Bush Was Right

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. (Thomas Jefferson, US President; 1743 - 1826)

The only time Bush got it right was what he said about the economy. Everyone Got Drunk.

Granted he said it to a friend, off camera, when no one was supposed

to sneak a recording device into the room.

I have read at least 50 articles, spanning the world wide web about the economy, credit default swapps, mortgage backed securities, hedging, money market acount, the bond market, the paper market, etc. And while i wrote two pieces on the economy already those were wrote during my learning process, this shall be my final paper.

Everything was great until home prices fell.

Than the house of cards fell.(no pun intended)

(ok yes it was)

Starting with foreclosures, leading into the drop in stock prices in the mortgage

backed securities sector, than into a rush to cash in insurance policies, When one couldnt pay they all couldnt, ending in (for now) the falling of giants, Bear, Lehman, AIG.

The story as i have read it, probably started 300 hundred years ago with the

origins of the banking system of this nation and how its built on leverage.

The crash of 2008 grew out of leverage.

If you ask me to borrow money today but promise to pay it back tommorrow with

interest knowing that my bills are due two days from now, I am leveraging.

I am betting my bills that you will pay me back. If you dont pay me

back i am screwed.

Today America is screwed.

Or most of us are, because someone is making out on this whole mess. Just like the Iraq Colonial Expedition (a line from michael hudson)(dont tell him bc i didnt ask to borrow it). While most of us suffer with the expense of blood and gold someone is getting rich off the expedition.

The basic idea of how banks work is that banks takes in savings

deposits and hand out loans. Savings accounts get 1% today, loans pay the

bank 5-10%. But regulation says the bank can lend out

more

than they have in stock. I think the rate is 30-1. For every dollar in the vault, they can loan out 30 dollars. This creates a problem if all loans stopped being paid than your savings account is finished. This is called a run on the banks and it happened during the 29' crash and the 87' savings and loan. People ran for there savings account, and it was gone.

A Government body the

FDIC

is supposed to insure deposits so fear and panic wont lead to another bank run. But from what i read, when one bank, the Savings And Loans bank, crashed in 87' the FDIC spent over 50% of its reserves to replenish empty savings account. So what would

happen

if more than one bank crashed?

This is the world of banking leverage. The bank needs to lend to make money. The riskier the loan the more money. Now take it up one notch and you have the world of stock market leverage. Today when you buy stocks or bonds you can invest in a swapp. A fancy word for insurance. So that if your gamble loses you can cash

in your insurance policy and you still win.

Being a swapp and not insurance it does not get regulated. Meaning two things.

1.No one overseas the trading in these markets to look out for dangerous trends.

2. Anyone and Everyone selling this swapp/insurance has no obligation by law to keep stock piles of money on hand in case large numbers of people lose on there bet and seek

to

cash in their swapp/insurance. My first question is who was the smart guy at lehman brother and AIG who said we dont need no stinking financeial reserves in case people actually want to cash in their insurance. Secondly how come there has not been any prosecutions. If i sold insurance from my porch but never paid out i would be in jail.

This is one of the parts of the Economic trouble. With these types of rules(none) who would not want to get in on the racket. The housing market had increased in value for decades so anyone selling insurance/swapps on anything

mortgage related would have made a

killing for years. Premiums in and no one putting in insurance claims.

Imagine how Gieco would succeed under this model. So Sales of insurance boomed, CEO's raked in the free money. Wall stree bonuses were huge. Remember when the head of the New York Stock Exchanged retired with a 150 million dollars payout package. Time were good.

You could even buy insurance on stock you didnt own. HUH?

Thats right. I know it sounds weird. I mean how much of a killing would i make if i walked into a hospital and began to purchase life insurance on

patients in ICU. I would be betting against the patient. And my bet would be sound.

Well on wall street they are allowed to bet a stock will crash, making money

when the stock crashes. But too many people bet(bought swapps). And every one on wall street was selling them but not putting away funds to pay them off.

And No one in government was regulating. (they used to be but the law was changed)

But many had mentioned this to former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan. Who's job it was to watch over the economy of the country. Yet when he was told about the dangers of an unregulated credit default swapp market, that is estimated to be 50 trillion dollars in a 5 trillion dolar bond industry. That means while only 5 trillion bonds were sold, 50 trillion bets were made on the bond for its success or failure.

(yes trillion i did not make a mistake)

Greenspan said regulating this 50 trillion dolalr market was not needed. But this is not a Republican issue becuase the treasurey secratary under Bill Clinton, Robert Rubin also refused to regulate the market.

Mr. Rubin is now the economic adviser to current presidential hopefull Barack Obama.

Another aspect of this credit default swapp market

(buying insurance on a stock)

is how companies leveraged against each other by buying insurance from one company than selling insurance to another company.

Anything to make a buck.

Why would you want to buy and sell insurance on the same item, if you ever need to cash in the

insurance you have simply have to pay out the check you get, making no money right?

Wrong.

As risk increases so does insurance premiums. If i bought my premium for 10 dollars, but risk has increased current premiums to 200 hundred dollars, than it pays for me to hedge(buy cheap insurance and sell expensive).(remember there are no rules saying i cant buy and sell the same insurance coverage,and none saying who can sell insurance)

The Problem with this type of leverage is when many banks are interconnected, say if AIG cant pay Lehman, than Lehman can pay Bear, than Bear cant pay Wackovia and on and on. Until they all cry bankrupcy uncle. I have seen it a million times.(ok only once)

So now you have these banks linked together in a daisy chain, and you have this industry that is unregulated so no one has to report anything. So much of how each firm acts is secret. This means that if a bank failed in japan it could be linked to any chain and no one knows who is affected by what. And this not knowing,this uncertainty about what banks are sound, who placed what bets, who lied on their balance sheets, this has caused banks to freeze up their lending. No one knows how much risk is saturating each bank.

For example Wachovia was just bought by Wells Fargo for 14.8 billion dollars, yet one month ago Wachovia listed on its balance sheets its net worth was 50 billion dollars. So either Wachovia lost 35 billion dollars in a few days or Wells Fargo is getting 35 billion dollars in free stuff. Or the third option. That Wachovia is lying on its balance sheet.

But lets back up a minute and talk about selling the stock because what good is it to know the swapp story if you dont know the stock story.

Everyone knows what stocks are. Buy low sell high, lets make some money.

Well according to my research there is an estimated 71 trillion dollars of total world savings. This is money that wants to make money and not sit in the bank. The safest bet

over the years has been US Treasury bonds. But Greenspan in the 2000's lowered rates to 1%. Someone who i read, who can read the market says there was a hidden message

in Greenspans actions at keeping the rate very very low. Basically he was telling the 71 trillion dollars

worth of world wealth to not buy US Government bonds.

Go somewhere else.

