US Bailout

Fluxus Bucks the Next Currency?

2009-03-14T21:58:00.000-07:00

In the last two days there has been a recurrent theme in conversations with friends “the value of money”. First of all, money does not have intrinsic worth. Up until the 1933, the dollar was backed by the price of gold. For instance, with gold at the price of $100 an ounce, one dollar would be worth 1/100 of an ounce of gold. For most of humanity money was tied to some kind of barter item: gold, silver, grains…

Today the Federal Reserve controls the supply of money by raising and lowering interest rates and printing money or contracting the supply of money. Using this process the Federal Reserve has pumped in a trillion dollars? (at this point I have stopped counting) to shore up the economy. This is a very simplified account of economic policy, which is way beyond my capabilities to completely understand.

Many countries use the printing of money, without intrinsic worth, to prop up their countries. For instance, my friend was talking about her parents in Greece, during WWII, using a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread. In Germany, in the 1920’s, money was used as wallpaper. If you are a Gone With the Wind fan, you might remember Scarlet O’Hara trying to sell her mothers jewelry to eat because the Confederate dollar had no value.

What happens when money returns to its ancient purpose? Bartering You get Flux Bucks. The “art” of money. Fluxus Bucks come from a movement called “mail art”. Mail art is “art” which uses the postal system as a medium. The term mail art can refer to an individual message, the medium through which it is sent, or an artistic genre. Mail artists typically exchange ephemera in the form of illustrated letters, zines, rubberstamped, decorated or illustrated envelopes, artist trading cards, postcards, artistampes, faux postage, mail-interview, naked mail, friendship books, docs, and three-dimensional objects.

In the 90’s Julie Paquette “ex posto facto” started the fluxus buck movement. Fluxus Bucks are amazing, unique creations using stamps of “dollar bills” as a background for art. Fluxus Bucks are traded around the world. In two interviews with Ruud Janssen, Julie talks about the Fluxus Buck movement. See below for the links. Fluxus bucks are shared in the mail and traded on the street. Fluxus Bucks can never be printed in vast quantities like dollars so they never lose their value.

If only I could be paid in Fluxus Bucks!

Ruud Janssen Interviewing Julie Paquette
http://mailinterviews.blogspot.com/2006/10/mail-interview-with-julie-paquette-
http://mailinterviews.blogspot.com/2006/10/mail-interview-with-julie-paquette-ex_01.html

Love is in the Air

2009-02-14T02:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I was talking to the FedEx man and my favorite UPS deliveryman, Phil. It seems as if love is still in the air even with the economy on the rocks. The FedEx man was crazed with flower deliveries—roses, roses, and roses. Roses to uncles, nieces, friends, and lovers. Roses delivered to businesses, homes, and apartments.
Love goes on even with FedEx laying off 950 workers.

What exactly do roses mean symbolically. I have always thought of Valentines roses as an expensive waste of money. Valentines Day roses are cold—they don’t smell and their perfection is stiff and unnatural. But to my surprise there is a rich history behind roses!

According to the site World Leaders in Classics Roses, “The famous nursery rhyme ‘A ring a ring of roses’ is actually reference to the great plague of London in the sixteen hundreds, the ‘black death’. The roses actually describe the red blotches that were a symptom of the disease. A ‘pocket full of posies’ refers to the bunches of herbs and flowers, possibly containing roses, that were carried to ward off the disease.” The Christian symbolism of a rose is, “There are other heraldic roses and the plant has indeed made it’s way through religious history also. Most religions believe in rose symbolism in some form or other, in Christianity the rose is associated with Mary. White roses are attributed to the Virgin martyrs and to the Virgin Mary herself and red roses represent the blood of Christ spilt on the cross and his love for mankind.”

The blood of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the black plague. Does the rose represent the cycle of life? Even the fluxus movement has been fascinated with the rose.

