Government Follies Post #3

One thing that's all over the news here in the NYC area is a referendum before the Nassau County taxpayers to fund a new arena to replace the old Nassau Coliseum. The owner of the NHL's Islanders, Charles Wang, has said he will move or sell the team if Nassau County doesn't provide his team a new stadium.

It seems like every professional sports team pulls this stunt, or tries to, at some point. Why do these multimillionaires think the public is supposed to build them a place of business? Do you ever hear of Walmart threatening to relocate one of their stores because the local government won't provide a new building for their business? If Charles Wang wants a new stadium, he should build one. Period.

Government Follies Post #2

I was all set to rant about how all this stupid political posturing in Congress was about to create financial chaos, when lo! the sparring parties managed, somehow, to put aside their ideologies and agree to some kind of compromise. Of course, the sticking point were these Tea Party rookies who haven't yet learned that in strong winds, grass survives because it bends, while trees stand stiff and resist the wind and thus they break.

Earlier tonight I saw some talking-head show where one of the Tea Party rookies naturally said, "Hey, it wasn't us, it was the oldsters who've been there 30 years who made this mess." And yeah, he was right. The underlying mess wasn't created by the Tea Party rookies. But if everybody stuck to their guns, with no chance for compromise, millions of people who did all the things they were supposed to do, and contributed to the Social Security kitty all those years, would have been told, "Sorry, we can't pay you." And the military members who the Tea Party people seem to think they emulate would have gone unpaid also.

Of course, it's not really over just yet. Everybody still has to vote, and let's face it, little bits of the crisis they're supposed to be trying to prevent will still come to be. The US economy, and the US government itself, will not stop on a dime. It's more like one of those oil supertankers that need thousands of feet to make even the smallest course changes.

And, for what it's worth. a balanced budget is mandatory. There's no way it can just be pushed aside. But adding a constitutional amendment saying the budget must be balanced cheapens the Constitution. You don't have to add an amendment in order to do it. Just... do it.

Richest Man in Gotham: Mayor Mike

I've always felt, for some reason, that it can't be a healthy sign when the elected leader of any jurisdiction is its wealthiest citizen. How could he relate to the common people? Would he even try, or would he be biased towards his fellow "-illionaires"?

For example, when Silvio Berlusconi was first elected prime minister of Italy, he was already the country's richest man. But Italy is probably a special case; it has never really coalesced since its consolidation as one country back in the 1870s, as evidenced in its parade of governments since the abolishment of the kingdom after World War II. Italian leaders can see their coalition fail because the PM sneezed without covering his mouth or used the wrong fork at a state dinner.

Then we come to Mike Bloomberg, mayor of New York City. He was already a billionaire when he was first elected, so in order to not threaten his holdings in Bloomberg LP he agreed to take a salary of $1 a year. Immediately I began to figure that NYC residents should only expect a dollar's worth of governance. But my assessment looks like it might have been wrong, at least in the beginning. He actually turned out to be, if not a great mayor, at least pretty good at seeing issues that need to be addressed and actually doing something about them. I guess years of experience as a CEO, rather than as a politician, will do that for a guy.

But it also seems me that years of being a billionaire CEO has distanced him from the common people. He can come across as very callous when speaking of the difficulties that working people might have with his policies.

Now it comes out in Forbes magazine's latest poll of the richest Americans that, apparently, Bloomberg is now the richest man in NYC and the eighth richest in the US. In fact, he is now one of the twenty richest people in the world. Not just New York City, or New York State, or even the United States. The world. But during 2008, when the bottom was falling out of the housing market, the credit market, and the financial sector, leading to people losing their jobs and companies closing down in all kinds of industries, what was Bloomberg doing?

He was busy working on a way to get around term limits, which the people of New York City had voted to keep in place. Twice. And now he's busy slashing the budget on services that New Yorkers need. Where's the concern for the people who put him into office? Where's the common touch? You would think he would at least be a little concerned how it looks when the richest man around is playing Scrooge with the public's money while swimming in his own.

It's pointed out in the comments to the first article referred to above that "if Bloomberg were to give each New Yorker $1000 out of his own personal coffers, he would still have $10 billion left." Not that anyone is seriously expecting the mayor of New York City to start bailing out ailing New Yorkers from his own huge stash of cash, but then he did say that, when he left office, he was going into philanthropy. (Oh yeah, but that was back when we thought he was going to honor the people's wishes and go away after his duly elected terms were up...)

Disclosure: I am not a resident of New York City, but of neighboring Westchester County. I am also not running for office anywhere, or giving support to anyone running. I just had to put this out there.

MORE Bonuses for AIG?!

Let's see...
The federal government (that is, We the People) owns 80% of AIG...

AIG is in the process of doling out $165 million in more bonuses...

And, according to the Treasury Department, nothing can be done about it?

That's ridiculous. AIG got over $100 billion in federal bailout funds. That means the people charged with managing the company did not do a good job, by any measure. Bonuses are supposed to be a reward for doing a good job. So, why are these people getting bonuses? More to the point, why is AIG getting federal money?

