On re-establishing our Constitution rights…

There must be a sense of urgency if we are to avoid the excesses of the GWB administration in the Obama administration or in administrations yet to come.  Once an office-holder gets power, it is very difficult to reclaim the power and give it back to its rightful owners (“We, the People”).  

It is also clear that Obama will abandon his principles in the name of “getting SOMETHING done.”  This has held true for every controversial issue that has come before us in the last couple of years (and before that when he voted “present” in the IL State Senate).

The only way we can get our rights re-established within the current governmental structure is to enact campaign finance reform in order to shift the power back to the people and seize it from fat-cat Big Business and their special interest groups and lobbyists.  Until we do this, Congress and the Executive Branch will allow them to “pay to play” and will not make decisions that benefit the people.

Campaign Finance Reform is the first and most critical step.

Once that is in place, a healthcare bill can be passed that benefits the people and not the insurance companies, healthcare providers and Big Pharma.

Decisions about how to solve the economy will move back from “welfare for Big Businesses” and the proper restraints and regulations that were eroded since the Reagan years (and even before that) will be re-established.

And, of course, if we re-establish the natural balance between the three branches that the authors of the Constitution intended (and which have worked reasonably well in the past), it stands to reason that our rights and protections will be re-established as well.  All the executive abuses of the past, from torture, rendition and the writ of habeas corpus to Executive Orders and all the provisions in the last few FISA amendments and the Patriot Act will cease to exist in their present form. 

We must acknowledge that “We, the People” do not have to relinquish our constitutional rights and protections in order to be safer.

 

Fear causes us to make bad decisions out of desperation in order to “feel better” or less fearful of our enemies and the potential threats it presents to our country and its citizens.  And what it really accomplishes is to change what is good about our society and form of government based on our fear and desire for safety.  We only have to look in our past to see how we slaughtered Indians by the millions and imprisoned Japanese American citizens in our own concentration camps because we didn’t trust people who didn’t look like us.

And we must pass a rule that amendments that are not germane to a bill cannot be included in any bill.

We also must demand the SCOTUS rule on whether or not an Executive Order is constitutional and binding, particularly if it includes provisions that are unconstitutional (abolishing the writ of habeas corpus, etc.).

And we must clearly establish the Right to Privacy, which will resolve such issues as abortion and homosexual marriage (and, for all practical purposes, many of the wedge issues that have plagues us since 1980).  I believe the Right to Privacy does exist.  If you look at the Bill of Rights, it is quite apparent that our Constitutional framers believed in the “man’s castle” theory which clearly establishes our inherent Right of Privacy.

Anyway, I think we must approach this issue in two ways:

First, get back control over our elected officials, who have reason to fear Big Business and Special Interests because of the enormous cost of running a successful re-election campaign, through passing campaign finance reform.

Second, we must try to educate “We, the People” and make them realize how dangerous it is to set such precedents that shift too much power to either of the three branches and shift power from the People to the government.  We must re-establish the inherent controls and balance between the three branches of government and the unconstitutional shift of far too much government power to the Executive Branch.  Even if we like and trust (or think we do), the guy in office now, we must remember that these precedents, once set, will empower and candidate that occupies these governmental position in the future. 

Unchecked power and unaccountable authority just don’t work, whether we are speaking of individuals or a political party.  We have seen that throughout the ages, and especially since 1980, when the political parties and special interests influenced the general public in becoming more and more polarized.  And that is the real danger. 

A democracy must be “people-oriented” and “people controlled “  Any act or action that contributes to American society by solving societal problems or preventing abuse by a government branch that refuses to acknowledge their accountability to the law of the land and to We, the People, must be effective and results-oriented in order to succeed and achieve the true goals of a democracy.  Every time we allow wedge issues to consume public discourse and further polarize Americans or sit back and watch our inherent constitutional rights and protections “flushed down the toilet” — regardless of any fear that permeates political discourse or public discourse — we move further and further way from the true freedoms that only a democracy can provide.

Abandoning our democratic values in exchange for the delusion that we are safer is the greatest “win” the terrorists could have hoped for…. and we gave this to them out of fear.

The GWB administration was masterful when it came to fear-mongering.  They proved how instilling fear in the general population could successfully empower an unhealthy, unchecked Executive Branch who believed themselves to be above the law.  And we also see how the country was bankrupted by the GWB administration to the point where the People are now financing with their own tax dollars poorly run companies with incompetent or criminal executive management; who deserve to be punished, not rewarded with multimillion-dollar executive bonuses BEFORE they have paid the American taxpayers back for their bailout money… These are the same executives that routinely and for a significant period of time made bad management decisions and were even criminally negligent to the point that their actions consist of a criminal breach of their fiduciary responsibilities.  And then we allow them their million-dollar bonuses while we are punished for their crime by having to carry the load of an out-of-control national debt.

Campaign Finance Reform is the first step

Without it, the Constitution will not be restored to its original intent, real healthcare that first protects the best interests of the People and not Big Business, Big Pharma and other Special Interest will never pass, and Big Business, the NRA and Special Interests will continue to have improper, excessive access to our elected officials, which results in the power to secretly write bills that benefit them or their industry.

Are America’s better days behind us?

Paddy Ashdown, in a speech given at the 2009 Guardian Hay festival entitled “The end of western hegemony” basically declared America to be “yesterday’s news” among the superpowers ( http://u.tv/News/The-end-of-western-hegemony/21f93f82-c918-4c1f-86a3-36382f2aa00b), but is this the truth? Ashdown’s obvious bias may lie in his professed faith, Islam:

Nezavisne novine. 29 October 2002. (http://www.oscebih.org/public/default.asp?d=6&article=show&id=177. Retrieved on 2007-11-23.)
”I am from Ireland, where society is divided too. In my school children were separated on Catholics and Protestants, but I said that I am a Muslim, because my father was a catholic, my mother a protestant. That’s not a reason why I was so bad student. My teachers told me that knowledge is gaining through whole life, and man is learning all the time. That changed my life. That’s why, this start of education campaign in BiH is the most important, since I came to BiH”, said Ashdown.”

This multiculturalism is a mask for Islamic domination promoted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR, founded by a Hamas leader), the American Muslim Council (AMC, funded by the Saudis, whose founder supports Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda; http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,Defensewatch_100903_Wahhabi,00.html), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA, which funds Hamas), the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom (NCPPF, which funds Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist groups), the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council (which funds both Hamas and Hezbollah), the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences (GSISS), the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), and World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY). etc. in many ways, it is far more serious an attack. The goal is to establish Sharia law throughout the nations of the world, which, in effect, establishes a worldwide Caliphate, as Muslims are instructed to do in the Qur’an.

This is frightening on many levels because many extreme left liberals, blinded by their multiculturalist utopia, are suggesting that we “roll over and play dead” rather than commit ourselves to learning from our mistakes AND our successes, then moving forward cognizant of those lessons. We have reached a point in democratic societies where our attempt to be politically correct is infringing our right to freedom of speech. The recent incident with Geert Wilders being refused admission into the U.K. because they feared it would rile the Muslims is very concerning. And our friend Ashdown was very much a part of that effort to keep him out. Other countries in the U.K. are caving to the Muslims’ demands as well. We must find a balance between being respectful of others’ views and speaking our mind freely, without fear of reprisal from any government. But that is a discussion for another day….

On the other hand, we seem to have forgotten over the last eight years that being a world power does not entitle us to be a world bully. Regardless, our place in the world depends on having a strong, stable economy. And we must deal with a two-headed monster: the national debt and our failing industries that produce tangible goods.

So, what should we have learned?

First, we know that deregulation does not work, or, conversely, regulation does work. Whether financial, environmental, social or other, the times when our nation has been most stable is when we had a solid set of enforceable, manageable rules in place, a clear line of authority and agencies empowered with the authority to act. Over the past few decades, “free marketeers” and “free-traders” have been buying their way into the political scene and using their influence to convince politicians of their ideology. It is a siren’s song that we find very seductive, because we Americans are an independent, free-thinking bunch, and anything that has “free” in it sounds like it must be tailor-made for us. But this is not the case.

