should american tax payer dollars go to financing facebook

facebook, the unprofitable company with 265 million users and the flimiest of business plans is in search of $100 million dollar to finance it’s growth over revenue business strategy. apparently the 100 million dollar infusion it got last year wasn’t enough. the company run by a 24 year old with zero business experience is looking at bank of america (which has borrowed money from the federal government) for assistance, according to business week.

do americans think their money is being tossed down one big black hole? you betcha.

senators who voted to deregulate banks

it was november 1999 and the following shows how senators voted to deregulate the u.s. banking industry (see below). this 90 u.s. senators voted yes to deregulating the banking industry. this list includes the following names: nancy pelosi, joe biden, chris dodd, evan byah, kit bond, and diane fienstein. the act is called the bank modernization act.

Alphabetical by Senator Name
Abraham (R-MI), Yea
Akaka (D-HI), Yea
Allard (R-CO), Yea
Ashcroft (R-MO), Yea
Baucus (D-MT), Yea
Bayh (D-IN), Yea
Bennett (R-UT), Yea
Biden (D-DE), Yea
Bingaman (D-NM), Yea
Bond (R-MO), Yea
Boxer (D-CA), Nay
Breaux (D-LA), Yea
Brownback (R-KS), Yea
Bryan (D-NV), Nay
Bunning (R-KY), Yea
Burns (R-MT), Yea
Byrd (D-WV), Yea
Campbell (R-CO), Yea
Chafee, L. (R-RI), Yea
Cleland (D-GA), Yea
Cochran (R-MS), Yea
Collins (R-ME), Yea
Conrad (D-ND), Yea
Coverdell (R-GA), Yea
Craig (R-ID), Yea
Crapo (R-ID), Yea
Daschle (D-SD), Yea
DeWine (R-OH), Yea
Dodd (D-CT), Yea
Domenici (R-NM), Yea
Dorgan (D-ND), Nay
Durbin (D-IL), Yea
Edwards (D-NC), Yea
Enzi (R-WY), Yea
Feingold (D-WI), Nay
Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
Fitzgerald (R-IL), Present
Frist (R-TN), Yea
Gorton (R-WA), Yea
Graham (D-FL), Yea
Gramm (R-TX), Yea
Grams (R-MN), Yea
Grassley (R-IA), Yea
Gregg (R-NH), Yea
Hagel (R-NE), Yea
Harkin (D-IA), Nay
Hatch (R-UT), Yea
Helms (R-NC), Yea
Hollings (D-SC), Yea
Hutchinson (R-AR), Yea
Hutchison (R-TX), Yea
Inhofe (R-OK), Yea
Inouye (D-HI), Yea
Jeffords (R-VT), Yea
Johnson (D-SD), Yea
Kennedy (D-MA), Yea
Kerrey (D-NE), Yea
Kerry (D-MA), Yea
Kohl (D-WI), Yea
Kyl (R-AZ), Yea
Landrieu (D-LA), Yea
Lautenberg (D-NJ), Yea
Leahy (D-VT), Yea
Levin (D-MI), Yea
Lieberman (D-CT), Yea
Lincoln (D-AR), Yea
Lott (R-MS), Yea
Lugar (R-IN), Yea
Mack (R-FL), Yea
McCain (R-AZ), Not Voting
McConnell (R-KY), Yea
Mikulski (D-MD), Nay
Moynihan (D-NY), Yea
Murkowski (R-AK), Yea
Murray (D-WA), Yea
Nickles (R-OK), Yea
Reed (D-RI), Yea
Reid (D-NV), Yea
Robb (D-VA), Yea
Roberts (R-KS), Yea
Rockefeller (D-WV), Yea
Roth (R-DE), Yea
Santorum (R-PA), Yea
Sarbanes (D-MD), Yea
Schumer (D-NY), Yea
Sessions (R-AL), Yea
Shelby (R-AL), Nay
Smith (R-NH), Yea
Smith (R-OR), Yea
Snowe (R-ME), Yea
Specter (R-PA), Yea
Stevens (R-AK), Yea
Thomas (R-WY), Yea
Thompson (R-TN), Yea
Thurmond (R-SC), Yea
Torricelli (D-NJ), Yea
Voinovich (R-OH), Yea
Warner (R-VA), Yea
Wellstone (D-MN), Nay
Wyden (D-OR), Yea

here are the Nays teased out. there are only 8 of them. plus one ‘Not Voting’ (john mccain). and one present (fitzgerald, who is no longer an illinois senator).