Gertrude Stein and the Sixties in Denmark – fluxus and performance
By Tania Ørum
In 1965, Danish writer and critic Hans-Jørgen Nielsen (at det at, to/that it to/that 1965) has a motto by “miss stein/part of poetry a part of poetry part from poetry partly with poetry ... partly poetry part poetry a part poetry”, and that several of the poems in the volume eccho her preference for the most insignificant word categories: adverbs, articles and conjunctions. Nor is it a coincidence that Nielsen’s programmatic book of essays Nielsen og den hvide verden (1968) contains an analysis of Stein’s poem “a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose”. Nielslen’s friend the Danish avant-garde composer Henning Christiansen, who belonged to the early Fluxus movement, has composed a piece based on Stein’s rose-poem and orchestrated for 28 string instruments, whose notes are determined by the form of the letters, played one by one, “like an electric newspaper”, the composer says. And a painter from the same experimental circles, John Davidsen, spent the entire year 1969-1970 on a series centrered on roses, with reference to Gertrude Stein – ranging from posters of roses /to exhibitions of living roses in varying stages of freshness and fading/ to the marketing of rose jelly.

For those of you have think that I have strayed to far from the discussion of money I would like to pose a question. Is the $787 billion dollar bailout the gift of a rose from our government on Valentines Day? Will that rose revitalize us and save us from disease or will it just hide the sink of death. To find out what the “Rose” is go to the Wall Street Journal, and read Getting to $787 Billion and find out what each petal of the rose means to you.

Is Love in the Air?

Getting to $787 Billion

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123458384689487271.html

She’s real fine my Subaru Outback

2009-02-08T20:25:00.000-08:00

She’s real fine my Subaru Outback
She’s real fine my Subaru Outback
My Subaru

Well I saved my pennies and I saved my dimes.

“My Subaru Outback” does not have the ring of “409”. The “409” bringing back memories of sun, sand, bikinis and surf—and of course freedom. My Subaru was freedom and I lost that freedom last Tuesday when I got in a wreck. One split second decision cost me my $500 deductible and $200 in rental car fees. The cost to fix the damage on my car $2700. What I thought was minor turned into major and for the next couple weeks I will not have a car.

Well I saved my pennies and I saved my dimes.

All of us spend a lot of money on cars. Every year, I spend over $2,000 in gas, auto insurance, car repairs, license fee that’s roughly $40 a week. I’ve owned my own car for 27 years that’s give or take $54,000 dollars just in upkeep. These days’s the average car costs around $20,000 dollars. What happened to “pennies and dimes”?

Maybe “pennies and dimes” is what we all think when we get our first driver’s license. All you can think about is driving your friends to school. The first all day outing with your friends. I can still remember driving to Half Moon Bay, with the sound of Journeys “Lights in the City” playing in the background. The fear of screwing up the clutch on my parents 1968 Volvo station wagon

“Pennies and dimes” turns into Porsches, Corvettes and Jaguars. “Pennies and dimes” becomes power and status. People are willing to turn their houses into piggy banks to lease a BMW. “Pennies and dimes” become Mercedes ‘Unlike any other”; Honda “The Power of Dreams”; Acura “The True definition of luxury. Yours. Acura. Precision crafted performance; Alfa Romeo, Beauty is not enough. Power for your control.

“Pennies and dimes” this year has become Hyundai, “Buy our car and if you lose your job you can return it.” General Motors and Ford are being bailed out by the government. Car dealerships are failing. People are keeping their cars and repairing them—instead of turning them at the first hint of trouble. On the TV its “$5,000 off”, employee deals, and on and on.

“Pennies and dimes” For the next couple weeks it will be “$1.75 and a $1.75” that’s what it will take to ride the bus. What will it be like to join people who do not have cars? People who may not have the money to own a car?

She’s real fine my Subaru Outback

Stunned

2009-02-04T22:56:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile since I made my last post. Septembers' crises seems just like a joke! Like something that happened in another lifetime. This gives me hope that the the daily news of bank failures, automotive industry possible failure, layoffs, $900 billion bailout plan will soon fade into a memory--a painful memory. Or at least the horrors of each day will have less impact. But in the sum total, people who have lived through this time will never forget it. Unfortunately, future generations will live to make the same mistakes. We never learn. Okay very pessimistic. We are very tough and what "won't kill us" will heal us.

On a personal note the recession is taking toll on people. Car accidents are up. I had my first accident! The first and hopefully the last. I just can't seem to focus. My thoughts are on keeping my job, saving money....on and on.