As for free markets, the laissez-faire (French for “let [the people] do” [for themselves what they know how to do] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez_faire) theory may work beautifully in a laboratory setting where all factors are easily controlled, but in the real world, it has failed miserably. Why? Because man is foible, and you can’t expect the market (run by greedy, unethical men) to police itself. Every time we tried to deregulate, it ciomes back to bite us in the butt. In the ‘80s, it was the Savings & Loan debacle and Michael Milken’s junk bonds; today it is the investment bankers, corrupt credit rating analysts, junk mortgage bundlers, junk derivatives and Bernie Madoff’s fraudulent Ponzi scheme. Hedge funds and derivatives have turned our stock market into a casino where nobody wins. There is not just one piece of deregulation legislation that acts as the dagger to the heart, but rather a thousand paper cuts that finally caused our economy to bleed to death.

As for free trade, we should have learned by now that there is a happy place between free trade and protectionism called fair trade. We are not yet living in a truly global society. America has been far too generous with our markets, with far too few restrictions, or at least enforceable ones. As a result, we find that foreign goods made cheaply, and often without the consumer protections and quality assurance we need, are nevertheless making their way to a store near you. However, this is not reciprocated in kind with many of our trading partners. This must be changed in a reasonable, rational manner to include enforceable consumer, environmental and labor standards. No more lead in children’s toys and no more poison in pet food. No more of our labor force trying to compete with slave labor and child labor in foreign countries.

But the current financial crisis is not just fixing the mortgage industry and the credit crunch or revising trade agreements, it is deeper than that. The U.S. has moved from a self-sufficient nation that produced tangible goods and services to an economy based on consumer spending, paper wealth and banking products that are parasitic and exploitive in nature. In the IT business, we call the current banking model vaporware, because our investment and commercial banks don’t really exist to provide customers with a needed service anymore, but to create a perception of wealth via derivatives, hedge funds and bundling and reselling paper.

In the ‘90s, with the IT industry in overdrive combating the Y2K problem, we envisioned an information economy, but as is the case with all bubbles, that bubble soon burst, because, in the final analysis, IT work is in large part can be a remote service at which other nations like India, Pakistan, Southeast Asia and Japan can excel and provide greater value due to cheap well-educated and well-trained labor. We have also lost our clothing manufacturing to third-world countries with cheap labor, often slave labor or child labor. We now see even our flagship industry – automobile manufacturing – losing steadily to foreign imports and on the verge of not just bankruptcy, but complete collapse.

Why?

It’s time to set some priorities. First, it is a matter of national security for us to free ourselves of foreign oil. Foreign oil is draining our economy of billions of dollars daily. A politician said during the campaign that we borrow money from China to buy oil from Saudi Arabia. This cannot continue! High-priced oil and petroleum products are the single-most factor that drives up cost of tangible goods. When the items necessary for daily life are more expensive, labor cost goes up, which raises the cost of domestic goods even further. It is a vicious spiral. Big Business and their benefactors, primarily Republicans and conservatives, try to sell us the idea that it’s all union labor’s fault, but logic tells us otherwise. Ask any union members if they would take a lower salary (if it was truly a living wage) if accompanied with corresponding cuts in prices of consumer goods, and you might be surprised to find that they would accept that. Why? Because it’s not how much money you make, it’s what your money’s worth (what you can buy with it)! that counts! And that’s why a weak dollar hits the middle and lower classes far worse than the privileged class.

We must cure our need for immediate gratification and short-term thinking and challenge ourselves to value stability and steady growth over immediate “windfall” or unreasonable profits. We need to wake up and realize that all bubbles burst, and feeding frenzies in the Stock Market generally don’t pan out, certainly not for the companies who are victimized by them. What we need is stable, steady growth, not bursts of profitability with long gaps of decline, which is where we have been since the 1980s and the Reagan Revolution with the supply-side economics and trickle-down theory. The “voodoo economics” of the 1980s that GWB warmed over in the last eight years has not worked for the 21st century thus far. Actually, it didn’t really work in the 1980s either.

How to we fix this?

We all heard in the last campaign that it’s about jobs, jobs, jobs…. Well, guess what! It IS about jobs, Jobs, JOBS! We must create jobs. There are two ways to create jobs:

1. We can borrow more money, increase our national debt, exacerbate inflation and put people to work based on government projects, and/or
2. We can find other ways (i.e., tax breaks and incentives, guaranteed loans) to encourage the private sector to create jobs.

The above is a short-term strategy to stop the bleeding of jobs moving overseas. But we also need a long-term strategy. Every time we increase our national debt, we give away a larger and larger portion of our annual budget to the payment of interest on the national debt: money we might as well be flushing down the toilet. And, normally, I would not support increasing the national debt, but this is a critical moment with a window of opportunity that is quickly closing….

The Green Economy and Energy Independence

The buzz word during the last election was the green economy. Unfortunately, this seems to be the one good idea that has been put on the back burner. It is due, in large part, to special interest groups and undue influence on politicians to maintain the status quo — the influence of Big Oil on our politicians. But the lack of progress and lethargic public support is more likely due to the fear of the unknown — we have lived with an oil-based economy for over a century now. Oil, for us, is much like heroin for a junkie; it may give us the temporary “high”/feeling of security, but the reality is that we are killing our economy with foreign oil. It seems unreasonable and unlikely that the U.S. government should start its own energy company, so it is far more likely that providing tax incentives and guaranteed loans for private energy companies who are willing to commit to creating jobs (as well as providing a green energy product and/or service).

Rebuild Our Infrastructure

The equally important issue where the solution will help solve two problems – our crumbling infrastructure and jobs – is government-funded or subsidized innovative projects that repair roads, bridges, tunnels, sewers, waste disposal and recycling, water pipelines, utility lines, etc. Our energy grid is almost maxed out. We have witnessed the tragedy of collapsing bridges.

In addition to wind energy, solar energy, nuclear energy and biofuels obtained from crops, we could address our nation’s waste disposal problems with innovative energy plants using garbage. Right now, we have barges and floating mountains of trash that are killing sea life and polluting are oceans by design simply because we have nowhere to put all this waste. And that doesn’t even cover the waste illegally disposed of in our lakes, rivers and streams.

The answer to our economic crisis need not be elegant, just doable. The problem is we have to light a fire under our politicians and convince them to grow a pair and get this done.

Pay OFF National Debt

If we regain economic stability, we must then seriously pay off our national debt. An old Tennessee Ernie Williams song was “I owe my soul to the company store.” There is much truth in that. As long as China, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries own our debt, they effectively own us. We dare not try to enforce our human rights policies on China unless we want them to call in our loans. Likewise with Saudi Arabia and their human rights issue or their support of Islamic terrorist: should we fall into disfavor with Saudi Arabia, they have the entire Middle Eastern oil cartel at their disposal, and our oil could be cut off overnight if they so chose to exercise that power. Notice that every time we show strength against Muslim nations, particularly Sunni Muslim nations, they cut production. If you doubt that our debt is not an issue of national security, imagine waking up to a world with no electricity in your house and no gasoline to put in your car.

Peace!

Unfortunately, the Beatles song, “All you need is love!” is a utopian, naiive theory that does not work in the time of global jihad . The next component to our economic recovery is to end the war in Iraq and win the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan quickly and efficiently. Conservatives want us to believe that it is “entitlement” programs like welfare, Medicaid and Food Stamps that have bankrupted us. They even include the government-sponsored indivudal retirement investment fund called Social Security as an entitlement. This is a bold-faced lie. The Aghanistan and Iraq wars have almost single-handedly caused our national debt to skyrocket exponentially. We can no longer be policeman for the world. And we must demand that our allies take care of themselves (i.e., Germany, Japan and South Korea, in particular).

Economic Policy and Monetary Policy

The last item of business is regarding currency management. We must have far more transparency in the Federal Reserve System. The idea of creating a hybrid system that would prevent banking panics and balance privatization with government regulation was important. No one would argue that our system needs elastic currency and liquidity, but, Greenspan’s (and the presidents in office during his tenure) reliance on monetary policy to manage the economy (by raising and lowering interest rates) rather than managing the nation’s monetary supply is one of the components of the financial crisis. We have simply not had an effective Treasury Secretary in place to create effective economic policy. Managing the economy by interest rates in place of real economic policy does not work Lance Taylor’s 2004 Reconstructing Macroeconomics maintains that the sources of inflation must be found in the distributional structure of the economy. The Fed was never intended to supplant the Treasury Secretary. And one the Fed’s biggest failures in this current crisis is that it did not “protect the credit rights of consumers” or “contain systemic risk in financial markets” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_System). We need a comprehensive economic plan and policy.

