towards the citizens of this country. How I wish I could fire some of those Senators on the spot!
The Senate turned down what is the single most important thing the Bush Administration could have accomplished in eight years of inept, sloppy, slipshod leadership of this country. Maybe…just maybe there is still hope for the American Automobile Industry to get sufficient money to follow-through on the turnaround they’ve started. But for the failure of the proposed $15 Billion in loans, we can thank the Republican members of the Senate. I may never vote Republican again!
The Republican members of the Senate voted against the loans stating that that GM, Chrysler and Ford could always file Chapter 11 under the Bankruptcy Code and work their own way out of it. Brilliant!
In the meantime, while going through the legal machinations of the Bankruptcy Court (who might well decide there is no practical reorganization possible) what’s going to happen to the million or so employees of these companies? If the “Big 3” (I use the term loosely) haven’t got the funds to pay their workers before bankruptcy, they sure aren’t going to have the money to pay them after filing bankruptcy. Oh well, what’s another million people without jobs going to mean to our Senate? Obviously, Republicans simply don’t care.
Or maybe they do care: it seems that the most vociferous voices from the Senate opposing the bailout for Detroit are Senators from States that have Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Hundai and Mercedes plants in their states. Their Senators do care…but not for this country.
Granted, Detroit has some major problems to overcome, not the least of which is the Automobile Workers’ Union: Unions, for all the good they did in the days when management was virtually enslaving workers, are really a very unnecessary evil today. A simple example:
Last year, Toyota sold 9,700.000 automobiles world-wide…and netted $17 billion in profits. Coincidentally, Detroit manufacturers also sold 9,700,000 cars last year…and lost almost $70 billion. Toyota pays their factory workers (non-union) $35 per hour (not a bad wage). Detroit (strictly union) pays their factory workers a minimum of $70 per hour.
I certainly don’t have a problem with automobile workers getting a better wage…but when it impacts the American economy in a negative fashion, there are some corrections to be made. Union supported wage earners are not the only problem: Executives at Toyota make from $250,000 to $2,000,000 per year. Executives at Gm have an average wage of more than $2,000,000 per year. This, too has to be corrected. Detroit spends billions of dollars per year on experimentation and new ideas. Toyota copies those ideas at pennies on the dollar. This, too has to be corrected.
A word about our banks and insurance companies: These companies were quick to accept bail-out money…but not one of them has done anything to help ease the economic crisis our country is going through. That’s what the bailout money was for. But our inept Treasurer, Henry Paulson, just dished out the money as fast as he could without telling the banks and insurance companies how to use it.
Bank of America received almost $100 Billion. How did they thank this country for their taxpayer money? They fired 35,000 employees!
Citi Bank received almost $100 Billion of the bailout money. How did they thank this country for their taxpayer bailout? They fired 63,000 employees!
One bank even had the blatant audacity to use our taxpayer money bailout to buy a bank in China for $9 Billion. Now that’s really going to help our economy.
AIG is so thoroughly corrupt that they have been spitting in the faces of the American taxpayers since receiving their bailout money.
This entire economic recession can be squarely based on the banks and other financial institutions who packaged and sold mortgage-backed securities. For Paulson to “reward” them as he has done is nothing short of “criminal”.
I don’t know how, but I really hope an Obama administration will put an end to this bold thievery by our banks and insurance companies, and an end to incompetent people who are sitting in Cabinet positions..
As I said, nobody asked me
By Stephen Ellis
NOBODY LOVES AN AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURER
Nobody asked me, but…
Even with the verbal support of President-Elect Obama…even with a Democratic majority in the Senate...even with the support of Republican President George W. Bush…the United States Senate again displayed the corruption and “I don’t give a damn” attitude towards the citizens of this country. How I wish I could fire some of those Senators on the spot!
The Senate turned down what is the single most important thing the Bush Administration could have accomplished in eight years of inept, sloppy, slipshod leadership of this country. Maybe…just maybe there is still hope for the American Automobile Industry to get sufficient money to follow-through on the turnaround they’ve started. But for the failure of the proposed $15 Billion in loans, we can thank the Republican members of the Senate. I may never vote Republican again!
The Republican members of the Senate voted against the loans stating that that GM, Chrysler and Ford could always file Chapter 11 under the Bankruptcy Code and work their own way out of it. Brilliant!
In the meantime, while going through the legal machinations of the Bankruptcy Court (who might well decide there is no practical reorganization possible) what’s going to happen to the million or so employees of these companies? If the “Big 3” (I use the term loosely) haven’t got the funds to pay their workers before bankruptcy, they sure aren’t going to have the money to pay them after filing bankruptcy. Oh well, what’s another million people without jobs going to mean to our Senate? Obviously, Republicans simply don’t care.
Or maybe they do care: it seems that the most vociferous voices from the Senate opposing the bailout for Detroit are Senators from States that have Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Hundai and Mercedes plants in their states. Their Senators do care…but not for this country.
Granted, Detroit has some major problems to overcome, not the least of which is the Automobile Workers’ Union: Unions, for all the good they did in the days when management was virtually enslaving workers, are really a very unnecessary evil today. A simple example:
Last year, Toyota sold 9,700.000 automobiles world-wide…and netted $17 billion in profits. Coincidentally, Detroit manufacturers also sold 9,700,000 cars last year…and lost almost $70 billion. Toyota pays their factory workers (non-union) $35 per hour (not a bad wage). Detroit (strictly union) pays their factory workers a minimum of $70 per hour.
I certainly don’t have a problem with automobile workers getting a better wage…but when it impacts the American economy in a negative fashion, there are some corrections to be made. Union supported wage earners are not the only problem: Executives at Toyota make from $250,000 to $2,000,000 per year. Executives at Gm have an average wage of more than $2,000,000 per year. This, too has to be corrected. Detroit spends billions of dollars per year on experimentation and new ideas. Toyota copies those ideas at pennies on the dollar. This, too has to be corrected.
A word about our banks and insurance companies: These companies were quick to accept bail-out money…but not one of them has done anything to help ease the economic crisis our country is going through. That’s what the bailout money was for. But our inept Treasurer, Henry Paulson, just dished out the money as fast as he could without telling the banks and insurance companies how to use it.
Bank of America received almost $100 Billion. How did they thank this country for their taxpayer money? They fired 35,000 employees!
Citi Bank received almost $100 Billion of the bailout money. How did they thank this country for their taxpayer bailout? They fired 63,000 employees!
One bank even had the blatant audacity to use our taxpayer money bailout to buy a bank in China for $9 Billion. Now that’s really going to help our economy.
AIG is so thoroughly corrupt that they have been spitting in the faces of the American taxpayers since receiving their bailout money.
This entire economic recession can be squarely based on the banks and other financial institutions who packaged and sold mortgage-backed securities. For Paulson to “reward” them as he has done is nothing short of “criminal”.
I don’t know how, but I really hope an Obama administration will put an end to this bold thievery by our banks and insurance companies, and an end to incompetent people who are sitting in Cabinet positions..
As I said, nobody asked me
Monday, December 8, 2008
OUR POOR AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY
MORALITY AND THE LAW CLXVI
By Stephen Ellis
OUR POOR AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY
Nobody asked me, but…
It is very doubtful, at this time, if anyone questions the fact that Obama plans to hit the Oval Office running. He has put together an incredibly diverse Cabinet filled with absolutely top qualifiers. In fact, the Obama Cabinet should be able to help this country get itself straightened out. Certainly it is a hundred times higher quality Cabinet than we have had in Washington for the last twenty or thirty years.
As good as this “Super-Cabinet” team is, there are very major problems facing them that need to be addressed quickly:
Let’s look at the facts concerning the automobile industry: This is America’s largest business. It used to control the world’s auto market, but its world control was interrupted by (first) the Japanese Toyota, then other Japanese cars, then the German cars, etc. The problem with the American automobile industry was that it had become stagnant. The cars they were selling were inferior to those being imported. Instead of rising to meet the new challenges, the top execs at Ford, GM and Chrysler wanted “business as usual”. The result was very foreseeable: The Japanese and German car manufacturers passed the American manufacturers and left them in their wake. By the time the American car manufacturers started to rise to meet the competition, American car sales had fallen well below the profitability mark and the U.S. auto industry was “in trouble”.
The U.S. auto manufacturers have (finally) gotten it together and started to make cars as good as…and even better than the imported competition. But they’ve run out of money. It will take years before the public confidence in American made cars starts to return.
So, what do we do?
The U.S. auto industry has come pleading to Congress for loans to give them the chance to rebuild and reestablish themselves as world leaders. Congress has been slow to act, and it’s hard to blame them for acting slowly. The automobile industry has to re-prove themselves. At least 90% of the top executives have to be set free (without golden parachutes) and the people who fought for and finally got the auto industry to start changing and catching-up should be the new leaders…but not with the multi-million dollar salaries and benefits the former executives had.
Most important: Our government has to establish a commission (not politicians, just business people) to oversee how the money is being spent! If the government just grants them the loans without oversight, the money will be flushed down the toilet with the other hundreds of billions the auto industry has wasted.
