My sig line, which I’ve displayed not-so-proudly for the past year is “Another day, another devalued dollar.”  It seemed appropriate at the time I decided to place it above my name in each blog comment I make, but it seems more and more appropriate with each passing day.  

Not only is our economy now in a recession, not only are home foreclosures at an all time high as well as new home sales at an all time low, not only are lending establishments NOT lending money unless people put up their first born along with some other serious collateral, but the latest bad financial news about our banking industry here in the US may have us wondering about the safety of the money you have deposited at your own bank!

This from CNN:

In the past year there have been four bank failures.

And the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp and banking industry experts foresee many bank failures down the road.

“Regulators are bracing for 100-200 bank failures over the next 12-24 months,” says Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with the financial services firm, the Stanford Group.

Expected loan losses, the deteriorating housing market and the credit squeeze are blamed for the drop in bank profits.

The problem areas will be concentrated in the Rust Belt, in places like Ohio and Michigan and other states like California, Florida and Georgia.

The number of institutions categorized as “problem” institutions by the FDIC has also grown from 50 at the end of 2006 to 76 at the end of last year.

YIKES!  Ever since Bu$hCo was installed into the American Government by the Supreme Court in 2000, for America and Americans, if it wasn’t for bad luck, we wouldn’t have any luck at all.

What to do, you ask?  Well, other than digging that hole in your backyard and placing all your cash in an old cigar box and drawing a treasure map, there are a few things you can do.  NO.  Not under your mattress, silly!  Although, you wouldn’t need to draw the treasure map that way, I suppose.  Anyway, from the same article:

Here’s how to make sure you pick a safe bank. First, look for the FDIC logo at your local branch. If you don’t see it, ask the bank, or go to the FDIC’s Web site and click on “Bank Find.” Here you’ll be able to see if the bank carries this guarantee.

This step is especially important if you’re using an Internet-only bank or a bank you’ve never heard of. You can also check out the financial health of a banking institution at www.bankrate.com.

The FDIC also maintains a list of bank rating agencies on its Web site that can assess a banks financial stability. But in many cases, these companies charge a fee.

As loan delinquencies rise, and bank failures increase, the FDIC is shoring up its reserves. The agency is bringing back formerly retired employees to bolster a division that deals specifically with bank failures. Many of these agency veterans worked for the FDIC during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when thousands of financial institutions failed during the savings-and-loan crisis.

Remember, FDIC only insures up to $100,000.00 for single persons and $200,000.00 for joint accounts, so if you are far more well off than I, you might want to spread that love around to a few institutions, just in case.  These amounts include any money you have in any one bank in checking, savings and money market accounts and certificate of deposit (CD’s).

More information on your money and the insured aspects of banks and credit unions:

IRAs and Keoghs — these are retirement plans for people who are self-employed — can be insured up to $250,000. These retirement accounts are considered separate from your individual bank accounts.

If you have money in a credit union, the same protections exist. However, instead of the FDIC insurance, deposits are insured under the National Credit Union Administration, another government agency.

Of course, banks offer much more than your bread-and-butter savings and checking accounts. Some offer investments such as mutual funds or stock funds, which generally promise higher rates of return than CDs, are not insured by the FDIC nor are they insured by the broker/dealer. The general rule is deposits are FDIC-guaranteed, but not investments.  My emphasis.

Things are getting kind of crazy out there in the financial world.  If you haven’t had time to take a look at your money and where it is recently, now might be a good time to make some calls to the institutions that you currently have $$$ hanging around in and be sure you make any necessary changes as needed.

The British government admits to complicity in two cases of “extraordinary rendition”, but claims they are an isolated case and promises that it “never uses torture for any purpose, including obtaining information, neither would we instigate actions by others to do so.”

Ex-SAS soldier Ben Griffin begs to differ:

“The use of British Territory and airspace pales into insignificance in light of the fact that it has been British soldiers detaining the victims of Extraordinary Rendition in the first place. Since the invasion of Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001 UKSF has operated within a joint US/UK Task Force. This Task Force has been responsible for the detention of hundreds if not thousands of individuals in Afghanistan and Iraq. Individuals detained by British soldiers within this Task force have ended up in Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, Bagram Theatre Internment Facility, Balad Special Forces Base, Camp Nama BIAP and Abu Ghraib Prison.

Whilst the government has stated its desire that the Guantanamo Bay detention camp be closed, it has remained silent over these other secretive prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. These secretive prisons are part of a global network in which individuals face torture and are held indefinately without charge. All of this is in direct contravention of the Geneva Conventions, International Law and the UN Convention Against Torture.

Early involvement of UKSF in the process of Extraordinary Rendition centres around operations carried out in Afghanistan in late 2001. Of note is an incident at the Qalai Janghi fortress, near Mazar-i-Sharif. UKSF fought alongside their US counterparts to put down a bloody revolt by captured Taliban fighters. The surviving Taliban fighters were then rendered to Guantanamo Bay. After the invasion of Iraq in 2003 this joint US/UK task force appeared. Its primary mission was to kill or capture high value targets. Individuals detained by this Task Force often included non-combatants caught up in the search for high value targets. The use of secret detention centres within Iraq has negated the need to use Guantanamo Bay whilst allowing similar practice to go unnoticed.

