Musician Of Note - Chris Thomas King

From the review of Chris Thomas King’s Rise by Steve Leggett on Pandora.com:

New Orleans musician Chris Thomas King lost both a home and a recording studio when Hurricane Katrina had landfall at the close of summer in 2005, and it's hardly startling that his album Rise takes Katrina and the devastating aftermath of the storm as a central theme. The result is a tremendously elegiac outing, and even when King goes up-tempo, as he does on a cover of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi," the song itself is all about incalculable loss and the incredible indifference of contemporary America to its own personal history. Things are drowning and washing away in song after song on Rise, and King isn't afraid to name names. In "Faith," the song's narrator clings to a rooftop as bodies float by and he realizes that President Bush is in a plane over New Orleans in the same instant, and it is a powerful moment that literally defines the notion of differing perspectives.

Revelations, from the CD Dirty South Hip-Hop Blues performed at Radio City Music Hall by Chris Thomas King:

Wars Against Evil

From How McCain Stays Popular Despite Supporting Disastrous Wars By Ira Chernus:

McCain is offering us the war in Iraq just the way Ronald Reagan offered us the war on drugs. Both are wars that can never be won in any practical sense. But it's not about winning. It's about keeping up the fight. Because in both cases the "war" is theater. It's a show of moral clarity and certainty. And the show must go on.

The "war on drugs" has been going on for decades now. Every year it claims thousands of jailed victims and several billion of our tax dollars. No one who looks at the evidence can seriously think that all this will actually stop people from using drugs illegally.

Paul Krugman Revisited

From Things to Come by Paul Krugman (published March 18, 2003):

What scares me most, however, is the home front. Look at how this war happened. There is a case for getting tough with Iraq; bear in mind that an exasperated Clinton administration considered a bombing campaign in 1998. But it's not a case that the Bush administration ever made. Instead we got assertions about a nuclear program that turned out to be based on flawed or faked evidence; we got assertions about a link to Al Qaeda that people inside the intelligence services regard as nonsense. Yet those serial embarrassments went almost unreported by our domestic news media. So most Americans have no idea why the rest of the world doesn't trust the Bush administration's motives. And once the shooting starts, the already loud chorus that denounces any criticism as unpatriotic will become deafening.

The Liberal Media At Work

From CBS report on "mind-numbing" national debt made no mention of Republican-led Congress' years of deficit spending on Bush tax cuts, Iraq:

Further contributing to the national debt are the Bush tax cuts. According to a recent analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), based on Joint Committee on Taxation and Congressional Budget Office estimates: "Through fiscal year 2007 tax legislation enacted since 2001 has had a direct cost of $1.3 trillion." The CBPP analysis continued, "Because these tax cuts were not paid for, they are also generating substantial increases in the national debt. The additional debt now being built up will persist even if the tax cuts are allowed to expire on schedule."

You Don't Buy Something If You Don't Understand It

From Who's to blame for the mortgage mess? by Michael Brush:

But even if we don't know when it will end, we're getting a much better idea of whom to blame. It's a collection of regulators, Wall Street titans and too-smart number crunchers who were supposed to be providing adult supervision. Instead, they chose either to enrich themselves or to look away as others did. Below is a rundown of the worst offenders.

No. 1: Alan Greenspan
In his best-selling book, Alan Greenspan describes how well he managed the economy during an "age of turbulence." Unfortunately, he's largely responsible for the current dose of it.

No. 2: Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo
None of this would have been possible without the help of mortgage lenders willing to go along with the charade. There are many of them, but I'd cite Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo as one of the most egregious.

No. 3: Christopher Ricciardi
Mozilo and the rest of the subprime lenders couldn't have underwritten all those dodgy home mortgages without having a way to sell them and get them off their books. In this effort, they got a hand from our next culprits: the crafty bankers who created a Wall Street debt machine that repackaged subprime loans so they could be sold to investors.

No. 4: Ralph Cioffi and Jim Kelsoe
The masters of the CDO universe on Wall Street couldn't have gotten very far without willing investors who stood ready to buy the repackaged subprime debt. There was no shortage of buyers because these instruments offered a tempting higher yield.

No. 5: The ratings agencies
Money managers may have been blinded to problems with debt instruments backed by subprime mortgages because of their hunger for higher yields. But in missing the cues, they also got a hand from the credit-ratings agencies, which get paid to evaluate debt products and make a call on the likelihood of default. The three big ones are Standard & Poor's, Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings.

No. 6: Mortgage brokers
Home buyers should have known better than to get into adjustable-rate loans they couldn't afford when interest rates reset higher. But I'd single out another party in the industry for the most blame: the mortgage brokers.

And, of course we can always blame the lawyers:

The lawyers drawing up the mortgage-loan contracts deserve honorable mention as culprits. They could have done a far better job of telling home buyers what would happen when mortgage rates reset, believes Joe Stegmayer, the chief of Cavco Industries (CVCO, news, msgs), which sells manufactured homes.

"The lawyers were drafting contracts that were so complicated, they knew home buyers were not going to read them," he says. "So why not have a summary sheet that says 'You are signing an adjustable-rate mortgage, and the rate probably will go up by this amount.'"

The Dysfunctional Class

From Rich Men Behaving Badly By Daniel Gross:

In the underclass, unmarried, young fathers don't take responsibility for their children. In the overclass, twice-married, middle-aged Wall Street daddies don't own up to the consequences of their insane financial miscues. Wall Street titans are almost incapable of seeing the problem with taking nine-figure payouts in years in which their stocks plummet. "There's just a total disconnect between the compensation and the responsibility for their actions," says William Cohan, a former Lazard banker turned author.

What Gives Mainstream Americans The Creeps?

From Why The "A" Word Won't Go Away by Tom Flynn:

If I’m right that secular humanists can’t avoid the atheist label, we should be honest with ourselves about the trouble it brings. Atheism gives mainstream Americans the creeps. They recoil viscerally from the seeming emptiness of living in an authorless cosmos and from what they imagine the absence of God would mean for morality. Mainstreamers tend to interpret all atheism, positive or negative, as harsh positive atheism. Many frighten themselves by imagining how horrible it would be (they think) if they lost their own faith. In the grip of such revulsion, few will hear what we have to say about the things besides atheism that secular humanism stands for. Bad as this is, it’s only bigotry. It can be resisted.

Less Indifferent And More Forthright

From Students trained to use emotional and social intelligence by Douglas Todd:

The evidence is now overwhelming that children who are taught to understand their own feelings and those of others do much better in school, careers and long-term relationships, says the psychologist who made famous the term "emotional intelligence."

CNN.com Headline Of The Day

Pregnant man speaks out

What Does John McCain Really Think Of Martin Luther King?

From The anniversary of Dr. King’s death puts McCain in a tough spot By Steve Benen:

[H]is views on race in the 1980s do not stand up to the sunlight of America a quarter-century later. Most glaringly, McCain as a young congressman in 1983 voted against a federal holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Most Republicans in the House voted for the holiday (89 voted for the holiday, 77 opposed), though all three Arizona House Republicans were opposed. Reps. Dick Cheney, R-Wyoming, and Newt Gingrich, R-Georgia, voted for the holiday. (Cheney had voted against it in 1978.)

Democracy In The United States Is Badly Broken

From 81% in Poll Say Nation Is Headed on Wrong Track By David Leonhardt and Marjorie Connelly:

Americans are more dissatisfied with the country’s direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s, according to the latest poll.

In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,” up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002.

Although the public mood has been darkening since the early days of the war in Iraq, it has taken a new turn for the worse in the last few months, as the economy has seemed to slip into recession. There is now nearly a national consensus that the country faces significant problems.

Does Anybody Care?

From Disclosure of torture memo fails to grab traditional media's attention by Jason Linkins:

What if they disclosed a torture memo and nobody cared? This week, an 81-page memo, authored by John C. Yoo, who was a deputy in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice at the time of its creation, was declassified and made public. The memo, which, among other things, was used as the rationale for authorizing the torture of government detainees, has long been held to be a savage reimagining of the structure of the Executive Branch and its authority, hostile to the traditional checks and balances that circumscribe the President's authority.

