eTrade and the Recession

I have been intentionally over-paying those little everyday expenses like tipping and things like not using the local ‘insider’ coupon clip.

It’s been awhile for me personally since I bought a product online, but supporting eTrade is another way is try to do your little part to shoot some life into the economy while your online.

I plan to buy the next gift for someone special via online.

Net-Trade is complex for the ordinary consumer to understand but there are multiple ways to support domain hosts, web loggers, local businesses and local markets.

Change starts at home.

Making your home more energy efficient in every way possible is a sound investment. Energy costs are not likely to drop in any foreseeable future.

This is just one of many steps I suggest you take to affect real change in your local environment and community.

The federal government can only do so much. Each bailout and stimulus they devise will ultimately fail if the Consumer Markets do not participate.

We need to take the time to educate ourselves enough as citizens to better understand our role at this stage in our national economy.

We all can make some difference.

We all can effect some amount change within our respective spheres.

Mad Money is Pumping Natural Gas and Jimmy Fallon is Hilarious

“Natural gas is 50% cleaner than oil.”

“Obama is going to need a bridge-fuel to get to solar and wind.”

- Jim Cramer, CNBC, May 21st, 2009

I agree that there is much need for a transition fuel in order to pragmatically address the energy crisis. In order to eventually cut the ties of foreign oil dependence our nation must take aggressive steps toward energy independence.

I throw my insignificant hat in ring in favor of Natural Gas over Clean Coal Technology or continued dependence on Big Oil.

America must kick it’s oil addiction but going cold turkey will only keep us in the cycle of foreign oil dependence.

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Jim Cramer appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon prior to today’s broadcast. Jim explained his ’pre-game’ strategy for the show and how he maintains his energy level throughout the show. After elbow-bumping with him, Jimmy exclaimed:

“We are like the whitest gang in the world!”
- Jimmy Fallon, Comedian

BOO-YAH!

realmoney.com

Bank Stress Tests

The Obama administration is considering making public some results of the stress tests being conducted on the country's 19 largest banks, said people familiar with the matter, a move that could help more clearly separate healthy banks from the weaklings.

Until now, the government has tried to treat all banks equally, pouring cash into both strong and struggling institutions to prop up the financial sector. The strategy has provided cover for beleaguered banks, which received funds along with their stronger brethren.

This possible move, combined with first-quarter bank earnings and the push by some financial institutions to raise new capital and repay their bailout funds, could lay the groundwork for a new phase in the financial crisis. Within weeks, the stronger banks could emerge free of government shackles and flush with new funds, with weaker ones still reliant on federal largesse. That would transform how investors and the government view the financial sector.

STRESS, RELIEF: Shown last month, Wells Fargo's John Stumpf, BofA's Kenneth Lewis, US Bancorp's Richard Davis, Morgan Stanley's John Mack, PNC's James Rohr, State Street's Ronald Logue and Citi's Vikram Pandit. Since announcing the stress tests earlier this year, the government hasn't made clear what, if anything, would be disclosed about the assessments. The Treasury originally suggested it would defer to individual banks to disclose results. But some regulators worried about banks selectively leaking information, causing a possible bias against rivals.

The stress tests were designed to build confidence that the nation's largest banks could weather a severe and prolonged economic downturn. Regulators are trying to determine how much assistance banks might need to continue lending in such circumstances. Banks that need more capital will get six months to raise it from private investors or take cash infusions from the government.

It isn't clear precisely what information the government might disclose. It remains possible the data won't be specific to individual banks. But some within the administration believe a certain amount of information needs to be released in order to provide assurance about the validity and rigor of the assessments. In addition, these people also are concerned that the tests won't be able to fulfill their basic function of shoring up confidence unless investors are able to see data for themselves.

Staff at the various regulatory agencies have been discussing the matter for several weeks and are expected to brief top regulators as soon as this week. One possible solution: Aggregating the data provided by the banks so the government could provide a broad snapshot of the banking industry's health without disclosing firm-specific data.

Last month, Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan said "there will be definitely some information that will be provided" once regulators make their decisions. "Exactly what that will be and when it will be provided will come forth later," he said at the time.

Several small banks have already repaid their bailout funds. On Tuesday, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. successfully raised $5 billion in equity aimed at helping it repay $10 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, capital it received in October. Other large financial institutions don't appear to be keen to tap the equity markets any time soon, but the recent revival in their stock prices has made the concept more appealing.