I have here an account taken from an interpreter interviewed by the organisation Human Rights Watch (http://hrw.org/reports/2006/us0706/2.htm). He was based at the detention and interrogation facility within Camp Nama at Baghdad International Airport during 2004. This facility was used to interrogate individuals captured by the joint US/UK Task Force. In it are the details of numerous breaches of the Geneva Convention and accounts of torture. These breaches were not the actions of rogue elements the abuse was systematic and sanctioned through the chain of command. This account is corroborated by an investigation carried out by NYT reporters into Camp Nama and the US/UK Task Force, which appeared in the New York Times on March 19 2006.

Throughout my time in Iraq I was in no doubt that individuals detained by UKSF and handed over to our American colleagues would be tortured. During my time as member of the US/UK Task Force, three soldiers recounted to me an incident in which they had witnessed the brutal interrogation of two detainees. Partial drowning and an electric cattle prod were used during this interrogation and this amounted to torture. It was the widely held assumption that this would be the fate of any individuals handed over to our America colleagues. My commanding officer at the time expressed his concern to the whole squadron that we were becoming “the secret police of Baghdad”.

As UK soldiers within this Task Force a policy that we would detain individuals but not arrest them was continually enforced. Since it was commonly assumed by my colleagues that anyone we detained would subsequently be tortured this policy of detention and not arrest was regarded as a clumsy legal tool used to distance British soldiers from the whole process. During the many operations conducted to apprehend high value targets numerous non-combatants were detained and interrogated in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of civilians in occupied territories. I have no doubt in my mind that non-combatants I personally detained were handed over to the Americans and subsequently tortured.

The joint US/UK Task Force has broken International Law, contravened The Geneva Conventions and disregarded the UN Convention Against Torture. British soldiers are intimately involved in the actions of this Task Force. Jack Straw, Margaret Beckett David Miliband, Geoff Hoon, Des Browne, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown. In their respective positions over the last five years they must know that British soldiers have been operating within this joint US/UK task force. They must have been briefed on the actions of this unit.

As the occupiers of Iraq we have a duty to uphold the law, to abide by the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture. We are also responsible for securing the borders of Iraq on all counts we have failed. The British Army once had a reputation for playing by the rules. That reputation has been tarnished over the last seven years. We have accepted illegality as the norm. I have no doubt that over the coming months and years increasing amounts of information concerning the actions of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan will be become public. Whilst the majority of British Forces have been withdrawn from Iraq, UKSF remain within the US/UK Task Force.” [my emph.]

The government responds to Griffin by apologising and committing to prosecute all individuals responsible for this atrocity attempting to silence him. The obvious conclusion? Labour is lying once again.

Cross-posted at The Heathlander

John McCain’s image, as propounded by his spinners (aka: the Media) is that of a maverick who shuns political opportunists and slaps the hands of greedy, special interest self-promoters. It’s an image that gets projected repeatedly by pundits and lazy journalists whose writing seems to be on auto-pilot. They reason that if it was said it about him last year (or last century), it must be true this year as well. This flawed logic even extends to government watchdog groups.

The Austin American- Statesman reports that McCain is circulating a letter from Public Citizen that attests to his commitment to good government:

“We are compelled to note something that has been lost in the recent criticism of Sen. McCain’s association with lobbyists: Regardless of how many lobbyists are working on his campaign or raising money for him, John McCain fought for 14 long, hard years for reforms that seriously limit lobbyists power.”

“Regardless of how many lobbyists…” ??? That’s an awfully broad stroke of forgiveness, ya think?

The “recent criticism” mentioned is probably a reference to the New York Times article detailing McCain’s relationship with Vicki Iseman, a telecommunications lobbyist. Unfortunately, the blowback on the article has been focused on the salacious shenanigans instead of the more substantive financial ones. Still, Public Citizen is articulating a surprisingly positive assessment of a man that scored only 15% on their most recent congressional voting scorecard. What’s more, WhiteHouseForSale.org, a Public Citizen spinoff, ranks McCain as the candidate receiving by far the most contributions bundled by lobbyists.

Yet Public Citizen still praises McCain for his past efforts while dismissing his present indiscretions. I suppose that, once upon a time, Public Citizen would defend the Unabomber because he was once a respected mathematics professor at Berkeley. For his part, McCain dodges charges of hypocrisy by stating simply that his lobbyists are different, they’re better:

“These people have honorable records, and they’re honorable people, and I’m proud to have them as part of my team.”

Media Matters has compiled an extensive profile of the McCain team, and it is littered with political and corporate glad-handers who stand to gain much via their relationship with McCain. This is true whether or not McCain becomes president. He is still a member of the Senate and sits on powerful committees including Commerce and Armed Services.

