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Lou Dobbs: I Never Talked To CNBC, I'd Consider Working At Fox (VIDEO)

2009-12-02T11:40:22Z

The morning after CNBC said they would not hire Lou Dobbs, Dobbs phoned in to Fox Business' "Imus in the Morning" and denied reports that he ever had conversations with the network.

Dobbs said "absolutely not" when asked if he had talks with CNBC.

"I have no idea where they even got that," Dobbs said when Imus asked if he was going to CNBC. "I'm sitting here in Florida in our vacation home thinking about what I am going to be doing."

Dobbs did admit that he has talked to Fox News chief Roger Ailes, but said it was a friendly conversation and not about a potential job with Fox.

"You know, [Ailes is] an old friend," Dobbs said. "I've talked to him. Certainly."

Dobbs again said "absolutely not" when asked if he was offered a job at Fox, but said he would "certainly" consider it if offered one.

"Of course you'd consider working at Fox," Imus said. "What have you lost your mind? I mean you go from at a place like CNN which is the most dreadful network on the planet, we have a couple of friends there, as a matter of fact I saw two of them last night--I thought I'd switch over for just a second...I said I can't watch this! But you go from a network where they can't suck enough to a network where nobody sucks."

Watch:

An FBN spokesperson tells Huffington Post that Roger and Dobbs are friends but have not had any discussions about him working at FBN or FNC.

Leo W. Gerard: CEOs, Union Leader Agree: Manufacturing Strategy Crucial

2009-12-02T11:13:26Z

Defying popular stereotype, CEOs and labor representatives sat on a panel and largely agreed on major issues confronting industry and working people.

It happened Monday, Nov. 30 as CNBC taped Meeting of the Minds: Rebuilding America in a hall at Carnegie Mellon University before an audience of nearly 600 students, businessmen, steelworkers and other trade unionists.

For the broadcast Dec. 2 at 8 p.m., host Maria Bartiromo said the Steel City of Pittsburgh was chosen because:

"It was here that America's soul was forged."

She assured the audience that the panel of speakers -- Dan DiMicco, President and CEO of Nucor Corp.; Bill Ford Jr., Executive Chairman of Ford Motor Co.; Jeff Immelt, Chairman and CEO of General Electric; John Engler, President and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers; U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, and me -- would tell them how to put America back on track.

Since precious few Americans, even those in the same political party, agree on how to realign America, that's when a typecast smack down between CEOs and unionists might have begun.

But it didn't. That's because on the most crucial issues, like manufacturing strategy and trade policy, the panel pretty much concurred.

Really.

For example, this is the United Steelworkers' position on manufacturing strategy: America needs one.

The lack of a strategy handicaps the U.S. when it attempts to compete with virtually every other industrialized nation in the world. They have policies. They've decided which manufacturing areas they're going to emphasize and support. And they do that with taxes, tariffs, loans, grants, even higher education guidelines.

As I said that night:

"We need to have a plan. All the other major countries in the world have plans. I am not mad at China. I am mad at us. They are doing what they need for their people."

Bill Ford and Dan DiMicco joined that position.

Ford said, for example, that he met recently with the president of another country where his company manufacturers cars. That president, who he did not name, asked, "How can I help you?" Ford said that country already had a manufacturing strategy, so he could have a conversation with that government. But, he said, today, in the United States, that same conversation "is almost impossible because there is no policy."

DiMicco agreed. He stressed that a manufacturing agenda must be designed, and he said he believes that is now being done with the support of President Obama's administration. "We need to create jobs for 30 to 40 years, not the short term," he said.

Here's something else we agreed on: trade laws must be enforced and improved. The failure to do so has led to huge U.S. trade deficits and the migration of millions of good, middle-class manufacturing jobs overseas.

Several USW officers went to Washington, D.C. the day after the CNBC show taping to testify before the U. S. International Trade Commission in an attempt to save the U.S. industry that makes specialized steel pipe that is called oil country tubular goods. Between the end of 2008 and September of 2009, this industry lost 2,421 workers because of a killer cascade of unfair Chinese imports.

The USW union is joined in this petition by U.S. Steel Corp., Maverick Tube Corp., Evraz Rocky Mountain Steel, TMK IPSCO, V&M Star LLP, V&M TCA, and Wheatland Tube Corp. Now there are a few more CEOs who agree with the USW.

During the CNBC taping, Immelt conceded that the policy of trying to put factories on barges to ship them overseas in search of the lowest labor costs, "has turned out to be not such a good idea." For manufacturers like GE, and the U.S. workers who lost those jobs, America must enforce trade laws and create a manufacturing policy to establish the incentives essential to keep those factories at home in the U.S.

I have been ranting about trade for a long time. Rarely have I heard someone as angry about it as I am. But DiMicco clearly is. Listen to what he told the CNBC audience:

"You should be a lot ticked off about the failed trade policies in Washington, D.C. . . . That has destroyed the middle class in this country."

One of those from the audience permitted to ask the panel questions seemed more ticked off about the trade union movement than failed trade policies. She asked Ford if shedding the United Auto Workers would enhance his bottom line.

He said no:

"We are very happy with our union work force. There is a misconception that we want to get rid of the union."

He said Ford collaborates with its union workers. He noted that he is a fourth generation Ford and walks through plants greeting many fourth generation UAW workers who are committed to Ford's success. "Together we have gotten a lot done," he said.

Union leaders have no qualms about negotiating with CEOs like Bill Ford for a fair split of the profit-pie in collective bargaining. But first, working together, we must make sure -- with a manufacturing strategy and strong, enforced trade laws -- that there is a pie.

David Fiderer: Why Obama Won't Do What's Needed to Deal With the Mortgage Crisis

2009-12-01T15:58:03Z

Beware of national averages like “One
in Four Borrowers Is Underwater.” The
problem is heavily concentrated in places like Phoenix, where 54% of
homeowners with mortgages have negative equity. That’s about half a million
underwater mortgages, more than the combined totals in Texas and New York state,
where 10 times as many people live.

University of Arizona law professor Brent T. White
says anyone with negative home equity should simply walk away. Arizona, like
California, is a non-recourse state, where a home lender cannot legally pursue
repayment beyond the value of the underlying collateral.

The situation looks much worse in America’s
Dubai, Las Vegas. Almost three-quarters Las Vegas homeowners with mortgages
have negative equity or near negative equity. A lot of them are really
underwater. Almost half of Nevada homeowners with mortgages have negative
equity in excess of 25%. The total residential mortgage debt in Nevada is 1.14
times the value of the underlying real estate.

The majority of America’s underwater mortgages,
about 5.5 million, are located in the four sand states: California, Florida,
Arizona and Nevada, according to a new study by First American CoreLogic. That’s
where homeowners face each month with a renewed sense of anxiety. Many
wonder if the next mortgage payment means throwing away good money after
bad. And almost all wonder how the next foreclosure will affect neighborhood
property values, and the fabric of their community.

Don’t feel smug if you live elsewhere, say Deutsche
Bank analysts Karen Weaver and Ying Shen. By 2011, they predict, one half of all American homeowners will
have negative equity, plus another 20% who will have borderline negative
equity. They expect the New York market, which so far has held up fairly well,
to collapse. By 2011, they estimate, three-quarters of homeowners in the New
York-White Plains-Wayne, NY-NJ market will be underwater.

Whichever numbers you accept, it’s clear that the
size of this mortgage crisis dwarfs everything else, including healthcare
reform, the war in Iraq and social security. America's $11 trillion in home mortgage debt is 45%
larger than public
debt owed by the federal government. And half of that $11 trillion was lent
or guaranteed by Government Sponsored Enterprises like Fannie Mae or Freddie
Mac. It's not just the solvency of the GSEs that’s at stake; it's the health of
the overall economy. Federal revenues were down by $400
billion this year because people have less taxable income.

President Obama will issue admonishments to
the banks. Robert Reich says we should change the
bankruptcy laws to allow for cramdowns. All well and good, but it's unrealistic
to hope that banks will fill the vacuum of leadership at the top. We’re talking
about sorting out the problems of 10 to 15 million individual mortgage
loans. The financial incentives
are too fragmented and too misaligned and too nontransparent for any private
party to sort out the mess. Given the numbers involved, these mortgage problems
are too big, and too interconnected, to be resolved on a scattershot basis in a
dysfunctional marketplace.

If the government wants the job done right, it
must do the heavy lifting itself. Here
are the three proposals to untangle the mortgage mess:

1. Perform due diligence on all borrowers at
risk.

Step one is to find out what’s going on with each
distressed borrower. It’s a very time consuming and labor intensive job, which
is why no one wants to do it. It requires a face-to-face meeting with the
borrower, plus independent verification of a borrower’s employment and income,
his financial assets and obligations. It requires figuring out if the
borrower would be motivated to continue servicing the loan if it were reduced
to an amount below the property’s current market value.

Each delinquent mortgage loan is a multi-layered
story. Some borrowers took out mortgages as part of a flipping scheme.
Some, who took out a loan they could not afford, were deceived by dishonest
mortgage brokers. Others took out a fully-documented 80% loan on a house that
lost 50% in market value. All the evidence shows that mortgage fraud went
viral during the real estate boom.

The root cause of the mortgage meltdown, and most
other financial scandals, was that everyone piggybacked off of somebody else’s
due diligence, which was never performed properly in the first place. As a
substitute, investors relied on credit ratings and financial models that were
fatally flawed. Now that millions of borrowers are in trouble, everyone
acts as if the situation can sort itself out on its own. If we really want to
take charge of the problem, the federal government should temporarily hire
50,000 people to perform actual due diligence on these borrowers and
loans. The private parties who contributed to the situation don’t have
the same incentive to do things right. They’re conflicted.

2. Nationalize loan servicing for private label
mortgage securitizations.

When mortgage loans are sold to securitizations,
the loan servicing process is outsourced to a company that has no financial
stake in the loans and has all sorts of incentives to play all sorts of tricks
on the borrowers. The loan servicer is ostensibly acting on behalf of the
security holders, who, because if different levels of subordination, have
varied and conflicting claims. The problem is compounded by the fact that
none of the private label mortgage securities have standardized loan
documentation or workout policies. The incentives are very different when a
bank keeps a loan on its own books, or when Fannie Mae guarantees mortgage-backed
securities. In those instances, one creditor has a singular financial interest
in working out the best possible solution for a problem loan.

By nationalizing this function, the federal
government would be able to assure that the workout function would be done with
honesty and integrity.

3. Create a transparent national
registry for every ownership claim, including every derivative claim, on a
mortgage securitization.

Here’s a very common scenario in loan workout
negotiations. Several creditors agree to some kind of temporary forbearance to
keep the borrower out of bankruptcy. But one holdout creditor shows no
flexibility. He prefers to push the borrower into bankruptcy, even if it means
that the eventual recovery will be far less. The holdout owns a credit default
swap, kept secret from everyone else, that will reimburse him immediately. With
complex securitizations and credit default swaps, the opportunities for bad
faith dealings in debt restructuring grow exponentially.

The only way to achieve an orderly and fair
workout process is to clarify who comes to the table with clean hands.

Once the government assembles the data of what’s
actually happening, it can assert pressure to enforce an orderly and reasonable
restructuring of America’s financial albatross.

Of course, this approach holds political peril. It’s easier to harangue against the
banks than it is to take responsibility for the mess created by someone else. Any
kind of government
intervention is red meat for the tea bagging crowd. Remember how it all
started in February 2009?

Do we really
want to subsidize the losers’ mortgages? This is America! How many of you
people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage? President
Obama, are you listening?… We're thinking of having a Chicago Tea Party in July. All
you capitalists that want to show up to Lake Michigan, I'm gonna start
organizing.

CNBC’s Rick Santelli, who disclaimed any political affiliation
after his famous rant, provided inspiration for Larry
Kudlow and countless others. You would think that people would have wised
up by now. But consider this, the sand states’ economies are all
blighted by record multi-year droughts.
Yet large blocks of voters are still brainwashed by a cable network that
says global warming is not real.

Finally, here are the numbers, simplified:

Source:First American CoreLogic

Sources: Federal Reserve, Congressional Budget Office

CNBC: Lou Dobbs Won't Be Coming To Our Network

2009-12-01T09:38:42Z

UPDATE: CNBC has said that the network will not be hiring Lou Dobbs.

"We are not in talks or negotiating with Lou Dobbs. He is not going to work for CNBC," a network spokesman told the New York Times, though he did not deny the report that talks had occurred in recent weeks.

Original Post: Since Lou Dobbs left CNN, most of the conversation about his next move has centered on potential political ambitions. But the New York Times' Brian Stelter reports that Dobbs has held talks with CNBC, a signal that Dobbs has not ruled out a return to TV news:

Stelter reports that Dobbs "has held talks" with CNBC and "will likely make a decision about his post-CNN career this month." He floats the idea of Dobbs hosting a primetime program on CNBC and serving as a commentator for the network.

Dobbs joined CNN at its founding in 1980 as chief economics correspondent, and founded CNN's financial news network, CNN fn, in the 1990s.

Before he left CNN, Dobbs met with Fox News chief Roger Ailes, prompting speculation that he might be joining CNBC's upstart competitor, the Fox Business Network.

Read more: Lou Dobbs, Cnbc, Lou Dobbs CNBC, Media News

Jim Luce: NBC's Brian Williams: Changing the World for the Better

2009-11-13T16:39:22Z

Several weeks ago Brian
Williams profiled the children of the Afghan Child Education and Care
Organization (AFCECO) and its founder Andeisha Farid in Kabul, Afghanistan for NBC Nightly News’ segment Making a Difference (video).

Brian is anchor and
managing editor of the NBC Nightly News
based in New York. Last week, his show, including
the segment Making a Difference, had
9.5 million viewers. The show spikes up
to 11 million viewers frequently.

I had interviewed the
orphanage’s founder Andeisha of Kabul in New York in September and have followed
her progress carefully. I knew immediately
that Brian’s focus would have an enormous impact on her good work.

As founder of Orphans International Worldwide, I am familiar
with running homes for children around the world – and the difficult task of
raising the fund necessary to do so.

What I did not grasp
about the piece on Making a Difference was
what an enormous difference it would
make – with so many contributions that flooded over the Internet to fund the
kids there from Brian’s generous viewers.
He thanked them the following week (video).

I wanted to speak with
Brian about how good that must make him feel – and how this sense of
responsibility must now shape his life – so I asked him to call me, and he did. Brian told me:

I was
really revved to do a piece on this orphanage in Afghanistan. I wanted it to be seen by as many people as
possible – and luckily it was. I was so
grateful – we raised much more for those children than we had thought possible.

I do
pieces on different topics. We were in
Kabul when there was a huge loss of life at the U.N. and I wanted to do a story
after that which was ‘nice and hopeful.’
We had one day to do this feature piece, and it all just came together.

Sitting
there in our rental house in Kabul, I realized I had a personal enough relationship
with our viewers – who I felt could be very generous – to ask them to help
these kids. And they did!

The
cultural differences and similarities in the orphanage were enormous. Little girls are little girls anywhere in the
world. Thank God I have parented two
children, so it was the most natural of moments.

Switching
glasses with them, seeing them draw stars and hearts… The children were so tactile, kind, loving,
affectionate, and gracious.

I saw a
picture of Paul Stevers there on the wall, the founder of CharityHelp International
in the U.S. that provides a bridge between child sponsors and the children
there.

The kids
had a politeness, and order, a discipline – not like in Annie, but an attitude of accepting real responsibility – the way I
was raised. It was so real.

On his blog, Brian had
posted the following after his viewers had been so generous:

I want to
say thank you -- and to express my ongoing appreciation at the amazing
generosity of our viewers. We did a
follow-up on the orphanage in Afghanistan.

I was only
home from work for a few hours when we learned they had already received 500
e-mails from Nightly News viewers -- many of them offering donations and
pledges to sponsor a child.

It is
immensely gratifying, and I’m beyond words in expressing my thanks and appreciation
on behalf of the lovely children we met over there.

Brian Williams received individualized cards
from each of the children in Kabul.

“Although some are
one-time gifts, our experience tells us that many of the child sponsors will
continue to give for the next few years so the benefits of Brian’s efforts are
very substantial and will enable AFCECO to care for many more children,” Paul
Stevers, founder of CharityHelp
International, told me.

CharityHelp
International is the Internet bridge that connects the children to child
sponsors around the world. Orphans
International Worldwide, the charity I founded, relies on CharityHelp to fund
our kids in Haiti, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka.

“Security is an enormous
issue in Kabul,” Brian told me. “In
Kabul, importance is measured by the size of your gate and the number of guns
you have. I hope the orphanage there will
be able to spend more on security,” Brian added.

Clearly, the segment Making a Difference is making a
difference. From one night a week, the
segment now airs up to five times a week.

“It was my wife’s idea,
honestly,” Brian shared. “With the
economy sinking, she said, ‘Someone, somewhere is doing spectacular acts of
kindness – go capture them!’ And we
did,” Brian told me.

Making a Difference features mostly ordinary people, although it
has begun to also focus on celebrities using their visibility to also help
humanity.

Quintessential thought leaders
and global citizen Brian Williams on the streets of Kabul.

Brian replaced Tom
Brokaw, one of his mentors, in 2004. Previously,
Brian was the network’s chief White House correspondent and host of The News with Brian Williams on CNBC and
MSNBC.

After studying at
college, Brian took an internship with the administration of President Jimmy
Carter. He holds an honorary doctor of
humane letters degree from one of my favorite schools, Bates College, and an
honorary Doctor of Journalism degree from Ohio State University.

NBC Night News anchor Brian Williams
frequently reports from Afghanistan.

Brian is the most
honored network evening news anchor. He
has received four Edward R. Murrow awards, his fifth Emmy award, the
DuPont-Columbia University award and the industry's highest honor, the George
Foster Peabody award.

Most were given for his
work in New Orleans while covering Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, and all
were awarded to Brian in only his second year on the job.

Brian Williams of NBC Nightly
News with Afghani children in Kabul.

Brian was the first and
only network evening news anchor to report from New Orleans before Hurricane
Katrina hit and was the only network news anchor to report from the Superdome
during the storm. He remained in New Orleans to report on the aftermath and
destruction of Hurricane Katrina.

In 2006, Brian joined
Bono, traveling to three countries in Africa — Nigeria, Mali, and Ghana — to
report on the major issues facing the continent, including HIV/AIDS, poverty,
disease, and crushing debt.

In 1994, Brian was named
NBC News Chief White House correspondent. Accompanying President Clinton aboard
Air Force One, Brian circled the world several times, covering virtually every
foreign and domestic trip by the President until 1996.

On perhaps one of the
most historic trips of the Clinton presidency, Brian was the only television
news correspondent to accompany three U.S. presidents — Clinton, Bush, and
Carter — to Yitzhak Rabin's funeral in Israel.

Brian is a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations in New York, and is also a member of the Board of
Directors of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. He has lectured at Columbia University School
of Journalism and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin,
Texas.

In 2007, Brian was
listed among Time Magazine’s 100 Most
Influential People in The World. He
lives in New Canaan, Connecticut, with his wife, Jane Stoddard Williams.

There is a reason “When
breaking news happens, America turns to NBC
Nightly News with Brian Williams."
America trusts Brian the way we once trusted Walter Cronkite.

“Walter Cronkite was the
architect for what this show has become,” Brian told me. “Walter’s level of professionalism is what I
strive for every day.”

“I have been luckier
than most two have had two North Stars to follow – Walter Cronkite and Tom
Brokaw,” Brian admitted.

Like Walter and Tom, Brian
is the quintessential thought leaders and global citizen – and has thousands of
fans on Facebook
from around the world to prove it.

Today Brian Williams has
an enormous power – and a parallel responsibility – to help humanity.

Luckily for all of us, he
knows this well – and is highly focused on doing all that he can in his
position to change our world for the better.

Raymond J. Learsy: Thank You, Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, For Educating Us On Oil Prices

2009-11-13T11:08:49Z

The oil patch mumbo jumbo continues unabated. Today, Rex Tillerson, the CEO of the nation's largest oil company, Exxon, took a minute or two to instruct us about the reasons for the current price of oil. This is the same personage who, a while back informed us, his customers, that "ethanol is moonshine."

This time around, according to Tillerson, "Inventory levels are at historic high levels--especially in the U.S." he then provides us with his particular self-serving oil patch rationalization for high oil prices.

You see, it is not the machination of OPEC of which Exxon and its peers are the primary beneficiaries, nor the speculation of oil traders and bank holding companies, nor the possibility that the producers, with their enormous cash reserves, might be gaming the price of oil on the exchanges. No, in the spirit of that great American philosopher Alfred E. Neuman, Mr. Tillerson has come up with a causation that is outside the perceived responsibility of the oil industry. Who, him worry? You see, it mostly rests with the currency effect of a weak dollar.

According to Tillerson some $20/25 per barrel is due to the erosion of the dollar. Really? Since February of this year the price of oil has increased some 250% from $33/bbl to reaching $80/bbl Just a few days ago. This while the value of the dollar has eroded some 15% only. A relationship between the price of oil and the erosion of the dollar on a percentage basis should bring the price of oil to approximately $38/bbl. Certainly not the near $80 we are transferring to Exxon and their comrades in arms.

Far be it for the industry to play it straight, to simply state that price as currently constituted has nothing to do with market dynamics of supply and demand. Something far more sinister is afoot and it is long past due that our oversight agencies such as the CFTC take a very serious look at how our commodity exchanges are contributing to these distortions.

But then again, within the confines of the oil industry Grimm's Fairy Tale narrative, Mr. Tillerson's imaginative turns of phrase are always welcome.

Henry Blodget: CNBC Reporter Says NYC Marathon Winner Is Only "Technically" an American

2009-11-03T11:33:49Z

An insidious form of nationalism is threatening the very core of what makes this country great.

There has been an outcry of protest that Meb Keflezighi is not really the first "American" to win the New York marathon since 1982--because he was born in Africa and moved here when he was 12.

Never mind that Keflezighi is an American citizen.

Never mind that he's lived in the United States for 22 years.

Never mind that he has raced for the United States in the Olympics.

Never mind that every single person in this country who doesn't happen to be a Native American either came here from somewhere else or is descended from someone who did.

One of the most surprising advocates of this position is CNBC's Darren Rovell*:

It's a stunning headline: American Wins Men's NYC Marathon For First Time Since '82. Unfortunately, it's not as good as it sounds.

Meb Keflezighi ... is technically American by virtue of him becoming a citizen in 1998, but the fact that he's not American-born takes away from the magnitude of the achievement the headline implies. Given our disappointing results, embracing Keflezighi is understandable. But Keflezighi's country of origin is Eritrea, a small country in Africa. He is an American citizen thanks to taking a test and living in our country.

Nothing against Keflezighi, but he's like a ringer who you hire to work a couple hours at your office so that you can win the executive softball league.

Nothing against Rovell, but this is seriously disturbing. (It's also probably racist. Would Rovell be saying the same thing if Arnold Schwarzenegger had won the marathon?)

Since when did we define who is and isn't an American by their "country of origin"? (which is apparently defined as where, through no fault or glory of their own, someone happens to have been born).

The greatest strength of this country is that people can choose to become Americans. It's that act of will--the decision to take action to change your circumstances--that has made this country the most vital and successful on earth for the past 200 years. It is also what can pull us out of our current economic slump and re-light our competitive fire. It is what can save us from becoming, say, Japan.

Let us not wreck the magic of what makes America great by suddenly dismissing every American citizen who didn't happen to have been born here as only "technically" American. They're not "technically" American. They're American. And the rest of us are lucky to have them.

See also: 10 Business Lessons From The Battlefield

*Darren has since apologized.

Read more: Nationalism, Racism, NYC Marathon, Cnbc, Media News

Raymond J. Learsy: Oil's Massive Price Distortion Militates the Reconvening of the 1970s Federal Oil Price Task Force

2009-11-03T09:16:53Z

Steven Chu, our Secretary of Energy in his October 30 post on the Huffington Post "Weatherization: Saving Money by Saving Energy" focuses on the savings that can accrue to those conscious of how to reduce energy/electricity in their homes; insulation, programmable thermostats, efficient windows and the like. "I have always been an energy efficiency nut", he tells us.

He then goes on to inform about the various programs instituted by the Department of Energy to assist homeowners to weatherize homes and encourage home energy efficiency. Well and good, and as it should be.

But the Department of Energy has other mandates, and here its actions have been totaling lacking, other than continuing, in a Bush like trance, to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve irrespective of price nor consideration that it already holds some 750 million barrels of oil (more than Iran's total annual oil export loadings). The Department seems oblivious to the fact that in the nine months of the Obama presidency the price of oil has skyrocketed by nearly 250%, from $33/barrel in February to touching $80/barrel late in October. In the world of commodity trading, given the massive oversupply of oil on the market today with storage overflowing, and scores of tankers anchored at sea with hundreds of millions of barrels of oil with no place to discharge, a price for oil shading $80 a barrel can be nothing more than a willfully contrived aberration. Clearly something is amiss. (Please see "Chairman of Gazprom Predicts $100 Oil Because of Speculation. Speculation, Really?" 09.08.09)

Added to this effrontery, is a market inured by a brain washed public, helped along by a somnolent press, comatose analysts, oil industry flaks and an oil lobbyist conflated government presenting these prices as a fair reflection of a free market. Then, to add the icing on this poisoned cake is the ongoing OPEC babble by such as its President, Jose Botelho de Vasconcelos, who in an epiphany of altruistic concern was reported by Reuters/CNBC announcing that the oil ministers of OPEC will raise output "to protect the global economic recovery at a meeting in December if oil prices rise to $100 per barrel". Here we have OPEC in the guise of Santa Claus bringing Christmas goodies if we all behave.

Such is the Alice in Wonderland world that we have come to accept without serious questioning, acquiescing as we are all being taken to the cleaners. And that is the Department of Energy's job, to wake us all up to the day to day willful distortions and manipulations that are costing the consumers and the nation billions. To date, not a peep from the Department of Energy other than a most welcome focus on long term programs toward the development of alternative energy fuels. This while the national economy is bleeding billions to foreign suppliers and oil interests throughout the world, in these deeply challenged economic times. Billions that could be put to far better use at home.

Consider the enormous potential savings to America's balance sheet. Consuming around 20 million barrels of oil a day at say $80 barrel transfers $1.6 billion from American consumers into the pockets of oil interests both here and abroad. Were the price at February's level of $33/bbl the transfer of wealth would radically lower, barely $660 million/day. This would result in a saving of $940 million/day or $342 billion a year. Let me repeat, $342 billion a year. More than the "staggering" $243 billion in money alone that the war in Afghanistan has cost us, according to Sen. John Kerry's testimony to before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee only a week ago.

It is long past time that our government take seriously and study intensely how oil prices are determined in a world of OPEC, speculation, timid oversight, failing transparency, international trading platforms, vast reserves of liquidity as those of sovereign wealth funds and their equivalents who have deeply vested interest in oil prices being quoted ever higher on the world trading exchanges. The whole gamut of oil price formation needs be examined and a government commission focused on this issue is long overdue.

In 1977 the then Department of Energy under Secretary James Schlesinger created a task force to address oil pricing and compliance to then existing oil price regulations. Given the turbulent and irrational movement in oil prices in the past few years, the appointment of a government task force has become essential to determine whether oil prices as currently constituted are truly an unfettered response to market forces, or an endgame of far more devious and malign pricing strategies to maximize illegally, even criminally, the profits accruing to oil producers at the expense of the public's well being.

Among the issue the task force could take under review:

-To determine the role of speculation in setting oil prices

-To determine the efficacy of such oversight agencies as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in monitoring the fairhandedness of trading activity on the Commodity Exchanges'

-Back in July the CFTC made bold announcements pinning much of the oil price increases on speculative trading in the commodity pits. Yet since then little has been heard from the CFTC. What was the nature of their findings that permitted them to arrive at those conclusions? (Please see "The Huffington Post Outs The Oil Price Speculators" 08.02.09)

-Have the efforts of the CFTC to expose the role of speculation been derailed by Wall Street influence and their allies in government? (Please see "Wall Street Stampedes to the Aid of the Oil Speculators" 07.12.09)

-What is the impact on the price of oil as the result of trading oil by the Bank Holding Companies such as JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and other banks the likes of Barclays who have dedicated billions to their proprietary oil trading/speculating departments while having access to virtually cost free funding at the Fed window? And how has this diversion/use of funds impacted their lending activities as banks in a time of economic stress?

-How does arbitraging the price of oil and oil products traded on offshore exchanges impact oil prices/products being traded on American exchanges such as the NY Merc?

-How transparent are these offshore exchanges, say London, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong among others?

-If they are not transparent are they subject to manipulation?

-What interface exists between our regulatory agencies, say the CFTC, and these offshore exchanges?

-The OPEC countries hold vast reserves of dollars and foreign exchange. Their sovereign wealth funds are bulging in cash. Can it be determined whether they or Russia are using this massive liquidity to move the energy markets on the International Commodity Exchanges to support the price of oil and oil products, these being the commodities that are the bedrock of their economies?

-Why did Saudi Arabia suddenly and only recently drop the widely used West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil contract as the benchmark for pricing its oil, substituting a new London based "Argus" index? Explanations offered talk about disparity in pricing. But could it be that with the potential of a more vigilant CFTC the WTI contract becomes more difficult to "influence"?

- How effective is OPEC in restraining production of oil and impacting its price?

-What political options present themselves vis a vis OPEC and if any, are they being implemented and should they be?

-What role could NOPEC legislation play in restraining OPEC's willful collusion by striking the sovereign immunity extended to OPEC members that gives them leave under American jurisprudence?

-During the Bush administration the House passed NOPEC legislation that would have permitted the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to take action against OPEC members in American courts, charging them with restraint of trade and anti trust collusion. Nothing ever came of it because President Bush threatened to veto the legislation. The issue has not been revived under the Obama presidency. Should it be?

-What benefits might accrue in our negotiating posture with OPEC,and all foreign suppliers were all imports of oil into the United States subject to an import license issued based on of country of origin. Yes, oil is fungible, but a rigorous licensing program might well be able to deal with that. Would it not send a clear signal, once and for all, that access to our market can no longer be taken for granted and begin to change our negotiating posture with foreign suppliers from being supplicants to being equals?

-Is there a role that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) can play in keeping prices at reasonable levels, and how would that be defined?

-Should price limits be set above which the Department of Energy would stop oil purchases for the SPR?

-How can the oil industry and the media be brought to task and the public made more aware of the realities of the oil marketplace rather than being fed such endless pabulum as 'high oil prices are a response to a weak dollar' (please note the dollar has eroded by some 15% since the beginning of the year while oil has escalated near 250% since February ) It is a canard that permits such as the CEO of BP Mr. Tony Hayward to explain away in stern instruction to us all, that in recent months the "drop in the dollar is a major factor behind oil prices breaking through $75/bbl." This is but one example of the patently misleading and self serving explanations for every jump in the price of oil, blindly being mimicked ad nauseum by the media as in the New York Times ("As the Dollar Sinks Oil Skyrockets" 10.22.09) and its endless incantations on CNBC as elsewhere (also please see "A Short Tutorial On the High Price of Oil and the Falling Dollar" 10.19.07). The public should be taught to understand self serving nonsense when it is ritually presented to them as fact. What can be done to make the public more aware and thereby more alert to the distortions being visited on them by the oil interests?

- In the need to combat the existential problem of green house gases, what steps must be taken to reduce the consumption of fossil based gasoline to offset the dramatic drop in oil prices that could well result from the implementation of effective policies countering the current high and likely manipulated oil price levels?

It is essential policies need be enacted that encourage the use of alternative fuels by establishing a voucher system, or gas tax, or whatever works to keep the potentially much lower oil prices from encouraging heightened consumption of gasoline. Better that funds gathered from gasoline taxes or other programs are circulated within our economy than the billions of dollars being shipped to foreign coffers, as is currently the case.

The irresponsible acquiescence of governments here and abroad to what has become perhaps the greatest rip off of consumers since the heady days of the Standard Oil Trust need be taken in hand.The difference being that then it was blatant monopoly control, whereas today it is insidious and duplicitous manipulation by cartel producers and a combination of speculative and manipulative trading on the commodity exchanges all countenanced by acquiescent governments lulled into inaction by the influence and wealth of oil interests and their lobbyists and an irresponsibly somnolent press too often sensitive to the priorities of their advertisers before their responsibility to the public.

