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A new poll released by the Washington Post shows that just over half of Americans, and two-thirds of Democrats, believe that the government should impose a temporary moratorium on foreclosures. On the eve of an important election, the White House is definitely caught in a bad spot.
Someone needs to say it — a government-mandated foreclosure moratorium is a bad idea. It’s a great populist message, but it creates new problems without solving the real underlying issues. What we should be focused on is achieving a balance between protecting individual consumers in the short term and protecting all of us in the long term, by defending the integrity of the law and the stability of the market.
Some lenders committed outright fraud. Many lenders engaged in indefensibly sloppy recordkeeping. Some lenders have made serious mistakes, like changing the locks on homeowners who weren’t in default. None of those sins should be forgiven. To the extent those actions violate the law, the guilty lenders should be held accountable.
But here’s a key point — every loan wasn’t fraudulent. Every lender wasn’t a crook. Many of the foreclosures currently pending are perfectly legal. A temporary moratorium would not only unfairly hinder lenders who played by the rules, but would damage buyers planning to close on a house in foreclosure, and could result in homes remaining vacant longer.
More chillingly, a government-mandated foreclosure, if such an action could be taken legally, would suspend the operation of contract law for political purposes. Such drastic action sends a terrible message to potential investors in the American housing market. If we want the economy to work again, we need capital to flow freely. Undermining the integrity of American contract and mortgage law, even temporarily, will drive up the cost of capital by increasing the perception of risk to investors. That’s just a bad idea.
The real question that we should be asking is – in this economy, why are lenders pursuing so many foreclosures? We know that there aren’t buyers for all of those homes. In many cases, it just makes good economic sense to keep a defaulting homeowner in the house until a buyer can be located. An occupied home is less likely to suffer damage, and cause problems for the neighborhood, than a vacant one. What’s going on? Why are lenders acting contrary to their own economic self-interest?
One problem is that “lenders” aren’t calling the shots. The real owners of significant numbers of home loans are pension funds, insurance companies, mutual funds, and the government. The entities that we call the “lenders” — Bank of America, GMAC — are in many cases just the servicers on the loans. They earn a fee based on the services that they provide to the institutional lenders and investors. In plain English — it appears that the servicers (at least in the short term) make more money if they foreclose than if they don’t. Their contractual economic incentives aren’t aligned with what’s best for the true owners of the debt, the homeowners, or the general public.
So rather than calling for a foreclosure moratorium, which is an overly-broad solution that creates a cascade of other problems, the government should address these mismatched incentives to servicers and how they can be realigned. We need to protect homeowners. We also need to protect the housing market, neighborhoods, potential homebuyers, and yes, even innocent lenders. Let the courts do their work sorting out the pending foreclosures. Let the attorneys general investigate lender violations of law. Let the government focus on the systemic incentives that cause lenders to pursue foreclosures that don’t make sense for anybody but the servicers.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The Republican Party could regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives in next Tuesday’s midterm elections for the first time since losing power four years ago.
How’s that for a scary Halloween trick?
Sure, there are familiar faces among those hoping to take power — people like Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the GOP’s leader in the House. The pumpkin skinned, chain smoker has complained for years that President Obama and Democrats have not reached across the aisle enough with the hope of finding “common ground.”
Accepting for a moment that Boehner is correct, even though the President has repeatedly sought to work with Republicans to little success — how closely does Boehner plan to work with Democrats should he become Speaker?
Not too closely. After all, it wasn’t long ago that Boehner said he supports bipartisanship “if the balance leans in our direction, and things that we believe in.”
While it isn’t nearly as likely, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky could very well become Majority Leader. His version of bipartisanship? Doing everything he can to defeat Obama in 2012.
And here I thought bipartisanship was a two way street.
“Speaker” Boehner and “Leader” McConnell won’t be all alone should things go splendidly for Republicans and horribly for the rest of us on Election Day.
In an effort to speed along the introductions, I present to you some of the leading contenders for the 2011 Republican freshman class — from the statehouse to the halls of Congress.
In New York there’s Carl Paladino, the Republican nominee for Governor. This guy has a history of sending racist and sexist emails. Once he even sent around a bestiality video. And still, GOP voters chose him as their nominee. Perhaps it was his proposal to put those most in need in prison where they would be taught about “personal hygiene” that won over Republican primary voters.
Down south in Kentucky we have Rand Paul running as the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate. He’s been attacked by his opponent for belonging to a secret society in college, “that called the Holy Bible ‘a hoax’” and “was banned for mocking Christianity and Christ.” Perhaps even more bizarre, it has been reported — though he denies it — that in college, Paul and others in the secret society once tied up a woman before attempting to force her to “take bong hits” and telling her to “worship” a god named “Aqua Buddha.” Over on the policy front, Paul has said that had he been in office at the time, he would have questioned a portion of the 1964 Civil Rights Act which bars private businesses from discriminating on the basis of race. Now that’s what I call a winning southern strategy. Sigh.
Heading out west we find Republican Meg Whitman, the former head of eBay, who has spent more of her own personal wealth on a bid for Governor of California — at least $160 million — than any candidate in any state ever. Whitman has said that she moved to the Golden State “30 years ago” because “anything was possible” back then. Her opponent, Jerry Brown, is quick to point out that he was Governor when Whitman thought things were so peachy keen. Apparently all the money in the world can’t buy you a good California history textbook.
As for candidates hoping to join Boehner in the House? In Florida we’ve got Allen West who is a fan and defender of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, which, according to reports, has been “targeted by the FBI” for such things as “racketeering” and “attempted murder.” Then there’s Glenn Beck’s buddy, Stephen Broden of Texas who has said that a violent overthrow of our government is “on the table.” In the Buckeye State a city prosecutor is reviewing molestation claims made against candidate Tom Ganley and we’ve discovered that Rich Iott’s hobbies apparently include dressing up like a Nazi.
Yes, the nation continues to laugh at Delaware Senate hopeful Christine “I’m not a witch” O’Donnell for her colorful past (and present), but it bears noting that she is far from the only GOP joke on the ballot next Tuesday. In fact, this column could be extended ten-fold and it would still miss some of the GOP’s fringe candidates.
It would be funny if it weren’t so absolutely frightening and if Republicans succeed next week, we’re in for the scare of our lives.
Originally posted at Cagle.
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Karl Frisch is a syndicated columnist and progressive political communications consultant. He can be reached at KarlFrisch.com. You can also follow him on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube or sign-up to receive his columns by email.
Distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. For information on carrying Karl’s columns, call Cari Dawson-Bartley at 800-696-7561 or e-mail cari@cagle.com.

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Great Greek food is tough to come by in Los Angeles. In my opinion, most Greek food in LA is greasy and far from authentic. Have I had authentic Greek food? Yes. My husband and I took a tour through the Greek Islands, and got engaged on the island of Santorini. We share yummy memories of eating some of the best seafood we’ve ever had. They know how to cook calamari and it’s never rubbery, always soft and tender. The fresh Greek salads are simply delicious and the 3am gyros oozing with traditional Greek yogurt, cucumber, dill sauce are still burned in my brain.
So when I had a chance to try a modern Greek cuisine at Xandros that’s serving up organic and sustainable fare in LA, I jumped at the chance. We were treated to a delicious four course dinner. We started with a sampler of five dips served with oven fresh pita bread. Each one was deliciously unique. The Melintzanosalata, a simple puree of roasted organic eggplant, sheep milk yogurt, oregano and mint danced with bright flavors and immediately brought my palate alive. The traditional Tzatziki made with Greek sheep’s milk yogurt Kefir, grated organic cucumbers, chopped garlic, lemon fresh dill and Greek olive oil took me straight back to my 3am gyros. The Taramosalata Mousse, is divine with a blend of smoked fish caviar, panko, lemon, Greek olive oil and herbs.
We then moved onto the Karpouzosalata one of Xandros signature salads. Made with organic local watermelon, heirloom tomatoes finished with sheep’s milk feta, fresh mint and drizzled with honey and golden balsamic, this tasted like fresh summer on a plate!
Next came the entrees. Pasture raised lamb shank and striped bass. The lamb is slow cooked with red wine, tomatoes, and herbs served with market vegetables and Gigantes. If you don’t know what Gigantes are, they are oversized beans that are commonly found in Greek and Mediterranean cuisine.
The tender lamb fell right off the bone and oozed with flavor from its delicious sauce. The striped bass was a little overcooked and somewhat dry. The ragu of farm fresh veggies served with the fish were a delectable delight.
Dessert: house made Greek fritters. One word: scrumptious. These perfectly cooked fritters boasted a slightly crispy exterior with light and fluffy interior. Served with strawberries, bananas, vanilla gelato and side of rose water. Many might be scared of the rose water, but it is really delicious and a beautiful twist. Something you’d be hard pressed to find somewhere else.
Xandros is fine dining, entrees start at $18 and go up to $45, so you’ll need your wallet. If you’re looking for a fresh take on Greek cuisine and don’t mind the prices, this is your place.