If you want to know what happens if there is no governmental oversight, just look at our banks. The “brilliant” Henry Paulson (Treasurer of the United States) gave half the $700,000,000,000 bailout money to the banks and the Wall Street firms on the theory that if the banks have a lot of money, it will ease credit and credit will be available to everyone…thus curing the recession. Paulson felt that no oversight was needed.
So what happened? Citi Bank fired 63,000 employees just before Xmas. Bank of America refused to give loans to automobile suppliers and thousands of other companies forcing them into bankruptcy with the loss of hundreds of thousands more jobs.
O.K. The banks got “fat”…but they’re keeping the money to themselves and not using it as it should be used. They’re doing absolutely nothing to help us dig our way out of the recession.
The automobile industry tells us that they don’t want a hand-out, they want “loans”. Interesting that although the banks are 200 billion richer, no bank will offer any auto manufacturer a loan. No Wall Street firm will underwrite any new financing.
Oversight is absolutely essential! Paulson is just too stupid to realize this. Of course the fact that he is a Bush appointee, makes his stupidity understandable.
If the U.S. automobile industry is allowed to collapse, not only will millions of jobs be lost; not only will all the suppliers of auto parts, auto interiors, tires, etc. collapse and be forced into bankruptcy. It is a “sure-bet” to turn our recession into a full-fledged “depression”.
Money has to be loaned to the auto industry…and the use of the funds has to be supervised.
There is still no creative or innovative factor like the American mind anyplace else in the world. The American initiative is still there. It’s going to be in Obama’s hands to give it the opportunity to re-assert itself.
By Stephen Ellis
OUR POOR AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY
Nobody asked me, but…
It is very doubtful, at this time, if anyone questions the fact that Obama plans to hit the Oval Office running. He has put together an incredibly diverse Cabinet filled with absolutely top qualifiers. In fact, the Obama Cabinet should be able to help this country get itself straightened out. Certainly it is a hundred times higher quality Cabinet than we have had in Washington for the last twenty or thirty years.
As good as this “Super-Cabinet” team is, there are very major problems facing them that need to be addressed quickly:
Let’s look at the facts concerning the automobile industry: This is America’s largest business. It used to control the world’s auto market, but its world control was interrupted by (first) the Japanese Toyota, then other Japanese cars, then the German cars, etc. The problem with the American automobile industry was that it had become stagnant. The cars they were selling were inferior to those being imported. Instead of rising to meet the new challenges, the top execs at Ford, GM and Chrysler wanted “business as usual”. The result was very foreseeable: The Japanese and German car manufacturers passed the American manufacturers and left them in their wake. By the time the American car manufacturers started to rise to meet the competition, American car sales had fallen well below the profitability mark and the U.S. auto industry was “in trouble”.
The U.S. auto manufacturers have (finally) gotten it together and started to make cars as good as…and even better than the imported competition. But they’ve run out of money. It will take years before the public confidence in American made cars starts to return.
So, what do we do?
The U.S. auto industry has come pleading to Congress for loans to give them the chance to rebuild and reestablish themselves as world leaders. Congress has been slow to act, and it’s hard to blame them for acting slowly. The automobile industry has to re-prove themselves. At least 90% of the top executives have to be set free (without golden parachutes) and the people who fought for and finally got the auto industry to start changing and catching-up should be the new leaders…but not with the multi-million dollar salaries and benefits the former executives had.
Most important: Our government has to establish a commission (not politicians, just business people) to oversee how the money is being spent! If the government just grants them the loans without oversight, the money will be flushed down the toilet with the other hundreds of billions the auto industry has wasted.
If you want to know what happens if there is no governmental oversight, just look at our banks. The “brilliant” Henry Paulson (Treasurer of the United States) gave half the $700,000,000,000 bailout money to the banks and the Wall Street firms on the theory that if the banks have a lot of money, it will ease credit and credit will be available to everyone…thus curing the recession. Paulson felt that no oversight was needed.
So what happened? Citi Bank fired 63,000 employees just before Xmas. Bank of America refused to give loans to automobile suppliers and thousands of other companies forcing them into bankruptcy with the loss of hundreds of thousands more jobs.
O.K. The banks got “fat”…but they’re keeping the money to themselves and not using it as it should be used. They’re doing absolutely nothing to help us dig our way out of the recession.
The automobile industry tells us that they don’t want a hand-out, they want “loans”. Interesting that although the banks are 200 billion richer, no bank will offer any auto manufacturer a loan. No Wall Street firm will underwrite any new financing.
Oversight is absolutely essential! Paulson is just too stupid to realize this. Of course the fact that he is a Bush appointee, makes his stupidity understandable.
If the U.S. automobile industry is allowed to collapse, not only will millions of jobs be lost; not only will all the suppliers of auto parts, auto interiors, tires, etc. collapse and be forced into bankruptcy. It is a “sure-bet” to turn our recession into a full-fledged “depression”.
Money has to be loaned to the auto industry…and the use of the funds has to be supervised.
There is still no creative or innovative factor like the American mind anyplace else in the world. The American initiative is still there. It’s going to be in Obama’s hands to give it the opportunity to re-assert itself.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Killing in the Name of God
MORALITY AND THE LAW CLXVBy Stephen EllisKILLING IN THE NAME OF GODNobody asked me, but…The recent terrorist attacks in Bombay, India (now called Mumbai) were, in my opinion, a perfect example of the evils of religious beliefs.
Of course, the group behind the India attacks is still, officially, unidentified. This is a little surprising since the attacks had all the earmarks of Al Queda. This is not to suggest that there are not other radical Islamist groups that truly believe that when they get killed, they will be sent to Muhammad’s version of Heaven and be rewarded with twelve virgins to satisfy all their sexual desires and hand feed them grapes.
Don’t laugh! This what millions of radical Islamists believe. This is not written into the Koran, but it is what the radical Islamist Clerics teach their followers.
So, they kill any “infidel” in their way, and they don’t care if they get killed. By the way, an “infidel” is anyone who does not accept Allah as their one God and Muhammad as his only prophet. It is written into the Koran (the Islamic Bible) that all infidels must be exterminated. So, when scholars and other people talk about Islam as a beautiful religion, there is a deep conflict.
This is not to suggest that all followers of Islam are crazed killers. Most Muslims are family people who want their children to grow up and become doctors or lawyers, get married, have children and live at peace with their neighbors. But that’s not what their Bible tells them to do. Their Bible insists they follow every word of it, including bowing down to Mecca six times a day. Many followers of Islam have become educated and don’t take the Koran’s words literally…and sometimes they are punished for it.
The Koran directs that law be construed under Sharia Law…the most barbaric set of laws in the world. i.e. A woman who engages in any sexual relations (not just intercourse) with someone not her husband, shall be buried up to her neck, and stoned to death by her neighbors. This is still enforced in many Islamic nations.
All Bibles contain absurd rules to be followed. i.e. The Jewish Bible (the Old Testament) says that it’s OK to sell your daughter (Exodus 21:7); that anyone who does not observe the Sabbath should be put to death (Exodus 35:2); that anyone who wears glasses to correct a sight defect may not approach the Alter of God (Leviticus 21:20). There is a lot more. Fortunately, most Jews have become educated and live in the real world and not the world of 5,000 years ago. But most Muslims (followers of Islam) have not been educated.
My point is that if you accept the written scriptures of any Bible as being the word of God…you have major problems. Bibles were written by man, not by God.
There is a famous axiom: More people have been killed in the name of God than from all wars combined.
When these radical Muslims attacked the Taj and the Oberoi hotels in Mumbai, they had no purpose…no motive…other than to kill people…of course, in the name of their God. This is the same basic philosophy of Al Queda. Their God justified the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon because America is a nation of infidels…and pursuant to the Koran, all infidels must be killed. This is becoming a serious problem because the spread of Islam as a religion is growing. Muslims have just about taken over England with several areas of Great Britain now being controlled by Sharia Law and overriding the Common Law which England gave to the world. Muslims have become a major factor in Europe.
India is a predominantly Hindu population and Islam is a secondary religion… most believers in Islam moved to Pakistan when the two countries were separated in 1957: Pakistan was to be the Islamic State and India the Hindu State.
To me, it’s a shame when any religion breeds hatred for your fellow man rather than love.
As I said…nobody asked me.
Of course, the group behind the India attacks is still, officially, unidentified. This is a little surprising since the attacks had all the earmarks of Al Queda. This is not to suggest that there are not other radical Islamist groups that truly believe that when they get killed, they will be sent to Muhammad’s version of Heaven and be rewarded with twelve virgins to satisfy all their sexual desires and hand feed them grapes.
Don’t laugh! This what millions of radical Islamists believe. This is not written into the Koran, but it is what the radical Islamist Clerics teach their followers.