Our Founding Principles

The idea that the U.S. should resign itself to obscurity is neither acceptable nor inevitable. We will have just as much relevance and power as we aspire to have, providing we back up our aspiration with perspiration and determination.

It’s not just a question of dominance that drives America, it is a question of whose values will the world respect and follow. Leadership is not solely dependent on a powerful economy or a powerful military; those are secondary to our founding principles of individual equality, freedom and responsibility, a citizen-run government and political process, well-regulated capitalism where everyone is free to participate and grow wealth, and, lastly, the transparency and integrity of our government and political system, which is the Constitution. Our present failure is due not to the weakness of our values, but our failure to observe them. We cannot allow our recent failure in leadership to cause the world to reject our values, rather, we must “clean up our own back yard” and continue to promote our values.

We have been and must continue to be the shining beacon of light in what is now a very dark world.

Some thoughts about this hybrid strain of “swine” flu….

Let’s talk flu (influenza), specifically, the new hybrid strain of “swine” flu, as it has been affectionately called until yesterday.   “Swine” flu is a misnomer, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has now designated it as the H1N1 influenza A strain (H1N1-A will be the unofficial abbreviation used to refer to this strain herein).  Why? Because H1N1-A is actually a hybrid or re-assortment of human, avian and swine flu strains.

Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate that our Center for Disease Control (CDC), National Institute of Health (NIH) and the WHO are on top of this. Focusing our efforts and resources on prevention and immediate appropriate response is important.  But panic is never called for, nor does it ever improve the situation — it only makes things worse.  One example is Egypt’s slaughtering of all pigs in the country.  Thanks to the WHO for making an effort to combat the ignorance.  Pigs are not the problem.  Let me be plain:  you cannot get the h1n1 a strain of the flu virus from eating cooked pork.

How is this strain transmitted? The NIH and WHO have told us that this strain is passed human-to-human, meaning contact with pigs is not how you “catch” this strain of the virus.  One of the traits of any germ (virus, bacteria, microbial, parasite) is transmission — how they are passed from one victim to another.  They can be air-borne, blood-borne, water-borne, transmitted by physical contact, or ingested.  This H1N1 influenza A strain can be transmitted by contact. or air-borne, as is my understanding. Further, “scientists studying the virus are coming to the consensus that this hybrid strain of influenza — at least in its current form — isn’t shaping up to be as fatal as the strains that caused some previous pandemics” (http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/scimedemail/la-sci-swine-reality30-2009apr30,0,1930617.story).

What are vaccines and toxoids?

When you are exposed to a live virus in nature, your body tries to fight it by building antibodies. If your body is successful, you develop immunity much as if you have been vaccinated. If your body is not successful, you contract the disease (become symptomatic).

Immunity can be acquired naturally or artificially. In either case, the host is exposed to an antigen (foreign protein), the antigen is recognized, and the host builds a complex immune response to neutralize the antigen.

Vaccines artificially expose the host to antigens which then elicit an immune response. There are two types of vaccines: killed vaccines and modified live [attenuated] vaccines. Killed vaccines are composed of agent antigens but not living agent. Modified live vaccines are composed of non-virulent, living strains of the agent [virus or antivirulent bacteria].

Toxoids are harmless derivatives of microbiologic toxins that simulate an active immune response to toxins released by pathogens and other poisonous sources (i.e., tetanus toxoid). (http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/gerstman/hs161/hint-vaccines.htm)

Modified live (attenuated) vaccines (MLV) are quicker acting and more immediately effective.

Attenuated means the virus cannot cause disease but it can reproduce in the body cells and stimulate immunity. (http://www.productionvalues.com/ProductionValues/vaccine_basics/vaccine_basics.html)

Killed vaccines may be killed viruses, killed bacteria called bacterins, or killed toxins called toxoids that were created and killed by either heat or chemicals.

In killed vaccines an adjuvant is added to the solution of killed organisms to help it stimulate the immune system. Dead virus or bacteria are not as easily recognized by the immune system without an adjuvant. The adjuvant also holds the killed organisms at the injection site. This allows time for the immune cells to respond to it. (http://www.productionvalues.com/ProductionValues/vaccine_basics/vaccine_basics.html)

…[A]ntibodies made in response to vaccination with one strain of influenza viruses can provide protection against different, but related strains. A less than ideal match may result in reduced vaccine effectiveness against the variant viruses, but it still can provide enough protection to prevent or lessen illness severity and prevent flu-related complications. In addition, it’s important to remember that the influenza vaccine contains three virus strains so the vaccine can also protect against the other two viruses. For these reasons, even during seasons when there is a less than ideal match, CDC continues to recommend influenza vaccination. This is particularly important for people at high risk for serious flu complications and their close contacts. (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/season.htm)

Given all the misinformation and rumors flying about, I thought it might be time to address some of the myths and truths.  Let’s start with the myths:

Myths

1.  Myth:  This pandemic is being used by the government to distract us from all the ‘bad” things it is doing.

It is inevitable that someone will always raise suspicion about a “Wag the Dog” scenario (distracting Americans from what’s going on with a crisis or war).  But the reality is most Americans are already distracted enough with trying to find a job, pay their mortgage, etc. – all those daily and monthly personal challenges that keep them too bushed to realize what’s going on until it has already happened.

2.  Myth:  The government is going to institute forced quarantine in FEMA concentration camps.

The reason this H1N1-A strain of swine flu does not present that option is because it is NOT 100% fatal or even highly virulent or toxic in its current form.  The fatalities so far could probably be considered about what you get from a pandemic of the “regular” human flu.  If this strain mutated or re-assorted (swapped genes) with another virus and became highly toxic or fatally virulent, and the casualties were so high as to warrant this for public safety, it might be possible to “sell” mass quarantines to Americans  But we are a LONG way from that scenario.

FROM CNN’s Jack Cafferty:  More than 13,000 people in the U.S. have died of complications from seasonal flu since January; and it’s expected to continue killing hundreds of people a week. In total, about 36,000 people a year die from the flu in this country; and worldwide, the annual death toll is somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000. One scientist tells the Los Angeles Times that just because the swine flu is being identified in more countries doesn’t mean it’s spreading especially quickly, saying: ‘You don’t ever find anything that you don’t look for.’  (http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/30/has-swine-flu-story-been-overblown/)

3.  Myth:  This strain (H1N1 influenza A) re-assortmentcould only have been genetically engineered in a “black” laboratory and/or is a test for bioweapons..

Flu viruses are known to be notoriously unpredictable, and this [or any live] strain could mutate at any point — becoming either more benign or dangerously severe. But mounting preliminary evidence from genetics labs, epidemiology models and simple mathematics suggests that the worst-case scenarios are likely to be avoided in the current outbreak.

“This virus doesn’t have anywhere near the capacity to kill like the 1918 virus,” which claimed an estimated 50 million victims worldwide, said Richard Webby, a leading influenza virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn….

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health published genetic sequence data Monday morning of flu samples isolated from patients in California and Texas, and thousands of scientists immediately began downloading the information. Comparisons to known killers — such as the 1918 strain and the highly lethal H5N1 avian virus — have since provided welcome news.

“There are certain characteristics, molecular signatures, which this virus lacks,” said Peter Palese, a microbiologist and influenza expert at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York. In particular, the swine flu lacks an amino acid that appears to increase the number of virus particles in the lungs and make the disease more deadly…. And a pandemic doesn’t necessarily have a high fatality rate…. As the virus adapts to its human hosts, it is likely to find ways of spreading more efficiently. But evolution also suggests it might become less dangerous, Olsen said…. The longer the virus survives, the more chances it has to mutate into a deadlier form. (http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/scimedemail/la-sci-swine-reality30-2009apr30,0,1930617.story)

Mosquitoes are responsible for more disease and deaths in ONE year than all the wars since the beginning of time.  Mosquitoes bite humans, pigs and birds, so it is quite possible for all three strains of the virus to find a common host (initially, the mosquito) and be transferred to a human or animal host, where, in either place, it can “percolate” and re-assort (swap genes), creating this new strain.  Voila!  No gene-splicing or black laboratories operating in stealth creating bioweapons had to make this strain. 

