RANT: Boston Red Sox owners in a racial mess

Thursday, February 16, 2012

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Boston-Red-Sox-owners-have-a-big-problem—-racism-139431293.html

Boston Red Sox owners have a big problem — racism
Liverpool’s American owner now has some big decisions to make
By PAUL LARKIN, IrishCentral Contributing Writer
Published Thursday, February 16, 2012, 7:49 AM
Updated Thursday, February 16, 2012, 10:17 AM

*** begin quote ***

The Guardian reports that the banking group Standard Chartered, which pays £20m a year for having its name on the Liverpool kit made strong representations to the club after the game expressing its extreme displeasure at the way its image was being dragged through the mud.

The banking group, which has a high profile in Africa and the Middle East then took the unprecedented step of issuing a public statement effectively condemning the club it sponsors:  “We were very disappointed by Saturday’s incident and have discussed our concerns with the club,” John W Henry, and chairman, Tom Werner, are scheduled to visit Liverpool next week  for commercial and sponsorship reasons but it is now unthinkable that they will decline to issue a statement about the racism displayed by one of their own high profile employees and the tenacious support that was shown to that employee by a club they own.

Many Irish people are asking whether things would ever been allowed to go so far if a Red Sox player had behaved the same way.

*** end quote ***

I don’t know why, serendipity maybe, but I watched the very exciting game —  Manchester United versus Liverpool — and saw the refused handshake. At the time, I thought “Wow, their athletes are as big an <an anal opening surrounded by a sphincter> as ‘ours’!”

I didn’t realize the US connection.

I’m sure the corporate sponsor will clear this up in minutes. I can here it now: “Why don’t you pick up your check on your way out. And, don’t let the door hit you in the <synonym for donkey> as you leave.”

It was a good game. Drama equivalent to our standard fare.

Of course, the controversy intruded into a good product.

I also watched the Australian version of their baseball World Series. It to was good; not controversy.

# – # – # – # – #  2012-Feb-16 @ 12:32  Boston Red Sox owners

Leave a Comment » | Ranting | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

MONEY: Is Retirement Just Too Dang Risky?

Thursday, February 16, 2012

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2012/02/08/is-retirement-just-too-dang-risky/

Is Retirement Just Too Dang Risky?
Wednesday, 8th February 2012 (by Robert Brokamp)

*** begin quote ***

3. Savings to the rescue…or not.I won’t trot out all the stats about how people don’t save enough, or how the baby boomers, as a group, are entering their golden years with too little gold (that is, net worth — I’m not suggesting that every retiree hoard the shiny metal). That’s bad enough. My concern is that for these (often-too-meager) savings to last, investment markets have to cooperate, and, as we’ve seen over the past decade or so, they often don’t. I’m not predicting Armageddon or anything like that; most of my longterm savings are in the stock market. But investing can be risky; we just don’t know for sure how much a certain stock or even a bond will be worth a decade or two from now. Yes, you can play it safer with CDs or Treasuries, but only if your money will last as long as you do — and keep up with inflation — while earning 2%.

*** end quote ***

Funny, he stumbled on my hot button. Gold. Specifically bullion. Silver. Even nickels!

On FBC, there’s an add where the retired couple goes to their bank to get their retirement savings and the teller gives them stacks of blank paper.

Maybe my depression era grandparents are too much on my mind, BUT, (and there is always a BIG butt), they loved cash and savings.

I remember the Metropolitan Life guy calling on my grandmother when I was being watched for my Mom. (Maybe I was 4 or 5?) And, she pay him some small amounts for “insurance” on a whole bunch of people. “Eddie”, my paternal grandfather, would called to pay for “his relatives”, and he’d come out with his Chock Full A Nuts coffee can where he had “his change”. He had gold coins in that. I remember they’d argue cause “he was going to jail if the government found out he kept them”. (Wonder what ever happened to those?) And, later, I remember she’d go weekly to the Harlem River Savings Bank, to put something away or even just to have her interest “put in the book”.

Argh!

And you wonder why I have a tin foil hat?

So, even some of the most conservative financial writers don’t spurn 5 – 10% in “metals”. Of course, they mean “paper” (e.g., a gold ETF).

