I find it very ironic that taxpayers have bailed out credit card companies, car companies, and banks. The very businesses that are to help jump start the ecomony. Yet, there is very little in the way of help from these companies to the consumer from the news articles that are floating around. I find it sad that someone would contemplate hurting themselves and others because of financial difficulties. Is this the America that we have become? That we are reliant on companies as a moral compass?
I heard that one credit card company is limiting credit cards, but why would that same company send out other credit offers. I hear local car companies ask people to come buy a car but if you get laid off you can just return it without payments. This is junk.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
What the F *$&%^*%
Is this why other countries think American's are frivolous and shallow?
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- A Connecticut judge has given the brush-off to a blonde woman's lawsuit claiming L'Oreal Inc. ruined her social life when she accidentally dyed her hair brunette with one of its products. Charlotte Feeney of Stratford says she can never return to her natural blonde hue, a shock that left her so traumatized she needed anti-depressants. She says she suffered headaches and anxiety, missed the attention that blondes receive and had to stay home and wear hats most of the time. A Superior Court judge dismissed Feeney's 2005 lawsuit Monday, saying she never proved her allegation that L'Oreal put brown hair dye in a box labeled as blonde. The company also had disputed the claim. Feeney referred questions today to her attorney, David Laudano, who has declined to comment.
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- A Connecticut judge has given the brush-off to a blonde woman's lawsuit claiming L'Oreal Inc. ruined her social life when she accidentally dyed her hair brunette with one of its products. Charlotte Feeney of Stratford says she can never return to her natural blonde hue, a shock that left her so traumatized she needed anti-depressants. She says she suffered headaches and anxiety, missed the attention that blondes receive and had to stay home and wear hats most of the time. A Superior Court judge dismissed Feeney's 2005 lawsuit Monday, saying she never proved her allegation that L'Oreal put brown hair dye in a box labeled as blonde. The company also had disputed the claim. Feeney referred questions today to her attorney, David Laudano, who has declined to comment.
401 Keg Plan
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you will have $49.00 today.
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you will have $33.00 today.
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you will have $0.00 today.
If you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling refund, you will have received a $214.00.
Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle. It is called the 401-Keg. A recent study found that the average American walks about 900 miles a year. Another study found that Americans drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year. That means that, on average, Americans get about 41 miles to the gallon! Makes you proud to be an American!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Birk Recovery Plan
This guys gave a great idea - although his math was off. But i really like the idea. Why not just let the people get instead the 700Billion......
The Birk Economic Recovery Plan applying to AIG
The Birk Economic Recovery Plan applying to AIG
"Hi Pals, I'm against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG. Instead, I'm in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a We Deserve It Dividend. To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000 bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+. Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up.. So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billon that equals $425,000.00.
My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a We Deserve It Dividend. Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So let's assume a tax rate of 30%. Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes. That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam. But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket. A husband and wife has $595,000.00. What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family? Pay off your mortgage - housing crisis solved. Repay college loans - what a great boost to new grads Put away money for college - it'll be there Save in a bank - create money to loan to entrepreneurs. Buy a new car - create jobs Invest in the market - capital drives growth Pay for your parent's medical insurance - health care improves Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean - or else Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+ including the folks who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company that is cutting back. And of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.
If we're going to re-distribute wealth let's really do it...instead of trickling out a puny $1000.00 ( 'vote buy' ) economic incentive that is being proposed by one of our candidates for President.
If we're going to do an $85 billion bailout, let's bail out every adult U S Citizen 18+! As for AIG - liquidate it. Sell off its parts. Let American General go back to being American General. Sell off the real estate. Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up. Here's my rationale. We deserve it and AIG doesn't. Sure it's a crazy idea that can 'never work.' But can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party! How do you spell Economic Boom? I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion We Deserve It Dividend more than I do the geniuses at AIG or in Washington DC. And remember, The Birk plan only really costs $59.5 Billion because $25.5 Billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam. Ahhh...I feel so much better getting that off my chest..
Who is to Blame for the Mess Today
Are you as mad as i am? well we should be - but it also means we should be mad at ourselves at being complacent. My frient sent me this blurb and while i may not agree with it all it certainly makes for interesting conversation.
