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Sunday, September 28 2008 @ 10:46 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Contributed by: Ron
Views: 55
It's a simple question, where's my bank?
I remember back when I was a kid and all the way up through the 1980's you could put your money into a savings account and actually watch it grow. You could have a checking account and if you happened to not have enough funds in your account to cover a check, the bank would go ahead and cover it for you and get this "AT NO CHARGE" knowing that you'll be in to pay for it later. Especially if you were on good terms with that bank. You could walk into the bank and actually have a conversation with the bank manage and were on a first name basis with that manager. Your banker knew how solvent you were. Knew that you were good for it. Took care of you. And if you made a descent deposit you maybe got a toaster or something else. The bank actually cared about you. Those days are gone!
There are no longer home town banks. They have all been sucked up by the mega banks. Now it seems that the banks are doing all they can to part you with your money with big fees. Unless you have a lot of money in a savings account it won't be long before you won't have a savings account. You can't just have a couple hundred dollars in a savings and expect it to be there a year later with interest. The banks now charge you to have a savings account. It may cost you $12.00 to $20.00 a month just for the privilege of keeping your money in their bank so they can use that money to play the stock market. And at $12.00 per month in less than two years you will have nothing.
You were also able to earn interest and yes you still earn interest but at what rate? It used to be you could earn 7% or better on your savings. In fact there were some savings where you would earn upwards of 14%. Now you'll be lucky to earn .07% on your savings.
And the banks play these games with you. Let's say that you go shopping and use your debt card. You go to various different shops and each time use the card. You know that you have enough money on your card to pay for everything but it will be close. Now let's say you ms-calculated by a meir two cents however the bank goes ahead and pays it anyway. Well guess what, for that two cents the bank will charge you $35.00. So now that ms-calculation is now a $35.02 ms-calculation.
Oh and it gets better! Let's say you make a deposit on the same day that you purchased those items. Let's say you made twenty small purchases and one big purchase but didn't have enough in your account. Even though all your small purchase happened before the big purchase the bank will always do the big purchase first. In other words even though your balance would have covered all of the smaller purchases the bank doesn't cover them. Instead they go for the big one first which then will cause all the smaller ones to also not be covered. Sounds confusing doesn't it. Bottom line is this, by doing the big purchase first it means everything is ISF vs just the one. So instead of charging one ISF fee of $35.00 they charge you 20 times $35.00 even though you had enough to cover all of the smaller purchases. And again it may have been a difference of just two cents. Again not customer friendly. For someone who doesn't make a lot of money in the first place it really hurts because now you have a major expense that you didn't have earlier in the day. $35.00 may have been easy to cover but $350.00 or $700.00 is not that easy to cover when you live from paycheck to paycheck. All becauee the banks are greedy and decide to go after those who can least afford it.
So really I want my home town bank back. I want to be able to put $200.00 into a savings and come back a year later and have $220.00. I want to actually earn interest. I want to be able to walk into my bank and the bank manager actually greet me smile and say good morning Ron. I want a toaster. Not that I need a toaster. But you get the idea. I want my bank/banker to care about me more than he does about my money.
Sadly I don't think we'll ever see those days again.
Sunday, September 28 2008 @ 09:09 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Contributed by: Ron
Views: 56
Yes! I heard that question asked today on a news program. They suggest that she is not out there or that John McCain's campaign is keeping here out of the spotlight. However they then turn around and show where she will be speaking. There are no sound bites and no clips of her talking to people. Insteresting how she isn't getting the coverage the others are getting. I believe that the MSM has realized that the more they cover Sarah Palin the more charged people get about John McCain's campaign. So by not covering her they are again helping out Barack Obama.
Thursday, September 25 2008 @ 05:52 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Contributed by: Ron
Views: 82
In trying to get my brain wrapped around this bank crisis I of course did some searching and found this.
From Information Clearing House http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18335.htm
How Did We Get into this Mess?
More than 20 years of dogged lobbying from the financial industry paid off with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act which was passed by Congress following the 1929 stock market crash. The bill was written to limit the conflicts of interest when commercial banks are permitted to underwrite stocks or bonds.
The financial industry whittled away at Glass-Steagall for years before finally breaking down its regulatory restrictions in August 1987, Alan Greenspan -- formerly a director of J.P. Morgan and a proponent of banking deregulation -- became chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
“In 1990, J.P. Morgan became the first bank to receive permission from the Federal Reserve to underwrite securities, so long as its underwriting business does not exceed the 10 percent limit. In December 1996, with the support of Chairman Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Board issues a precedent-shattering decision permitting bank holding companies to own investment bank affiliates with up to 25 percent of their business in securities underwriting (up from 10 percent).
