"Bring Him Back Home (Nelson Mandela)" - Hugh Masekela

Blessing as you go on your journey!

rojo

Wake Up Already!!!!!

This absolutely boggles my mind. I hear people talk about the government making banks give loans. Notice in this article "Bear don't care." and that WAMU blacklisted honest brokers and appraisers. So glad they stole my money and got away with it. Sociopaths, enabled sociopaths.

rojo

Thoughts on Secessionists

Oh boy, yet another county is voting to secede from the State they are part of. There are numerous counties in northern CO that want to secede from CO and become either their own state or part of another state. Siskiyou Co. in northern CA voted to do the same last night.

Why? oddly enough these are all republican counties that do not feel as if they are fully represented by the Democratic majority. Well, guess what? I lived in CO for years when it was a republican stronghold, in Jefferson County when it was run by a very conservative church in Arvada. When you don't get your way, you DO NOT OFFER TO TAKE YOUR BALL and go home. Democracy is advanced citizenship (thank you "American President"). You might even have to work on compromises for the good of the whole. self-sacrifice in ways that does not involve war or emergency situations. Being adult and wise.

A good lesson to learn. BTW, honestly, if I could have seceded from the United States of Cheney/Bush I probably would have and even thought of becoming an expat if Romney won. That said, maybe if you don't like the country you live in and do not want to solve problems, you could leave. I understand Somalia, the libertarian paradise, still has some real estate.

rojo

About Time, Maybe

I see Duetschebank and Wells Fargo are shitting their respective knickers and have filed suit against the City of Richmond, CA and San Francisco. The cities are attempting to declare eminent domain of underwater properties. Then, they intend to refinance the properties back to owners with mortgages that reflect the current value of the home. The banks are in an uproar. 

Why, it is (in their opinion) improper use of eminent domain, the confiscating of bank property through basically condemnation and reselling it. Regardless of the fact that the underwater homes causes foreclosed homes to flood the market, cause urban eyesores, drop property values and lose tax revenue, stressing school income. No problem for the banks if that is the case. No skin off their noses. TS to those who used to live there. Let them be homeless, the slackers. But take the banks' properties, big problem.

Wait. Aren't these the properties that the banks had to be bailed out from because they were overvalued? You know, the ones you and I paid for with our taxes? The ones the banks got to keep when other people paid for them?

Yes, the very same ones. So, the public pays for them, bails out the banks, few if any business leaders go to jail for criminal enterprise, few lose their jobs and the majority received bonuses for a job well done. After all the banks got free money and in business that is a good thing. 

Capitalism does not work that way. For everyone who screams about the need to keep the free enterprise system free---it has not been free at upper levels since 2008. It it really were a free enterprise system, instead of corporate welfare, the banks would have failed. They made bad investments, they should lose. But, no. Taxpayers had to bail them out. If you or I do a shitty job at work, we lose our jobs. Not these asses. They get bonuses for doing such a shitty job the government had to cover their asses.

Now when a City wants to take action, they do not want government involvement. Really??? Wells used money they received to purchase Wachovia. I did not see Wells say, "no we are doing okay, don't need government money." Hell, no, they took it and bought out a competitor making them too much bigger to fail. 

Amazing how much capitalists (in name only) squeal when they might lose their welfare-paid for assets (really, the bank bail out was nothing more than corporate handouts) for the greater good of the community. Social contract be damned. It is not what is for the good of the community. John Locke would indeed be rolling in his grave.