Follow Laura Klein on Twitter:
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Have you ever opened your email inbox and seen a request to assist a fledgling company with their accounts receivable or remittances in exchange for a percentage of each transaction? You aren’t alone. At this period of global economic stress with increasing percentages of societies unemployed, these offers may be seen as a way to bring a few extra dollars into one’s family to help alleviate fiscal stress. Don’t. The company may appear legit, but in reality is the front for any number of organized criminal entities. In 2010, money-laundering arrests have included criminal organizations from Central Eurasia, Latin America, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, the EU, Africa and the United States. It’s a global issue.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission provides a few words of advice: “Offers that involve transferring money for someone you don’t know are nearly always a scam.”
What do they look like? Here is an example of a piece soliciting me to become a money mule which recently found its way into my inbox. Read it; the author finds the processing of payments as too stressful:
So how can we keep ourselves safe? Learn the tell tale signs that you’re being asked to become a mule:
Keep this offer secret.
Respond to this offer right now.
Protecting the company from taxes associated with international sales remittance
Are you asked to spend your money?
You are requested to open or provide any information associated with your bank accounts
UK’s Bank Safe Online sums up the situation with:
And therein lies the serious aspects of this seemingly innocuous offer to process funds; you become their money mule, illegally transferring their money. When the criminals behind this scheme are discovered, if you served as their money mule, you too will be amongst those prosecuted. This is not exactly the solution to alleviating that fiscal stress. So use some horse sense, and don’t become a mule.
For additional reading:
UK’s Bank Safe Online: Money Mule Explained
Australia’s Scam Watch
US’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Effort

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Current mortgage rates are at an all-time low, but if you are wondering why this hasn’t provided the desired support for the housing market, look no further than the foreclosure documentation scandal that has recently rocked some prominent banks.
Recent revelations about faulty foreclosure documentation provide a window into the reality of how banks operate — and the view isn’t pretty.
The foreclosure documentation scandal — what it says about banks
Bank officials are supposed to personally verify the information on foreclosure documents before signing off on them. It turns out, though, that when faced with an overwhelming volume of foreclosures, some bank officials signed off on the documents automatically, without reviewing them — a practice that has become known as “robo-signing.”
Does this mean that the epidemic of foreclosures over the past couple years need not have occurred — that it was just a banking error? Unfortunately, no. The likely outcome is that the vast majority of foreclosures that were robo-signed would have gone through anyway had they been properly reviewed.
What this does confirm is two things about the way some banks responded to the flood of foreclosures:
Besides the financial losses of loan defaults, the mortgage crisis saddled banks with a paralyzing bureaucratic burden. At a time when banks were cutting back on mortgage staff, mortgage departments were trying to process an avalanche of paperwork. Some cut corners as a result.Banks were tone-deaf about how to handle the crisis. If they couldn’t keep up with the pace of foreclosures anyway, banks could have gotten some public relations benefit at no cost to themselves by extending a grace period to troubled home owners. This would have helped mortgage departments catch up on foreclosure paperwork, and might even have allowed some home owners to turn things around.
Muting the impact of current mortgage rates
What happened instead has muted the potential benefit of current mortgage rates. Houses have been precipitously dumped on the market via foreclosures, and overwhelmed mortgage departments have been slow to write new loans. To the extent this has prolonged the housing slump, banks may be victims of their own bureaucracy.
The original article can be found at MoneyRates.com:
Foreclosure Documentation Scandal Speaks Volumes About the Mechanics of the Mortgage Mess

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

When asked recently if the states are headed toward the same end as some of the country’s major banks, Washington state Governor Christine Gregoire had this response:

“We’re not going to fail. That’s not in our vocabulary. I don’t know a governor who would say we’re going to fail,” she told me in front of a Starbucks in downtown Seattle.

And yet, all signs in her state –and many others — point toward a long-term struggle at best as the states continue to beat back the recession.

Last month on CNBC, famed bank analyst Meredith Whitney offered an ominous prediction for the U.S. states: “The similarities between the states and the banks are extreme,” she said, suggesting that some of the states are poised for failure of the same proportions as U.S. banks in 2008.

Responding to Whitney’s comment that the states resemble the banks pre-crisis, Gregoire said that, “We’re in crisis mode. We the states are not in pre-crisis at all.”

She would know: Washington state is quickly running out of money. State budget reserves have dwindled to $72 million, an amount needed to last through the remaining eight months of the state’s budget cycle. Should the state experience further tax revenue losses toward the end of the year, this reserve cushion could disappear all together.

The economic record for the individual states isn’t encouraging, and it’s all over the map. State tax revenues were 11.5% lower in the 2010 fiscal year than in 2008, while the need for state-funded services did not decline, and in many places actually increased.

According to a report released by Whitney’s firm, there is a “real danger” that municipalities could start defaulting on their bonds. The cities and towns themselves guarantee these bonds, and the municipalities receive one-third of their revenue from the states. In the event that the states hold back those funds to use toward their own budgets, towns and cities won’t have the money to make their interest payments.

Economist Nouriel Roubini told me he is also worried about municipal debt default, saying thatmunicipal debt is already 20% of GDP. He added that unfunded liabilities of state and local public employee pension funds are as high as $3 trillion — or another 20% of GDP.

Tony Crescenzi, VP of bond firm PIMCO, said that the pressure on the municipalities is heightened by local unemployment data, most notably with layoffs in the education sector. “States are pushing down their burdens onto local municipalities,” he said, “So it is important for now to focus in particular on local governments.”

Whitney warned: Should the larger states fail, they might cause problems for the others by creating a vacuum for federal resources and domestic trade.

“We’re struggling, there’s no question about it,” said Gregoire.

Forty-eight states addressed shortfalls in their fiscal year 2010 budgets, totaling $191 billion or 29% of state budgets– the largest gaps on record, according to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

“Hopefully these concerns will convince states to defer borrowing while deficits remain wide,” said Peter Delahunt, of Raymond James financial services company, explainingthat raising taxes and making budget cuts are still viable alternatives, as long as state governments are willing to make some big changes. “Thirty-seven gubernatorial posts are up for election,” he said. “The best approach for a new governor is to blame the previous administration and take action early in the first term, having four years to recover.”

In Delaware, Democratic Governor Jack Markell has decided that budget cuts alone are not enough, telling me when I met with him in Wilmington, “We’re not going to cut our way to a prosperous future.”

For some states, like Delaware, that means creating more jobs. Markell recently solicited a deal withTaiwanese silicon giant Motech, which joined the ranks of corporations based in Delaware with its merger with General Electric’s silicon business based there. The deal saved about 70 jobs in the area, and Motech officials have announced plans to hire an additional 75 people by year-end.
“We have to continue to grow our way out of this,” said Markell of his efforts to create new jobs.
But job creation is not a guarantor to economic recovery, a fact that Washington state has had to learn the hard way.

“All the private gains and jobs you can make can be paled in comparison when you look at the kind of layoffs we’re going to have to do at local government, state government,” said Gregoire.

The unemployment rate in Washington has held steady at 8.9% for three months now, a source of frustration for workers and state officials alike. Washington picked up an estimated 1,000 private-sector jobs in September, but overall payrolls were down 3,200 due to the loss of an estimated 4,200 government jobs.

While his state is among the smallest in the U.S. for population, Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer emphasized that every state, regardless of size, has the same basic operations.
“85% of Montana’s budget, as in every other state, is to educate, to medicate, to incarcerate,” he told me when I met him on his ranch in Helena. “Every one of us runs the same business. We might be a little smaller shop than the big shop but we have to buy our goods and services the way they do, we have to sell them the same way they do. So just because you’re a Wal-Mart, doesn’t mean that you’re not the same business as the ma and pa store down the road. We’re the ma and pa store that’s more efficient than Wal-Mart. ”
Whitney also found the dichotomy between larger, troubled states and their smaller colleagues to be especially troubling.”Imagine you’re conservative, fiscally sound Nebraska and you have to bail out California, or you’re fiscally conservative Texas and now you have to bail out Michigan,” she said. She added that, should this situation arise, the consequences on the dollar and the national recovery would be enormous.

In response to Whitney’s gloomy predictions, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen said that, “You can’t say ‘states’ and talk about all 50 in the same words.” He told me when I interviewed him in Nashville that he is more concerned with the enormity of the cuts made in each state, most of which are taking a toll on services that the states have historically provided, including education and healthcare.
Forty-eight states addressed shortfalls in their fiscal year 2010 budgets, totaling $191 billion or 29% of state budgets– the largest gaps on record, according to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

For some, it’s not a question of hitting rock bottom, but how to climb out of the fiscal hole once they do.

“It hasn’t been easy,” Maine Governor John Baldacci said of having to make deep budget cuts and layoffs, especially in a state with a small population comprised of tight-knit communities.”I’ve made a lot of tough decisions. I’ve irritated an awful lot of people,” he told me when I traveled to meet him in Portland.
When I recently asked about the possibility of state failure, Jim Rogers, legendary investor and financial commentator, said, “This is old news. I and others have been explaining about the perilous state of the US states for a few months.”

Moving forward, the first quarter of the 2011 fiscal year will be a true test of how far the states have come in repairing their bruised economies. In some cases that’s “judgement day” — when the federal stimulus money that many states have included as part of their budgets will run out.

“A lot of these states think Uncle Sam will be there just in case,” said Bredesen, suggesting that those states may learn the hard way that a federal safety net is no longer available.
Governor Gregoire and her team of economic advisors remain cautiously realistic, if not optimistic.

