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?

employee free choice

tula connell posted a great blog at firedoglake about the employee free choice act and union busting at blue diamond in sacramento.

which side are you on? are you pro-union or are you opposed to unions? chances are if you are a democrat you favor unions for the most part and if you are republican you are for busting them up. i am always surprised by my republican friend's willingness to support an agenda which favors the wealthy when they are clearly in the middle class. (when they are in the upper class, it merely makes more sense.)

at blue diamond the union buster's pounded two themes: strikes and dues. it worked, too. the vote at blue diamond was against the union by nearly a three-to-one ratio. in spite of statistics anyone who can browse the internet can access, which will show that union workers enjoy greater wages, benefits and treatment, across the board, than their non-union counterparts, blue diamond employees voted against their own interest.

make no mistake about the proposed aid to the big three auto companies. the reason richard shelby and others remain opposed to the idea of making a bridge loan to these companies, (or any other form of aid,) is because they want to take this opportunity to break the united auto worker's union. in addition to the $70 per hour auto worker myth, which continues to be bandied about in the media, even after the agreement reached saturday for some funding senator bob corker of tennessee continues to ask auto workers to make sacrifices, as if it is the workers who caused this mess.

• as if the auto workers repealed glass-steagall.
• as if auto workers traded in derivatives.
• as if auto workers collected ceo salaries.
• as if auto workers kept the workers at foreign auto plants in tennessee and south carolina and alabama from unionizing.
• as if auto workers offered those foreign auto companies all those great deals to move to whichever state they ultimately chose to move to.

bob corker has access to all this information just like you and me but he continues to parrot the party line because he is beholden to big business, the wealthy, nissan and volkswagen. the fact is foreign auto companies have flourished in the united states in large part because of the subsidies given to them by southern states to attract jobs, in many cases at costs that clearly outweigh the benefits.

for obvious reasons, the foreign auto companies are attracted to these right-to-work states. while you may notice the link i inserted there is to the afl-cio's website, common sense should tell you that the only leverage workers have against their wealthy employers is the ability to band together annd to threaten solidarity, which is to say, to strike if negotiations are not fair and commensurate with the value employees add to the business.

in the united states, unions have lost a great deal of their strength over the years. however, the best example we have of effective unions are those of the major sports leagues' players. in these unions and their collective bargaining agreements we can see how a fair and mutually prosperous deal can be reached.

major league baseball players have went out on strike a couple of times and when that has occurred, the multi-millionaire owners have been hurt. (right where the pain renders them most uncomfortable, too, in their bank accounts.) these players have certain advantages common workers cannot hope to have such as mass recognition, but what they have been able to do is point out that fans, (customers of major league baseball,) pay to see the very best players and accordingly, they know who those very best players are. so when they threaten to strike, the owners understand that if these players refuse to play, fans will not come out for minor league players and so the cash flow they have come to expect to benefit from will cease. instead the owners negotiate in what turns out to be pretty good faith because the union and agents have access to financial numbers that show exactly how much money the game generates and since they are the attraction, not the owner whose primary contribution is providing the capital to get the team/enterprise up and running, they are able to get a fair and equitable deal/contract.

it is the same in detroit. wealthy shareholders may own the company or at least, act in unison like a wealthy business owner, but without those workers in the line doing what they do to assemble cars, the cash flow stops. however, auto workers have not been able to negotiate the best contract as evidenced by salaries demanded by ceo's in that industry. ultimately, public opinion and perception tilt this negotiation in favor of the wealthy shareholders and executives and this is what needs to change.

the sooner the american public stops allowing unions to be demonized and starts supporting them, the sooner we will begin to reverse the trend of the last 30-40 years and start closing the gap between the top and bottom tier wage earners.

support the employee free choice act so workers like those at blue diamond can organize in spite of the now requisite efforts at union-busting. in fact, in paul krugman's rolling stone article from two years ago you can read about how union busting has evolved. here is an excerpt:

Second, again like Reagan, Bush has used the government's power to make it
harder for workers to organize. The National Labor Relations Board, founded to
protect the ability of workers to organize, has become for all practical
purposes an agent of employers trying to prevent unionization. A spectacular
example of this anti-union bias came just a few months ago. Under U.S. labor
law, legal protections for union organizing do not extend to supervisors. But
the Republican majority on the NLRB ruled that otherwise ordinary line workers
who occasionally tell others what to do -- such as charge nurses, who primarily
care for patients but also give instructions to other nurses on the same shift
-- will now be considered supervisors. In a single administrative stroke, the
Bush administration stripped as many as 8 million workers of their right to
unionize.

the one good thing abot the severe financial woes we are entering is that the likelihood of americans waking up and beginning to vote in their own best interests, get better informed about the issues that affect their lives, (and wages,) and move to return to the policies and practices that created the relative economic boon this country experienced in the'50s and '60s, is increasing.

as if...

regarding alberto gonzalez's role in the firing of seven united states attorneys in 2006, it appears the federal prosecutor's investigation is heating up. this does not make me happy.

as a lover of justice, i wish this thing would just slow down. why? because if nora dannehy, the prosecutor assigned to the case by bush-appointed attorney general michael mukasey, to investigate the bush-appointed former attorney general, discovers wrongdoing and files charges against gonzalez prior to obama's inauguration, bush will certainly pardon gonzalez thereby making it impossible to ever bring him, (and perhaps the administration,) to justice.

then again, i admit it is a bit silly on my part to think that this would turn out any other way.