So searching for somewhere, anywhere to earn more than a measly 1% wall street tried something out that eventually grew into a monster.

Mortgage Backed Securities.

Which are home morgages that wall street banks buy in bulk and package into stock.

It began innocent.

One banker bought a thousand mortgages. This is 2000, 2001. And like clockwork he recieved a check every month from one thousand home owners who paid there morgage to this wall street banker. So instead of earning 1% from government bonds, this banker earned 7%, the morgage interest rate. It was so lucrative that he began to package up more and more mortgages to sell them to this 71 trillion dollar pool of money that was desperately seeking an avenue of investment that would earn more than 1%.

The thing was the these mortgage backed securities peformed so well, because remember the housing market had risen in value for decades. It was a given that my grandma bought her house cheap and would sell it for profit. And because

of their high performance they sold out like wildfire. Eventually wall street called the mortgage firms one day and said guys we need more mortgages our investors are hungry, but the mortgage lenders said sorry, we tried it all, but we have given out every mortgage we possibly could to prime customers(customers that could prove they had a job, downpayment, good credit). Wall street said these things are so hot and we need more so why dont you lower your standarsd, and we will reward you. Do whatever it takes to get us more mortgages.

So the game began.

But first to lower standards we have to have a federal government that would like lower standards and pushed for it. And they did.

So mortgage outfits all over the country, big and small began to lower standards. They wanted to cash in on the feeding frenzy going on on wall street. Greed was an issue but so was competition.

If one street is lined with companies selling mortgages and your firm has the strictest criteria most likely you would do the least business. So not only did the owners

of these companies race to the bottom to survive, but workers in these companies

would constantly push there superiors to lower standard. They didnt want to lose out on a sale.

Standards grew so laxs that 23 dead people in Chicago were given mortgages. And living people were able to get mortgages by not even showing w2 forms. Just answer two questions do you have a job and do you get a paycheck? yes ? ok here is your mortgage. And dont forget the story i broke in my first economic meltdown blog, that some companies were established with the sole purpose of temporarily parking money in a persons bank account so when they went through the mortgage application process they would pass. And when the mortgage was approved the funds were removed, and for this you paid a fee. Some Mortgage firms would recommend this type of service.

Now in the old days when banks would give you a mortgage they would make sure it was sound because the banks plan was to keep your mortgage on its books for the life time of the loan. Not anymore. With the intense feeding frenzy on wall street for as many mortgages as possible, each mortgage firm knew they would be giving a mortgage to a home owner than selling it right away to a wall street bank only to be sold again to an investor in say

china. There was no intimate connection to do the right thing. The mortgage firm had no interest in seeing the mortgage payed off. They got there fee and washed there hands.

And remember no one in the government was watching.

Now the theory was to get as many mortgage loans out as possible, so they gave low or no initial interest rates to make the american dream of owning a home seem within reach. And prices were rising at such a rate, that many sellers of mortgage told their clients that in 3 years when your higher interest rates kick in you would have accumulated so much equity that you will be able to renegotiate your mortgage at a lower rate. This did happen, for years, as long as home prices rose. But could they rise forever? And what would happen if they didnt? Well no and we are living the what happened question.

So you have many parts to the story. The Investor on wall street trying to feed the intense desire of his clients to buy more mortgage backed securities. You have the married couple who is told you can you can now afford your dream. You have the entry level seller at the mortgage firm begging his boss to lower standards and cash in on the rush or he is quitting to join the firm down the block. You have the billionaires in the middle east looking for safe areas to park there money. And you have the Stock Ratings agencies Standard and Poor giving these risky stocks AAA rating when they knew how risky they were.

This is another damning piece to the puzzle. The rating agency happens to be paid, handsomely to rate stocks by the same firms that sell the stock. Stocks that people buy based mostly on there rating. Rating relates risk.

How could they not know the risk in mortgages given out to risky clients would not be a riskier investment as a stock.

The answer is they knew.

Thus another party that should be in jail.

In emails uncovered by the federal goverment there are two quotes from employees at the ratings agencies that gave these risky stocks a safe rating that prove their guilt.

"If a cow asked us to rate a stock we would do it"

and

"I hope we are rich and retired by the time this house of cards crashes".

This is corrupt and illegal, buttom line.

It became a game to unload risk, knowing that the rating agency would polish up any turd you tried to sell with a perfect, safe, AAA rating.

In fact it became so popular to unload RISK as a stock for an investor to buy that firms began looking at any risk they had on their balance sheet to slice up and dump as a security. And the laws were so lax that

even after the security was bundled and sold, the investment bank that bundled it was able to go in and swap in riskier items, and take out items.

And the man that will save America is the Treasury Secretary Paulson. He was ceo of Goldman Sachs investment firm. Surprisingly, a firm that was left untouched by this mess, yet also a firm that did its share of selling this risky stock but getting out in time. It seems like that was the plan all along, from the small mortgage firm to the big wall street banks, get in , make money, get out. But the house of cards fell so fast that hardly anyone got out. All the wall street giants like Bear Sterns and Lehman brothers that sold the stock were stock with billions of dollars worth of shares on their desk ready to sell them when the people buying them smelled something fishy and stopped buying. These big banks were now sitting on billions worth of garbage, much of the money used to by the stock was taken out as loans.

The mortgage firms all around the country were also left holding a bag of garbage that they took out loans to buy with the expectation of selling the next day. At the height of popularity for these risky mortgages stocks being sold, wall street was calling up mortgage

firms daily telling them we need more mortgages. So the mortgage firms began to borrow huge sums of money to buy mortgages, but they were going to sell them tommorrow to wall street.

But when investors stopped buying from wall street wall street stopped buying

from mortgage firms, and many were left with 100 million

dollar+ loans they could not pay back. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac chose this death.

Another interesting piece of the puzzle that only one man

i read of talked about was speculators. While prices in the real estate

market rose at dramatic

levels it paid for speculators to begin to buy houses, hold them for 6 months and sell for a profit. Some estimates show that 25-40% of the real estate sales in the 2000's was of a speculative nature. Now the mindset of a speculator does not care about adjustable rate mortgage loans or no interest teaser rates because they will use their loan for 6 months tops.

Once again life was great as long as

home prices rose. when they stopped rising there was no

money in speculating and many got out or faced foreclosure. This paper that i am summarizing argued that the high foreclosure rate cannot be blamed solely on the sub-prime market. His statistics show just as many prime market foreclosures as sub-prime.

Which expels the republican myth that this problem

has to do with people who took out mortgages

who could not

afford to and who should have known better. And I hope this blog entry shows that that idea is only 1/1o of the story.

Be A Man America, Lets make some Magic

A friend of mine said a great line the other day. With every animal on earth the theme is that the strong survive. Not so with humans. We make sure the weak not only have a shot, but we let them rise to the top.