What Is The Sound Of One Invisible Hand Slapping Itself Silly?

From Bear Stearns: "Too interlinked to fail" by Andrew Leonard:

On the one hand, this makes Sen. Jim Bunning's question to Federal Reserve Bank president Timothy Geithner all the more relevant.

How did we get to the point that the failure of one firm can bring us to the edge of collapse, our whole financial markets? We know the Fed and others did not do their job in regulating lending practices and supervising the risks banks were taking on, but how do you let the entire financial system become so fragile that it could not tolerate one failure?

…both the Clinton and Bush administrations and Congress accepted Wall Street's plea to let them proceed with a light regulatory hand, and accepted the argument that new derivative instruments, such as credit default swaps, would increase the stability of the overall financial system by spreading risk more broadly. We all now know how ridiculous that argument turned out to be. The invisible hand of Wall Street ended up slapping itself silly. Now we're going to need a little more socialism to clean up the mess.

Martin Luther King

From 40 Years Later, (The Late) Martin Luther King Still Silenced by Jeff Cohen:

If King had survived to hear the war drums beating for the invasion and occupation of Iraq - amplified by TV networks and the New York Times front page and Washington Post editorial page — there’s little doubt where he’d stand. Or how loudly he’d be speaking out.

And there’s little doubt how big U.S. media would have reacted. On Fox News and talk radio, King would have been Dixie Chicked. . .or Rev. Wrighted. In corporate centrist outlets, he’d have been marginalized faster than you can say Noam Chomsky.

Looking For A Stock Broker?

Are you looking for a stock broker? Do you need help trying to pick one? Every year around springtime Barron’s publishes who they think are the best. Investor Brain informs us of the 13th Annual Review of Online Brokers Up at Barron's Online. Investor Brain is written by Theresa W. Carey. She is the author of "The Electronic Investor" column in Barron's magazine. I like the Investor Brain site and find it interesting and useful. It contains a link to the Barron’s article on stock brokers.

If you are looking for a broker the best thing you can do is to do your own research. Check them out online for yourself. Some are quite accommodating. For example, Fidelity lets you sign on as a guest. You can even use their excellent stock screener when signed on as a guest. I wish more brokers let you do this.

As with anything, you should take any advice with a grain of salt, including mine too, I suppose. With that said, here are a few quick personal observations about online stock brokers and the reviews of them you may find.

I consider myself more of an investor, rather than a trader. What I want from an online stock broker are basically three things: a good stock screener, a good return on my cash, and a method of telling me how my investments are doing. Believe it or not, it is hard to find all three from one broker. Most brokers seem to think that everyone wants the latest gee-whiz software trading platform, and that they don’t care about the basics.

Think of how you will be using your broker. What will be important for you. As I’ve said, most brokers seem to market toward traders, rather than investors. If you’re not a trader they may not be the broker for you. Vanguard usually scores low, if at all, on broker reviews. However, if you are a “buy and hold” type of investor Vanguard offers an advantage other brokers don’t, a great money-market fund to park your cash. It all depends on what your priorities are. Most broker reviews don’t get into this very much.

I feel that Scottrade is overrated in most of these reviews. It is a good company, has great customer service, low commissions, however I’ve had problems with their stock screener online. Also their method of displaying cost basis online is kind of clunky. In fact, clunky is how I would describe their whole site.

Fidelity has a great stock screener. It has more bells and whistles than you may ever need. Sometimes their site seems very slow, however.

Firstrade has a customizable setup for telling you how well your investments are doing. I wish all brokers used this method.

I liked E*Trade. However, I moved my money out after their recent bankruptcy scare. They have an excellent web site, good cost basis information, and a good screener. Their customer service is not as bad as some would have you believe. I don’t like their use of teaser rates to get you to try something, however.

So there you have it. Just a few personal thoughts about stock brokers, by no means comprehensive. Do you have any personal experience with an online stock broker? I welcome your comments and thoughts.

How Does Bribery Help The Economy?

