For months on end, hundreds of thousands of people across South Korea have mounted daily demonstrations, candlelight vigils, boycotts, and almost every form of protest up to and including setting themselves on fire - against American beef, the new conservative government, and George W.Bush. So why is it, exactly, that South Koreans are so angry?
“The Korean heart wants to afford people that kind of hospitality, so when Koreans tell someone they aren’t welcome, you have to ask why. … The way the United States treats Korea is not the only problem. Let’s set aside for a moment, the hypocrisy and ignorance of how the U.S. divides the world into good and evil and maintains a constant global tension, while making itself out to be an apostle of peace and justice. What’s really dangerous is that American capital considers the entire world its prey. In its arrogance over being on a throne of power, it won’t be satisfied until everything belongs to it. All of this and its habit of never hesitating to go to war for money are the greatest factors threatening world peace.”
There has been a major bust in a credit card fraud case involving at least 11 people including an informant for the Secret Service. The case involves the hacking of as many as forty million credit card and debit card numbers from a number of major retailers.
The companies attacked included TJX Cos., BJ’s Wholesale Club, OfficeMax, Boston Market, Barnes & Noble, Sports Authority, Forever 21 and DSW, so if you have done business with any of those companies you might want to check your records to make sure all is safe.
Of course the odds are if anyone was going to cheat they would have done so by now and even if they do you can usually fight the false charges and records. But it is always a good idea to regularly do a credit report.
Actually if you really want to protect your credit I would suggest that you consider getting a credit freeze put on your account. This lock means that nobody can get credit in your name without having a secret code, so even if they know your name, birthday, mothers maiden name and SSN they cannot get the credit.
August 5th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
The popularity of online news sites and weblogs (such as this one) is part of an Internet news explosion. But it’s also symptomatic of a truth, NPR’s Dick Meyer points out: there now “more news, but less news” because a lot of what passes for news now consists of people talking about the news.
Meyer, the former CBS staffer who has a new book coming out today, takes a look at the realities of early 21st century news and the organizations that have traditionally provided it in an NPR column that deserves to be read in its entirety by TMV readers and anyone interested in the news biz. Let’s take a look at some key highlights.
One of Meyer’s key points is this:
It is important to differentiate between “news gathering” and “news product.” Investors like news product; they dislike news gathering. The sheer quantity of news gathering done by American journalists is shrinking. The amount of news product is growing.
The news business is shrinking, and shrinking fast. The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune are just three of the many metropolitan dailies that are cutting newsroom staffs dramatically. The news divisions of the television networks have been in steady decline for years. Commercial news radio is getting scarce. Cable networks hire more hosts than reporters.
Meanwhile, it was recently announced that my alma mater the San Diego Union-Tribune is up for sale. This followed the closure of the evening Tribune in the early 90s, spurts of buyouts and layoffs over the years and constant rumors that the paper would never be sold.
Publisher Helen Copley died and left the paper to her son David. When news reports surfaced recently that David Copley was donating millions of dollars to a university for a chair in theatrical make up design, eyebrows went up more than ever. Some present and former staffers got bad vibes – which proved to be true.
How bad is the situation with America’s newspapers? I’m on an 8 week journey doing 8 events in three states in my other incarnation and newspapers are often Missing In Action at local convenience stores, restaurants and hotels where you USED to see them. And now when you see them they’re often so thin and bland in content you wonder how anyone can buy most of them.
Which an increasingly large number of people aren’t.
Yet, as Meyer points out, there is more NEWS around than ever “depending on how you define news…”:
Thirty years ago, there was no cable. Now, there are three all-news cable channels, three business news channels and scads of entertainment, religious and sports channels. That’s more news, right?
Fifteen years ago, there were no online news sites like this one. Now they are uncountable, available on demand 24-7, with instant, easy-to-produce news from every corner of the planet. That’s more news, right?
The Bush Administration today announced a projected budget deficit of $ 490 billion for Fiscal Year 2009 (October 1, 2008 to September 30, 2009).
Just to put that in proper perspective it is $490,000,000,000 or about $ 1,650 per person for the single budget year alone. This will bring the national debt to nearly $ 10 trillion dollars which pans out to $ 10,000,000,000,000 or in excess of $ 32,000 per person.
Sadly the major response to this news has been finger pointing and political gamesmanship with the Democrats slamming Bush while Republicans point the finger back blaming excessive social spending. But partisan fighting is not going to solve the problem. You might score points by attacking an opponent as a ‘tax and spend liberal’ or condemn them for ‘wasting money in Iraq’ but you are not going to resolve the problem. Read the rest of this entry »
In case you missed news developments this part week, here’s a reprise:
Obama greeted by cheering crowd of half million in Bulgaria. Mutters platitudes. Beautifully.
McCain meets with Bulgarian-Americans in Duluth diner and eats cup of yogurt, promising nuclear arms for Sofia if elected.
Democrats in Congress move to finish the job of bankrupting the country with neolib spending nostrums after Republicans almost succeed in doing the job with their own neocon economic and militaristic quackery.
General Petraeus, perusing facts on the ground for his upcoming report to Congress, finds that all his strategies are working brilliantly. (Surprise!)
Two major banks lose half their value but their shares prices soar because analysts predicted they would lose three-quarters of their value.
An ice shelf in Greenland falls into the sea threatening to inundate two continents. Bush Administration announces plans to study the matter.
Vice-President Cheney leaves his burrow, sees that his shadow on national policy is still in place, and retreats to his lair for another four months of guiding the nation.
U.S.government T-bills lowered two notches by Moodys to junk status after it becomes clear that the Fed and the Treasury will back any privately owned enterprise in trouble, no matter how badly managed, with unlimited funds.
Congress prepares to leave on a five week vacation. Rest of country continues to work to pay energy bills.
Nationally recognized legal scholar Jonathan Turley calls it ‘a very problematic rationale.’ I’ll say. The police came to her apartment looking for her son.(WDTN.com)
Her family said she was yelling at officers because she was scared.
"She was terrified. She was extremely terrified," said Harris’s niece, Dionna. "She was scared because the person identified themselves as a police officer. But she’s been robbed before by someone using the same technique."…
"She’s blind and they pulled her off her Futon, handcuffed her and tased her because he said she swung at him. She can’t see," said Harris’s sister Elvita Harris. "I’m very frustrated and upset. Dayton police need to implement a sensitivity program." (WDTN.com)
Although I sometimes see a story that makes me wonder, I have not generally been one to obsess over media biases against Republicans or the political right.
I recognize that the news media today is a business and that the basic rule is to go after any juicy scandal. My basic view has been that perhaps personal biases sometimes cause the reporter to lean to a Republican scandal versus a Democratic one but that if its a juicy story they will go after anyone.
However in the past couple of weeks I have seen some things that make me want to reexamine this position. The news media has taken some steps that seem to really step beyond just some minor slipups to some fairly serious bias against Senator McCain and the Republicans in general.
One of the biggest examples of this has been the reaction to Senator Obama’s trip to Iraq. All three network anchors (NBC/CBS/ABC) are along for the trip along with over 200 other reporters. They are covering every step of the trip as if it were a major Presidential summit.
Now I certainly understand that you need to cover this story, he is likely to be the next President and this is a major foreign policy trip. But do you really need to send all of the anchors ? The only times I’ve seen all of the anchors travel together in the past has been during events like 9/11, Katrina and the like. It doesn’t seem like this quite rises to that level.
In addition, we can look at what the media did when Senator McCain took a trip to Iraq (in fact he has taken several trips recently). The media reaction there was considerably understated. No anchors went with him, the stories didn’t even lead the news that night. In fact there was less coverage on all three networks combined than there has been on one network for Obama.
As I said above, I certainly understand the desire to cover Obama since he is the presumptive Democratic nominee. I even understand that perhaps he is a newer story. But the level of difference between the McCain coverage and the Obama coverage is well beyond what would seem reasonable.
For example, the New York Times recently carried an editorial on Iraq written by Senator Obama. Senator McCain wrote one in response and the Times refused to publish it. They contend it is because they don’t like the content of the article.
Now as far as I know they did not impose similar requirements on Obama and do we really believe that if the situation was reversed that they would reject Obama’s response editorial ?
Outside the election campaign there has also been some interesting content to the reporting on oil prices and the stock market.
Needless to say both issues are very important and I certainly understand that when oil prices surge or stock prices sag that it is very significant to the viewers. Perhaps all of the special reports and breaking news were a bit of overkill but I chalk that up to media hype rather than bias.
But when the trend was in the favor of the public (IE Oil prices dropping or Stock prices surging) then the media did not simply tone things down they reversed them drastically.
Oil price increases were reported by CNN as ‘Oil prices spike drastically’ while equal drops in prices were reported as ‘Slight reductions in price’ or by MSNBC as ‘Drops that are probably temporary’.
The same thing happened when the stock market prices improved. When the stocks slumped we had special reports about the plunging markets and the horrible effects it would have on retirement plans.
When they improved the reports focused on the fact that in the long term the market was ‘bound to’ slump (CNN) or on ABC we were told that the ’slight gains’ did not erase the losses.
What ABC didn’t tell you is they were comparing one day worth of gains to one month worth of losses (unless you read the fine print at the bottom of the screen).
Now I can accept that some of this is simply the result of the media liking to report bad news because they think it is better for ratings. But when you combine all of the reports on all of the networks it becomes a question mark.
Although I am still not sold on a vast media conspiracy (either left or right), when you look specifically to the Obama/McCain race I think it is pretty hard at this point to deny that Saturday Night Live got it right. The media is ‘in the tank’ for Obama. I would like to see them prove me wrong but I doubt that they will.
Was the campaign of Democratiic presumptive Presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama sending a publication — and perhaps the press in general — a petulant or hard-ball message? Or was it strictly coincidence?
And if it is to explained and dismissed by some as a coincidence is it as believable as being a coincidence in the political world as to the weekend clarification through a spokesman (a U.S. military spokesman…after the White House called Baghdad) of Iraq Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s comments about favoring Obama’s withdrawal timetable?
No matter what, the Politico reports something that won’t help the Obama campaign in its future press relations since it shows either a)short-sighted, stumbling staffing or b)counter productive political vindictiveness:
Forty journalists, including such leading correspondents as Dan Balz of The Washington Post, will be aboard his plane for next week’s swing through Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and England.
The campaign received 200 requests for press seats on the plane.
Among those for whom there was no room was Ryan Lizza, Washington correspondent of The New Yorker. The campaign, which was furious about the magazine’s satirical cover this week, cited space constraints in turning him away.
But the New Yorker writer Ryan Lizza, whose long, long article on Barack Obama’s early political days in Chicago’s ward politics (available here) was the reason for the magazine’s controversial cover by Barry Blitt depicting Obama as a Muslim, has been barred from traveling with Obama on his foreign field trip this week.
…..More than 200 media folks applied to fly in Europe with the freshman senator. But, alas, the Obama campaign said it simply was not able to find a seat for Lizza.
Now, that’s Chicago politics.
In a MUST READ, The Huffington Post looks at an incident that could contain the seeds of a future political boomerang. Here are two key portions:
It’s almost a convention of politics that when a politician says he was misquoted, but doesn’t detail the misquote or offer an alternative, he’s really saying he wishes he hadn’t said what he did, or that he needs to issue a pro-forma denial to please someone.
The Iraqi Prime Minister’s vague denial seems to fall in that category. The fact that it arrived to the American press via CENTCOM, seems to support that. It came, as Mike Allen notes, 18 hours later, and at 1:30 a.m. Eastern, a little late for Sunday papers; his staff also seems, Spiegel reports, not to have contested Iraqi reporting of the quote, even in the “government-affiliated” Iraqi press.
More broadly, Maliki’s words illustrate a political reality: Foreign players have a real influence on American politics, and they know it.
And, indeed:
1. As Smith concludes, it’s likely Maliki knew he was playing American domestic politics.
2. American politics increasingly relies on a series of legalistic on-the-record responses that anyone but a can of peas sitting on a shelf at Vons Supermarket on Adams Avenue in San Diego knows are baloney.