How did that work out for the counter-parties of MF Global?

Imagine my favorite mental experiment? Henry Hackel’s “box of money.” or my mythical pirate’s’ chest. “Open that pirate’s chest and what do you want to see: greenbacks, Confederate currency, or gold coins?”

At the very least, every time, you go to the bank, buy a roll of nickels. 2$. Put them at the back of the “junk closet”. Even today the melt value is 7½¢ each. How can you go wrong?

Argh!

Lest you hit retirement and one of the many risks in this article comes to pass. You’ll always have your “bullion” stash. Your own personal “pirate’s chest”.

And, no estate tax if I am wrong.

# – # – # – # – #  

Leave a Comment » | MONEY | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

INTERESTING: Attack at the Heart Attack Grill

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2101399/Customer-suffers-cardiac-arrest-eating-
Triple-Bypass-Burger-restaurant-called-Heart-Attack-Grill.html

Diner suffers cardiac arrest while eating a Triple Bypass Burger in restaurant called the Heart Attack Grill
* Paramedics wheel man in his 40s out of restaurant’s Las Vegas branch   
* He was eating a 6,000-calorie burger when he suffered a heart attack   
* Triple Bypass Burger contains three slabs of meat, 12 bacon rashes, cheese, red onion, sliced tomato and ‘unique special sauce’
By Graham Smith
Last updated at 11:10 AM on 15th February 2012

# – # – #

There’s something “funny” about the guy having a heart attack at the Heart Attack Grill.

# – # – # – # – #

Leave a Comment » | INTERESTING | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

RANT: CSFB stupid “security theater”

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

OBVIOUS STUPIDITY!

Call up to find out where my pension check is.

Called, went through all the automated questions, and then the operator comes on after a short wait and asks me for my password.

What password?

(Ignores the concept that a “password” is a shared secret. If I knew and told her, then it’s no longer a secret. And, a static password! Please. Even Google two factor authentication is better.)

So we can do anything without them mailing me a new temporary password.

Now envision that I sent them in all my paperwork by certified mail and suggest that number as an authenticator. Or that they call me back. Or that they send me a fax or an email.

Argh!

And, who says that US Mail is secure, unless it’s sent certified mail. (We know they won’t do that because it costs more.)

# – # – # – # – #  2012-Feb-15 @ 13:32

 

 

Leave a Comment » | Ranting | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

RANT: Cleaning the “housing” stable

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/02/a-modern-pecora-commission-could-right-wall-street-wrongs/

A modern Pecora Commission could right Wall Street wrongsEmail this post Print this post
By Barry Ritholtz – February 5th, 2012, 8:00AM

*** begin quote ***

• MERS: Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems was created by banks without any authority or enabling legislation. 
• Origination fraud: Why did lenders accept “stated income” loans? Why did they abandon traditional standards? 
• RMBS: Wall Street’s securitized mortgage pools (residential mortgage-backed securities) contained a broad variety of flaws, some so egregious that they amounted to fraud. 
• Insurance fraud: Look at a bank tactic in which legitimate home insurance is canceled and new insurance provided at a substantially higher fee through a subsidiary or affiliate of the bank mortgage holder. 
• “Pyramid” servicing fees: An illegal practice in which current payments are applied to past late fees, generating more late fees and additional interest owed and creating a delinquency where none existed. 
• Lost mortgage notes: How is it possible that the most important part of the mortgage contract — the promissory note — was consistently lost or misplaced by banks? 
•Document fraud for sale: There were many examples of alleged document fraud, but the one crying out for investigation involves Lender Processing Services’ DOCX subsidiary. 
•False affidavits, perjury (robo-signing): We do not know who ordered the robo-signing of foreclosure documents, the false notarizations, fraudulent written statements to courts and perjury. 
• Foreclosure mills, process servers: Law firms engaged in rampant fraud that corrupted the foreclosure process. 
• Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act: Federal law protects active-duty service members from foreclosure and eviction.

*** end quote ***

It would seem that these are easy to find, easy to investigate, and easy to get a conviction on.

As a notary, I’m insulted by most of these items.

There’s no excuse for prosecutors at all levels for them not doing their jobs!