So, they kill any “infidel” in their way, and they don’t care if they get killed. By the way, an “infidel” is anyone who does not accept Allah as their one God and Muhammad as his only prophet. It is written into the Koran (the Islamic Bible) that all infidels must be exterminated. So, when scholars and other people talk about Islam as a beautiful religion, there is a deep conflict.
This is not to suggest that all followers of Islam are crazed killers. Most Muslims are family people who want their children to grow up and become doctors or lawyers, get married, have children and live at peace with their neighbors. But that’s not what their Bible tells them to do. Their Bible insists they follow every word of it, including bowing down to Mecca six times a day. Many followers of Islam have become educated and don’t take the Koran’s words literally…and sometimes they are punished for it.
The Koran directs that law be construed under Sharia Law…the most barbaric set of laws in the world. i.e. A woman who engages in any sexual relations (not just intercourse) with someone not her husband, shall be buried up to her neck, and stoned to death by her neighbors. This is still enforced in many Islamic nations.
All Bibles contain absurd rules to be followed. i.e. The Jewish Bible (the Old Testament) says that it’s OK to sell your daughter (Exodus 21:7); that anyone who does not observe the Sabbath should be put to death (Exodus 35:2); that anyone who wears glasses to correct a sight defect may not approach the Alter of God (Leviticus 21:20). There is a lot more. Fortunately, most Jews have become educated and live in the real world and not the world of 5,000 years ago. But most Muslims (followers of Islam) have not been educated.
My point is that if you accept the written scriptures of any Bible as being the word of God…you have major problems. Bibles were written by man, not by God.
There is a famous axiom: More people have been killed in the name of God than from all wars combined.
When these radical Muslims attacked the Taj and the Oberoi hotels in Mumbai, they had no purpose…no motive…other than to kill people…of course, in the name of their God. This is the same basic philosophy of Al Queda. Their God justified the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon because America is a nation of infidels…and pursuant to the Koran, all infidels must be killed. This is becoming a serious problem because the spread of Islam as a religion is growing. Muslims have just about taken over England with several areas of Great Britain now being controlled by Sharia Law and overriding the Common Law which England gave to the world. Muslims have become a major factor in Europe.
India is a predominantly Hindu population and Islam is a secondary religion… most believers in Islam moved to Pakistan when the two countries were separated in 1957: Pakistan was to be the Islamic State and India the Hindu State.
To me, it’s a shame when any religion breeds hatred for your fellow man rather than love.
As I said…nobody asked me.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
A MATTER OF CONFIDENCE
MORALITY AND THE LAW CLXIV
By Stephen Ellis
THE ECONOMIC ROLLER COASTER RIDE
Nobody asked me, but…
To a limited extent, you can count me among the people who do not fully understand the economic roller coaster ride we are on. One day the Dow Jones Average is down 500 points, the next day its up 500 points…one day Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says he’s going o buy delinquent mortgages from the banks…the next day he says he already spent half of the $700 billion bailout…one day Paulson is flushing the banks with money, the next day major banks like Citi Bank are ready to be taken-over by government regulators…what’s really going on?
If there is one word that can best explain this whole thing, it’s “confidence”. The world has lost “confidence” in the American economy. To a very limited extent, this lack of “confidence” is justified because of the greedy and corrupt top management of many of our long-trusted firms. Frankly, I would love to see some the automobile industry’s top execs, some of Wall Street’s top execs, some of the banking industry’s top execs…rot in jail for what they’ve done to the American economy. More important, I’d really like to see George W. Bush and Dick Cheney rot in jail with them.
The keys to this economic debacle are Bush and Cheney. Bush appointed his Texas cronies to the most important positions in the world…and they proved they were totally incapable of handling the jobs. Rumsfeld was a disaster as Secretary of Defense and got us into the Iraq War. Colin Powell was good Secretary of State, but Bush fired him because Powell wouldn’t do everything Bush told him to do. So, Bush appointed his “yes-girl”, Condoleeza Rice as Secretary of State. He appointed an unknowledgeable Ben Bernake to head the Federal Reserve. He appointed a totally incompetent, Henry Paulson, to be the Secretary of the Treasury. Bush appointed unqualified and inept people to head FEMA, the transportation system, the commerce system, national security, etc. And then, as a topping for the cake, Bush and Cheney took away anything that would regulate the economy and gave the greedy and corrupt free reign over absolutely everything.
Is it any wonder that our people have lost “confidence” in America?
It is a lack of “confidence” that is driving the economic roller-coaster. Most companies are showing much lower profits…but they’re still showing profits. Ridiculous as it may sound, the sub-base of our economy is still strong…but people don’t know where it’s headed. Because most companies don’t know what to expect from the economy, they’re playing-it-safe and cutting back the number of employees…thus creating greater unemployment. Greater unemployment means that people have less money to spend, so the economy is falling into a downward spiral.
Under Bush, banks could lend someone else’s money and make a profit. Banks would lend money for mortgages (improving the real estate market), then they would “pool” the mortgages, and sell the "pools" off to investment groups (maintaining a small servicing charge). The banks would get their money back from selling the "pools" of mortgages and were free to do this over and over again. To the banks and to the real estate market, this was great. But then, without regulations, banks started to get greedy and make loans to people who should not have gotten loans. “No money down”, etc.
It took longer than it should have, but investors who bought these pools of mortgages started to face the reality that a lot of them were not making payments. Most of the "no money down" home buyers had nothing to lose by handing their houses back to the bank or allowing them to be foreclosed upon. Many had borrowed second and third mortgages on overpriced homes. The Wall Street firms demanded the banks take the mortgages back. The banks refused and the market to buy pools of mortgages from banks dried-up overnight. This meant that banks were now stuck with a ton of mortgage pools they could not sell off...and would have to lend their own money, and not someone else’s money, for mortgages. So banks tightened up their credit requirements to a ridiculous pointand even legitimate borrowers couldn't afford the down-payment requirements lenders were now demanding. Houses stopped selling and the real estate market started sliding down.
Congress pushed through a $700 billion bailout bill to buy-up the foreclosed on mortgages. The whole idea behind the bailout was to take the bad debt away from the banks and encourage them to start lending on real estate and manufactured goods again. A good idea…but the inept Henry Paulson changed the plan: Now he wants to give cash to the banks and let them use it however they want. Without regulations, of course!
Which reminds me: Paulson had said that fully half of the $700 billion has already been spent. I’d like to know how, why and where it was spent…but Paulson isn’t telling.
And the automobile industry is crying the blues and saying that if the government doesn’t lend them 5 or 10 billion, the US automobile industry will collapse. Maybe, with the incompetence of their top executives, it deserves to collapse! While every car manufacturer in the world was gearing up to build smaller, more economically operating, cars, GM was building and promoting …the Hummer. If any money is loaned to our Big 3 auto makers, it should come with the caveat that all present execs are fired…without golden parachutes…and replaced with younger, innovative thinking.
Besides, what is the “American” automobile industry? The Big 3 are no longer the mainstay of the American automobile industry. Toyota of America builds and sells their cars here and the profits go to the American Toyota Corporation that hires lots of people to build the cars...here! Honda and Nissan do the same. Fifty percent of all Mercedes and BMW cars are built in America by American companies. If the Big 3 fail, their slack will be taken-up by the other car manufacturers. Jobs? Sure, there will be a lot of jobs lost…initially…but in very short order, the other car manufacturers will need to hire every available skilled worker. When money becomes more available, the American romance with the automobile will be reborn.
Will the Obama administration be able to straighten-out our economy? In all probability, yes. Just based on the quality of cabinet members selected so far, I’m guessing that an Obama administration will restore “confidence” in our economy. Just look at how the stock market has reacted to the naming of members of Obama’s Cabinet. Each new announcement has brought about a surge in stock prices. It’s not going to happen overnight, but just watch what a restoration of “confidence” in our economy will bring.
As I said…nobody asked me.
By Stephen Ellis
THE ECONOMIC ROLLER COASTER RIDE
Nobody asked me, but…
To a limited extent, you can count me among the people who do not fully understand the economic roller coaster ride we are on. One day the Dow Jones Average is down 500 points, the next day its up 500 points…one day Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says he’s going o buy delinquent mortgages from the banks…the next day he says he already spent half of the $700 billion bailout…one day Paulson is flushing the banks with money, the next day major banks like Citi Bank are ready to be taken-over by government regulators…what’s really going on?
If there is one word that can best explain this whole thing, it’s “confidence”. The world has lost “confidence” in the American economy. To a very limited extent, this lack of “confidence” is justified because of the greedy and corrupt top management of many of our long-trusted firms. Frankly, I would love to see some the automobile industry’s top execs, some of Wall Street’s top execs, some of the banking industry’s top execs…rot in jail for what they’ve done to the American economy. More important, I’d really like to see George W. Bush and Dick Cheney rot in jail with them.
