why am i being penalized?

i have been unemployed for about 28 weeks and my unemployment coverage in california ran out recently.  now i have no income but all the same bills, for which the maximum unemployment benefit i was receiving was not cutting the mustard to begin with.  what am i to do?

i am doing the only thing i can do now.  i am liquidating my retirement account.  in doing so i will suffer maximum penalty taxes for early withdrawal. 

how is it that when the world's banking industry was on the brink of collapse because of rampant gambling on wall street in the form of credit default swaps and bad mortgages clustered together into unrecognizable forms and sold helter skelter all over the globe, my retirement account was responsible and bore the burden of saving it?  how is that in the last five and one-half years my retirement account has not made one cent but rather has suffered a net loss?  should i have stuffed the money under my mattress?

so as i signed the papers yesterday to liquidate the account in order to sustain me and my five and seven-year-old children for who knows how much longer, (until i find a job,) i had to set aside the tax penalties up front so i do not have the irs on my case at the end of the year.  that is when the irony struck me.

i saved that money over the last 15 years in the workforce and without having any choice in the matter it was essentially raided in 2007 and on an ongoing basis since then.  the banks, by the way, have not paid any penalties.  rather they have paid small fractions of what they should owe not to me but back to the federal government. 

i am okay with that small amount of money going to the government but i am not okay with my being penalized now that i need the money.  it is beyond regrettable that i need the money to begin with.  taxing me extra on it is adding insult to injury. 

in the age of "too big to fail," i feel like i should be "too small to pinch."  doesn't that seem reasonable?  we'll see if i can find a sponsor for this idea in the coming weeks.

should obama be a one-term president?

it is certainly worth considering forcing timothy geithner to step down as treasury secretary but it would also be reasonable right now to call for the resignation of barack obama.

democrats, (and probably republicans too, for that matter,) tend to think in terms of eight year blocks once they get a president elected. that has been a sound strategy too, considering the effectiveness of incumbent candidates. however it is time for change.

the democratic party, (and by that i do mean democrats,) could unseat barack obama after one term and elect another democrat president, perhaps even a more progressive, less corporatist candidate than barack obama. perhaps dennis kucinich could win, as the populist real deal. (or how old is ralph nader these days?)

please click on the header and read the bloomberg news story. the secretary of treasury of the united states, then in the capacity of head of the new york federal reserve, advised aig to hide information from the american public in order to get away with paying full price on credit default swaps, which in turn cost american taxpayers $62.1 billion. indeed, it was a back door bailout brokered by the new york federal reserve, geithner's organization. $62.1 billion taxpayer dollars?

i'll be honest, i am not sure i am advocating for unseating obama at this point, but i certainly respect the idea. not only did he appoint geithner to this vastly important cabinet position of tremendous power, but he had the best tools of investigation, to understand geithner's experience and ethos, money could buy. moreover, it is important for obama to be responsible for his decisions as president, and geithner's crime is egregious to such a degree, canning the guy who rewarded him and took advice from him, which suggests incompetence or worse, would be a revolutionary act of forsaking partisan politics in favor of simply exercising the collective power of the masses to act righteously as it concerns a matter of the utmost importance.

the federal reserve bank issues american currency and houses gold owned by some americans but also some saudis and kuwaitis and everyone else, but it is not a part of our government and it is ultimately beholden to its owners. as head of the new york federal reserve timothy geithner wielded a great amount of power, essentially on behalf of the investment bankers who own the new york fed.