# – # – # – # – #

Leave a Comment » | Ranting | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

ECONOMICS: True “National Debt” is 211+T$

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/06/139027615/a-national-debt-of-14-trillion-try-211-trillion

A National Debt Of $14 Trillion? Try $211 Trillion
by NPR Staff
August 6, 2011

*** begin quote ***

When Standard & Poor’s reduced the nation’s credit rating from AAA to AA-plus, the United States suffered the first downgrade to its credit rating ever. S&P took this action despite the plan Congress passed this past week to raise the debt limit.

The downgrade, S&P said, “reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics.”

It’s those medium- and long-term debt problems that also worry economics professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff, who served as a senior economist on President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers. He says the national debt, which the U.S. Treasury has accounted at about $14 trillion, is just the tip of the iceberg.

“We have all these unofficial debts that are massive compared to the official debt,” Kotlikoff tells David Greene, guest host of weekends on All Things Considered. “We’re focused just on the official debt, so we’re trying to balance the wrong books.”

Kotlikoff explains that America’s “unofficial” payment obligations — like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits — jack up the debt figure substantially. Laurence J. Kotlikoff served as a senior economist on President Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers and is a professor of economics at Boston University.

“If you add up all the promises that have been made for spending obligations, including defense expenditures, and you subtract all the taxes that we expect to collect, the difference is $211 trillion. That’s the fiscal gap,” he says. “That’s our true indebtedness.”

*** end quote ***

It’s simple. The “game” is rigged against the little guy. So why do us “little guys” still allow ourselves to be fooled?

Stupidity!

It’s like the old joke about the accountant keeping two sets of books!

“Plus shipping and handling”. Like the TV offers that are bait ‘n’ switch. The politicians and bureaucrats throw around deficit, debt, and “cuts” that cut nothing.

Time is running short.

What happens when the Chinese and the rest of the world cut us off. Credit card declined!

I didn’t realize what some unknown executives at AT&T and CSFB by making the defined pension plans fully funded separate legal entities. There was no funny business. Pensions were a sacred trust. The money was taken and invested prudently so that now I’ll get my benefit for the rest of my life.

We’ve “cheated” Social Security recipients, and various Federal and State workers. They are going to get <synonym for the past tense of the procreation act> because the contributions have been stolen by past politicians and bureaucrats to buy votes.

Argh!

We need an honest accounting. Just how bad is it? I know in the Pepuls Republik of Nu Jerzee, guvs of both parties have not funded the pensions. That’s just wrong. If a private company did that, the execs would be in jail. Why are the guvs and bureaucrats exempt?

Argh!

# – # – # – # – #

 

Leave a Comment » | ECONOMICS | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

RANT: The sad truths of addiction; the “(pseudo) War on (some) Drugs” doesn’t help

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

http://www.xojane.com/entertainment/whitney-houston-dead

ON THE DEATH OF WHITNEY HOUSTON: Why I Won’t Ever Shut Up About My Drug Use
When Whitney died, I wasn’t surprised: women are using drugs all around you, and I’m one of them. Now why am I not allowed to talk about it again?
Cat
Feb 13, 2012 at 9:00am

*** begin quote ***

Remember Michael Jackson in his “This Is It” rehearsals? He looked good and he sounded good, and then he was getting put under anesthesia every night. Don’t you remember those horrible tapes?

It would be wonderful if we lived in a world free of drugs and drug addiction, but we don’t. In the end, the addict will die of overdose, of disease, or serious self-neglect, and half the time, you won’t even see it coming for her. So I am telling you that there are people all around you with one foot in the door—where you see them—and one foot out, where you can’t.

For a long time, it was like that for me: one foot in the door, the other out—and it could easily get there again. We all thought Whitney was better. She wasn’t.

*** end quote ***

The “(pseudo) War on (some) Drugs” distracts us from the real problem.

Legalization would allow addicts to fund their habit cheaply and allow “us” to identify them. Then, we can get them the help they need.

Triage.

While we may not be able to save everyone, we can minimize the collateral damage.

And, the accidental deaths.