Case in point the economy. Welfare for the rich. No competition. Free market when in times of boom Socialism in times of bust. No accountability. Market forces are supposed to set prices, not corporate giants in collusion with each other.

But I'm confused, I thought our country practices capitalism, and free market principles so why is the government bailing out firms? Isn't a tenet of the free market theory to not interfere and let the weak die and the strong survive. Your not the only one who is Confused.

Many confusing ideas have grown more evident over the years. For example, are we a Democracy? If so why did the supreme court select the President of the United States in the year 2000 while stopping the vote count, and expressing in its opinion that it would be safer to pick someone that leave doubt while searching for the truth. Oh and they also ruled that no where in the constitution is their a right to vote for president.

Or do we have Fascist tendencies. Everyone hears the word Fascist and immediately thinks of Hitler and concentration camps for Jews. But that was the philosophy of a crazy man. The idea behind Fascism is the merging of Business and State. To me this idea is seen in America where corporations are said to control congress. They sponsor elections. They not only see most bills they support become law they usually help right them in order to increase business. And usually once the author of a bill passes the law for say the telecommunications industry, said congressman gets a meaty offer to quit congress and work for the telecommunications industry. Bribe? Corruption? Coincidence? Or the natural order of a Fascist state?

Or should we all hang our heads and admit that we live under a dictatorship? A prison with goodies. If i put you in jail, but give you a huge cell, like the size of a house. And I give you a job so you can pay for that nice house. And I let renovate the house. And I let you get a nice job. So you can buy a nice car, an ipod, and a laptop. Maybe take a vacation here and there. And I let you have newspapers (run by my prison guards). I supply your children with schools run by my prison guards. Your job is run by my prison guards. Cross my guards and I take it all away. Praise and support my guards and you get more goodies and a bigger house and better vacations and a nicer car.

This sounds like a system that will support the weak and handicap the strong.

Basically what i wanted to say was about the economy. Were most people shocked even me, yes. Should we have been, no. Forgetting about the mortgage crash for a second and look at the obvious.

As a nation we buy more than we sell. We have more credit than savings. Our government borrow money everyday just to function. If we followed this plan on an individual level we would all be in a soup kitchen and sleepy on the sidewalk. As a nation we have lived like a college kid with his first credit card and not like an adult.

The phrase we should leave our kids a better nation/world than we inherited seems lost. What happened?

As individuals and as a nation we need to grow up an start acting like adults. If your name is Bear Sterns, AIG, or Bank of America and you cannot manage your company you are weak and you should fail. Just like all those mom and pop shops that were put out of business when Walmart rolled into town. No one cried for them and they were our blood. Yet our Congress cries for these corporate monsters that have grown larger than some nations. They have no national loyalty yet we are told they are too big to fall. Borrowing from my favorite phrase, REALLY?

If I was in charge and some used the phrase to big to fall around me I would tell them to shrink. If you are too big to fall than you are too freakin big.

Last year when Joe the plumbers cousin, Susan the Walmert clerk, when she got sick had to be hospitalized and couldn't pay her credit card bills or mortgage and is now homeless was she not big enough to fall? When did the corporate machine become more valuable to our nation than an individual down on their luck?

Bear Sterns took excessive risk, gambles like anyone would go to Vegas to do, and they lost. Susan the Walmart clerk was struck by an act of god. She got sick.

Why is it that France has faster Internet service than America? And better cell phone service? Its because they still practice a little something called competition. If two guys own a deli on the same block in a natural world they will compete to win the customer. Service goes up. Deals pop up. Quality goes up. Innovation shows its face. But what we have in America is only two huge deli's that have gotten together and teamed up against the consumer. They keep prices high, service down, and innovation and quality go out the window.

They believe they are doing good. There stock might even go even and they might even turn a profit. But inside their spirit grow weak. Challenges make men, and complacency makes men weak. Weak men create weak nations. Weak nations attract weak leaders, building weak bridges, creating weak dreams, and creating weak schools, to indoctrinate the next generations for the weak culture.

The weak men have conformed and have been chosen to lead the next generation. And they have been rewarded with stock options and islands, and imported vehicles.

Could you are I create a start up bank today to compete with JP Morgan/Chase/ Bear Sterns, or whatever that gigantic company is called now.

Is it any surprise that our Detroit auto makers cannot compete with foreign car makers. They know no matter how bad business is our government will help them out. What kind of motivation is this for them to innovate and improve.

Why is it that there is still a law on the books from the 70's when oil companies couldn't make money that paid them to stay in business. Subsidies. So that last year when the oil companies made record profits quarter after quarter, breaking new records, these oil companies were still getting subsidies from the government.

Why is it that our Government also subsidizes the farm industry. If left on its own, the farming industry in the U.S. would not survive. But instead of making them take responsibility to live or day the Government pays them enough to continue growing so they can stay in business while putting foreign farmers that they compete with out of business.

What is the worry with giving them the opportunity to sink or swim. We are so afraid of sinking that no one is swimming anymore. We are a nation floating with safety tubes on our arms and its time we grow up and take them off. I mean how silly would it be to see a grown man in the pool with swimmies on his arms. Even my 5 year old daughter would giggle(if i had one). (if i had two they both would giggle)(a lot) ( because one would feed off the other one's giggle, which would create a cyclical effect feeding the other one, and so on an so forth, until both would giggle at maximum giggle capacity).

Where are all our innovators? Where have all our leaders gone? The last ones I remember have been taken out, JFK, Bobby Kennedy, Malcolm and Martin.

Remember when the Brooklyn Bridge was built? Remember when we landed men on the Moon? That was magic. That was innovation. Where has all the magic gone? China made magic at the Olympic games during the opening ceremony. It was glorious to watch.

I want my country to make magic again. I want to make magic. Don't tell me I cant. And I better not here you say you cant either.

700 billion dollar presidential reward

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. (Thomas Jefferson, US President; 1743 - 1826)

Wow. Where to start. While over the summer we had economic problems plaguing the country, now we have disaster, or so we are told. By the White House, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Congress, the Network News, all very reputable sources who would never create a fake crisis in order to force a bill down our throats as quick as possible, while not allowing our elected representatives to read it, very similar to the patriot act after 9-11. Well that was my sarcasm, because actually they have and they are trying again.

700 billion dollar bailout. We need it now or face a complete meltdown. No oversight by congress, judicial system, or any future president ever. This is the Mantra you have heard if you have been watching corporate news. Run by and for the interests of powerful men in this country. Read the Internet and you get a different picture. You get to read opinions of economists, and many who saw this mess coming 5 years ago. And some who saw these trends coming as far back as carter, and some who see this mess through lens of globalization.

