Back to Basics

As Barack Obama and the Democrats continue to spend, spend, and spend, a Day of Reckoning looms for the American people, and it is not pretty.

Take the example of a friend who is paying the price for having good credit.

Steve Evens enjoyed a modest income, good credit, and a history of being responsible and prudent in his personal finances. Life had dealt him a pretty good hand, which he enhanced with hard work and restraint.

Until, that is, Steve became trapped in the Catch-22 of credit card mania.

It started with the zero-percent financing and other attractive offers, unsolicited, from credit card companies. The offers almost promised free money, which Steve knew was pure folly, but the offers were just too good to resist.

Steve signed up for a card and then another, both bearing very attractive terms. Both had quite manageable credit limits; besides, Steve intended to pay off all balances immediately.

Then the addictive nature of credit card mania hit Steve between the eyes. Needing a new suit of clothing for his professional work, Steve decided to see what was on sale at that fashionable, but pricey, men’s store in the upper-end mall.

FDIC NOTICE:

ShoreBank is participating in the FDIC’s Transaction Account Guarantee Program. Under the program, through June 30, 2010, all non-interest-bearing transaction accounts are fully guaranteed by the FDIC for the entire amount in the account. General FDIC coverage for deposit accounts has also been increased to $250,000 per depositor through December 31, 2013.

Robbery Creamer

So why was ShoreBank bailed out by private entities? Well the FDIC would have to audit the bank if it was the source of the bail out. OK so that should be OK shouldn’t it? Well lets first look at who admires and why they admire the Shore Bank Corp policies that allow for lending to parties that in a near majority of cases do not get paid back. As much as 46% in many economic regions that this model is used. Even the loans from Shore Bank. We also have to look at the players in the leadership role of ShoreBank and see what gains they may have by preventing an audit with public disclosure. Perhaps the biggest bombshell would be that of Rep. Jan Schakowsky and her husband , convicted felon Robert Creamer.

The New York Times confirms that Rep. Schakowsky played a leading role in the ShoreBank bailout. Yet ShoreBank is not based in Rep. Schakowsky’s congressional district, and she did not help the Bank of Lincolnwood–which is in her district, and failed in 2009–or Park National Bank, which was also active in community development in Chicago until it was closed by federal regulators last year.

Now, court documents that I have obtained reveal that ShoreBank was one of several banks that Rep. Schakowsky’s husband, Robert Creamer, used in the check kiting scheme for which he was convicted and sentenced to federal prison in 2006.

Read docs at this link and full article
Jan was elected to my district about 3 years before I moved away. She was a ‘chosen’ darling and rumors were she, as many elected in Chicago had her ‘in’ with the “Masheen”. But that was JUST opinions of the conservatives who did their research before voting.

On the heels of the Rangel House Ethics tangle, word came down this weekend that fellow Congressional Black Caucus member and racial grievance-mongering diva Rep. Maxine Waters will face her own House Ethics Committee trial.

The subject of the inquiry? Her government cronyism of color wheeling and dealing with minority-owned bank OneUnited Bank in Los Angeles. Regular readers of this blog know all about it. I reported on the mess in March 2009 and am reprinting my column/blog post on the subject in full below as a refresher course. Culture of corruption chickens coming home to roost:

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My syndicated column today takes on racial demagogue and crony of color Maxine Waters, whose crooked ways I’ve covered since my first days at the L.A. Daily News. It’s about time the rest of the media put her under the microscope. Wait ’til she starts beating them over the head with the race card. It’s worked for decades. Now, she’ll just have to scream louder. I am looking forward to watching the Democrats try to ignore this most beastly example of the culture of corruption in their fold.

(Reminder: Go back and look at my liveblogging of the TARP debate. Note how aggressive Waters was in taking a lead role pushing congressional black caucus members to swallow the crap sandwich. No disclosure of her own self interest in the matter. She’s just a Champion of The People, speaking Truth to Power. And here’s another reminder of minority racketeers pushing for their bailout cut with Waters’ assistance. Business as usual, rainbow coalition shakedown-style.)

I think we should start referring to Waters as “Bank of OneUnited,” the same way she referred to bank execs by their company name.

PR Week publishes monthly editions in addition to its other news services and the July issue is devoted to “The most powerful people in PR.” All industries have their major players, so there is nothing surprising that public relations would also have its heavy hitters, but there are some interesting insights to be gleaned from the list of the twenty-five chosen.

I have plied the magic arts and crafts of public relations since the 1970s when I gave up the notion of ever making a decent living as a journalist. Journalism offers tons of ego satisfaction, but the pay was bad back then and, by comparison with other professions, not much better today.

The major players are, not surprisingly, the ones in charge of projecting and protecting a corporate “image”, otherwise known as perception. Number one on the list is Katie Cotton, the VP of worldwide corporate communications for Apple. She is teamed with Steve Jobs its cofounder and CEO because, together, they are the dynamic due of PR for a company that is testimony to American innovation and enterprise. It’s a very good choice.