# – # – # – # – #

Leave a Comment » | Ranting | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

GOLD: Asian gold theft crisis in the UK

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/31/gold-theft-asian-families

The great Asian gold theft crisis
With its value at a record high, gold has never been more attractive to thieves. Now burglars with metal detectors are targeting the homes of British Asian families for their collections of high-quality ‘Indian gold’ jewellery
Emine Saner        Emine Saner        guardian.co.uk
Tuesday 31 January 2012 15.00 EST

*** begin quote ***

Five weeks ago, she came home one evening to find the door ajar. The downstairs floor of her house was relatively untouched but upstairs the bedrooms had been ransacked – drawers opened, wardrobes emptied, clothes and belongings scattered everywhere. “It was such a huge shock,” she says, sitting on the sofa, her voice breaking slightly. Her husband, Mr Rashid (neither want to give their full names), a big man sitting across the room, shakes his head. “They took it all,” he says.

The thieves who broke into this semi-detached house in Earley, near Reading, stole around £70,000-worth of gold jewellery. To those who are not from a south Asian family, it might seem remarkable to own so much valuable jewellery, but families such as the Rashids (Mr Rashid runs a small business) live in ordinary houses and are not particularly wealthy. Their gold collection – elaborate necklaces, rings, earrings and bangles – is treasure that has been handed down from generations of their families in Pakistan or bought as wedding gifts. It’s our savings, our security, says Mrs Rashid, visibly upset. If, in future, the family needed money, they would have sold some pieces. “It’s like paying a mortgage for 20 years and then having a house worth thousands of pounds afterwards – it’s the same thing with gold,” she says. “Our parents gave it to us, we would have given it to our children, they would have given it to their children,” says her husband. They tried to put their gold in the bank, but “there were no lockers available. Everyone is looking for one.”

*** end quote ***

Camouflage!

You have to not look like a victim. And, make it hard to find.

Crazy that you can’t be secure in your own home.

Tie that back to the UK’s dole, gun laws, and generally tolerant attitude towards crime.

# – # – # – # – #

Leave a Comment » | GOLDBUG | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

RANT: YouTube behavior.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Any one notice an odd behavior from YOUTUBE? Latest Taylor Swift video was uploaded. I have YOUTUBE email me on anything new. (Yeah, old fool recapturing his youth?!) And, I received some “interesting” error messages. First was  “mobile not authorized” and second was “this video private”. But google’s cache delivered it?

Strange?

#####

Getting stuff input from an IPAD is difficult at best.

# – # – # – # – #  2012-Feb-13 @ 23:38

Leave a Comment » | ADMINISTRIVIA | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

POLITICAL: Sarah hits a “home run” with her CPAC speech

Monday, February 13, 2012

http://bcove.me/yxrja47l (video)

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/palin-on-obama-wtf (story)

Posted Feb 11, 2012 5:37pm EST

*** begin quote ***

Washington, D.C. — A few protesters mic-checked Sarah Palin’s keynote speech at CPAC today but didn’t last long. Nothing could touch Palin, who had the crowd on their feet for large portions of her speech.

The protesters in the back of the room yelled “Mic-check!” and were immediately greeted with a standing crowd — and Palin herself — chanting “USA, USA.” Security quickly whisked them out of the room.

“We just won — see how easy that is,” Palin said after they’d gone.

And at least in terms of reception, she did win today. Palin’s speech got the biggest reaction of any at CPAC — much more so than any of the presidential candidates. The audience gave her standing ovation after standing ovation and some even yelled “Run Sarah run!” — more telling of the GOP field’s inability to connect with voters than any poll.

*** end quote ***

An inspiring lady! I only agree with her on about ½ the issues, but I like her, her presentations, and her enthusiasm. And, I think she’s not a phony. Unlike the others, other than Ron Paul, who are “white men speaking with forked tongue.” Her writers really polished her message nicely with Rolling Thunder, Don’t Tread On Me, Red – White – and – Blue Americans, To Big To Bear Any More, and my favorite WTF “Win The Future” — “and, I’m the idiot”. About 35 inspiring minutes. Reminded me of RWR40 (Ronald Reagan).

# – # – # – # – #

Leave a Comment » | Political | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by reinkefj

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »