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A Seattle police officer slugged a young underage lady, and Another Twist has decided to log this under Crime and Punishment – The question is… Who’s the criminal and who’s being punished?!!

The smart phone is increasingly becoming a useful tool to capture and show to the world, the excessive use of force by police officers. Sometimes you wonder what on earth gets into their heads when they do stupid things like this (police officers, that is). I guess I should go on record and state that I love the idea and I’m definitely in favor of law and order. But when cops act like lunatics, where’s the justice? It’s never really as swift!

Did this young female lay her hands on the police officer, yes. Did she deserve to be punched out.. umm, no. I’m sure I speak for many when I say watching the video got me irritated. Even more foolish is our dear cop captured on tape saying, “If she’s going to fight with me, I’ll fight with her”. Fight? Was that a fight?  (did someone say LOSER!!!). According to the video, she was jaywalking for heaven’s sake. Once again did someone say LOSER?!!! I would bet that Mr. Officer is ashamed of his wack self, but if he’s not (as is possible with law enforcement sometimes) shame on him.

Let me refresh you on Seattle police hospitality. How about this?

Is Seattle the new New York? Got another twist on this? I’m sure you do. So, share it with the world.

The oil spill that has plagued the Gulf states has continued to be the talk of the media. BP has been redefined and re-branded by the public to a new name – “Bankrupt Petroleum”, with the previous name serving as source of sarcasm – “Beyond Petroleum”, and/or a source localizing (or separation away from) blame – “British Petroleum”. What about “Be Prepared”? They are so not boys scouts…

Claims, Advertising, and Death threats

Listening to the news and popular opinion, the accusations and anger keep flowing from the public as rampantly as the oil flows from the busted well way down in the murky deep, and is just as widespread. BP giving false hopes and promises of being close to the solution, while spending billions of dollars in advertisements, and fishermen complaining that their claims are not being responded to in rapid succession. BP is a business – are we really surprised that they are advertising in an attempt to make themselves look good? When you’re looking bad, you explore ways to make yourself look good. Apparently “silence is golden, but sometimes its just plain yellow”! British Petroleum (the business) is taking from the wall street playbook, and Wall street banks have to be pleased with the change in National focus…

 By the way, is the CEO’s life really in danger? what’s with all the death threats? I think he’s already stressed out enough. If we must get payback (which we should, but let’s call it a more PC name), lets just squeeze them dry through fines. No need for a pound of flesh and a couple pints of blood.

President Obama

Was watching the news and saw the president walking along the gulf coast taking in the oil spill, putitng up a show of solidarity in support of the beleaguered citizens that depend on the waterways for their profession and as a means of sustenance. Despite all this, he is still being critized by fools. Nothing he ever does is good? Since he came into office its been one blame game upon another. I guess he knows what he signed up for, but still, a lot of people in Washington D.C. should be ashamed of themselves.

BP Stock

So with all this craziness going on, with the stock market reacting negatively against energy stocks on Wednesday, and BP going under $30, I was personally wondering if it was a good time to buy. Depending on how quickly they solve this mess BP could rebound handsomely to pre- oil spill levels. However at the bottom of my mind I chose to join the mass exodus from the stock and have opted not to touch it with a long pole (hopefully its the right decision in retrospect). Now could bankruptcy be in the air after such a huge loss in market cap, costs of clean up, and countless claims and imminent law suits?

Bottomline

I could be wrong, but I think this could have happened to any of the oil companies that drill offshore. I remember way back when there was much noise about allowing offshore drilling. Everyone believed that nothing could go wrong – kind of how they did when the came up with the derivative instruments that crippled the financial markets. I guess if we don’t think bad thoughts nothing bad will happen (at least until they do). Hooray to offshore drilling I’m sure a couple of people are satisfied now and at the very least are separating themselves from their earlier comments in favor of offshore drilling. In a couple of years, beware of the mutant fish on the seafood menu at your favorite restaurant — or maybe not.

What’s your take? Do you have another twist? If so, share with the world.

[Updated: Originally posted 08JUN2010]

NBA finals are underway – Game 3. LA Lakers vs. Boston Celtics (2-1 in the favor of  LA Lakers).  I’m usually not one to follow sports that much but sometimes my curiosity is piqued when the Lakers play (especially at the finals). For the record, I’m neither a Lakers fan or a Celtics fan. I don’t think I’m a Lakers “hater”, but who knows!