NAYs —8
Boxer (D-CA)
Bryan (D-NV)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Feingold (D-WI)
Harkin (D-IA)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Shelby (R-AL)
Wellstone (D-MN)
Present – 1
Fitzgerald (R-IL)

Not Voting – 1
McCain (R-AZ)

this has been posted twice before. but only with a link. the link tends to mysteriously change on the senate voting page. curious that.

bill clinton repeal of glass stegall and the financial crisis

this was originally posted spetember 2008.

the glass steagall act passed during the depression era, tightly regulated the u.s. banking system. it stood the country in good stead for about 70 years –until bill clinton signed the bill in 1999 which repealed the glass steagall act.

according to an article in the new york times, from 1995, robert rubin, treasury secretary at the time, is on record as saying the clinton ‘administration continues to favor allowing banks to merge with insurance companies as well as securitites firms.’

the 1999 financial services modernization act, written by phil gramm, who had been advising john mccain up until this past july, was passed by both houses of congress and signed by bill clinton in the same year, the new law effectively repealed glass steagall and the bank holding act of 1956 which prohibited financial companies from owning banks and insurance companies.

glass steagall prohibited the merging of banks, securities firms, and insurance companies, while the financial services modernization act allowed for huge financial conglomerates.

both nancy pelosi and joe biden voted yes on repealling glass stegall on november 4, 1999 as did chris dodd and and bill clinton signed the bill into law one week later. barack obama was in the state senate at the time, so his hands are clean. and john mccain abstained from voting.

the gramm-leach-bliley act, also known as the financial services modernization act of 1999, passed the senate 90-8 and the house 362-57 on november 4, 1999.

i will continue to post variations of this post every few days or at least every few weeks. it is important for people to know where the blame lies. and it is squarely on the shoulders of congressional members from the 90s and especially bill clinton.

celebs admit they can’t write, need help with twitter

twitter is all about expressing oneself in 140 characters or less. it’s like the motorola pagers that americans (and nobody else around the globe) embraced during the 1990s. this online version of the pager at least doesn’t charge you by the character. celebs like 50 cent, who doesn’t even know how to spell his own name, confess to using ghost writers to compose their tweets.

brazil president blames blue-eyed white people for global crisis

president luiz inácio lula da silva apparently failed to clarify the role of green-eyed white people. but it is believed that his message got across to uk prime minister gordon brown, who was standing next to the brazil president when he made his comments in portugese. although he did not directly agree with the president it should be noted that prime minister brown did not 100% dismiss this assertion. the financial times quotes the president of the largest country (population-wise) in south america, and an economic powerhouse in its own right, as saying, ‘This crisis was caused by the irrational behaviour of white people with blue eyes, who before the crisis appeared to know everything and now demonstrate that they know nothing.’

worst james bond film ever now on dvd

in honor of ‘quantum of solce’ (aka, the worst james bond film ever) having been released on dvd worldwide this month. we would like to post some of the reviews of this film and refer you to the comment sections where time and time again fans say, that this is by far the worst james bond film ever, with ‘casino royale’ (the daniel craig version) being the second worst and daniel craig himself being the worst.

about a decade ago, there was a documentary on the bond films that was basically about the late cubby broccoli. and his offspring who took over from him said the only instructions he ever gave them was, “don’t fuck it up.” and well, it looks like they have.

the last two films have abandoned all that made bond the film that bond fans loved to see opening weekend. bond is like a rugged wolverine type. there’s no ’shaken not stirred’ martini, Q is gone, money penny ist weg, the gadgets have disappeared, and bond no longer utters the phrase ‘bond, james bond.’ all the fun has been completely sucked out of the films as the producers go in search of the jason bourne fans.

the independent says it best. “macho bond is fun free.” the daily mail calls this sad excuse for a bond film, the quantum of nonesense. this london times interview actually is an okay interview. but you need to scroll down to the bottom to read the scathing fan reviews.

frank rich writes angry obama editorial

generally rich’s opinion pieces in the new york times are pro-democrat left-tilting screeds. today he seems a little like an angry democrat given to populism. impressively, he takes a page from this blog and goes out of the way to point out that timothy geithner, while at the fed, was one of 3 people who let lehman brothers fail yet saved bears stern and so on and so forth. that he was president of the new york federal reserve means that geithner deserve a considerable bit of blame.

it’s also great that someone with a major newspaper has finally fingered the clinton administration (bill clinton, larry summers, and robert rubin) as haven been complicit in deregulating the banking industry in the 1990s. but what about all the others who voted for it including joe (i live in delaware where most corporations are incorporated to avoid paying state taxes) biden, and nancy pelosi.

jade goody dies of cervical cancer

there’s a lot of stories about this uk reality t.v. star turned celebutante who died today. she was the much despised ’star’ of the uk version of big brother. and then celebrity big brother.