Keep in mind that until the 1800s (late 1800s, at that), companies had to have their charters that allowed them to do business granted every X years to stay open. If they broke their social contract they were disbanded. Think Standard Oil, or Bell Telephone (in the 1980s). There is precedence. 

rojo

Scenic California

These photos were taken on a trip from Taft, CA to somewhere north up Route 33. The oil activity there is amazing. If you look closely at the second picture, you can the number of pump jacks and the surface piping of the oil.

rojo

Nice Toone

rojo

Economics, not Toones

This article gives some of the background of the deal. Blackstone buys Sea World and leverages $1.3B in debt. That means they really did not have the money to buy them, used their name to borrow $1.3 billion and then transferred the debt immediately to Sea World. Blackstone has no debt and Sea World has to cut, austerity for all. And then goes for public sale to cover that debt, promising dividends all the way. In the meantime the Blackstone group makes $500,000,000 for putting this together. net, that means the invested $1,000,000,000 and borrowed $1,300,000,000. They moved that debt immediately to the new company they bought and asked public investors to buy stock to fund that debt. and paid themselves $500,00,000 in management fees for coming up with the scheme. I wonder if investors will ever get their 3% dividends. So for putting up $1,000,000,000 Blackstone gets $1,800,000,000 profit, almost a 2--% margin from other people's money, promising to pay them back over time. Wow!

It must be nice to play with the money of others and not have a ton of risk. And if this fails, Blackstone still makes money as managers and consultants. It's good to be the king!

And oddly enough Blackstone backs the austerity plans of members of Congress (Simpson, Bowles, Ryan). Not saying debt is not a problem. It sure in the hell is, but when your basis for doing business is borrowing money and then selling things off to pay for it, making sure you take your percentage off the top of the sale, regardless of whether the sale makes sense or not--basically making money using someone else's money with little if any risk to your own pocketbook, you have to wonder whether that economic model ever has an end. The last guys to invest in Ponzi schemes always get burnt. Follow this through to the logical conclusion.

the government runs up debt by doing stupid things like not budgeting for our annual ecological disaster, appropriates unbudgeted emergency funds (at this point do not think about the $4,000,000,000,000 unbudgeted for Iraq and Afghanistan) has no real backing to pay for these debts and has to start selling off what was supposed to be a public trust. Little things like property and mineral rights in national parks. Eventually the debt gets to the point that the big traunche of money that is a surplus and is supposed to be kept sacred (Social security) gets to be sold in an attempt to cover irresponsible management, which does not affect the managers because they still keep their jobs and get bonuses and perks. Remember in the long term how effective Chain Saw Al was as a manager. He gutted companies, took his bonus, sold them as a shell of their former self (basically selling the name) and road off in to the sunset holding money and creating nothing. Oh yes, many of those companies investors found were worthless when he was done. There are two ways to cut debt--revenue and austerity.

The US is in bad enough shape both are needed. Management ran up debt, the Federal reserve printed money to cover it quantitative easing) and the money was used by groups like Blackstone to amass more money they now keep offshore. It's good to be the KINGS! Use other people's money to make vast amounts, leverage the whole damned government and then keep the money out of circulation waiting for the next crisis.

Eventually the whole country gets sold. When will people realize money is not a commodity but a symbol for something real--people's work, love and life. And then cannot be traded bartered and sold without real damage. Out of control capitalism really is unsustainable. Vampires run out of blood eventually if they turn them all.

Of course, debts could be paid and revenue (taxes) raised to do it, but first you would have to be grounded in your country.

Blackstone and the 'Vampire Squid' Sell SeaWorld

online.wsj.com

Friday's opening IPO price of $27 a share valued SeaWorld at about $2.5 billion. The company has more than $1.8 billion in long-term debt. Or as it warned, We are highly

leveraged.

New Toones

It has been a long hiatus, but I'm baaccckk.

heard this on the radio today and they deserve a look see.

rojo

Who Knew

I was looking up an Ohio Players toone to post in honor of the recent passing of the front man, and I happened to see a song by Carl Carlton "She's a Bad Mama Jama". I always wondered what happened to Little Carl Carlton. Used to listen to him back in high school. The local radio station WJMO, Mojo Soul Radio used to feature him on their weekly TV show.


rojomojo

It's Been A While

just heard this on the radio and was blown away.

Rojo