So lets go through this mantra one by one. 700 billion dollars is needed. Why? They admit they have not used any formula and have merely picked a large random number. They( treasury Secretary paulson and fed chairman Bernake) admit they wont have time to spend all that money anyway before the next president arives.

Who gets the 700 billion? Well Paulson and Bernake would like to hand it over to wall street banks who are in the mess. There argument is that because of all this bad debt( in the form of mortgages not being paid and investment in mortgages that were packaged as stocks that have declines sharply) on the books of these banks, that they are refusing to lend out any new money thus freezing the economy. So the 700 billion would by the bad debt, taking it off the banks books while giving them cash to begin lending and get the economy flowing again. That is the corporate media side of the story and we all know there are 3000 sides to every story.

Another side of this story is the homeowner. If they are given the money, in theory, it will solve the economic slowdown as well. They pay their mortgage, banks get paid off, banks begin to get of rid of the bad debt, stocks prices go up also as mortgages are paid and the bad investments look better, and the debacle is reversed.

Why has the corporate media reported so favorably for one story, lets give the money to the banks, while painting the homeowner as the wicked witch from the west who should have known better and should not have taken on a mortgage he could not afford. One solution i describes helps everyone, the latter. While the former solution saves the banks, actually rewarding some like JP Morgan Chase who was able to by Bear Sterns and Washington Mutual at bargain basement prices, and Bank of America who bought Meryl Lynch. But in the former solution the homeowner is left in the dust, as is the average investor who was tricked into buying bad stock.

How were they tricked? Well the mortgages of bad credit people were lumped together with mortgages of good credit people and made into a stock, this stock was falsely and illegally given a triple a rating by the two rating agencies who were paid mighty sums by the investment houses.

So for our fraud tally we have bankers 1, homeowner/stock owner 0

So why were these mortgages packaged as stocks anyway? Well as a Bank or a Mortgage firm you are limited with how many mortgages you can have on your books based on a few factors. One factor for a savings and loan bank like Bank of America is how much money in deposits they have on hand. So by bundling up mortgages as stocks and selling them banks and mortgage firms were able to remove the mortgages from their books, thus freeing up room for more mortgages, and more fees.

Fraud tally bankers 2, homeowner/stock owner 0

In an update on the fraud front, today (November 3rd 2008) it was released that operations at Wamu approved every single loan that came through the company. When underwriters refused to approve loans that looked fraudulent workers were reprimanded and put on probation. A few months ago Wamu closed up shop, as the biggest US bank to ever fall. It was later sold to JP Morgan for 1.9 billion dollars. The race to approve mortgages was promoted by executives by offering free vacations to whoever sold the most mortgages each month. One employee won a free month in Jamaica for approving 3.5 million in mortgage loans in one month.

In one particular case, one underwriter remembers denying a very fraudulent loan, getting reprimanded, and her boss approving the loan only for it to go into default 4 months later. Not one months payment was paid.

Fraud tally, Bankers 3, homeowners 0

What about all those people who qualified for prime mortgages, based on their good credit but were sold sub prime so the mortgage lendor could clean up in fees? I read one case in particular of a returning Iraq Vet who qualified of for the best rates yet he was fooled into signing up for the subprime, no interest, no money down loan, and boom he lost his house. How is an average person supposed to know what he qualifies for? Are we not supposed to trust the numbers that mortgage houses crunch?

Fraud tally, bankers 4, homeowner 0

The next part of the mantra we are hearing is this needs to be solved now, using our 700 billion dollar plan, or else you haven't seen nothing yet( in terms of crisis). Really? To me it seems like they are rushing into this, like they want this rushed through, with out review or oversight. Why else do it so close to a congressional recess? But Ian they didn't DO anything, the economy is its own beast and it just crashed. I am not buying that either, the bankers of this country have long history of creating crashes to benefit themselves.

A great great great documentary on this is called money master and can be seen on Google video for free. and One example they give is the farming industry around the 1800's, i forget the year. But the plan was to loan and loan and loan to farmer, (side note is that 95% of farming in this country used to be family owned farms), and than one day all these loans were called in and when most couldn't pay, which was expected, the banks took over huge areas of land. This was done for a few reasons. One was to end family farms and create the rise of corporate farming run by a few companies. And we have we seen from this current economic crisis merging of huge banks, becoming more and more concentrated.

Another result of the farming crisis of the 1800's was now that we have taking away a large portion of the nations jobs, farming. Most Americans have no jobs, and so they were ushered into factories and mines to work for someone else. This is one of the most fascinating times in America for me to study because i see it as the turning point of when Americans stopped sustaining themselves by working for themselves (farming) and were moved like cattle into factories to work for someone else, to rely on someone else for food, money, for life. This is when Americans lost a huge amount of power they had. Now they could be abused, being told "do this if you want to feed your family, do this if you want to pay your mortgage". I read something once that talked about the pride of an American before this farming crisis, and an American would not be caught dead working in a factory, why anyone would sweat all day with their labor for someone else to make a profit was looked upon as crazy, and i agree. But one day this all changed, and i would like to know why and how, and how we get back to that mindset.

So how is 700 billion dollars going to help? If an individual was in trouble with debt from one credit card would opening a new card to pay off the old one solve anything? No, So why try this on a Macro level? Why is only one plan being talked about on the news, and whats the rush? Where is a new deal type plan? Why are we throwing money at the wall street men who got us into this mess? Why is there no talk of jail time? Why was the bush justice department attacking state attorney generals who tried to arrest corrupt bankers? Why are small banks throughout America saying that they are benefiting from this wall street mess? And why wont the corporate media tell us this fact and other facts to paint the whole picture? Do people believe the Bush administration when they tell us this is a buy in and not a bailout, and one day we can sell this debt we are buying with the 700 billion dollars for a profit? Sound like a story I once heard about about a war in the middle east paying for itself and not costing us a billion dollars a month, in a country that rhymes with istack.

One part of the bailout bill that is hardly being discussed says that the 700 billion dollars can be invested in anything on wallstreet not simply banks that are in trouble. This is kind of odd, i thought the point of this is to save banks and mortgage firms that are in trouble? The treasury secratary also has the power to invest in foreign banks. This is the best line of them all. The US economy is in trouble and to save it we will use US taxpayer money to invest in foreign banks, hmmm? To take this further one economist on cnbc claimed that Paulson and the President would veto any bill that did not allow the 700 billion to be spent on foreign banks. This does not make sense to me, the only explanaition i heard is that foreign governments must be making large threats against the US Government to force this administration to act this way.

A solution proposed by Thom Hartmann, and others im sure, is to reinstate a tax on wall street for every trade. The argument goes that Wall Street's main purpose was to raise capitol and give investors a way to make money over a long period of time. But recently speculators have changed the way wall street operates by buying large amounts of stock to raise the price than to dump it all in a few days time. This is called speculative traiding and many blame this for the housing bubble now and before the 1929 collapse.