“There’s not more bad news,” she said. “It’s just going to take us a while to get out of it.”
Read more about Lapin’s “States of Pain” series on CNBC.com.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Growing up in rural East Texas, I thought I knew what poverty looked like — I certainly didn’t know what it cost. You don’t unless you are locked in with few ways out and preyed upon by check cashers, payday lenders, pawnshops and rent-to-own bandits.
One doesn’t need to read Gary Rivlin’s Broke USA: From Pawnshops To Poverty, Inc. — How The Working Poor Became Big Business /em> to be educated about how expensive being poor in America can be — just walk into the Fruitvale or West Oakland neighborhoods of Oakland, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Or, you can walk down Mission Street in the Mission District or on Market Street in San Francisco and see lots of people lined up in front of payday lenders and check cashers on almost every corner. They are also in almost every American city and accounted for over $113 billion in business nationally in 2007, including check cashing, payday loans, money orders, and money wiring.
All told, $1.6 billion each year of interest, excessive fees, and other exorbitant costs are being charged to poor people every single day, making it almost physically and fiscally impossible for individuals to exit the poverty cycle. Most often, minorities and immigrants, as well as poor whites, are all locked in a financial roundabout in which there is no escape.
Today, the number of private check cashers, payday lenders and pawnshops is more than double the number of McDonald’s franchises in the United States. More than 20 million Americans cash more than $60 billion in checks each year at check cashing businesses. Full time workers without a checking account typically pay $40 on average to cash paychecks, while payday lenders sell an additional $40 billion in expensive small-dollar ($300 maximum in California, but higher in other states) loans each year that carry fees 30 times the average credit card rate.
Dan Leibsohn, founder and former Executive Director of the Low Income Investment Fund (formerly the Low Income Housing Fund) may have figured out a way for communities to challenge this bottom-feeding capitalism. Leibsohn’s present non-profit, Community Development Finance (CDF), has created a competitive non-profit community check cashing business in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland, which for 16 months has been cutting check cashing costs to about one-third or less compared to other check cashing stores and is now making payday loans at half of the cost that the private sector parasite competitors charge. The non-profit check cashing business is close to being sustainable and is saving the community at an annual rate of over $125,000 in fees. By the end of the year, this savings may exceed an annual rate of $175,000.
CDF’s program includes financial coaching and literacy training to assist low income households to increase wealth-building capacity and break the crisis mode of a never-ending need for a financial “fix” at the pay window of a private sector payday lender. Leibsohn calls the financial “habit” a much more personal vicious cycle than drug addiction. In addition, CDF is offering small business services, ties to banks and credit unions, and social service assistance to help people move into the financial mainstream while reducing excessively expensive financial services costs.
CDF’s next major task is to increase payday loan accessibility, continue to cut fees for its services, and expand its coaching and other assistance, as well as expand the model beyond Oakland. Community Check Cashing opened in May 2009, right in the middle of the Great Recession, with the help of initial grants from both of the Haas Foundations, Rosenberg, and Casey Foundations. Leibsohn also recently received an award from the Federal Home Loan Bank’s AHEAD program. It now serves perhaps 700 to 800 people in the neighborhood that need access to inexpensive financial capital and hopes to reach 1,000 households soon.
CDF’s board believes that the Fruitvale model, or variations of this approach, can be successfully replicated in numerous neighborhoods across the country, but first it needs to prove that low-cost check cashing and inexpensive payday loans administered by non-profit community-based organizations can be sustainable following initial donor support. Dan Leibsohn worked for over six years to write a comprehensive business plan, and now needs a few more months and continued community support to make a once viewed long-shot a reality. Once that occurs, CDF would still need annual infusions of support to pay for the non-revenue producing activities.
CDF can be reached at (510) 479-1037 and is near the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland.
John Harrington is a CDF board member and contributor and a Registered Investment Advisor in Northern California.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller was at times stressed, paranoid and deceitful during his employment with the Fairbanks North Star Borough, according to records released under court order Tuesday afternoon.
When he got caught doing something wrong – using his colleagues’ computers to advance his own political interests — he lied about it repeatedly and at one point suggested it was his colleagues, not him, who had in fact broken borough policy, the records show.
Miller worked at the borough from 2002 to 2009 as a part-time attorney. Many records show he was a high performer — achieving pay increases and exceptional performance reviews, and earning a master’s in economics that the borough helped pay for. He was instrumental in litigation involving valuation of the trans-Alaska pipeline, which carries more than 10 percent of U.S. domestic oil production. He was so good, in fact, that his value to the case spared him the embarrassment of being fired when he broke the borough’s ethics code, according to former borough Mayor Jim Whitaker.
But while Miller’s public achievements may have been rosy, newly obtained records show a much different scenario was playing out behind the scenes. The story is woven throughout dozens of pages of his borough personnel file and e-mails involving Miller, documents that were released by the borough Tuesday after first Alaska Dispatch and then other news media went to court to force their disclosure.
Miller, who is locked in a tight three-way (Read “Joe Miller admits to lying but do Alaskans care?”) race for Senate with incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Democrat challenger Scott McAdams, has been stalling release of the records and last week fought their disclosure in a public records case filed by news media.
He did not respond to a request for an interview for this story.
In March 2008, Miller was placed on administrative leave for 15 days and suspended without pay for three days after getting caught using co-workers’ computers in an effort to influence Republican Party politics. He was also required to undergo mandatory counselling.
Miller has long been a political crony of former Gov. Sarah Palin, and in March 2008 was assisting in her effort to get Randy Ruedrich booted as the Alaska Republican Party’s chairman — a political takeover that ultimately failed.
Palin and Ruedrich had been at odds before, famously in 2003 when Palin, then an Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission commissioner, discovered that Ruedrich, also a commission member while state GOP chair, was conducting Republican business out of his state office. She exposed Ruedrich’s ethical lapses — forcing him to resign and resulting in a $12,000 state ethics fine — and then used her reputation as a corruption fighter to bootstrap her way into the governor’s office.
Miller’s personnel file includes documentation and a more serious view of the actions Miller has described in recent weeks, including on national TV as “petty” and irrelevant to the issue of who is best suited for office.
Miller: ‘I was an ass. I was beyond stupid.’
Just days before the Alaska Republican Party’s 2008 convention, Miller was hosting a poll on his personal website, joemiller.us, that was aimed at ousting Ruedrich. On March 12, while other employees were at lunch and Miller was alone in the office, he used three of his co-workers’ computers to vote in his own poll. He tried to cover up the deceit by clearing the caches on the computers, the records show.
1026-miller2Miller’s scheme was revealed by his own attempts to cover his tracks. When he erased each computer’s cache he also erased important passwords and IDs that the other attorneys needed to access legal research websites. Miller’s co-workers knew something was wrong when they couldn’t log on after lunch.
In the short span of time the employees were trying to get to the bottom of what had happened, Miller lied no less than four times:
* He told them he’d had to use another computer because he couldn’t access the website he needed to get to on his.
* He claimed he had to clear the cache or the website might block his access.
* He initially denied being on more than one computer
* And he claimed he was visiting a professor’s website at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
In a written account of events offered by one of Miller’s co-workers — identifed in an earlier records release as “employee 3″ but now known to be Jill Dolan, Miller’s acting supervisor at the time — Dolan states that the office staff felt none of what Miller was saying made any sense and that he was acting bizarre.
Miller had also been talking about threats he had recently received, but wouldn’t offer specific details. Dolan also didn’t trust his stories about the computer use because he had, some time earlier, been asking a lot of questions about accessing the computer servers and wanting to make sure they were safe from hackers.
He insisted his colleagues were “overreacting” and even attempted to shift the blame to them.
“He maintained the whole time he did not violate the computer use policy and that actually all of us did for not securing our computers,” Dolan wrote.
Miller was immediately placed on administrative leave and notified that an investigation would ensue. Unhappy about that prospect, he indicated he would rather resign than undergo that process or face being fired, according to notes in his file made by his supervisor.
Miller eventually came clean.
“I was an ass. I was beyond stupid,” he said according to notes in the file. It was a “lapse of judgment” and a “total screw up.”
He had “too much on his platter” and was having problems with his wife because he was “too flipping busy,” according to the notes.
In a March 17, 2008 e-mail to one of his supervisors, borough attorney Rene Broker, Miller formally admitted to the allegations against him:
“Over the lunch hour this past Wednesday, I got on three computers (not belonging to me) in the office. All of them were on and none of them were locked. I accessed my personal website, for political purposes (participated in a poll), and then cleared the cache on each computer. I did the same thing on my computer. Jill asked the office what happened. I lied about accessing all of the computers. I then admitted about accessing the computers, but lied about what I was doing. Finally, I admitted what I did.”
“I acknowledge that my access to others’ computers was wrong, participating in the poll was wrong, and there is absolutely no excuse for any of it,” he added.
Nine days later, the borough disciplined Miller for inappropriate conduct and inappropriate use of computer and network resources.
“You accessed three Legal Department employee computers for a non-borough purpose and then you were dishonest both about your conduct and the reasons for your conduct,” wrote Broker in a memo outlining Miller’s punishment. “It has been apparent in the last several months that you are under significant stress and it has affected your judgment as evidenced by your actions on Mar. 12, 2008.”
When asked in early April how he was doing, Miller indicated he had to find a way to be less busy. “I’m fine but need to slow down,” he told Broker in an e-mail.
According to then-borough mayor Jim Whitaker, who earlier this month publicly revealed Miller’s politicking after Miller refused to discuss it himself, the incident was far from minor.
“It’s not petty, particularly if you are an attorney and if you have potentially broken laws in the course of your business. That is not petty,” Whitaker said in a recent interview. “I think there is a pattern of deceit.”
Read more of this story at AlaskaDispatch.com