Viruses mutate and re-assort (swap genes) all the time, both naturally and with genetic engineering.  This strain of the flu virus is a re-assortment of swine flu, avian (bird) flu and human flu.  All that would be required to possibly create a mutation or reassortment/gene swapping among these three strains would be a common host and it would not even be necessary for all three strains of the virus a present in the same host at the same time.

How could the virus be transmitted from host-to-host?

One possibility is insects.  Let’s entertain my “off-of-the-top-of-my-head” theory on possible transmission of all three strains to one host.  Mosquitoes and birds don’t pay attention to borders or border guards.  They are disease carriers — famous for carrying diseases like malaria, West Nile virus, Western Equine Encephalitis, yellow fever and many, many other diseases.  A mosquito could bite an infected pig and/or bird and/or person and have all three viruses in its body at the same time.  Each time the mosquito bit another host, those viruses would be present and “percolating” away, eventually re-assorting/swapping genes or mutating, adopting some common characteristics of each strain.  Or, a person infected with human flu strain could go to his job at a pig farm, come in contact with an infected pig, acquire the swine flu strain, and get bitten by a mosquito who fed off a bird infected with the avian flu strain, and, voila! — all three strains are now living in one host and percolating away….

So far as we know, this H1N1-A strain of the flu virus has been primarily passed human-to-human via physical contact or air-borne (much like human flu is passed).  The fact that this outbreak occurred right around Spring Break explains a possible “logistics” of the transmission to the U.S. and other countries, since Mexico is know for its hospitality.  Thanks to a blogger (Brisbane), I became aware that there is a theory that an accidental shipping of a mixture of strains of the highly contagious (easily spread) human H2N3 virus was shipped with the highly virulent H1N5 avian flu in about February of this year, but all original sources say this was contained, and it is highly unlikely that it played a part in this new H1N1-A strain. (http://www.prisonplanet.com/medical-director-swine-flu-was-cultured-in-a-laboratory.html; http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2009/02/27/8560781.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baxter_International) It was discovered when the test subjects (ferrets) died suddenly and unexpectedly after being administered the test vaccine. Additionally, there is no evidence that the original strain of swine flu was ever introduced in any of these strains or exposed in any hosts.

There is the odd chance that this strain could be passed by any insect or animal carriers.  That’s how West Nile was spread. That is how malaria is spread. Mosquitoes are responsible for more deaths ANNUALLY than all the wars since the beginning of time collectively.  And Mexico, where the outbreak seemingly has occurred, has a warm climate and opportunity for insects like mosquitoes to come into contact with humans, pigs and birds.

4.  Myth:  You can catch this strain of “swine” flu from pigs.

This hybrid “swine” flu strain (H1N1-A), is transmitted human-to-human as far as we can tell.  It is possible for a carrier from another species to pass it from one host to another, but pigs have not been found to carry this human strain of the virus, rather, only the original swine flu strain.  Likewise with birds.  So killing all the pigs in the world won’t prevent this strain of the virus from propagating.

GENEVA – The World Health Organization [WHO] announced Thursday it will stop using the term “swine flu” to avoid confusion over the danger posed by pigs. The policy shift came a day after Egypt began slaughtering thousands of pigs in a misguided effort to prevent swine flu….  ‘Rather than calling this swine flu … we’re going to stick with the technical scientific name H1N1 influenza A,’ Thompson said. Egypt began slaughtering its roughly 300,000 pigs Wednesday even though experts said swine flu is not linked to pigs and not spread by eating pork. Angry farmers protested the government degree. In Paris, the World Organization for Animal Health said Thursday ‘there is no evidence of infection in pigs, nor of humans acquiring infection directly from pigs.’  Killing pigs ‘will not help to guard against public or animal health risks’ presented by the virus and ‘is inappropriate,’ the group said in a statement.  (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090430/ap_on_he_me/un_who_swine_flu).  For similar info, see http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1894703,00.html?cnn=yes).

5.  Myth:  We need to take DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) off the banned pesticide list (and de-regulate all the EPA’s banned pesticides and fungicides.

In the course of reading about flu and how it is transmitted and, then, mosquitoes and how they are the #1 carrier of disease, I found out some interesting facts that address another myth going around:  that we need to resurrect DDT.  Not so.  Allow me to explain why.  DDT is an insecticide that has been proven to cause harm to both bees and bird eggs (the shells become too thin to last through hatching).  DDT also stays within the soil for quite some time, and it enters our water sources through run-off from rainwater and/or floods.  

In the second half of World War II, it was used with great effect among both military and civilian populations to control mosquitoes spreading malaria and lice transmitting typhus, resulting in dramatic reductions in the incidence of both diseases.

In 1962, Silent Spring by American biologist Rachel Carson was published. The book catalogued the environmental impacts of the indiscriminate spraying of DDT in the US and questioned the logic of releasing large amounts of chemicals into the environment without fully understanding their effects on ecology or human health. The book suggested that DDT and other pesticides may cause cancer and that their agricultural use was a threat to wildlife, particularly birds. Its publication was one of the signature events in the birth of the environmental movement. Silent Spring resulted in a large public outcry that eventually led to most uses of DDT being banned in the US in 1972.^[4] DDT was subsequently banned for agricultural use worldwide under the Stockholm Convention, but its limited use in disease vector control continues to this day in certain parts of the world and remains controversial.^[5]

Along with the passage of the Endangered Species Act, the US ban on DDT is cited by scientists as a major factor in the comeback of the bald eagle in the contiguous US.^[6]  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT)

DDT was attributed to the near extinction of the bald eagle.  Eagles are an apex predator (meaning they are one of the ones on top of the food chain).  When eagles or other birds of prey or other apex predators become endangered, it is a sign that the environment and their habitat are being damaged.  Fortunately, this is no longer a problem. 

Public Enemy Number One:  Insects, particularly Mosquitoes

At least 140 species of birds, including songbirds, hawks, owls, eagles, waterfowl, woodpeckers and hummingbirds, have tested positive for West Nile virus in the United States. At least 77 of those species are found in Washington. Corvids (ravens, crows, jays, magpies, etc.) are the group most commonly affected by the virus. (See http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/research/west_nile/wnvaffected.html for a list of wildlife species that have tested positive for West Nile virus elsewhere in the United States). Besides birds, some free-ranging mammal species, including caribou, squirrels, wolves, bear, and deer, have tested positive for the virus.  (http://wdfw.wa.gov/factshts/westnilevirus.htm)

Now let’s discuss some truths about the virus and how to prevent it:

Truth

1.  Truth:  It has been proven that insecticides and other chemical pesticides are not good long-term solutions for killing disease-carrying insects and vermin.

Adult female mosquitoes require blood to reproduce, so they seek out creatures with circulatory systems. Their quest is enabled by the fact they are attracted to the signature of carbon dioxide that humans and animals emit when we exhale. Traps have been developed using this principle.  (http://www.howtogetridofstuff.com/pest-control/how-to-get-rid-of-mosquitoes/)

A variety of options should be considered, though existing chemical pesticides typically cause more long-term problems than they solve. Chemical poisons kill natural mosquito predators more effectively than mosquitoes. Over time, predators such as fish, mosquito-eating insects and bats die out, while mosquitoes develop resistance, enabling them to multiply in ever-larger numbers in a losing battle often referred to as “the pesticide treadmill.’ (http://www.batcon.org/bhresearcher/bv8n2-4.html)

An easier and better, more lasting solution would be using natural biological means:

Fish, dragonfly nymphs and diving beetles are natural predators of mosquito larvae, while dragonflies, birds and bats feed on adults (http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05526.html).

Such as mosquito dunks:

For pools and ponds too large to be dumped, one simple option is the mosquito dunk that utilizes a bacteria that is only lethal to insect larva. The dunks, shaped like small donuts, use a bacterially derived pesticide called Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (Bti). Bti disrupts the life cycle of insects that lay their eggs in standing or running water.

It is non-toxic to humans, amphibians, fish, crustaceans, adult insects, flatworms and mollusks. Neither is it toxic to insect predators of the mosquitoes, such as dragonflies. The dunks are inexpensive, can be simply dropped into the breeding pools and generally last for several weeks to months. The dunks will usually survive if the pool dries out and is then refilled with rain or drainage water, according to Robinson. (http://agnewsarchive.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/ENTO/Jul1403a.htm).

or mosquito-eating bats, like in TX:

Another way to control for flying insects is to establish air superiority. For mosquitoes, ruling the skies means encouraging allies such as bats. (http://agnewsarchive.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/ENTO/Jul1403a.htm).