• as if gonzalez did what he did on an island without protection.
• as if libby will not be pardoned.
• as if the republican party was not complicit in allowing bush, rove and gonzalez to use non-government email addresses to communicate on the matter.
• as if congressional leadership was not complicit in refusing to pursue the impeachment option.
• as if this administration did not torture prisoners in secret cia prisons abroad.

ahh, what the hell am i wasting my time on? the members of congress do not have the will to hold this administration accountable for their actions because the people do not have the will to hold the congress accountable for their actions, (or inactions, as it were.)

daily reading

it is thursday morning, december 4th. need some reading material? here is a list of what i found interesting today:

• roger ebert reviewed ben stein's film on creationism, (intelligent design,) by way of an open letter to stein.
• arriana huffington exposes tucker carlson for the right wing shill he is for supporting scooter libby and opposing patrcik fitzgerald without ever disclosing his father's role in scooter libby's defense.
• from a november 20, speech, uaw president ron gettelfinger talks about the huge incentives foreign automakers have benefited from for agreeing to have plants in places like alabama, (among others.) it seems to me people are beginning to get fed up with the practice of bailing out the big financial institutions without oversight no less, while forcing the auto industry to beg and whip up public support for a bridge loan to help them get to the 2010 energy efficient models while surviving the current climate of tightened credit, (or no loans.)
• the marijuana policy project youtubed a message to the new administration asking that group to follow through on their campaign promises to decriminalize possession of less than one ounce of pot, stop the dea from raiding medical marijuana dispensaries in the states where they operate legally, allow scientists (at the umass,) to experiment with further medical uses for marijuana and more.
• this writer from the miami herald sounds a lot like george carlin but he makes some great points about our culture relative to the black friday death of a walmart employee.
  

anyway, just in case you were looking for something valuable to read today...

malvina reynolds

malvina reynolds is one of those obscure folk singers who knew and worked with pete seeger and earl robinson, married a communist, received her doctorate from uc berkeley, had her songs covered by everyone from joan baez to billy bob thornton, and yet somehow remains obscure.

i discovered reynolds recently as i was watching a television show called weeds, which streams for no extra charge on netflix if you happened to be a subscriber. the song that plays over the show's intro is hers-it's called 'little boxes.' the musical folks at weeds have subsequently, (seemingly,) commissioned many modern artists to cover the song for use in that same intro slot but as is often the case, the covers do not measure up. listening to reynolds, it is somehow obvious she wrote the song. you can hear that she owns it.

don't you just love her vocal style? for my part, i am featuring her on my annual xmas cd so if you happen to be on that illustrious list of friends or family who takes home one of these prized possessions every year, you will hear malvina in the track #1 slot singing 'little boxes,' a song about the bourgeois conformist values so prevalent in suburbia.

oh, i also wanted to mention that growing up my mom used to use a phrase of reynold's, "ticky-tacky," quite often. the oxford english dictionary credits reynolds with inventing the term used to describe anything shoddy or of poor workmanship. who knew?! (i can't wait for the biopic.)

sandy dandy

for thanksgiving at my daughter's pre-school, parents were invited to join the staff and students for lunch, (always vegetarian of course, which in this case meant, tofu turkey.) well, my wife had to work and i had my not-quite-two-year-old son, which would have made attending problematic. so we asked sandy-dandy if she might want to go and she was happy to do it.

who's sandy? well, sandy is laura's mom and laura is faith's best friend. sandy doesn't work, or she does not have a job that she has to go to, anyway.

after our daughter was born over four years ago, when faith had to return to work, we made arrangements for terra to be attended by a woman we really did not know but who was a professional babysitter of sorts. (i am sure she would have done a good job with terra.) in any case, two nights before our new plan was to take effect, faith phoned sandy in tears because she was completely upset about leaving terra with a sitter she did not know. terra was her first, after all.) that night, sandy became our village.

that's right-i am borrowing from hillary clinton's book as it was aptly titled. it does take a village to raise a child. sandy is our village. she has been our one-person support system these past four-plus years. while faith and i worked sandy cared for terra until terra went to pre-school when she was two months shy of turning three. similarly, sandy has been taking care of our son; mark, just the same.