3. Just as night follows day and as money follows Hanna Montana concerts, everyone KNEW that the Bush administration would not let Malki’s statement stand and that there would be some kind of a retraction. In political terms (damage to the GOP) and foreign policy terms (the United States’ relationship to Iraq and its present government) it could not stand. You went to bed knowing that there would be a story soon about the interview “finessing” the comments..
4. But if you read partisan blogs, the statement about being misquoted is now being trumpeted as fact. And it’s likely many of those who’ll assert it as fact in print and broadcast know it’s proforma intergovernmental CYA — but it gives them a legalistic debating point. “See? Maliki SAID it was a lousy translation!”
5. The DELAY is the key.
6. The fact it did not come from Maliki himself within hours of the sensational story hitting the wires and Internet is another key to what happened.
7. Der Spiegel has been around for many years and translated many articles of interviews of foreign leaders. So in this instance they just happened to have a poor translator…just as it just happened that it took almost a day before Maliki responded…through a spokesman?
Several polls within 24 hours paint a dramatic if contradictory portrait of the state of the race for the Presidency between the presumptive party nominees — indicating that the novelty has worn off for Democratic Senator Barack Obama who at worst is falling faster than the stock market (well, perhaps not THAT fast) and at best making lukewarm headway in increasing his support.
The polls underscore the danger of reporting one poll as Gospel, because as soon as one poll comes out, another emerges that contradicts the first one.
But the bottom line is this:
1. Obama is far from coming close to closing the deal. And that’s just among Democrats since some Clinton supporters and donors are balking and news stories suggest part of the reason is political payback.
2. McCain continues to stub his toe, even with his highly-touted staff shakeup, but due to Obama’s seeming deflation is still very much in the running. Lingering reservations about Obama — whose charisma in interviews and some appearances does not match his charisma in his major speeches — coupled with Obama’s subtle and not-so-subtle policy shifts as he moves to the center combined with the reservoir of goodwill McCain enjoys from independent voters to make McCain one of the strongest Republican choices to run against Obama.
If McCain’s campaign is stuck on stumble and Gramm-foot-in-mouth mode, Obama’s seems falling behind in bringing the Democratic party together and “taking off”.
These polls are contradictory but the cold, hard truth for Democrats is this:
After a long, candid and public battle with colon cancer, former White House press secretary and radio talk-show host Tony Snow died early this morning.
Immediate details were sketchy. But the news bulletin moved shortly after 7 a.m. Eastern time. Snow was 53.
He previously served as chief speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush and as a frequent host on the Fox News Channel on Fox News Sunday, Weekend Live and The O’Reilly Factor.
He also guest-hosted for Rush Limbaugh and had his own radio talk-show.
Last September after 17 months in the White House job Snow retired as President George W. Bush’s third press secretary, saying with his cancer he needed to earn more for his family than the job’s $168,000 salary. He was succeeded by Dana Perino.
Tributes are likely going to pour in about Snow, but not just from Republicans.
Snow was a public figure who truly seemed to have fun at his job and did it well. He was the quintessential broadcasting pro who put a professional TV face on the White House point of view. Not all people who leave the job as press secretary do so with their integrity intact — particularly not those who’ve left administrations suffering Grand Canyon-like credibility gaps. But if Snow didn’t leave with his reputation as pure as snow, he left it unbattered unbruised and unbowed.
He took over the job and immediately got rave reviews from both the press and Republican partisans and begrudging comments from many Democrats. The reason: he took over from the hapless Scott McClellan who often looked like he was undergoing a root canal while answering press questions. Snow seemed to be either having fun or setting the record straight (even when it was spin).
In a piece by its Public Editor, the New York Timesacquits itself of endangering the interrogator of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, by naming him while describing how he successfully extracted information through psychological means rather than “rough stuff.”
The Times defense (the public’s right to know, the impaired credibility of a story without the name of a key character, the decision that he would not be in any greater danger than “scores of others who have been identified in the news media for their roles in the war against Al Qaeda”) bookends all the outrage over the outing of Valerie Plame as a covert operative by a vengeful Bush Administration.