Historically, from the founding of our country until the last century, most people invested rather than speculated. When rules limiting speculation were cut during the first big Republican deregulation binge during theadministrations of Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover(1921-1933), it created a speculative fever that led directly to the housingbubble of the early 20s (which started in Florida, where property values weregoing up as much as 70 percent per year, and then spread nationwide, only toburst nationally starting in 1927 as housing values began to collapse), thenthe falling housing market popped the stock market bubble and produced thegreat stock market crash of 1929. That speculation aggregated enormouswealth in a very few hands, crashed the housing and stock markets, and producedthe Republican Great Depression of 1930-1942. Franklin D. Roosevelt, as part of the New Deal, put into place a series ofrules to discourage speculation and promote investment, including maintaining –and doubling – the Securities Transaction Excise Tax. Other countriesfollowed our lead, and the UK, France, Japan, Germany, Italy, Greece,Australia, France, China, Chile, Malaysia, India, Austria, and Belgium have allhad or have STETs.

This tax is not a completely new idea we used it in the United States from 1914 to 1966, and to fund the civil war and the spanish american war. Other countries right now are using this policy. If we were to instate a .25 percent STET (tax) on everystock, swap, derivative, or other trade today, it would produce – in its firstyear – around $150 billion in revenue.

The Republican Bush Administration is currently suggesting that we borrow$700 billion (or more) from China and Saudi Arabia and other countries and investors, add that to our national debt, and repay it with interest (makingthe actual cost over the next 20 years over $1.4 trillion). This is whatRepublican Herbert Hoover tried in 1931 when he first created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (later totally reinvented by FDR) to bail out the banks in1931. Hoover’s RFC bailed out the bankers, paid off huge salaries in the banking and investment world, bought him a few months (maybe that’s the realgoal of the Bush/McCain Republicans now – just hold things together until afterthe elections), but ultimately led to the failure within two years of virtually all the banks in the United States.

The bailout failed.

So lets make a list of all the groups that made huge sums of money in America during the Bush presidency during crisis that fucked the American public.

1.Energy/Enron,

deregulation lead to ripping off of Californians,

lead to no change in laws.

2. Oil Men,

made record breaking profit margins each

quarter for the past few years while charging Americans the highest

price for gas ever, up to 4.50$ a gallon. And while supposedly it costs

around thirty dollars to extract, package, and ship a barrel of oil the world

market is selling it for 140$ plus a barrel. Yet they still get subsidies

from the US govt from a time when gas prices were very low that the oil

companies could not turn a profit.

3.Military Industrial Complex,

they got two wars in

Afghanistan and Iraq where two records were broken. More contracts

were given out to private firms than during any other war, and more no bid

contracts were given out. And remember this was war that was sold to

us on a lie, we should not even be there, but many Military contractors made

money hand over fist.

During the tenure of Paul Bremer in Iraq, billions and

billions of dollars went unaccounted for, much like when the defense department

was audited and Donald rumsfeild could not account for trillions of dollars.

4.Health care industry,

During bush's failed presidency congress passed a 700 billion dollar

health care bill making is more expensive for Americans to use the

health care system, and making the system more complex and confusing. This

bill was one of the saddest days on capitol hill for many elected representatives

because of the high level of arm pulling done to get this law to pass, many claimed to have seen members crying they were so upset by the bully tactics used. The time

allowed to vote on this bill ended breaking a record for the most ever

because they had to get the votes.

Many felt they were lied to because the president sold the bill

as a 300 billion dollar bill, than once it was passed it was realized it was closer to 700 billion.

5.Wall Street,

bankers and investment firms had a field day moving around and shifting

mortgages into many different things to make huge profits

on fees until one day it all came crashing down,

at first it was a 400 billion dollar infusion

next was 100 billion each to both Fannie Mae and Freddie mac,

than 85 billion to aig, than a 50 billion dollar loan to JP Morgan chase to buy bear sterns,

than 100 year old firms fell like dominoes, bear sterns,

Lehman brothers, Washington mutual, Meryl lynch.

And now the president is hoping congress pass a quick law with 700 billion dollars given to one man to fix it all, with no oversight, or review, for the eternity.

How do they use the same play from the same play book year after year? How do we fall for it year after year? How do they pass bailouts against the will of America year after year? How do these elected officials who fuck America year after year, continue to be reelected year after year? And does half of America not care, year after year.
If we don't change this here is my prediction, one day we will have One of everything, One bank, One credit card, One store to buy everything, One Media company, One news paper, One health care plan, One retirement plan, One stock to invest in, One utility to buy electricity and oil from, One place to get a mortgage from. A world without choices a world without competition means the shit with stay at the top by force.

So who will the next president reward?

CoLd WaR AgAiN?

If you began following the Battle in the cuacuses recently from america the first thing you would assume by following our news is that Russia attacked and invaded the nation of Georgia, and they must be hell bent on reestablishing the soviet union.

But for every action there is a reaction.

So what the action that lead to our current reaction.

Russia claims that the Nation of Georgia made the first move attacking two regions inside of Georgia. Two independent regions that operate outside of the Georgian government.

South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

To areas that have very strong russian ties, and that are ethnically russian. Russia says they are protecting an unprovoked attack on these two independent regions inside the nation of Georgia. And when i say unprovoked attack, i mean these two regions took a beating, with rockets and artillery that leveled almost every building in the region. Firing indescrimitely at people, killing UN peacekeepers (who happened to be russian) The leaders of these two regions are calling for the president of Georgia to be tried for genocide, and war crimes.

But who is right?

Sounds like Russia, who is protecting these innocent towns. But the Russians have also gone overboard but launching air strikes against the georgian capitol, rolling masive amounts of tanks into Georgia, not just the area of the two regions who need help but deep into Georgia. New reports are coming out of people fleeing the Russians. That the Russians are taking everything from the land they grab.

And Why wouldn't Russian like to expand their holdings.

Georgia is ripe with oil and oil pipelines. Oil is becoming more of a life commodity than air. Maybe the Russians are worrying after the USA's excipade into Iraq. We had Vietnam they tried with Afghanistan, than we cool out. Now we have Iraq and they want to play again too, so they have Georgia. A few years ago when we went back to Afghanistan they partied with the Chechen's.(see my previous posts from 05' on the Chechen issues)( I know what your thinking, hey i looked for your articles on the Chechen issue and i couldn't find it, that cause you looked online, i have not written them yet)

Is the West pushing to hard against Russian?