isn't modern life complicated? once upon a time families stayed together and in that time, everyone helped with the children, and by everyone i mean: mom, dad, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, older cousins, and family friends. this is true for most every culture and remains true in some cultures today.

life has changed however. nowadays families do not stay together. i am reminded of the letter chief seattle is said to have written to president pierce in 1855, wherein he comments on how we, (white people,) leave the graves of our fathers...

my parents live about 80 miles away from my family. my sister lives within 15 miles of them and my brother is probably closer to 100 miles away. many families are spread out across our entire country. so, where is the village?

well, in our case, we have a great village. despite my parents being 80 miles away, we still go there often enough and occasionally the kids will stay with them while faith and i go out. faith's mom lives a mere 10 miles away and is especially helpful-she even watches the kids overnight on occasion. faith has a sister who lives nearby, in the next town, and she helps us out by watching mark or terra whenever we need extra help. faith has three younger sisters who also help out on a for pay basis and they are our most reliable sitters. my sister has even had mark and terra overnight once, allowing us to celebrate my birthday with my brother and my dad at the del mar racetrack. we are confident all of our "village." take great care of our kids.

our village is not perfect. i would love to have my side of the family closer so mark and terra could and would be closer to them. still, i feel lucky tommy is back from colorado and carole ann is back from arkansas, (and hawaii?)

i don't know how we would be comfortable and confident about our parenting if not for our village. faith and mark require a lot of care and attention. if we did not have our village i think our marriage could be in jeopardy. as it is, if we want to go see tom morello play at the el rey theatre, we call up bliss or cherish who comes over to watch the kids and we go forth confidently and have a great time. (faith and sandy on a happy occasion)

recently as i have been unemployed, i have been spending my days with mark, but when i have had a job interview, we have simply called sandy to see if she might be available on that day. when she has not been available, we have called hope and she has come over for a few hours while i am out trying to impress.

it is my opinion our values, the values found in our culture and society, will change. i think they will revert to what they once were as it regards the village. it seems to me people are more and more understanding and intuiting the hollow nature of pursuing fortune. instead we will embrace less material values, which will bring us to the greater reward of being closer together.

from what i have heard, sandy thoroughly enjoyed supporting terra and the james family by attending thanksgiving lunch at terra's pre-school. she said the turkey tofu was not so appealing but otherwise, the food was good, the other parents and caregivers were charming and terra was obviously happy to have her there. laura said it made sandy's day.

this holiday season i am especially thankful for our village. in particular, i am thankful for our friend and one-person village, sandy-dandy. sometimes family is defined by action, which is why we consider sandy, (and her entire family,) a part of our own 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.

kite

bono says this song is about letting go of someone. he said he wrote it when he was thinking about his dad nearing the end of his life but after it was made, he realized he really intended the message for his kids.

it is truly an amazing message for one's children, too. i just thought about it this morning as my kids were scampering around in my parent's house. i see terra getting older and at four, there are already behaviors she has left behind that i will never see or know again. and, that is okay.

the night before i was up late with my dad discussing everything from prop 8 to nietzche. i enjoyed the conversation immensely.

all of this simply underscores the fact that i do not own the people i love. it is not to me to keep them. they are not for my pleasure, enjoyment or security. my dad is for me to cherish for as long as i possibly can. my wife is for me to love and venture forth with. my children are for me to influence as positively as possible, to impart the very best of me and my values, and to encourage to follow their own dreams and visions for this life.

here are the lyrics for kite. i can imagine saying this to terra and mark. in essence the message is, i have given you all i can and i trust you to go out into the world and live your life.

Something is about to give, I can feel it coming, I think I know what it mean, I'm not afraid to die, I'm not afraid to live, And when I'm flat on my back, I hope to feel like I did, 'cause hardness, it sets in, You need some protection, The thinner the skin, I want you to know, That you don't need me anymore, I want you to know, You don't need anyone, or anything at all, Who's to say where the wind will take you? Who's to say what it is will break you? I don't know, which way the wind will blow, Who's to know when the time has come around? Don't want to see you cry, I know that this is not goodbye, In summer I can taste the salt in the sea, There's a kite blowing out of control on a breeze, I wonder what's gonna happen to you, You wonder what has happened to me, I'm a man, I'm not a child, A man who sees the shadow behind your eyes, Who's to say where the wind will take you, Who's to say what it is will break you, I don't know, where the wind will blow, Who's to know when the time has come around, I don't want to see you cry, I know that this is not goodbye. Did I waste it? Not so much I couldn't taste it, Life should be fragrant, Roof-top to the basement, The last of the rock stars, When hip-hop drove the big cars, In the time when new media, was the big idea, What was the big idea?