Carmen Wong Ulrich: Uninsured: A Personal Price

2009-10-28T10:03:42Z

My mother died because she didn't have health insurance. She was in her late fifties when all six of us grown kids were told that she had gone to the emergency room in extreme pain. The doctors and nurses didn't even need to test her blood or run a scan to diagnose her. They took one look at Lupe's yellowing eyes, one touch of her distended belly that she'd hid from us with bulky clothes and they made the correct diagnosis: fatal colon cancer. We all had the same questions we wanted answered right away: Why had she waited until tumors had grown into every organ? Why did she wait until she'd started wasting away, telling us that she just didn't feel like eating, chalking it up to her divorce from our father? We had no idea what kind of pain she was in by the time she was diagnosed with stage-four colon cancer. What sane person would not go to the doctor with her symptoms and suffering? A person who knew that going to the doctor costs money. Money that we found out she didn't have.

My Dominican-American mother was good at keeping secrets. At the time, about eight years ago, she had had just finished divorcing her second husband, our father, with whom she'd had a relationship with for over 30 years. I was the product of their affair before she'd divorced her first husband, Peter Wong, a secret she kept from everyone, including me, until death came knocking. So what do husbands have to do with health insurance? Well, in her divorce, she was able to stay on our father's medical coverage, which is normal. However, in another secret act, Lupe decided -- probably in a fit of loneliness and a quest for financial stability -- to re-marry a third time, to an old family friend. She told us afterwards. And no, even though he was a business-owner for fifty-years, her third husband did not have health insurance -- a typical scenario in the immigrant community. No matter, because they divorced a few months later (my mother had become too 'American' for his old-fashioned Latin needs) leaving my mother without medical coverage for the first time in almost 30 years.

Little did we know that Lupe had also gotten herself into substantial credit card debt. The mother of a personal finance expert wouldn't allow her daughter even a peek into her money. She knew better because she was the parent, of course. Her independent, guarded streak lead to common scenarios growing up like coming home from college discovering Lupe's eyes taped shut, leaving us kids incredulous that she didn't tell any of us that she was having cataract surgery until the bandages gave it away. Nope. We'd just worry. Don't worry.

Now we were worried. A very preventable cancer was set to kill our mother in four months or less. She had had a ticking time bomb eating away at her body, causing symptoms that would have brought any of us to the doctor, but she didn't go because it would have put her more into debt. How many other Americans are in this position? How much less would it have cost the system for her to have a colonoscopy when she was at stage one or two, or even stage three which they found the same year in her younger sister, our aunt, who survived? Fear of cost, especially for those who don't qualify for Medicaid, prevents too many of us from seeking the care we need to keep us not only alive, but well. We know that prevention pays off. In the debate over health care, I want to hear louder the cry of those who understand that we all need preventative care paid for in order to save the system billions and to make it work.

In the end, my mother did qualify for Medicaid, especially since she was too sick to work. And not only was she incredibly well taken care of (thank you state of New Hampshire and St. Joseph's Hospital in Nashua) but her doctor had the foresight and thoughtfulness to get her access to free clinical trials of a cancer-drug that kept her alive, not for the mere months that the emergency room gave her, but for two long and grateful years.

How much longer would our mother, our children's grandmother, have been with us if she had health insurance? Guadalupe Altagracias Giannotti was sixty years old.

Carmen Wong Ulrich is a Power Woman! -- see her story at www.PowerwomenTV.com

Don McNay: 2010: The Year Main Street Sticks It to Wall Street and Washington

2009-10-27T13:00:03Z

Look what's happening out in the streets
Got a revolution, got to revolution

-Jefferson Airplane

There is one thing I would not want to be right now: an incumbent politician.

From the president to the dog catcher, many in elective office are suffering from rapidly declining popularity. People are angry and broke. Governments are being forced to make massive cuts in programs and services. They will be forced into more layoffs, which will make even more people angry and broke.

It's not a fun time to be in government.

Next year will be a year of reckoning. We are going to see massive numbers of politicians get voted out of office. It could be that many unemployed people make a new career move -- such as running for office. If anyone has ever dreamed of being an office holder, 2010 is the year to do it. There are going to be several situations where voters elect a complete unknown, just to express their anger about the incumbent.

People want change, any kind of change, especially on the economic front. To those of us on Main Street, it looks like Washington and Wall Street are ignoring the economic pain and trying to pretend as if the crisis didn't happen or is all over with now.

Wall Street is gearing up to pay itself record bonuses. The president went to Wall Street, shaking down fat cats for campaign contributions. Instead of cracking down on Wall Street abuses, Obama wants to convene a conference and "talk about it." Yeah, that will do a lot of good. It pushes any real action down the road a few years. Maybe you could have a fundraising event while the conference is going on.

The same old story, same old song and dance. Next year could be the time when we change the tune.

President Obama was elected on change. But his economic team is just another variation of the Washington-Wall Street version of "good old boys." Dr. Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geitiner and Ben Bernanke are the same people who got us into the economic mess. They screwed up badly, but Obama put them back in charge to try again.

I've been reading Andrew Ross Sorkin's riveting new book, Too Big To Fail. It's a fascinating view of the personalities involved in the current financial crisis. One of the things that immediately strike you is how all the characters seem to be buddies from way back. They've worked together, played tennis together and spend all their time talking to each other, which is why they are clueless about what is happening on Main Street.

As someone who has opposed government bailouts since the beginning, I would like to say, "I told you so." But that doesn't get us out of the mess we are in. I suspected that the Wall Street-Washington alliance would think about each other first and the taxpayers later. That wasn't hard to see. All you have to do is look at recent history. For years, Wall Street has been paying for high priced lobbyists and funneling millions in campaign contributions to Washington. The overwhelming majority in Washington gets re-elected because they are able to outspend their opponents. It perpetuates a cycle where Wall Street and Washington only talk to and socialize with each other and think they can ignore everyone else.

Next year is when the voters are finally going to make them listen.

When you see companies who accepted bailout money wanting to dole out billions in bonuses, you see how tone deaf the people in Washington and Wall Street are. They don't get that there is real anger in the country. And it's not just because we have high unemployment and real economic pain. It's because the people are tired of being played for saps. That is why 2010 will be the year of the great upheaval.

Americans are tired of self dealing. From the largest cities to the smallest towns, any sign of an office holder feathering his own nest will be met with public retribution. Any challenger looking for an issue will find one. As Robert Penn Warren wrote in All The Kings Men, "There is always something." Anyone who voted for the Wall Street bailouts will automatically have a hard time. Wall Street and Washington think that the public has forgotten, but they have not.

They've been waiting for, but not seeing, some return on their investment.

I don't think President Obama is going to "get it" before 2010. He's big on the concept of un-elected "czars" -- a concept that scares me even more than the bailouts ever did. "Czars' aren't accountable to anyone and will be hard to get rid of. Voters want more ability to influence government, not less. They don't want some "czar" speaking for them. They want their own voices to be heard.

I voted for President Obama, just like I normally vote for the Democratic nominee. Obama is getting called out by conservatives, as one would expect. But some liberals, such as Arianna Huffington, are also taking him to task. He thinks that if he dominates the "news cycle" and bashes on Fox News, the rest of the country will let him do what he wants.

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

I'm not ready to sign up with Glenn Beck and the tea baggers of the world. But I do understand that people are tired of being ignored. Unless vast numbers of people on Wall Street and in Washington start to "get it," and get it quickly, you are going to start seeing a whole lot of new faces in Congress, state legislatures and city councils all across the country.

It may not change the unemployment rate. But it will at least change who is unemployed.

Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is one of the world's leading authorities in helping people deal with "Big Money" issues. McNay is an award-winning syndicated financial columnist and Huffington Post Contributor. You can read more about Don at www.donmcnay.com McNay founded McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement and financial consulting firm, in 1983, and Kentucky Guardianship Administrators LLC in 2000. You can read more about both at www.mcnay.comMcNay has Master's Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the Hall of Distinguished Alumni of Eastern Kentucky University. McNay has written two books. Most recent is Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win The Lottery. McNay is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table and has four professional designations in the financial services field.

Raymond J. Learsy: Is There a Change In the Weather at Goldman Sachs?

2009-10-26T06:24:05Z

Perhaps, just perhaps, the opprobrium heaped on Goldman Sachs these many weeks and months has begun to take hold on what had been to date the tone deaf leadership and bizarre rationalizations such as that of Lord Brian Griffiths, Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs Intl. who instructed us last week that, "We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity for all." This while millions have lost their jobs and have had their homes foreclosed. No, I am not making this up. Goldman's way of dealing with the issues at hand, the issues of reward and fairness, the potential of it all becoming a total disaster to its public image and reputation, even the unbelievable has become sadly believable.

A news item appeared this week that at least seems to offer reasonable hope that Goldman is beginning to use its good fortune to help remedy the foundering fortunes of Main Street America. By helping institutions that deal directly with the mainstream of America's day to day economy is where Goldman can play a truly constructive role. And if the news item is being read correctly, it appears that is what may indeed be happening.
On Friday CNBC reported "CIT Reaches a Tentative Deal With Goldman".

Now CIT is a financial institution on whom myriad small and mid-size American businesses depend to finance their working capital. CIT provides them funding against accounts receivable and inventory of goods and materials without which many small and medium sized firms could not operate. This especially in the current fractured banking environment.

These are businesses and companies to which Goldman would normally have little or no access nor commercial interface. Yet, through working with CIT, Goldman would be able to assist a core part of the American economy, a part of the economy that needs all the help it can get.

Because of the economy, CIT is struggling to restructure billions in debt and stay out of bankruptcy. Unlike Goldman, Morgan Stanley, AIG, Citigroup its failure might not present a systemic and catastrophic risk to the entire financial system. For that reason, government assistance to a CIT restructuring has not been as freely forthcoming as it has to the large banking/insurance/speculation entities.

And here is where Goldman is about to play a highly purposeful role. That by assisting CIT it will be assisting Main Street business's the length and breadth of the land.

According to the news report, Goldman and CIT have reached a tentative agreement over a disputed $3 billion loan. Goldman's accommodation on this issue would open the door for CIT to get billions of new financing from its bondholders, which it could then use to reorganize. In so doing, a vital financing link on which many small to mid size American businesses are dependent, would continue to play its key role. The alternative would add further enormous stress to the American economy.

Just perhaps, Goldman has come around to understanding that given the public support it has received from the government's implicit guarantee that it is too big to fail, and on (please see "Goldman Turns Into A Financial Frankenstein While The Fed Snoozes Away" 10.17.09) that it has responsibilities and at the very least moral obligations that go beyond the bottom line and maximizing the bonus pool. How this all plays out remains to be seen, but if nothing else, in how it does, we will learn a great deal about the players.

Frank Rich: In Defense Of The Balloon Boy Dad

2009-10-24T23:56:14Z

For a country desperate for good news, the now-deflated "balloon boy" spectacle would seem to be the perfect tonic. As Wolf Blitzer of CNN summed up the nation's unrestrained joy upon learning that the imperiled boy had never been in any peril whatsoever: "All of us are so excited that little Falcon is fine."

WSJ , CNBC Hysterically Misinform On Executive Compensation

2009-10-23T15:41:22Z

Kenneth Feinberg is the White House Special Master for Executive Compensation, and he is tasked with placing restrictions on the pay showered upon the executives of seven companies whose continued existence owes a debt to the American taxpayer. Those companies are American International Group, Bank of America, Chrysler, Chrysler Financial, Citigroup, General Motors, GMAC and that's it.

