My friend Ashley used to be super politically active.  Maybe she still is, not sure.  Prior to the 2008 election though, she was working as a volunteer for Barak Obama’s campaign.  He had a stop planned for somewhere in Ohio, perhaps Youngstown, and she wanted to go, but didn’t have a car.  I had my truck, and I was up for an adventure.  I never claim to be involved in politics, but I was certainly intrigued by Obama, and I had been doing a little bit of homework.

So we filed into a packed college gymnasium to hear his speech.  I couldn’t tell you what he said now, but I remember appreciating his charismatic ways.  After the speech, Ashley wanted to get close enough to shake his hand or talk with him.  I wasn’t all about that, but I stood with her.  As he’s making his way down the line of people, shaking hands, taking pictures, signing autographs, he ends up taking a book from a girl and signing the cover.  I watched this happen and then the girl kind of lost position as Obama’s posse kept moving him along.  He looked for the girl, but couldn’t find a way to give her the book back.

I caught his eye.  I definitely stood out in the crowd due to my stature.  I gestured for him to pass me the book with a lower lip curl, a head tilt, and a flip of my hand.  His eye brows raised and he motioned the book in the girl’s direction, confirming my intent and our understanding.  He handed me the book as I reached above the head of the guy in front of me.  For that split second, we carried the weight of that book together.  I took the burden of the book from him, and then gave it to a very excited college girl.  She immediately thanked me and flipped open the cover to see what he had penned.

I thought I was just going to give Ashley a ride, but I ended up helping the president complete his duties.  Go me.

Barack Obama is left handed.  He’s beleived to be only the 8th president to be a south paw.  To think, nuns used to slap our wrists if we didn’t use our right hands!  Sinistre forever!

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09026/944465-51.stm

From news release:

"The Bank of New York Mellon has announced that it will contribute $3 million over a six-year period to Pittsburgh’s Hill District community through Pennsylvania’s Neighborhood Partnership Program (NPP). The program will focus on education, job training and community revitalization for residents of the Hill District, which is near the company’s downtown Pittsburgh campus.

Also supporting the One Hill Community Benefits Agreement are the Pittsburgh Penguins, the city’s champion ice hockey team. "We are deeply honored to invest in a neighborhood with a noble history and promising future," said Vince Sands, Chairman, BNY Mellon of Pennsylvania. "With more than 6,800 employees located within a mile of Centre Avenue and Crawford Street, and many of them volunteering in the Hill District and surrounding communities, we are both a corporate sponsor and an involved neighbor."

Hill House Association will serve as the NPP program administrator and will work with the One Hill Coalition, which represents more than 100 community groups assembled to identify and prioritize strategies for revitalizing Pittsburgh’s historic Hill District. The NPP funds will address community needs ranging from job training and education to community improvements and social services.

"BNY Mellon has a strong history of supporting Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods; but never more than today with this unprecedented commitment to the Hill District," said Carl Redwood, chairman of the One Hill Coalition. "The BNY Mellon commitment gives the One Hill community benefits agreement a strong early start in the efforts to revitalize the Hill."

"BNY Mellon’s initial commitment is for six years, but its impact will last for decades to come," said Evan Frazier, Hill House Association president and CEO. This is a great example of what’s possible when communities, companies and public officials come together for the collective good."

"Fundamentally, good business decisions are also good community decisions," said David Morehouse, Pittsburgh Penguins president. "The BNY Mellon commitment is a significant investment in the Hill District and a very positive local development."

"We are working together to make sure that the millions of dollars of new development under way translates into job opportunities and long-term neighborhood revitalization for the residents of the Hill," Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said. "Working with residents and committed businesses, a new, better city will be built on the Hill.""

You know I don’t do the political rant thing often.  I always have my ear against the door, but barely ever do I walk into that chaos on the other side.  The past week has been too much for me, and I’m falling in.  I’m interested from a banking/economy, a current government side, as well as a presidential campaign perspective.  Honestly, and this will probably be the first time I’ve ever said it, you should be too.  There’s a lot going on right now, and it’s hard to keep a check on all the pulses.