This expansion of the loophole created by the Fed's 1987 reinterpretation of Section 20 of Glass-Steagall effectively rendered Glass-Steagall obsolete.” (“The Long Demise of Glass Steagall, Frontline, PBS)
In 1999, after 25 years and $300 million of lobbying efforts, Congress aided by President Bill Clinton, finally repealed Glass-Steagall. This paved the way for the problems we are now facing.
Another contributing factor to the current banking-muddle is the Basel rules. According to the BIS (Bank of International Settlements) website:
“The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision provides a forum for regular cooperation on banking supervisory matters. Its objective is to enhance understanding of key supervisory issues and improve the quality of banking supervision worldwide. It seeks to do so by exchanging information on national supervisory issues, approaches and techniques, with a view to promoting common understanding. At times, the Committee uses this common understanding to develop guidelines and supervisory standards in areas where they are considered desirable. In this regard, the Committee is best known for its international standards on capital adequacy; the Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision; and the Concordat on cross-border banking supervision.”
The Basel Committee on Banking (Basel 2) requires “banks to boost the capital they hold in reserve against the loans on their books.”
Sounds like a good thing, doesn’t it? This protects the overall financial system as well as the individual depositor. Unfortunately, the banks found a way to circumvent the rules for minimum reserves by “securitizing” pools of mortgages (MBS) rather than holding individual mortgages. (which called for more reserves) This provided lavish origination and distribution fees for banks, but shifted much of the risk of default to Wall Street investors. Now, the banks are saddled with roughly $300 billion in mortgage-backed debt (CDOs) that no one wants and it is uncertain whether they have sufficient reserves to cover their losses.
By October, we should know how this will all play out. As David Wessel points out in “New Bank Capital requirements helped to Spread Credit Woes”:
“Banks now behave more like securities firms, more likely to mark down the value of assets when market prices fall---even to distressed levels---rather than sitting on bad loans for a decade and pretending they’ll be paid back.”
The downside of this is that once that banks write off these toxic MBSs and CDOs; the hedge funds, insurance companies and pension funds will be forced to do the same----dumping boatloads of this bond-sludge on the market driving down prices and triggering a panic-sell-off. This is what the Fed is trying to prevent through its $60 billion repo-bailout.
Regrettably, the Fed cannot hope to remove half-trillion of bad debt from the balance sheets of the banks or forestall the collapse of related financial institutions and funds which are loaded with these “unmarketable” time-bombs. Besides, most of the mortgage derivatives (CDOs) have been massively enhanced with low interest leverage from the “carry trade”. When the value of these CDOs is finally determined---which we expect will happen sometime before the end of the 3rd Quarter—we can expect the stock market to fall sharply and the housing recession to turn into a full-blown economic crisis.
Wednesday, September 24 2008 @ 10:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Contributed by: Ron
Views: 54
Tony Blankley | The Washington Times
The mainstream media have gone over the line and are now straight out propagandists for the Obama campaign.
Wednesday, September 24 2008 @ 08:16 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Contributed by: Ron
Views: 94
You’re running for one of the most powerful positions in the world and you have a chance to meet with world leaders, heads of states, and prime ministers. Since you don’t have a lot of worldly experience this is your chance to sit down and chat with said world leaders, gain exposure, get an insight to their views their thoughts, what they want from your country. OR you could sit down with some advisors and CRAM for an exam. What do you do?
If you’re Sarah Palin you choose the option one.
If you’re Barack Obama you choose the second option.
Now you have to ask yourself, “Did I make the right choice?”
And I would ask you
“What would Reagan Do?”
Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is meeting seven world leaders.
 
The introductions began last night with a party thrown by none other than Pres. George W. Bush at Manhattan's famous Waldorf-Astoria hotel. Among those she's met or is scheduled to meet are Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai, Iraqi Pres. Jalal Talabani, Colombian Pres. Álvaro Uribe, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and U2's rockstar-turned-activist, Bono.
Wednesday, September 24 2008 @ 06:36 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Contributed by: Admin
Views: 67
From Cincinnati.com.
The John McCain campaign sent out more than 1 million applications for absentee ballots to Republicans. Each had a line at the top next to a box: “I am a qualified elector.”
Brunner sent a memo telling county election officials to reject those applications for absentee ballots if the box was not checked. “Failure to check the box leaves both the applicant and the board of elections without verification that the applicant is a ‘qualified elector’,” she wrote.
But that’s contrary to state law and Brunner doesn’t have the authority, according to the lawsuit and an opinion from Hamilton County’s Republican Prosecutor Joe Deters.
Ohio law allows voters to request an absentee ballot on the back of a grocery sack if they want to, as long as they include their name, address, date of birth, signature and either a driver’s license number, last four Social Security numbers or a valid picture I.D.