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September 23, 2010 started as any other day in the 8th district of Florida, and the rest of the United States; coffee was brewed, workers started their day, children continued to receive inadequate educations, the rich got richer, and the sick got sicker. In the 8th district of Florida Alan Grayson led in the polls by 13%, and his campaign was planning to launch an ad that would certainly pull him a full 20% ahead of his opponent Daniel Webster. I can only imagine the now infamous “Taliban Dan” ad was released by the campaign to take Webster out at the knees, they certainly could not have predicted the backlash that followed. By September 29, 2010 Grayson had slipped behind Webster by 7 points. What’s a candidate to do?
Wait it out… and that’s what he’s done. Grayson did not walk away quietly. He held his ground. Webster is a proponent of covenant marriage, Webster did vote to take away bingo and happy hour., People came down hard on Grayson for the “half truths” in Taliban Dan, but it turns out there were more truths than they realized. Perhaps that is why Webster refuses to face Grayson in a debate the weekend before election Tuesday. Today Fox News Orlando declared the race between Grayson and Webster too close to call only a few short days after the polls showed Webster with a 16 point lead over Grayson. Goes to show you after tempers settle, people do know what’s best for them, and mom was right; time does heal all wounds.
Find out more about the 8th district election and the documentary film Street Fighting Man: The Political Mind of Alan Grayson at our website!

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The folks at ProPublica do trustworthy journalism based on a really strong ethical practice.
They just published a new story: Furious Growth and Cost Cuts Led To BP Accidents Past and Present
Pascal, a career Environmental Protection Agency attorney only seven weeks into her retirement, knew as much as anyone in the federal government about BP, the company that owned the well. She understood in an instant what it would take others months to grasp: In BP’s 15-year quest to compete with the world’s biggest oil companies, its managers had become deaf to risk and systematically gambled with safety at hundreds of facilities and with thousands of employees’ lives.
“God, they just don’t learn,” she remembers thinking.
This article places the spill in a scary context. You might have seen that the new CEO of BP denied very recently that BP has a safety culture problem. He disagreed with a new TV documentary by the folks at PBS Frontline,prepared in conjunction with ProPublica.

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On September 30, one month before California votes to make recreational use of marijuana legal for adults, Governor Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 1449 into law. The new law downgrades the possession of an ounce or less marijuana from a misdemeanor to an infraction.
This development was rightfully applauded by the marijuana law reformers who had worked hard for its passage. But if Prop 19 — the initiative to legalize marijuana in California — fails, the infraction law may not be as big a victory as it seems. Supporters of Prop. 19 should not stay away from the polls on November 2 because they think the problem has been solved.
Every news story about the new law has repeated Gov. Schwarzenegger’s claim that now punishment for marijuana possession is no different than for a traffic ticket. The Associated Press wrote that, “a new law makes possessing up to an ounce of marijuana in California no more serious than getting a speeding ticket.” Associated Content reported the law will “reduce criminal charges from a misdemeanor to the mere status of a parking ticket — with a $100 fine.” Time Magazine’s news feed wrote jokingly, “If you get caught with up to an ounce of marijuana you’ll be in big trouble. In fact, you can get fined as much as $100. No kidding!” Those comments miss the mark; the $100 fine may be just the tip of a very big iceberg.
Drug possession convictions are far more harmful than parking tickets — even if the charge is a “mere infraction”. In New York City, where I work as a field researcher for the Marijuana Arrest Research Project, the indirect, or “collateral consequences” of two tickets for marijuana can be dramatic. Guilty pleas to two marijuana possession offenses make an immigrant deportable, a public housing resident subject to eviction, and a college student ineligible for financial aid. Children can even be removed from mothers because of a positive marijuana drug test. New civil penalties for petty drug offenses — which bar people from job licenses and housing subsidies — are passed regularly by many politicians who view the penalties as an inexpensive way to establish their law and order credentials.
The availability of criminal records makes it almost impossible for law enforcement to impose minor punishments, slaps on the wrists, or warnings. Today, for a relatively small fee or even for no fee at all, employers, landlords, credit agencies and schools routinely conduct criminal background checks on any and all applicants. The stigma of a criminal record has already created huge barriers to employment and education for hundreds of thousands of Californians.
These marijuana possession arrests and their consequences are not evenly or fairly distributed among the population. Police departments almost everywhere concentrate their patrols and stop in low-income neighborhoods, which are also disproportionately black and Latino neighborhoods. As a result young blacks and Latinos, who use marijuana at lower rates than young whites, are disproportionately stopped, searched and arrested for possessing a small amount of marijuana. These same young people are the most adversely effected by criminal records and civil penalties.
Studies by the Marijuana Arrest Research Project have demonstrated that these racially-skewed or biased marijuana arrests are going on in cities and counties throughout California. For example, police in Los Angeles arrest blacks for marijuana possession at seven times the rate of whites. In Pasadena police arrest blacks at over twelve times the rate of whites. These statistics have moved the president of the California NAACP to call marijuana law reform a civil rights issue. This racially biased and discriminatory enforcement is firmly entrenched.
Changing misdemeanors to infractions will not address, nor is meant to address, these trends in policing. Infraction tickets will be given out to the same young people who are disproportionately arrested. People who failed to pay a fine on a previous infraction can be arrested, fingerprinted and charged with a misdemeanor. The suspicion of marijuana use will still empower the police to stop and question many more people. People stopped by the police who do not have proper identification can be handcuffed and brought to the precinct to check fingerprints. Police stops also result in plenty of arrests where “disorderly conduct” or “resisting arrest” is the only charge. As a field researcher, I speak to arrestees and defense attorneys and constantly hear the stories of pointless arrests.
As long as marijuana is illegal, California law enforcement will use possession of marijuana to bring mostly low-income blacks and Latino’s into the criminal justice system. On the other hand, legalization of marijuana possession would be a major victory for civil rights in America.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Back in September 2001 as terrorists were crashing jets into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania farmland I was starting a book tour. So much for my sense of timing.
I bring this up not because I want to sell more books. Don’t get me wrong, I do. But to the best of my recollection there’s little in A Parent’s Guide to Sex, Drugs, and Flunking Out: Answers to the Questions Your College Student Doesn’t Want You to Ask for those interested in public transportation, complete streets, and smarter uses of urban public space as 100,000 Angelenos experienced on 10-10-10 at CicLAvia.
And anyhow, at one cent each for a very good condition previously owned copy of my book on Amazon I will hardly be getting rich on sales any time soon.
Nonetheless, the experience of researching and writing a book for parents, students and college administrators on how to avoid the pitfalls of college life holds lessons for those like me committed to seeing LA become a more public transportation oriented city. The first lessons are, keep your head down and your hands off the children.
As one reader wrote in her comment on my last post about the preferred wisdom of locating the Wilshire Subway Century City station at Constellation Blvd, “…There are no guarantees but I am not willing to play Russian roulette with my kids. And I find it very distressing that you would.”
Russian Roulette. The implication that I would endanger her children by having Metro carefully tunnel under the Beverly Hills school property. Was it something I said? And what was I writing about anyhow?
In penning Constellation Blvd Is the Best Choice for the Wilshire Subway Century City Station I had committed the cardinal sin of expressing a preference for a stop at Century City’s heart rather than a less convenient location along Santa Monica Blvd. Constellation would require tunneling under a few homes and part of the Beverly Hills High School property while Santa Monica Blvd would not.
To her credit, this critic is not a NIMBY or “not in my backyard” type and has been personally supportive of the Wilshire subway to the sea. But as was captured in an excellent recent piece by Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, some Angelenos do not love the different vision of LA that the 30/10 Initiative and Metro’s expansion of LA’s public transportation network portend.
Hawthorne’s piece captures how when it comes to more public transportation and programs like CicLAvia we are in a culture war over the future of Los Angeles. While many love both trends, an equally vocal if smaller group is quite hostile to the subway, 30/10 and ideas that make LA more livable.
Critics of my last post also took issue with my lapsed lawyer advice to the Metro board that it could stem the number of lawsuits against the subway and other pending projects by showing some backbone in its response to the handful of Beverly Hills homeowners who oppose the tunneling.
If as usual the only ones getting rich over this controversy are the lawyers I hope the firms hired by both sides will at least be enlightened family friendly ones like those profiled in Law & Reorder, my sister Deborah Epstein Henry’s new book.
Yes, that is a shameless plug for a must read for anyone who enjoys the practice of law or not, is concerned about the glass ceiling, or takes issue with stone age concepts like the billable hour. Let’s face it, the billable hour costs clients obscene sums of cash and is the cause of many a lawyer’s divorce.
When I was regularly commuting on the Metro 704 bus to Century City not too long ago, there were still a lot of lawyers in those offices near the planned station at Constellation. I hope they are reading.
The argument against safely tunneling under Beverly Hills for the subway is as illogical as saying we should not power our homes with natural gas because of the one in a million disaster that occurred recently in San Bruno.
Prone as we are in LA to earthquakes, fires, floods, civil unrest and terrorism, there are many risks associated with life in the big city. Tunneling under a small portion of Beverly Hills is not one of them. That is why I say let’s extend the subway already, and let’s build the new stations at locations that insure the train’s use by the greatest number of commuters smart enough to ride.
In the end I admit that this piece may disappoint in that I haven’t really written a parent’s guide to public transportation in LA. I am sorry. You’ll just have to wait for my next book or visit Metro’s new
Bee Safe bus, bike and rail safety site with your kids. Bee Safe is a fun way to teach young children about being safe around public transportation. One suggestion though. Maybe the new site should have a section on tunneling. I know some folks in Beverly Hills who have some brushing up to do on that topic.