Charles Schumer is a senator from New York, who, with Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) have proposed a "Shareholders Bill of Rights" that would allow corporate shareholders to have a stronger hand in corporate governance. Schumer has recommended to Feinberg that the "Shareholders Bill Of Rights" be applied to the seven companies under Feinberg's purview.

These are facts, learnable and knowable by all homo sapiens with adult levels of cognitive development. And yet, somehow, the Wall Street Journal has conflated Schumer's legislative proposal with Feinberg's mandate and reversed the direction:

Federal pay czar Kenneth Feinberg is cracking down on executive pay at the big financial firms where the government has a stake. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is mulling a law to apply the new rules to all public companies.

See, if the intended antecedent to "the new rules" is a "cracking down on executive pay," then this lede is just plain incorrect. What does the "Shareholder's Bill of Rights" offer in terms of "new rules?" Let's check in with Pat Garofalo, over at Wonk Room:

Schumer introduced the Shareholder's Bill of Rights in May with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and the bill lays out a series of provisions aimed at improving corporate governance -- and hopefully reining in corporate excess -- by empowering shareholders with more influence over their company's decisions. The bill would:

- Implement "say-on-pay," which mandates that shareholders hold a non-binding vote on their company's compensation packages;

- Require that companies allow shareholders access to the company's ballot if they want to nominate directors for the board, require board directors to receive at least 50 percent of the vote in uncontested elections in order remain on the board, and require all board directors to face re-election annually;

- Mandate that companies split the jobs of CEO and Chairman of the Board and that public companies create a separate risk committee comprised of independent directors.

Nothing in Schumer's "Bill Of Rights" calls for or implies that the executive compensation of all public companies will be put under the purview of a centralized government administrator.

In fact, one need only read Schumer's letter, upon which hangs this entire Wall Street Journal article, to see that Schumer makes an explicit distinction between his proposals and Feinberg's task:

While reigning in compensation practices at these firms is certainly necessary to ensure that taxpayer money is well spent and not squandered on lavish pay, executive compensation is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the practices that so recently put our entire financial system at risk. When it comes to effective risk management, the buck must stop with the board of directors.

When directors fail their shareholders - to whom they owe fiduciary duties of care and loyalty - they must be held to account. Unfortunately, for all too many companies the shareholders have little or no real voice in the nomination and election of their directors. As a result boards are too cozy with management and, not surprisingly, often fail to ask the hard questions that might expose practices that put the company at risk.

So, yeah. There is no plan to start capping the pay of executives at every company in America. Of course, that simple fact isn't stopping CNBC from hysterically misinforming their viewers:

WATCH:

See: that's just wrong. Schumer is not suggesting an extension of Feinberg's purview. Schumer is suggesting that applying his own legislation to the seven companies over which Feinberg holds sway, because of their debt to taxpayers, would be an additional prescriptive.

It seems to me that there was a time that the business news really had to work hard to get things right because so many people were depending on their reporting for the vital intelligence they needed to... you know, get rich. Now that the Wall Street Journal and CNBC mainly exist to cheer-lead for the financial sector's greatest stupidities and blithely misinform their customers, what can I say? Caveat lector!

RELATED:
Wall Street Journal And CNBC Get Schumer's 'Shareholder's Bill Of Rights' All Wrong [Wonk Room]

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Jerry Brown: Is CNBC Pimping for State Street Bank?

2009-10-21T16:04:32Z

If street thugs were to hold up a convenience store and drive off with $1 million, it would be national news. But when a venerable Boston bank rips off California's two largest pension funds for $56 million, it's business-as-usual -- at least to the anchors of CNBC.

State Street Bank -- the world's largest servicer of pensions -- systematically ripped off CalPERS and CalSTRS over a period of eight years. It did this by adding a tiny surcharge on foreign currency trades. But this adds up, especially considering that some $35 billion in 42,000 transactions were traded by these funds since 2001.

So when two whistle-blowers filed suit under seal in April 2008, attorneys from my office immediately investigated -- examining hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, interviewing witnesses and subpoenaing records.

They found in the course of an 18-month investigation that State Street was contractually obligated to give CalPERS and CalSTRS the "interbank rate" at the precise time of the trade. Instead, State Street consistently charged at or near the highest rate of the day, even if the
interbank rate was lower at the time of trade. And traders concealed the fraud by deliberately failing to include time stamp data in its reports, so that the pension funds could not determine the true execution costs.

When the suit was filed, we notified the media and held a press conference -- to bring the fraud to light and to deter other financial traders from considering similar action. This is a routine part of prosecuting important corporate fraud cases.

But, in a commentary post today, CNBC anchor Michelle Caruso-Cabrera sneered at California's effort to recover $200 million in damages and penalties, using a made-up quote from Elliot Spitzer to call it "quaint."

This follows an interview Tuesday that was straight out of the Daily Show. CNBC invited me on to talk about the case, and then Caruso-Cabrera asked why I would come on the air to talk about it.

Her co-anchors seemed to have no problem with the rip-off ("as long as they quoted you a dollar and you paid the dollar, what do you care what they got it for") and questioned the integrity of the whistle-blowers ("that whistle-blower -- is that a private law firm that you guys have hired to do this for you?") Unbelievable . And for the record, the whistle-blowers are industry insiders who have yet to be named.

The tone and substance of the interview are symptomatic of the Eastern financial elite, who think that $200 million is small potatoes, and big business should be given the benefit of the doubt.

In my book, there's nothing quaint about corporate fraud. There's nothing quaint about ripping off pension funds. And, I -- along with attorneys general from across the nation -- will continue to bring these high-priced rip-off artists to justice.

Visit my website, www.jerrybrown.org

Jerry Brown, California AG, Squabbles With CNBC (VIDEO)

2009-10-21T15:48:54Z
Yesterday, California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced an enormous, $200 million lawsuit against Boston-based State Street Bank. But, when Brown went on CNBC to discuss the lawsuit, he ran into some serious -- and extremely odd -- skepticism about his motivations for bringing the suit.

Brown alleges that State Street overcharged California's two largest pension funds by $56 million and is seeking millions more in damages.

CNBC's Michelle Caruso-Cabrera offered a rather half-baked implication regarding Brown's intentions, suggesting that Brown was bringing the lawsuit only because he plans to run for governor. (Brown says that the lawsuit was initiated by whistleblowers who had inside information on State Street's actions.)

Caruso-Cabrera said: "What do you say to people who look at this who say this is a perfect example of the demagoguery of attorneys general when they want to run for governor?"

Here's Brown's response:

"OK, first of all, if you don't want the interview, shut it off," Brown said, covering his face with a piece of paper. "It was your idea, so that's pretty silly. You feed off this just like any other media outlet....It's kind of symptomatic of the insensitivity and the arrogance of the Eastern financial elite that you would say, 'Oh, $56 million, why don't you suck it up and forget it?'"

Later, Brown added: "Are you guys pimping for the defendant in this case? I can't believe it."

WATCH:

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Don McNay: Just Say "No" to Adult Children Wanting Money

2009-10-20T19:12:24Z

My old man is another child that's grown old

-John Prine

It seems like every family has one -- the Child Who Never Grew Up.

They mooch off their parents well into their "adulthood." They frequently need to "borrow" money, with no intention of paying it back. They always have car problems, relationship problems, "bad luck" or other sob stories.

All their problems have the same proposed solution: Money from mom and dad.

Often they are living with mommy and daddy, long past the time when their contemporaries are starting careers and families.

Concepts like budgeting, responsibility and ambition don't make it into their vocabularies.

According to multiple media accounts, former Michigan basketball star Rumeal Robinson took mooching to a new art.

He tricked his mother into letting him mortgage her home. A headline in the Miami News Times sums it up: "Hoops hero Rumeal Robinson blew a fortune on strippers, got indicted and left his mom homeless."

Sounds like a great guy.

Mooching children usually don't hurt parents as dramatically as Rumeal Robinson did, but the results are still bad. Adult children with a "failure to launch" are dragging down parents who can't afford to subsidize them.

The headline from a recent Newsweek online article read "Retired and Broke."

According to the AARP, people over 55 is the age group most likely to declare bankruptcy. The article cites the usual bankruptcy causes, like medical expenses and credit card debts, but hammers on the idea of parents not giving money to their children.

The article ends by noting that "parents may want to help the next generation extricate itself from debt. Leading by example might be a more valuable gift."

Wise advice.

It's not an easy decision to implement. There are situations, like medical emergencies or short term downturns, where families don't have another alternative. I'm also not talking about children with severe illnesses or who are unable to work. I wouldn't throw my sick child out on the street and neither would you. I'm talking about the child who has a car, an iPhone and running-around money but doesn't chip in for rent or groceries.

You are not doing your children any favors by not allowing them to grow up.

Roger Ailes did an interview for CSPAN a few years ago. He said when he turned 18, his father asked him where he planned to live.

Ailes was puzzled, but his dad said, "I can get you a job at the factory, (where his dad worked) but you can't live here." Ailes decided to go to college at Ohio University and got into broadcasting. He went on to create Fox News, CNBC and play major roles in some presidential campaigns.

Love him or hate him, Ailes is one of the most influential people in American media. His father forced him to grow up and make his mark.

I had a similar moment on my 18th birthday. My father took me outside and said, "You are going to get what I got on my 18th birthday -- the whole wide world to make your living in." (Dad had to quit school and go to work at age 15.)

Dad pointed to his car. He said, "You see that Cadillac? That is MY Cadillac, not OUR Cadillac. Make some money and buy your own." 20 years later, I did.

It wasn't "tough love." It was making me realize that I was an adult and had adult responsibilities.

I'm OK with parents helping children through college (in four years, not forty), but after that they are on their own.

People in my father's generation were drafted and sent off to war. There are 18 year-olds today who are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I saw a Frontline story about Afghanistan where the soldiers are sleeping on the ground without mattresses. I suspect those soldiers don't have much sympathy for a 30 year-old who is still living with mommy and daddy.

I work with people who receive "big money" from lotteries, inheritances and injury settlements. All of them have the same problem that retirees have. Once they lose all their money, they have very little ability to make it back. Like retirees, their financial downfall often comes from family and friends who want to "borrow" money from them.

Which gets us back to the adult in your house who still acts like a child. I can go on for hours about how making life too soft for him or her is bad. I can go on about how eating away your savings will leave you in a situation where death is your only way out of the mess. I can go on for hours about how giving adult children money is not actually love. It is enabling bad behavior, like giving heroin to an addict.

Instead, I give you three words to remember: Rumeal Robinson's mother.

Don't end up like her.

Helen Ford adopted Robinson at age 10 after his biological mother abandoned him. She and her husband raised him, helped Rumeal become part of a national championship basketball team at the University of Michigan and a player in the National Basketball Association, making millions of dollars.

Rumeal blew through his money, spending it on strippers, nightlife and high living. He never gave anything to the people who raised him. After his career ended, he got his mother to agree to let him take a mortgage on her house. Later, it was foreclosed on.