give thanks

something nice happened on the way to thanksgiving. last week as my family began shooting email replies to all on the subject of turkeys, stuffing, yams, muffins, cranberry sauce, yams, and all the rest, the real spirit of the holiday made an unexpected appearance.

our matriarch, (i call her carol but she responds to any of the following: grami, mom, ma, or honey,) mentioned in one of her replies that she had a thanksgiving wish which included peace in the hearts of everyone the world over. she went on to ask if anyone else had a wish.

my dad jumped right in with wishes for peace in the world, blessings for our political leaders and such. my sister, carole ann, followed with similar wishes for love and kindness to permeate the biosphere. eventually i jumped in and made a long list of things i am thankful for this year, most notably including my family and our continued good health. then my brother replied to all and said he was thankful for all of us. he humbly said he was happy we all put up with him despite all of his tattoos and his extended absence.

it was a super nice chain of emails. i think it prepped our family for a great holiday tomorrow. there was even some levity as we discussed the erection of a basketball hoop at my parents house that has apparently represented too large a project for some time. oh, and my brother in his inimitable style, said he was thankful that all of his sisters-in-law, (there are three,) are "hot."

that was funny, (and true.) i am surprised he did not spell 'hot,' with two t's, though. and now i have something extra to add to my list of things i am thankful for. i am thankful for levity. happy thanksgiving to you and yours!

milk

gus van sant's epic biopic about openly gay san francisco city supervisor harvey milk opens tomorrow amidst a backdrop of serious tensions between the lgbt, (lesbian, gay, bi, trans,) and family values communities. you say you are anachronistic for the '60s, that you missed out on the civil rights struggle, didn't get to march to selma? you are interested in social justice?

enter the fray if you will but know that there is a real and valid correlation between the civil rights movement of dr. martin luther king jr. and the civil rights movement of harvey bernard milk. the gay community has not suffered the indignity of slavery or jim crowe laws but they have suffered indignity, most notably a lack of civil rights.

back in 1978 harvey milk worked to oppose proposition 6, (the briggs initiative.) the prop called for any openly gay teachers or public school employees to be fired, based on the idea that the word gay was a synonym for pedophile. milk vigorously opposed this legislation even citing the overwhelming numbers which showed most pedophiles are heterosexual.

30 years ago suddenly seems like 30 days in the context of this conflict between those who who seek equal rights and protections under the law regardless of sexual preference and those who would limit the rights of a fraction of society based on just that; sexual preference.

in 1978 it was prop 6 that represented the battle ground and rallied the troops on both sides. in 2008, prop 8 passed eliminating the legal right to same sex marriage and sparking a fierce struggle between gay rights advocates and those who are sometimes referred to as the family values group but who are perhaps more accurately defined by their fervent religious affiliation, which crosses over between various sects and denominations.

since prop 8's passage three weeks ago, the two sides have been at each other's throats. protests have been widespread and will continue. this struggle both mirrors that struggle and is a continuation of it. one side seeks the liberty of equality. the other side seeks to keep a secular society from legitimizing a symbolic union between two people of the same sex because it is considered sinful and anti-christ.

perhaps you are not interested in participating in the civil rights struggle of your day; today. that is certainly your prerogative. still, i recommend you gain a solid education on what is at stake as well as some of the history of the movement and the struggle. furthermore, since gus van sant, a great director even if his work has shown a certain hit or miss quality, commanded a large budget and directed the film, thereby setting an expectation for a high quality film, (film being the art form of our age,) and sean penn, another great director/actor/artist, portrayed the fallen leader, this is an important film if ever there were one.

early reviews suggest you will be highly entertained even as you are educated.

epoch

what kind of person are you? as unemployment skyrockets, banks collapse, major industrial giants falter, credit tightens, bailouts are administered without oversight, and every manner of chicken little proclamation can be heard, are you the type of person who just keeps going about daily life as usual or are you the type of person who is seriously concerned and taking personal action you consider appropriate?

i ask because i want to know if you believe things are really all that bad, worse than anything you have seen in your lifetime if you are under say, 70-years-old, anyways.

on one hand we have seen banks collapse before. we have endured higher unemployment. we have bailed out major companies previously. when our economy goes into recession, the world has always followed suit.

on the other hand, our current circumstances look like the perfect storm. it seems as though there is much evidence to suggest things will get substantially worse:

• many businesses which expect to make their profits in the christmas season while only managing to sustain the business during the rest of the year are expected to fail in early 2009 because of the thrifty nature this christmas is expected to be.


• a european newsletter has predicted the collapse of the dollar in summer of '09, which would mean a re-valuing of the dollar or replacing it altogether.


• as businesses fail, employment will continue to rise.


• as our federal government issues bailout after bailout and extends unemployment benefits with those claims rising, all while trying to make payments to china and others on our record, bush-induced, deficit, there has been some speculation we could default on our loans.