NBA2010Finals

NBA Finals 2010

I’m rooting for the Celtics – all the way. I like the fact that they are viewed as the underdogs (at least their NBA ring count is less than that of the Lakers) – I like how Rondo has been defining himself of late, its always encouraging to see budding promise, though some may argue that its not exactly budding.

Game 4

The Celtics put up a great show in game 4. Scores: 96-89.Very similar to what I was hoping to see. Earlier on I called 4-3 for the winning team and I think it’s probably going to happen that way. Its as though with each loss the other team comes back with a vengeance, but that’s good because close games always make interesting games and there’s nothing like teammates rallying together to make it happen against stiff opposition! Most people can respect that.

LET ME DIGRESS ALITTLE…

Kobe is a great player. He has great talents, its obvious that he has spent time sweating on court. Though he is overly cocky and comes off as an arrogant dude, I will never knock his game, but I did get irritated by his past antics.

Derek Fisher on the other hand – a great player. I’ve always liked his game. He got skill and calm and is not all over the place trying to get recognized. I can dig that.

Lest I digress too much, DO YOU HAVE ANOTHER TWIST, on how this 2010 NBA finals could go. Do you think you can make that perfect prediction about how things could turn out? If so, share with the world in the comments section.

President Obama had a Presidential News Conference live from the White House on Tuesday, where he discussed a broad range of national issues through questions he was asked by members of the press. The issues ranged from the economy to the budget to the events going on in Mexico.

His Opening Statement

In his opening statement, the president talked about moving from recession to recovery which could take many months as there was no silver bullet. He talked about his strategy to create jobs, help homeowners, and jumpstart lending:

The stimulus package – April 1^st tax cut will be visible to most of Americans

Home Mortgage problems – making 40% of mortgages eligible for refinancing

Restart the flow of credit – auto loans, business loans, and small business loans will once again be available.

He stated that it was critical that we don’t return to a cycle of “bubble and bust” in the country, and that we are done away with the illusion of prosperity due to credit. On the budget, the president is looking for less dependence on foreign oil, investment in schools, reform of healthcare, and other attainable milestones.

Some of the Questions

Chuck Todd mentioned that some of programs resultant from the recession had cushioned the blow for those that shared responsibility for the predicament. In this new era of responsibility, he wanted to know what things the president thought the public should be sacrificing.

The president stated that the problems are with contracts that were put in place before his administration took over (possibly referring to AIG and Merrill Lynch). However, from now going forward, stiff condition will be in place. As far as sacrifices were concerned, the president believes that sacrifices have already been made such as people cutting back in other areas for college education, and sacrificing by taking pay cuts so others don’t get laid off. In Washington, budgetary choices have to be made that sacrifice in certain areas but not areas that can affect long-term growth.

In response to another question, Obama is confident that the tax cuts will be in place for the next 2yrs based on the passed stimulus. The president also reiterated on what he was looking for in the budget being prepared by congress and senate. They are:

• Healthcare reform
• Serious energy policy
• Investment in education K-12 and beyond
• Initiatives that makes deficit numbers going down
• Middle class tax cuts
• Cap and Trade policy

On Race

Ann Compton asked if she could ask him a race question. And he said that she might. She asked if he had noticed any situations where race played a factor in him getting his job done (something like that). Basically, she wanted to know if the president was still experiencing racism.

Mr. Obama gave a nice political answer to that question. He still is a politician. He said he has a job to do, and American people are judging him the way he should be judged, and he has been focusing on his task at hand. That was a roundabout answer, but what was the man to say? I’m guessing that the other options would have been a flat out lie, or a comment that may foster division.

A Funny Story

A pressman was trying to badger the president on why it took him long to express his outrage about the AIG bonus. Obama tried to answer the question nicely, but his “interrogator” kept pushing the issue, to which Obama was like,

“It took a couple of days because I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak”, and shifted his gaze away from the man. To that, there was a loud laughter as homeboy asked for it. I think President Obama was a little pissed off by the pointless barraging. I’m pretty sure there’ll be spins on that one, but I think the man got the answer he was searching for – just my twist.