She used the house as a center for foster children. Now she lives in a two room apartment.

Rumeal's mother had good intentions. She wanted to help her son.

Parents are often the last to see that their child is a piece of human garbage. They are the easiest of prey.

I'm seeing a lot of elderly people lose their houses, savings and often their lives (financial pressure is a key trigger for suicide) because children "borrowed" money and never paid it back.

It's time to cut them off.

The kids will pout and cry. They will try to make you feel guilty. Immature people do that. Show them that you are a real, loving parent and not a patsy. Just say "No." Your own survival is at stake.

If you want some reassurance, I would ask you to call Rumeal Robinson's mother, but I assume her phone has been cut off.

Read more at: http://editorial.huffingtonpost.com/tmp/individual-entry-archive13.html

Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is one of the world's leading authorities in helping people deal with "Big Money" issues.

McNay is an award-winning syndicated financial columnist and Huffington Post Contributor.

You can read more about Don at www.donmcnay.com

McNay founded McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement and financial consulting firm, in 1983, and Kentucky Guardianship Administrators LLC in 2000. You can read more about both at www.mcnay.com

McNay has Master's Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the Hall of Distinguished Alumni of Eastern Kentucky University.

McNay has written two books. Most recent is Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win The Lottery.

McNay is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table and has four professional designations in the financial services field.

Read more at: http://editorial.huffingtonpost.com/tmp/individual-entry-archive24.html
Read more: Iphone, Kentucky Guardianship Administrators, Children, Cspan, Addictions, Big Money, Roger Ailes, Bad Luck, Parenthood, Reagan, Cnbc, Injury Settlements, Lexington KY, 401k, Richmond Ky, Morning in America, Ncaa Basketball, Strippers, McNay Settlement Group, Inheritances, Rumeal Robinson, Tough Love, Bankruptcy, Retirement, Retired and Broke, Medical Expenses, Fox Business News, Clu, Just Say No, Soldiers, Enabling, The American College, Million Dollar Round Table, College Tuition, Foreclosures, Ambition, Helen Ford, Frontline, Special Needs Children, John Prine, Miami News Times, Ohio University, Budgeting, Msnbc, Failure to Launch, Financial Crisis, Aarp, Senior Citizen Bankruptcy, Personal Finance, Newsweek, Balanced Life, Msfs, Borrowing Money, Lotteries, Chfc, Foster Children, Kentucky, Don McNay, NBA Basketball, www.mcnay.com, Structured Settlements, www.donmcnay.com, Mortgage, Vanderbilt University, Eastern Kentucky University, Fox News, University of Michigan, Afghanistan, Mooching, Cssc, Caddilac, Business News

Karl Frisch: Is Dr. Fox-enstein - Roger Ailes - Building Another Monster?

2009-10-14T08:29:16Z

In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, her classic work from 1818, Dr.
Victor Frankenstein brings life to the lifeless. Larger and more powerful than
an average man, Dr. Frankenstein's creation strikes fear in the hearts of those
it encounters. Remember, this monster was only man-like -- a far cry from the real
thing.

With Halloween just around the
corner, Fox News president Roger Ailes -- a former Republican communications guru
-- is looking more and
more like the news industry's Dr. Frankenstein. For months now, he has been
putting the finishing touches on his first monster, Fox News Channel, just as
its bride, Fox Business Network, is showing signs of life.

His main tactic has been all too apparent: steal conservative media
figures from real news networks like CNN, MSNBC, and ABC in order to build
something new from the pieces -- something that only superficially resembles
a legitimate news outlet.

Last spring, conspiracy-loving crybaby Glenn
Beck claimed that Ailes wooed him over to Fox News from CNN Headline News by
stressing the conservative network's opposition to the president. Beck even told one newspaper that Ailes had likened Fox News' battle
against Obama to the Alamo.

Then there was Tucker Carlson in May. Fresh off yet another canceled show -- first with CNN and then with MSNBC -- and a brief stint on
ABC's Dancing With The Stars, the
conservative man-boy cable host known for his bow-tie fetish landed with a bang
at Fox News, declaring,
"I've waited a long time to get here."

Luring two big right-wing names to
Fox News Channel's roster allowed Ailes to focus on Fox Business Network, his answer
to NBC Universal's successful business news outlet,
CNBC.

Since its launch in late 2007, Fox
Business has been plagued with horrible ratings.
In fact, CNBC sometimes outperformed the new conservative business
outlet by a margin of 10-to-1. It's hardly surprising, then, that Ailes
has turned his focus to the struggling network.

Just last month, Fox Business announced
that it would begin carrying a weekday simulcast of Don Imus' radio program.
Imus is, of course, far better known for his long
history of outrageous and at times racist and sexist comments than for his
business-reporting
chops. In fact, he'll likely represent the word "business" in his new employer's
name about as well as his new colleagues represent the word "news" in Fox News
Channel.

Imus comes to Fox Business from the little-known and little-watched RFD-TV, his television home
following his high-profile firing from MSNBC and CBS radio in 2007 for referring
to the Rutgers
University women's
basketball team as "nappy-headed hos."

September would prove to be a barn
burner of a month for Ailes. In addition to Imus, John Stossel, a correspondent for the ABC newsmagazine
20/20, also announced his
intention to join Fox Business. Stossel will no doubt feel right at home -- he has a long history of
denying the scientific reality of global climate
change
and promoting a cornucopia of right-wing myths and distortions. So
much so that Fox's Chris Wallace described
Stossel as a "very natural fit at Fox because he is a contrarian, and he's a
conservative."

So what's next for Fox Business?
Well, according to recent reports, CNN's immigrant-bashing conspiracy theorist Lou Dobbs met with Ailes over dinner last month. Could Dobbs be taking
his loony
quest for President Obama's already-available birth certificate to Fox Business?
It seems plausible.
Years before CNN turned over its airwaves to Dobbs for his nightly
broadcasts of immigrant-smearing hysteria and right-wing fringe
causes of the day, Dobbs was something of a respected financial news anchor.

Surely, Imus, Stossel, and Dobbs won't be enough to breathe new
life into Ailes' monster bride of a network. He's going to need a few more
high-profile names before he's able to shout "It's alive!" from the rooftops. But
who?

Perhaps Ailes could sign Michael
Savage, the third-highest-rated radio host in America, who was fired by MSNBC in 2003 for describing a caller as "a sodomite" and telling him to "get
AIDS and die." While he's at it, he could also snatch up Pat Buchanan, the former CNN and MSNBC
host who currently serves as resident cranky uncle and political commentator for
the latter. Surely, they could use someone with
his decades-long
history of racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, defending of
Hitler, and whitewashing of
the Holocaust.

We might as well refer to Ailes as
Dr. Fox-enstein at this point. After all, his relentless abuse of the
journalistic form is just as frightening as Shelley's chilling fictional tale of
scientific experimentation run amok
-- perhaps more so.

Karl Frisch is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Frisch also contributes to County Fair,
a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around
the Web as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, or sign up to receive his columns by email.

Read more: Pat Buchanan, Birthers, Msnbc, Cnbc, Lou Dobbs, Crossfire, The Glenn Beck Show, Immigration, Roger Ailes, Fox Broadcasting Company, Tucker Carlson, Fox Business Network, RFD TV, Fox Business, Chris Wallace, Rutgers Womens Basketball Team, Cnn, Don Imus, Rupert Murdoch, Michael Savage, Fox News, 20/20, John Stossel, Glenn Beck, ABC News, Dancing With the Stars, Fox News Channel, Media News

FDIC's Bair: "Banks Will Continue To Fail Through 2010" (VIDEO)

2009-10-13T11:41:56Z
Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) appeared on CNBC this morning to discuss TARP, failing banks, toxic assets, and why banks should adhere to the FDIC's request for a three-year prepayment program of agency fees.

Bair stated that banks will likely lag any economic recovery for a few quarters. She also backed both President Obama's proposed consumer protection agency and the creation of a regulatory oversight council. This is in stark contrast to Ben Bernanke's support for maintaining a Super-Fed.

"We think we need a system of risk council made of all the regulators that has rule making authority that can set higher standards to serve as a check on regulatory capture when an individual regulator isn't doing their job. And we also are very strongly supportive of the consumer agency and I think on a broad parameter there is a lot of overlap and agreement between the FDIC, the Fed, and the Treasury," said Bair.

WATCH:

Read more: Fdic, Sheila Bair, Cnbc, Business News

Carl Icahn: Markets "Schizophrenic," Economy "On A Precipice"

2009-10-09T09:49:42Z
In an interview with CNBC today, billionaire investor Carl Icahn warned that the economy is still "on a precipice." Because the market is acting "schizophrenic," a stock recovery does not, he said, necessarily indicate that the economy is cured.

"It's a myth to say the market is a good indicator of the economy. I think individuals are much more of an indicator," he said.

Urging caution, Icahn said that the future of the economy is still uncertain:

"It could really go either way. I don't think anybody can really say which way it's going to go," he said. But Icahn described one grim scenario: "If you get a double-dip recession and they start coming down, it's going to be a bit of a bloodbath."

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Read more: Investing, Carl Icahn, Cnbc, Stock Market, Financial Crisis, Recession, Business News

Joseph A. Palermo: To "Americans for Prosperity" Capitalism Is a Love Story

2009-10-06T23:36:17Z
The Americans for Prosperity Foundation's "National Defending the American Dream Summit" held last weekend at the Marriott Crystal Gateway Hotel in Arlington, Virginia was an assemblage whose only distinguishing feature was its astonishing homogeneity both in thought and in demography. When they were not loudly applauding President Obama's (and America's) failure to win the 2016 Olympic games, high-fiving each other and laughing, they were raptly listening to speaker after right-wing speaker reinforce all their assumptions about how the world works.

The Ann Coulter clone, Laura Ingraham, (who called Megan McCain "plus size" for daring to criticize right-wing talk radio) was one of the speakers; so were Newt Gingrich and CNBC's Larry Kudlow. They threw red meat to the AFPers by venting their hatred of government, taxes, Democrats, the environment, regulations, and President Obama. Kudlow got a huge ovation with the applause line: "Obama doesn't know a bloody thing about economics." He then launched into a laughable disquisition on the "successes" of supply-side economics.

It's amazing that even after the entire Wall Street house of cards collapsed a year ago requiring the public sector to rescue the private sector these fierce advocates of free-market fundamentalism can still show their faces in public, let alone gather to rail against the evils of the government that saved their asses.

But what do you expect from an organization that Koch Industries bankrolls just as it once bankrolled the John Birch Society?

I got to thinking about how all those people who despise their own elected government made their way to Arlington for their little rally. Those Americans for Prosperity "delegates" arrived for their convention using roads and airports the government built and maintains. They flew knowing the government would keep them safe through its hundreds of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees. They could count on getting to their destination knowing the plane had undergone government inspection and was deemed mechanically safe so that no AFPer would end up in a fireball due to faulty planes. The government's air traffic controllers made sure their planes didn't collide during take off, landing, or in mid-air. They got to their hotels in taxis that couldn't charge exorbitant rates because they'd lose their government licenses if they did. When they turned on the showers and faucets in their hotel rooms they used water the government brought to them through a network of public works projects, maintained by government employees. They ate at restaurants where E. coli, Salmonella, and other food-born pathogens are held at bay by government regulations and inspectors. And when they signed the contracts to book their flights and accommodations they knew that the government's courts would uphold their rights if the other party reneged.