But than again we have the Georgian president, very pro west, receiving massive amounts of military hardware and training from the USA and Israel. You have massive amounts of evidence saying he came to power in a coup aided by the cia. You have Georgia attacking on the day the olympics start and somehow it gets massive news coverage in the USA that supports Georgia's predicament. Even though by all measure they began it. And How is this issue in the news so much so quick, when i see stories about darfur once a year? You also must factor in that Georgia is seeking nato membership, along with other nations. Nato is basically surounding Russia. We are also planning on placing missle launch sites in the poland and the ukraine. Guess who just signed up after this russian aggression, poland. So from the Russian perspective its easy to see how they might say they are being backed into a corner.

Iraq

It also does not help anyone that the US, who usually can step in and say cut it out, is in the middle of an occupation of a foreign nation. So how can one not sympathize with Russia if they also sympathize with the Removal of the tyrant saddam. Recently Russia tells how the US invaded, overthrew Saddam and Hung him because he was brutal to people living inside his own country, than they say well we are doing the same, the Georgian president is brutalizing his own people, inside his own country why cant we stop it.

WWII

A lesson that came out of wwii was that one nation cannot act militarily around the world on its own accord. Thats what Hitler did and he tried to conquer the world and did conquer europe minus GB. And Bush has started a bad president of invading foreign nations unilaterally, and now Russia has followed suit. Who knows where this will lead

So you decide who is right. Is Georgia right. Is russia right. Is it about oil. Is it about global hegemy. Was this a United States plan to set up and demonize Russia.

Listen to Putins words a few years ago and you tell me:

The unipolar world refers to a world in which there is one master, one sovereign---- one center of authority, one center of force, one center of decision-making. At the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.… What is even more important is that the model itself is flawed because at its basis there is and can be no moral foundations for modern civilization.”

“Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centers of tension. Judge for yourselves---wars as well as local and regional conflicts have not diminished. More are dying than before. Significantly more, significantly more! Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper-use of force – military force – in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts. We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state’s legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?

In international relations we increasingly see the desire to resolve a given question according to so-called issues of political expediency, based on the current political climate. And of course this is extremely dangerous. It results in the fact that no one feels safe. I want to emphasize this – no one feels safe! Because no one can feel that international law is like a stone wall that will protect them. Of course such a policy stimulates an arms race. I am convinced that we have reached that decisive moment when we must seriously think about the architecture of global security.”

And what does Mr. Bush and our politicians have to say about it?

That its all russians fault, they should stand down. Mccain actually said this is the 21st centuary and nations just dont go around invading other nations. Really

UPDATE

Us claims the missle defense system that nato is insalling in eastern europe is to keep on eye on rogue nations like Iran, yet last year the president of Russia, Vladimar Putin, offered bush use of a Russian missle sit in Azerbaijan, a nation of hte border of Iran and bush declined,

Mortgage Disaster

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. (Thomas Jefferson, US President; 1743 - 1826)

The Mortgage melt down this year is having a large effect on the economy of the U.S. I have been reading much about it and would like to break it down somewhat. First is a professional journalist breaking down the situation.

"The financial crisis comes from the collapse of an $8 trillion housing bubble.
Banks—and many homeowners—made a lot of bad bets on the
assumption that housing prices would always go up.
The shadow banking system—including the off-balance sheet
entities set up by the commercial banks—borrowed massively to make those bets. They invented exotic securities and over the counter, unregulated credit swaps and the like to add layers and layers to the house of cards. Now it’s collapsed. The real economy is in trouble. Consumers have lost trillions in home equity and are tightening their belts."

The best way i can understand it, is that, mortgage lenders looking for larger markets began selling mortgage more and more to people who could not afford them. The mortgage institutions made the mortgages seem within reach for many families who dreamed of buying a house, but who always thought the American dream was financially out of reach. So lawyers went to work, and packages fancy deals, pay low or no interest, with no down payment. With wording like this even i can afford a house, in theory. As long as the mortgage seller gets their fee who why should they care if the mortgage ever gets paid off.

Hidden deep within the fine print is the word variable, and initial. low interest initially, with steep rises very soon.



Some other shadiness included; firms that rent assets to people to help them fraudulently qualify for a mortgage - like loaning them money to keep in their bank account for a couple months so they can fool the lender with documented savings that evaporate the day after the mortgage is signed. Another popular ruse: The borrower pays an employer to pay him a lot of money in a fake job for a month or two so he can show a fat paycheck in his loan docs. Some real estate agents and mortgage brokers actually refer buyers to these services.

Should home buyers have know better yes, but the people peddling them knowingly broke laws, or treaded very close to the line.

Practices that allowed these tactics to operate under this present Bush administration were illegal under Clinton. Additionally when lines were crossed and local district attorney's pursued the case they were harassed by the Bush administration. Bush not only allowed these illegal practices to occur but he let them FLOURISH by attacking any state that tried to pursue criminal prosecutions against those that broke the law.

Bush's shady tactics can be seen most visibly with the fall of Elliot Spitzer, NY Governor, who was the strongest critique of bush, and was in the process of organizing the governors of all 50 states to file a suit in court against Bush's illegal tactics.

On to the ponzi scheme, low income people were sold a shady illegal bill of goods, i.e a mortgage they could afford temporarily, before rates increased.

The mortgages were sold to bigger mortgage outfits, and bigger, ones, and the initial seller of the mortgage closes his shop door and is long gone by now. One reason the mortgages were packaged and sold quick to other lenders or to investment houses as stock, was because of a federal law limiting how many mortgages a mortgage lender could hold, by moving them quick they could be involved in more sales and more money

Next the mortgages are packaged together and sold as stocks on the NY stock exchange. But who would buy a stock if it was not given a AAA rating by the top ratings firms in the U.S. The stocks were given fake AAA ratings, meaning they were perfectly sound investments. These ratings firms were being paid billions of dollars by U.S. investment banks like Goldman and Sachs, who also sold the bundled mortgage stocks.



So who were the suckers that bought the stocks, normal investors, foreign investors, foreign banks and governments, cities and towns in the USA, pension funds.


And one day when the invisible ink of those mortgage contracts became visible, and interest rates and monthly payments went through the roof. This along with house prices falling in 2006 for the first time in forever, lead to many, many people, not able to pay their mortgages. And that's all it took for the entire house of cards to fall.



Soon enough the AAA rated stocks began to drop and drop and drop. And for all those companies who invested hefty sums in these AAA stocks big trouble was on the way, for some. And if your mortgage firm invested a large amount in these volatile mortgage's than you are also in trouble. And god for bid your state invested your pension in these funds, like Florida teachers.

Bear sterns crashed, their stock was went from over a hundred to ten dollars overnight. If you owned Bear Stern stock you lost. But if you owned JP Morgan stock you won.

When Bear sterns collapsed, they could not really allowed to collapse because a company that size falling could tear down the whole American economy, right? Or so we are told.