This Blogger’s Books from
A Parent’s Guide to Sex, Drugs, and Flunking Out: Answers to the Questions Your College Student Doesn’t Want You to Ask
by Joel Epstein

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With the fight between Cablevision and FOX going from the boardroom to the living room, sports fans in New York are becoming collateral damage in a corporate battle that is keeping them from watching the World Series tonight and is denying them Giants football.
The Cablevision-Fox dispute is the latest example of media companies bickering over broadcast fees and using their viewers as leverage. Unfortunately, this trend is going to get worse over the next year as other industries, including the NFL, mimic the strategy.
Whether it’s FOX withholding the World Series from Cablevision subscribers in an effort to extract higher fees for its programming or NFL owners trying to cancel the 2011 season unless their players make concessions, fans are being used as pawns in corporate disputes. Neither sports leagues nor networks should take their fans for granted.
The NFL Players Association thinks the fans should always come first. When fans are left helpless and unable to enjoy their teams, the “game” suffers.
The agreement that covers how NFL revenue is distributed (both between owners and player) expires next March. The NFL’s owners are trying to cancel the 2011 season in order to get an edge at the negotiating table. The owners have adopted a hard-line strategy that entails locking the players out if they do not agree to certain terms. If the owners stick with this plan, they will be denying fans around the country football next year.
While a lockout would eliminate jobs in NFL markets throughout the country, the owners will continue to take TV revenue just as if games were still being played, including an estimated $700 million to $1 billion alone from their DIRECTV contract. How can they play such hardball? They will collect almost $4 billion in revenue while cutting all of their salary costs for players. Yes, the players lose. But so do fans and businesses.
The impact of a lockout would extend well beyond simply denying fans the ability to watch games on a certain cable system. There would be no games for any television provider to broadcast, devastating hotels, restaurants, stadium workers and small businesses — the entire cottage industry that relies on football Sunday.
Green Bay business leaders, for example, estimate that a single Packers game pumps $5 million into the Green Bay economy. In Buffalo, a 2009 review by the city shows that a full-season lost would cost the city $140 million and thousands of jobs.
The City Council of Kansas City is so concerned about an owner lockout that it passed a resolution this year that stated, “if the owners make good on their threat to cancel the 2011 season, stadiums across the country will sit empty resulting in no games for fans, jobs for stadium workers, customers for restaurants, hotels and vendors and tax revenue for city and state governments, particularly Kansas City.”
NFL players recognize that playing professional football is a privilege that is made possible by the fans. They also recognize that football is a business that supports the livelihood of thousands of middle class Americans trying to make ends meet.
The players want to play and would rather extend the current agreement — as they have done five times. We even offered to play under the current agreement — than deny fans a 2011 football season. Fans should never be used as leverage and the NFL Players are working to keep that from happening.
The result of corporate interests attempting to hold fans hostage during labor disputes will likely cause significant damage to the loyalty and dedication of millions of Americans who watch football every week. It is our hope that this can be avoided through common sense and a common recognition that it is the fans that make the game successful.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

As I described earlier, the Fed began paying banks interest on their reserves one month after the September 2008 financial crisis struck the United States economy and spread throughout the world. The Fed (actually taxpayers) paid the banks more than $2 billion in 2009 at a small, but risk free, rate of one-quarter of 1 percent.
Economists inside and outside the Fed said these payments would be an incentive for banks to sit on their reserves rather than loan the money to businesses in a risky environment. This was the Bernanke Fed’s contribution to unemployment.
I suggested that interest payments on reserves should be lowered and short term interest rates targeted by the Fed be allowed to rise to maintain a moderate rate of increase in the money supply.
However, Fed policy still persists as the banks sit on $1.047 trillion in reserves on September 1, 2010. This is 53.4 percent of the money (the monetary base) the Fed has issued. Compare this to 5.3 percent on August 1, 2008 before the financial collapse and the interest payments on bank reserves were paid.
So what does the Fed want to do now? Three Fed officials, Federal Reserve Bank Presidents, William C. Dudley (New York), Charles L. Evans (Chicago) and Eric S. Rosengren (Boston) have signaled their views making headlines: “Fed Officials Signal New Economic Push.” (New York Times, 10/1/10) The officials reportedly suggest buying longer term Treasury bonds and thus issuing more money.
Once such transactions are made the sellers will deposit the money in a bank account. The banks may continue to hold more than half of the new money in reserves and collect more risk free interest. Instead of buying bonds why not follow the suggestion to lower interest payments on bank reserves and raise target interest rates to allow the money supply to increase at a modest rate?
Temporary attempts to change long term interest rates on U.S. Treasury bonds have many collateral effects, such as changing the current (spot) and future exchange rates, inducing outflows of capital from the U.S. and causing turbulence in the international money markets. I do not recall that the previous four Fed Chairmen (Arthur Burns, G. William Miller, Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan) discussed these collateral effects of Fed policies in House Banking hearings where I assisted in preparing questions. Hello, the U.S. is affected by changes in the international money markets that respond to Fed policies.
The banks certainly favor the Fed’s interest payments if they can continue to earn sufficient risk free interest on their reserves. Naturally, these Fed Bank presidents would be expected to have a strong incentive to please the banks that elected them to their office and may wish to be reelected at the end of their five-year terms. Two thirds of the nine board of directors that elect the presidents at each of the twelve Federal Reserve district banks are elected by Fed member banks in the district. (All national banks must be member banks. It is optional for banks chartered by state governments.) The election must be approved by the Board of Governors in Washington, but first the applicants must win over the votes of the bankers.
I had experience with this political process when a lawyer at the Kansas City Fed bank successfully ran to be its president. I was one of his staff tutors on monetary policy and general economics. It is an important political process that is also a major conflict of interest for the nation’s most powerful bank regulators to be elected by the banks they will regulate.
When I testified against the payment of interest at a Congressional hearing, Congressman Pat Toomey (now running for the Senate in Pennsylvania) made a compelling and common argument for the payment of interest on bank reserves required by the Federal Reserve. (3/5/2005) If banks are required to hold reserves, it is a tax on their earnings, from money they cannot invest, that should be offset with interest payments to the banks. Surplus reserves (reserves that are not required) do not qualify under this rationale.
Economists have also said that the interest payments on reserves would be passed on to the depositors so that people could earn interest on money rather than wasting resources searching for secure investments that pay market rates of interest.
These arguments are not applicable in the current U.S. banking system. First, the interest payments on reserves are unlikely to be fully passed on to “ordinary” depositors by most banks. Rather, it would be a gift to bank stock holders estimated to have a present value of $16.7 billion. The reason interest payments are not fully passed on to depositors is another story about bank pricing practices.
An underlying fact is often ignored. Reserve requirements imposed by the Fed on banks are actually optional for many depositors. Vice President Richard G. Anderson of the St Louis Federal Reserve Bank calls them a “voluntary tax.” (“Economic Synopses”, 2008, No. 30) One reason is that many business depositors have “retail deposit sweep programs.”
These are zero balance accounts because the money is taken off the banks’ books before the banks close and interest is paid overnight. Then the money is put back into the accounts. That is all phony accounting to pretend there is no money in the account that would require the banks to hold reserves. The banks can pay a higher interest on these accounts because the Fed does not require reserves to be held against the accounts.
This a deplorable form of price discrimination that treats the “ordinary” depositors as fools who receive regular accounts that pay lower interest, currently often near zero. The Fed should stop this price discrimination, but why would they hurt the banks that elect the Fed Bank presidents?
Sweep accounts are not the only method banks have used to reduce reserve requirements. One example is an accounting scheme called “The Eurodollar Game” that large banks with offshore branches can use to reduce their reported deposits and thus their required reserves. (The game includes counting Friday as three days in calculating average deposits. The deposits can be transferred to offshore accounts so they don’t appear on Friday and then brought back on Monday, another phony accounting trick.) Fed Chairman Paul Volcker replied to a request from Banking Committee Chairman/Ranking Member Henry B. Gonzalez to stop the Eurodollar game. Volcker replied that since there were other ways to bypass reserve requirements it would not be desirable to fix this one problem.