Yet they hate government.

And then I thought about the thousands of other human beings whose labor make life possible for these libertarian fanatics who view themselves as atomized individuals disconnected from society. I thought about the people who designed the planes they flew on, the roads they drove on, the building they held their rally in. I thought of the people who changed the sheets in their hotel rooms or brought them beverages or cleaned their toilets and carried their bags and were stationed ready to provide services of all kinds. And I thought what would the AFPers do -- yes, even the billionaire David Koch -- if these people withheld their labor? How could these AFPers in their free market, go-it-alone fantasy world accomplish anything if it weren't for the labor of all of those thousands of people they take for granted? And the biggest villains at the AFP convention (other than the government and Obama) were labor unions. The anti-union venom that spewed forth from the podium sounded like Pinkertons readying themselves to fire into a rally of the Knights of Labor. And why not? Who's better suited to play the role of our era's Henry Clay Frick than David Koch, the seventh richest man in America?

It was a convention hall filled with "Mister Potters" from Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. The speakers I saw in two dimensions on C-SPAN sounded to me to be greed driven, selfish and self-centered, with a smug certitude about how the world works that only a life of privilege can bestow. The love of possessions is like a disease among them. Yet they also possessed the annoying, whiny tone of the aggrieved "victim" as if they haven't been in power for the past thirty years; as if their free market fundamentalist ideas have not been tried already only to fail miserably. To these AFP fantasists there was no Savings and Loan crisis where deregulation cost American taxpayers $150 billion. There was no Long-Term Capital Management bailout. There was no Enron and Worldcom and Tyco that cost thousands of shareholders their retirements. There was no Argentine and Russian currency crises. No "lost decade" in Japan. No dot.com bubble. No housing bubble and collapse. And no "troubled assets." No, for the AFPers all of this pain and suffering we're now experiencing, all of the unemployment, all of the foreclosures and bankruptcies -- all of it -- is somehow the government's fault or the environmentalists' fault or the labor unions' fault. It's everybody else's fault but their own; and it's certainly not the fault of their beloved capitalism. And that last point is the one with the richest irony: the AFP worldview calls itself "libertarian" and "conservative" but refuses to take any personal responsibility for anything.
Read more: Tim Phillips, C-Span, David Koch, President Obama, It's a Wonderful Life, Ann Coulter, Enron, Frank Capra, Koch Industries, Newt Gingrich, Capitalism, Tsa, Savings and Loan Scandal, The 2016 Olympic Games, Henry Clay Frick, Cnbc, Tyco, Free Market Fundamentalism, Americans for Prosperity, Laura Ingraham, Worldcom, Afp, Larry Kudlow, Supply-Side Economics, Knights of Labor, National Defending the American Dream Summit, Megan McCain, Long-Term Capital Management, John Birch Society, Pinkertons, Politics News

Diane Tucker: Alert The TV News Media: Obamanomics Isn't Working

2009-10-02T09:22:52Z
According to government data released today, the unemployment rate rose to a 26-year high
of 9.8 percent in September as 263,000 more Americans lost their jobs. The last president to govern with such high unemployment was Ronald Reagan in 1982. Back then, the TV news media often aired footage that showed union leaders, the unemployed, and Democrats characterizing Reagan's economic policies as sadistic. Yet for some reason, in 2009 most TV news outlets are giving President Barack Obama a free pass on equally bleak numbers.

The Business and Media Institute just released a special report that exposes the double-standard in unemployment coverage. Here are some of the major findings:

In 1982, an overwhelming majority (91 percent) of stories mentioning the Reagan Administration were negative, while in 2009 only 7 percent of Obama Administration mentions were negative.

Unemployment stories in 1982 mentioned the Reagan administration 71 percent of the time, but unemployment stories in 2009 mentioned the Obama administration only 40 percent of the time.

Shame On You, Charles Gibson: The unemployment rate reached 9.4 percent under both Reagan and Obama. But ABC's Charles Gibson covered the identical rate very differently in 1982 and 2009. Gibson told viewers on May 7, 1982, "There really isn't any good news in the statistics. All the numbers are bad." But this year Gibson turned into an optimist, saying on August 7, 2009, that he hoped "the economy may be finally turning the corner."

Instead of using stimulus money to immediately create jobs for millions of unemployed Americans, Obama first gave our taxpayer dollars to the so-called "too big to fail" financial firms, a decision some are calling a bad precedent. It's hard to argue with business journalist John Cassidy, who had this to say in the New Yorker magazine this week:

Since the federal government has now demonstrated that it will do whatever is necessary to prevent the collapse of the largest financial firms, their top executives will have an even greater incentive to enter perilous lines of business. If things turn out well, they will receive big bonuses and the value of their stock options will increase. If things go wrong, the taxpayer will be left to pick up some of the tab.

Compare Obama's strategy to the approach of former president Franklin Roosevelt, who used taxpayer dollars to provide nearly 8 million jobs between 1935 and 1943. FDR's program, while not perfect, employed people to build public buildings, projects, and roads. The program fed children, and redistributed food, clothing and housing. Today almost every community in America has a park, bridge or school constructed by Americans working for FDR's new deal agency, the Work Projects Administration.

Naturally President Obama has agreed that job creation is "the single most important thing we can do," but talk is cheap. Obama predicted the stimulus plan would likely create three to four million jobs, but that hasn't happened yet. Today 15.1 million people are unemployed in the United States, and the number is still growing. Some 52 percent have exhausted state jobless benefits, and some are reaching the end of the makeshift strands of emergency extensions.

But, hey, no worries -- the President and First Lady are appearing on all the TV news broadcasts this week, super-excited about trying to lure the Olympics to Chicago.

Obamanomics isn't just jobless, it's heartless.

* * *

UPDATE 10.02.09 Despite President Obama's whirlwind trip to promote his adopted city, Chicago was eliminated in the first round of International Olympic Committee consideration today.

Meanwhile, upon hearing the grim unemployment numbers, Obama said simply, "We'll just have to grind it out." (Easy for him to say, he's got a job.)

UPDATE 10.03.09 "Wanted: Leadership on Jobs" says the NYTimes editorial staff.

UPDATE 10.04.09 "It's the Unemployment, Stupid" says Robert Kuttner, co-editor of the American Prospect.

UPDATE 10.05.09 "Does Obama Get It?" asks Bob Herbert, NYTimes op/ed columnist.

UPDATE 11.1.09 "Are 650,000 jobs enough?" asks Benjamin F. Carlson at the AtlanticWire.
Read more: John Cassidy, Job Losses, The New Yorker, Ronald Reagan, Unemployment Rate, New Deal, Fdr-New-Deal, Jobs, News Media, Media, Franklin Roosevelt, Diane Tucker, Barack Obama, Recession, Barack Obama Ronald Reagan, Cnn, Unemployed, Unemployment, Job Cuts, Fox News, Unemployment Benefits, Work Projects Administration, Charles Gibson, Banks, NBC News, Layoffs, Msnbc, Bank of America, Aig, Cnbc, Citibank, Bankruptcy, Timothy Geithner, Financial Crisis, The Recession, The Bailouts, Careers, Labor, CBS Evening News, ABC News, Small Business, Economy, Michelle Obama, Capitalism: A Love Story, Media News

Don McNay: Is Credit Evil?

2009-09-29T14:09:04Z

And
if I change my mind

A million times

-Shania Twain

I hate certain types of credit. I don't own a credit card and I don't want one.
Payday lending, tax refund anticipation loans and other forms of legalized loan
sharking should be outlawed.

I've watched many people get in trouble with upside down car loans,
second mortgages or from using high interest rate financing.

Credit keeps many people from living within
their means.

Then a friend told me he was buying a large house.

My buddy is a financial genius. He is
someone you never heard of - and he wants it that way. He drives a modest car and lived in a modest home, both of which he paid for in
cash. Like Warren Buffett, he is more interested in
his portfolio than pretense. He is a self-made success.

He said
that with the housing market depressed and interest rates
below 5%, it made good financial sense to buy a nice
house and finance it for 15 years.

I'm not sure he really wanted a nicer house.
He just saw it a financial opportunity.

He is rarely wrong and never makes irrational moves. He
got me to thinking again about the evils of credit.

There are times when credit is good, when it is used
responsibly by the people who can
handle it.

For example, take someone in a high tax bracket who is financing a house. If he borrows the money at 5%, the actual cost in most cases will be roughly 3%, after taxes.

If he used the house money for an immediate annuity, he would have the cash
flow to pay the mortgage, get the mortgage
interest deduction and participate in any increase in
value of the
house. (I am assuming that
sometime in the next 15 years, houses will appreciate in value again.) In the meantime, the
mortgage and annuity rates would stay the same.

That is a fairly low-risk way to use credit.

He could also
put his money
in the stock market and make big gains. Or lose his
shirt.

There has been a lot of shirt-losing in the past couple
of years.

Investing in the stock
market can be like going to the race track. There
are going to be winners and there
are going to be losers. People should understand that any investment
involves risk.

In the subprime, “too
big to fail,” anything goes market that brought on the financial crisis, some
people forgot about risk.

Those are the people
that I don’t want to have credit. None
at all.

Many are losing
their shirts by paying outrageous fees and interest on credit cards.

Credit cards can take 20% to 30% a year in interest plus really outrageous
fees.   Guaranteed. And you don't get a tax
deduction.

I can't think of a worse investment than that.

I watched so many people fall off the wagon on credit cards, that I bought into the
"Just
say No"
philosophy on any credit.

A pioneer in the "never borrow money" philosophy was
the Christian author and lecturer, Larry Burkett.   In the mid
1970's, he founded a non-profit organization called Christian Financial Concepts, that
used biblical principles in guiding people with their finances.  One
of those principles was no debt whatsoever.

Burkett was extremely popular in Christian circles until his death in 2003 but he never reached a
mainstream audience. Dave Ramsey has.

Ramsey has a syndicated radio show and a nightly program on the Fox Business News Network.
Ramsey acknowledges
Burkett's influence in his book,
Financial Peace.

Although, like Burkett, Ramsey focuses his attention on churches and Christian communities, he
reaches every
demographic. His message of savings
and sacrifice and never borrowing money is one that many people need to
hear.

Then I think about my friend. I am sure his new home is a smart financial
move.

Credit in moderation
can be good. But like any addiction,
credit can be the worst nightmare of your life.

I understand there are
some circumstances where a home mortgage is a great idea, but don’t be looking
for me in any Capital One commercials in the near future.

Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is
one of the world's leading authorities in helping people deal with “Big
Money” issues.

McNay
is an award winning, syndicated financial columnist.