Granted the huge gap in motives, what the incidents have in common is the question of protecting people who do dangerous work for all of us. Would readers have been deprived of crucial information by withholding the name of the interrogator any more than they were by being unaware of Valerie Plame’s identity?
Doesn’t identifying him undermine the point of the story by making it unlikely that he could continue to do what the Times obviously judged to be important work for national security?
Reuters explores the glee of coffee drinkers who are glad to learn that Starbucks will be closing 600 ‘underperforming’ locations nationwide. I cannot condone this. Before Starbucks came to town, where were all these plucky, innovative independent coffee shops that allegedly was keeping out? Even in my coffee-drinking town, where people will park their laptops for hours, there was a dearth of competition before — and any competitors that Starbucks subsequently put out of business went down because people preferred Starbucks. They were successful because they offered a superior product.
As newspapers cut 1,000 jobs last week, Americans are getting their sense of the world less and less through human eyes and ears than from TV cameras abetted by well-groomed mannequins gushing over an endless flow of images.
Talking heads on cable and bloggers online parse and pick away at what the cameras see but there are fewer and fewer reporters to find out what’s hidden by using such old-fashioned skills as observation, questioning and legwork.
Where is the tipping point at which “news” becomes all opinion all the time about “facts” supplied by self-interested sources?
Newspapers are drowning in red ink even as Americans depend more heavily on what they do but don’t pay for the information they get from them digitally and advertisers don’t cover the costs of allowing them to continue providing it.
As we approach the Independence Day weekend our thoughts naturally turn to the Founding Fathers who fought to free this nation and present it with two of the greatest documents ever written, The Declaration of Independence and The Consitution.
The cradle of liberty is of course the city of Philadelphia and millions of tourists visit there every year to soak up some history. In doing so they often take advantage of local tour guides to show them the sites. But that may be changing in the coming weeks. Read the rest of this entry »
Today marks the 100th anniversay of one of the enduring mysteries of the modern era. On June 30, 1908 an object of some sort exploded above some distance above near the Tunguska River in Siberia. The exact nature of the object remains a mystery but the effects were mind boggling.
For an area of close to 1,000 square miles everything was flattened. Upwards of 80,000,000 trees were destroyed and there was an earth tremor approaching 6 on the Richter scale. The force of the explosion was estimated to be 1,000 times that of the Hiroshima bomb.
Scientists continue to debate whether it was a comet, meteor, black hole or even an exploding UFO. The fact remains though that had the impact occurred in a populated area the death toll would have been huge. Even more ominous, had it occurred today it might have been seen as a nuclear strike and started a war.
Aside from the historical interest, there is a modern day reason to mark this event. According to an article in the NY Times today, scientists know it is just a matter of time before the event happens again.
June 29th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
As a young journalist I was once reminded that a journalist could either be a watchdog or a lapdog, can’t be both. Journalism, like other professions, has undergone a visible “change” in the past three decades. There was a time when many considered it a vocation (a calling), but now it is being increasingly treated as a mere job in any other industry.
Shaun Mullen’s earlier post on TV personality Tim Russert evoked interesting comments in TMV. Who is a real journalist? Can he survive in the changed world and the present media industry/culture? I have to battle with these tough questions often during my lectures on media/journalism.
A friend in India, Sanjay Sethi, draws my attention to a piece by Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter, who is a Senior Fellow at the Nation Institute. Hedges latest book is Collateral Damage: America’s War Against Iraqi Civilians.
To take the discussion further, let’s see what Hedges wrote: “The past week was a good one if you were a courtier. We were instructed by the high priests on television over the past few days to mourn a Sunday morning talk show host, who made $5 million a year…No journalist makes $5 million a year.
“No journalist has a comfortable, cozy relationship with the powerful. No journalist believes that acting as a conduit, or a stenographer, for the powerful is a primary part of his or her calling. Those in power fear and dislike real journalists. Ask Seymour Hersh and Amy Goodman how often Bush or Cheney has invited them to dinner at the White House or offered them an interview.