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Thank goodness Arianna Huffington has taken a stand on the upcoming Rally to Restore Sanity in Washington, headed up by Jon Stewart and company. And while she is calling out the more elitist mainstream media for telling their employees not to attend this rally since their presence might be construed as “political,” I’d like to suggest there is nothing wrong with using the word “political” and sticking with it.
Political, as a word, can be used as relating to social views involving authority and power, or so says Princeton on the web. Media — all of it — is political in what it chooses to print and to push and what it chooses to withhold.
Earlier this month, I was invited to provide a series of guest lectures for members of the Masters of Psychology program at the University of Denver. Titled ‘Bullying from the Inside Out,” my talks concentrated on the Shadow, as coined by Carl Jung. The Shadow is used to describe the emotions we hate and fear (around which we feel shame) and which we compartmentalize and allow to fester to the point of explosion. These outbursts manifest as demonizing others for those traits we despise in ourselves. Once we demonize anyone, killing or torture or denial make sense to us because we have also invented “the other” as not being human.
Certainly our national Shadow is on display daily at Tea Party rallies and is embodied by noisy pundits like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and their ilk.
I find it disturbing that my own mental health field is relying too long on so-called professional neutrality and has failed to stand up for precisely the medicine (as opposed to pure pharmacology) that might help us become both saner and more holistic in our vision. That would be the value of human development which helps children and adults become comfortable with owning ambivalent emotions and learning how to tame or regulate those emotions instead of denying them.
The notion of “Sanity,” to my mind, is wholly political, especially when it needs to challenge the prevailing habit of oversimplifying everything into good and evil, negating scientific knowledge in favor of censoring it, continuing a phobia and hatred of homosexuals, and distancing ourselves from one another. To regain or to gain sanity, we have to own the various shades of emotion that are within us, rather than projecting the ones we don’t like onto others; that is called paranoia.
To own our shadows is to know that if we do not know and tame our emotions, we will surely be capable of the violence done in the most brutal of dictatorships, bar none. Whereas, to become sane is to use the empathy for ourselves–all of ourselves–and to enable a more caring connection with each other.
In this larger context, I suggest that we might see “political” as being an integral part of our actions and inactions. To paraphrase Ms. Huffington, some of us are finally waking up to the fact that too many of us are sleeping while there is gasoline fueling a huge fire. Ecologically speaking, we have been living in a state of emergency for such a long time. It’s difficult to think of the planet as being small enough that one action, one culture, one disaster affects all others, like the proverbial flap of butterfly wings.
In a society in which insanity has played out by our minding — literally and figuratively — our own business and business interests to the exclusion of caring about what is going on next door with our children much less on our insides, we need not only to wake up, but we need emergency assistance for to those who are willing to begin the journey to wakefulness.
The most inconvenient truths are the internal ones — the ones that shake us up on the insides, the ones that alert us to a need to shift. To become more awake is to be honest about all that is in us. This is not just a mental health value. It is a family value. It is a community value.
And what’s wrong with it being political if it challenges the power of media as well as our inner fears to take over our lives, and if it helps us unite with sustainable supports?
For way too long, the mental health field has hidden in silence under the banner of its own neutrality. That is a luxury which seems more like a lie, and one we cannot afford. As Arianna says, to do nothing is still to do something — to say nothing is to say a great deal. If we help people adapt to insanity we are guilty. But for sanity, my addition would be that we become gentle with how much fear there is of admitting our shame, our fears of badness and weakness.
While we’re bringing back sanity, let’s allow a space for vulnerability as a method of exposing signs of danger, as a precursor to courage, as a necessary emotion that helps us empathize with all that is human. This is what I propose. And I volunteer as well.

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The sudden death of Nstor Kirchner today is a great loss not only to Argentina but to the region and the world. Kirchner took office as president in May 2003, when Argentina was in the initial stages of its recovery from a terrible recession. His role in rescuing Argentina’s economy is comparable to that of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Great Depression of the United States. Like Roosevelt, Kirchner had to stand up not only to powerful moneyed interests but also to most of the economics profession, which was insisting that his policies would lead to disaster. They proved wrong, and Kirchner was right.
Argentina’s recession from 1998-2002 was indeed comparable to the U.S. Great Depression in terms of unemployment, which peaked at more than 21 percent, and lost output (about 20 percent of GDP). The majority of Argentines, who had until then enjoyed living standards among the highest in Latin America, were pushed below the poverty line. In December of 2002 and January 2003, the country underwent a massive devaluation, a world-historical record sovereign default on $95 billion of debt, and a collapse of the financial system.
Although some of the heterodox policies that ultimately ensured Argentina’s rapid recovery were begun in the year before Kirchner took office, he had to follow them through some tough challenges to make Argentina the fastest growing economy in the region.
One big challenge came from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Fund had been instrumental in bringing about the collapse – by supporting, among other bad policies, an overvalued exchange rate with ever increasing indebtedness at rising interest rates. But when Argentina’s economy inevitably collapsed the Fund offered no help, just a series of conditions that would impede the economy’s recovery. The IMF was trying to get a better deal for the foreign creditor. Kirchner rightly refused the Fund’s conditions, and the IMF refused to roll over Argentina’s debt.
In September of 2003 the battle came to a head when Kirchner temporarily defaulted to the Fund rather than accept its conditions. It was an extraordinarily gutsy move – no middle income country had ever defaulted to the Fund, only a handful of failed or pariah states like Iraq or Congo. That’s because the IMF was seen as having the power to cut off even trade credits to a country that defaulted to them. No one knew for sure what would happen. But the Fund backed down and rolled over the loans.
Argentina went on to grow at an average of more than 8 percent annually through 2008, pulling more than 11 million people in a country of 40 million out of poverty. The policies of the Kirchner government, including the Central Bank targeting of a stable and competitive real exchange rate, and taking a hard line against the defaulted creditors – were not popular in Washington or among the business press. But they worked.
Kirchner’s successful face-off with the IMF came at a time when the Fund was rapidly losing influence in the world, after its failures in the Asian economic crisis that preceded Argentina’s collapse. It showed the world that a country could defy the IMF and live to tell about it, and contributed to the ensuing loss of IMF influence in Latin America and middle-income countries generally. Since the IMF was at the time the most important avenue of Washington’s influence in low-and-middle-income countries, this also contributed to the demise of United States influence, and especially in the recently-won independence of South America.
And Kirchner played a major role in consolidating this independence, working with the other left governments including Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Through institutions such as UNASUR (the Union of South American Nations), MERCOSUR (the South American trading bloc), and numerous commercial agreements, South America was able to dramatically alter its trajectory. They successfully backed Bolivia’s government against an extra-parliamentary challenge from the right in 2008, and most recently stood behind Ecuador in that attempted coup there a few weeks ago. Unfortunately they did not succeed in overturning last year’s military coup in Honduras, where U.S. backing of the coup government proved decisive. But Argentina, together with UNASUR, still refuses to allow Honduras back into the OAS, despite heavy lobbying from Washington.
Kirchner also earned respect from human rights organizations for his willingness to prosecute and extradite some of the military officers accused of crimes against humanity during the 1976-1983 dictatorship – reversing the policies of previous governments. Together with his wife, current president Cristina Fernndez, Nstor Kirchner has made an enormous contribution in helping to move Argentina and the region in a progressive direction. Although these efforts have not generally won him much favor in Washington and in international business circles, history will record him not only as a great president but an independence hero of Latin America.
This column was published by The Guardian Unlimited (UK) on October 27, 2010.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

I was having dinner with a dear friend debating current topics in education: 21st century learning in a world of standardized assessments, teacher quality, union reform, life skills vs. subject matter competency, etc… It was a summit over a sundae, light conversational fare for two teachers on a weekend. Anyway, we realized something over the course of our dining debate: that despite our mutual admiration of each other and our teaching methods, we realized that our definition of the purpose of public education differed.
I mentioned preparing students with future skills while she countered with the fact that we should be creating students who problem-solve and think critically so that they will function under any circumstances.
Of course, we were both right, but I realized that before we as colleagues or, for that matter, we as a country, could analyze or define what good assessments are, what quality teaching is, what successful or failing schools might be, etc… we needed to come to an agreement about why public schools existed in the first place. Even our ability as friends to move ahead with our brainstorm became ambiguous because there was this Tower of Babylon between us. At some point I realized that if I asked every person in that restaurant what he or she believed was the purpose of public education, I would get a different answer from each and every one. So I did.
Well, actually, I chose not to accost people during their dinner, but I did end up asking about 300 people both inside education and outside education what they thought the purpose of public education was. I wondered if the diversity of answers to such a basic question were a road-block to reform in itself. The goal was simple. Answer, in 30 words or less, the question: What is the purpose of public education?
When I broke down the common issues listed from the responses I received, they tended to fall into the following categories:
1. Teach the skills for passionate advocacy
2. Prep the students for their future participation in our democratic process
3. Educate them with the skills to function in the future world
4. Grant equal opportunity and access to the same high-level of learning
5. Develop the skills to have options in life
6. Teach the love of exploration
7. Teach the awareness and maturity of self to be one’s own advocate later in life
8. Create a civilized population
9. Prepare students to contribute to an ever-evolving society
10. Fill a student with a sense of service and belonging
11. Foster personal responsibility
12. Create critical thinkers
13. Develop the ability and confidence to question
14. Nurture the skills necessary to participate in the exchange of ideas
15. Develop students who function autonomously
16. Teach social skills
17. Give students the skills to compete globally
18. Create lifelong learners
19. Teach students what it takes to achieve their professional goals
And only one person used their 30 words to specifically to say:
20. Teach them reading, writing, and math.
I can’t help but wonder: is it fair to expect our educational system, current or future, to hit them all?
The answers amongst those I surveyed were diverse, to be sure, but more importantly is the fact that despite different careers, political parties, locales, and walks of life, there were many commonalities. Perhaps it is with these commonalities that we should ultimately be piecing together a purpose for public education. From there at least we can advance to improve our system because we can then take on the most basic norm of all, that coined by fellow teacher and blogger, Susan Graham, who said the only rule you need in a room of debate is to “assume good intentions.”
For now, as a society, we don’t live that missive. After all, education is being attacked from outside its walls, and as a result, there is infighting amongst teachers and administrators. Hey, isn’t this how Rome fell? Oh well, that and too much undervalued currency. Heck, let’s throw that into the mix as well but equate undervalued coinage to undervalued efforts. If we don’t evolve as a system, public education will fall.
If we start with the commonalities that we all agree education must serve, perhaps we can then move forward and develop a plan of evolution and reform that more of this country buys into.
Our next step, and it’s a doozie, is to figure out the path across that river towards the shore of achievement. Many people in my survey mentioned the need to cultivate a life-long learner, but this leads me to believe that there is no “shore” per se, but rather the calmer waters of a student’s more autonomous and ongoing future. Do our current schools have what it takes to prepare our students to continue walking on that water? Does society have the commitment it takes to support those schools?
How would you answer my simple question: What is the purpose of public education?

