Have Earth Day Every Day

Earth Day, April 22, was designated to raise awareness to our impact on the Earth’s environment.

While it is good to have one day set aside to draw attention to the cause - our concern over the earth and its environment, and the affect the ever-growing population has on our planet - we should be thinking of the Earth’s environment every day.

Even one person can make a difference in protecting their environment, especially when all these individual efforts are added up. For me, my community has a good recycling collection program, so I recycle as much as possible. It doesn’t take much effort. At one point, when our city, for a short time, went from individual home pick up of recycling to a central drop off points, I was amazed at the amount of recyclable materials that were collected in just one of the locations is a given week.

So if you do anything on this Earth Day, it should be to pick at least one thing that you can do every day to help preserve the Earth’s environment - and then do it. You may be surprised how easy it can be, and how much difference you can make.

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Newsflash: Homely People Have Talent, Too

A person couldn’t turn on their local or national news, or some talk shows yesterday without seeing the story about Susan Boyle. She was a singer on the show ‘Britain’s Got Talent” that aired in the UK on April 11. Much was made about the fact that Susan, who wasn’t very pretty and acted a little goofy, sang like an angel. (If you live under a rock and haven’t seen the news story, you can find a video of Susan Boyle’s performance here.)

Before her performance, the camera shows the faces of some of the judges and the audience who seem prepared for a disaster. But as Susan began to sing “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables, the mood changed. As the judges – including the always brutal Simon Cowell – seemed shocked at what they are hearing, one man standing in the stage wings points his finger at the camera and comments that “you didn’t expect that, did you? Did you? No!” Susan’s voice was fantastic, it was on key, crystal clear and full of emotion. The judges lathered praise on her, which was well deserved. It seemed that they expected that someone who looked like Susan couldn’t possibly have been good.

But then the news media got hold of the story, and spread it over the US airwaves yesterday ad nauseam. The big lesson, they touted, is that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover; Susan may not have looked the part, but she turned out to be a wonderful singer. The topic was discussed at length on The View, with Joy the only person who seemed to be critical of the whole issue, calling the rest of her panel out as hypocrites because they’ve done makeovers on their show (you can see the segment below, it’s about 5 minutes into the clip).

I have a problem with Susan's story, but it's not with Susan. I believe it's the news and entertainment industry who need to learn the lesson that you can't judge a book by its cover. Movies, televisions, magazines, newspapers, etc. all have taken great pains over their lifetimes to elevate those who are beautiful. If you didn’t have the right “look”, you can’t get into the movies or TV. Want to be a model? You’d better look stunning and be wafer thin. Do you want to be an “American Idol?” Look the part and for heaven’s sake don’t be overweight. I could go on, but you get the idea.

There are many, normal, average looking, everyday people out there who have loads of talent, not necessarily limited to the entertainment industry. But as long as the media and businesses only celebrates the beautiful or the well dressed, people like Susan Boyle won’t get noticed and doors won’t be opened. Personally, I am thrilled for Susan and I wish her much success. I feel badly for her, though, that her face or appearance is being used under the guise of the media trying to give viewers a message that things should never be taken at face value. It’s a lesson that they need to learn first for themselves.




The View (April 15)



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The High Fructose Corn Syrup Ad – They’re Kidding, Right?

I’ve written about high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) before on my blog. To refresh your memory, last April I wrote about this HFCS:

Simply put, it’s heavy-duty sugar. More technically, it’s corn syrup that undergoes processing to increase its fructose content, them is blended with pure corn syrup (100% glucose). The process was developed in the late 1950s and later improved upon by Japanese researchers in the 1970s. HFCS made its way into prepackaged foods and drinks in the US starting in the late 1970s, and exploded into our prepackaged foods shortly thereafter.

I also indicated that the even the FDA concluded last April that HFCS isn’t considered an natural ingredient, despite the fact that it is made from corn. It’s the process which creates the syrup that makes it unnatural.

When I saw a commercial on television the other day touting HFCS, I was shocked. (The commercial is embedded below.) What bothered me about it is that the idiot guy says “you know what they say about it” and then can’t verbalize what they say, and the woman trying to feed him a Popsicle with HFCS in it, replies that is it made from corn, had the same calories as sugar, and is fine in moderation.

It’s the moderation thing that gets me. After all, how can one easily moderate their intake of HFCS when almost everything that they eat these days that is processed in any way has HFCS in it? Even funnier is the HFCS web site is called Sweet Surprise which is their vehicle to try to educate people on HFCS. Your "sweet surprise" will likely be a lot more weight on your body that you ever wanted, plus all the disease that may go along with all those added pounds.

But someone out there read my mind, and came up with a video response to the HFCS advertisement and also placed it on YouTube, and I also have that video below. I think it is a perfect rebuttal.

My suggestions regarding HFCS are the same now as they were a year ago. Avoid it as much as you can. Stop drinking soft drinks containing it, and drink water more instead. Read labels of all the products you buy, and if HFCS is at the top or high in the list of ingredients, pass on it. Eat foods like fruits and vegetables in their natural state as much as possible – cooking things veggies is fine of course, just watch commercially prepared fruits and veggies that are part of things like drinks, pies, canned fruits, etc. Even condiments like barbecue sauces can contain a huge load of HFCS. It’s in many mass-produced breads, too (some are now made without HFCS, you can find them if you look). HFCS is everywhere, so if you really want to “moderate” your intake, you will have to be diligent in reading labels.

I’ve said it before and it bears repeating – you are what you eat!


High Fructose Corn Syrup Ad


High Fructose Corn Syrup – The Response



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White House “Fires” GM CEO, That’s OK By Me

The news media is all abuzz with commentary about the White House asking the CEO of General Motors to resign if the company wanted more bailout money. Many people seem appalled that President Obama – and the US Government – would dare to mess with a business in such a manner. While I understand why people may initially be concerned at what they see as government interference, I think that many of these people may be a little naïve on what goes on in the real business world.

First, let’s go back a bit. I wrote last November ("The Frequent Critic – Should the Auto Companies Be Saved?”) that I was leaning towards letting one of the car companies go bankrupt. Of course, the job loss, plus the effects that this would have on other business who rely on GM to sustain them would have a huge negative effect on the economy. I still think this would have been the best way to go, and it would have forced a reorganization of one of these car companies. If that company was GM, then more than likely the CEO would be on the outs anyway.

Headlines like the one written on the CNN web site today - ”Obama To Detroit: Restructure Or Else” - makes it sound like the government is just throwing their weight around. I do not see it that way at all. I see it as the White House just asking for what any person would be asking if they were asked to invest a huge amount of capital in any business. It’s no different than someone who buys enough stock in a company in order to get a say in how it’s run, or what happens when one company acquires another. Executives sometimes find they are quickly out the door once big money comes in and makes an investment. I worked for a company that was purchased by various companies and/or investment groups over a period of 25 years, and almost every time big money came in, a big executive or two got walked out, in many cases because that executive just wasn’t doing the job or wasn’t helping the company to grow. Sometimes there didn’t even seem to be a good reason.

I think that it’s about time that the US Government demands some action for all the money it is putting into these companies. My only regret is that they didn’t do the same thing with the investment banks when they bailed them out. I don’t blame Obama for that issue because the bank bailouts were already well in motion by the time he took office.

I am sure that the US Government does not want GM to go bankrupt. But I also don’t think the US Government wants to continue to throw good money after bad. The car companies need to change, and they need to change fast. The demands made by the White House means that things are not business as usual. If the car companies want money, and they want to be saved, it can’t be business as usual any more.


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Bad Politics As Usual: Republicans Want Failure For Obama

Despite the fact that the majority of the American people voted for change, I find it’s still politics as usual. I wrote in here in the beginning of March about talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s hopes that President Obama would fail. Now, I read today that former politician and Law & Order alum Fred D. Thompson also wishes failure for Barack Obama. Of course, he qualifies it with the disclaimer that "I want his policies that I believe take us in the wrong direction to fail" (see article and video below).

But let’s put Thompson’s comments into perspective. Here’s a guy who quit politics and went into acting, then quit acting and went back into politics to run for the presidency. He ran a lifeless campaign and was a lifeless candidate. The American people – including fellow Republicans – turned away from Thompson and he quickly fell away from the pack and was out of the race. (Now he’s a radio talk show host.) I suspect that Thompson’s comments mean even less to people now, especially to the large number of Americans who do support President Obama.

Thompson’s commentary on the matter was triggered as part of an interview on CNN (below) where he was asked about comments made by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who says it’s OK that people want Obama to fail.

I am sorry, but I just don’t get the whole wishing for failure thing. The economy is in a mess and the American people voted for change. They wanted action, not endless quibbling, backstabbing, and ill-will wishers. While the current economic mess flourished and came to a head under the Bush administration, the root of the problem goes father back from that. Politicians let this whole mess get away from them, and now they all want a say - their say - in how to fix things. The problem is, there isn’t a unified plan put forth by the Republicans to counter what the Obama administration has put forward. It’s easy to sit back and nit pick the budget and the economic crisis piece by piece, but it is a very complex thing to create a plan that tries to fix it all. And as President Obama said in his press conference last night, this is not quick fix. The Republicans had 8 years to try to identify, prevent, or fix the economic problems of the country and they didn’t do it. The people voted for change, and that’s enough for me to support the president’s plan. I may not be thrilled with every single line of it, but in the grand scheme of things, I don’t see anything better.

I look at it this way: Failure is not an option. Any politician, Republican or Democrat, who wishes for failure doesn’t belong in the job. If they don’t agree with a certain part of the budget or the economic plan, then they need to take the appropriate steps to make changes, through the political system that they were elected to navigate. But if they lose their argument, then I expect them to support whatever gets approved or passed, and if they can’t, then they need to get out of the way for someone who wants to work for the success of the American people, not for their failure.

Fred Thompson on CNN’s American Morning


Thompson: I don't want Obama's policies to succeed
From CNN Associate Producer Martina Stewart


WASHINGTON (CNN) - Count former GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson among the growing chorus of prominent Republicans who want President Obama's policies to fail.

Tuesday evening Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal called pressure to support Obama's policies "political correctness run amok."

Thompson told CNN's John Roberts Wednesday that he agreed with some of his fellow Republicans who have said publicly they do not want the president's policies to be successful.

"I want his policies that I believe take us in the wrong direction to fail," Thompson told Roberts on CNN's American Morning.

"If he takes us down the road of tripling our national debt in ten years and making us vulnerable to higher interest rates and higher inflation, and things of that nature, I want all those policies not to succeed," he said.

Thompson, who made the rising cost of entitlement spending a focus of his 2008 presidential run, said he'd be happy to help Obama overhaul those programs.

"If he wants to do that, I will join with him. I'll do everything I can to make him succeed with regard to that because that's the whole ball game in terms of our fiscal future in this country," said the former Tennessee senator.

Thompson criticized Obama's ambitious health care agenda, telling Roberts the president's plans would cost the government more than they would save.






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AIG Outrage A Smokescreen?

It’s hard to miss the outrage that the American people have with the financial institution AIG. Once it became public that bailout money was going to be used to pay hefty bonuses to some of the same people that got AIG in their financial mess, you could almost hear the yelling coming from every household in America. And the shouting is getting pretty loud from Washington D.C. But some of the same politicians and government agencies who are crying foul with AIG also allowed the situation to happen by not properly designing and controlling the way bailout money was used, or monitoring our financial institutions before the crisis. In my opinion, these people allowed the whole situation to happen. I primarily blame the SEC, The Fed, and the Treasury, but our elected officials also had blinders on as well. Now, are these same people trying to deflect the American people away from their own incompetence by focusing on the issue with the bonuses? Here is an excellent editorial on the matter from the Wall Street Journal that will make you think.