“All governments lie, as I.F. Stone pointed out, and it is the job of the journalist to do the hard, tedious reporting to shine a light on these lies. It is the job of courtiers, those on television playing the role of journalists, to feed off the scraps tossed to them by the powerful and never question the system…” More here…
In keeping with the changing times, who knows journalists may soon be known as media workers (belonging, as they do, to the second oldest profession in the world). This would be in line with the change in name in the oldest profession in the world — from prostitute to sex workers….
Fox News, the impressively-successful answer to years of charges from conservatives that the “liberal media” didn’t give Republicans in general and conservatives in particular a fair shake, has ridden high during the Bush years. But now there are signs that, as goes George Bush, so does Fox News‘ hold on seemingly-easy news ratings dominance.
When prime-time cable news ratings for the second quarter of 2008 are officially released next week, they will show that Fox News reclaimed the top spot among viewers in their mid-20s through mid-50s, those of greatest interest to news advertisers, according to estimates from Nielsen Media Research.
During the first three months of the year, by contrast, CNN drew so many viewers on big Democratic primary nights and for several presidential debates that it vaulted over Fox News for the first time in six years.
But the back-and-forth these last few months masks a more ominous trend for Fox News, particularly as its gears up to cover the general election campaign. The most dominant cable news channel for nearly a decade and a political force in its own right, Fox has seen its once formidable advantage over CNN erode in this presidential election year, as both CNN and MSNBC have added viewers at far more dramatic rates.
Growth and demographics are the name of the game in the TV biz. One of the most (in)famous examples was in the early 1970s when CBS axed a batch of high-rated programs including those of then-top comedians and popular rural comedies because demographics showed their audiences were older and their ratings on borrowed time.
The Times notes that the other cable news networks — CNN (which is now portraying itself as the news network that reports both sides) and MSNBC (which is now getting the reputation of being the anti-Fox, offering mostly progressively-inclined political talk and mostly NBC news) — are showing growth that Fox is not.
In the first five-and-a-half months of 2004, the last presidential election year, Fox’s prime-time audience among viewers aged 25 to 54 was more than double that of CNN’s — 530,000 to 248,000, according to estimates from Nielsen Media Research. This year, through mid-June, CNN erased the gap and drew nearly as many viewers in that demographic category as Fox — about 420,000 for CNN to 440,000 for Fox.
Meanwhile, CNN has added 170,000 viewers a night, on average, when compared with the last presidential year, while Fox has shed about 90,000, according to Nielsen. (MSNBC, which added 181,000 viewers in that audience, much of it courtesy of gains by “Countdown With Keith Olbermann,” still lagged in third place, with 303,000.)
And here’s the bottom line:
While Fox News remains the most-watched cable news channel over all — it has been attracting an average of nearly 2 million viewers each weeknight this year, compared to 1.3 million for CNN and 805,000 for MSNBC — its momentum has effectively stalled, at least when measured over years past. The overall prime-time audiences watching CNN and MSNBC, by contrast, have each grown by more than 50 percent this year, when measured against the same period last year, while Fox’s has increased by 10 percent, according to Nielsen. (The New York Times and NBC News, the parent of MSNBC, share some resources in covering political news.)
There are several ways of looking at this.
If the mood of the electorate and audiences truly sour on Republican presumptive nominee Sen. John McCain, and with gas prices soaring (and predicted to reach $7 a gallon within the next two years), CNN could keep adding viewers turned off by Fox’s inclination and MSNBC could keep making modest gains.
But, even so, all is not lost for Fox. Think of how Fox viewership could soar in the wake of an Obama victory if Obama doesn’t deliver on promises (and proves to be another Jimmy Carter) or DOES deliver on promises (and proves to be an effective center or center-left Democratic politician) and upsets conservative Republicans.
All three networks have turned into compelling networks to watch in terms of how they package news, pace political discussion, and promote their programs. So the race is on — but with an increasingly large number of Americans souring on Bush and the party that as administered the federal government for some 8 years, it may be that Fox News will have more trouble building its audience as viewers are less interested in watching overt and covert cheerleaders for Republicans.