The Money Masters: How International Bankers Gained Control of America
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue oftheir currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and thecorporations which grow up around them will deprive the people of all propertyuntil their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathersconquered." Thomas Jefferson.
"A great financial economist and historian called Michael Hudson talksabout how the US economy is basically fictitious, based on pretend earnings andpretend values. This will only genuinely become a crisis of capitalism whenpeople generally become aware that much of the growth and prosperity produced bycapitalism is a fiction, and if the consensus about where the real global valuelies shifts radically.
In other words, if people stop believing that apparently wealthy countries actually are producing wealth." Hari Kunzru, NovelistMay I FedEx YOU $50,000?
Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and a compliant mediaassures everyone that the wondrous actions of our wise leaders are being takenfor our own good, you can know with absolute certainty that disaster is aboutto strike. The events of the past week are no exception. The bailout package that is about to be rammed down Congress throat isnot just economically foolish. It is downright sinister. It makes a mockery of our Constitution, which our leaders should never again bother pretending is still in effect. It promises the American people a never-ending nightmare ofever-greater debt liabilities they will have to shoulder.
Two weeks ago,financial analyst Jim Rogers said the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Macmade America more communist than China! "This is welfare for the rich," he said. "This is socialism for the rich. It's bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters."
That describes the current bailout package to a T. And we're being told it's unavoidable. The claim that the market caused all this is so staggeringly foolish that only politicians and the media could pretend to believe it. But that has become theconventional wisdom, with the desired result that those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable consequences - predictable, that is, to those who understand sound, Austrian economics - are being let off the hook.
The Federal Reserve System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather than the culprit, in this mess! * The Treasury Secretary is authorized to purchase up to $700 billion inmortgage-related assets at any one time. That means $700 billion is only the very beginning of what will hit us. * Financial institutions are "designated as financial agents of the Government." This is the New Deal to end all New Deals. *
Then there's this: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." Translation: the Secretary can buy up whatever junk debt he wants to, burdenthe American people with it, and be subject to no one in the process. There goes your country. Even some so-called free-market economists are calling all this "sadly necessary." Sad, yes. Necessary? Don't make me laugh. Our one-party system is complicit in yet another crime against the American people.
The two major party candidates for president themselves initiallyindicated their strong support for bailouts of this kind - another example of the big choice we're supposedly presented with this November: yes or yes. Now, with a backlash brewing, they're not quite sure what their views are. A sad display, really. Although the present bailout package is almost certainly not the end of the political atrocities we'll witness in connection with the crisis, time is short. Congress may vote as soon as tomorrow. With a Rasmussen poll findingsupport for the bailout at an anemic seven percent, some members of Congressare afraid to vote for it. Call them! Let them hear from you! Tell them you will never vote for anyone who supports this atrocity.
The issue boils down to this: do we care about freedom? Do we care about responsibility and accountability? Do we care that our government and media have been bought and paid for? Do we care that average Americans are about to be looted in order to subsidize the fattest of cats on Wall Street and in government? Do we care? When the chips are down, will we stand up and fight, even if it means standing up against every stripe of fashionable opinion in politics and the media? Times like these have a way of telling us what kind of a people we are, andwhat kind of country we shall be. In liberty, Ron Paul
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Who is to blame....as written on CNN
By Nell MinowSpecial to CNN
Editor's Note: Nell Minow is editor and chair of The Corporate Library, an independent research company specializing in corporate governance. Minow was named one of the 20 most influential people in corporate governance by Directorship magazine in 2007 and "the queen of good corporate governance" by BusinessWeek Online in 2003. She has written more than 200 articles and co-written three books. Since 1995, Minow has also written "Movie Mom," an online parents' guide to "media, culture and values."
Nell Minow says it's great when executives make a lot of money but only if they really earn it.
As big Wall Street firms topple like dominoes, there is plenty of blame to go around.
Failure this broad and deep takes a village, and regulators, lawyers, compensation consultants, auditors, executives, shareholders, and the press all played a part. But the people who are most responsible for the massive meltdowns of these institutions are the boards of directors.
Their sole responsibility is to act as fiduciaries for the shareholders in managing risk. They not only failed to perform this task but indeed, in their approval of outrageous pay plans with perverse incentives, they all but guaranteed the current disaster.