So usually the govt via the federal reserve bank (The bank lends the govt money so the govt can give it away to the bank, and the taxpayer pays the bill) will hand over money to the failing banks as kind of an economic I.V. In total close to 400 billion dollars was handed out since Summer 2007 to ensure large banks would not collapse.

Yet Bear Sterns was not given a bail out like many other banks, and like Freddie mac, and Fannie Mae will get this week. Instead JP Morgan was given a bailout in order to buy the dead Bear Sterns. Why not just give the loan to Bear? Well it just so happens that the federal reserve bank of new york, the organization who saved the day with the bail out money is run by a board, who sits at the chairmanship of the board, the CEO of JP Morgan bank. Sweet. and i know what your thinking, who else sits on the board, the CEO of Lehman brothers.

Now if you follow the situation, family cant pay mortgage, bank does not get paid, stock prices fall, banks in trouble, banks restrict loans, housing prices fall, more people in trouble.



The governments solution? Banks get bailed out with 400 billion dollars and counting, And for the people losing homes,they get bail a 2 billion dollar bailout. Why wouldn't the people losing their homes get the bailout? Wont everyone win like that? People pay mortgage, banks get their money and operate normal, stocks go up, investment firms have no problems, no one loses a home.

Yet the government, an institution set up by and for the people, once again chose to help corporations over people. This has been the choice time after time. Will it ever change?



Another theory for the govt backed bailout of large investment houses is, layed out by attorney Sean Olender, is, "The sole goal of the freeze is to prevent owners of mortgage-backed securities, many of them foreigners, from suing U.S. banks and forcing them to buy back worthless mortgage securities at face value – right now almost 10 times their market worth. The ticking time bomb in the U.S. banking system is not resetting subprime mortgage rates. The real problem is the contractual ability of investors in mortgage bonds to require banks to buy back the loans at face value if there was fraud in the origination process. "



Another issue is that home prices are depreciating so rapidly that many find it financially beneficial to simply default on there mortgage payment and lose the downpayment which was nothing. It makes sense, why pay your mortgage for a house you pay a total of 500,000 dollars for if its now worth 300,000 dollars a few months later? And California law, where home depreciation reached a staggering 40%, has laws that allow banks to keep only the deposit on defaulted mortgages.



Well the good news is that many states and towns who invested in these shady stocks are suing investment banks. For example, meryl lynch is being sued for for fraud and misrepresentation, of stocks sold to the city of Springfield Massachusetts.



The city of Baltimore sued Wells Fargo Bank for damages from the subprime debacle, alleging that Wells Fargo had intentionally discriminated in selling high-interest mortgages more frequently to blacks than to whites, in violation of federal law.



Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson has filed suit against 21 major investment banks, for enabling the subprime lending and foreclosure crisis in his city



June 2008, California Attorney General Jerry Brown sued Countrywide Financial Corporation, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, for causing thousands of foreclosures by deceptively marketing risky loans to borrowers. Among other things, the 46-page complaint alleged that:
"‘Defendants viewed borrowers as nothing more than the means for producing more loans, originating loans with little or no regard to borrowers’ long-term ability to afford them and to sustain homeownership’ . . .

"The company routinely . . . ‘turned a blind eye’ to deceptive practices by brokers and its own loan agents despite ‘numerous complaints from borrowers claiming that they did not understand their loan terms.’". . .

Underwriters who confirmed information on mortgage applications were ‘under intense pressure . . . to process 60 to 70 loans per day, making careful consideration of borrowers’ financial circumstances and the suitability of the loan product for them nearly impossible.’
"‘Countrywide’s high-pressure sales environment and compensation system encouraged serial refinancing of Countrywide loans.’"7



In a 2007 ruling in Wisconsin that is now on appeal, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman held that Chevy Chase Bank had violated the Truth in Lending Act by hiding the terms of an adjustable rate loan, and that thousands of other Chevy Chase borrowers could join the plaintiffs in a class action on that ground.




AdDiToNal fAcTs
-So far 6 lenders have failed this year

-90 banks are considered to be in trouble

-the current secretary of the treasury is henry paulson, who's last job was ceo of goldman and sachs, the only investment house not hurt by this housing bubble

-PerU-

Recently back from Peru, it was the first time i have left the country. My friends don't travel too much, Atlantic city a few times a year. My parents don't travel too often, they go down south to see my uncles a few times a year. I had many expectations and many worries, and i had some of my ideas about the world change, how could they not. For the first time things i have only read about and watched on TV i was able to see for myself.

I was there for a week but it felt like a month. I saw the rich areas, the poor areas, and the third world poor areas. But no homeless people, maybe one. I feel lucky because I saw the country with a friend who was born and raised there. I was able to see the Peru from a perspective that many have not. But I wish I learned Spanish first.

Being in a foreign country and not speaking the language, and being with one friend who spoke Spanish 95 % of the time makes you listen more than usual. It was funny to hear my friend get mixed up sometimes and talk to me in Spanish, and his local family in English.

Rich Peru-is what i saw first, right from the airport, we went to family close to Lima, the capitol. There house looked just like middle class here, nice furniture, nice TV, nice bathroom, crystal figurines, etc. In Lima we went to a major mall which was just like Roosevelt field, except more busy, much more busy, and outside they had people selling homemade items from all areas of Peruvian culture. A little outside of Lima we saw this new, really fancy beach tourist attraction. It was a mall, with restaurants, on a wooden boardwalk, a few hundred feet above the ocean. Gorgeous, and the best part was this is where i heard the most English being spoken. When you are in a Spanish speaking country and you speak with one person in English, and all of a sudden you run into many English speakers, they feel like family.

The first thing that caught my eye was every house, store, or building, was surrounded by a tall wall or a tall metal fence. Every window had bars on it.

Poor Peru-This is where i stayed with my friend. at the end of a dirt road, a top a hill, which sucked climbing at the end of each day. What an Oder his house had. Even though we were in a poor area, chosica, some houses had nice marble tiles on the front wall of their house. At the end of his street was a dirt stair case that lead to houses that were built on a mountain. No TV, an electrically heated shower, which gave me an electric shock the first time bc i forgot to shut the electricity off before i shut the water off, note to self, try not to get shocked while in shower and wet.
The market is really cool and old school. For short trips you take a little motor scooter that is rigged with two seats in the back and covered for protection from the elements. At night some of the kids have neon lights, and spider web designs that light up, and techno music. To travel further you can take a normal taxi or a bus. For the taxi don't expect to be the only pick up, they as well as the bus stop for every person on the street to see if they need a ride. one trip into the highlands we took a bus for two hours and a car for half and hour, and we stuffed two people in the wagons trunk.

Another thing that you notice is the mountains, everywhere, most of where i was was in the middle of a valley. it was pretty gorgeous to wake up and seeing that every morning. And i was laughed at when i asked, "are those the Andes", no i was told, they are too small.