The Real AIG Outrage

MARCH 17, 2009

President Obama joined yesterday in the clamor of outrage at AIG for paying some $165 million in contractually obligated employee bonuses. He and the rest of the political class thus neatly deflected attention from the larger outrage, which is the five-month Beltway cover-up over who benefited most from the AIG bailout.

Taxpayers have already put up $173 billion, or more than a thousand times the amount of those bonuses, to fund the government's AIG "rescue." This federal takeover, never approved by AIG shareholders, uses the firm as a conduit to bail out other institutions. After months of government stonewalling, on Sunday night AIG officially acknowledged where most of the taxpayer funds have been going.

Since September 16, AIG has sent $120 billion in cash, collateral and other payouts to banks, municipal governments and other derivative counterparties around the world. This includes at least $20 billion to European banks. The list also includes American charity cases like Goldman Sachs, which received at least $13 billion. This comes after months of claims by Goldman that all of its AIG bets were adequately hedged and that it needed no "bailout." Why take $13 billion then? This needless cover-up is one reason Americans are getting angrier as they wonder if Washington is lying to them about these bailouts.

Given that the government has never defined "systemic risk," we're also starting to wonder exactly which system American taxpayers are paying to protect. It's not capitalism, in which risk-takers suffer the consequences of bad decisions. And in some cases it's not even American. The U.S. government is now in the business of distributing foreign aid to offshore financiers, laundered through a once-great American company.

The politicians also prefer to talk about AIG's latest bonus payments because they deflect attention from Washington's failure to supervise AIG. The Beltway crowd has been selling the story that AIG failed because it operated in a shadowy unregulated world and cleverly exploited gaps among Washington overseers. Said President Obama yesterday, "This is a corporation that finds itself in financial distress due to recklessness and greed." That's true, but Washington doesn't want you to know that various arms of government approved, enabled and encouraged AIG's disastrous bet on the U.S. housing market.

Scott Polakoff, acting director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, told the Senate Banking Committee this month that, contrary to media myth, AIG's infamous Financial Products unit did not slip through the regulatory cracks. Mr. Polakoff said that the whole of AIG, including this unit, was regulated by his agency and by a "college" of global bureaucrats.

But what about that supposedly rogue AIG operation in London? Wasn't that outside the reach of federal regulators? Mr. Polakoff called it "a false statement" to say that his agency couldn't regulate the London office.

And his agency wasn't the only federal regulator. AIG's Financial Products unit has been overseen for years by an SEC-approved monitor. And AIG didn't just make disastrous bets on housing using those infamous credit default swaps. AIG made the same stupid bets on housing using money in its securities lending program, which was heavily regulated at the state level. State, foreign and various U.S. federal regulators were all looking over AIG's shoulder and approving the bad housing bets. Americans always pay their mortgages, right? Mr. Polakoff said his agency "should have taken an entirely different approach" in regulating the contracts written by AIG's Financial Products unit.

That's for sure, especially after March of 2005. The housing trouble began -- as most of AIG's troubles did -- when the company's board buckled under pressure from then New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer when it fired longtime CEO Hank Greenberg. Almost immediately, Fitch took away the company's triple-A credit rating, which allowed it to borrow at cheaper rates. AIG subsequently announced an earnings restatement. The restatement addressed alleged accounting sins that Mr. Spitzer trumpeted initially but later dropped from his civil complaint.

Other elements of the restatement were later reversed by AIG itself. But the damage had been done. The restatement triggered more credit ratings downgrades. Mr. Greenberg's successors seemed to understand that the game had changed, warning in a 2005 SEC filing that a lower credit rating meant the firm would likely have to post more collateral to trading counterparties. But rather than managing risks even more carefully, they went in the opposite direction. Tragically, they did what Mr. Greenberg's AIG never did -- bet big on housing.