A senior U.S. Treasury official said the government will accept repayment of rescue funds from any institution whose regulator dubs it healthy enough to operate without federal capital.

The move to stop treating banks equally is sparking concern about the effect on specific institutions seen as weaker than peers. "You can create a run on a bank pretty quickly," said Eugene Ludwig, chief executive of consulting firm Promontory Financial Group and a former Comptroller of the Currency.

Wayne Abernathy, executive vice president of financial institutions policy and regulator affairs at the American Bankers Association, said the government needs to provide information about the results but also protect examination data.

"I don't think they can ignore the appetite they have created for this information," Mr. Abernathy said. Having the government publicize some information would allow policy makers to control the message. "It's what can we say that is meaningful while still protecting the quality of that exam data," he said.

Mr. Ludwig cautioned that any information could give rise to mischief. "Bank exams are confidential for good reason," he said. "Given the kind of confidential information they contain, there is always the possibility of misuse or misinterpretation."

By DEBORAH SOLOMON and MICHAEL R. CRITTENDEN

Anarchy vs. Populism

Ever reviled, accursed, ne’er understood,
Thou art the grisly terror of our age.
“Wreck of all order,” cry the multitude,
“Art thou, and war and murder’s endless rage.”
O, let them cry. To them that ne’er have striven.
The truth that lies behind a word to find,
To them the word’s right meaning was not given.
They shall continue blind among the blind.
But thou, O word, so clear, so strong, so pure.
Thou sayest all which I for goal have taken.
I give thee to the future! Thine secure.
When each at least unto himself shall waken.
Comes it in sunshine? In the tempest’s thrill?
I cannot tell -- but it the earth shall see!
I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will.
Not rule, and also ruled I will not be!
- John Henry Mackay

I draw your attention simply to the first nine lines of this quote, and have included it in it’s entirety for a full perspective.

I believe we have suffered this current Global / American Recession in a large part to the economic strategy of ‘greed is good’ and more specifically the enactment of Anarcho-Capitalism in our banking, mortgage and credits markets the United States of America.

A lack of sound order and a lack of logical policies will only ultimately lead to a lack of accountability from authority.

A populist does not reject authority, or rule, outright. Rather a populist is prone to ask:

“By right to do govern? Whom do you serve?”

While I will express a degree of fondness for Pure Anarchism in which all property is outright theft; I find the whole ideology unworkable and only expressly attainable in small, sustainable and highly isolated communities. Much like Marxism is all looks good for an intellectual discussion and quid-pro-quo debating but in a real world setting the whole underlying concepts quickly become revealed as nothing but an ideologist’s dream work.

America of 2009 needs real solutions and not simply an outpouring of sentiment to ’make AIG pay-you-back,’ but rather a hopeful outpouring of people willing to listen.
People willing to engage.

The Presidency of Barack Obama is but a stepping stone in a much larger and much longer road. We must begin to demand the highest standards of our leaders. On both Wall Street and Capitol Hill.

It is not wrong to want justice. It is not wrong to want fairness. It is not wrong to question authority.

I am a Populist-Liberal! Wherefore I will.

Not to rule, but to question the value of our rulers to us.

The R-Word

Recession; In the span of no more a few months the word is now ‘fair game’ in America.

An American Recession, no less. After only a handful months these two words can be freely connected in advertisements and in public media formats.

This after a time in which any Democrat or liberal spoke of a coming recession they were dismissed as ‘kooks’ and ‘doomsayers.’

I was one of those ’doomsayers.’ And I was right. 

While the prevailing wisdom is to downplay a sick economy and a weak dollar I do not believe this to be the correct course of action.

If the economy is sick, we should know about it.

If the dollar is about to drop, we should know about it.

If a stock is about to devalue, we should know about it.

And on, and on.

I believe that one of the reasons we have suffered this recession is due to this very mentality combining with the ‘greed is good’ mentality.

A broadcaster, a stock quote broker, a banker or an economic journalist has no benefit to being truthful to their audience and every benefit to simply remaining mute. Or worse yet, talking up a business, stock or concept that they know to be unsound.

The idea that saying into a camera or many media outlet the raw truth of the economy as being a detriment to that economy is false.

The investors and consumers need to be able to make informed decisions. If those trusted to give honest and credible advise are proven to simply communicate in a ’one answer only’ situation then the reality of market hazards remain the sole property of those already succeeding in market endeavors.

Leaving us, the common people, out in the rain.