 

Individuals of some bat species can capture from 500 to 1,000 mosquitoes in a single hour^1,2, and large colonies can consume enormous quantities. For example, a Florida colony of 30,000 southeastern bats (Myotis austroriparius) was estimated to consume 50 tons (45 t) of insects annually, including over 15 tons (13.5 t) of mosquitoes,³ and from 77.4% to 84.6% of little brown bats (M. lucifugus) living in the northern U.S. and Canada eat mosquitoes.^4,5 Nursing mothers of these species eat up to their body weight in insects nightly^6, and often can be attracted to live in bat houses.⁷( http://www.batcon.org/bhresearcher/bv8n2-4.html)  

For more info:  http://www.batcon.org/ or http://www.batcon.org/bhresearcher/bv8n2-4.html; http://www.birdsamore.com/critters/bats.htm

or mosquito-eating birds:

A number of national organizations, states and towns have recognized the value of Purple Martins and other swallows in helping to control mosquitoes and other flying insect pests.  Similar recognition has been given to bats, as another natural predator, feeding on flying insects (http://skipper.physics.sunysb.edu/mosquito/mosquito.DOC).

or mosquito-eating fish:

The larval stage is aquatic and feeds on subsurface micro-organisms. Mosquito larva when first hatched are about one-sixteenth inch long. When mature, they measure as much as a quarter inch long. They don’t have gills and must move to the surface to breathe. To do so, they don’t so much swim but wiggle. Hence, among those on familiar terms with insects, such as Dr. James Robinson, Extension entomologist, the larva are known as ‘wigglers’….

In farm ponds, fathead minnows, bluegill and many other species of sunfish will readily eat wigglers. Gambusia, or mosquitofish as they are called, particularly like wigglers. In ornamental backyard ponds, goldfish or koi carp will control the wigglers as well. Amphibians such as frogs and salamanders present in ponds may also help.  (http://agnewsarchive.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/ENTO/Jul1403a.htm)

2.  Truth:  Prevention is the greatest factor in deterring any disease or disease-carrying insect infestation. 

You can best prevent disease by frequent hand-washing and coughing or sneezing into the crook of your arm – not your hands, which you use to touch doorknobs, shake hands, etc.  Practice good personal hygiene, kitchen, bathroom and general home hygiene.  Stay home if you are sick so as not to infect others at work, school or in public places.  Get plenty of rest, drink lots of water and juice, eat right and exercise.  In other words, all the things that you should be doing anyway.

Prevent insect infestation by making sure there is not a nurturing habitat in which insects can live and breed.  Don’t leave food out.  Treat your pets for parasites.  Make sure there is no standing water wherein the female mosquitoes can lay their eggs is the best way to prevent infestation.  Keep your grass cut.  Make sure you have screens on your windows.  But you can’t get rid of mosquitoes completely, even with all the chemical and natural means of killing them.

A final word

Arrogance and impatience should not drive decision-making when it comes to using pesticides that are harmful to the environment, to wildlife and, ultimately, to humans.  It is easy to rationalize that it is OK when allowing emotions to give in to fear-mongering, even when there is significant proof to the contrary.  

Nor should we let ourselves be seduced by anti-government/anti-regulation/anti-environmental activists that don’t see the big picture in protecting our environment or who are using this “crisis” to fulfill their own political agenda.

Fear-mongering and the panicked, emotional, “knee-jerk” reactions are the enemy to successfully fighting this or any pandemic or health threat. Remember, when you find yourself reacting, you’re not in control….

UPDATE: Thanks to Shar, a fellow blogger, I became aware of an article written in the UK that discusses the possible source of the virus (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/27/swine-flu-search-outbreak-source) This article suggests that a pig farm located in Mexico (already under investigation for illegal dumping) may have illegally dumped waste into a waterway, thereby infecting an entire town nearby.  Half of the town became ill (about 1800 people), but it was before the outbreak of this strain of flu was identified. The samples that were extant were sent to a lab in America, where they have been confirmed to be the H1N1 influenza A virus. This happened in February of this year. Please check it out!

Reflecting on 2008

Well, I learned a lot this year….

They say a cynic is a disillusioned idealist.  To be honest, I suppose I have qualified on that score for some time now.

For starters, I learned that liberal Democrats are just as prejudiced, biased, dishonest, disreputable and corrupt as the extreme Right Republicans.  I always thought my party was better — more honest, more caring and supportive of the “common” man, more concerned about this planet and its inhabitants, etc.  And that the Republicans were the “bad guys.”  This year, I found out that lust for power trumped ethics and decency hands down — no matter which party you were talking about.

I also found out that the integrity of the Constitution could no longer be taken for granted – that it was not a document on which we common Americans could depend to protect us unless we had money,  power and influence — at least, not so long as our governmental branches all agreed to ignore it when it was convenient [for them] to do so.  I learned that my rights were not as ‘guaranteed” by the Bill of Rights as I thought they were.  I learned that my vote did not always count and my voice was not always heard, particularly if the media did not agree with me.

I learned that journalism as I knew it and studied it in graduate school was DOA.  Truth was passé.  No more who, what, when, where, why.  The new questions were “how will it sell” or “how does it test” (AdSpeak) and “how will it benefit the corporation.”  No more journalistic ethics.  No more publication standards.  No more professional respect and professional distance.  Now our journalists can call female candidates they disagree with c*nts, bitches and hos.  Now they listen to the “tingle down their legs,” not the facts and the truth of the argument.  No more courageous editors and publishers who backed their reporters when the “consequences” of an article spoke truth to power arose.  Not anymore.  At least, not if it was not good for business as interpreted by the corporate executives that controlled the conglomerates that now controlled broadcast and print journalism.  Ratings are now more important than truth.  And it is now apparently sufficient to cry “mea culpa” after the fact when blatantly distributing or broadcasting propaganda for your candidate, masking it as “news.”  It’s OK to be “in the tank” for a candidate so long as you admit to it after the votes are cast and your mea culpa can no longer influence the outcome of the election against your interests.

I also learned that rules do not apply to all of us.  Apparently election fraud is now OK.  Citizens who have the audacity to demand proof that a candidate meet the constitutional requirements for an elected office somehow cannot actually demand proof from anyone that demonstrates this, and no state or federal office (including the Secretaries of State who control the ballots of each state in elections), no court, no party and no candidate is responsible or can be held accountable for providing said proof.  Apparently, publishing a fraudulently “doctored” birth certificate or draft card should be accepted as proof without question.

I learned that political corruption has become so rampant and accepted that political parties and election officials no longer even try to hide election manipulation anymore.  And that caucuses are the easiest election vehicles to manipulate simply by creating rules that eliminate any voting group that is not .likely to support your candidate.

I learned that a DNC Chairman is no longer required to maintain a professional distance from all party candidates during the primary.  That he can cut a deal with a candidate before even the first primary is held to move the party office to his preferred candidate’s home base without anyone so much as batting an eyelash or questioning at least the appearance of impropriety.

I learned that elected officials and party appointees can start a drumbeat during the primary season for the opposition to their candidate WITHIN THEIR OWN PARTY to drop out of an election without the media finding it outrageous and contrary to the old-fashioned “American” way of democracy and open government.

And I found out that the corruption I suspected of the Bush administration — the lies, the deceit, the outright criminality — was all pretty much exactly as I had suspected. 

That was one time I was hoping to be proven wrong.  But I wasn’t.

And here we are now.  The first day of 2009.  What will the future hold?

Well, it is clear to me that no matter who is in power, the American people are in for some hardcore suffering at the hands of the cowards we have sitting in Congress and in the White House.  The economy, the war, virtually every aspect of government has been corrupted by undue corporate influence that is the result of MONEY from PACS, businesses and other special interests that have the resources to cause Congress to act in their best interest instead of ours.  And with Obama’s successful fund-raising without using public funding, we can now consider public funding — our last, best hope of removing money from politics — dead in the water for decades to come.  Now accepting public fundings will be considered an act of political suicide.  As it proved to be for McCain.

So, how do we fix the mess we’re in? 

I hoestly don’t know, but I know sitting back and being silent in our misery is guaranteed failure, so I will continue to speak out, because rewarding bad behavior is a sure-fire guarantee that it will continue.