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Fed up with the blackouts that are now plaguing their team, San Diego Chargers fans are fighting back. Thanks to the NFL’s blackout rule requiring home games to be sold out at least 72 hours before kickoff, the rest of the Chargers’ games this season are expected to be blacked out. Before this season, the Chargers had had 48 consecutive sellouts.
So some Chargers fans have launched an organization called Stop Charger Blackouts. They’re asking fans and local businesses to contribute anything they can to a pool and once they’ve raised enough to buy the remaining tickets to a game, they will do so and donate the tickets to local charities.
It’s an inspiring act. And one that should be totally unnecessary.
Chargers owner Alex Spanos should be the one buying those tickets and giving them to charity. Under NFL rules, team owners can purchase unsold tickets for 34 cents on the dollar and give them to charity. Stop Charger Blackouts, meanwhile, has to pay full price.
But Spanos must need every penny. After all, he’s only the 365thrichest American, worth $1.1 billion. And if the Chargers really are costing him money — highly doubtful considering that the team that he bought for $74 million in 1984 is now valued at $907 million — then he should open up the books and show us. But he and the other owners refuse to do that.
Spanos is not alone. Bucs owner Malcom Glazer is the 136th richest American, worth $2.6 billion. And despite getting the city of Tampa to build him a brand new stadium less than 15 years ago, he won’t buy his team’s unsold tickets (for a fraction of the face value) and give them to charity. So Bucs fans will also likely miss the rest of their games on TV.
The blackout rule is archaic and ultimately counterproductive. Why wouldn’t an owner want as many people to consume his product — regardless of how — as possible? And is there a worse time to start blacking out games than when the team is losing and the economy sucks? (The Chargers are now 2-5.) The Chargers are already testing their fans’ loyalty with their play on the field. They don’t need to make things worse by making the games totally unavailable to them.
Fortunately for Spanos and the Chargers, there are still some diehard Charger fans like Kyle McCarthy, who founded Stop Charger Blackouts. McCarthy confesses that everyone in San Diego has been really excited about the organization, but that donations haven’t come in as quickly as needed. (Sounds familiar.) But maybe McCarthy and his friends can put enough pressure on Spanos to get him to buy the tickets or at least sell the tickets to Stop Charger Blackouts for the discounted charity rate.
Meanwhile, how about a Stop Buccaneer Blackouts? And a Stop Raider Blackouts? Better yet, how about Sports Fans Coalition starts a chapter in every city in America to address the blackouts and other local issues? (We’re working on it — if you’re interested in being a chapter chair, drop me a line.)
With enough pressure on the ground from fans and Sports Fans Coalition’s pressure on the FCC and elected officials here in DC, we can finally put an end to the sports blackout rule.
Not that we should have to.
–
Brian Frederick is the Executive Director of Sports Fans Coalition. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication and lives in Washington, D.C. Email him at bfrederick@sportsfanscoalition.org.

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Only one true winner will emerge from the upcoming comedic battle between fear and sanity: our democracy.
The Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert rally held this Saturday, October 30th, will serve not only as the country’s largest public service announcement for the November 2nd midterm elections, but also provide young people with a forum – an outlet to express their hopes and frustrations about today’s political process.
The frustrations of this generation are understandable. In 2008, politicians made sure young people got an invitation to the party, but since then they’ve been left off the guest list. While it is heartening to see leaders like President Obama once again reaching out to young people, as he will on The Daily Show tonight, it may be too little for this generation that is looking for candidates to stop the bickering and start leading. In our recent young voter poll, two-thirds of young people indicated that they feel more cynical about politics now than they did two years ago. Politicians seem to be reinforcing that cynicism with partisan bickering and endless attack ads this election cycle, so young people are turning to their peers and comedians like Stewart and Colbert to engage with our political process.
The fact that young people identify with Stewart and Colbert’s ironic tone doesn’t mean they’ve given up on civic engagement. As they demonstrated in 2008, young people are hungry to be a part of something larger than themselves. Our recent young voter poll also showed that while young people may be more cynical about politics, an overwhelming majority of 83% believes their generation has the power to change this country. That belief will be manifested in the rally, where young people will come together on the National Mall and at dozens of satellite rallies around the country regardless of party affiliation.
Yes, there will be clever signs, ridiculous costumes, and of course, a comedy show from Stewart and Colbert. Yet, the hosts’ brand of political satire can only succeed with an audience informed enough to understand the reality behind the humor. Young people know very well what is at stake in the upcoming midterm elections, and they are anything but apathetic. They are among those suffering worst from high unemployment, and many are worrying how they will pay their student loans. They understand that elections affect these issues and others they care about, and the rally provides a space to engage with their peers about such shared experiences. Perhaps not everyone will get close enough to really hear Stewart and Colbert, but the audience will be listening to each other.
While the rally will raise money for noble causes, it is also important we take stock of its symbolic significance. Thousands of young people will gather together to celebrate sanity and make a mockery of fear. The rally will serve as the unified voice of a generation, one telling politicians and others who doubt their political power that they are still here and they will not be taken lightly. They will show everyone they are unafraid and we will support them by offering a pledge to Vote Fearlessly on November 2nd. Like Stewart and Colbert, we will give them a platform from which to speak – but it is their voice that will shape our country’s future.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

By Karen Weise, ProPublica.
The U.S. government’s effort to help struggling homeowners is approaching a standstill, and the number of homeowners in ongoing mortgage modifications could start shrinking in several months if current trends continue, according to a ProPublica analysis of Treasury Department data. A year and a half into the program, the number of homeowners defaulting on their modified loans has been fast approaching the number of new modifications. In September, for example, banks modified almost 28,000 loans, but nearly 10,000 homeowners fell out of the program because they defaulted on their modified payments. Taken together, the programs’ growth has slowed by almost a quarter each month since May.
The administration launched its foreclosure-relief effort last spring, looking to help 3 to 4 million homeowners by modifying their mortgages to have affordable monthly payments. Only 467,000 homeowners are in modifications that are still ongoing. Alan White, a law professor at Valparaiso University, said the problem isn’t the rate at which homeowners are redefaulting, which is low compared to other modifications, but rather the shrinking number of new modifications given out by banks. “We need to be modifying 10 times as many a month,” he told us. Across the country, over 5 million mortgages are more than 60 days overdue or in foreclosure, according to Lender Processing Services. Banks have had a poor record of modifying mortgages under the government program. (Check out our graphical breakdown of each bank’s performance.) Homeowners report Kafka-esque experiences of lost paperwork, miscommunication and dashed hopes in trying to get help preventing foreclosures. We’ve recently chronicled homeowner experiences in a series of profiles and a questionnaire. Investors who own mortgages are dismayed as well. The Treasury Department has yet to penalize a single mortgage servicer since the program launched last spring. “You start with a program that’s not well designed and a lack of will to enforce the program, and this is what you’re getting,” says White. The pipeline for permanent modifications also continues to dwindle. There are now fewer than 175,000 active trial modifications, down from almost 260,000 in July. Nearly half of the active trials are at least six months old. We contacted Treasury to ask about the slowing of the program, and they haven’t responded yet. We’ll update this post when we hear back. Two mortgage servicers, Bank of America and Aurora, have seen their numbers of active permanent modifications decrease in the past month. Bank of America’s dropped by about a thousand modifications, and Aurora’s fell by over 2,500 modifications. In a press release, Bank of America said that the drop came from a combination of defaulted modifications, servicing transfers and repaid mortgages. Only 428 mortgages have been repaid to the more than 100 mortgage servicers participating in the federal program. Aurora did not respond to ProPublica’s request to comment. Update: Treasury said it is working to reach as many eligible homeowners as it can and has expanded alternative options for borrowers that do not qualify for the modification program.
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This Halloween week, the Big Music Machine offers up the scary and the sweet. The cast of “Glee” do the time warp, Sean Lennon goes acoustic, Bryan Ferry comes close to a Roxy Music reunion, Anne Sofie von Otter and Brad Mehldau fall in love, and Madlib’s medicine show makes a stop at a ’60s soul party.
PLAY: “The Rocky Horror Glee Show”
I’ll admit that I wanted to hate this. “Glee” fatigue is setting in for me, and Tuesdays are starting to feel like karaoke night. But the ’70s “Rocky Horror” stage play and film are the perfect “Glee” karaoke mix. Plus, it beats seeing them sucking lollipops in GQ magazine.
PLAY: The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, “Acoustic Sessions”
Sean Lennon and his model girlfriend Charlotte Kemp Muhl made their debut as a musical duo in 2008 at Radio City Hall. Pretty good first gig. It pays to know people. They use lots of big words to describe their music, like “metaphysical” and “surrealist.” I think words containing two syllables or less are best when describing rock, folk, or pop. Still, it’s trippy, spare, intimate stuff.
PLAY: Bryan Ferry, “Olympia”
Bryan Ferry is rock’s classy concierge. The dude is pushing 70, and he can still seduce the young girls and boys. “Olympia” is like a rave for grown-ups who can’t take the ecstasy anymore but still want to feel high, sexy, and drunk with lust. Plus, it’s as close to a Roxy Music reunion as you’ll get. Enjoy the reverb and the romance.
PLAY: Anne Sofie von Otter and Brad Mehldau, “Love Songs”
When a Swedish opera star and an American jazz pianist get together it could be a recipe for either tedious self-indulgence or genre-bending musical expansion. (Uh-oh: big words. It’s OK, though; its jazz). Von Otter has crossed the musical tracks before with Elvis Costello. On “Love Songs,” she and Mehldau explore ballads from Leonard Cohen to the Beatles. “Blackbird” (which is arguably not a love song) sung in operatic voice is a little out of bounds for me, but overall, von Otter and Mehldau’s partnership is full of fresh ideas.
PLAY: Madlib, “Medicine Show No. 10: Black Soul”
Madlib has been releasing an album every month this year, which displays his . . . well . . . mad skills as a DJ and provides a triptych of the black American experience. On “Black Soul,” Madlib revisits that moment when the afros were high, black power was the mantra, and the funk was knocking on the back door.