What have you been thinking about when you drive?

Is it a Bailout, Credit Crises, or Financial Crises?

2008-09-26T05:20:00.000-07:00

Google Terms Research
September 26, 2008

As every good brand manager knows it is important to keep a company name the same for brand recognition. Sometimes that name goes to the extent of exact typography: think mervyns (in bankruptcy as we speak), GreenPay Payroll, NeXT(ok this dates me—NeXT was Steve Jobs failed journey into stylish black computers in the early 90’s—the Unix software is used in the new OS operating systems—the logo was designed by the legendary Paul Rand—the genius behind the IBM logo).

In the domain world names that are short as the most desirable—in fact creating new short names is very difficult now. I can’t remember right now but I think the desirable range is 3 to 5 characters. (help me out here! a great place to buy domain names is godday.com)

Now the financial crises, bailout, credit crises, etc. is just a mess. What are we spending $700,000,000 on? Last night I tried to find the new piece of legislation introduced into Congress. This legislation has grown from 3 pages to 91 pages (that’s 7,692,307 a page) over the week. I couldn’t find anything. A librarian couldn’t find anything. So what are we spending our money on?

Write to McCain, Barack, the Federal Reserve, Senator Dodd, Senator Barney, the White House and demand complete transparency before this legislation goes any further! (See my list of contacts from an earlier post).

Credit Crises
Credit Crises Results 1 - 10 of about 3,770,000 for credit crises. (0.19 seconds)

John McCain credit crises results 1 - 10 of about 708,000 for john mccain credit crises. (0.25 seconds)

Barack Obama credit crises Results 1 - 10 of about 823,000 for barack obama credit crises. (0.14 seconds)

George Bush credit crises Results 1 - 10 of about 521,000 for george bush credit crises. (0.22 seconds)

Henry Paulson Treasury Secretary credit crises Results 1 - 10 of about 755,000 for paulson credit crisis. (0.18 seconds)

Ben S. Bernanke Federal Reserve Chairman credit crises Results 1 - 10 of about 596,000 for bernanke credit crisis. (0.24 seconds)

Bailout
Bailout Results 1 - 10 of about 8,990,000 for bailout [definition]. (0.14 seconds)

John McCain bailout Results 1 - 10 of about 2,280,000 for john mccain bailout. (0.20 seconds)

Barak Obama bailout Results 1 - 10 of about 1,680,000 for barack obama bailout. (0.33 seconds)

George Bush bailout Results 1 - 10 of about 818,000 for george bush bailout. (0.24 seconds)

Henry Paulson Treasury Secretary bailout Results 1 - 10 of about 2,100,000 for paulson bailout. (0.16 seconds)

Ben S. Bernanke Federal Reserve Chairman bailout Results 1 - 10 of about 1,220,000 for bernanke bailout. (0.34 seconds)

Senator Dodd Bailout Results 1 - 10 of about 83,700 for Senator dodd bailout. (0.19 seconds)

Senator Frank Barney Bailout Results 1 - 10 of about 71,200 for Senator frank barney bailout. (0.34 seconds)

Financial Crises
Finical Crises Results 1 - 10 of about 112,000 for finacial crises. (0.17 seconds)

John McCain Results 1 - 10 of about 896,000 for John McCain financial crises. (0.34 seconds)

barack obama Results 1 - 10 of about 1,070,000 for barack obama financial crises. (0.34 seconds)

George Bush Results 1 - 10 of about 734,000 for George Bush financial crises. (0.14 seconds)

Ben S. Bernanke Federal Reserve Chairman Results 1 - 10 of about 710,000 for Bernanke financial crisis. (0.25 seconds)

Henry Paulson Treasury Secretary Results 1 - 10 of about 630,000 for Paulson financial crisis. (0.21 seconds)

Senator Dodd Results (Ranking Republican on the Banking Committee) 1 - 10 of about 133,000 for senator dodd financial crisis. (0.33 seconds

Senator Frank Barney (House Financial Services Committee Chairman) Results 1 - 10 of about 83,100 for Senator Frank Barney financial crisis. (0.24 seconds)

Wikepedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_Crunch

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailout

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis

***Back when things were simple a Back-to-School Google Logo designed by Ouriel Ohayson in Isreal. Where is the Google fiancial crises, bailout crises, credit crises logo? Has anyone seen one?