I say, cut off the bonuses, and let it be known that that's just the way it is. If these people want their bonuses that bad, well, since AIG (standing in for We the People) claims to be contractually bound, make the execs sue the government for the money. Such a lawsuit is bound to be covered as much as possible by the media. Maybe the extra scrutiny is all that's needed to make them fall back and make do with the millions they've already been paid.

AIG also says they'll "work on reducing bonuses in future years by 30%," but they can and should be made to do better than that. As long as the government has a stake in the company, in fact, there should be no bonuses. Make that their motivation for getting the company back on the right track.

To be fair, AIG did not fall into such a deep hole only because of the stupid bets they made with their policyholders' money -- the hole got deeper after AIG started falling, but the company itself dug the original hole. AIG insures the banks and financial service companies that all fell so hard throughout 2008, so they would have landed hard no matter what. AIG is also one of the companies that has to cover the loss for airlines whenever a plane goes down. AIG actually insures ("reinsures") insurance companies. But they wound up falling into the hole in the first place, not because of any of that, but because they violated a cardinal rule of the insurance business: do not risk policyholders' money. When an insurance company begins making high-risk investments in the same mad grab for cash that endangered Wall Street, well, we've all seen the result. In this case, it means the government winds up owning 80% of what should by most accounts have been a private company gone bust. After all, AIG may be a huge company, but it's not the only reinsurer. If it had gone under, there are plenty of insurers that could have taken up the slack. The interim would have been quite bumpy for the policy holders, particularly for the airlines (at least it seems that way for me). Watching such a big company go bust, though, would have sent a message to other companies -- namely, that they shouldn't think they're somehow entitled to a bailout from the Feds. Now, of course, because of all the money that's been handed out, there's that much more anger from the public, because the fat cats have been bailed out but the general public, the ones who are out of work and competing with millions more people for the few jobs available, are only getting crumbs.

And then Dick Cheney goes on TV and says that the Bush administration shouldn't be blamed for the mess "that was handed to the Obama administration." Well, who handed it to them? And who made the policies that created the mess? Cheney also said that the previous administration "achieved all its goals in the campaign in Iraq." Well, that can be true only if its goals included enriching Cheney's friends in the military-industrial complex, companies like Halliburton, and Bechtel, and of course the oil companies that are making billion-dollar deals in Iraqi Kurdistan (I'll add the link when I find the Forbes.com article).

It's Been Way Too Long (part one)

What with a governor trying to auction off President-elect Obama's Senate seat, the New York media trying to anoint Caroline Kennedy as Hillary Clinton's successor in Congress, Ponzi scammer Bernie Madoff (the fifty-billion-dollar man), the government throwing billions of dollars after companies that will probably collapse anyway, and God knows what else means I would have had plenty to write about -- but I've had some personal issues that kept me from posting. But the news that some person going by the handle of Fishgrease Jenkins is being blamed for encouraging shootings in Brooklyn (like the ones in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn last night) and attempting to defend himself that finally pushed me to go ahead and post something.

First off (and in no way am I suggesting this is most important): ¡¿FISHGREASE?! Of all the things this thug could have chosen to call himself, he couldn't come up with anything better than ¿Fishgrease? But then, judging from that lightweight ringtone-jingle of a rap he calls "I'm from East New York," Fishgrease is probably about as original as he can manage. (Why do these rappers all try so hard to sound just like everybody else?)

I do have to say, though, that it's kind of a knee-jerk reaction, to make a scapegoat of this one video and its apparently challenged author for five people being killed in Brownsville. Unfortunately this is all too common in Brooklyn and anywhere people can easily get guns, and see them as the go-to method for settling "disputes."

Blagojevich: Jay Leno's been calling him "Governor Sonofabitch," and understandably so. And yet the governor says he did nothing wrong, I'm guessing because no actual money changed hands. But if there are FEDERAL wiretap recordings proving that he was soliciting offers for Obama's former Senate seat, how can he claim innocence? Conspiracy is just as much a crime as bribery, in case you didn't know, Governor...

Bailout: Speaking of Leno, he's been making a good point about this bailout situation -- the government was all too quick to throw billions of dollars at the financial "industry," when all they really do is move other people's money around. But when it came to the car manufacturers, who actually make and sell a physical product, they're hemming and hawing. Rightfully so, since the Big Three car companies have waved their wastefulness and arrogance in everyone's faces -- flying to Washington separately in corporate jets to beg Congress for money -- but it would have made a lot more sense if Congress had been as cautious with Wall Street as they're being with Detroit. And notice that, when it looked like whatever help they got from Congress would come with conditions, Ford suddenly didn't have an immediate need for the money. So why were they there begging for it?

And now the sports industry is getting into it. Sports teams have a long history of raking in millions of dollars during the season and then, when they decide they want/need a new home, they beg their home city and state for help. Why would the New York Yankees, about to move into a brand-new stadium, be in need of help if they can afford to set aside $420 million-plus for three players? I know this amount is a multi-year commitment and not a one-time expenditure but still, if you have that kind of cash to hand out, why should you get any money out of We the People?