in the endless reams of articles that have poured out over the past few months since jade goody was diagnosed with cervical cancer, there seem to be a big hole in the coverage. yes, her situation has pushed the NHS in the uk to consider screening women under 20 for this disease. this disease as seen, can be fatal, and is generally contacted by highly sexually active women. if you read this bit in the guardian, it explains how the disease is contacted. with the most important lines being “The evidence shows, however, that the more often somebody picks up the virus (picked up via a sexually transmitted disease that causes cervical cancer), particularly if they have many sexual partners, the higher their risk that HPV will trigger cervical cancer.” there’s no conversation about abstinence. or questions about teen sex. how many sex partners did ms. goody have? is it unfeeling to ask? could be good information. as she lived and died in public, it doesn’t seem to be a question that should be put off limits. we know that the whole abstinence thing didn’t really work with bristol palin. but for someone to die at 27, it could’ve been a good question for the british media to have asked.

meredith kercher tried to phone mother

according to a news report on fox news. meredith kercher, the british coed who was murdered almost 2 years ago while studying in italy. may have tried to ring her mothere while she was being attacked. american, amanda knox (aka, foxy knoxy) and her boyfriend italian raffaele sollecito, are on trial for murder. a third suspect was found guilty last year and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

james franco goes for mfa at columbia; fingerpointing in natascha richardson accident about to start

does one need an mfa to write? and how uncouth are columbia students that they feel the need to stalk a minor celebrity.

apparently the plug was pulled on natascha richardson, the wife of liam neesen aka the voice of the lion in the chronicles of narnia, died yesterday. and an autopsy is to be performed. the women fell during a ski instruction on a baby slope in canada. who knew canada had ski slopes. no matter. having not really thought about natasha richards in years, if ever, it is a sad unfortunate story. i can only think of the first ’south park’ movie where the kids sing the refrain ‘blame canada.’ but from what one can tell, it was a freak accident and the candians followed the script.

elisabeth fritzl tells horror story via video; josef fritzl confesses

yesterday and apparently one day prior, a video testimony from elisabeth fritzl and her brother was given in front of a jury. today, josef fritzl, the man who cried about his lost childhood, confessed to the charges.

josef fritzl cries as he talks about his mother

in the bild zeitung article, josef fritzl talks about his childhood and his mother, saying ‘Ich war ein ungewolltes Kind.’ i was an unwanted child. it seems that people the world over have an on going fascination with the elisabeth fritzl and the fritzl family chronicles.

the moral of this whole story is that well, family members and neighbors can never be too curious. especially if a family member mysteriously disappears.

lost in austen mini-series comes to the u.s.

how to pick up your sorrows during the financial crunch. for girls. they might try watching the mini-series,‘lost in austen’ produced by the bbc which has been available in europe for quite a while, but comes to the u.s. in april. the comedy stars jemima rooper, who plays an avid reader of all that is jane austen, especially ‘pride and prejudice.’ during the course of the film she is transported into the book, switching places with elisabeth bennet. rooper, with her geometric hair cut is somewhat annoying up until she exclaims that she has 25K pounds per year and insists that mr. darcy remove his coat and dive into the lake, rising slowly prior to exiting. the film also stars alex kingston.

anyway. this is for all you mad jane austen fans. we predict that any day now, those austen throwback laura ashley dresses will become all the fad. once again re-echoing the recessionary style of the early 1990s. austen for girls. grunge for boys. a laura ashley watch has been officially declared.

for men (or women) itching for new technology and anxious to upgrade their decaying computer but caught in the financial/credit crunch, considering purchasing the low cost, LG mini-laptop. while some refer to these systems as ‘internet laptops.’ the LG has a wide keyboard, giga and gigabytes of hard drive. and you can stick the finger to microsoft by making use of ‘open office,’ which comes with the system. these systems are great for airport travel. –especially if one has to change plans multiple times or stand in line for hours to get through customs at gatwick or london heathrow.

timothy geithner gay?

burried in the financial times’ review of the new book ‘house of cards’ is a quote from the book ‘house of cards’ which alludes to the new u.s. treasury secretary (aka the man who pays his taxes many years too late), timonthy geithner’s sexuality. you can read the excerpt at the wall street journal.

well, if eric holder is being touted as the first black attorney general and barack obama as the first black president, why hasn’t someone issued a press statement regarding geithner, a man who may possibly be (if it’s true) the first homosexual u.s. treasury secretary. or perhaps he’s actually not. not gay or not the first gay treasury secretary. the previous one was the first christian scientist treasury secretary. thank god he didn’t need a blood transfusion while he was in office.

