The Media...

Will the media stop reporting every single thing that the president does? I understand that news outlets have to make money, but do we need to know every single step the man takes? The conspiracy theorist in me says that the media is intentionally over exposing the president so that the American public will become fatigued and apathetic again, allowing the media to spoon feed us what they want us to know. But my more conformist side says that this is just like everything else in our capitalist system, when people find out that something makes money they milk it dry.

From playing the same song on the radio 1000 times a day to incorporating rap music into every form of advertisement from rapping lizards to rapping grannies to every single person with studio time recording a song using a vocoder, capitalism encourages people to suck the life out of all forms of inspiration or creativity. It's as though business owners do not believe that consumers are capable of appreciating more than one concept at a time.

Note to the media, yes we like President Obama, yes we think he's intelligent and we do want to know pertinent relevant information about what is going on in the white house, but each day your dramatizations about supposed infighting and "missteps" are tending more and more toward hyperbole as opposed to news. Here's an idea on something Americans may also be interested in.

I have to go check now to see if the president has sneezed today and if it was the sneeze heard round the world or some other god awful headline...

What did they know and when did they know it...

Ok I've had enough. Today Geithner came out spewing that same nonsense about the government guaranteeing the banks debt which is essentially the same as an agreement to pay off their debt. The same banks that lobbied to make filing for bankruptcy more difficult and have been ripping consumers off with usurous interest rates on credit cards and car loans for years. The same banks that KNOWINGLY passed on exorbinant risk to investors; some saavy and some not so saavy. The banks need to be investigated for myriad reasons not limited to the following:

They knowingly securitized bad debt.
At the start of the housing boom, mortgage brokers and lenders used their established relationships with commercial banks and investment houses to pass off riskier debt. People have to question why investment banks, many of which had lending arms of their own post the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, were purchasing paper from mortgage lenders. If the investments were as safe as purported, why were borrowers paying a premium for the loan in the form of higher interest rates and why couldn't the retail or commercial lending arms of these banks provide loans to these consumers in the first place?

They knew the product lines were dangerous.
Banks knew that mortgage lenders were creating products that would significantly impair a borrowers ability to sell their home. Loans with LTVs of 103-125% were prevalent meaning that borrowers were getting loans that were higher than the value of the asset itself. This is fine in a growing market but creates quite a challenge if the market stagnates or worse begins to decline. Initially banks sought legislation like the revisions to bankruptcy law forcing homeowners into a state of indetured servitude. However as more homeowners continued to defualt, investment banks stopped purchasing paper from mortgage lenders forcing them to collapse.

Banks knowingly sold assets that had questionable value.
Once investment bankers began to realize the toxicity of the assets they were holding, they began to look for ways to spread the risk. Issuance of asset backed secutrities peaked between 2006 and 2007, AFTER banks cease to buy loans from mortgage lenders. Banks did not differentiate the assets in these securities even though they were aware that there were significant challenges with some of the loans they were holding on their books to be bundled into securities. In the pyramid scheme that was the mortgage industry for the past decade, the banks looked for new entrants in an attempt to recoup their losses. This worked well until outside investors began to challenge the valuations of the assets backing the securities.

If for no other reason than to garner a better understanding of the potential depth of the challenge currently faced by the banks, the government needs to conduct a thorough audit of these banks books. By thorough I mean access to the banks ledgers and internal manangement consolidation systems and reports. The government has many arms capable of carrying this out, including forensic accountants in the IRS and FBI. Congress should request this inquiry before attempting to shore up assets they don't understand.

I think at this point everyone is growing weary of the charades and grandstanding of hearings that accomplish nothing because congressional leaders don't even know what questions to ask.

I'm Just Saying...

I can not stand all the tell the president what to do people out there but I had to make this suggestion. Maybe President Obama should go beyond limiting executive pay at the banks. Maybe he should just fire them altogether and let hedge fund managers run the banks. They seem to understand what the banks are holding better than the CEOs and regulators do. Maybe by forcing them to have skin in the game on the side of the growth of the economy instead of its failure we can all come up. I'm just saying don't take my word for it read for yourself...

John Paulson article.

Damn! Damn! Damn!

I knew Reverend Wright's speech was going to be troublesome when every clip I watched was from the conservative government propaganda news channel. As I watched I found myself in complete internal conflict. For the first time, I felt like I could relate to what it must have felt like for black people to watch as Washington and DuBois or Dr. King and Malcolm X were pitted against one another. Having those historical debates as a vantage point I'm able to see that at the end of the day all that each of these individuals ever wanted was to help their people. Up to this point I could never understand why they couldn't just work together and not have the discussion about the advancement of the race in the public sphere. But as I watched Reverend Wright speaking to every possible media outlet I realized that the desire to be right and to win can be very powerful even if detrimental.

Apparently Rev. Wright didn't get the memo that every other "leader" is adhering to; be easy so Barack can get at least some semblance of a fair shake. A good friend of mine once said "if a person doesn't have a reason for doing something then they definitely don't have a good reason." That's what I was struggling to understand from Reverend Wright; why now and who was he reasserting his position with? Most reasonable people, who watched the sermons in their entirety came away thinking that the "controversy" was media generated and that whether you agreed with his delivery or not, you couldn't really dispute the historical accuracy of most of his statements. Even as he delivered his speech to the NAACP there was a great deal of audience participation and support so why did Reverend Wright feel the need to preach to the choir in front of a national audience? I respect my elders but I really wished as I watched every speech including the interview with Bill Moyers that when asked about Barack that the Reverend Wright would simply respond:

"Given Barack's background and life experiences he has a different perspective on the possibilities for all people in America."

He referred to a media agenda in his interview with Bill Moyers, so did he really think that he could change the minds of those who were trying to caricature him? Was he trying to? I'm not of the mindset that the reverend was out to hurt Barack but at what point do you realize that the media that is demonizing you can't then fairly represent you? That's just counter intuitive.