This Blogger’s Books from
Thank You Shirl-ee May: A Love Story
Shawn Amos
In the Name of Love: Africa Celebrates U2
Various Artists

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Superman: Earth One is a new graphic novel out from DC Comics today and it’s unique in a lot of ways. Earth One tells the origin of Superman, but in a contemporary setting with modern take on the classic story.
To be honest, I was wary of this when I heard about it. Superman is such an iconic character and I can’t imagine anything being added to his origin that would make it resonate better with wider audiences, but this managed to take me a little bit by surprise. Though I’ve read and scene the Superman origin by dozens of creative minds (maybe more), J. Michael Straczynski and Shane Davis managed to breathe a new perspective into the character, full of all the classicism the character demands, but full of all the modernity required to make it fresh for a brand new audience.
Dan DiDio, the publisher of DC Comics, told me the purpose of this new iteration of the comic had a few different purposes, most notably they wanted to bring Superman to a wider audience of people who didn’t need to worry about being bogged down by years of continuity.
This is a definite advantage. I count myself as a Superman fan and sometimes keeping all of the stories and characters from the last 75 years can be incredibly difficult. Wiping the slate clean allows you to get to the heart of the character and allow you to update it without years and years of baggage. And Straczynski and Davis have managed to boil the character down to the modern equivalent of his essence and change just enough to make it unpredictable.
DiDio also described it to me as “Superman for Twilight fans.”
“You’ve got me worried now, because I actually liked this book, and if it’s for Twilight fans…”
He assured me, and I’m assuring you, that there’s nothing to worry about, I think what they meant is that this Superman is a little darker, a little edgier, a little more brooding. And for some reason brooding, which has been a mainstay of Batman’s personality for years, is now associated with the sparkle vampires of Twilight. This Superman is all about Truth, Justice, and the American Way, but he has an added layer to his struggle in that there is a vengeance he must seek out.
The plan is to put out a graphic novel set in this universe every year, bringing new readers into the fold and working hard to bring non-traditional comic readers into the story. I’m excited about it and can’t wait to read more. A Batman: Earth One book is next on deck and we’ll see more Superman next year.
I think as far as the comics medium is concerned, this is a very good move. Anything that can bring a more diverse array of readers into the medium is good news in my book. But I’m biased, I’ve been fascinated by the combination of art and literature uniquely offers us since I was just a boy.
The first book “Superman: Earth One” comes out today. DC has been kind enough to give Huffington Post readers a look at it:
Bryan Young is the editor of the geek news site Big Shiny Robot!

This Blogger’s Books from
A Simpler Time: Six Mostly True Stories
by Bryan Young
You Are STILL Being Lied To: The NEW Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths
by Russ Kick

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The Canadian Opera Company kicked off a brand new season with the classic Verdi opera Aida, and while everyone raved about the vocals it seemed they were all raving mad about the sets. There was of no elephant on stage but the hoopla over set designer Hildegard Bechtler’s stark, minimalist staging was the elephant in the room — scads of critics have lambasted the COC for what was almost universally described as an Aida-meets-Mad Men catastrophe.
Aida (left), Amneris (top) and Radames (right)
Have they all forgot that it’s 2010? If forward-thinking opera companies like the COC don’t reinterpret and reinvent the classics to make them relevant and thought-provoking, than what on earth is the point of going to the opera? The singing was absolutely superb — an undeniable fact no critic failed to applaud — and while they tore apart the bare sets, I thought, what better way to show off the incredibly beautiful, crystal clear voice of star Sondra Radvanovsky as Aida? Rosario La Spina and Jill Grove were impressive as Radames and Amneris respectively, and costume designer Jon Morrell offered swish 1960s garb and a creative scene with the chorus skeleton costumes that saw a few people out the door. The COC’s modern adaptation of Aida excelled creatively and offered opera fans the opportunity to really think about what makes a great production — stellar vocals, and what makes a great opera company — a passionate commitment to innovation that never compromises talent. Bravo to a very brave COC!
Amneris and COC Chorus
In 1973 Benjamin Britten transformed Thomas Mann’s tortured, homoerotic novella Death in Venice into an opera that offered nothing by way of harmony, and this remains the case for the COC’s 2010 production of the young opera. Grating music coupled with the jarring voice of the sickly obsessive Gustav von Aschenbach made for a trying auditory experience — though to no fault of the COC — they were indeed true to the original.
Aschenbach with the Old Gondolier
While this is certainly no opera at which you can close your eyes and get lost in beautiful music, there is an artistic rationale for regaling the audience with an unfortunate cacophony of sound — it conveys the inner turmoil Aschenbach feels over his disturbed longing for a very young Polish boy and the mental degradation that accelerates as he is physically consumed by cholera. Alan Oke does a fantastic job as Aschenbach — which is no easy role — and holds the stage through both acts with impressive presence. Death in Venice is unlike any classic opera and for that fact it will divide both operatic enthusiasts and novices in their estimation of the production. Positive or negative judgements aside, audiences can be sure that the COC has offered a visually pleasing production that may not be melodically appealing but is certainly intellectually stimulating.
Aschenbach and the Polish Family
Find out more about the Canadian Opera Company by visiting their site here.
Photos: The Canadian Opera Company

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Let me set the scene for you. It’s the beginning of spring and you have decided it’s time to seek out the support of a professional to help you with your weight loss goals and get ready for shorts season. You go to the gym for your first appointment with your personal trainer and there he is. One hundred pounds overweight and laboring for breath as he reaches the top of the stairs to greet you. Your heart sinks. You were putting your faith in someone to show you the way and it looks like he has not been able to find it on his own.
Sounds a little far-fetched? Perhaps in person it is, but this type of disconnect happens behind the safe curtain of the internet all of the time.
I have had a few of these experiences myself over the years and you probably have also. I have known authors to write books about how to get rich, yet they had no money. They planned to get rich by teaching others how to do it. Odd, isn’t it? There are also a lot of social media “experts” teaching people how to use social media for profits, but where are their actual profits, how are they making money from it, besides teaching it to others? Hmm? Ever meet someone who appeared completely disorganized, always full of drama and living in reactive mode? Were you ever shocked to find out he/she was a life coach?
Then there are the folks who write about how to have a happy marriage and they have been divorced several times. In this case maybe they are telling you what not to do? Perhaps they should put it into practice before they deem themselves the teacher.
I even had a client who signed up for one of my wealth programs and agreed to pay the investment over three payments. After being reminded that her second and third payments were overdue she came up with a proposition for me. If I helped to promote her own product about getting rich, the money I made by being her affiliate would pay me for my services. Did I lose you there for a minute? I am not surprised. I was confused and shocked when she suggested it to me.
Now I am not suggesting that everyone online is a phony. What I am strongly recommending is that if you are going to offer anything, and I mean anything online, you need to do so from a place of total integrity. Your brand, your reputation, and your success depend upon being authentic. That is the only way to create raving fans. You don’t want clients that are happy you want clients that are raving about you. By being authentic it causes other people to talk about you. They are so impressed that they can’t wait to tell their friends and colleagues about you or your business.
When your curtain is pulled back, what will your clients see? If you are not being authentic you are not building a business on a solid foundation. People will find out about you, one way or another. The online you should be a mirror image of the real you.
Have you found that success follows authenticity? Do you have a raving fan story? Please share them in the comments section below.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com