rumours aside, geithner is under pressure for having held a press conference last month during which he looked exremely uncomfortable while revealing absolutely nothing regarding his plans to stabilize banks and prop up the u.s. financial system. this in turn sent the stock market into a long slide well below the levels that had been reached last november.

the lack of respect for geithner is starting to surface. bbc world reported today on the group of 20 meeting of finance secretaries in london. when refering to a joint photo being taken, the journalist pointed out the uk chancellor of the exchequer and noted that the french finance minister was sitting on his left yet conveniently neglected to mention timothy geithner who was sitting on his right.

geithner, former president of the new york federal reserve, is part of the trioka which includes bernanke and the former treasury secretary, henry paulson, who had the misguided notion that it would be okay to let lehman brothers fail last september, thereby basically handing barack obama the presidential election.

apparently, according to the new yorker, Geithner rejected a proposal to turn Lehman into a commercial bank, which Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were allowed to do soon after Lehman’s failure.

wall street journal exaggerates obama’s unpopularity

this article in the wall street journal, written by douglas e. schoen and the right leaning scott rasmussen, take information from the rasmussen report. there’s an excess use of the word ‘just.’ and ‘only.’ such as, ‘only one third agree’ or ‘just 19.’ the article also notes that barack obama has lost most of his republican support. does he mean david brooks from the new york times? is he even a real republican?

is the internet making us stupid

is the internet making us stupid? or just poor spellers? have you ever had a conversation with a friend or foe on IM only to toss out a tad of information. and wait for them to cross reference it in google prior to responding? while some of the aforementioned is not actually brought up in this bbc 4 radop podcast, it does seek to answer the question whether the young people have the capacity to actually read a book. even if it’s on the soon to be defunked kindle.

this week’s cover story on the weekly standard poses a similar question about facebook. which is definitely making people stupid.

obama looks like he needs a cigarette

this is sort of a part 2 from the daily telegraph (or perhaps a part 3 or 4) regarding the mishap that was gordon brown’s visit to the oval office last week. you know. the one in which, the obama’s gave brown, a half-blind man with a PhD a box of DVDs that included copies of ‘the wizard of oz’ and ’star wars’ and failed to give gordon a state dinner.

france cuts sales tax on restaurant meals

this recession must really suck. you know things are bad when high tax france cuts taxes. the sarkozy run government has cut the sales tax on restaurant meals to 5.5%.

the bad thing about this guardian article linked to here on this blog, is that the journalist fails to identify what the value added tax (sales tax) was prior to this cut.

consumer spending more than 70% of u.s. GDP

burried in this gloom and doom story on the wall street journal is the number 70.5%. that’s consumer spendings normal percentage of u.s. gross domestic product. a few months back, sean hannity of fox news fame, was whining about how it was more than 60%. well, 70.5% is a whole lot more than 60%. that’s more like, it’s more than 70% of GDP.

highspeed rail coming in fits and burps to the u.s.

i believe it was christopher caldwell, writing in the financial times who pointed out that the initial stimulus package that passed the u.s. house of representatives (before it went ’round a second time) neglected to allocate spending for a highspeed rail network. this was pointed out on ‘a blog about whatever’ as well.

well, apparently $28B has been allocated to this endeavour, according to the washington post. but is that really enough money to lay track from coast to coast and create a hub and spoke system on the ground that would rival what delta has in the air?

young business leaders without profitable companies asked to save economy

the white house invited people like ev williams, founder of twitter for a summit of young business leaders. well aside from ivanka trump, whose acquired her fortune the old fashion way, via inheritance, most of the other companies like the aforementioned twitter have neither a business plan nor profit. perhaps it could be a better idea to have a summit consisting of young engineers. and by that, we don’t mean computer engineers. but people who actually make real tangible stuff. because the u.s. needs to rebuild its manufacturing base in order to provide jobs for the many americans (and this number is growing) who can’t afford to pay $80K to attend a 4 year school.

gordon brown and the wizard of oz

uk prime minister gordon brown was apparently snubbed by the new u.s. administration this week. to add insult to injury, brown, who is essentially blind in one eye, has a PhD and was formerly chancellor of the exchequer, was given a box of dvds which included star wars and the wizard of oz. perhaps he was mistaken for the queen. hopefully they are all region 2.

gordon brown snubbed by obama

that’s what the brits think. read the 375 comments and counting on the daily telegraph website. no lunch. no enthusiasm. no special press conference with british flags. maybe obama really is a friend of david cameron. he did seemingly bond with him last summer. the best comment on the post thus far is by old school esq: “It’s called being ruthless. You get what you want and then you move on. And it’s the American way.”