Current AIG CEO Ed Liddy was picked by the government in 2008 and didn't create the mess, and he shouldn't be blamed for honoring the firm's lawful bonus contracts. However, it is on Mr. Liddy's watch that AIG has lately been conducting a campaign to stoke fears of "systemic risk." To mute Congressional objections to taxpayer cash infusions, AIG's lobbying materials suggest that taxpayers need to continue subsidizing the insurance giant to avoid economic ruin.

Among the more dubious claims is that AIG policyholders won't be able to purchase the coverage they need. The sweeteners AIG has been offering to retain customers tell a different story. Moreover, getting back to those infamous bonuses, AIG can argue that it needs to pay top dollar to survive in an ultra-competitive business, or it can argue that it offers services not otherwise available in the market, but not both.


The Washington crowd wants to focus on bonuses because it aims public anger on private actors, not the political class. But our politicians and regulators should direct some of their anger back on themselves -- for kicking off AIG's demise by ousting Mr. Greenberg, for failing to supervise its bets, and then for blowing a mountain of taxpayer cash on their AIG nationalization.

Whether or not these funds ever come back to the Treasury, regulators should now focus on getting AIG back into private hands as soon as possible. And if Treasury and the Fed want to continue bailing out foreign banks, let them make that case, honestly and directly, to American taxpayers.





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Jon Stewart Skewers Whiner Rick Santelli and CNBC

This is a case where someone needs to be reminded to be careful what you ask for - you just might get it, and you may not like what they get.

In February, Rick Santelli, who is one of the "expert" talking heads that CNBC brings on daily (he's at the Chicago Mercantile), went on an on-air rampaging rant about the Obama administration’s handling of the mortgage crisis and recommended bailout. About a minute into his rant (video below), after enlisting the support of the traders around him, who seemed to be booing the Obama plan in support of Santelli, Santelli looks to the camera and asks, “ President Obama are you listening?”

Well, someone in the White House heard him. Of course, the rant was covered and promoted ad nauseam on CNBC and NBC, so it was hard to miss. So, there should have been no surprise to Santelli when White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs came back at Santelli and took him to task for his comments (vdeio below) and provided their own response.

Why, then, is Santelli so shocked that Gibbs mentioned him by name? When Santelli appeared on the Today Show at the end of February, Santelli was upset that Gibbs and the White House singled him out, and had previously commented that he was “threatened" by them. I happened to be watching that Today Show segment at that time, and I admit my jaw dropped that Santelli seemed upset that after he’d asked if President Obama was listening, he had the nerve to be surprised that the White House acknowledged that they had heard him – and they wanted to add their own two cents. I actually was thrilled that Matt Lauer took Santelli to task for his ludicrous allegation of a White House "threat". Lauer did it in a very frontal way, which is unusual for him.

But the icing on the cake was when Jon Stewart decided to jump into the fray after Santelli canceled an appearance on the Jon Stewart show. Stewart not only skewered Santelli, but the whole of CNBC. Stewart's take was dead on the money, and absolutely hilarious. Now, I watch CNBC occasion, I happen to enjoy watching Jim Cramer, but I have to admit that I know to take what these "experts" say with a grain of salt, especially considering the circumstances of the collapse of the economy in the last few months. Jim Cramer had been very open regarding his bad call about Bear Stearns (Stewart mentions it in his segment), admitting that the CEO clearly was lying to him in an interview that he (Cramer) had with the CEO right before Bear Stearns went belly up. I think every financial news network called the stability of many companies incorrectly, not just CNBC.

I applaud Jon Stewart for putting the whole Santelli and CNBC thing together in such a way that puts Santelli to shame. So the lesson for Santelli is – if you can’t take the consequences for what you say, then keep your mouth shut.

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