I am a capitalist. I love it when executives earn boatloads of money. But it infuriates me when they get it without earning it.
If the executives' compensation is tied to the volume of business rather than the quality of business, we should expect dealmakers to be more attentive to the number of transactions than the value they create. This is the basis for much of the sub-prime mess, whose collateral damage is taking down the biggest firms on Wall Street.
At Merrill Lynch, former CEO Stanley O'Neal received total compensation of more than $91 million for 2006, according to The Corporate Library's calculations. He was given that package based on performance numbers that came out before nearly $23 billion in write-downs by the company.
O'Neal received more than $160 million in stock and retirement benefits while shareholders lost more than 41 percent of their investment value over the year. Three executives brought in to Merrill less than a year ago will share a $200 million payment as they turn over the company to Bank of America in a last-minute deal to help it survive.
American International Group (AIG) replaced CEO Martin Sullivan after the company posted losses for two consecutive quarters totaling $13 billion. Sullivan's contract entitled him to about $68 million. His replacement, a board member who served as CEO for three months before the company was taken over by the government, will get as much as $7 million.
The boards of directors approved pay that was completely disconnected to performance. This, after all, is the world of the ultimate oxymoron: the "guaranteed bonus." So we should not be surprised that executives took the money and ran.
Fewer than 13 percent of public companies have claw-back policies requiring executives to return bonuses based on inflated numbers. All of the incentives are for them to inflate the numbers, take the money, and run.
And that is why companies whose names used to be synonymous with stability and trustworthiness will live on through history and business school case studies as discredited, greedy and corrupt.
The people who insisted that government regulation interfered with the perfect efficiency of the markets are now getting bailed out by taxpayers with some walloping welfare checks.
I just hope that this time the government does a better job of protecting itself than it did with its bail-out of Chrysler almost 30 years ago and this time insists on a piece of the upside rather than a fixed repayment. If the government is going to run a business, it has to act like a business and make sure its interests are aligned with the executives.
Don't Miss
AIG bailout upsets Republican lawmakers
Commentary: How we got into this money mess
Commentary: Don't repeat Fannie, Freddie mistakes
In Depth: Commentaries
Despite the post-Enron adoption of the most extensive protections since the New Deal, a survey released this week by Kroll and the Economist Intelligence Unit found that corporate fraud rose 22 percent since last year.
The option back-dating and sub-prime messes show that even the post-Enron Sarbanes-Oxley reform law and expanded enforcement and oversight cannot eliminate the severest threats to our markets and our economy.
This proves that there are limits to structural solutions. Ultimately, markets are smarter and more efficient than regulation. What the government needs to do now is insist on removing obstacles to the efficient operation of market oversight.
Shareholders must be able to replace directors who make bad decisions and they should have a non-binding "say on pay" vote on executive compensation as they do in the UK and several other countries.
Our current system of executive compensation does not tie pay to performance, it does not provide an effective incentive to create long-term shareholder value, and it does not meet any possible market test.
Executive compensation must be looked at as any other asset allocation. The return on investment for the expenditures on CEO pay is by any measure inadequate.
Some have argued that the amounts at issue are so small in proportion to the assets being managed that they do not have any material impact. On the contrary, the CEO compensation in America's public companies is a leading indicator of serious problems -- and one reason my firm has consistently given most financial services companies "high-risk" ratings.
And it is more than a symptom of the pervasive problem that is toppling our most respected financial services companies. It is a perversion of the market that imposes enormous and growing costs on America's working families -- as shareholders, customers, employees, and members of the community.
These outrageous pay packages juxtaposed with losses in share value and jobs diminishes our credibility and increases our cost of capital. In today's global economy this is an expense we clearly can no longer afford.
Editor's Note: Nell Minow is editor and chair of The Corporate Library, an independent research company specializing in corporate governance. Minow was named one of the 20 most influential people in corporate governance by Directorship magazine in 2007 and "the queen of good corporate governance" by BusinessWeek Online in 2003. She has written more than 200 articles and co-written three books. Since 1995, Minow has also written "Movie Mom," an online parents' guide to "media, culture and values."
Nell Minow says it's great when executives make a lot of money but only if they really earn it.