Presidential Campaign – This is the easy one.  John McCain is an idiot.  He’s either too old to multi-task, or he’s too stupid to think clearly.  This dude is obviously not fit to be president.  We already have someone that quits to go relax, do we really need another?  He doesn’t know what he’s doing, and it shows.  Last week he says the economy is still strong.  Saturday a 3 page proposal is released to congress to review as a solution for the financial crisis.  Monday, McCain says stuff is going to hit the fan.  Tuesday, Mccain says he hasn’t read the 3 page document yet.  Wednesday, he cancels his appearance on Letterman and says that he wants to postpone the debate and his campaign so he can focus on fixing the crisis.  Ego trip much?   He ends up staying in New York until Thursday anyway, and manages to fit in a stop to Katie Couric.  By the time he’s in DC, an approved solution is already announced.  Worthless.  Even Senator Charles Schumer has said Bush needs to, ""respectfully tell Sen. McCain to get out of town. He is not helping, he is harming. Before Sen. McCain made his announcement, we were making progress."  This dude is a train wreck, and he’s not even in office.  Let alone the circus around Palin.  He obviously picked her for her shock value.  She’s been completely absent since.  Worthless.  Smoke & mirrors.  Sham.

Current Government - We’re starting to see the true colors of what goes on in our nation’s capital.  These people have no accountability, and they slack off their whole careers, and when it comes time to get your crap together and do something, they don’t know how to work together.  Henry Paulson apparently begged on 1 knee to the democrats not to tell the presses how bad the meetings went.  Bush is actually doing something it seems, at least trying to get everyone to work together and encouraging discussion.  What we have though are people from 2 different sides of the fence.  You have people with big business and money backgrounds (who, in my opinion should not be allowed to be in politics) like Henry Paulson, and then you have people that have pure legislative backgrounds who know nothing about the market crisis, or how to appropriately manage it.  You know this $700 billion number that’s been tossed around?  Ask someone where they came up with that number.  A Treasury spokeswoman says:

“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

OMG.  Are we serious???  We have no idea what we’re dealing with here.  Enter malfeasance probe.  We’re actually going back to the businesses that are in trouble and looking for fraud.  That won’t take long.

Back on track to progressive thinking though, is this really what we want to do?  These companies knew their loans were risky, but they went in anyway.  Preying on poor people to meet their self-serving pockets.  If the government buys all these loans, it doesn’t just end there either.  Now we’re looking at the government serving a role it’s never had.  It actually has potential to MAKE money in this deal…but is this a good thing?!?!  It’s like a whole form of backdoor taxation that I do not approve of.  If you need me to spell it out for you, the government will pay, we’ll say, 1 trillion, for debts that are worth more than 2.2 trillion fully matured.  Do we really want our government acting for a profit?  That money is coming from home owners and normal people.  That brings a whole new level of shadiness and potential for cover ups that I’m not comfortable with.

Economy/business – Cluster ****.  That’s pretty accurate.  Already in the shadows is the fact that we’re letting Morgan Stanley & Goldman Sachs change their status from investment banks to bank holding companies.  While I don’t disagree with this solution, it’s scary.  By changing their status, they become regulated by the Federal Reserve, but they also have more access to borrow more money.  These are the last and largest investment banks and brings them into the 4th and 6th largest bank holding companies.  I’m worried about their practices, or their problems, becoming contagious and bringing down the bank holding or asset management areas of banking.  By association alone, the market is cracking.  BNY Mellon has very limited exposure to any of the bad debt that is in the news, but our stock, with everyone else, is falling.  We’re even throwing $425 million to help out Lehman’s crash because they’re stock is falling below $1/share.  We’ve got Wamu going under and being bought out so that they don’t deplete FIDC funds.  That’s nuts!  We’re going to be left with a dozen or so big banks.  It’s like a survival of the fittest scenario, only with a global scale economy.  If these companies get the bailout they’re after from the government, no one pays but the American people.  Some heads need to roll for sure, and they better have CEO next to their names.