The keys to this economic debacle are Bush and Cheney. Bush appointed his Texas cronies to the most important positions in the world…and they proved they were totally incapable of handling the jobs. Rumsfeld was a disaster as Secretary of Defense and got us into the Iraq War. Colin Powell was good Secretary of State, but Bush fired him because Powell wouldn’t do everything Bush told him to do. So, Bush appointed his “yes-girl”, Condoleeza Rice as Secretary of State. He appointed an unknowledgeable Ben Bernake to head the Federal Reserve. He appointed a totally incompetent, Henry Paulson, to be the Secretary of the Treasury. Bush appointed unqualified and inept people to head FEMA, the transportation system, the commerce system, national security, etc. And then, as a topping for the cake, Bush and Cheney took away anything that would regulate the economy and gave the greedy and corrupt free reign over absolutely everything.
Is it any wonder that our people have lost “confidence” in America?
It is a lack of “confidence” that is driving the economic roller-coaster. Most companies are showing much lower profits…but they’re still showing profits. Ridiculous as it may sound, the sub-base of our economy is still strong…but people don’t know where it’s headed. Because most companies don’t know what to expect from the economy, they’re playing-it-safe and cutting back the number of employees…thus creating greater unemployment. Greater unemployment means that people have less money to spend, so the economy is falling into a downward spiral.
Under Bush, banks could lend someone else’s money and make a profit. Banks would lend money for mortgages (improving the real estate market), then they would “pool” the mortgages, and sell the "pools" off to investment groups (maintaining a small servicing charge). The banks would get their money back from selling the "pools" of mortgages and were free to do this over and over again. To the banks and to the real estate market, this was great. But then, without regulations, banks started to get greedy and make loans to people who should not have gotten loans. “No money down”, etc.
It took longer than it should have, but investors who bought these pools of mortgages started to face the reality that a lot of them were not making payments. Most of the "no money down" home buyers had nothing to lose by handing their houses back to the bank or allowing them to be foreclosed upon. Many had borrowed second and third mortgages on overpriced homes. The Wall Street firms demanded the banks take the mortgages back. The banks refused and the market to buy pools of mortgages from banks dried-up overnight. This meant that banks were now stuck with a ton of mortgage pools they could not sell off...and would have to lend their own money, and not someone else’s money, for mortgages. So banks tightened up their credit requirements to a ridiculous pointand even legitimate borrowers couldn't afford the down-payment requirements lenders were now demanding. Houses stopped selling and the real estate market started sliding down.
Congress pushed through a $700 billion bailout bill to buy-up the foreclosed on mortgages. The whole idea behind the bailout was to take the bad debt away from the banks and encourage them to start lending on real estate and manufactured goods again. A good idea…but the inept Henry Paulson changed the plan: Now he wants to give cash to the banks and let them use it however they want. Without regulations, of course!
Which reminds me: Paulson had said that fully half of the $700 billion has already been spent. I’d like to know how, why and where it was spent…but Paulson isn’t telling.
And the automobile industry is crying the blues and saying that if the government doesn’t lend them 5 or 10 billion, the US automobile industry will collapse. Maybe, with the incompetence of their top executives, it deserves to collapse! While every car manufacturer in the world was gearing up to build smaller, more economically operating, cars, GM was building and promoting …the Hummer. If any money is loaned to our Big 3 auto makers, it should come with the caveat that all present execs are fired…without golden parachutes…and replaced with younger, innovative thinking.
Besides, what is the “American” automobile industry? The Big 3 are no longer the mainstay of the American automobile industry. Toyota of America builds and sells their cars here and the profits go to the American Toyota Corporation that hires lots of people to build the cars...here! Honda and Nissan do the same. Fifty percent of all Mercedes and BMW cars are built in America by American companies. If the Big 3 fail, their slack will be taken-up by the other car manufacturers. Jobs? Sure, there will be a lot of jobs lost…initially…but in very short order, the other car manufacturers will need to hire every available skilled worker. When money becomes more available, the American romance with the automobile will be reborn.
Will the Obama administration be able to straighten-out our economy? In all probability, yes. Just based on the quality of cabinet members selected so far, I’m guessing that an Obama administration will restore “confidence” in our economy. Just look at how the stock market has reacted to the naming of members of Obama’s Cabinet. Each new announcement has brought about a surge in stock prices. It’s not going to happen overnight, but just watch what a restoration of “confidence” in our economy will bring.
As I said…nobody asked me.
Monday, November 17, 2008
DEREGULATION
MORALITY AND THE LAW CLXIII
By Stephen Ellis
WHATS WRONG WITH DEREGULATION
Nobody asked me, but…
I doubt very much, no matter who you voted for, that there will be any disagreement as to the following:
1. John McCain has an excellent sense of humor. Those of us who saw him on Jay Leno’s “Tonight” show may wonder if he should be working as a stand-up comic. I don’t mean that in a negative way. His responses to Jay Leno’s questions were genuinely funny. Of course, they were intended to be funny, and it’s a tribute to the man who worked very hard to get elected and lost that he still maintains a a strong sense of humor.
2. Obama is already working very hard getting ready to become the President of the United States. If anyone thought that Obama was going to take a rest and relax after a grueling campaign, they were mistaken. I do not believe, in the seventy six years I’ve been alive, that I have ever seen a President-Elect work so hard at preparing his transition to take office as Barak Obama.
To me, this is a tribute to both candidates. Anyone who believes that either candidate would not have made a better president than George W. Bush, should not be wasting their time reading this blog because facts are meaningless to such people.
We are now engaged in a great economic turmoil. We can, understandably, cast the blame on the greed of some of Wall Street’s profiteers, and upon banks that made a profit center out of making money without lending their own money or upon insurance companies who took their safety reserves and invested them in questionable “derivatives” or to automobile manufacturing giants . More than anything else, we can cast the blame on the word “deregulation”. Personally, I hate regulations that make me do things in a certain way…but the fact is that there are a very high number of people who, if not regulated, have absolutely no conscience: they will rape and pillage everyone’s else’s economy, steal from the retirement accounts of hard-working people, etc.…just to fatten their own pockets. They will lie and artificially inflate the value of their company’s stocks to deceive the public. They make a mockery of the Securities Exchange Commission whose job it is to oversee them. So, as distasteful as it is, regulations are not only important, they are mandatory!
Plunderers like Michael Milkin, Gary Winnick, Lehman Brothers, Enron and Arthur Young always come out on top…while their investors are forced into bankruptcy. Usually, the investors are hard-working people who are trying to assure themselves of a decent retirement. It’s very difficult for someone who’s been on a salary all his/her life to set aside something for their later years after paying for their kids’ education, etc. So, many of these people believed the “hype” and TV ads about investments being secure…about real estate being better than money in the bank…about certified audits really being accurate…and invested their retirement accounts, their IRAs and their 401Ks with the plunderers.
Our Uncle Sam is our “Uncle” and not our “Dad”. The government should not be expected to step in and secure investments made foolishly or greedily. But, if there were strongly enforced regulations in place, the plunderers would not be able to entice unsophisticated investors into extremely sophisticated and risky schemes.
As I said…nobody asked me.
By Stephen Ellis
WHATS WRONG WITH DEREGULATION
Nobody asked me, but…
I doubt very much, no matter who you voted for, that there will be any disagreement as to the following:
1. John McCain has an excellent sense of humor. Those of us who saw him on Jay Leno’s “Tonight” show may wonder if he should be working as a stand-up comic. I don’t mean that in a negative way. His responses to Jay Leno’s questions were genuinely funny. Of course, they were intended to be funny, and it’s a tribute to the man who worked very hard to get elected and lost that he still maintains a a strong sense of humor.
2. Obama is already working very hard getting ready to become the President of the United States. If anyone thought that Obama was going to take a rest and relax after a grueling campaign, they were mistaken. I do not believe, in the seventy six years I’ve been alive, that I have ever seen a President-Elect work so hard at preparing his transition to take office as Barak Obama.
To me, this is a tribute to both candidates. Anyone who believes that either candidate would not have made a better president than George W. Bush, should not be wasting their time reading this blog because facts are meaningless to such people.
We are now engaged in a great economic turmoil. We can, understandably, cast the blame on the greed of some of Wall Street’s profiteers, and upon banks that made a profit center out of making money without lending their own money or upon insurance companies who took their safety reserves and invested them in questionable “derivatives” or to automobile manufacturing giants . More than anything else, we can cast the blame on the word “deregulation”. Personally, I hate regulations that make me do things in a certain way…but the fact is that there are a very high number of people who, if not regulated, have absolutely no conscience: they will rape and pillage everyone’s else’s economy, steal from the retirement accounts of hard-working people, etc.…just to fatten their own pockets. They will lie and artificially inflate the value of their company’s stocks to deceive the public. They make a mockery of the Securities Exchange Commission whose job it is to oversee them. So, as distasteful as it is, regulations are not only important, they are mandatory!
Plunderers like Michael Milkin, Gary Winnick, Lehman Brothers, Enron and Arthur Young always come out on top…while their investors are forced into bankruptcy. Usually, the investors are hard-working people who are trying to assure themselves of a decent retirement. It’s very difficult for someone who’s been on a salary all his/her life to set aside something for their later years after paying for their kids’ education, etc. So, many of these people believed the “hype” and TV ads about investments being secure…about real estate being better than money in the bank…about certified audits really being accurate…and invested their retirement accounts, their IRAs and their 401Ks with the plunderers.