$62.1 billion. i have to say that number over and over because it is hard to imagine that amount of money. it's huge. in response to the bloomberg news story, the white house has commented to say the advice the ny fed gave aig to not report the credit default swaps happened at a level lower than geithner and he was unaware of this advice and therefore not responsible. (where have we heard that before?) geithner's bank told aig to lie so that aig could use the money it received from taxpayers to pay off gamblers. that is unforgivable and geithner's bank facilitated the heist and his head should certainly roll. $62.1 billion. the fact obama prefers to dismiss this as if the "geithner was unaware," defense is legitimate is abhorrent and oddly in contrast to obama's m.o. otherwise. typically he accepts responsibility for everything and talks about how the buck stops with him.

former new york governor eliot spitzer has been doing his best to call for the release of aig's emails, of which there are plenty. since the american people own aig, we certainly have a right to see those emails, which will likely reveal more info about who swindled the american people and how. we should all stay aware of this story and push for release of those emails.

as for obama, his behavior is distressing. we voted him in because we believed he would be different in so much as he would not play typical politics by advocating cover ups and kowtowing to the corporations. lately his behavior has been disappointing. if i believed democrats could be of one mind in refusing to nominate him for a second term and if i had faith we would take the high road is defending the decision and nominate someone like dennis kucinich to replace him from a position of strength, i could easily go along with that plan.

capitalism: a love story

capitalism does not need to be defended or denigrated. it is an economic system from which our economic system borrows many ideas or qualities. we also have elements of socialism in our economy.

however, the unsavory parts of capitalism have become the hallmarks of modern corporatism and michael moore touches on just a few, key aspects of what is wrong with our economic choices as a society in order to educate the masses and point out some basic truths. he does it with the same sense of humor we have seen in all of the moore films.

capitalism: a love story, makes some main points...

relaxed economic regulations allowed the advent of credit default swaps, which made a few wealthy at the expense of the masses. when toxic loan assets began to show their real colors, some major players went down but goldman sachs was the government's preferred player and recipient of its largess.

the movie also makes a few subtler points such as when america's hero, sully sullenberger, (he of landing a jet airliner in the hudson river,) testifies to congress on how much his pension and pay have been cut in recent years. the point is the united states is like a school yard bully who has been rendered obsolete by apathy. there is nothing the world needs us for anymore. we do not manufacture anything. we merely have the ability to destroy on an unprecedented scale and so we are feared, perhaps. we are tolerated. our sole export of late has been the rubic's cube style financial instruments, (credit default swaps,) that robbed the american people's retirement accounts. beyond that the world would like to de-value our dollar and watch us whither up and shrink away.

ultimately, like many moore films, capitalism is a modern mish-mash montage of images and stories that contribute to the overall idea. that idea is legion, too. that idea is: capitalism is not a good word and socialism is not a bad word, the invisible hand of the market belongs to alan greenspan, franklin roosevelt had a great deal more work to accomplish when he met his untimely end, and our leaders are not elected...they are bought.

stewart exposes cramer, cnbc

i don't want to spend a lot of time talking about the jon stewart versus jim cramer thing but i do just want to say a few things along with encouraging everyone to watch the video.

CNBC along with virtually every mainstream media show offering so-called financial advice is nothing more than a vehicle for the super wealthy and corporate entities to disseminate their agenda to the masses and/or middle class. if you want to be a responsible adult in our society you cannot rely on regular news sources for information. you must go to alternet or tmp. you must seek out the opinions of doctor marc faber or noam chomsky but never, ever consider the supposed insights of a guy like jim cramer to be anything more than the purchased message of corporate america.

the header includes a direct link to the comedy central website where you can see jon stewart do what journalists in this country seem unwilling to do which is to expose a shill. (also note when jim cramer talks about how investors willing to gamble on hedge funds and derivatives made 30% yearly from '99 to '07. then next time you hear someone try to blame the financial crisis on poor people qualifying for mortgages instead of pointing at the deregulation of '99 which led to credit default swaps just file them away as jim cramers and never give them a second thought. ever.)

credit default swaps (again)

i've linked an oxdown post to the header, (and here,) by massacio about our financial crisis and specifically, credit default swaps. it is a complicated post, just as it is an especially difficult and complicated issue. that said, i wanted to share my interpretation.

with credit default swaps we had gamblers, (protection buyers and sellers,) betting on publicly traded companies. in gambling one usually expects there to be losers but in this case, it seems henry paulson and ben bernanke are using my ira to pay the losers off.