GovTrack.us

2008-09-25T22:15:00.000-07:00

GovTrack.us is an independent tool to help the public research and track the activities in the U.S. Congress, promoting government transparency and civic education through novel uses of technology.

GovTrack is an independent, non-partisan, non-commercial website launched in September 2004, GovTrack.us was the first website whose primary goal was to provide comprehensive legislative tracking for everyday citizens and was the first congressional transparency website to embrace Web 2.0 and principles of open data. GovTrack.us was a 2006 Webby Award nominee and has been mentioned in The New York Times, the The Washington Post, and ArsTechnica. (See other mentions in the media.) Currently the site is in use by over 10,000 people a day and sends out hundreds to thousands of email updates each night. GovTrack is also a hub of legislative data that is used to power other websites, such as OpenCongress and MAPLight.

A few of the things that you can find here:

--The status of U.S. federal legislation and legislative records back to 1993.
You can search bills by name, number, and subject area, such as "nuclear energy" and "medicine".

Some things you won't find anywhere else:

--Read summaries of bills, the full text, and even track changes to the text of a bill during its life-cycle

--GovTrack has Q&A: Ask a question about a bill and see if other visitors will provide an answer.

--Voting records in the Senate and House of Representatives.

--Information on all Members of Congress.

--Use a map to figure out which congressional district you live in. Zoom in right to your street.

--Once you find your Members of Congress, you can see what bills they've sponsored, how they've voted, what committees they serve on, and you can view statistics about them, such as our political ideology meter that analyzes their bill sponsorship patterns.

GovTrack turns this information into an understandable and trackable free information resource for everyday citizens. GovTrack.us is both a research tool as well as a customizable Congress-tracker.

You can:

--Subscribe to one of the general feeds that cover all of Congress.

--Choose which areas of Congress interest you by adding "trackers".

--Legislative events matching your trackers are shown on your customized Tracked Events page.

--You can follow legislative events by subscribing to the RSS feeds throughout the site, or to a feed for all of your trackers.

--And you can have your tracked events sent to you by email each day or each week.

--You can also embed a few widgets on your own webpage to keep your visitors up to date about legislation.

The data shown on this site is assembled in an automated way from official data sources, primarily from the website THOMAS, the official website for the status of legislation run by the Library of Congress. More information on how the data is assembled is below.

Govtrack.us http://www.govtrack.us/ (visited September 25, 2008)

I DISSENT

2008-09-25T07:54:00.000-07:00

An Essay Against A Government Bailout
September 23, 2008
By: Kenneth D. Peterson, Jr.

Yet another wonderful ads by Google!

I will not go softly! There is a terrible, horrible crisis looming we are now told. But the Government will save us if only we will allow the most extravagant intervention into private affairs that this country has ever contemplated. The politicians and the media blare breathless sound bites about fear of collapse, fear of the future, fear of real estate, fear of failure. Have we forgotten that FDR said the only thing we need to fear is fear itself? Have we forgotten that six years ago when there was a similar full court press by the political and media elite to exploit our fears the reality in Iraq did not live up to the hype?

The political classes of both parties said that in the face of this unimaginable crisis they would take the weekend – imagine that, a whole weekend! – to create a Solution. The Solution must now be implemented immediately before we can even fully understand what it is. This is a classic “rush to judgment” so that we may not notice that the Solution aims to destroy the fundamental ideals of individual freedom, accountability and responsibility that our nation’s Constitution was meant to defend.

I dissent and ask that you communicate your own dissent.