• the stock market continues its decline which is severely affecting retirement savings.

driving around town today i thought everything looked normal. traffic seemed normal. the behaviors of the people i saw seemed typical. i could not help but wonder if many people yet to feel the realities of the financial crisis are just going on with life like ostriches. as much as some would suggest that people need to "shop," or spend, thereby showing some confidence in our economy, in order to help loosen credit, restore confidence and get money moving again, that idea is completely wrong-headed. rather, now is the time to save, reduce, re-use, minimize your consumer footprint, in order to be ready for whatever the future holds.

your perspective on all of this could be crucial to you and your family.

the return of axl rose

guns n roses is back, and that sentence would not be complete without the modifier, "finally," attached. much time has passed with band members changing as if they were stuck in a revolving door, news of chinese democracy's release arriving and disappearing as if the product of some ancient propaganda machine, and live dates being scheduled then cancelled like so many fig trees on a hillside near ninevah but at last, here it is.

sunday, november 23rd, at a best buy store near you.

i have listened to chinese democracy a couple of times now as it is streaming on the band's myspace page. it is what i expected, imperfect, ambitious, hard-rocking but oriented by pop hooks.

i have also read some bad reviews of chinese democracy, which i disagreed with. yes, it took 14 years, but who cares? it is 2008 now and here it is. on its own merits is it worth listening to or purchasing? it certainly is.

it probably took 14 years to arrive because rose craved perfection. that was always the sense i got of the situation. is he angry perhaps at his former bandmates and did revenge perhaps fuel his ambition on this project? probably. still, here it is-do you like it?

i did not love the original incarnation of guns n roses. i did like their hard-rocking style. i did like many of their songs, but ultimately i could never claim them as among my favorites because in certain ways axl resembled a caveman. i have to give him credit though for growing and evolving. i remember reading somewhere that he had said u2's 'one,' was the greatest rock ballad ever, (and that it helped him in some way get through his own depression.) this was one of those moments when it occurred to me the angry screamer from gnr was growing up.

as it relates to chinese democracy, i am willing to give rose a wide berth. even the name of the record is interesting, (and again, ambitious.) the title track is reminiscent of 'welcome to the jungle,' in how it builds to a rocking crescendo and if rose is lacking in throat compared to his former self, he makes up for it through innovation. there is a wide variety of songs therein including: 'better,' 'in this world,' and 'i.r.s.,' which are my early favorites. even madagascar with the voice of dr martin luther king dubbed in brings a certain thoughtfulness to a genre of music not exactly known for invoking the sages.

on chinese democracy ambition is king and certainly enough to make the record worth buying. it is bombastic, innovative, listenable and memorable. i expect it will be among the biggest selling records of the xmas season, (which may not be saying much,) but it seems to me axl rose delivered on his ambition to re-establish himself in the pantheon of today's top rock and roll stars, (a place seemingly occupied these days by lousy disney acts and worse; kid rock.) i don't know how long it is exclusively at best buy, (hopefully not long,) but i expect you will want to buy this record.

also, in an interesting marketing promotion, the dr pepper corporation is giving away free 20oz. dr pepper's. in march of this year they released a statement that they would give away a free dr pepper if the album dropped this year and so, they are making good on their promise with a one-day-only downloadable coupon on their website. free stuff is rare so go get it after midnight tonight.

michael hutchence - r.i.p.

i miss michael hutchence. there it is for the world to know. on november 22, 11 years ago, he passed away amid the clatter of a world spinning on its axis and seemingly paying zero attention to the partying and subsequent depression of one rock star occurring in a posh hotel room in sydney.

michael has often been compared to jim morrison and i think that is an apt comparison. both were probably more style than substance. for insight, i might look to bono, or vedder or yorke, which is not to suggest michael was a dumbass. he wasn't. but michael sweated cool and started trends by accident.

michael's charisma and style were nonchalant. he embodied rock star effortlessly.

i remember november of 1997 too. when hutchence died it seemed to barely make it into the news here in l.a. (page a-26 in the print edition of the la times.) a 26?! 'kick' sold nine million copies for crying out loud just 10 years earlier and in the one to two years following that release, hutchence was easily the biggest rock star in the world. from north korean treaty talks to jon-benet ramsey to the imf to winnie mandela to ted kaczynski to saddam hussein, plus the fact that hutchence's death was shrouded in mystery and the hotel he died in would not release any definitive information, amounted to michael's death being a mention at the end of the broadcast, or on a-26.

did you ever hear 'the one thing?' it is the first inxs song i ever heard and i remember thinking michael hutchence just oozed sex appeal. i thought whatever that singer had, i wanted it. i wanted to possess that quality he possessed.

[lyrics: 'the one thing' inxs) "well you know just what you do to me, the way you move soft and slippery, cut the night just like a razor, rarely talk and that's the danger..."