Our Uncle Sam is our “Uncle” and not our “Dad”. The government should not be expected to step in and secure investments made foolishly or greedily. But, if there were strongly enforced regulations in place, the plunderers would not be able to entice unsophisticated investors into extremely sophisticated and risky schemes.
As I said…nobody asked me.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
MORALITY AND THE LAW CLXII
By Stephen Ellis
NOW IT’S ALL OBAMA’S PROBLEM
Nobody asked me, but…
Now that the election and the electioneering is over for another couple of years, let’s try and understand what really happened:
In my opinion, Obama did not win a “mandate” as almost every newspaper will allege. He did win a significant majority of the popular vote (approximately 5 million) compared to Bush winning a popular majority of 300,000 in 2004 and losing the popular vote by 200,000 to Al Gore in 2000. The electoral votes were no less impressive. But I do not believe that most people voted “for” Obama…I believe they voted “against” eight years of incredible mismanagement of George W. Bush and the lies and deception of Dick Cheney.
Never, in U.S. history has there been such a bad presidency as there has been with Bush. Nixon was more corrupt and Jimmy Carter was more ignorant. But together, Nixon and Carter did not equal the ineptitude of the Bush administration.
It took Bush eight years of gross mismanagement and stupidity to wreck the economy of the United States and the rest of the world. Please don’t expect Obama to restore it to its former glory in one or two years.
Obama could probably gain a lot from using people like me in his administration, but he will never ask me or the thousands of others who just want to help. Yet, the tasks facing him are no less than Herculean:
The first thing that his attention should be drawn to is the enormous loss of jobs in this country. Creation of new jobs should be his first effort. New jobs can be created by building high-speed rail and by conversion of our motor vehicles from petroleum to the far-less-expensive natural gas. This may only be an “interim” step in stopping our reliance on foreign oil, but until there are hydrogen pumps at every gas station across the country, natural gas is the least expensive and most practical “next-step”. Other projects such as nuclear reactors and huge de-salinezation plants could help solve water and power problems forever and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs
Many of the “institutions: that were created in the great Industrial Revolution are now crumbling. The government is going to have to step in with some major money to re-tool and re-think our “Big Three” auto manufacturers. The top management of these companies has to go and be replaced by younger, forward thinking, executives. Companies that have farmed-out hundreds of thousands of jobs to less-expensive nations have to be encouraged to bring those jobs back to America until the unemployment problems here, at home, are solved.
Credit must be loosened, but with specific restraints: Home mortgages should be made available and cheap…but with a minimum requirement of a ten-percent down payment. Automobile loans should have the same type of regulation on them. The “no money down” and no-payments-for-years credit panacea has to be brought back to reality.
Tax breaks given to some of the richest companies in the world have to be stopped immediately. The oil depletion allowance for oil companies keeps almost a hundred billion dollars a year from being taxed must be ended.
I do not believe anything can stop the lobbying system in Washington, but more strict penalties have to be enforced to prevent our elected officials from accepting gifts and other gratuities from lobbying firms and repaying them with pork-barrel spending.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan must be brought under fiscal control and ended. Maybe Iraq and Afghanistan will have some problems as a result, but it’s their countries…let them solve the problems and not us. The USA is not the world’s policeman. We would be more helpful to the world stopping mass slaughters in Sudan and Congo than “policing” Iraq.
Wall Street speculators have to stand or fall on their own without government help. Deregulation must be ended in order to save these firms from their own greed. Retirement accounts of individuals, like IRAs and 401Ks should be insured by the FDIC (or an offshoot of the FDIC), the premiums for which must be paid by the Wall Street Firm.
The disgrace of the USA’s medical and drug system should be brought up to the level of the rest of the world where medicine and drugs are available at very low prices. Sure the government will have to subsidize this, but the money the government would save on Bush’s wars would more than cover the subsidy.
There are other problems facing Obama, and the suggestions I’ve made are only “stop-gaps”. As the USA returns to profitability, many of these somewhat socialistic programs can be ended and the USA return to a successful capitalistic system. But right now, the government has to step-in and stop these continuing abuses.
As I said…nobody asked me.
By Stephen Ellis
NOW IT’S ALL OBAMA’S PROBLEM
Nobody asked me, but…
Now that the election and the electioneering is over for another couple of years, let’s try and understand what really happened:
In my opinion, Obama did not win a “mandate” as almost every newspaper will allege. He did win a significant majority of the popular vote (approximately 5 million) compared to Bush winning a popular majority of 300,000 in 2004 and losing the popular vote by 200,000 to Al Gore in 2000. The electoral votes were no less impressive. But I do not believe that most people voted “for” Obama…I believe they voted “against” eight years of incredible mismanagement of George W. Bush and the lies and deception of Dick Cheney.
Never, in U.S. history has there been such a bad presidency as there has been with Bush. Nixon was more corrupt and Jimmy Carter was more ignorant. But together, Nixon and Carter did not equal the ineptitude of the Bush administration.
It took Bush eight years of gross mismanagement and stupidity to wreck the economy of the United States and the rest of the world. Please don’t expect Obama to restore it to its former glory in one or two years.
Obama could probably gain a lot from using people like me in his administration, but he will never ask me or the thousands of others who just want to help. Yet, the tasks facing him are no less than Herculean:
The first thing that his attention should be drawn to is the enormous loss of jobs in this country. Creation of new jobs should be his first effort. New jobs can be created by building high-speed rail and by conversion of our motor vehicles from petroleum to the far-less-expensive natural gas. This may only be an “interim” step in stopping our reliance on foreign oil, but until there are hydrogen pumps at every gas station across the country, natural gas is the least expensive and most practical “next-step”. Other projects such as nuclear reactors and huge de-salinezation plants could help solve water and power problems forever and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs
Many of the “institutions: that were created in the great Industrial Revolution are now crumbling. The government is going to have to step in with some major money to re-tool and re-think our “Big Three” auto manufacturers. The top management of these companies has to go and be replaced by younger, forward thinking, executives. Companies that have farmed-out hundreds of thousands of jobs to less-expensive nations have to be encouraged to bring those jobs back to America until the unemployment problems here, at home, are solved.
Credit must be loosened, but with specific restraints: Home mortgages should be made available and cheap…but with a minimum requirement of a ten-percent down payment. Automobile loans should have the same type of regulation on them. The “no money down” and no-payments-for-years credit panacea has to be brought back to reality.
Tax breaks given to some of the richest companies in the world have to be stopped immediately. The oil depletion allowance for oil companies keeps almost a hundred billion dollars a year from being taxed must be ended.
I do not believe anything can stop the lobbying system in Washington, but more strict penalties have to be enforced to prevent our elected officials from accepting gifts and other gratuities from lobbying firms and repaying them with pork-barrel spending.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan must be brought under fiscal control and ended. Maybe Iraq and Afghanistan will have some problems as a result, but it’s their countries…let them solve the problems and not us. The USA is not the world’s policeman. We would be more helpful to the world stopping mass slaughters in Sudan and Congo than “policing” Iraq.
Wall Street speculators have to stand or fall on their own without government help. Deregulation must be ended in order to save these firms from their own greed. Retirement accounts of individuals, like IRAs and 401Ks should be insured by the FDIC (or an offshoot of the FDIC), the premiums for which must be paid by the Wall Street Firm.
The disgrace of the USA’s medical and drug system should be brought up to the level of the rest of the world where medicine and drugs are available at very low prices. Sure the government will have to subsidize this, but the money the government would save on Bush’s wars would more than cover the subsidy.
There are other problems facing Obama, and the suggestions I’ve made are only “stop-gaps”. As the USA returns to profitability, many of these somewhat socialistic programs can be ended and the USA return to a successful capitalistic system. But right now, the government has to step-in and stop these continuing abuses.
As I said…nobody asked me.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Election and then What
MORALITY AND THE LAW CLXI
By Stephen Ellis
ELECTION…THEN WHAT
To all my dear readers: My last blog will be published for AOL on October 31, 2008. If you would like to continue to read it, it is now available at
http://www.moralityandthelawakanobodyaskedme.blogspot.com/.
To those of you (like myself) who have a fascination with the paranormal, my new blog can be read at http://www.explaininglifesmysteries.blogspot.com/.
Nobody asked me, but…
The time has finally come for all the rhetoric to stop and for everyone to go into the voting booth and vote their own conscience in the manner of their choice. No one will ever know how you voted…except yourself. What you tell people may or may not be the truth…but if you were true to yourself and to your thoughts, you need not apologize to anyone.
Although the polls strongly favor Obama, we won’t really know if the polls were accurate until Tuesday night. Despite all the last minute campaigning, in my opinion, the vote will be a landslide in favor of Obama. It’s not that I favor Obama over McCain; either one will be a vast improvement over George W. Bush. The reason I predict an Obama landslide is that I feel most of the country is composed of thinking people. And, people who “think” recognize that George W. Bush was probably the worst president in American history.