As big Wall Street firms topple like dominoes, there is plenty of blame to go around.
Failure this broad and deep takes a village, and regulators, lawyers, compensation consultants, auditors, executives, shareholders, and the press all played a part. But the people who are most responsible for the massive meltdowns of these institutions are the boards of directors.
Their sole responsibility is to act as fiduciaries for the shareholders in managing risk. They not only failed to perform this task but indeed, in their approval of outrageous pay plans with perverse incentives, they all but guaranteed the current disaster.
I am a capitalist. I love it when executives earn boatloads of money. But it infuriates me when they get it without earning it.
If the executives' compensation is tied to the volume of business rather than the quality of business, we should expect dealmakers to be more attentive to the number of transactions than the value they create. This is the basis for much of the sub-prime mess, whose collateral damage is taking down the biggest firms on Wall Street.
At Merrill Lynch, former CEO Stanley O'Neal received total compensation of more than $91 million for 2006, according to The Corporate Library's calculations. He was given that package based on performance numbers that came out before nearly $23 billion in write-downs by the company.
O'Neal received more than $160 million in stock and retirement benefits while shareholders lost more than 41 percent of their investment value over the year. Three executives brought in to Merrill less than a year ago will share a $200 million payment as they turn over the company to Bank of America in a last-minute deal to help it survive.
American International Group (AIG) replaced CEO Martin Sullivan after the company posted losses for two consecutive quarters totaling $13 billion. Sullivan's contract entitled him to about $68 million. His replacement, a board member who served as CEO for three months before the company was taken over by the government, will get as much as $7 million.
The boards of directors approved pay that was completely disconnected to performance. This, after all, is the world of the ultimate oxymoron: the "guaranteed bonus." So we should not be surprised that executives took the money and ran.
Fewer than 13 percent of public companies have claw-back policies requiring executives to return bonuses based on inflated numbers. All of the incentives are for them to inflate the numbers, take the money, and run.
And that is why companies whose names used to be synonymous with stability and trustworthiness will live on through history and business school case studies as discredited, greedy and corrupt.
The people who insisted that government regulation interfered with the perfect efficiency of the markets are now getting bailed out by taxpayers with some walloping welfare checks.
I just hope that this time the government does a better job of protecting itself than it did with its bail-out of Chrysler almost 30 years ago and this time insists on a piece of the upside rather than a fixed repayment. If the government is going to run a business, it has to act like a business and make sure its interests are aligned with the executives.
Don't Miss
AIG bailout upsets Republican lawmakers
Commentary: How we got into this money mess
Commentary: Don't repeat Fannie, Freddie mistakes
In Depth: Commentaries
Despite the post-Enron adoption of the most extensive protections since the New Deal, a survey released this week by Kroll and the Economist Intelligence Unit found that corporate fraud rose 22 percent since last year.
The option back-dating and sub-prime messes show that even the post-Enron Sarbanes-Oxley reform law and expanded enforcement and oversight cannot eliminate the severest threats to our markets and our economy.
This proves that there are limits to structural solutions. Ultimately, markets are smarter and more efficient than regulation. What the government needs to do now is insist on removing obstacles to the efficient operation of market oversight.
Shareholders must be able to replace directors who make bad decisions and they should have a non-binding "say on pay" vote on executive compensation as they do in the UK and several other countries.
Our current system of executive compensation does not tie pay to performance, it does not provide an effective incentive to create long-term shareholder value, and it does not meet any possible market test.
Executive compensation must be looked at as any other asset allocation. The return on investment for the expenditures on CEO pay is by any measure inadequate.
Some have argued that the amounts at issue are so small in proportion to the assets being managed that they do not have any material impact. On the contrary, the CEO compensation in America's public companies is a leading indicator of serious problems -- and one reason my firm has consistently given most financial services companies "high-risk" ratings.
And it is more than a symptom of the pervasive problem that is toppling our most respected financial services companies. It is a perversion of the market that imposes enormous and growing costs on America's working families -- as shareholders, customers, employees, and members of the community.
These outrageous pay packages juxtaposed with losses in share value and jobs diminishes our credibility and increases our cost of capital. In today's global economy this is an expense we clearly can no longer afford.
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