There is nothing in the law about checking a box to verify a qualified voter. The voter’s signature is enough, because that’s what is checked to send ballots, said Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Greg Hartmann, who ran against Brunner in 2006 and is now county chairman for the McCain-Palin campaign. “It’s just bald partisanship,” he said. “She’s trying to disqualify likely McCain voters.”
The Deters opinion said “it is equally reasonable that the squares are intended simply as bullet points in an inartfully designed application.”
Brunner said, “While state law does not require a check box, the McCain-Palin campaign designed its form to require that voters check a box to affirmatively state they are qualified electors.”
Sen. Gary Cates, R-West Chester didn’t buy it. “This is not a time to give people the appearance that voters are being suppressed,” he said.
Tuesday, September 23 2008 @ 08:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Contributed by: Ron
Views: 560
Hiking, fishing, boxing, baseball, history, football, basketball, and he's also a barbecue grill chef.
Regular guy!
Tuesday, September 23 2008 @ 07:59 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Contributed by: Ron
Views: 55
Cindy McCain – Drift Racer
Ok me being a big NASCAR fan and a maybe not so big NHRA fan and just a general car enthusiast I’m really liking this lady. They are making a big deal because she and John own 13 vehicles. Well if I was heir to a $300 million beer distributorship I would probably own at least that many vehicles.
From Autoblog;
"Few years back, Cindy and son Jack were intrigued by drifting after catching television coverage of the sport. Rather than just look it up on Wikipedia, Cindy McCain -- who is an avowed lifelong gear head -- headed to Japan, birthplace of drifting, to learn the practice from a sense." She and her son Jack "dove wholeheartedly into drifting, building a 240SX drift car and competing as a team in amateur competition."
Drift racing has helped Cindy recover from a stroke which she suffered in April 2004.
"I'm a gearhead," McCain said with a smile in an interview last month in Phoenix.
Here's a good article from Formula Drift Blog
She took a lap with Johnny Rutherford in the pace car, talked with 2004 Indy 500 winner Buddy Rice, and checked out Danica Patrick’s car, among other things. She sounds like a lady who knows her way around a garage! And she and John were recently at the Sharpy NASCAR Sprint Cup race in New Hampshire.
Tell me she's not one of the regurlar folks?
One of these cars is John’s. Can you guess which one?
Cadillac CTS
Volkswagen convertible
Honda sedan
Half-ton Ford pickup truck
Willys Jeep
Jeep Wrangler
Lincoln
GMC SUV
Three NEV Gem electric vehicles - bubble-shaped cars popular in retirement communities
Lexus - registered to Cindy McCain's family's beer business with MS BUD number plate
Toyota Prius bought for daughter Meghan
Monday, September 22 2008 @ 02:51 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Contributed by: mom4mcpalin
Views: 48
Saturday Night Live hit a new low this weekend when one of their skits included the insinuation of incest between Todd Palin and his pregnant 17-year-old daughter Bristol. Now, I like a good joke just like the next person. Although she did make Sarah Palin look a little shallow, Tina Fey did a convincing impersonation of the VP nominee and I chuckled (albeit, nervously) right along with everyone else. But c'mon people! Where do we draw the line? These are people's children we're talking about here. They wouldn't dare put Barack Obama in that same scenario. SNL thinks they can attack people's families, under the guise of comedy, and everyone will laugh along with them. Well, I 'aint laughin'! And neither are a whole lot of other people. I think they're getting the message though. The video has been removed from YouTube and it was never posted on NBC's website. Unfortunately though, as with all the other smear tactics during this campaign, the damage has been done.
If you must read it, here is the story from the Fox News website.
Sunday, September 21 2008 @ 09:09 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Contributed by: Ron
Views: 58
Now that a Tennessee Democratic State Representative is involved it seems that the MSM has dropped coverage of this. I am no longer seeing anything about this in the news. Also the question now is, is State Rep Mike Kernell's son taking the fall for his father?
From PC World
A Tennessee state representative is now confirming early rumors that his son is, in fact, the person linked to the postings that claim credit for the hack. State Rep. Mike Kernell told the Tennessean his 20-year-old son, David, is the subject of all the chatter surrounding the case. He declined to elaborate; however, several connections have surfaced between the young man and the forum poster, including a past blog of Kernell's in which he used the handle "rubicox", a strikingly similar name to the forum poster's alias of "rubico10." The posting itself is also believed to have been done under an e-mail account linked to Kernell with that same alias. (Coincidentally enough, the account was hosted with Yahoo Mail.)
Of course PC World is trying to suggest that Sarah Palin conducted official business using one of her two Yahoo accounts which in fact the person who actually broke into her email said there was NOTHING there.
I'm sure the MSM will try to turn this around to show Sarah was the bad person vs. the hacker.
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