Our financial situation has two issues: Liquidity and Solvency. If a bank lends money to someone and the person defaults and the collateral is not worth the outstanding loan we can call this a “bad loan.” Who should suffer the loss? Should we make the renter who lives next door absorb the loss? Should we make the shareholders of a bank that made good loans suffer the loss? This seems ridiculous! To suggest, as do our earnest politicians, that all the citizens of the United States should suffer the loss is literally nonsense. The one who must suffer the loss is the one who made the loan. Anything else is organized theft. If the bank did not inquire as to whether the borrower could repay the loan, or if it did not require an adequate equity cushion, then it must be responsible for such “stupid loans”. The same goes for those who bought those loans and thereby became the lender. The result of enough such loans should be insolvency. Moreover, a lender that leverages itself 30 to 1 and then pleads for a bailout when values fall 4% does not define a national emergency and should not be taken seriously.

I dissent.

On the liquidity side, let us first be clear that there is lots of liquidity. Money Market Funds alone have more than $3 TRILLION in them. This is a lot of money sitting at low interest rates waiting to be invested in something that will return more. Cash deposits at banks adds more. Thus, there is no fundamental problem with the amount of money around. The political elite apparently feel this money should be allocated to a better purpose. I agree from experience that lack of liquidity can have bad consequences for those who are solvent.

The lack of liquidity problem can be solved with patient money. But this is hard to come by in an atmosphere of fear. When one cannot tell whether any particular hardship is caused by illiquidity or insolvency the resulting uncertainty demands a high price for patience. Are we to imagine, however, that the people in the Treasury or Congress are somehow smarter or wiser than the people at Bank of America, Morgan Stanley or Berkshire Hathaway in differentiating the two? The real difference I see is that the political elite can force millions of innocent citizens to underwrite Government’s power trip while private parties must persuade us to freely part with our money. This is coercion, not liberty.

I dissent.

If those in Government really are smarter they would perform a greater service to the nation by starting a fund where they place their net worth at risk, along with the President, the Fed Chairman, Senators Obama, McCain, Biden and Clinton, Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Rangel and the other leaders of Congress. They can accept co-investors who trust their investment judgment and then make loans to those solvent financial institutions needing liquidity. If they can correctly differentiate between the insolvent and the illiquid they will make a lot of money, and they should. If they cannot, they will lose their equity, as they should, but at least non-investor citizens would not have been forced to bail out deadbeats and our Constitution would not be shredded!

I love the ideals America has stood for, like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I am proud that our Constitution makes us different from the EU, China, Mexico or Russia. I am not ready to sell out under panic pressure from our politicians for an “easy”, but wrong, Solution.

I dissent and invite you to join me.

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Ken Peterson graduated Phi Beta Kappa from The College of William and Mary in 1976 and from the Willamette University College of Law in 1980. He is now the Chief Executive Officer of Columbia Ventures Corporation, a private equity investor in Washington State. You can write to him at IDissent@colventures.com.

Columbia Ventures Corporation http://www.colventures.com/NoBailout/ (viewed Sept 25, 2008 ads by Google)

The Future of Financial Services: Exploring Solutions for the Market Crisis

2008-09-25T07:10:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, September 24th Bernake and Paulson presented the Bailout Plan in a sparsely attended meeting before the Financial Services Committee. Where was everyone? At the more visible proceedings in Congress?
To find out more about the meeting, see a video and download a transcript go to: http://www.house.gov/apps/list/hearing/financialsvcs_dem/hr092408.shtml

The Financial Services Committee
The Committee oversees all components of the nation's housing and financial services sectors including banking, insurance, real estate, public and assisted housing, and securities. The Committee continually reviews the laws and programs relating to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and international development and finance agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The Committee also ensures enforcement of housing and consumer protection laws such as the U.S. Housing Act, the Truth In Lending Act, the Housing and Community Development Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, the Community Reinvestment Act, and financial privacy laws. http://financialservices.house.gov/who.html

“Frank Announces new economic, mortgage and Housing Rescue Proposal”
Congressman Barney Frank , Massachusetts, the Chairman of the Financial Services Committee announced a new proposal on March 13, 2008

The proposal was created to stem the significant rise in mortgage foreclosures by allowing the Federal Housing Administration to insure and guarantee refinanced mortgages that have been significantly written down by mortgage holders and lenders. The summary of the proposed draft and the full text is available later on the Financial Services Committee website at financialservices.house.gov.