I’m starting to hear about a new government plan now to insure the debts instead of just buying their out right.  That might be a little better.  This has been something on Barack’s campaign since day one.  I think that about sums everything up. 

I’m not writing a paper here, so i don’t care to cite anything, but I’ll give you a few links and tell you to watch the Colbert Report, the Daily show, and CNN.  I’m curious to see what NPR has to say too.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08270/915335-68.stm?cmpid=generalbusiness.xml

http://video.newsweek.com/#?c=40211&l=1785302026&t=1818133680

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122230704116773989.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Raines

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08268/914648-100.stm

http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/09/23/bailout-paulson-congress-biz-beltway-cx_jz_bw_0923bailout.html

http://orlando.bizjournals.com/orlando/othercities/atlanta/stories/2008/09/22/daily4.html

I’ve been trying to stay away from all the internet rants and topics on the lack of adminstrative response to the situation down in new orleans. I can’t get past one thing though, that hasn’t really been commented on much. here we are, 2 weeks away from the 4 year aniversary of 9/11. A catostraphic distaster in a huge american city. Not a year after the president was (re-)elected to office. He’s too busy enjoying vacation to do anything. You’d think after 4 years that we’d be able to deal with this a little better than having anarchy break out in a city after 4 days of lack of action from the government.

What do ronald reagon, george bush, and bill clinton have in common?  Lots of stuff, but they all have middle names that correspond to former president’s lastnames.  Ronald Wilson Reagon, George Washington Bush, William Jefferson Clinton.  What the crap is that about?  Who names their kids that without some hint that they will become president.  I haven’t done any research, there may be more, but i find this really disturbing.  If i were a conspiracist, i would say this was proof that the elections and voting are shams, and they already have every president planned for the next 60 years.

ok, this is something i have been tossing back and forth, and trying to find holes in the idea.  I think the government should have to function as a business.  They should have to work for a profit, and if they fail to succeed, new management needs to step in.  Taxes are already a form of profit for the government, so why should the get the benefits of a business without the work?

Wars and other “ventures” should have to be funded.  Ask for donations, fund raising events involving celebrity supporters, etc.  If the people are not interested in the product, and they don’t want to buy invest in it, then it shouldn’t happen.

I think a lot of the coruption in government arises from taxes, and officials taking funding for granted.  The best way to save money, is stop spending it.

now, no taxes at all would make it far too easy for government to fall, so there should be a small obligatory percentage of your income that goes to funding the maintenance of the government.   (continued)

and while we are on taxes, with addition to my rants about the lack of technological improvements effecting the way taxes are done, i think there should be options in taxes.  I would much rather losing money out of every paycheck and be done with it.  I think an option to pay a monthly fee would help the budgeters of america.  there need to be options with taxes, that would also get rid of the intense load of work the IRS has to deal with every april, just spread it out over time.   I would be fine paying a “government bill” every month, just like the gas and electric.  Heck, that might even be financially beneficial.

but anyways, if the government goes bankrupt, the CEO, or president would be replaced.  And people need to stop being fooled about the superlative president.  the president is a puppet.  There are so many checks and balances that we could easily be without a president for a matter of months.  The president being in place does not effect our day to day operations.  law officials and the FBI (ie enforcement that prevents anarchy) would still be as functional as they always are (har har). 

The (what ever happenned to steve forbes?) flat tax would have to be small enough, that it would not create such a surplus that the government would not need to look for revenue elsewhere.  perhaps the tax could even be dynamic.   maybe we would all pay 5% for a year, and then we end up being in the black, and we only have to pay 2% next time.  Who knows, maybe even we could go without taxes for a month!  (if you were on the monthly tax plan of course