Since Bush was a Republican, I believe that most people will vote as a protest against the Republican Party. I believe Republican candidates will be protest-voted “out” and there will be a Democratic landslide.
If my prediction is accurate, it will demand a change to the way things are done in Washington:
When one party has a landslide victory, the elected candidates usually assume the voting was “for” them and not a vote “against” the last eight years. The elected politicians, somehow, usually twist the results around into believing that they, personally, have been mandated by the public to represent them. They immediately start to think they can do no wrong and callously start ”repaying” their large campaign contributors with non-competitive government contracts and favoritism. Big, big mistake! If Obama allows this to happen, he will be a one-term president.
The USA today is very much like the time Franklin Roosevelt was elected president. The nation’s economy was in complete turmoil, and he was swept to victory by an anti-Hoover sentiment.
Whoever wins is going to have to change a lot of things. In every other nation in the world (except a few dictatorships) the elected officials listen to and follow the demands and needs of the voters. In America, historically, our government listens only to the lobbyists and major financial corporations. American people have come to view their government as the “enemy”. And this has to stop.
People run for political office because of the power that office gives them. People cow-tow to their elected officials and it doesn’t take much for the elected officials to assume they are “above” the rest of the population. This, too, has to stop.
A democracy only works when those elected to office use that office for the benefit of the people…not for the benefit of themselves.
There are lots of reforms needed in Washington, and I sincerely hope and pray that if there is a Democratic landslide (as I predict), that Obama will use his office to end the power-grabbing and pork-barreling so common in Washington and so offensive to taxpayers. He will be inheriting the worst economic turmoil in 75 years, and the only way he will restore this nation to its position as a world leader is to stop the “business as usual” in Washington.
I am not a socialist and in fact I am anti-socialism. But we are going to have to put some socialistic regulations into effect, even if only on a temporary basis, to stop the greed and pillaging of our Wall Street Firms, our oil companies, our insurance companies and our Congress. The success of a capitalistic society is dependent on the honesty and integrity of those people in charge of major corporations. We haven’t seen any of that honesty and integrity for a lot of years.
As I said, nobody asked me.
By Stephen Ellis
ELECTION…THEN WHAT
To all my dear readers: My last blog will be published for AOL on October 31, 2008. If you would like to continue to read it, it is now available at
http://www.moralityandthelawakanobodyaskedme.blogspot.com/.
To those of you (like myself) who have a fascination with the paranormal, my new blog can be read at http://www.explaininglifesmysteries.blogspot.com/.
Nobody asked me, but…
The time has finally come for all the rhetoric to stop and for everyone to go into the voting booth and vote their own conscience in the manner of their choice. No one will ever know how you voted…except yourself. What you tell people may or may not be the truth…but if you were true to yourself and to your thoughts, you need not apologize to anyone.
Although the polls strongly favor Obama, we won’t really know if the polls were accurate until Tuesday night. Despite all the last minute campaigning, in my opinion, the vote will be a landslide in favor of Obama. It’s not that I favor Obama over McCain; either one will be a vast improvement over George W. Bush. The reason I predict an Obama landslide is that I feel most of the country is composed of thinking people. And, people who “think” recognize that George W. Bush was probably the worst president in American history.
Since Bush was a Republican, I believe that most people will vote as a protest against the Republican Party. I believe Republican candidates will be protest-voted “out” and there will be a Democratic landslide.
If my prediction is accurate, it will demand a change to the way things are done in Washington:
When one party has a landslide victory, the elected candidates usually assume the voting was “for” them and not a vote “against” the last eight years. The elected politicians, somehow, usually twist the results around into believing that they, personally, have been mandated by the public to represent them. They immediately start to think they can do no wrong and callously start ”repaying” their large campaign contributors with non-competitive government contracts and favoritism. Big, big mistake! If Obama allows this to happen, he will be a one-term president.
The USA today is very much like the time Franklin Roosevelt was elected president. The nation’s economy was in complete turmoil, and he was swept to victory by an anti-Hoover sentiment.
Whoever wins is going to have to change a lot of things. In every other nation in the world (except a few dictatorships) the elected officials listen to and follow the demands and needs of the voters. In America, historically, our government listens only to the lobbyists and major financial corporations. American people have come to view their government as the “enemy”. And this has to stop.
People run for political office because of the power that office gives them. People cow-tow to their elected officials and it doesn’t take much for the elected officials to assume they are “above” the rest of the population. This, too, has to stop.
A democracy only works when those elected to office use that office for the benefit of the people…not for the benefit of themselves.
There are lots of reforms needed in Washington, and I sincerely hope and pray that if there is a Democratic landslide (as I predict), that Obama will use his office to end the power-grabbing and pork-barreling so common in Washington and so offensive to taxpayers. He will be inheriting the worst economic turmoil in 75 years, and the only way he will restore this nation to its position as a world leader is to stop the “business as usual” in Washington.
I am not a socialist and in fact I am anti-socialism. But we are going to have to put some socialistic regulations into effect, even if only on a temporary basis, to stop the greed and pillaging of our Wall Street Firms, our oil companies, our insurance companies and our Congress. The success of a capitalistic society is dependent on the honesty and integrity of those people in charge of major corporations. We haven’t seen any of that honesty and integrity for a lot of years.
As I said, nobody asked me.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
THE BRADLEY EFFECT
MORALITY AND THE LAW CLX
By Stephen Ellis
THE BRADLEY EFFECT
To all my dear readers: My last blog will be published for AOL on October 31, 2008. If you would like to continue to read it, it is now available at
http://www.moralityandthelawakanobodyaskedme.blogspot.com/.
To those of you (like myself) who have a fascination with the paranormal, my new blog can be read at http://www.explaininglifesmysteries.blogspot.com/.
Nobody asked me, but…
The polls all seems to have placed Barack Obama in the White House following the election scheduled for November 4, 2008. But polls do not elect our president. There is an expression: “There are lies…there are big lies…and there are polls.” Actually, I think the word “statistics” could be substituted for the word “polls”.
I will readily acknowledge that the polls taken today are much more accurate than they were fifty years ago when every poll in the country, without exception, said that, unquestionably, Thomas E. Dewey was going to be our next president…but they are still polls, and what may happen inside the voting booth can be far different than what people have said to the pollsters. Apparently, many voters have reached the point of being quasi-sophisticated: saying one thing to their friends and to the pollsters while still harboring deep prejudice in their minds.
Tom Bradley was the first Black Mayor of Los Angeles. In fact, the only other major U.S. City that had elected a Black Mayor was Cleveland, four years before Bradley was elected. Bradley was the son of a sharecropper and the grandson of a slave. He worked his way through college and law school and became an L.A. police officer before getting elected to the Los Angeles City Council. After winning two elections as a City Councilman, Bradley ran for Mayor of Los Angeles. The first time he lost to Sam Yorty, but the second time he tried, he was elected. He became an extremely popular Mayor and was re-elected for a total of twenty years as Mayor of Los Angeles.
Then, Bradley decided to run for Governor of California.
The polls showed Tom Bradley ahead almost 65% to 35% of his opponent going into Election Day…but his opponent, George Deukmejian, won. Bradley tried a second time and was again defeated by Deukmejian.
The questions naturally arose as to how the pollsters could have been so wrong.
As subsequent interviews with many of the people polled discovered, a lot of White voters had said, publicly, that they were going to vote for Bradley, but when they got into the confines of a voting booth, they did not want to vote for a Black man.
This is what has come to be called the “Bradley Effect”.
Obama is now clearly ahead in the polls…but will the Bradley Effect rear its ugly head again? Are the majority of voters across this country still unwilling to vote for a Black man? Sure, in public they announce their support for Obama, but what about in the confines of a voting booth?
I’d like to believe that in the twenty five years since Bradley lost to Deukmejian, the people of this country have matured. In our cities, Black and White couples are no longer stared at as they walk on the streets. The numbers of Black doctors and lawyers has more than tripled in those twenty five years. The numbers of children from mixed marriages (including Barack Obama) have reached the point where they are not thought of as uncommon.
Certainly prejudice against the Blacks still exists: The Ku Klux Klan still numbers about a hundred thousand in membership. White Supremist groups still abound throughout the rural areas of the Deep South and the Mid-West
The question, however, is not about how the red-neck Deep South and Midwest will vote…but about how the people who live in the cities will vote. Openly they support Obama…but will they support him in the privacy of the voting booth?
Let’s hope that the “Bradley Effect” will be relegated to the history books and that this nation has matured enough to recognize that skin color does not make the man.
As I said…nobody asked me
By Stephen Ellis
THE BRADLEY EFFECT
To all my dear readers: My last blog will be published for AOL on October 31, 2008. If you would like to continue to read it, it is now available at
http://www.moralityandthelawakanobodyaskedme.blogspot.com/.