What happened to this legislation? Anybody know? It might have nipped the bud in the two-headed hydra monster, the housing market and the financial market. Obviously the the Committee knew about the problem's with Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac before the melt down.If they were supervising Freddie and Fannie what happened? Are we bailing them out because of gross negligence? What role will Frank play in the administration of TARP?

Ads by Google, September 24th

2008-09-24T09:42:00.000-07:00

Take a look at "Ads by Google" advertising on the top right hand corner of my blog. This is advertising driven by the copy on my blog. Absolutely fascinating.

A recap of "Ads by Google" at 10:00 am.

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In the Mail: WaMu Credit Card

2008-09-24T09:26:00.000-07:00

On Monday, September 22nd, I received yet another credit card offer. This one happened to be from WaMu. The offer was to transfer up to $30,000 in debt to WaMu.

Could this be a desperate attempt to create liquidity? Build cash flow?

Or should we just bail them out because of toxic assests?

Am I being paranoid? Maybe. But I will add the offer to my collection of credit crises stuff. :-)

The Golden Parachute: Carly Fiorina

2008-09-24T08:42:00.000-07:00

Here you go! Are we starting a “witch hunt”? Is every CEO going to come under scrutiny during the credit crises? What skeletons lay in Barack’s closet---former Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac CEOs?

McCain: Fiorina a 'Role Model'

Washington Post, September 24th, 2008 By Robert Barnes http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/23/mccain_fiorina_a_role_model.html

Republican presidential nominee John McCain has been on a tear of late about the exorbitant buyout packages that dismissed executives take from their companies. He has proclaimed that former Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac CEOs (and Obama supporters) Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines should "give back" the $21 million and $25 million severance packages they received. So wouldn't it seem logical that former Hewlett-Packard executive (and McCain supporter) Carly Fiorina should send back her $42-million golden parachute? Apparently not. Reminded that Johnson and Raines, like Fiorina, received the money from shareholders rather than taxpayers, McCain said: "First of all ... Fannie and Freddie, as we know, were quasi-government organizations, clearly organizations that at least made people believe, and market believe, that they were part of the federal government.'' But what about Fiorna? "I believe that Carly Fiorina is a role model to millions of young Americans," McCain said. "She started out as a part-time secretary and she ended up a CEO of one of the major corporations in America. I'm proud of her record and so I want everybody to know that Carly Fiorina is a person that I admire and respect."

McCain offers requirements for bailout support

Associated Press By BETH FOUHY – September, 24th, 2008 http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iE2JCSH5p9r2GBkQWS9TWAMzmuvQD93COM601 FREELAND, Mich. (AP) —

Republican John McCain said Tuesday that legislation is needed to bail out financial companies, but hinted he might vote against the Bush administration's $700 billion proposal unless it includes five measures he said would make it more palatable for taxpayers. "Further inaction is simply not an option," McCain said in brief remarks to reporters, his first news conference in more than a month. "We must pass legislation to address this crisis. If we do not, credit will dry up, with devastating consequences for our economy. People will no longer be able to buy homes and their life savings will be at stake. Businesses will not have enough money to pay their employees." He called the proposed bailout a "staggering" figure that amounts to a $10,000 contribution for each U.S. household, money that could otherwise be used to rebuild roads and bridges in every town in the country. To protect taxpayers, he asked for a bipartisan board to provide oversight, a plan to recover the money, a cap on compensation for executives of firms that helped by the bailout and a ban on earmarks on the legislation. McCain stopped short of saying he would vote "no" if his priorities weren't reflected. "I can't say that at this time because the emphasis should be on the adoption of these principles," McCain said. But he but pushed back on suggestions that Democrats might not support the plan if they thought McCain would vote against it and then demonize party lawmakers for favoring a massive new government program. "Somehow for Democrats to say their vote is gauged on my vote frankly doesn't do them a great deal of credit," McCain said. "Their first and only priority should be making sure this economy recovers." McCain said the financial crisis was the worst since World War II and insisted he had warned about the condition of the nation's home mortgage market as early as two years ago, when he raised questions about the accounting practices of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The federal government seized control of troubled housing giants this month. McCain has tied Democratic rival Barack Obama to Fannie and Freddie's troubles and has called on Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines — both Obama supporters and former Fannie Mae executives — to return large "golden parachute" payments they received from the corporations after leaving. But under questioning, McCain said the same standard ought not to apply to Carly Fiorina, a top supporter who received a $42 million payout after being fired as CEO of Hewlett-Packard. Under her tenure, the computer giant shed 20,000 jobs and lost half its market value. Fiorina, McCain said, "is a role model to millions of young American women ... I'm proud of her record. I want everyone to know that Carly Fiorina is a person I admire." While members of Congress have agreed in principle on aspects of the administration's proposal, many Democrats and some Republicans, like McCain, have insisted the plan deny golden parachute payments to executives at failing financial firms.