Corporate PR folk on the list include Leslie Dach, VP for Wal-Mart; Jon Iwata, VP for IBM; Ed Skyler, Executive VP for Citigroup; Sally Susman, Senior VP for Pfizer; Chris Hassell fpr Procter & Gamble; Gary Sheffer, VP for GE; Bill Margaritis, VP for FedEx; Rachel Whetstone, VP for Google, Julie Hamp, Senior VP for PepsiCo; and Teri Everett, SVP of News Corporation.

One thing should particularly be obvious and which continues throughout the list is the role of women at very high levels, even if men continue to dominate these positions. Of particular interest is the inclusion of Stephanie Cutter among the “most powerful” as an Assistant to the President for Special Projects. That is president as in President of the United States of America. While Robert Gibbs is in the spotlight as Obama’s spokesperson, Cutter played an essential role in his campaign and now in his administration.

Of the top twenty-five named, nine were women. That’s progress.

Among the other “power principals”, there are the expected CEOs of major agencies such as Richard Edelman of Edelman; Harris Diamond, CEO of Shandwick Worldwide; Mark Penn, CEO of Burson-Marsteller, Paul Taaffe, CEO of Hill & Knowlton; and Margery Kraus, CEO of APCO Worldwide. It is worth noting that these public relations firms operate on a global basis.

Democrats in Congress have managed to nail the lid back down on Federal Reserve transparency.

Writing in his weekly column Texas Straight Talk, Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) said that his Federal Reserve Transparency Act was left out of the Wall Street reform bill when House and Senate negotiators reconciled the different bills passed by both houses of Congress. An effort by House Republicans to re-insert the language failed, with more than 120 Democrats who had co-sponsored the bill voting against it.

The bill would have allowed the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to fully and completely audit the Federal Reserve and would have opened the Fed’s operations to Congressional oversight. Paul wrote:

“Any legitimate objections to the audit proposal were addressed in the language of the motion to recommit. Thus, it is clear that the real reasons for opposing it are unstated and indefensible. The real reasons are that politicians like to spend money far exceeding income and it is convenient to have an enabler of this in the Federal Reserve. The easier it is for the Fed to create money, hidden from public view and accountability, the easier it is for politicians to spend that money and make sure their friends and interests are taken care of through shady political processes.”

“The broader reasons for supporting this entire financial regulatory reform bill are just as sinister. This is not about cracking down on big banks as some claim. Rather, this is about not wasting a crisis. This is about using a traumatic event to increase government power and control over the economy. If it was really about addressing the causes of this recession, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would have been dealt with, or abolished. Failed companies would just fail, rather than being bailed out. Instead, a permanent bailout mechanism is being established. The Fed, and its ability to control interest rates and create cheap money, would be reformed or better yet, abolished. But instead its power is being increased and this Congress refuses to even fully audit it!”

As Paul points out the Federal Reserve has operated in the shadows since its inception in 1913. While its defenders claim it was designed to give stability to financial markets, what it has really done is preside over the near complete destruction of the dollar. Since the Fed’s inception the dollar has lost more than 95 percent of its purchasing power.

Its loose money policy is also the culprit behind current economic crisis. By artificially keeping interest rates low rather than allowing the free market to set rates, bubbles were created that eventually burst.

For some reason, Average Joe and Average Jane seem to have trouble understanding this concept. But here’s a concept they may understand.

When Congress passed the massive stimulus and bailout bills they used your money by authorizing the U.S. Treasury Department and its head Timothy Geithner (formerly president of the Federal Reserve of New York) and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to determine which financial institutions received bailout funds.

Shocked, shocked? Not. Mark Tapscott at The Examiner reports on NLRB Big Labor radical Craig Becker’s conflict-of-interest troubles:

In the least surprising news of the week, Craig Becker — Big Labor’s go-to legal expert — has served on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for barely three months, and he’s already under investigation.

Becker lost a bipartisan Senate confirmation vote for the NLRB before Obama gave him a recess appointment. Becker is so pro-union he previously opined that “employers should have no right to be heard” in cases before the NLRB.

Aside from impartiality, the other concern about Becker was that the former associate general counsel for the radical Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and AFL-CIO lawyer would be embroiled with conflicts of interest regarding unions he’s now charged with overseeing.

Sure enough, on June 2, Becker joined in on an NLRB decision involving SEIU Local 1957 and denied St. Barnabas Hospital’s request to review a union election. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Darrell Issa, R-Calif., asked the Inspector General to examiner Becker’s conflict of interest in the matter. An investigation is underway.

See how Becker gives himself a pass:

The NLRB told The Washington Examiner Becker isn’t commenting on the investigation but did pass along a windy ruling Becker authored on recusal motions. Becker argues it would be appropriate to recuse him from cases involving the national SEIU but not cases involving the local chapters because they are “distinct legal entit[ies].”

…It should have been painfully obvious to Obama that Becker is not just incapable of being impartial but also incapable of meeting the most basic ethical requirements to perform his job.

Hasn’t stopped Obama from putting such interest-conflicted pals in power before and won’t stop him now, alas.