'the one thing,' was the first inxs song i ever heard as well as their first video whch i saw. if sexuality is a large part of our lives as human beings, inxs was the band that spoke to that part of me, more accurately, michael hutchence spoke to me as i came out of adolescence. if at times u2 spoke to my heart and radiohead spoke to my brain and pearl jam spoke to my gut, inxs always spoke to my groin.

[lyrics: 'burn for you" - inxs] "It's no use pretending, That I understand, The hide and seek we play with facts, It changes our demand, Tilt my hat at the sun, And the shadows they burn dark, Light me and I'll burn for you, And the love song never stops, I like the look in your eyes, When you talk that certain way, I love the day in the life, When you know that lover's way, Minding my own business, When you came along, Temperature's been running hot, The fever was so strong, It's always an adventure, The fantasies we make a fact, You're the secret I desire I can't keep that to myself ..."

have you ever heard 'the swing,' 'devil inside,' 'i need you tonight,' or 'don't change?' if you check out that video for 'devil inside,' you will see an '80s dated video wherein all the members of inxs look like silly b-boy wannabees and everyone else looks like a caricature prop but michael hutchence, with his white shirt sleeves hanging out, singing behind a microphone, is a buoy of cool amidst a sea of dorkiness.

years ago i read a biography of hutchence by his sister; tina. learning how michael grew up travelling between indonesia and australia much of the time to live intermittently with each of his divorced parents seemed to partially explain his huge reservoir of charm. i got the impression he was one who was compelled to win the love of his parents and eventually, virtually everyone else. i think i can relate to this behavior to some degree and perhaps this is why i am and was so fond of michael hutchence.

the variation of living environs also seemed to help hutchence to become the thoughtful artist he was. the exposure he experienced to differing cultures seemed to enlighten his art.

it is a funny thing about rock stars who die prematurely. their demise seems to increase their legend. jimi hendrix and janis joplin and kurt cobain became instant icons. i remember when jeff buckley died in the wolf creek of the mississippi river. suddenly in the pages of rolling stone and spin and people magazines, he was everybody's favorite musician, a guitar god and vocal master dead before his time.

none of that happened when michael hutchence died and i was always remiss about that. he trumped cobain and buckley on charisma any day of the week which is not to say i prefer hutchence to those guys but rather just to say he was in that league, deserved that kind of company.

anyway, i remember michael hutchence on this, (nov. 22nd,) the 11th anniversary of his death.

last year on the 10th anniversary of hutchence's death, it seems u2 remembered him with the song 'one,' played live in australia.

civic literacy

i came across a civic literacy test today online. it is here if you are interested in taking it.

i was slightly aghast to read that the average score on the test to date is 49%, and college professors only scored 55%. these results reinforce for me the idea that college graduates should have to pass some sort of an exit exam before having a degree conferred upon them.

furthermore, i would advocate for a national degree program for conferring degrees upon anyone who can pass a test in a given area or discipline. as the internet has democratized information, why shouldn't someone who avoids the high cost of universities but pursues the appropriate knowledge and learns a demonstrable amount of information have access to the same degree others receive after a traditional pursuit of the information?

i did not ace the test by any measure but i am happy to report that i outscored the average professor. when i received my results i was informed the november average on the test is substantially higher than the overall 49%. i am not sure but i guess some people may be returning to the test in order to get a higher score, probably for some sense of self-satisfaction.

if you have a chance to take the test, (it's 33 questions long, all multiple choice,) shoot me an email and let me know how you scored?

job hunt

well, it's been three-and-a-half months since i was laid-off. some good things have occurred. i have gotten better about managing my budget. i have even used coupons at the supermarket. on the other hand, i still have more money going out monthly than coming in from unemployment insurance and so, i have depleted my savings in large part. i also feel like i have gone from being a novice in the job market to something of an old pro.

when i was first unemployed i was especially aggressive about hunting for the right job for me. i used monster.com, careerbuilder.com, callcenterjobs.com, indeed.com, craigslist and a couple of other website job search engines. initially i was sending my resume everywhere and casting a wide net. as it turned out, i received very little positive feedback from my process. as time went on, however, i learned and improved my technique.

eventually i realized i was not hearing from any company whose posting was older than even a couple of days. so i was really wasting a lot of time addressing those postings. in time i came to realize that i needed to check in on these websites daily, which i had done anyway, but more importantly, i needed to narrow my search. for example, on monster, i refined my search so that i was choosing customer service jobs with the subsets of call center and customer care. I used two keywords for my search: manager and supervisor. i chose the city of los angeles and i asked the search to include a 75 mile radius. after clicking on search, i sorted by date. then, on a daily basis, i looked for what was new right at the top of my search and ignored everything else.

as i refined my search in this manner, i started getting contacted by employers interested in me. the same thing worked on craigslist. on that site, i could literally check back in every few hours if i had the time, and see postings as they arrived.