To those of you (like myself) who have a fascination with the paranormal, my new blog can be read at http://www.explaininglifesmysteries.blogspot.com/.
Nobody asked me, but…
The polls all seems to have placed Barack Obama in the White House following the election scheduled for November 4, 2008. But polls do not elect our president. There is an expression: “There are lies…there are big lies…and there are polls.” Actually, I think the word “statistics” could be substituted for the word “polls”.
I will readily acknowledge that the polls taken today are much more accurate than they were fifty years ago when every poll in the country, without exception, said that, unquestionably, Thomas E. Dewey was going to be our next president…but they are still polls, and what may happen inside the voting booth can be far different than what people have said to the pollsters. Apparently, many voters have reached the point of being quasi-sophisticated: saying one thing to their friends and to the pollsters while still harboring deep prejudice in their minds.
Tom Bradley was the first Black Mayor of Los Angeles. In fact, the only other major U.S. City that had elected a Black Mayor was Cleveland, four years before Bradley was elected. Bradley was the son of a sharecropper and the grandson of a slave. He worked his way through college and law school and became an L.A. police officer before getting elected to the Los Angeles City Council. After winning two elections as a City Councilman, Bradley ran for Mayor of Los Angeles. The first time he lost to Sam Yorty, but the second time he tried, he was elected. He became an extremely popular Mayor and was re-elected for a total of twenty years as Mayor of Los Angeles.
Then, Bradley decided to run for Governor of California.
The polls showed Tom Bradley ahead almost 65% to 35% of his opponent going into Election Day…but his opponent, George Deukmejian, won. Bradley tried a second time and was again defeated by Deukmejian.
The questions naturally arose as to how the pollsters could have been so wrong.
As subsequent interviews with many of the people polled discovered, a lot of White voters had said, publicly, that they were going to vote for Bradley, but when they got into the confines of a voting booth, they did not want to vote for a Black man.
This is what has come to be called the “Bradley Effect”.
Obama is now clearly ahead in the polls…but will the Bradley Effect rear its ugly head again? Are the majority of voters across this country still unwilling to vote for a Black man? Sure, in public they announce their support for Obama, but what about in the confines of a voting booth?
I’d like to believe that in the twenty five years since Bradley lost to Deukmejian, the people of this country have matured. In our cities, Black and White couples are no longer stared at as they walk on the streets. The numbers of Black doctors and lawyers has more than tripled in those twenty five years. The numbers of children from mixed marriages (including Barack Obama) have reached the point where they are not thought of as uncommon.
Certainly prejudice against the Blacks still exists: The Ku Klux Klan still numbers about a hundred thousand in membership. White Supremist groups still abound throughout the rural areas of the Deep South and the Mid-West
The question, however, is not about how the red-neck Deep South and Midwest will vote…but about how the people who live in the cities will vote. Openly they support Obama…but will they support him in the privacy of the voting booth?
Let’s hope that the “Bradley Effect” will be relegated to the history books and that this nation has matured enough to recognize that skin color does not make the man.
As I said…nobody asked me
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Government Controls
MORALITY AND THE LAW CLIX
By Stephen Ellis
GOVERNMENT CONTROLS
To all my dear readers: My last blog will be published for AOL on October 31, 2008. If you would like to continue to read it, it is now available at
http://www.moralityandthelawakanobodyaskedme.blogspot.com/.
To those of you (like myself) who have a fascination with the paranormal, my new blog can be read at http://www.explaininglifesmysteries.blogspot.com/.
Nobody asked me, but…
I’m a firm believer in the capitalistic system. It gives those of us who are willing to work the opportunity to raise our standard of living and become “successful”. In fact, I am strongly opposed to virtually anything that smacks of socialism.
Yet, to cure the ails of our present economic crisis, some very socialistic steps have to be taken: Government has to inject itself into some of our larger, more powerful businesses, and make the people who sit in positions of power accountable to the public and to their country:
McCain said it and Obama agreed: The key to bringing this nation (and many of the world’s nations) back onto a firm economic footing is to resolve the housing crisis. Almost every economist will acknowledge that if the housing crisis is solved there will be a sharp increase in the number of jobs created, there will be a return of confidence to the people who, in turn, will resume buying cars and other consumer items that will start to strengthen our economy. The roller-coaster stock market will stabilize.
Bush’s $700 billion bailout was designed to do just this by flooding our banks with cheap money. The theory is that if the banks are flooded with cheap money, they will be forced to lend it out at low interest rates (with certain minimum standards), and consumer spending will flourish. Granted, the bailout plan has more holes in it than Swiss cheese, but despite its weaknesses, it should work...except…
The Federal Reserve is offering money to the banks at record low rates…1¼%. But the ravenousness in our banks immediately reared its ugly head…and raised mortgage interest rates!
Is there any reason for mortgage interest rates to have been raised? Yes! Greed, corruption and opportunism! Nothing else.
The banks realize that during these tough economic times, a lot of good, highly qualified, people and companies will need to refinance their mortgages to tide them over these hard times. So instead of helping these people out and trying to work with our government to stabilize our nation’s economy, the bankers figure it is a good opportunity to reap greater, unreasonable, profits. It’s corporate gluttony and taking advantage of the public like this that makes me feel that it is necessary to put government regulators into every bank. Yes, it’s socialistic, but until the corrupt and the greedy are made to realize that they have an unshakable obligation to their country as well as to their stockholders, it’s going to be necessary to do this. Industries, such as banking, oil companies, automobile manufacturing, etc., must be regulated to stop the manipulations and private market controls that have seriously damaged our economy.
One problem is that giving government unlimited power over business will only create strong temptations for the government regulators themselves. So, rather than giving business over to government control, what I propose is this: That every major corporate Board of Directors have one or two ex-officio seats on their Board for government inspectors. The reason these seats on the Board should be ex-officio is that government should be allowed to have input, but not be allowed to “vote” on company matters. Ex-officio members should be representatives of the people who will expose to the media and senior government agencies any plans that smack of corporate deceitfulness within these companies. Having government representatives sit on their Boards would have completely avoided the melt-down of Fannie Mae , Freddie Mac, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Enron and other giants who have simply “folded” or sought a government bailout when their dishonesty was finally revealed.
It would also tend to stabilize the stock market because the published reports issued by these companies could then be believed by the public. The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) has proven itself to be weak, inefficient and easily duped. Having government representatives sit on the Boards of these companies as ex-officio board members would go a long way towards ending the kinds of public deception that got us into this economic mess.
As I said, nobody asked me
By Stephen Ellis
GOVERNMENT CONTROLS
To all my dear readers: My last blog will be published for AOL on October 31, 2008. If you would like to continue to read it, it is now available at
http://www.moralityandthelawakanobodyaskedme.blogspot.com/.
To those of you (like myself) who have a fascination with the paranormal, my new blog can be read at http://www.explaininglifesmysteries.blogspot.com/.
Nobody asked me, but…
I’m a firm believer in the capitalistic system. It gives those of us who are willing to work the opportunity to raise our standard of living and become “successful”. In fact, I am strongly opposed to virtually anything that smacks of socialism.
Yet, to cure the ails of our present economic crisis, some very socialistic steps have to be taken: Government has to inject itself into some of our larger, more powerful businesses, and make the people who sit in positions of power accountable to the public and to their country:
McCain said it and Obama agreed: The key to bringing this nation (and many of the world’s nations) back onto a firm economic footing is to resolve the housing crisis. Almost every economist will acknowledge that if the housing crisis is solved there will be a sharp increase in the number of jobs created, there will be a return of confidence to the people who, in turn, will resume buying cars and other consumer items that will start to strengthen our economy. The roller-coaster stock market will stabilize.
Bush’s $700 billion bailout was designed to do just this by flooding our banks with cheap money. The theory is that if the banks are flooded with cheap money, they will be forced to lend it out at low interest rates (with certain minimum standards), and consumer spending will flourish. Granted, the bailout plan has more holes in it than Swiss cheese, but despite its weaknesses, it should work...except…
The Federal Reserve is offering money to the banks at record low rates…1¼%. But the ravenousness in our banks immediately reared its ugly head…and raised mortgage interest rates!
Is there any reason for mortgage interest rates to have been raised? Yes! Greed, corruption and opportunism! Nothing else.
The banks realize that during these tough economic times, a lot of good, highly qualified, people and companies will need to refinance their mortgages to tide them over these hard times. So instead of helping these people out and trying to work with our government to stabilize our nation’s economy, the bankers figure it is a good opportunity to reap greater, unreasonable, profits. It’s corporate gluttony and taking advantage of the public like this that makes me feel that it is necessary to put government regulators into every bank. Yes, it’s socialistic, but until the corrupt and the greedy are made to realize that they have an unshakable obligation to their country as well as to their stockholders, it’s going to be necessary to do this. Industries, such as banking, oil companies, automobile manufacturing, etc., must be regulated to stop the manipulations and private market controls that have seriously damaged our economy.