And I am becoming increasingly more convinced that Ralph Nader is right in saying that we need more political parties to bust up the two-party monopoly that has a vice-like grip on our power structure.  “More voices and more choices” is not sounding nearly as radical and insane as the Dems, bitter from Gore’s defeat, wanted us to believe.

And I have also found that we cannot trust our regulatory agencies to curb the unethical and criminal behavior in any of our industries — not even the so-called “grown-ups” in the banking industry.  That we can now depend on imports from China to be uninspected, drugs to be approved based on political ideology and influence, scientific reports to be fraudulently tampered with to protect political ideology, and all the environmental protections to be rolled back because they were “bad for business.” 

And I learned that the bailout has proven to be welfare for financial giants, not one dime has apparently made its way to purchase risky mortgages or free up the credit market as promised.  But CEOS can rest soundly knowing their unearned, outrageous salaries and  bonuses will be paid in full — even as the corporation they were charged with leading failes and the taxpayer is left holding the bag for that as well.  And if they defraud clients in the tens of billions of dollars, they can rest assured that they will be sleeping in their $7M NYC apartment, not in jail like the rest of us would be if we committed fraud in the tens of dollars.

I look forward to your thoughts….  And, once again, I pray that my suspicions will be proven wrong.  Unfortunately, I have an annoying habit of being right about these things. 

Great Depression II, here we come!

Learning from history: Regulation works

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” –  George Santayana quotes (Spanish born American Philosopher, Poet and Humanist who made important contributions to aesthetics, speculative philosophy and literary criticism. 1863-1952)

 

This housing market debacle that has occurred under George W. Bush’s watch can be traced back to many of the same causes as the Savings & Loan debacle during Reagan’s watch on October 1987:  it’s about how deregulation sets the market up for failure.

 

This problem goes back to Carter.  And every administration and every Congress since then has been complicit in this mess.  The reason they waited until it was too late to put it off is that they are ALL in bed with the financial contributors.  This year, Dodd, our Senate Banking Committee chair, got the most from the investment houses, Obama was second. (www.opensecrets.org).  But, none of them are blameless.  James A. “Jim” Johnson, a close friend of Richard Daley and the Chicago Daley political machine, Franklin Raines, , Tim Howard, Jamie Gorelick and Penny Pritzker are Obama advisors, and McCain had Rick Davis as his campaign manager.

 

“In 1990, [Jim] Johnson [Chairman and CEO, 1991-1998) went to work for the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and quickly became its $5 million-a-year chairman. His compensation rose to a reported $21 million by his final year, 1998....

 

When he left his job at Fannie Mae, which long has had a reputation as a cushy landing spot for the political class in Washington, he was serenaded by 16 members of the Benson High band, which had been flown to D.C. at Fannie Mae's expense. He also received a number of perks, including a $600,000 annual consulting fee….

 

It should be noted that Johnson got out of Fannie Mae while the getting was good. Since his leaving, the massive, quasi-public home mortgage organization has been buffeted by negative headlines. Accounting scandals, dating back to Johnson's era, have been followed by recent news that Fannie Mae has lost more than $3 billion in the housing slump.”  (http://www.minnpost.com/stories/2008/06/03/2078/obama_turns_to_trusted_political_insider_jim_johnson_for_key_campaign_role)

 

A news release, dated 12/18/2006, stated that OFHEO had filed a Notice of Charges against former Chairman and CEO Franklin Raines, Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Office Tim Howard and former Senior Vice President and Controller Leanne G. Spencer, which was ultimately settled.  In that Notice, Office of Federal Enterprise Housing Oversight (OFHEO) Director James B. Lockhart stated,

 

The 101 charges reveal how the individuals improperly manipulated earnings to maximize their bonuses, while knowingly neglecting accounting systems and internal controls, misapplying over 20 accounting principles and misleading the regulator and the public.  The Notice explains how they submitted six years of misleading and inaccurate accounting statements and inaccurate capital reports that enabled them to grow Fannie Mae in an unsafe and unsound manner.The conduct cost the Enterprise and shareholders many billions of dollars and damaged the public trust.  http://www.ofheo.gov/media/pdf/RainesNOC121806.pdf

 

Let’s examine the relationships that two of those mentioned have with Obama:

 

“Franklin Raines, Chairman and CEO of the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) from 1999-2004, is the individual most responsible for the subprime mortgage crisis. It was on Mr. Raines' watch that Fannie Mae went bankrupt.

 

He was accused of manipulating earnings statements so he could be paid bonuses to which he was not entitled.  He received a golden parachute valued at $240M, court ordered him to return $50M, leaving $190M, at least $20M of that sum was now worthless stock.

 

Of Raines' $91 million in compensation between 1998 and 2003, more than $84 million was tied to earnings per share targets and faulty accounting, OFHEO said in 2006.:  (http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN1835681920080419?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0)

 

 

Tim Howard was the Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer of Fannie Mae. Howard "was a strong internal proponent of using accounting strategies that would ensure a "stable pattern of earnings" at Fannie. In everyday English - he was cooking the books.  The Government Investigation determined that, "Chief Financial Officer, Tim Howard, failed to provide adequate oversight to key control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae,"

 

On June 16, 2006, Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., asked the Justice Department to investigate his allegations that two former Fannie Mae executives lied to Congress in October 2004 when they denied manipulating the mortgage-finance giant's income statement to achieve management pay bonuses. Investigations by federal regulators and the company's board of directors since concluded that management did manipulate 1998 earnings to trigger bonuses. Raines and Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004.  Howard's Golden Parachute was estimated at $20 Million, of which he had to return $5.4 million.  (http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN1835681920080419).

 

 

Mr. Johnson and Mr. Raines aren't the only figures in the subprime mortgage scandal to be connected to the Obama campaign. Jamie Gorelick, rumored to be an attorney general candidate in an Obama administration, was vice chairman of Fannie Mae from 1997 to 2003 [and was the former Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton administration]. Penny Pritzker, Mr. Obama’s national finance chairman, has been described as “the Michael Milken of the subprime mortgage crisis” for her pioneering of the packaging of bad loans with good ones at her now defunct Superior Bank in suburban Chicago.”  (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/how_close_are_raines_and_obama.html)

 

Penny Pritzker, a billionaire  (Hyatt hotel chain and the Marmon Group industrial conglomerate. (Forbes Lists 2005), engaged in predatory lending “after the Pritzkers’ bank acquired its wholesale mortgage organization division, Alliance Funding, in December 1992.”  (http://gdaeman.blogspot.com/2008/02/who-is-penny-pritzker-and-why-is-she.html, http://www.thenation.com/bletters/20080211/fraser).

 

According to the Encyclopedia Judaica, the Obama campaign’s national finance chair, Pritzker “served as chairman of the Superior Bank from 1989 to 1994, but the savings and loan institution collapsed” in July 2001. Created at the end of 1988 as the successor bank to the failed Lyons Savings Bank, the Oakbrook Terrace/Hinsdale, Illinois-based Superior Bank was 50 percent owned by Chicago’s billionaire Pritzker family. Yet according to an October 16, 2001, statement before the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs by Ely & Company Inc. President Bert Ely, the Pritzker family’s Superior Bank “started life with enormous tax benefits and a substantial amount of FSLIC-guaranteed assets under a FSLIC Assistance agreement.” In a December 2002 Chicago magazine article, “Tremors In The Empire,” Shane Tritsch noted, for instance, that for investing $42.5 million in the failed Lyons Savings Bank before it was reopened as Superior Bank, the Pritzkers and their business partner received an estimated $645 million in federal tax credits and loan guarantees; and “by one estimate, it would have cost the government $200 million less simply to shut Lyons down.”

 

But according to Ely’s October 16, 2001, statement, “Superior’s trick, or business plan” under Penny Prtizker’s chairmanship was apparently “to concentrate on subprimelending, principally on home mortgages, but for a while in subprime auto lending, too,” after the Pritzkers’ bank acquired its wholesale mortgage organization division, Alliance Funding, in December 1992.

With a business loss estimate of between $350 million and $1 billion, the 2001 failure of the Pritzkers’ Superior Bank represented the largest US-insured deposition institution to fall between 1992 and 2001. But according to a February 7, 2002, report by FDIC Inspector General Gaston Gianni Jr., “the failure of Superior Bank was directly attributable to the Bank’s Board of Directors and executives ignoring sound risk management principles.”  (http://www.thenation.com/bletters/20080211/fraser)  

 

And then there’s ACORN.  Obama’s direct involvement with ACORN, who intimidated banks into providing loans to those with bad credit, included serving  on the board of the Woods Fund which provided money for ACORN’s activities.  Obama also trained “activists” on behalf of Madeline Talbot, who spearheaded the drive to pressure banks into providing high risk loans.