I’ve paid taxes in the past. I’m paying taxes this year. In the name of helping the economy the government is giving some of the taxes I’ve paid in the past back to me. Next year they will just take this money away from me when I pay my taxes again. It doesn’t make sense to me.

My solution to the economic problems we are currently having is simple. Raise the minimum wage. A lot. Make it so that people have an incentive to work, and that they will be more likely to afford the goods and services that the marketplace makes available to them. The cost of gasoline and food, never mind housing, alone is killing people economically. Raising the minimum wage substantially would also immediately solve the Social Security crisis (if there really is one). Workers earning more money would have more money taken out of their paychecks for Social Security. Same thing with the “Medicare crisis.”

If the government really wants to provide some sort of economic stimulus package, how about one that amounts to more than bribery. When George W. Bush hands out checks to the American people it seems like bribery to me. Vote Republican, we give you money. How about an economic stimulus package that rewards people that do something positive for our country. How about one that rewards people that are trying to reduce the causes of global warming.

Government support of organizations such as The Cambridge Energy Alliance would help create jobs, stimulate the economy, and reduce our carbon footprint all at the same time. Or the government could just do something as simple as help lower the cost of clean energy across the board. Help lower the cost of that solar panel by paying for some of it. Help lower the cost of that green home or business renovation by paying for some of it. So many people would benefit from this: contractors, homeowners, green businesses, etc. Jobs would be created.

Why just try to stimulate the economy? Why give people money for nothing in return? Use the money in a way that will cause action instead. Why not try to stimulate people and businesses to DO something? Instead of simply trying to stimulate the economy those idiotic politicians in Washington should be trying to stimulate people too.

George Will Is Intercoursed Up

Head on over to onegoodmove and check out Four Letter Words.

Quote Of Note - Jimmy Carter

“Penalties for the possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself.” Jimmy Carter

David Mamet's April Fool Joke

Surely the Village Voice made a mistake when they published David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal' on March 11, 2008. I’m sure they must have meant to publish it today, on April Fools Day. How else can you explain such idiotic claptrap from a Pulitzer Prize winning writer?

First, the title is stupid. If Mamet was once a brain-dead liberal then it follows that he is still brain-dead now, no matter what his political leaning of the moment is. I doubt that he had a brain transplant. Of course being brain dead would help explain such insipid writing as this:

What about the role of government? Well, in the abstract, coming from my time and background, I thought it was a rather good thing, but tallying up the ledger in those things which affect me and in those things I observe, I am hard-pressed to see an instance where the intervention of the government led to much beyond sorrow.

Let’s start with the Bill of Rights shall we? From Wikipedia:

They were introduced by James Madison to the First United States Congress in 1791 as a series of constitutional amendments, and came into effect on December 15, 1791, when they had been ratified by three-fourths of the States. The Bill of Rights limits the powers of the Federal government of the United States, protecting the rights of all citizens, residents and visitors on United States territory.

How much sorrow has the Bill of Rights caused? How much sorrow has The Emancipation Proclamation caused? Public libraries? Government really sucks, doesn't it? Well yea, it does when it makes slavery legal, denies women the right to vote, and sends young people off to die in senseless wars. Some instances are good, some instances are bad. How can Mamet be so blind that he doesn't see any of the good?

The Vanity Press details more intervention of the government that will make you weep:

Yeah, rural electrification totally sucked. The G.I. Bill? Crapola. Medicare? Ahh, who says old people need medical insurance? Public highways? Food safety? They make me cry. Sorrow, sorrow, sorrow. Of course, none of these were an attempt at perfecting the world: they were and remain specific solutions to specific problems. But never mind, Mamet is apparently eager to toss them on the scrap heap, if he even remembers they exist. After all, why does a wealthy playwright and film director need any of these things anyway? They've got nothing to do with his life.

After seven years of the disaster called Bush, Mr. Mamet decides he wants to stop being a liberal and move further to the right. Ha, ha, ha. Good joke Mr. Mamet.

I’m sure the Village Voice must have meant to publish David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal' on April Fools Day as a joke. How else can you explain it?

A Long Day

From April fools by David Weidner:

April Fool's Day? We've had six months of it on Wall Street, and it's only become worse in recent weeks.