Passing the AIG Blame

The new stimulus bill passed by congress comprised largely of democratic vote. Though congress passed the bill, Sen. Chris Dodd, of Connecticut stated that this recent AIG problem was caused by a grandfather clause that added at the request of the Treasury department, which Secretary Geithner confirmed.

Of course within the Washington circle, politicos started calling for the resignation of Tim Geithner, who still continues to receive overwhelming support from President Obama.

The legislative arm of government is looking to pass a bill that effect a punitive tax on bonuses received from bailout money. A draft of the bill has been passed by congress and has moved on to the senate. The bill aims to get the bonus money back at a 90% tax rate. If the congress and senate are successful at passing this bill, that would be a good move (and good save) on their part.

Obama on the Tonight Show

Barack Obama featured on the ‘Tonight Show’ with Jay Leno, yesterday, and is the first sitting president to have appeared on the show. On the show he appeared very calm and relaxed, confident, and played the “I’m the Commander-in-Chief yet easy-going president” role well with articulated speech and an evident sense of humor. He also talked about current events, his support for Tim Geithner, the First Dog’s homecoming, and riding on Air Force One with his daughters. He also made a comment about his bowling prowess being similar to the Special Olympics, which sparked commentary that he was ridiculing the Special Olympics. Before the day was over, effective damage control had already been underway. I reckon smart people know he meant no disrespect – it’s those with nothing to do but nitpick or find fault that I guess he should worry about.

As usual, there were those critical about him appearing on an entertainment show while the country was going through catastrophic problems. President Obama put it best, “I do think in Washington it’s a little bit like American Idol, except everybody is Simon Cowell“.

Edward Liddy, the CEO of AIG met with congress yesterday to address the matter that arose with AIG giving bonuses to employees with bailout money. He stated in many words that the bonuses were distasteful give the current economic situation.

However, I will agree with him on this, you have to pay people competitively if you want to them to remain in a company or they will leave. Now that’s been established, what exactly is the definition of competitive? $6.5Mil seems a little excessive. Secondly, if these contracts were already in place before he assumed leadership, the only way to get money back would be to find legal loopholes that can be exploited, which is what the president’s administration has stated that it would try to find and take advantage of if possible. So with all the talk of legally binding contracts, the issue is, if they had not received the bailout money, how binding would that have been if they’d filled bankruptcy? I don’t know the answer to that, but it’s a good question.

Get the Money Back or Replace Them

Some think that if these people needed their bonuses, and would have left otherwise, then they should leave. There are a lot of people that are laid off or without jobs that would love to step in a get a job and a decent pay.

It would be ideal if they were all fired (allowed to resign, let go, etc) so that “better” people can replace them, but as great as that sounds, an argument could be that a brain drain is not what’s needed in AIG right now. Needless to say firing employees without properly covering your basis could lead to unwanted lawsuits that would take time away from solving the problem at hand, and or severance packages that may require even more money. With hiring new people, a company would end up spending a lot of money. HR wise there is the search process for qualified employees, the hiring process which includes interviews, background checks, validating references, orientations etc. Also there’s the risk of bringing in new blood that know nothing about the intricacies of the AIG business. It’s a time consuming process and such a company cannot afford an exodus of employees.

There’s the school of thought that believes not many people will a quit a job in this economy just because of a bonus, that it’s going to be hard to find another job – thus a brain drain cannot occur economy. This is not entirely true, because there are still jobs out there that can be had. Typically, if you are good at what you do, and don’t have average skills you’d be a steal for another company. The only times it’s permanently hard to find a job is when a person’s skills set is not top tier.

How about an argument stating that because not everyone that got a bonus, it’s not everyone that will leave the company if offended that their bonuses were rescinded. Those that weren’t given bonuses will still stay. I don’t know about AIG, but most times (especially in companies I’ve worked for) the people that didn’t get shafted on bonuses were usually the people that the bosses wanted to keep around or the ones that were good at negotiating. The others that didn’t get a bonus could leave if offended, and the company was ready to leave with that. Sometimes if someone didn’t get a bonus and threatened to leave, they’d find money for that person if they really wanted to the person to stay, else they’ll just say – “Thanks, it’s been nice working with you”. I believe every company has their own share of employees that are just dead weight. It’s the nature of things. As an employee its better to not be considered one in an economy that requires a major hair cut.