And why isn't the federal government forcing sports teams to give back any naming-rights money from banks and other financial-industry players getting bailout money? The naming rights money doesn't nearly match what the bailouts will add up to, but every dollar these companies get back from the sports teams is a dollar the Treasury Department (that is, We the People) won't have to dole out.

Journey of a Thousand Miles

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Today I start my journey.

• I am now 42 years old, and I'm renting a bedroom in a friend's apartment because at the moment that is all I can afford, though I've been working for 24 years now.
• I just negotiated what I hope will be an acceptable payment schedule with a law office representing a collection agency representing a bank that took over another bank that I opened a credit card account with twelve years ago. The balance is three times the set credit limit of the account I opened, because of long-standing delinquencies. From that time until now I could probably have paid the account many times over, except for a very old habit of letting things go until, and often way past, the last minute.
• Because of this longstanding habit, my credit rating is somewhere in the 400s. I'm driving a six-year old car that was probably meant to last only five, and only God knows what will happen when it needs major repairs, or when it gives out completely and I try to get another car.

With all that said, I'm stating my goal now: to buy a house. It won't happen this year, or next. It may not happen until sometime in the next decade, if then. In all likelyhood it will be a repossessed or foreclosed house, a fixer-upper, or something along those lines. And it may even turn out to be, not a house, but a condo or a co-op apartment. And it may very well turn out to be somewhere outside the NYC area, where I was born and have lived all my life. But I'm making it my goal to get a house or something owned in my own name in order to significantly improve my financial situation. I don't want to be rich, but it's time for a change.

I'm tired of just scraping by.

I've been saying that to myself for some time now, but now I will start putting myself on the spot by saying it to others. The part about buying a house I may keep to myself for awhile...

I've also been saying for years that I wanted to start some kind of business, and I've researched just about every manner of business that could be started and run by mail-order and possibly online, but up until now really haven't taken any steps to put the research to work and get something, anything, off the ground. Today, that changes.

What prompted this decision? Well, it’s been on my mind for awhile now due to the chronic near-brokeness, for one thing. But the decision kind of made itself last night, while I was out driving around and around my new neighborhood trying to find somewhere to park. I was thinking, "if I had my own house, with a garage or at least a driveway, I wouldn't have to be out here wasting time circling the neighborhood looking for a space."

In any situation you can never predict just what the "last straw" will turn out to be, but I think that was it. When I was in my former neighborhood, I had the same problem, since only about every third house had a driveway or garage. I swore that my next apartment would be somewhere with more parking. That didn't happen.

But it will.

Notes from the road

(reposted from my soon-to-be-defunct blog on the Jazzyville message board)

I've been in Indiana for the past few days for a funeral, and seeing the conditions my uncle is living in (and with), and hearing about his past from him and from my parents, some thoughts come to mind:

• To paraphrase the Bible, "What you can do, do while you can." My uncle has all kinds of health problems but no health insurance because, well, he's kind of averse to work. He got hurt while he was able to work but not working and not looking, and now he can't get any help. He gets help with his prescriptions, but it's a few drops in the bucket.


• To quote Rick James, "Cocaine is a hell of a drug." Stay away. Nuff said. (I don't really know what his "drug of choice" was, or even if "was" is the right word. But you get the point.)


• Same with alcohol. Too much is too much, never mind that "you can handle it."


• If you are injured (or get sick) due to others' actions, take advantage of every resource available to you to get the care you need as soon as possible, not after ten years have gone by. The help won't be available, and the problems will be much worse.


• Try, try to position yourself in some kind of positive surroundings. Gary, Indiana is one of the most depressing places I have ever seen up close. I've seen some beautiful houses across the street from dilapidated, boarded-up places that would keep the value of the good houses down and make the owner a bit nervous about some of his neighbors (depending, of course, on what he/she does for a living... )

I'm sure I could come up with more, but it's almost midnight, and I'm typing this on a computer in a Comfort Inn lobby on my way back home...

Not Really News, But...

...When my union's website dedicates an entire page to Wal-Mart and how they muscle vendors into either redoing their whole business model (and giving up profits) in order to keep Wal-Mart's prices low, including laying off workers and sending jobs overseas, I have to take note of it.

The Wal-Mart You Don't Know (posted at www.CSEA9200.com; article originally published in Fast Company, December 2003, page 68

Excerpt: "The giant retailer's low prices often come with a high cost. Wal-Mart's relentless pressure can crush the companies it does business with and force them to send jobs overseas. Are we shopping our way straight to the unemployment line?"

The CSEA Unit 9200 site includes much more info about Wal-Mart and how it's bullying vendors and costing American workers their jobs and/or fair wages: Wal-Mart Awareness

Tom Joyner, are you reading this? You're all about supporting causes benefiting African-Americans, but who (among others) do you think is hurting when your favorite retailer is causing jobs to be sent overseas and driving companies out of business? Or have you been paid to NOT mention certain kinds of things that would point a finger at them?