 

A rundown:

·         Madeline Talbot, leader at Chicago ACORN, enlists Obama (between college & law school) to train her staff.

·         ACORN requests Obama as legal representation in “motor voter” case.

·         Obama (post law school) in partnership with ACORN organizes “Project Vote.”

·         Obama enlists ACORN volunteers for State Senate, (failed) Congress, US Senate campaigns.

·         Obama hires Daley-team to run State Senate election, kicks other 4 contenders (including incumbent) off the ballot, and wins by running unopposed (How did Obama’s legal team invalidate thousands of signatures? See article & video for more).

·         Obama directs millions in grants to ACORN

(http://www.dingonation.com/politics/race-redistribution-and-the-bully-pulpit)

 

 

“Senator John McCain’s campaign manager [Rick Davis] was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say. 

 

… several current and former executives of the companies came forward to discuss the role that Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager and longtime adviser, played in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000.”  (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/us/politics/22mccain.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&ref=politics&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin)

 

As long as times were good, nobody complained too hard because you “don’t fix what ain’t broke.” (Will Rogers)   The markets were great, the bubble hadn’t burst yet.  But, then the bubble burst.

 

This is not the first time de-regulated markets have posed a problem.  The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 was passed to protect homeowners. 

 

“Bad Government Policies

Economist Robert Kuttner has criticized the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act as contributing to the subprime meltdown.  A taxpayer-funded government bailout related to mortgages during the Savings and Loan crisis may have created a moral hazard and acted as encouragement to lenders to make similar higher risk loans.”  (Wiki — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis)

 

Banking deregulation started in earnest during the Carter admin in 1978.  Interest rate ceilings on deposits were phased out in the early 1980s, during Reagan’s watch.  Next came the Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000, HR.5660, also passed by a Republican Congress and signed by Clinton.

 

“Additionally, there is debate among economists regarding the effect of the Community Reinvestment Act, with detractors claiming it encourages lending to uncreditworthy consumers and defenders claiming a thirty year history of lending without increased risk.  Amendments to the CRA in the mid-1990s, dramatically raised the amount of home loans to otherwise unqualified low-income borrowers and also allowed for the first time the securitization of CRA-regulated loans containing subprime mortgages.

 

Some have argued that, despite attempts by various U.S. states to prevent the growth of a secondary market in repackaged predatory loans, the Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, at the insistence of national banks, struck down such attempts as violations of Federal banking laws. 

 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s mortgage policies fueled the trend towards issuing risky loans.  Like the second link says, HUD and the Community Reinvestment Act are major culprits. After their accounting scandals in 2003 and 2004, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac committed to increased financing of “affordable housing.” They became the largest buyers of subprime and Alt-A mortgages between 2004 and 2007, with total GSE exposure eventually exceeding $1 trillion. They greatly grew the subprime mortgage market, leading to a housing bubble and its subsequent collapse. 

 

Among banks and the regulatory agencies, there was a consensus that data collection, recordkeeping, and reporting requirements imposed a heavy burden on small community institutions. As a result of a 2002 review of the CRA regulations, and revision of an initial Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) proposal following a public commenting period that was largely negative, the FDIC, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Reserve Board (FRB), made substantive changes to the implementation of regulations for the CRA for banks (not thrifts).

 

Previously, all institutions over $250 million in assets were subject to a three-part CRA test that covered lending (including community development loans), qualified investments, and services (including community development services) to their assessment areas. Institutions less than $250 million were subject only to a lending test.

 

However, as of September 1, 2005, only those institutions with more than $1 billion in assets were subject to the three-part test. Institutions below $250 million remain subject to only a lending test, and a new CRA test was created for institutions with assets between $250 million and $1 billion. This latter category, referred to as Intermediate Small Banks, is subject to the same lending test to which institutions under $250 million were subject, along with a new combined community development test that covers community development loans, qualified investments, and community development services. The $250 million and $1 billion asset thresholds also were indexed to the consumer price index and could change annually. Thus, all institutions remain subject to the CRA test. These substantive changes were intended to be a compromise between changes advocated by banks and community groups.

 

However, the changes were not received positively by all community groups. Changes to tests conducted on the Intermediate Small category were viewed by some as decreasing the institutions’ obligations to meet lending requirements of low- and moderate-income households. Racial inequities in mortgage acceptance rates (as reported by Inner City Press, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, ACORN and other groups) are cited as a primary reason to maintain or even increase the scope of the CRA.”  (Wiki — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act)

 

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, passed in1999, and the Commodities Futures Modernization Act, passed in 2000 “broke down the firewalls between Wall Street and commercial banks and banned regulation of credit default swaps, an insurance-like product bought by financial services companies to cover their risky subprime mortgage investments.”  (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13683.html)  

 

“The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act, Pub.L. 106-102, 113 Stat. 1338, enacted 1999-11-12, is an Act of the United States Congress which repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act, opening up competition among banks, securities companies and insurance companies. The Glass-Steagall Act prohibited a bank from offering investment, commercial banking, and insurance services.”  (Wiki — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act)

 

American International Group, rescued by the Federal Reserve on Tuesday [September 16, 2008] is one of the biggest sellers of these swaps.”  Barney Frank commented to reporters that he had been sitting on a bill (S.190, then S.1100 refiled), tabling it until after the presidential election. Clinton had tried to get legislation through during his administration that modified some of this.  Even Bush tried to do the same.  McCain even raised the cry.

 

Relaxation of geographical restrictions on bank expansion proceeded historically, and this resulted in the history of state-level regulation being completely abandoned. Over a period of 20 years, Glass-Steagall was pecked at and undermined and weakened. It was finally killed altogether in 1999 with the Graham-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, signed by Clinton, but passed by a Republican-dominated Congress.

 

Triggering the financial implosion on Wall Street were the problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which had its legislative roots in the Congressional Black Caucus.  The concept for these institutions was a good one — to break down the barriers of institutionalized racism in the financial market.  But the implementation and de-regulation made for a situation is which widespread fraud and abuse and far-too-relaxed lending practices created an unstable situation.  These firms were not properly leveraged, and their impending collapse should have been easy to predict.  These firms, fostered lax lending practices and covered up their own financial deficiencies.  And these two institutions have their tentacles in the 2008 presidential campaign in the forms of Jim Johnson, Franklin Raines, Rick Davis, Jamie Gorelick and Penny Pritzker.

 

Although I am not a fan of GWB, it is only fair to say that, going back to the beginning of his administration, President Bush warned of the problems at these institutions and the consequences if Congress did not bring them under control. Seventeen times, Bush publicly called for reform of both institutions. But Democrats and Republicans in Congress ignored the warnings and denied there were any problems. What follows is an administration chronology of efforts to achieve reform:

 

At the beginning of 2005, a bill was introduced by Chuck Hagel to deal with the need for regulating Fannie and Freddie, among other investment banks. John McCain was a cosponsor: (http://uppitywoman08.wordpress.com/2008/09/21/john-mccains-fannie-maefreddie-mac-warnings-may-2006/).  And Barney Frank (http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/financialsvcs_dem/press092308.shtml) and Chuck Dodd had a bill in the last Congress that was filed as S.190 and refiled as S.1100 that they have been sitting on until after the presidential election was over, only the economy wouldn’t wait

 

As with most idealistic theories, Adam Smith and his concept of a free market works very well in a laboratory setting, where all the factors are carefully controlled, much like any utopian philosophy.  But in real life, with real people who have real greed and real problems with ethical behavior, it simply does not work.  It works no better than its polar extreme socialism, which does not motivate people to work and to strive for excellence.  That’s why we need regulation of the markets.  Because markets deal with real people and real temptation and real greed must be controlled.

 

The next problem that is happening today is both a symptom of deregulation and a cause of the resulting debacle, and that is lack of transparency.  It is a particularly strong trait of this administration.  And this administration has set the tone for the entire country, especially the business world.  Lack of transparency makes it impossible for real oversight or regulation to occur.  People who hide things usually have something to hide.  We have found this to be true of this administration, and now we see the same trait is both a cause and a symptom of this deregulated market and its result:  the biggest market failure requiring the biggest bailout in history.