Yahoo Shine: You want our (taxpayer) money? Then limit executive pay. Now.

2008-09-24T00:02:00.000-07:00

Rise and Shine, Yahoo!
By Rick Aristotle Munarriz
March 31, 2008

This morning's debut of Shine seems to suggest that Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) is expanding its focus from emails to females. The struggling portal's attempt at launching a sex-specific site -- this one targeting women between 25 and 54 -- appears solid, with an appealing wave of initial content.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2008/03/31/rise-and-shine-yahoo.aspx

Today's Posts from Shine (scary?)

Work + Money
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
You want our (taxpayer) money? Then limit executive pay. Now.
Read the Full Article: http://shine.yahoo.com/

·
· Posted by nicole n Mon Sep 22, 2008 4:55pm PDT
It is easy to make decision with someone elses money, that is what they did for longest time. Now that they are in problem the taxpayer's money is the first one to count on. When the banks and insurance company were reporting staggering profit, did the taxpayers see the benefit No because the tax bracket for those company our less than average American.
What happen to land of oppourtunity??????????

· Posted by Diva Mon Sep 22, 2008 6:48pm PDT
I don't really understand the bailout. Why are we giving money to these companies? If this financial crisis is a result of the mortgage crisis why don't we give the money to the home buyers? I don't understand how the government is going to get a return on this investment. The bailout is not thought out. Who is going to provide the oversight? I just don't see how this is going to benefit the american people. If the government estimates 700 billion then it is going to cost the american people at least twice that amount. This is a bad debt that our children are going to pay. Why are we bailing out companies that were paying million dollar bonuses a few years ago. All of the CEO's and senior management team members are going to leave with golden parachutes.

· Posted by zanamu Mon Sep 22, 2008 9:49pm PDT
The President has said he doesn't want to "punish" anyone, presumably for poor performance. Apparently it is only on Wall Street that you get paid criminally high salaries for screwing up. Everyone else that screws up gets fired. Perhaps that is just the American way. Mayby if you make enough money for yourself, they pay you to go away. That's how Carly Fiorina wound up with all the free time on her hands to help out the McCain campaign.

· Posted by mp Mon Sep 22, 2008 11:26pm PDT
700 billion dollars is what they are asking for to bail out these companies...economy is down, becasue people have no money to spend...instead of giving the 700 billion dollars to bail out the companies..why not give it to the people, similar to the stimulus, but really a large amount of money...if you stop and think about it, the reason the economy is down is becasue people have no money to spend, give the people the money..then they would pay their mortgages, debts, open small business. if you bail out the failing companies the only ones who will get compensated are the executives of the company.

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Join the Debate-Wall Street Journal Opinion Poll

2008-09-23T23:45:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting site called:

Join the Debate

Today's question is:

Q. What do you think of the Treasury's bailout plan?

Go to wsj.com/question to participate in the poll and see the results

Wall Street Journal Opinion Section Editor Contact Information

2008-09-23T23:27:00.000-07:00

Letters intended for publication in the Opinion Section of the WSJ
should be addressed to:

The Editor,
200 Liberty St.,
New York, NY 10281,
or emailed to wsj.ltrs@wsj.com.

Please include your city and state.
All letters are subject to editing,
and unpublished letters
can be neither acknowledged nor returned

Wall Street Journal Letters to the Editor

2008-09-23T23:11:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, September 23rd

"The End of Wall Street"

"Defending the Dollar"

"Faith in Credit Ratings"

"No Golden Parachutes for Failed Managers"

"Let the Detroit Auto Makers Solve Their Own Problems"

"Blame Fannie Mae and Congress for the Credit Mess"
"Without government encouragement, banks would never have offered such dodgy loans."
By Charles W. Calomiris and Peter J. Wallison
Mr. Calomiris is a professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr Wallison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, was general counsel of the Treasury Department in the Reagan administration.