i have been interviewing with a couple of companies for call center positions similar to the one i had a couple of years ago with sparkletts. i am expecting a job offer in one case and a call from the other today to find out if i am one of two finalists. on monday i received a message about another position i applied for and i have not returned the call, which i am slightly nervous about. (it is a position with at&t.) i really do think these two companies i am in the latter stages with are good options though so i am focused on those.

two months ago i was a finalist for a position but did not get it. in that case, i received great feedback on my resume. on the other hand, one of the employers i am engaged with now asked me a couple of tough questions about the resume and so, i made adjustments based on that feedback. it is hard to know exactly what is right with a resume, with interviewing, with all aspects of this process that is searching for employment, but i am confident i am learning and getting better at most aspects.

i am on a website too, called linkedin.com. linkedin is a networking site where one can network with their friends, peers, coworkers and others for the purpose of advancing their career. i am linked to plenty of people from my last two positions with retention ed and with sparkletts. i have also made contact with many of my friends and acquaintances. i think linkedin is good for networking but in order for it to be a fruitful tool if you are in the job market, you still have to ask for the job. when i made contacts with others or sent invitations to link up with me there, i made a point of letting people know that i am currently unemployed. what i found though was that no one came out of the woodwork to try to help me find the right job or connect with the right people. this could be entirely my fault and i am sure linkedin could work for some job hunters.

i did make contact with a couple of former colleagues from sparkletts through linkedin both of whom had been unemployed for extended periods of time. it was ironic that both of these guys offered me advice on my job search and suggested they had become experts to some degree. i took their advice and found value in it.

speaking of networking, i read this article in the blogosphere and think anyone in the job market should read it. i never really understood how networking should work or how one goes about it until i read this piece. it bridged a longstanding gap for me.

at the same time, i am concerned about both of them. looking for employment is such strange terrain. i suppose some people are comfortable with it but i can hardly imagine feeling like that myself. every time i have gone out on an interview i have left it thinking of things i might have said differently, or of other things i might have omitted or included.

just yesterday i was asked by a group of would-be peers what i would hope for from a position with this particular company and i wanted to speak of career development and the opportunity i saw there to grow, develop and improve my own skills. instead, i actually mentioned the word ambition and said i hoped to develop my skills so that one day I might be a call center director. i left that interview second-guessing the wisdom, (or lack thereof,) of mentioning ambition to peers. the truth is, i will not be in any hurry to move up. i will be ecstatic to again be gainfully employed in a stable environment and to work with a group of customer service agents to improve and develop their skills and career path. but i may have come off in another way altogether.

such is job hunting. when i was not getting hired these past few months, i felt my self-esteem and confidence dwindling like a slow death. logically, i knew i had to persevere and things would work out in time. illogically, i felt rejected by both of my last employers. sometimes the words of my loved ones seemed insensitive or worse, hurtful.

in any case, i am so anxious to get back to work. this project that has been finding employment is is more difficult than work.

a crude awakening

if oil is indeed our god, this movie documents the apocalypse.

crude awakening is a fascinating look at the history and future history of oil. have you heard of baku, azerbaijan, or maracaibo, venezuela? these two cities were on the front end of oil production but have since seen their supplies depleted. as the oil dried up, the cities have dried up to varying degrees.

it is interesting to think about that black, tarry substance, so valuable, beneath the surface of the earth, and the fact that is not without limit.

the implications of a crude awakening are legion:

• i watched the doc and thought about global warming differently. i wondered if all, or which, replacement energies represent clean-burning fuels. i also thought of how quickly the earth will rebound from most man-made maladies.
• i thought about capitalism's penchant for squeezing every bit of profit out of a thing before letting it pass or advance, which is something i have noticed with various technologies over the years. obviously we could have moved beyond oil by now but of course those for whom oil is the cash cow, well, they promote hinderances for that which would end the reign of their cash flow.
• the movie speaks further to the reasons for the u.s. occupation of iraq.
• the sheer volume of petroleum products is reinforced.

we live in an age of suspect news sources. while documentaries can be skewed or full-blown examples of propaganda at times, they also represent the most informative form of news journalism. instead of piecing together so many news bits culled from newspapers or video pieces, documentaries allow for a thorough examination of a topic in one sitting.