One of the least reported stories recently is that of Virginia Congressman Randy Forbes. So far it has gotten coverage from just the Wall Street Journal and Tom Sullivan Show, plus a few other people.
Forbes has been in the House since 2001 and has recently made a very interesting proposal which is being ignored by both his fellow legislators and the media in general. Forbes has looked to history and seen something he thinks we need to bring back.
During World War 2 the nation was faced with the prospect of defeat by foreign enemies and the threat of a terrible new weapon. Recognizing that something had to be done our government began a crash program and in less than a decade went from theory to practice in the development of the Atomic Bomb.
Nearly two decades later we faced a war of a different sense, a cold war with the Soviet Union. President Kennedy saw the need to fight them on every possible front. Once again we rose to the challenge and in less than a decade went from our first space launches to landing a man on the Moon.
Today Congressman Forbes sees the need to fight a third battle, this one for energy independence. Right now we are forced to either fight wars we don’t want to or to bow down to dictators around the world.
He thinks we need to move beyond this with a crash program to reduce our reliance on foreign oil by 50% in the next 10 years and another 50% in the following 10. Total energy independence by the year 2028.
His plan is to establish a commission that will consist of experts who will report to Congress what needs to be done. The goals include higher fuel efficiency in cars, more solar and biofuel energy as well as reduction in energy consumption.
Not only has this story been ignored by the media but also by his fellow legislators. They have fallen into the traditional partisan roles of either pushing for radical enviromental rules or simply ignoring the problem.
You would think that with $ 4-5 gas, rising energy prices across the board and the burden of our troops overseas that people would want to change, but that is not the case.
His proposal is well covered in the WSJ article and deserves to be heard. If you are a reader of this blog, please contact your members of the House and Senate and urge them to support this proposal.
It is far from perfect and certainly will require a lot of adjustment to work out, but it is at least something less than the partisan gruel being put forth by everyone else.
Countrywide Home Loans has pretty much been the poster child for the mortgage meltdown of the last 18 months or so. I can certainly understand why since many of my bankruptcy filings have included Countrywide. In many cases they held not just a first but also a second and even third mortgage on the homes.
Various attorneys general have filed lawsuits against the lender claiming fraudulent and criminal behavior. Today suits were filed by both Illinois and California. Ironically the suits came the same day that shareholders approved the merger between Countrywide and Bank of America.
On one level I can understand the reasoning behind these lawsuits. During the booming housing market it was possible for pretty much anyone to get a loan. If you walked in and told the lender you made $150,000 a year they just took your word for it and didn’t bother getting proof. In addition, many of the loans started out with teaser rates that made payments amazingly low before the rates spiked after a few years.
As long as the housing market continued to go up this system worked fine, the homeowner could simply refinance once the rates got too high, but since the market has collapsed this is no longer possible and people are crying foul.
To a certain degree this is a proper thing to do, given the behavior outlined above and discussed in the lawsuits. But at the same time I have a problem with excusing the homeowners as pure and innocent victims.
For one thing, many of the current foreclosures are not on homes people are living in but rather properties purchased for investment purposes. Obviously this is still a burden on people as they are losing their investment, but it is not quite the same as losing their home.
Also, in many of these cases the buyers lied about their income on the paperwork. I know there have been cases where it was the mortgage company employees who faked the paperwork and in those cases the company should be liable and the employees should go to jail. But there are also many cases where the buyer knew just what they were doing in terms of faking the paperwork.
The same holds true for many of these awful sub prime interest loans. I am not in any way excusing the fraud that people engaged in but at the same time the homeowner cannot be considered totally innocent. I have seen clients come in and show me the loan papers that allowed them to buy a 500,000 house with payments of 1,000 per month for 30 yrs.
Now I am pretty sure that even a 4th grader could do the math to figure out that 360 payments of 1,000 per month is not going to pay a 500,000 mortgage.
So while I absolutely agree that Countrywide needs to be investigated and people need to be punished, I also think we need to remember that people are to blame on all sides.
takes a look at the realities of early 21st century news and the organizations that have traditionally provided it in an NPR column that deserves to be read in its entirety by TMV readers and anyone interested in the news biz. Let’s take a look at some key highlights.