 

The same applies to our other regulatory agencies which have been decimated during the Bush administration.  We need environmental, labor and consumer protection regulation both at home and as it applies to our imports and trade agreements.

 

We know from our own experience as children that rules work.  Rules that are reasonable and that are fairly and consistently enforced make society work for everyone.  It also applies to markets and to business.

 

So, how do we fix it?  The administration is pressuring Congress to move quickly.  But I hope Congress realizes that there is a difference between moving quickly (and knowing what you’re doing) and moving irresponsibly and imprudently.  Rash behavior will only complicate the existing mess and create an even bigger mess.  And U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s “Chicken Little” presentation before the Senate Banking Committee did not inspire confidence.

 

When you are reacting, you are not in control.  We must get control of these markets, and that requires thoughtful, deliberate action that requires controls and oversight tools to be included in the pending legislation, which, in its current form, is a prescription for a larger disaster, but it basically writes a blank check to Secretary Paulson, who helped oversee the making of this mess in the first place, and this, plus his $500M fortune earned by the very excesses and abuses that have cause this market to fail, makes him an unregulated and uncontrolled God of the market economy.  Paulson was Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs  since the firm’s initial public offering in 1999, and this tends to further erode my confidence in his ability to objectively oversee this recovery and select firms to bail out.  All this leads me to believe that this legislation in its current for is a prescription for disaster.

 

There are also some punitive actions that must be included, not the least of which is that the golden parachutes of the executives who got their company in this mess should not be permitted.  And, most of all, there must be provisions within this deal that protects the American taxpayers in such a way that the funds they are lending these institutions are recoverable, at least in part.  Otherwise, we will be encouraging the same behavior to happen again.  If Uncle Sam bails you out every time you screw up, then why should you change your behavior?

 

One of the most disturbing aspects of this bailout legislation in its first incarnation is that it provides for American taxpayers to bail out foreign firms that had business transactions in the United States.  Since we are in a global economy, shouldn’t the entire globe — any nation that was involved with these transactions — be participating in the pain?  After all, it is their firms who did not observe good lending practices when buying these instruments.  Why should the American taxpayers be held holding the bag for any of it?  There must be some real controls and deliberation on bailing out a foreign-owned institution.  What do we do if we can’t recover our investment in bad paper?  Invade the country where the firms originates?  There is much about this bailout that gives me pause.

 

The American taxpayers will be experiencing significant pain in this deal.  They are taking on, with the recent deals already done, over $1.3T in bad debt that may not be recoverable.  Remember, all the wonderful plans for healthcare, education and many other factors have been flushed down the toilet once this deal is signed.  There will be no money for any of those programs.

 

And if we are willing to take over the banking industry, we must also take measures to control the rising costs of commodities that has already occurred and will continue to occur with investors moving their money to this market.  Just today oil went up $25/barrel.  And rising food prices are already increasing starvation in third-world countries.  The American taxpayer must have some protection with temporary price controls.  Otherwise, other markets will start to fail as rising costs put small businesses out of business.  And the next problem will be all the other industries that have been hard hit during this economic downturn.  Who do we bail out next?  The auto industry?

 

The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 or CFMA (H.R. 5660 and S.3283) repealed the Shad-Johnson jurisdictional accord, which had banned single stock futures in 1982. The legislation also provided certainty that products offered by banking institutions would not be regulated as futures contracts. This act was incorporated by reference into HR.4577 (see below). The legislation thus became law as a part of HR.4577 – Public Law 106–554, §1(a)(5) signed by Bill Clinton December 21, 2000….

 

The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 has received criticism for the so-called “Enron Loophole,” 7 U.S.C. §2(h)(3) and (g), which exempts most over-the-counter energy trades and trading on electronic energy commodity markets. The “loophole” was drafted by Enron Lobbyists working with Senator Phil Gramm [one of McCain’s financial advisors] seeking a deregulated atmosphere for their new experiment, “Enron On-line.” 

 

Several Democratic Legislators introduced legislation to close the loophole from 2000-2006, but were unsuccessful.

 

In September 2007, Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) introduced Senate Bill S.2058 to specifically close the “Enron Loophole.”  This bill was later attached to H.R.6124, the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, aka “The 2008 Farm Bill”. President Bush vetoed the bill, but was overridden by both the House and Senate, and on June 18th, 2008, the bill was enacted into law.  One specific reason behind its introduction was to address the record high oil prices of the 2000s energy crisis. Since it was enacted, average gas prices of regular unleaded gasoline in the U.S. have dropped $0.357, from their record high of $4.114 on 7/17/2008 to an average of $3.757 as of 09/21/2008.

 

The prohibition on single-stock futures and narrow-based indices that had been in effect until the passage of this act was known as the Shad-Johnson Accord because it was first announced in 1982, as part of a jurisdictional pact between John S.R. Shad, then chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Phil Johnson, then chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. 

 

The act specifically banned regulation of credit default swaps. These unregulated instruments, insurance policies against default on risky investments like mortgage backed securities, necessitated the government bailout of insurer A.I.G.  (Wiki – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernization_Act_of_2000)

 

Next, if we protect the investors in these institutions, we must also take measures to protect the American taxpayers and the good homeowners who are struggling to pay their mortgages.  I suggest that all homeowners be allowed to adjust their loans to current market value and refinance with fixed rate loans based on that value since the market has devalued their property so greatly.  This strategy worked well during the Great Depression recovery.  In fact, most banks following this practice made money.  Keep these good homeowners who are paying their mortgages in their homes.

 

This crisis could have been averted by practicing reasonable regulation and oversight.  The market, big business and our government failed us on every level.

 

“Ours is a system of corporate socialism, where companies capitalize their profits and socialize their losses…in effect, they tax you for their accidents, bungling, boondoggles, and mismanagement, just like a government. We should be able to dis-elect them.” — Ralph Nader

 

But we must also include our own culpability in this problem.  Many people became speculators during the housing bubble.  They were speculating on the fact that the market would be good and the value of the investment homes would increase so they could sell them at a profit.  And then there were the folks living well above their means who entered into interest-only payments with a big balloon at the end of three- or five-year period, etc., living at the edge of their income and banking on their ability to sell their home for the balloon price or better, then doing it all over again with a new house.  The market failed, the value of the house dropped, and they had no savings to cover the balloon, so they lost their home and ruined their credit.

 

And one final note: The administration’s view is that they are bailing out the “market,” not just a few key firms.  But the greatest beneficiaries ARE the few key firms.  Granted, anyone who has investments, whether it be stock, money market accounts, 401Ks or other retirement or savings vehicles, and anyone who needs credit (especially businesses) will be impacted by this failure.  But there must be some real controls and an objective bipartisan oversight – a deliberative body who decides on what actions should be taken and with which firm.

 

So, here we are again.  Will we learn from history this time?  Will Congress have the balls to face this crisis without giving into the panic-atmosphere that the administration has created to push this bill through without the necessary controls and oversight?  We shall see.  But, whatever, the outcome, we know the American taxpayers will get stuck with the bill.  And, although life is not fair, this is particularly unfair, because it has to do with unbridled greed and mismanagement of private industry due to our elected officials rolling over and playing dead when deregulating the markets and then failing to perform their oversight duties.

 

There is a record of legislation going back to the Clinton administration that addressed this problem, but could not get passed.  The largest contributors in all the campaigns came from these same failed firms.  If that does not wake us up to the need to get money and corporations out of our political campaigns, I don’t know what will.  It’s our fault, too, because we did not demand better from our government.

 

And then there were the honest folks who dealt with predatory lenders — fraudulent real estate brokers, mortgage brokers, etc., that were encouraged to enter into mortgages with variable interest rates or graduated interest rates and hidden costs that caused them to be unable to pay their mortgage.  These real estate brokers and mortgage brokers that falsely represented to their clients their ability to afford these homes, and fraudulently submitted false information about the client’s income or down payment or the value of the home in an effort to put the deal through.  Then they turned around and sold this bad paper to other investment firms.  And the homeowners are left with an unmanagement mortgage payment that they can ill afford or a home beyond their means when they were told they could afford it.  These conspirators must be brought to justice.

 

“Capitalism will always survive in the United States as long as the government is willing to use socialism to bail it out.” — Ralph Nader

 

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