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.

u.s. subject to imf?

the article linked in this header is by xiang songzuo, a professor at central china university of science and technology. songzuo is suggesting the u.s. should be subject to the same policies it imposes by the proxy that is the imf, (international monetary fund,) on many other nations around the world.

you've seen these policies in little glimpses of riots maybe when you were accidentally tuned into the bbc news on pbs for a few minutes. remember? they were reporting from some south american country? or maybe you somehow ended up on the british newspaper the guardian's website? or maybe you saw police beating a bunch of tree-hugging kids with billy clubs in the "battle of seattle" protest, on mainstream america's news, (but of course they avoided the issue and just focused on the "civil unrest.")

the u.s. has a 17% vote, (by far the largest,) on all imf decisions and our representative therein, (governor,) is henry paulson. (his alternate is bernanke and you don't have to be in denmark to smell how rotten this is.) if you scroll down the wikipedia page, you can see a list of all the dictators, (u.s. backed and otherwise,) the imf has supported with loans.

as americans we generally do not delve into or research things like the imf and the world bank for good reasons. it is hard to get the info, for one. you gotta go to the guardian or al jazeera in many cases to get the story. recently there has been a slight resurgence of real news media in the united states as evidenced by talkingpointsmemo.com, air america radio, msnbc's employment of keith olbermann and rachel maddow, and a few other events and entities. if and when you can get to the info, it is difficult to digest. you kind of have to develop an intellectual curiosity that does not come easy. i mean, it is easier to just go about one's life of making house and doing all the things we do.

so what songzuo suggests in his article is not going to happen but it is worth reading to get a sense of how one of the millions upon millions of people around the planet who would like to see us get a dose of our own medicine feel about americans.

and we are going to get a dose of that med. as it becomes increasingly evident that the bailout was a bad joke and paulson was lying to the american public about all of the important aspects of it, as it becomes ever more clear that the bailout and subsequent actions are meant to help american financial institutions with no regard whatsoever for the american people. paulson can ask banks to negotiate and be nice to americans suffering from the strain of impending foreclosures all he wants but no policies are being imposed on these banks and so, banks will act as banks do. (if you are in a situation with your mortgage, please visit this site.)

i am hopeful we, as americans, will not have to endure what songzuo is suggesting. at the same time, i know our economic crisis is going to get worse before it improves. in so many ways what we have sown is coming to harvest and this idea that we should follow the policies we disseminate through the imf to so many other countries should be eye opening for many of us.

spoon - the underdog

that is 'the underdog,' by a band from austin, texas, called spoon.

the singer, (on this song,) reminds me of a young billy joel or a young elton john. remember how those guys sounded when they were young? they sounded like youthful, male virility. they sounded like tight, low-rise jeans and greenwich village in the '70s. they were direct and fun, all hipster and cool, and they had chops.

spoon is not about the piano like john and joel but the sound is at once fresh and throwback. if you have time to watch the video, notice how it highlights the various sounds in the song: the maracas, the clapping, the mariachi horns... this is a nice track.

eliot spitzer

so it turns out eliot spitzer will not be prosecuted.

do you remember eliot spitzer? he is the former new york state attorney general who became governor only to resign in scandal after his solicitation of a prostitution ring became public. well, when spitzer went down there was plenty of speculation in the blogosphere about whether the case was as it appeared or if in fact, spitzer was being threatened with prosecution for political reasons. (here is a great timeline of the events.)

so why is he not being prosecuted? according to the us attorney in manhattan who had been pursuing the case, michael garcia, it is not federal prosecutor policy to prosecute clients in prostitution cases. still, spitzer was threatened with prosecution not just for solicitation but also for violation of the mann act, which was designed to address prostitution, immorality and human trafficking. it is unlikely spitzer would have been convicted under the mann act, but its use as a political tool has been the norm.

garcia originally suspected spitzer of using campaign funds or his governor's budget to pay for his sexual encounters and used that idea as his rationale for continued and further pursuit of spitzer. apparently, he has since discovered the absence of illegal activity.

it is interesting that this story broke on the day after the election. it is as if spitzer was on lockdown, perhaps informed by garcia, rove, the bush administration or whoever else was pissed off about his wapo article, (linked above in the header,) to stay out of the public sphere and to keep his mouth shut until after the election at which point charges against him would be dropped. this is pure speculation but the linked article above, written by spitzer for the washington post on february 14th, 2008, reveals spitzer as a lone voice spearheading the effort to stop predatory leanding practices, (and leading other state's attorneys general to push the bush administration to halt these practices.) in response, the administration used the office of the comptroller of currency, (occ,) to attack and ultimately stop spitzer.

the occ made new rules to prohibit states from enacting their own laws against predatory lending practices, then filed a federal lawsuit to stop spitzer from investigating the banks.

please read spitzer's article, (linked in the header.) in our day and age there are too few protectors of the people's interest and too many who cater to the interests of the few, the corporate and the wealthy. it is important to see this case in the correct light. it would be entirely reasonable to argue that what spitzer did, solicitation of a prostitute, is not immoral or should not be illegal.

what is more important, however, is the criminal behavior of thwarting a protector of the people. spitzer saw our current financial crisis back in february and tried to take action to help curb or limit its impact. not unlike joe wilson, he was stopped in his tracks. this is the kind of behavior we should be most hopeful will end when the obama administration takes power in january.