what massacio points out in the oxdown post is that paulson and bernanke took the bailout money but no one knows how they are spending it. it seems aig and citigroup should have went under, but they did not. what the heck is going on?

i get the feeling the bailout money is being funnelled to entities like citigroup but not affectng their bottom lines because in turn, they are paying off their protection buyers, (on the downlow.)

this is why we the people should be opposed to the financial bailout, because there is no accountability and no transparency and because citigroup should have failed and those who traded in credit default swaps through citigroup should have simply lost.

as it is paulson was in china last week begging their government not to devalue the dollar, despite the fact we're printing money like crazy without any backing. so here is how all this is currently working.

1. our treasury prints money.
2. our politicians hand the money to the banks as if it is blessed by the american people, (which it is not.)
3. the banks skulk around trying to pay off their gambling debts in order to stay afloat all the while trying to keep the wizard of oz's curtain drawn so we cannot see them back there.
4. the american people just go about their daily business without any clue as to the horrifying crisis they will pay later for not paying attention today.

i guess sometime in the summer of '09 we will all wake up one day to discover the american dollaw has either been replaced or devalued by 50%. this is to say each and every dollar, wherever it may be, will suddenly be worth 50-cents. or, put another way, prices on virtually everything will double over night. milk will be $5 per gallon. gas will jump back up to $4 per gallon, (assuming no fluctuation in the interim.) one dozen eggs will also approach $4. put another way, everything in the consumer price index will double. over night.

how will that affect your family?

financial crisis (part what? like, 38?!?)

you know, i have read countless news and opinion articles and blogposts over the last several months about the financial crisis, bailout and other related issues and yet, i still find it confusing. for that reason i have been making a conscious effort to grasp what i consider the most important and yet simple concepts and ideas about it all.

one opinion i have formed and am passionate about is that our current woes have been caused by credit default swaps at least as much and most likely more than by bad mortgages. in spite of my ideas, it seems obama's appointment for treasury, tim geithner, has an agenda which involves bailing out aig and bear stearns to the detriment of some smaller institutions, which were nearly solvent and based on behaviors, likely deserved to be protected more than these. if you want to get into the details, read this article. or, you might even read this blogpost, which actually pointed me to the other article in the first place.

reading the blogpost from oxdown it occurred to me that when numbers start being rattled off i get completely lost. these numbers are just too big for me. i guess it is because i cannot relate to them that once several of them appear in succession, i lose all context. so, here is the thing... (talk about burying the lead.) that main article is advocating the idea of declaring credit default swaps illegal and in that way, providing zero protection for them. this would certainly piss off a lot of influential people, (read: people with money, money invested in swaps either as protection buyers or protection sellers,) but it would be the best thing to do for the economy.

that said, obama's appointment of geithner, (along with the fact obama voted in favor of the initial bailout,) foreshadows the fact that what is best for the economy will not be forthcoming any time soon. it is disappointing obama, geithner and the american public at large do not have the will and fortitude to do the right thing in this case. that said, i believe it is true that politics is the art of the possible, hence why i voted for obama. it is likely this is not really within the realm of the possible (in much the same way ralph nader for president was never really in the realm of the possible.) still, we need to move in the right direction so that the political will to do the right thing exists in the (near) future.

addendum: processes and discussion abound for helping at risk homeowners but action is at a serious premium. read about it here.

socialism for the rich, indeed.

next time someone tries to sell you that crap about how the financial crisis was caused by fannie and freddie making loans to people who did not warrant those loans, explain that bad mortgages account for no more than 30% of the problem and that the rest was caused by derivative trading and credit default swaps.

the amount of money my ira lost in october of this year alone has me so angry...yet all i can do is blog about it. what else can i do? call the cops on aig? write a letter to lehman? find someone who has been involved in credit default swaps and derivatives and scold them or hold them responsible for my personal losses? engage in all manner of class warfare? (hmm, actually that last one makes some sense.)

in addition to linking to massacio's post at oxdown in the header, i also "borrowed," the picture used in that post. it is just so appropriate.