In the past we have sought to demonstrate how inflation (devaluation) of the currency is the perfect crime.

We said that your paper money can be inflated (devalued) to zero even if it is locked in a concrete vault 40 miles deep and no one knows where it is. You may think it is safe and secure and that it is your stored currency paper money, but little by little its value declines.

The money creators (those who print paper money) can steal the purchasing power of your paper money no matter where it is. All they have to do is pour more water in the milk—dilute the value of all paper money by printing more.

What if you have gold and silver in a vault buried 40 miles deep? Well, as the money creators destroy the value of your paper money as we described, the value of your gold and silver increases in value, as related to the depreciating paper money.

Your gold and silver appreciates and gains in value even buried deep in your vault with no risk and no interest. It is safe from manipulation.

Bankers say gold (which they hate) is a very poor investment because it pays no interest. They don’t say that it gains in value as paper money is depreciated. So holding gold and silver is the ultimate asset/investment during times like now when governments all debauch their own currencies.

Let’s point out more stupidity from the federal government. No, I’m not talking about the debacle and criminal lack of competence in the Gulf oil leak and a cleanup. That is a given. What I am talking about is our government’s lack of interest in pushing for a much cleaner form of energy that can easily replace oil: natural gas. We import billions of dollars of the oil from countries that are not exactly our friends. Conversely we have enough domestic supplies of natural gas to supply ourselves with energy for many generations into the future. Natural gas is clean and is really the only thing that can realistically replace oil. Incredibly the president and congress have no interest in investing in the stuff.

Jim Cramer on CNBC has been pounding the table for a couple of years now that nat gas is a viable alternative to high oil prices and supply issues. Others have joined him yet the administration, as usual, turns a deaf ear to the obvious. Cramer, always looking for investments, suggests that nat gas exports will rise for this country as every other country in the world will need natural gas. We won’t be using our own resources but other countries will be happy to. From Jim Cramer’s Mad Money via Mad Money Recap:

I have been on a crusade to get the United States to embrace natural gas… the best way to cut carbon emissions… create hundreds of thousands of good paying jobs… reduce our dependence on foreign oil…no one is listening… we have so much of this fuel that it is ridiculous… we exceed Saudi Arabia on this stuff… with a heck of lot better human rights record, by the way… I have said that it is the obvious solution to all but Washington… all of our cleaner energy needs… and unlike wind or solar, it is actually viable in the near term… you plug in a car like a Tessa, which you should be selling, goes into a coal based system… that won’t work… we already have a huge working distribution network built out for natural gas.

Plus, drilling for natural gas is never going to cause the kind of ecological catastrophe that we are seeing right now with BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico… or the slag that we get off of coal… which everyone knows about but no one talks about… I said that we could use this fuel to run our cars and trucks… and to replace dirtier sources of energy, like coal, at our power plants in the United States… or at least that is what I thought.

But our government… uh-uh, and while our government has turned a deaf ear to arguments for natural gas… do you know what? The rest of the world has not… we may not want all of this natural gas goodness… but just about every other country seems to be seeing things my way… they thirst for the stuff… that is why I have arrived at a Eureka Moment!… we are within this decade become a huge natural gas exporter… I think the largest in the world… because it is now economical to export it to the rest of the world.

…I know that it is crazy… but as we crave dirty oil and import tens of billions of dollars worth of it annually… much from countries that despise us… we will most likely shortly become the worlds largest exporter of the cleaner and better fuel… ladies and gents, you just cannot make this stuff up.

America has been pushed into a financial firestorm that is defying all attempts by the people to put it out. When it comes to finding the parties responsible and setting the fire we know who to blame. What we need is for those holding the matches to be drug into the public square. Congress should be calling hearings. Grand Juries should be issuing indictment’s, AG’s should be issuing arrest warrants. Guilty parties should be going on trial and down the river to prison.  But nothing like this is happening.

What has happened to America is on the level of  Treason and no one responsible in a position to process the paper work to start these proceedings is willing to do so!  When you threaten National Security with the possibility of economic collapse you should pay and quite possible pay with your life.  These should be capital crimes.

Just in the last 3 years alone National Center for Policy Analysis provided the following information on elections funds allocated by to of the Labor Unions in America.

Labor unions are a massive special interest lobbying group that will be spending the dollar to keep the current unpopular congress in office. I personally do not have any problem with interest groups that represent those who are voluntary members of the organization but there are many workers who are pretty much forced to be with a union or would rather have their union fees spent on electing a more conservative pro-life, faith, family and freedom congress than we have now.

A MASSIVE INCUMBENT PROTECTION PROGRAM

At least two influential unions will spend close to $100 million on the 2010 election, with most of those funds going to protect incumbents. Union officials told The Hill they plan to help endangered members — particularly freshmen — who made politically difficult votes in a year during which an anti-incumbent mood has filled the country. The number will likely be even higher since the AFL-CIO declined to give its figures, says the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

SEIU For Obribery

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU):
* Plans to spend $44 million in total on its 2010 election program.