Third world poor- to get here, a town called chicklay, you take a two to 3 hour bus and taxi ride up a winding mountain pass into the highlands. One lane in each direction. Often our bus/taxi found itself behind a really slow 18 wheeler, so we inch into the oncoming traffic lane, to see if any cars are coming, and if we have enough time to go for it before there is a bend ahead that we cannot see around. Do i have to tell you we had a few close calls.

Our trip ends at 3700 meters, which by my numbers is about 11 thousand feet and it took me about two hours to stop feeling like crap from being up so high. The houses up here were not protected with high walls or metal bars. The walls and the ceiling of the house was sheets of steel, the toilet was a whole in the floor, with two bricks to use to squat, and a bucket of water outside to splash inside when done, also know as the third world flush. Dogs roamed the streets free, most of the time, stopping at home than running back out again. And the starts at night, wow, i have never seen anything like it.

The first trip up there we spend all night there, making homemade alcohol called chicha, talked, ate, drank coffee, and stronger stuff, and sat really really close to the fire bc it was feekin cold.
The second time we came up the highlands of chicklay, we hiked a mountain, and goddamn its hard to hike when you are already having a hard time just sitting at 11 thousand feet. The hike started out ok, than progressively became steeper , and the path grew narrower and closer to the edge. When we finally made it to the top i thought i would die. I never felt so shitty in all my life, yet i am so glad i finished the climb. I had two cups of coca tea, which greatly help my shitty feeling and we climbed down a few hours later. On the way up all i said to myself was i cannot wait to climb down, its gonna be easy, NOT. i have never been so focused and full of attention in all my life, well at least after the first time i slipped on the dry moving rocks, on to my ass, about three feet from the edge. I gave myself a 50-50 chance of falling right off, my legs so tight, gripping every step. I was so happy to finish, and could not wait to fall asleep that night.

The next day and one of the last days of my journey we went to Lima, off the beaten path, just think of Brooklyn to Manhattan , was to where we were to Lima. Where my friends cousins, from Lima, asked me if i wanted to try to walk through this bad area, where there was a high probability of getting robbed, cool, lets do it i say. Lucky us the town was street cleaning that day and they sent the military to help.

We got to see Lima's china town, and they do have damn good Chinese food, we went on two church tours, into the catacombs, and one church, St. Francis i think, had the oldest library in south America, from the 1500's, with gorgeous would work, and tile. We saw the presidents house, congress, the supreme court.

Going to Peru, here are some notes, the money is soles, 1dollar USA=2.70 soles, foods= anticuchos(grilled sliced cow hearts), ceviche, beef stir fry with french fries, boiled potato with cheese sauce, fresh cheese sandwich, inca cola soda, rotisserie chicken,
my most used word, was benitto, beautifull, taxi and bus don't ask how much , if you do they know your not from the area and they will charge extra, if your not sure, give em 5 soles, if its more they tell you if not you get change, local taxi's 2 soles, an hour an a half bus ride was 8 soles for two, and and hour and a half bus ride in a fancy bus was 17, ride to the airport, one hour, 75 soles,
when going to or from airport, do not use people on the street call a company in the phone book, this ensure legitimacy and better chance of safety and trust.

pictures on the way

HENRY ROLLINS ;Spoken worD

I saw Henry Rollins spoken word show last night at club Warsaw, home of polish food, in Brooklyn. Doors open at 7 , show started at 8 and we missed the exit at 7pm, and got stock in ridiculous traffic for 45 minutes going one exit just so we could turn around. You have no idea how mad i was. I cant explain it, maybe i thought i was going to be late or even worse miss the whole show, but i was fuming, the profanity swirling around in my head. I usually don't show my anger, and if i am really quite for awhile, and don't respond to people, good chance is I'm mad.



So in the end it payed off getting their late, sorta. We parked at 7:50, one block away, we found two lonesome seats ( me and my sister), in the front row, and waited 4 minutes before Henry came out. So the Universe made it happen in our favor.



A few months ago me and the sister and brother went to see Michael showalter at the music hall of williamsburg, and we got there 6:45 for a 7 pm doors opening thing, and than we sat for over and hour waiting for the show, but that show had people standing all around the edges, while Rollins was not even sold out. sidebar, sorta, michael showalter is so f--in funny. So natural. No planned segments, no jokes, just stuff i did this week and what i thought and what i thought they thought.



He does a funny segment ( OK so i lied about the segments), where he plays a song and acts out a scene from a movie. Not a real movie, a made up one, his thinking is if this song were to be in a movie what type of scene would it be made for. The first one was hysterical, he starts the scene

" i don't want to be like you dad, i have my water colors, I'm not jimmy, i will never be, we all miss jimmy". So first, you can I'm sure, assume, that the next three scenes were almost exactly the same but to different music, they all started, " i don't want to be like you dad i have my ______ blank, just to different songs. So now me and my sister are forever playing a game of filling in a sillier and silly er (not sure which one is right) blank. I suggest u try, its fun, i don't want to be like you dad , i have my lanyards, i have my matchbox cars, i have my chia pets.



The other item we adopted in our everyday life from the michael showalter show, is showing off while brushing it off as no big deal, for us at least. Let me explain. Another segment showalter did was to start off a story with, "so i was wearing my ray bands", and then goes on to tell us how expensive they were, and how many he has, but its no big deal for him. Now some brag in arrogant way and its annoying i know, Not showalter, his face, and body expressions are amazing, the way he sells the joke. Its priceless. so i suggest you try to find a clip of this on you tube because if you don't pull off the "its no big deal " body language , its gonna suck.



So Henry Rollins show was great, basically critiques life and talks about the experiences he has and his philosophy on life. Great story teller, funny, and he has had some awesome experiences. Just in Case you don't know his full bio he is the front man for two famous bands in the punk world, black flag, and the Rollins band, he writes poetry, has acted in 36 movies\TV episodes (according to imdb) including heat, he has his own interview show on ifc, which i love because so many interviewers suck today and are always cutting off their interviewee, but Henry has yet to interrupt or cut anyone of them off, which is very respectfull. and he currently tours the world doing spoken word events.



His work philosophy is to work 365 days a year, so he never falls into the habit of laying around and watching TV. He doesnt like war and is horrified at the current bush administration. He thinks the reason bush is able to do what he does is because Americans dont know the world, and the people of the world, so we should get out more and meet the world and its people. So he just gets on a plane and travels because he can, to Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Africa. As soon as he arrives at the hotel he drops his stuff off, grabs a water bottle and goes for a walk. To meet people he simply walks up to them and says hello , i am Henry , lets be friends.

He also talked about the time he met Iggy pop, diamond David lee Roth, and when he played with the rants for their last show ever. I highly recommend his show to people of all ages and people with all political affiliations.