"Wall Street No Longer Exists"
Let's not look to revive an outmoded regulatory model.
Mr. Reynolds, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute, is the author, most recently of "Income and Wealth" (Greenwood Press, 2006)

Watch Your Government

2008-09-23T11:27:00.000-07:00

Here is a link from the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, "Chairman [Barney] Frank's proposal in response to the Treasury Department's plan" http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/financialsvcs_dem/press092308.shtml (or use this url http://tinyurl.com/4jo7g3 )
click on "Draft I Work in Progress" to view the PDF of the draft of legislation

Monitoring the U.S. House Financial Services Committee pages may be the most effective manner of determining the final bill status. Once the bill number has been assigned, you may track progress via THOMAS, legislative information from the Library of Congress
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.html

C-SPAN http://cspan.org/ is broadcasting the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs hearings with Secretary of Treasury, Henry Paulson, and Ben Bernanke, Chair of the Federal Reserve System among other administration officials.

whitehouse.gov, senate.gov, and house.gov pages regularly,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/economy/
http://banking.senate.gov/public/
http://financialservices.house.gov/

Contact Your Government

2008-09-23T11:26:00.001-07:00

White House Website

http://www.whitehouse.gov/index.html
Contact Address: vice_president@whitehouse.gov
comments@whitehouse.gov.

California

Rep. Pete Stark
Contact Address: http://www.house.gov/stark/
Contact Address: http://www.house.gov/stark/contact/index.htm

Barbara Boxer
Contact Address: https://boxer.senate.gov/
Contact Address: https://boxer.senate.gov/contact/email/policy.cfm

Diane Feinstein
Contact Address: http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/
Contact Address: http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.EmailMe
___________________________________________________________

USA.gov
Contact Elected Officials: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

House of Representatives

Majority Leader
Steny Hoyer
Has RSS Service
http://www.majorityleader.gov/
Contact Address: http://www.majorityleader.gov/email_and_rss/email_the_leader/

Office of the Clerk—House of Representatives
http://clerk.house.gov/index.html

Speaker of the House
Nancy Pelosi
http://speaker.house.gov/
Contact Address: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/

House Republican Leader
John Boehner
Contact Address: http://republicanleader.house.gov/Contact/

Majority Whip
http://majoritywhip.house.gov/
James E. Clyburn
Contact Address: http://majoritywhip.house.gov/contact/

Republican Whip
Roy Blunt
http://republicanwhip.house.gov/
http://republicanwhip.house.gov/Contact/

United States Senate
http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/senators/a_three_sections_with_teasers/leadership.htm

President Pro TemporeRobert C. ByrdDemocrat, West Virginia
Contact Address: http://byrd.senate.gov/byrd_email.html

Assistant Majority Leader(Democratic Whip)Richard DurbinDemocrat, Illinois
Contact Address: http://durbin.senate.gov/contact.cfm#contact

Assistant Minority Leader(Republican Whip)Jon KylRepublican, Arizona
Contact Address: http://kyl.senate.gov/contact.cfm

Majority LeaderHarry ReidDemocrat, Nevada
Contact Address: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm

Minority Leader Mitch McConnellRepublican, Kentucky
Contact Address: http://mcconnell.senate.gov/contact_form.cfm

Presidential Candidates
Obama
Senate
http://obama.senate.gov/
Contact Information: http://obama.senate.gov/contact/

Obama for America
https://donate.barackobama.com/page/content/splashsignupcky/
Contact Information: http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/contact2

McCain
Senate
http://mccain.senate.gov/public/
Contact Information: http://mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm

McCain Palin
http://www.johnmccain.com/
Contact Information: http://www.johnmccain.com/Contact/

The Federal Reserve
http://www.federalreserve.gov/default.htm
Contact Information: http://www.federalreserve.gov/feedback.cfm