You can read more about Don at www.donmcnay.com

McNay
founded McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement and financial
consulting firm, in 1983 and Kentucky Guardianship Administrators LLC
in 2000. You can read more about both at www.mcnay.com

McNay
has Master's Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the
Eastern Kentucky University Hall of Distinguished Alumni.

McNay
has written two books. Most recent is Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers
and What to Do When You Win The Lottery

McNay
is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table and has four
professional designations in the financial services field.

Read more: Financial Peace, Kentucky Guardianship Administrators, Capital One, Investment Risk, Big Money, Cnbc, Aig, Mortgages, Richmond Ky, Home Prices, Christian Author, Financial Crisis, Immediate Annuity, American College, Tax-Refund-Anticipation-Loans, Lexington, Personal Finance, Credit Card Fees, McNay Settlement Group, Msfs, Payday Lending, Structured Settlement, Citigroup, Chfc, Loan Sharks, Home Mortgages, Car Loans, Upside Down, Larry Burkett, Kentucky, Don McNay, Payday Loans, Credit Crisis, Structured Settlement Annuity, Credit Cards, Fox Business News, Clu, American Express, Dave Ramsey, JPMorgan Chase, Cnn, Subprime Mortgages, Credit, Vanderbilt University, Syndicated Radio, Million Dollar Round Table, Eastern Kentucky University, Fox News, Warren Buffett, Cssc, Annuity, Race Track, Too Big to Fail, High Interest Rates, Christian Financial Concepts, Louisvile, Business News

MSNBC's Ratigan Interviews Michael Moore, Alludes To Why He Left CNBC

2009-09-25T14:00:48Z
During today's edition of Morning Meeting, host Dylan Ratigan interviewed filmmaker Michael Moore on his new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, during which the MSNBC host made an interesting admission:

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RATIGAN: But let's stop there, because I think we are at a point in the country where if we don't find a healthy place to direct that frustration and anger -- and you are talking about somebody who left his job at CNBC in order to pursue politicians because of his frustration and anger at the revelation of a system that was clearly designed, basically, to perpetuate generational theft and then cover it up.

MOORE: That's correct, that's exactly right.

RATIGAN: So what I am trying to figure out and I'd be curious to know from you, what is the healthiest place for all of us? I've decided, I said listen, I'll come over to MSNBC and just ask questions of politicians. Most people are not in a situation where I was where they have the realization of betrayal and the broken nature of the...and just come and ask questions.

It's interesting to hear Ratigan edge right up to saying that CNBC is institutionally averse to providing any clarity or insight into the way in which financial institutions, aided and abetted by well-lobbied politicians, rogered America, but good. Naturally, this becomes apparent by merely watching CNBC and seeing that it's a network primarily dedicated to whooshing, shiny graphics and unadulterated, dumb-assed boosterism. Nevertheless, it's compelling to hear that Ratigan had to pick a different career path in the media so that he could even be allowed to "ask questions."

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[Hat tip: Media Monitor Theresa Defino]

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Read more: Msnbc, Cnbc, Video, Media Criticism, Michael Moore, Dylan Ratigan, Media News

James Altucher: 12 Ways The World Could Be Destroyed

2009-09-23T18:00:27Z
I live and breathe Wall Street. I don't mean that metaphorically, like, "Oh, I love stocks so much I live and breathe Wall Street." No, not at all. I actually live on Wall Street. When I look out my window I see the New York Stock Exchange. And I trade all day. I write articles and books in between trades. And in between writing I try to do various deals. And when I walk outside I'm within feet of guys in machine guns, traders talking on their cell phones, tourists snapping pictures, and the huge US flag that adorns the front of the Exchange.

And I worry. Very wealthy people don't like to worry. They like to focus on the intrigue of their love lives, or they like to play with their new and plentiful toys. So they outsource their worry to me. "James," one of my investors said to me, "I made the money. Now you protect it." We live in a world of nightmares. Every day those nightmares attempt to come to the surface of our reality and stir up some trouble. But understanding these worries, the myriad ways the world could end, and hedging against them (or betting against them) is the way to turn the fear into greed, the nightmare into a dream.

Help me out here. I'm going to list some of the ways the world could end. At least the ways the world could end that people are actually worried about. If you can think of any more, please put them in the comments. Over the next few weeks/months/years I'm going to dissect in this blog the realities of these worries and see how we can make some money because of them.

Some Ways the World Could Be Destroyed

1. Pandemic. We're all mini-experts on Swine Flu now. And here's what we know about flu pandemics: The second wave is much deadlier than the first. And guess what: the second wave is about to start any second.

2. Terrorism on US soil. The other day a coffee cart vendor who used to work on Wall Street got arrested for planning bomb attacks at various locations in NYC. This is really unpleasant for me since I love getting coffee and a donut at the carts. I spoke to a terrorism specialist who works for the government in an undisclosed location (I begged her to tell me where but she refused). She said, "Eventually its going to happen."

3. Financial collapse. In October, 2008 we came really close. Some Nobel Prize winners think that was nothing compared to what's about to hit.

4. The world is running out of oil. The US "peaked" in 1970. Saudi Arabia probably peaked in 2005. What happens when oil hits $20 a gallon?

5. Methane gas is the worst greenhouse gas. What happens when the gas sitting under the continental shelf starts to get released into the atmosphere, causing temperatures to shoot up 10 degrees. Nobody talks about this particular gas because the solutions are much harder to develop.

6. We run out of clean water. Right now over 50% of hospital beds worldwide are filled with people sick from dirty water-related illnesses. The supply of water never changes, but the population is urban areas is going to double and triple in the next few decades. Major metropolitan areas will simply have no clean water.

7. Nuclear terrorism. Its not that hard to make a dirty bomb. I'll show you how in this blog. Its not even hard to make a nuclear bomb. I'll show you that here as well. Stay tuned.

8. Major hurricanes. What happens when a Category 5 hurricane hits New York City? Don't laugh. We might be overdue.

9. Nuclear terrorism, part II (because I can't get enough of it). Warren Buffett once told me (well, he was on CNBC and told many people), "Over the next 100 years there is a virtual certainty of a nuclear warhead exploding on a populated area." How will it happen? What will be the result on the world? On you?

10. Volcano. The largest volcano in the world is at Yellowstone National park. If that erupted it would probably wipe out most of the continent. And its about 30,000 years overdue. Can we detect it and stop it?

11. Nanotechnology gone awry. This isn't science fiction anymore. I don't want someone saying "mistakes were made" when the entire planet is enveloped by gray nano-goo. Who are the players and what are they doing to protect us?

12. The human race is going extinct? Why are all the kids getting peanut allergies? When I was a kid nobody ever dropped dead from eating a peanut. The human race is losing its ability to fight off auto-immune diseases.

Lets start with this list. I have more and I want to hear from other people. Over the next few posts I'll start exploring the realities of the above. Maybe there's a little bit of fear here, but trust me there's also some greed. If the world doesn't end then I think there's some money to be made.

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Don McNay: Like Lottery Winners, Pro Athletes Also Blow Big Money

2009-09-22T01:48:07Z
"It’s the same old story,
same old song and dance my friend'

-Aerosmith

Tom Leach, the voice of the University of
Kentucky Wildcats, gave me a fascinating Sports Illustrated article entitled, "How (and Why) Athletes Go Broke."

To quote baseball legend Yogi Berra, it is “Déjà vu all over again."

As a structured settlement consultant, I have worked with injury victims, lottery winners
and others who receive very large
sums of money. It’s been said that 90% of them will run through
their money in five years or less. I've seen people blow money in more ways than you can think.

Even knowing
that, I was still stunned to learn that within two years of retirement, 78% of
NFL football players are bankrupt or under financial stress.

60% of NBA basketball players are broke within five years of retirement.

I was under the impression that professional athletes had wonderful
support systems of agents, advisers and strong unions. I guess not.
They are running through their money faster than a crazed lottery winner.

Powerball winner Jack Whitaker was robbed of $600,000 in a strip club. Cash. It seems like a lot of pro sports stars are following his spending
philosophies.

Why are people so compelled to blow big
money?

I sometimes feel like a substance abuse or weight loss counselor. I
know many people I try to help will fail, but I keep focused on the success stories.

Like in the movie Carlito's Way, friends and family often are the reason many
people go down.

My father often said (and I often repeat) that
"If you
tell me who your friends are, I will tell you who you are."

The Sports Illustrated article said that the downfall of many pro athletes are
the people who are advising them and hanging out with them.

You can't choose your "friends" by their ability to serve
as your Yes-men. In fact, a true
friend will tell you when you are screwing up. You need friends who like
you for who you are, not for your wallet.

Professional sports figures attract flunkies for many reasons.
Society has a big attraction to celebrities. Someone needs to
tell sports figures that if a person REALLY wants to be your friend, he doesn't need to be on your
payroll.

I have many friends. But none of them get paid for that “privilege.”

Sports stars also get caught in the same trap
that others with big money fall into. They think the money is going to
last forever. Someone who gets a lottery jackpot or injury settlement is
only going to get it once. As I told one injury victim, "You are only going to get
hit by a truck once in your lifetime. You need to make sure that this
money is there for all your lifetime."

Sports stars often think they will play forever, but the average career of
an NFL player is only four years. The careers end, the money runs out and they are not prepared for the sudden fall.

Sports stars often have an attraction for risk. A young, professional
athlete is the epitome of self-confidence. Those who make it to the professional ranks were probably stars in grade school, high school and college. They have never had
anything go wrong in their entire lives.

Until they start investing big money.

Overconfidence is an affliction that plagues many on Wall Street.  It
is the primary reason we are in an economic crisis.  The problem is
even worse for sports stars since they generally don't have the education and experience that the Wall Street crowd has.

When overconfidence is combined with lack of knowledge, disaster strikes.

I would tell a professional athlete the same thing that I would tell anyone
with big money.

Plan on the money you have lasting for the rest of your lifetime. Assume you'll
never get another nickel.  Dump all the
"friends" and hangers-on. Don't be spending to keep up with the Joneses. (I like the Dave Ramsey line: "Don't spend money you
don't have to impress people you don't know.")

I try to have lottery winners and injured people keep quiet about their
finances. Since that’s
impossible for sports stars, they need to take special care in choosing who will financially advise them.

Stars need advisers who have worked with others in their situation and income
class.   They need advisers who don't "learn why
they earn" at the star's expense.

If they develop and stick to a sound
financial game plan, they can avoid being another
"same old story."

---------------------------------------------------------------
Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is
one of the world's leading authorities in helping injured people and lottery
winners deal with complex financial issues.

is also an award winning, syndicated financial columnist.

McNay
founded McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement and financial
consulting firm, in 1983. The company's primary office is in Richmond, Kentucky.

McNay
has Master's Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the
Eastern Kentucky University Hall of Distinguished Alumni.

McNay
has written two books. Most recent is Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers
and What to Do When You Win The Lottery

You can write to Don at don@donmcnay.com or
read his column at www.donmcnay.com.

You can
reach him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/donmcnay and on Twitter at
twitter.com/Donmcnay

McNay
is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table and has four
professional designations in the financial services field.

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