The presence of such a large contingent of lobbyists on McCain’s payroll raises some troubling questions. These are people who don’t do anything without expecting something in return. Indeed, they have clients who are paying them to produce returns and thus have a fiduciary duty to deliver. Is the press asking that question? And what happens when these staffers go off payroll, as has occurred in the course of McCain’s fiscally-strapped campaign? When lobbyists are working for nothing to advance the interests of a powerful politician, doesn’t that at least suggest an appearance of impropriety? Given that these lobbyists earn hundreds of thousands of dollars, isn’t their unpaid work as principal managers of McCain’s campaign also an unreported contribution? Has the press addressed that issue?

The right-wing criticism of the New York Times story seems to have effectively inoculated McCain from such inquiries. Even though the critics targeted the Iseman affair, their impact has sunk down into any topic covered by the story, including the accurate assertions of McCain’s coziness with lobbyists. McCain’s initial response to the Times displayed an indignant belligerence that promised that, “We’re going to go to war with them now.” But the very next day he changed his tune saying:

“I had a press conference yesterday morning and I am moving on and am talking about the big issues […] I addressed the issue. I addressed every question that was addressed to me. And I do not intend to discuss it.”

Well, that war was much shorter that the 100 years he would have us in Iraq. However, the press must not accept his refusal to discuss the issue of lobbyists attached to his campaign. This is one of the primary arguments he makes for his candidacy, and it is at the center of the image he wants to project to voters. It must, therefore, be at the top of any journalist’s list of issues to raise with the Senator. And if it isn’t, then the press should file it’s own declaration of an in-kind contribution to John McCain and his campaign folklore.

Frankly, I am glad I am not Barack Obama. But if ever this country needed someone of his intellectual capacity, strategic brilliance, ability to bring people together, it will be the first day he steps into the Oval office And brothers and sisters I am here tell you, the deep shit hole Bush has left us in will require not just Obama but a team of equally brilliant people to begin to address how we, as Americans, are going to climb out this seeming insurmountable abyss and turn our country around. But there is Obama and for that reason I have hope.

I cannot do this Diary’s title justice – but I read an article, no a brilliant summation, late last night in The Guardian that does. Entitled The True Cost of War, it is a review of a forthcoming book, The Three Trillion War, and has been written by Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz

http://www.guardian.co.uk/prof…

It is a blistering account of negligence and greed as it breaks down exactly what this war has cost to date – 3 trillion – how it is affecting the global economy – how the bush administration had absolutely zero, no, notta strategy for going about this war, and I suppose one of the worst parts – what the money could have been used for instead and I am not talking tax breaks. What this book – and frankly this article, accomplishes is helping the reader understand what the next President will inherit on day one.

Here’s the good news – and it is important for those of us already committed to electing Obama as our next President:

He has already put feelers out to Stiglitz to have a position in his cabinet should (I say When) he becomes President. And I have no doubt there are other brilliant people he is speaking to as well.

I’d like to close with a personal comment to Hillary Clinton before you all go off and read this MUST READ article:

Hillary, the reason you are not more prepared than Obama to fill the Oval office on Day One – as your campaign has tried and failed – to sell over this Primary season – is evidenced by the strategy upon which you based your own campaign. And a very faulty one at that:

(1) Selling Top Down doesn’t work in Contemporary America – this only comes in handy when abusing power; we have been transformed forever by the Internet into a grass roots, community styled, progressive force that will inject itself into American politics for decades to come;

(2) The American people have been forced to grow up under the severe abuses of the Bush Government and its total destruction of both our constitutional rights and economy; The American people rose to this challenge, crept out one by one from under their rock of fear the Bush Administration would rather they had stayed behind and got educated – very damn educated. From big city to farms from red state to blue state, we have gotten very fucking educated all right and that makes me proud. It also shows a grand and wrong assumption about your campaign. It’s not the 90’s anymore. We are not counting on a Clinton to clean up a far more complicated far more disastrous Bush mess. We are counting on ourselves led by a competent leader.

(3)It has often been said by your staffers that you speak specifics while your opponent speaks in terms of lofty ideals. Well listen up Bill and Hillary:



I have listened carefully to all those crafted sound bytes you provide the American people during the debates that are an attempt to sound very specific. At first you had me fooled. But as I have watched over 10 debates I have come to a stunning conclusion – at times you are “dumbing down”  Obama’s ideas so as to co=opt and make them your own in simplistic language. You also dumb down your own ideas into sound bytes that on the one hand may make you sound ‘specific’ but on the other hand sell the American people short on their ability to understand the complexity of our current situation. It hasn’t worked.

This has proved to be a fatal miscalculation of your campaign- and it will be even more so for Cain. Barack Obama is the first leader since FDR who does not talk to the American people as if we are all in Kindergarten. He speaks with the fulcrom of his intelligence and invites us into the conversation.

THAT is the leader we need in the oval office on day one and America is smart enough to know it.

Thanks for listening.