Very pleased 2008 is about over.

This was not the best of years for most Americans due to the collapse of the stock market and the Banking system. Many have lost their jobs this year and many are afraid they may lose their jobs in 2009. This is not a good way to live and is very stressful on the body and the mind.

2008 started off very sad for my wife and me, as her Mom passed away on New Years morning. It has been a difficult year with the loss of a family member. We were lucky to have spent the time we did with her these past 13 years. We were also lucky that we were not affected by the economy but very aware that many others are. We changed our giving to charities this year to include our local Food Bank and other human services non-profits that help the homeless. There seems to be a great human need this year and while we all have our stories, it is best to focus on our being luckier than many.

In that sprit, I wish everyone reading here a very Happy New Year and a world filled with more compassion, hope and peace. And it wouldn't hurt if the stock market gained back some of its losses to make more people whole financially.

$700 Billion: What else could we do with it?

Have you asked yourself yet what could be done with $700 Billion dollars today besides this rescue plan that the Fed and the Treasury are asking from Congress? I'll tell you one thing, a sizable amount could have been used to make Social Security more solvent for one thing. We could have repaired many of the bridges and roads across this country. We could have used the money to solve Global Warming and reduced the Green House gases on the planet. We could have given every teacher in America a minimum salary of $100,000/year and still had $500 Billion left over to do some of the other things mentioned here.

But instead, we are going to pony up this incredibly large sum of money and are not going to observe anything for it. It will not be noticed, as life will go on as it did before the crisis except the unemployment rate will be going up, interest rates will be going up, stocks will be going down and many will fell tight when it comes to spending any of their money. We won't see anything that looks positive that we can point to that will be a measurable observable difference for the better. What there will be is the prevention of a total collapse of our system, THEY HOPE! You see there are no guarantees here. It is like going to Vegas and being able to play roulette and betting on red or black and hoping to win. But it is possible that the ball will settle on the zero (0) or double zero (00) number. That's where we are now. There is probably only a 2 in 37 chance that this $700 Billion investment will faIL, but there is still some chance. Southerners may be thinking of that old adage, "Save your Confederate money folks, the South shall rise again." The only problem is that this time we are all in the same barrel, whether we like it or not.

When this is over, I don't want to hear people say we can't afford Healthcare for everyone or that we can't accept Barack Obama's ideas to grow the economy with Green initiatives or that we can't bring home the troops to help save $12 Billion per month! If we can print money to pony up $700 Billion here, we can print some more and do the other things as well. Yes the wealthiest are going to have to pay more taxes. Get used to it as your life is better than the most of the country and we all must bear a more equal share of the burden.


This is what it must have felt like at the Fall of The Roman Empire.

AIG, now what? Republicans still think derregulation is good?

The news today is that the Fed is willing to give a loan to AIG Insurance company to help it with its liquidity problem. AIG had a Balance Sheet of $1 TRILLION dollars. The Fed is going to lend it $85 Billion dollars for a 2 year period. For the loan the Fed will own 80% of AIG. I don't know about you but that essentially would be equal to $800 Billion of the company. It doesn't make sense unless the company really doesn't own assets worth $1 Trillion dollars in the first place.

All my life I have heard that we shouldn't be regulating business as the Free Enterprise system is the best in the world and regulation, they argue, constricts the free flow of capital to markets needing that capital to grow and develop for the benefit of "shareholders". So the American people bought into that line of reasoning, hook, line and sinker. We bought shares of Stock or Bonds thinking that it was a level playing field and that these markets and companies had some regulation to protect us. Little did we know the limited regulation was there not to protect shareholders and the system. With certainty, it has failed us as proven by several examples, AIG, Lehman Bros and Merrill Lynch and the forced mergers of some and the failures and bailouts of others. The same was true back in 1929. As a result of the crash in 1929, the Glass-Steagall Act was implemented by Roosevelt to prohibit the crash from happening ever again. Then with Ronald Reagan, we saw the beginning of the deregulation process that started to unwind that legislation and allowed Insurance companies and banks to merge.

We are now so integrated in a Global economy, that we have gone from a problem affecting just the US to affecting markets worldwide. Now, when a Bank or Insurance company fails, it has the additional concerns of affecting not only those companies and its shareholders, but other non related businesses, as well as Pension Plans that invest in those businesses and now become at-risk.

Let's me make sure there is clarity as to what this means overall. First, there is no level playing field. As an individual investor, you are on your own and the system is gamed against you. As long as we continue to elect Republicans, we will have little or no protection and our economy will be at risk. It is time we are willing to risk the alternative. Social Security, as a system to help retirees, was instituted by Democrats, and thank God it is still there for people. Many of our Nations problems need fresh thinking from the grip of the Republican party. Even though we had President Clinton, a Democrat as President, he had to deal with a Republican led Congress.

When the Healthcare plans formed HMO’S and PPO’S and were allowed to change from non-profit to becoming for-profit corporations, it was the downfall of healthcare. It changed everything. Now we are faced with higher healthcare costs every year, while executives reap millions and millions of dollars squeezed from us under the guise of operational cost increases. Healthcare is the next system to collapse.

We must have the courage to swing the pendulum the other direction while we still have time. Let's hope and pray that the Democrats, under the leadership of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, will seize this moment and positively change the equation which focuses back on the Middle Class and the Poor and reinstitutes policies that benefit most Americans not just the wealthy. If not, you are seeing the early stages of the Fall of the current Roman Empire, the United States of America!