On a side note, if I worked at AIG and people were getting bonuses, I would do my best to make sure I get one too. I “love” the taxpayers, but if there’s money going around, I might as well get some of it! I’m not going to pass up that opportunity and would probably maximize it.

The problem is not the bonuses – the problem was congress not setting the right rules originally when President Bush and Secretary Paulson asked for the bailout. Now they want to be angry about this?! So with all the outrage everybody wants to blame AIG and its CEO, who doesn’t even benefit from all this, and no one is pointing fingers at congress as such. This is a propagated FUBAR, from the construction of the bill.

The Bottom line

Righteous anger is amusing. Everybody that didn’t get money is upset, those that did are probably happy. If the positions were reversed, it’d be the same thing. I reckon that some of the people outraged with AIG will include people getting taxpayer money one way or another. Including people getting unemployment benefits, those getting money for their mortgages they messed up on, and others in other ways.

All I’m saying enhanced culture of grumbling and complaining is getting silly. Its okay to complain, but we can’t complain about everything!

“Why are you giving people money for their homes? They don’t deserve it. They messed up. What about the rest of us?”

“Why are you giving this state $10Bil and giving us $5Bil?” Yet your state gets $5Bil and another gets may $1Bil

“Why are you increasing my taxes, why are you not increasing theirs?”

“How come CEOs get so much money and I don’t?”

Even though they know fully well that they can’t run a multi billion dollar corporation and would probably sink like dead weight when given that responsibility.

People tend to lean towards being selfish, greedy and grumbling. Everybody wants to win, but not everyone can. Some people are just good at getting screwed, others god at doing the screwing. The loser today will win against another some other day. The cycle continues. This is America, or rather, its just life.

Over the weekend on Saturday, President Obama addressed the nation as usual on his weekly address. In his continued process of fleshing out his administration and making it viable he mentioned that there are certain things that the people can’t do, and that’s when the government steps in. Things such as ensuring the food and medicines available to Americans are safe and don’t cause us harm. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have a shared responsibility in this.
The president went on to mention the food scares we’ve experienced of late such as contaminated spinach in 2006, salmonella outbreak in 2008 that affected tomatoes, and the recent contamination of peanut products.

A couple of facts

It is unapparent to most Americans is that since the time of Teddy Roosevelt the laws governing food safety have not been updated to reflect more modern times.

The FDA has been underfunded and understaffed causing 95% of processing plants to go uninspected (only about 7,000 out of 150,000 processing plants get inspected).

New Leaders of FDA

Dr. Margaret Hamburg, to serve as new commissioner of FDA
Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, to serve as deputy commissioner of the FDA

President Obama plans a $1 Billion dollar investment to enhance food safety systems, modernize labs, and hire sufficient food inspectors.

On Thursday March 12, 2009, for Bernie Maddoff, justice as we say was served, criminally. But are all parties contented? I don’t think so – maybe a level of satisfaction is enjoyed. For almost all of the victims nothing short of getting their money back is satisfaction enough. Something they realize now has vaporized and will never return.

What Does Not Kill You Makes You Stronger?

This event has left some people stronger. It has also claimed the lives of others. But even in strength, for some there is no security, and definitely no possibility of recouping the losses. It is almost impossible for people close to retirement age to save up enough to fully retire.
The sons of Maddoff lose a father they’ve probably believed in and looked up to in some sense. It couldn’t have been easy to turn their father in to the authorities. This begs a question… if it was you and your family member did something grievous to others, would you protect them, or would you turn them in?

A Lesson Learned

Once again a lesson has been learned through this debacle. Not just for the government who now realized they failed at detecting the fraud by means of stringently effecting policies of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), but for the individuals and organization that chose to put all their eggs in one basket – all their money under one corporation. As sad as it is, hopefully those that didn’t learn this from the Enron misfortunes will at least learn from the Maddoff case.
Just as some diversification is needed in portfolios to protect from the market’s seemingly erratic behaviors, I believe a spread of wealth is also necessary to protect from corporate infidels like Maddoff. As a person’s wealth increases, it is prudent to have multiple 401(k) accounts and multiple investment portfolios with different brokerages. If the management in one squanders away your money, at least you have other 401(k) accounts that don’t get harmed and thus, you at least have something to fall back on. The only downside to this is you have to manage multiple accounts, which can really be managed as long as you don’t spread yourself too thin. Consolidation may not be all its cracked up to be!