One problem is that giving government unlimited power over business will only create strong temptations for the government regulators themselves. So, rather than giving business over to government control, what I propose is this: That every major corporate Board of Directors have one or two ex-officio seats on their Board for government inspectors. The reason these seats on the Board should be ex-officio is that government should be allowed to have input, but not be allowed to “vote” on company matters. Ex-officio members should be representatives of the people who will expose to the media and senior government agencies any plans that smack of corporate deceitfulness within these companies. Having government representatives sit on their Boards would have completely avoided the melt-down of Fannie Mae , Freddie Mac, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Enron and other giants who have simply “folded” or sought a government bailout when their dishonesty was finally revealed.
It would also tend to stabilize the stock market because the published reports issued by these companies could then be believed by the public. The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) has proven itself to be weak, inefficient and easily duped. Having government representatives sit on the Boards of these companies as ex-officio board members would go a long way towards ending the kinds of public deception that got us into this economic mess.
As I said, nobody asked me
Monday, October 13, 2008
PANIC ON WALL STREET
MORALITY AND THE LAW CLVIII
By Stephen Ellis
PANIC ON WALL STREET
To all my dear readers: I have been writing this blog every week for three years. Last week, AOL informed me that they are discontinuing the publication of blogs. If any of you want to read my blogs on Morality and the Law, they can be found at
http://www.moralityandthelawakanobodyaskedme.blogspot.com/.
More important: I’ve decided to use this change as an opportunity to write more about a subject dear to my heart: the paranormal. I’ve been researching paranormal phenomena and scientific “baloney” for more than thirty years and what I have discovered may amaze you, it may upset you or…it may awaken you to some things. It’s time I shared this information, and I hope you will read it. It can be found at http://www.explaininglifesmysteries.blogspot.com/.
Nobody asked me, but…
Back in 1933, then President Franklin Roosevelt made a speech in which he said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself…” He made this famous speech because the USA economy was in a free-fall, the stock market was plunging and unemployment was rising.
Sound familiar?
The conditions now are quite different than they were then, but the advice is the same. The people who came out well from the great depression of the 1930s were the ones who did not panic, and managed to “stay the course” until things got better. The banks now are much stronger than they were then when Roosevelt called a bank-holiday to stop people from withdrawing their funds from the banks. Today’s banks are very strong. Banks like Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Union Bank, etc., are not only strong, they are thousands of times stronger than the banks were in the 1930s. More important, deposits are now insured by the Federal Government up to $250,000 per depositor (that means that a joint account of a married couple is now insured up to $500,000).
So, why, when a bank fails, are people lining up on the street to take their money out of it? Fear!
Millions of people, who simply do not understand, are afraid that if a bank fails, they will lose their savings. This was true in 1933, but it’s not true now. But, inasmuch as most Americans have never taken the time to understand how banks work, they have allowed “fear” instead of “common sense” to control their actions.
The free-fall of the stock market is similar, but not identical: There is no Federal Insurance on stocks and bonds…for an excellent reason: People invest in stocks and bonds because they want to gamble that the rise of stock prices will offer a better return than the interest given by banks. But if you place your money on a table in Las Vegas, you know there is a chance that you will lose. The stock market is no different. Stock brokerage houses are some of the most conservatively-dressed gambling casinos in the world…but, again, there is a difference: If you lose your money in Vegas, it is gone…completely gone.
But when you gamble on stocks and bonds, you have the strength of an industry or a company covering your downside. Most companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange or the NASDEQ may have gone down slightly, but they are still strong and still making money or making the kinds of adjustments for losses that will help them to recover from losses. But when people see the Dow Jones or the NASDEQ plunging, they start “panic selling”. Again, fear! People are afraid their investments (which may make up a substantial part of their retirement funds) are going to “vanish” like money on a Las Vegas table.
That’s the surest way to lose all your money!
The Wall Street “insiders” foresaw what was coming and sold their stock holdings a month ago. They’re just waiting for the panic-selling to stop so they can go in and buy back the same stocks at pennies on the dollar. For those with enough foresight and courage to “stick-it-out”, the stock market will recover…it has to because most of the companies whose stock is traded on the market are still making money. Sure, there will be some losses until the market makes a full recovery in a year or two, but instead of losing everything, those people will only have lost a little. Those who panicked may well lose everything.
One extremely important factor is that the government has now stepped in and joined hands with a lot of other governments. The “bailout” may not be the best way to handle the situation, but it is a good way. When the Fed starts flooding the banks and other lending institutions with money, the credit-crunch will ease up. With credit more readily available, cars will again start to sell, real estate will again start to sell, etc. The symptoms of the economic problems will disappear.
The bailout, however, will do much more: It will ease the credit crunch, but it will also put and end to the stupid deregulation that caused it all. While the participation of government in banks and other financial companies may smack of Socialism and be anti free-enterprise, right now it’s needed to stop the abuse of the “insiders” who have devastated our economy while putting billions of dollars in their own pockets. Maybe…just maybe…a new President will convene a Grand Jury and bring some charges for grand theft and corruption against some of the “insiders”. It would be good for this country and the entire world.
As I said…nobody asked me.
By Stephen Ellis
PANIC ON WALL STREET
To all my dear readers: I have been writing this blog every week for three years. Last week, AOL informed me that they are discontinuing the publication of blogs. If any of you want to read my blogs on Morality and the Law, they can be found at
http://www.moralityandthelawakanobodyaskedme.blogspot.com/.
More important: I’ve decided to use this change as an opportunity to write more about a subject dear to my heart: the paranormal. I’ve been researching paranormal phenomena and scientific “baloney” for more than thirty years and what I have discovered may amaze you, it may upset you or…it may awaken you to some things. It’s time I shared this information, and I hope you will read it. It can be found at http://www.explaininglifesmysteries.blogspot.com/.
Nobody asked me, but…
Back in 1933, then President Franklin Roosevelt made a speech in which he said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself…” He made this famous speech because the USA economy was in a free-fall, the stock market was plunging and unemployment was rising.
Sound familiar?
The conditions now are quite different than they were then, but the advice is the same. The people who came out well from the great depression of the 1930s were the ones who did not panic, and managed to “stay the course” until things got better. The banks now are much stronger than they were then when Roosevelt called a bank-holiday to stop people from withdrawing their funds from the banks. Today’s banks are very strong. Banks like Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Union Bank, etc., are not only strong, they are thousands of times stronger than the banks were in the 1930s. More important, deposits are now insured by the Federal Government up to $250,000 per depositor (that means that a joint account of a married couple is now insured up to $500,000).
So, why, when a bank fails, are people lining up on the street to take their money out of it? Fear!
Millions of people, who simply do not understand, are afraid that if a bank fails, they will lose their savings. This was true in 1933, but it’s not true now. But, inasmuch as most Americans have never taken the time to understand how banks work, they have allowed “fear” instead of “common sense” to control their actions.
The free-fall of the stock market is similar, but not identical: There is no Federal Insurance on stocks and bonds…for an excellent reason: People invest in stocks and bonds because they want to gamble that the rise of stock prices will offer a better return than the interest given by banks. But if you place your money on a table in Las Vegas, you know there is a chance that you will lose. The stock market is no different. Stock brokerage houses are some of the most conservatively-dressed gambling casinos in the world…but, again, there is a difference: If you lose your money in Vegas, it is gone…completely gone.
But when you gamble on stocks and bonds, you have the strength of an industry or a company covering your downside. Most companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange or the NASDEQ may have gone down slightly, but they are still strong and still making money or making the kinds of adjustments for losses that will help them to recover from losses. But when people see the Dow Jones or the NASDEQ plunging, they start “panic selling”. Again, fear! People are afraid their investments (which may make up a substantial part of their retirement funds) are going to “vanish” like money on a Las Vegas table.
That’s the surest way to lose all your money!
The Wall Street “insiders” foresaw what was coming and sold their stock holdings a month ago. They’re just waiting for the panic-selling to stop so they can go in and buy back the same stocks at pennies on the dollar. For those with enough foresight and courage to “stick-it-out”, the stock market will recover…it has to because most of the companies whose stock is traded on the market are still making money. Sure, there will be some losses until the market makes a full recovery in a year or two, but instead of losing everything, those people will only have lost a little. Those who panicked may well lose everything.
One extremely important factor is that the government has now stepped in and joined hands with a lot of other governments. The “bailout” may not be the best way to handle the situation, but it is a good way. When the Fed starts flooding the banks and other lending institutions with money, the credit-crunch will ease up. With credit more readily available, cars will again start to sell, real estate will again start to sell, etc. The symptoms of the economic problems will disappear.
The bailout, however, will do much more: It will ease the credit crunch, but it will also put and end to the stupid deregulation that caused it all. While the participation of government in banks and other financial companies may smack of Socialism and be anti free-enterprise, right now it’s needed to stop the abuse of the “insiders” who have devastated our economy while putting billions of dollars in their own pockets. Maybe…just maybe…a new President will convene a Grand Jury and bring some charges for grand theft and corruption against some of the “insiders”. It would be good for this country and the entire world.
As I said…nobody asked me.
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