Last month, in February, about 651,000 jobs were lost, and that sent the stock market in a downward spiral. Yesterday, Citigroup announced that they had operated at a profit for the first two months of the year, and next thing the indexes were on a hot rebound. Is this probably going to be yet another cycle of ups and downs without the market actually coming out of this recession just yet? I think we know the answer to that. Though celebration is good, reality unfortunately is the downer in this instance. But I’m sure that a lot of people are happy to see their portfolios look a little better after the last slaughter. I was definitely glad my portfolio shed some of its losses even though I think it might be short-lived. Yesterday, the Dow was up 379 points and GE gained a whopping 22% which made me happier than I was a couple of days ago.

Economy Over a Cliff

So what exactly does March have in store for us – especially since the economy has “gone over a cliff” as Warren Buffet stated in a very recent interview. It doesn’t take an oracle from Omaha to see that though! The question is, is the economy really way over the cliff or is it still playing cliffhanger? Are we in for more job losses? Are we in for more agonizing revelations from financial companies? Any more bankruptcies coming up and served cold? Can the Citigroup news of profits continue even though they continue to take bailout money? Profit in the midst of wallowing debt is still murky. The company is still trading at an amount slightly above a dollar. What direction should we expect now, north or south? Knock on wood?

How’s Recovery Doing?

What about President Obama? What has he been up to? Anyone seen signs of the economy stimulus working yet? I think in a couple more months it will have had enough time to propagate through the economic system, and we can tell…

Recovery.gov was updated March 3 as promised on the site – I checked. If you haven’t checked out the updates, you should do so to learn how the money is being divvied up. Let Big Brother know we are watching him this time around… even if the prospect of us watching him (Big Brother) is a farce

Updates on recovery.gov:

$8.4Bil allocated for public transit and includes a per state breakdown. Read more.

$2Bil allocated towards funding for state and local law enforcement assistance (60% state; 40% local). Read more.

$44Bil will go to the Department of Education in 30 to 45 days to combat teacher lay-offs and other identified education reforms.

$28Bil already allocated to the USDA. Not much information on how that will be spent less. Though there appears to be a link to the USDA website for “more information”, recovery.gov is going to have to be a little more transparent in the coming days so we don’t have to play hyperlink games – we’ll be patient…

100-day Anniversary

Lastly, President Obama crossed over his 100^th day of presidency. Even though some of us really do enjoy complaining, or enjoy making no sense like Rush “the **bleep**” Limbaugh, hopefully we can all appreciate him for his efforts thus far and pray that providence be on his side (if only so it’ll be on ours too).

Rush Limbaugh, the anti-liberalism once again rambled on a couple of days ago, claiming that President Obama is fueling class envy (amongst other accusations). Mr. Limbaugh on the other hand believes that whatever he says and does is not divisive, and as such is not responsible for the negative sentiments that permeate the minds of Americans fueled by his comments.

My question to Mr. Limbaugh is, “What class envy is the president promoting?” Is it that Barack Obama is making the wealthy envious of the average working class man because as president, he is pushing for more taxes for the top five percent? If that’s the case, then that’s definitely a laugh. Obama is not making the working class envious of extremely wealthy Americans. There is no reason for that. If anything, he helps the remaining ninety-five percent realize that there is someone in Washington fighting for the cause of the working class. Hence why he got elected – he had better odds appealing to the ninety five percent.

There is no need to promote envy. That is not what this is about. Most people just want to work hard and have a chance at a decent life. Unfortunately working hard does not always cut it. Also, people do not like the feeling that their hands are tied by back by corporate greed. America is all about giving and taking. Some people give in one way, and take in another way, while others take one way and give in another. Even with that it is never really balanced. The president is just trying to make it as impartial as he can because either way, the wealthy would always still have the advantage.

To insinuate that the wealthy are the victims is just silly. And sometimes I wonder if Limbaugh’s listeners (majority of who come from the 95% working class) realize that like most wealthy people with different ideologies, Limbaugh relies on the working class to accumulate his wealth and is only successful at it because his actions are convincing enough to make them continue to believe that he is obviously right because he has the communications medium to disseminate his philosophies.